Image Reports speaks to Jayson Godridge, MD, Freestyle Designs.
What’s having the greatest impact on your business at the moment?
My team. Quality products with quick turnaround and response times are paramount to the success and I have a great mix of enthusiastic staff that are really helping to drive the business forward and meet the demands of our ever growing client base.
Where do you see the greatest wide-format opportunities?
Wall coverings. In my view, this has been a mainly specialist area, but the recent influx of materials from suppliers has made this a much more accessible market for the smaller businesses, adding another 'string to the bow' with extra revenue potential.
What would make your day-to-day operations easier?
A magic clock that could pause time, or one of those TV remotes from that Adam Sandler film ‘Click’! In the real world, extra phone lines and more people answering the calls to free up my time would be good.
Your favourite bit of (wide-format print related) kit is..?
My Roland printer. It’s a fantastic bit of kit, and my entry into the wide-format world. The hours that printer has run (day and night!) is staggering; the prints still look as good as the day I had it installed. It changed my business instantly.
What’s the best bit of business advice you’ve been given?
Don’t try and do it all, be the best at what your good at.
What are you most proud of achieving?
All of it. Getting where the business is today still makes me feel proud. I started in a spare room with one plotter and a rebuilt ‘frankenstein’ computer. I now employ four staff and we are rapidly filling our second premises
What lesson does the wide-format sector need to learn?
How to re-use its own genuine spent cartridges. I dread to think of the amount that go to landfill or sent off to third party ink manufacturers. Maybe if we could send them back to be refilled this could help reduce the cost of ink without compromising on quality, and if nothing else help us all to reduce our carbon footprint.