When Windy and David Schulte first joined the Minuteman Press franchise family by purchasing their shop in Clinton, North Carolina, in May of 2005, their son Andrey was just 8 years old.
Andrey recalled, “I remember being part of the grand opening when I was eight. I used to come into the shop as a kid and make swords and shields out of boxes and packaging tape.” He laughed, “Now that I’m an owner, I can see why my dad used to tell me not to waste the supplies.”
History of the business
Andrey also reflects on growing up in a community where his family owned a business. “It was neat to go to the shop after school and see the offset presses running at that time. I went to school with a lot of our clients’ kids, and everyone knew each other. We had an intimate knowledge of Clinton and even back then it was fun to be a part of that.”
Prior to joining the family business two years ago in 2022, Andrey was “cutting my teeth and doing my own thing.” He says, “I worked as a logistics broker for 2.5 years and then landed a job at Forbes selling marketing materials. This gave me a nice foundation of business experience that certainly helps me today.”
That year, in 2022, Andrey received a phone call from his dad. He shared, “My dad called me after being diagnosed and while he was battling cancer. He just couldn’t run the business the way he used to and asked if I wanted to step in and help. I talked to my wife Melissa and after we spent a long weekend back in Clinton, we decided to join the business and never looked back.”
Though he lost his battle with cancer in December of 2022, David Schulte’s legacy lives on through Windy, Andrey, and the rest of the family who is now part of the business – Andrey’s sister Marina Smith, and his wife Melissa. Andrey said, “This is a true family business and I know my dad would be proud of us for continuing on. My mom Windy has always been hands-on in the business alongside my dad. She really got us into ASI and the promotional products side, and she still manages all of that today. My sister Marina worked at the Minuteman Press shop in Garner for years. She came back home to work with us here and runs our bindery and embroidery areas. My wife Melissa worked at Staples while in college and today she handles our graphics.”
Joining the president’s club
With 19+ years in business and as Andrey hits 2 years himself, the team at Minuteman Press in Clinton, North Carolina, is proud to be a part of the 2024 President’s Club as new members for achieving over $1 million in gross sales for the year ending 2023. On this achievement, Andrey said, “We’ve previously had year-over-year growth in some years, and persevered through others. At the beginning of last year, we sat down and set our goals. I said ‘We’re going to do it this year’ because I knew we had the ammunition to get to that $1 million mark. That was our primary goal and we did it. It’s a very proud moment.”
Andrey further explained, “We looked at the previous five years book of business. We said this is what we know is likely coming in based on previous orders and client relationships. We then looked at where we were going to come up short and wanted to plug those holes. If we could put our name and branding on something, we did. We used social media. We did some sponsorships to be more visible in the community, and we built on that. We also just completed a 1,000-piece Lumpy Mail campaign that we are excited about.”
Keys to growth
- Expanding products: “We’ve always been a heavy print shop. Clinton is a rural, agricultural community with 60-70% agriculture businesses. We’ve expanded in 3 key areas: promotional products, wide format/signage, and apparel. We’ve done a ton of promotional items with hospital groups/healthcare companies. We started to do more with wide format in 2022 and since then we’ve taken the signage business and run with it. There are huge margins doing wide format in-house and utilizing Signs365 as well as a local vendor. Our versatility with signage gives us an edge over the competition.”
- Apparel: “We’ve really been focusing on apparel and it took off faster than we expected. We purchased an embroidery machine and it hasn’t stopped running since we bought it. We purchased a Roland direct-to-film machine to facilitate orders of five-10 T-shirts and has opened the door to larger orders of 100 or 200 shirts. Fulfilling those smaller orders does lead to bigger orders once they see the quality of the work we do.”
More on apparel:
-
-
- “We did a SWOT analysis of our community and found that many people were unhappy with the apparel they were getting elsewhere. We decided to service this market just like we’ve done with printing – doing it right and delivering for our clients. We paid for the machine in 3 months with the volume of work we received.”
- “We have found that many manufacturing companies give their employees ‘monthly credits’ for apparel – we’ve found they like to keep 1,000 to 2,000 shirts in stock and we can meet those needs.”
- “Hospitals and healthcare groups always have a need for business cards, manuals, and shirts due to their number of employees as well as turnover. We’ve found this market to be a big one for us with apparel and promo items.”
- “We’ve produced orders of 200 to 300 hats for clients.”
-
- Lumpy mail: “At the beginning of Q2 2024, decided to do our own Lumpy Mail campaign of 1,000 pieces to our target delivery zones. It included two sales sheets – 1 for apparel and 1 for Koozie Group Promo Items; a sales letter from me sharing our story of being a family business and explaining our capabilities as well as free delivery; and 4 items – scratch pads, pins, Koozies, and business cards. We included QR Codes on everything as well and have received phone calls already relating to the campaign. What we’ve found is that LUMPY MAIL WORKS!”
- Networking & customer service: “We are members of the Clinton Chamber and Rotary Club. We also believe in doing what you say you’re going to do. When you do that, more business comes in. Word-of-mouth referrals are very big here in our community.”
Quick hits
- Support from Minuteman Press: “Dave Walton and Valerie Pinnock have both been instrumental when I joined the business two years ago. My dad was a math guru and kept a lot of his records on paper. They sat down with us to ‘reverse engineer’ these records and help us better understand the capabilities of FLEX. Whenever we have a question about anything, I know that Dave, Valerie, and anyone I need to speak with at MPIHQ is there for us.”
- Rewards: “I just love driving down the road and saying to myself, ‘We printed that!’ Seeing our finished products in the community and having a hand in that is very gratifying. Professionally, getting to be a part of the President’s Club is really a huge milestone. Sitting down, making a plan, and getting it done again I’ll say we are very proud of that.”
- Advice for others: “I would definitely say utilize the help that you have. Dave and Val are very smart and we appreciate their knowledge and efforts. People’s time is valuable, so take advantage of that resource.”
- Additional advice: “Try something different. If there’s something new or interesting, do your research and then give it shot if it makes sense for your community. We did that with apparel, and it was well worth it.”
