Hot foil printing – Home based business opportunity - thequillpress

One question we are asked question when we meet clients looking to start a foil printing business is “how much can I earn and how can I find the work to make the business pay ?”

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Lets start with finding the customers, the hardest part of any business is getting the customers coming through the door, doubly hard when you’re working from home and dont have a shop front. Personally, Im not a salesman, Im a printer so things like cold calling are a no-no. I dont like it and I never have so we had to find ways we were comfortable with.

Without a shadow of doubt you must start contacting local printers, its a mantra I’ve been banging on about for years because it works. Dotted all over the country we have in the region of 10 or 11 printing companies funnelling work our way. They are a lifeblood for us. Often we’re asked to just embellish work they have already done either digitally or with litho. One company in particular in the North West supply us with s of diaries between September and December. Another well known high street printer uses us throughout the year just for foil blocked wedding stationery and favour boxes, but its an income stream that that has proven invaluable.

In Mansfield alone we have 5 companies we work with on a very regular basis and its reciprocal in that we use them for work we cant do so we never have to turn work down.

A common phrase we used to hear from these printers when we approached them was “we dont foil print” and to be frank they were actually saying “we just tell people we dont do it and put the down”. We found that once we had got over that objection , by sending samples (especially of dual, foil and digital items) they got on the fairly quickly afterwards. The samples have to be good…dont send them poorly printed stock.

The point about passing work onto other printers who do other forms of printing is key as well , it gives you the opportunity to never turn work down. That’s why when someone purchases a hot foil machine from us, we give them details of other printers who can help with those orders that you’re not able to do on a hot foil machine. Never, but never say to clients you can’t do a job, if you’re unsure tell the customer you need to get back with a quote and give us a call. We can find someone to do it for you.

Get yourself a website. The best thing we ever did was get a website, we find the most successful people we establish get themselves a site fairly quickly. Once made register with every local register, from your councils to enterprise zone sites. They have proven invaluable. By the way and as an aside local councils will be able to help you with start up grants and financial assistance, we did it and the advice they gave was fantastic.

If you are purchasing a machine because you’re a crafter or wedding stationery supplier, then the craft and wedding fayres are a must. We used to do them on a very regular basis (about 5 or 6 a year) and the work that came our way, though not necessarily on the day, was incredible.

Our hot foil machine at a local very well attended Christmas craft fair

A favourite we continue to do is direct marketing, target organisations you have an interest in. For instance, we have around 2 dozen golf clubs and driving ranges on our books, we would constantly them with offers and send them samples of printed mini pencils with the clubs details on, or sample membership cards (plastic) and little booklets with tees and ball markers. The same with local football clubs and their membership cards. The key is dont just contact them once, they day you send them the samples and intro letter, they may not want your services, but if your approach is right they will remember you, follow up letters a while later, might just catch them when they need some printing. Its a long term project but again it works.

The company is the world’s best Hot Foil Stamping Machine For Sale supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.

Get referals, I tried the breakfast clubs, but it wasnt for us, to many men in suits and big egos, but the idea of the majority of them is you go, have breakfast and bring along a couple of referals for other members and they do the same. It might be for you…I like getting my referals from word of mouth from genine clients we have worked for. Once you build a momentum it works. However, it comes down to you and your work and how much you are prepared to help the customer.

Ebay and other similar sites, they work, we advertise our printed items on Ebay, however you have to be prepared to offer your sevices at rock bottom prices. I enjoy working with Ebay clients, its very straight forward and the work is done by their site. Take into account though Ebay will take a cut as will Paypal.

These are just a few ideas for the new hot foil printer, but how much will you make per order?
As I mentioned earlier it varies from product to product but Ive listed below 5 jobs we did recently to show you what we made
Example 1. We were called upon by a digital printing company to do an overprint on some invitations. The invitations had already been digitally printed and had to be embellished with gold foil. There were 200 inviations in total, the printer would supply them pre printed and cut to size. The charges we made to the printer were £25 for the magnesium printing plate (this is a one off costing) and 56p per printed invitation. Total cost to the printer was £137..Our profit was £110

A
Combination hot foil printed invitation

Example 2. We were asked to provide 100 bookmarks to a local school. The blank bonded leather bookmarks , purchased direct from the manufacturer cost £16 plus £4 p and p. Total cost to the client was £110 plus Vat which included the cost of the printing plate (we used our own polymer printing plate rather than a mag). Cost to manufacture the plate was £3. It took 10-15 minutes to print the bookmarks and our profit on the order was £87.

Example 3. Asked to supply 200 napkins for a dinner at local sports association. They were made of Racing green (Amscan napkins). Total cost of the napkins was £9.50, the Polymer plate cost £3 and the cost to the customer was £55 plus Vat. It took about 20 minutes to print the napkins and our profit on the order was £42.50.

Example 4. Asked by a printer to embellish business cards with a foil blocked logo for a local estate agent
The image was only about 15mm by 10mm and had to be blocked in silver. The printing plate cost £16 (we had to use a magnesium plate because the image was quite fine in detail) and to print the cards was £70 making a total cost to the client of £86 plus Vat. The printer supplied the card and our profit on this order was £65.

Example 5. Asked by a bride to produce 40 metres of printed ribbon. We purchased the double sided satin ribbon from a local wholesale for £6.50 . We used a magnesium printing plate which cost us only £4 (we grouped the plate with other orders) though we still charged the customer £10 for the printing plate along with the £22 per 20 metres of ribbon.
Total cost to the customer £54 plus Vat and our profit on the order was £43.50. This order took about 10 minutes to complete.

You can see that the margins are very good on many orders. Work supplied by other printers are given a trade price.
Theres alot of work out there for the hot foil printer. The key is you going out and finding it and making it easy for the clients to find you. Let me be clear, hot foil printing should never be seen as a business which will bring overnight rewards when you are first starting out, we have over the last 16 years especially been fortunate enough to win some very nice contracts, starting out it was tough. I would never recommend starting a small printing business from home as a full time business to begin with. It takes time and patience and alot of luck and help from others.

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