In today’s tech-addicted world where all manner of information is accessible with a simple swipe on our smart phones, tablets or even watches, is the venerable printed calendar still a viable tool?
It’s a product Richmond’s Teldon has been churning out for close to half a century. And, over the last five years, the east Richmond-based firm has emerged from near bankruptcy to remain one of North America’s largest calendar makers.
Along the way, it recently picked up an award for being one of the best companies to work for in Canada by the Great Place to Work Institute.
So, for Teldon’s president, Ryan Benn, the question of the relevancy of printed calendars in today’s world is easy to answer.
“It’s where you can actually be in the household, 365 days a year,” Benn said. “When you actually think about what people do with a calendar, it’s this deeply personal experience.”
Benn said he looks at his own calendar and sees he’s penned in reminders such as parent-teacher interviews and hockey practice for his kids.
“You start realizing all of these things that are written inside this printed calendar, even though people have their smart phones with calendars. But that’s not something you share with other people.
“They almost become like a school annual. You can start flipping through old ones and they become nostalgic.”
But the success of Teldon’s calendar business almost became a reason for its near downfall when the economic downturn of 2011 hit. While the company was enjoying filling the calendar needs of clients that included just about every major automaker and real estate firm on the continent, the decision to get deeper into the print business to meet its own needs, and also sell excess print capacity to other clients, made Teldon the largest printing operation of its kind in the Pacific Northwest.
At its peak, Teldon had 250 employees spread out over three businesses — Alive Publishing Group which produces health and wellness magazines, Teldon’s calendar interests, plus its printing division — and achieved $70 million in revenue.
Economic fortunes shifted with a jittery global market thanks to debt-laden nations and sales plunged around 40 per cent.
“Our print division just got slashed,” Benn said. “There was a significant retraction in revenue.”
That left senior management — Benn was a divisional president at the time — having to re-evaluate the overall business.
“I was looking at the two (Alive and calendar business) and thought, these are really good businesses and took it forward to the chairman of the company to look at what it would be like with just two businesses,” Benn said.
So, the printing division was sold and the proceeds re-invested in the remaining two ventures, which are now run as separate businesses.
The calendar business remains the largest of the two firms with 75 workers and $18 million in sales. Meanwhile, Alive is humming along at $10 million in revenue.
While the scale of business may be quite different from the previous incarnation of Teldon, Benn said it remains a relevant enterprise, especially on the calendar side, which is run as much more than just a handy date-reminding product.
“Some of the most amazing brands in the world entrust us to manage their brand. That’s actually what we do when we make a calendar for someone,” Benn said.
A prime example of that is renowned sports car maker Porsche.
“We work with their chief marketing officer in order to design a calendar and market it,” Benn said.
Sounds pretty straightforward, right?
Not so in the high-stakes game of pricey, luxury sports cars. Benn said that the upcoming 2017 Porsche calendar will feature a super secret, 2018 model.
“There are very few companies in the world able to receive images of a 2018 Porsche right now,” Benn said. “They (Porsche) are so secretive of a new model that is still several years out from being sold. So, things like our legal agreements and IT infrastructure are so robust that a lot times people look at us and say, ‘You’re a calendar company,’ when we like to refer to ourselves as a brand management company.”
Much of the turnaround was due to a shift in corporate culture at Teldon where staff who were retained bought into adopting new technology and a faster paced environment.
“We had to make a lot of tough decisions on employees to get things down to a size that was manageable and profitable,” Benn said. “The word I used back then and much less now was ‘swagger.’ We wanted a company with swagger and confidence. We were an old company, but we were going to do things a new way.”
Benn said the mantra “be real and give a damn” are two that are unique to Teldon.
“Everybody here is encouraged to just be themselves, call it straight as it is, and don’t be afraid to tackle the tough problems.
“That’s the spinal cord of what we do inside the culture of Teldon.”
