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Cary Sherburne:  Hi, I'm Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com and I'm here with Tim Arnold from Arnold Printing in the Midwest.

Tim Arnold:  Correct.

Cary Sherburne:  You guys have been in business a century.

Tim Arnold:  Yes, we have.  We're a 101 years-old.

Cary Sherburne:  That's great.  

Tim Arnold:  Yes.

Cary Sherburne:  And you know a lot of companies have had some trouble kind of migrating to this new digital world, but it seems like you've moved to incorporate digital into your business and maybe you could talk to us a little bit about how that came about and how that's worked for you.

Tim Arnold:  Well we got into the digital end of the business to keep up with the times and to be able to produce what our customers wanted us to be able to produce for them and we got into it about seven years ago and we were with a vendor and the press just didn't work out and we went out and looked at other vendors and HP won out in a big way.  The quality was the biggest issue.  Their sheets coming off of our digital press, which was then an HP Indigo 5000 matched the quality that was coming off of our sheet fed presses and our customers couldn't tell the difference.  So it was a big advantage to be able to walk in there and say which one is digital and which one is sheet fed commercial and they couldn't tell the difference.  So we chose them and started a relationship and we just recently in the last six months purchased a 7500 and along with that purchase we got a support team, marketing support, business support and I feel like I've got a whole team behind me that isn't even part of Arnold Printing.

Cary Sherburne:  Yeah, well they're a virtual part of your company.

Tim Arnold:  Right, exactly.

Cary Sherburne:  Yeah, that's great.  So they've helped you develop a marketing plan and-

Tim Arnold:  They from scratch helped me write a marketing plan and have led me through that every step of the way.  Jeff Doud [ph] spent several hours with me kind of leading me through that marketing plan asking me a lot of questions and so I really thought a great transition from where we were to where we wanted to head and I don't have a marketing background, but was able to develop this to a point where I then was led to hiring a marketing director for our company.

Cary Sherburne:  Terrific, terrific.

Tim Arnold:  And he's taken it to another level and really is the impetus to get us changing our whole business model.

Cary Sherburne:  And was hiring a marketing professional an HP recommendation or a conclusion you came to yourself or-?

Tim Arnold:  Well Jeff Doud said you're going to need to have somebody take this off of your plate because you already wear too many hats and I was like okay who is going to do that and he thought somebody from the inside and I was blessed to have a friend who has a marketing background and we talked and it ended up being a great fit.

Cary Sherburne:  So what are some of the new applications that you've been able to develop using the 7500?

Tim Arnold:  Well we've been able to print on the silver paper, the opaque white application.  Our customers go nuts over that and it's a very high revenue driver for us and again the people that do the behind the scenes stuff for us were phenomenal with it, so it was easy for us to go out there and sell it.  We actually went out and we produced a sample book based on our marketing director's design and that marketing director is Andy Kramer and he produced this book and we went out and showed our customers and they were in awe of it and so it makes—that press sells itself pretty much once you get out in front of people.

Cary Sherburne:  Yeah, yeah.

Tim Arnold:  So it's got that and it's increased speed, so we were able to actually reduce our cost and be able to pass that on to our customers, which has helped drive business to that press.

Cary Sherburne:  And so now they've introduced the next generation, which is the 7600.  What do you think about that?

Tim Arnold:  I'm blown away by it.  That and the 10,000 is a game changer.

Cary Sherburne:  Yeah.

Tim Arnold:  I just I asked my sales person Steve are we going to get a bigger press that we can print bigger sheets on and he was saying well I'm sure it's in R&D and then he sends me the video and it's like wow.  I mean my brother who is the president, Duff Arnold I sent the email to him and he emailed me back with wow.  I really feel like it is revolutionizing the printing world right now.

Cary Sherburne:  So what do you think?  What impact do you think the 10,000 is going to have on sheet fed offset?

Tim Arnold:  All I can think about is taking that 10,000 and running a bunch of variable data on it that can personalize cartons or can personalize cards or whatever it is in a larger number and just seeing dollar signs in my mind.

Cary Sherburne:  That's terrific.  So you look forward to a bright future.

Tim Arnold:  Yes, I do.

Cary Sherburne:  That's terrific.  Thank you.

Tim Arnold:  You're welcome.

 

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