A mid-life crisis got two Melbourne entrepreneurs into the book trade. Following their instincts and relying on a personal style of doing business have got them exciting new markets.
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Entrepreneur: Paul Latham, Joint Managing Director
Company: The Images Publishing Group
Business type: Architecture/Design/Art Publishing
Founded: 1981
Employees: 12 full-time staff; representatives in New York, Tokyo, London, Singapore and Sao Paulo
Turnover: (2002 - 2003) $5M
Head office: Melbourne, Victoria
Contact details: +61 3 9561 5544
The Images Publishing Group Story
When Paul Latham and his business partner, Alessina Brooks, formed The Images Publishing Group in 1981, neither of them had any experience in publishing. Latham’s background was in international marketing and engineering. Brooks’ specialty was behavioural science. Latham says the pair set up the company because they were having a mid-life crisis and needed a change.
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Key learning points:
- Business communication - The personal touch is essential for establishing strong relationships with clients and suppliers. Try to meet people face-to-face. Do not rely on letters, email or fax.
- Exporting - Be prepared to look further afield, even internationally, to meet your business needs. Do not settle for suppliers that offer inferior quality or uncompetitive prices.
- Business advice - When taking advice, do what feels right for your business. Advice can be very valuable - or dead wrong. There is no law that says you have to follow it.
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With only a vague notion of how a book was put together, the two had to learn their trade from the bottom up. They soon discovered that their business relied on forging enduring personal relationships with many people: authors, printers and book distributors. They made mistakes - and learnt from them.
Latham says: “On the very first book that we did, we learnt about ‘author’s corrections’, which is something that nobody in the print industry tells you about when you start out. You think how nice they are to do all this work for you. Then, at the end of the job, you get an invoice - usually for a vast amount of money - from the graphic design people or the printer. Our first bill was for about $25,000 of author’s corrections. So we learnt that we should be very open with everyone we deal with. We now tell authors that if their manuscript revisions are over 15% of the cost of the design work, they have to cop the cost. We also make sure that when we make a correction with the printer or the film house, we know beforehand how much it is going to cost us.”
In 1987, the company began to expand overseas, having outgrown the Australian market. Austrade was a valuable resource in providing grant funding, which helped finance market exploration trips. But in other respects, Latham found the quality of Austrade’s marketing advice disappointing. “For example, Austrade told us not to go to America, advising us that we were too small to tackle the market there. Fortunately, we ignored them. The American market is probably our biggest market now.”
In 1992, Images began printing overseas, first in Hong Kong and then mainland China. Latham says: “We have found printers in Asia to be far more flexible and willing to go that extra yard to get the quality that we want. You need to be willing to shop around for what your business needs. The world is your market, not Australia.”
Latham travels overseas frequently on business and is a firm believer in the personal touch. When exploring access to new overseas markets, he goes to the country and knocks on doors. Face-to-face meetings, he says, are by far the best way to develop lasting business ties.
“In Japan, for example, we made personal contacts and developed relationships with a number of companies. When the economic bubble burst there, those companies still supported us. Knowing we were a small firm, they continued to buy our books even though they couldn’t sell them. This was because of the friendship that we’d forged and because they didn’t want to lose face.”
When a face-to-face meeting is impractical, Latham says it is better to pick up the phone than type a letter or send an email, which can be easily misunderstood or may not reach the recipient. “If you are counting on someone reading your letter, fax or email among the thousands that people receive, forget it. It has to be a personal phone call.”
Small businesses need to make every minute count. Latham has a tip for those wishing to maximise their time during business trips: “Most business travellers would probably meet with one or two people a day in an overseas trip. What I do is hire a car and driver. I can see eight people a day just by having a driver waiting for me outside. It might cost US$500 a day to hire a car and driver. But if you can see eight or nine people by doing that, it’s worth every penny.”