Putting some kind of ink on some kind of substrate is, for printing companies, quite obviously, their stock in trade. As a result, transitioning from small-format to wide-format printing is not the quantum leap that many think it is. And if that’s all there were to it, the expansion into wide-format or other types of specialty printing would be pretty seamless. But wide-format printing is about more than just printing, and very often there are rather a lot of seams (especially if you are doing banner or garment printing…). Wide-format printing is often more about finishing than actual printing, so depending upon the application or product a company is going to try to pursue, there may be a whole host of “hidden required skill sets” or elements of production that never occurred to them before. Very often, no matter how much due diligence a company has done, surprises arise, and many learn the hard way.

But the School of Hard Knocks is not an accredited university, so herein some of those unexpected aspects of production to keep in mind when looking at expanding from small commercial printing to wide-format printing.

Selling—First of all, before getting into the production aspects, it bears mentioning that selling wide-format services is different from selling traditional offset printing, and even from selling small-format digital printing. It doesn’t always have to be the case, but successfully selling certain types of wide-format printing involves a greater understanding the customer’s business than most shops are used to. It involves understanding what will help build the customer’s business, and brainstorming new product ideas. It could be argued (and has been) that selling all printing is this way now.