Guides
Print Shop Plan: Seven Sections to Get Right
A print shop plan can cover the shop, demand, service menu, production, money, compliance and risk, and first-year gates in seven practical sections.
What to take away
- A print shop plan is not a general business plan with printing words in it. Four sections carry trade-specific content that a generic template will not prompt you for.
- Every claim in it should be traceable to a count you did, not to a market statement.
- The three assumptions any serious reader attacks are the quantity range, the constrained machine, and the time to first repeat customers.
- Write the plan so it can be wrong usefullystate what would prove each assumption false.
- Keep it short enough that you will update it when the shop teaches you something.
The seven sections
- What the shop is.One paragraph: which customer type, which quantity range, which processes in-house and which partnered. If this paragraph is vague, nothing after it will be sharp.
- The demand count.Not a market description. The actual count of businesses by type within your travel distance, the repeat buyers among them, and what twenty of them told you when asked.
- The service menu.What you will produce, with the substrate and finishing requirements of each line stated, and what you will decline or send out.
- Production.The machines, their quantity range, the finishing route for each service, and where you expect the constraint to be.
- Money.Startup cost, working capital, the cost floor of a representative job, and how cash actually moves given deposits, terms and collection.
- Compliance and risk.The named bodies you have asked, what they said, what is outstanding, and the exposures you intend to insure.
- The first year, in gates.What has to be true before each commitment, in order, so you can tell whether you are on track without a revenue forecast.
The four sections a generic template will not prompt
Quantity range. State it explicitly, and state which side of your setup-heavy and setup-free processes it falls on. Everything else in the plan is downstream of this number, and a plan that does not name it is a plan for an unspecified shop.
Four sections templates miss
- Quantity rangesetup-heavy or setup-free side
- Finishing route per serviceown, buy, partner
- Prepress assumptionsshare of files needing work
- Waste and impositionparent sheet costing, spoilage
The finishing route per service. For each line on the menu, name the finishing operations and say whether you own them, buy them or partner them. This is the section that separates plans written by people who have watched a print shop work from plans written from a template.
Prepress assumptions. Say what share of incoming files you expect to need work, and how that work is quoted. Customer artwork arriving in the wrong color space, without bleed, with fonts nobody has, is normal rather than exceptional, and a plan that budgets nothing for it is understating labor.
Waste and imposition. State how paper is costed, by parent sheet at a stated imposition, with a spoilage allowance you can justify. A plan that costs paper by finished piece is wrong in a way that grows with the job mix.
The numbers each section needs
| Section | The specific figures | Where they come from |
|---|---|---|
| Demand count | Businesses by type, repeat buyers, quantity range | Your own count and twenty conversations |
| Service menu | Substrate and finishing requirement per line | The machines you intend to buy |
| Production | Makeready time, run rate, finishing rate per operation | Timed at demonstrations, not from brochures |
| Money | Cost floor of a representative job, working capital, collection timing | Built from your own inputs |
| Compliance | Bodies asked, dates, answers, outstanding items | Written replies in your file |
| First year | What has to be true at each gate | Your own sequence |
Nothing in that table is a benchmark. Every entry is something you measured or asked, which is what makes the plan defensible rather than decorative.
Numbers each section needs
Section
- Demand count
- Businesses by type, repeat buyers
- Service menu
- Substrate and finishing per line
- Production
- Makeready, run rate, finishing rate
- Money
- Cost floor, working capital, collection
- Compliance
- Bodies asked, dates, answers
- First year
- What has to be true at each gate
Specific figures
- Demand count
- Your own count and twenty talks
- Service menu
- The machines you intend to buy
- Production
- Timed at demonstrations, not brochures
- Money
- Built from your own inputs
- Compliance
- Written replies in your file
- First year
- Your own sequence
Where they come from
- Demand count
- Service menu
- Production
- Money
- Compliance
- First year
The three assumptions a reader will attack
Whether the reader is a lender, a partner or yourself in eighteen months, they will go straight to these.
Three assumptions readers attack
Is the quantity range real and matched to machine choice?
machine choice matches range
revise range or machine
The quantity range. Is it real, and does the machine choice match it? A plan claiming to serve short and long runs from one process is claiming to beat arithmetic.
The constrained machine. Which stage limits output, and has the plan bought capacity there? Most plans buy press and assume finishing.
Time to repeat customers. How long before enough customers order without being sold to? This is where optimism concentrates, and the honest answer is usually longer than the plan says.
For each, write down what would show the assumption is wrong and what you would do then. A plan with falsifiable assumptions is more persuasive than a plan with confident ones, and it is far more useful to you.
What not to put in it
- Industry-wide statistics standing in for a local count. A reader who knows the trade will discount the whole document.
- A margin target with no cost floor behind it.
- A staffing plan without the distinct skills named. Press, prepress and bindery are not interchangeable.
- A compliance section that states requirements. State who you asked and what they said, because the requirements are local and they change.
- A five-year forecast with monthly detail. Nobody believes it and it takes the time that should have gone into the count.
The federal starting point for a new U.S. business is the IRS guidance on starting a business. The SBA business guide covers the planning, launch, and growth sequence a plan should follow.
What not to put in
- Industry-wide statistics instead of local count
- Margin target with no cost floor
- Staffing plan without distinct skills named
- Compliance section stating requirements, not answers
- Five-year forecast with monthly detail
Production duties in section six start with OSHA's printing industry pages. Solvent, waste, and permit questions go to your state environmental agency.
Keeping it alive
A plan written once and filed is a document. A plan revised when the shop teaches you something is a tool.
Revisit it after the first fifty jobs. By then you know your real makeready times, your real spoilage, where jobs actually wait, and which customers reorder. Update the numbers, not the prose, and note what you got wrong. That note is the most valuable page in the file.
Use reading a trade area to support the demand count. The production section should explain what a press commits you to and what equipment the shop needs before opening.
For a second site rather than a first, the questions change, and those are in what expansion actually demands.
Common questions
How long should the plan be?
Short enough that you will update it. The count, the menu, the production section and the gates can be done well in a few pages each; length is not evidence of rigor.
Do I need a plan if I am not borrowing?
Yes, and it should be shorter. The value is in being forced to state the quantity range, the constraint and the finishing route before spending money on machines that assume different answers.
What if I cannot get the demand count?
Then that is the finding. A market you cannot count is a market you cannot size, and the honest response is to count harder rather than to substitute a general claim.
Should the plan include prices?
It should include the cost floor of a representative job and how a price is built from it. A price list in a plan ages before the plan does.
