Starting at a very young age, I have invented quite a few machines. In the early stages I worked on various inventions for the candy making industry but mainly Hot foil machines. What I learned at this young age is what I call the evolution of all my inventions.
First, I had the Risk Taker Stage. At this first stage, I didn’t know if I had a sellable product. The vision I see clearly, but would others see what I see. The risk is big, as I first need to build the machine to do the job and I need the raw material companies to produce the consumables I needed for the process, for a process I wasn’t sure was going to work. Although in theory, it should, the risk was still there.
First, on the material side, were the materials I needed to produce my product available? Were these products cost-effective or at least could they be cost-effective enough for my potential buyers of my product? I knew the market was there from my hot foil market and why shouldn’t it be for my cold foil market.
Then there was, how many companies would be willing to risk making the products I needed to make mine a viable solution for the industry and what industry was that? Commercial Print, Packaging world or trade finishing. When I stepped back, I said wow this is a big what if. Building the actual machine seemed difficult, but once I was comfortable that the machine would work, then I needed materials to work with it.
For hot foil, it was already being done in small format and working well in small format then if that went well, I moved into the innovation stage and eventually follower stage. The Risk Taker Stage for my Eagle Cold Foiler was short-lived and the machine wasn’t the issue. Because of my many years of foil machine experience, I designed the Eco-Eagle with delicate handling in mind. The look of (CF) was not good enough compared to Hot Foil and there was a lot of work that needed to be done on the process. At that time there was one adhesive / ink used as adhesive, one foil and I did not even know what blankets would work best. There was a lot of work ahead of me.
Eagle has spent more R&D dollars on process than on the Eagle machine itself. Extreme amounts of hours with lots of failures, but when the success came along it was extremely gratifying. I learn by my failure, not my success, well maybe just a little.
The next mode after Risk Taker Mode is the Innovation Mode. Eagle has been in Innovation Mode for several years and way ahead of the curve in technology and process. When Eagle is in Innovation Mode, the folks or should I say partners of Eagle are in this mode too. This mode is a very profitable mode since there are not a lot of folks doing this yet. This is the time when folks doing cold foil can make large profits by doing something very few can do. Being that leader in your market and having that tool that no one else has.
One of our partners call (CF) the crowbar, the door opener. I help educate my partners on the sale of (CF) to their market. 95% of the time, their sales teams are excited to have this new tool (CF) to walk in with to an old or new customer. It can be that simple with the right tools, an Eagle and experience of the Eagle team to bring you to market quickly without a longtime learning curve. When selling (CF) remember, you’re selling foil not (HF) or (CF), just foil.
A good amount of folks will tell me I don’t have a foil market and have no idea if they can sell it. You don’t have a foil market because you don’t offer it and your customers know this. Most times, because you didn’t offer it, you often discourage the added value processes that you don’t have like foil. Why, because you risk the job not coming back, and there is low profit because it is farmed out and you lose control and have a higher risk of problems. However, the bigger risk is most likely you will lose the foil job and maybe a few more print jobs, just because you can’t do foil. If a customer has five jobs to give out, and one of them has foil, there is a better chance you will lose all the work to a competitor. The beauty of CF today is that it is a very cost-effective way to give added value, and extremely quick to market. The process is high-end, runs fast and with a good (SOP) simple to do.
Please feel free to reach out to me. I have a program to help educate your sales team on how to sell foil and truly show you how it can make your company shine.
Lastly, Follower Mode, this will eventually come but far from the end of the tunnel.
Thank You
Please feel free to reach out to me at any time, and let me help guide you into high profitability and be that innovator and not a follower one day.
