Print
Solutions June 2006
Cover
Story
TOP100distributors
Using
Technology in the Real Estate
Market
Guide
Axcess software allows agents
to compose real estate guides
online.
In
Brief
TBF
Graphics/Digital logged $4.2 million
in sales FY 2005, and credits
its 10.8 percent growth to ventures
into different product categories
such as real estate publications
with the help of its proprietary
software.
Company:
TBF Graphics/Digital # 97
Headquarters:
Saginaw, Mich.
Founded:
1982
Principal:
Greg Turner, president
Employees:
33
Sales
increase from FY 2004 to FY 2005:
10.8%
after
experiencing 10.8 percent sales
growth last year, Greg Turner,
president of TBF Graphics/Digital,
says the company’s strategic
plan to further increase growth
will focus on sales that promote
TBF’s unique capabilities.
“We can print, post to a
web site, create a CD, mail packages
and open a web portal for a client’s
customer to interact,” he
says. “We basically can
take data in just about any format,
parse it and stream it to any
configuration.”
 |
| TBF
Graphics/Digital President
Greg Turner poses at the
distributorships’
headquarters in Saginaw,
Mich. |
This
ability to do all things digital
helped TBF land real estate
clients in the Michigan area,
and subsequently helped increase
sales to $4.2 million. “We
do publications for the board
of realtors of Saginaw and Shiawassee
counties,” Turner says.
“Typically, to do a project
like this they would have to
get typesetters and desktop
publishing but we were able
to cut down the cost by having
them load the information on
the web and do the design there.”
TBF
was able to do this with the help
of its proprietary software, Guide
Axcess, designed by the company’s
IT staff. The software allows
local boards to assemble and publish
a real estate guide online which
TBF then paginates, produces and
distributes.
TBF
has a 2-color perfector press
and two smaller 12- by 19-inch
presses as well as bindery equipment.
The company also recently installed
a new 4-color press. The in-house
technology allows TBF to do everything
from simple, 1-color letterhead
to full-color catalogs, calendars
and newsletters, according to
the company’s web site.
Because of the equipment, “we
could handle the covers of the
real estate booklets, but we have
a newspaper house print the guts
of the book and we handle the
assembly and distribution,”
Turner says.
Turner
says TBF distributes about 9,000
guides a week in Saginaw and about
2,800 guides monthly in Shiawassee.
Turner
says TBF’s ability to excel
in technology-based solutions
developed over time. “We
started as a pure distributorship
in 1982 with the intent to sell
commercial printing and office
supplies, though we quickly ditched
the office supplies idea,”
he says. “We were a very
small operation. We didn’t
even have a store front.”
For
years, TBF sold only commercial
printing. In 1996 the company
started its digital division with
a staff working on CD-ROMs and
web development. The projects
increased and expanded from statement
and invoice processing to database-enabled
web site development to CD-based
catalog development. Current projects
include a web software program
that the company designed for
forfeited property notifications.
TBF’s digital division also
handles the water bills distributed
for the city of Flint and Saginaw
County.
“Every
step of the way that we’ve
lost business in stock, custom
paper and continuous forms, we
tried to focus more on digital
areas,” Turner says.
—LaShell
Stratton
