Distributorship Profits by Selling Catalogs Many distributors have expanded their product offerings, selling virtually anything with print. Francis Warren took the opposite approach. "Instead of furthering my product mix, I decided I'd be better off concentrating on one thing," says Warren, vice president of distributorship Warren Business Graphics, Waltham, Mass. Warren selected commercial printing and even narrowed down that niche. "I also decided to get away from the small stuff," he says. "So I sell primarily catalogs." Warren began his company as a traditional distributorship, marketing mostly forms. He still sells forms, but four years ago he started providing business-to-business catalogs for companies that sell everything from tools to clothing to motorcycle parts. Today, he supplies more than 30 full-color catalogs a year to customers. Warren distinguishes himself from competitors, mostly direct-selling commercial printers, with personal service. "I sit down with people and tell them I'm going to take care of their problems," he says. And problems—usually with computer files—often occur in these multipage products. "A lot of my clients have in-house designers, but they don't know exactly what they're doing," Warren says. So the distributorship offers preflighting services, electronically checking all native files prior to sending them to the manufacturer. Warren Business Graphics has one full-time employee who makes sure all fonts are included, checks the resolution of pictures and examines page layout. The distributorship relies on several software programs: The main one is Markzware's FlightCheck®, which checks for approximately 150 prepress problems. On one recent afternoon, Warren Business Graphics solved problems on three different catalogs. The first was an 80-page catalog for a company that sells scientific experiments to schools. During preflighting, the troubleshooting software indicated that the file should have 15 different fonts, most of which weren't included. Warren talked to the customer and learned it hadn't intended to use most of those fonts. The distributorship fixed the file. Later in the day, Warren examined a proof of a catalog for fine-arts collectibles. The client was unhappy with the pictures, so the distributorship color corrected the file. Finally, a machine tool company that buys five catalogs from Warren sent a file created on a PC. It included an Excel spreadsheet. The distributorship recreated the chart using QuarkXPress™.