This acquisition was COVID driven. The Downtown Print Shop was a quick-print destination for hundreds of loyal customers, located in the heart of downtown Toledo. In March of 2020 when the world turned upside down, the owner of the company decided they wanted to cease operations and put efforts into generating residual income for the business.

This was a small shop and due to the age of their equipment and the uproar of economic disaster due to the pandemic, the simplest option was to sell the company. TeeLok Print Group made a three-year agreement to pay 10% commission on sales to the client list they passed along to us.

The Print Shop gave us physical files on as many clients as possible as well as a remote hard drive with their artwork files. Since this was a relatively small company, everything fit into the trunk of a car. The seller was so anxious to close their doors as the fear of COVID grew, so this all occurred in one day.

Our first step after getting the customer files was to create an information campaign to alert those clients of the acquisition through direct mail, e-mail, and phone calls. We took them in as if they had been our own clients for many years. While some may have been skeptical about a transition as large as this, we didn’t let anyone fall through the cracks. Trust and assurance is what led those clients to know they were in good hands and that we would help get things back in order during a time when many things were not.

COVID made this process challenging, but even with businesses shutting down we were able to retain a very large percentage of the client base and pay the seller commission for the three years on a sales volume similar to their pre-covid sales numbers.

One particular account of note was ordering a few thousand dollars a year prior to our acquisition. Due to our larger capabilities and wider range of services, this account grew to be 10x as large. Based on the contract we drafted with the previous owner, they received commission on this larger volume. This possible growth within accounts is one of many reasons why partnering with TeeLok on your exit plan is beneficial for years to come.