Leon Wilson shares tips on building a brand that sticks

Leon Wilson, the 35-year-old owner of Revolution Print, describes himself as a positive “print geek” who is always looking for ways to create “a new game” when it comes to print.

Wilson was the guest speaker at yesterday’s second The Real Media Collective – Power of Print webinar and those key traits certainly came through in spades.

The Power of Print online series, facilitated by The Real Media Collective, is a 10-week programme with discussions held each Wednesday at 11am covering a range of topics to help print not only survive COVID, but more importantly thrive.

His broad ranging discussion covered his journey since putting “everything on the line” as a 27-year-old to buy into what was then known as King Print in Ballarat and join John Schreenan in the business.

To read the Class Notes from this webinar, please click here.
To check out the webinar recording, please click here.

Big changes require tough decisions

Since then a lot has changed and some hard decisions had to be made. The business got a name a change for a start – Revolution Print – with a slick rebrand and promo videos to match.

The other was it became an early adopter of technology. After the decision was made to rewrite the book on print, Revolution Print soon became the owner of Australia’s second Konica Minolta AccurioJet KM-1 digital inkjet press, quickly followed by a digital MGI embellishment unit.

Wilson says this literally set “a new game” and redefined what was possible in print. Being quite tech-savvy himself also helped him draw every bit of possibility out of the technology which has again benefited the business and helped it thrive. He has also used his technical skills to maximise Revolution Print’s online ordering and production environment.

The KM-1 also became a key part of the branding strategy. The huge machine was wrapped in Revolution Print branding and set up in a room with a wall graffitied with “new game”.

“We made it bold and clear. The wrapping and grafitti was important as I wanted to make this ours. We had taken a massive risk and I wanted to show how proud we were of it and what we are doing,” Wilson said.

“The artwork needed to be bold for our staff, we wanted to motivate them. We don’t want this place to be clinical, we want it to be fun. Visitors can also get a sense that we were a bit different, a bit edgy and a bit cool. This was a vital step.”

They also made a tough decision to no longer run offset presses, and instead maximise the potential of the digital print set up.

“Then we shut down offset all together, we didn’t need it anymore, we had the kit and we had the automation in place so we started putting on shifts and smashing these machines, they are built to be smashed and that is exactly what we did,” he said.

Regional expansion

As time went by some small print businesses were coming up for sale in other regional centres so the decision was made to buy them and use them as satellite Revolution Print offices with all print production handled at Ballarat HQ.

“We had a sophisticated online system so we could move the majority of those clients to our online platform and then only have a graphic designer and office manager at each location and produce all the work in Ballarat,” Wilson said.

So we bought two – Echuca and Goulburn and they are still running very successfully. It was important for us to branch out because then we could look at different avenues for sales and we could then start to capitalise on the investments in equipment we had purchased.”

Company culture

Wilson says he is the furthest you could get from a traditional ‘corporate’ guy. But he says the benefit of borrowing some corporate strategies to build company culture cannot be underestimated.

After buying the full business in October last year, Schreenan is still very much involved though and will be for the next few years, he decided it was time to do some work on culture.

“I did a culture survey and it showed the team really cares, as I had just bought the rest of the business it was a time for me to focus on look at our corporate vision and purpose,” he said.

“I talked it through with mentors to come up with the vision, mission and purpose of Revolution Print. So I decided to shut the shop down for half a day to explain the vision and launch the policies at the same time and dig deeper with the cultural stuff so all employees spent a solid half day on this.”

Wilson said this experience was really positive and has led to improvements across the business.

Maximising COVID

The other project Wilson said has been crucial to Revolution Print’s ongoing success was the decision to use the COVID downtime last year to produce a “jewellery box” style sampler box which shows all of the print possibilities available at Revolution Print.

The Revolution Print team came up with this jewellery box style sampler during COVID last year with positive outcomes for the business.

He also set up a new website, Revocreative.com.au, to assist small boutique agencies or solo designers with their print needs.

“COVID meant the business dropped 70 per cent overnight so we thought we would get this custom jewellery box sorted out,” Wilson said.

“So we did that and then thought let’s take a gamble and send them out to the database during COVID.”

Wilson said he also worked on the MGI during the COVID lockdowns to maximise its potential to embellish labels and showing these samples to clients.

“This was about keeping in front of mind, in front of face and showing clients that we love print and are creating the future of print. This was very successful and we picked up a whole new client base through this. We don’t have a sales team on the road, our strategy is for the luxury box and these samples to help our clients be our sales people.”

Next week Gordon Loch from The List Factory is the Power of Print webinar guest talking about data management and data services.

Last week, The Real Media Collective’s GM IR, Policy and Governance, Charles Watson, provided a wrap up of the Australia and New Zealand budgets.

Don’t miss out – register here.

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