Ex-con Printer Does It For Those Inside

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday September 2, 2005

Janine Perrett

Not many of us run a business for altruistic reasons. Janine Perrett finds an idealist.

When Brett Collins tried to get $10,000 in bank financing to set up his printing firm 22 years ago, he received the same knock-back as any fledgling small business person: no security, no loan.

The fact that he had recently been released from jail after serving 10 years for bank robbery probably didn't make much difference, he says charitably.

Not only did he get the business up and running but his Breakout Print & Design has survived for more than two decades in a notoriously difficult industry.

These are not the only things that distinguish Collins from the usual small business success story. His company exists purely to fund a social action group called Justice Action, which is committed to prison reform and gives practical support through mentoring.

"The justification for running the business at all is based on the need to fund the pressure group. All the profits from Breakout are ploughed back into Justice Action," Collins explains.

But this also provides him with a unique challenge: to maintain JA's community service efforts, he needs to keep his Breakout business profitable and growing.

That is not easy these days as the printing industry contracts, thanks mainly due to the internet revolution.

"The printing market is very tight right now and has been in the doldrums for the last 10 years," he says.

"People are doing small jobs themselves on the net and are now downloading everything from leaflets to even books, which are not being printed as much."

Collins has already risen to the challenge by hiring staff with cutting-edge skills, offering value-added service, quoting and pricing competitively and forming alliances with other printing firms to cut costs.

Collins is not only a smart and committed small businessman but a truly passionate social reformer. He is open about his "form" which led him to Breakout's quirky headquarters in an old building in Glebe overlooking Wentworth Park.

After being released in 1980 he ended up at a half-way house that helped rehabilitate prisoners but when the government funding was cancelled three years later he looked at ways to raise funding for the project.

"We had a little printing press and the only way to make money was to use that. We had 12 staff and there was one guy who had run a printing press in prison," he recalls.

While Collins had earned two economics degrees and an accounting degree while in jail, he had yet to learn about running a small business. But finding customers did not prove as difficult as he had imagined.

"One of our first jobs was printing lectures for universities, and the student unions always gave us their work, leaflets and brochures and that sort of thing," he says.

"Because the half-way house had always been supported by the unions, we had meetings with the printing unions and the Teachers Federation and they both supported us with business, getting us to print their pamphlets."

While the unions and university remain hugely important to the business, Collins recognises that in a highly competitive and shrinking market he has to continue to expand his client base.

One new area he is actively targeting is the corporate sector, where he sees the unique Justice Action association as having a marketing advantage.

"For example, at the moment we have IAG Insurance as a client. People like them need to print regardless so what we had to do was convince them we offered more than their current printer. We can also offer them an expression of their corporate responsibility.

"It is a positive issue for them, the work we do for the community, because from their point of view, anything we can do to lower the crime rate is welcomed by them."

Union and legal contacts have been invaluable in gaining access to other large corporates that are also open to the idea of giving Breakout their printing business because of its community work with Justice Action.

But unlike other small firms that have trouble getting access to the top decision-makers, Collins's problem is that many of the middle managers and more junior officers are reluctant to implement the changes their board and chief executives are encouraging.

"The challenge is we often have board support and at top management level but don't have it on the ground.

"The people who do the printing and make the decisions usually have to adjust and are not comfortable moving. They're used to dealing with their existing people and don't like the change.

"They can't see the point in changing just for the social side and to make directors feel good. They say: 'I've already got Joe down here doing my printing so why bother to bring in new people?"'

To overcome this resentment at interference from above, Collins must schmooze and network even harder. Thankfully, he is a great advocate for both Breakout and Justice Action. But the business person in him recognises that pricing is also the key.

"While we say don't forget the community work that our competitors don't do, we also say come back to us and we'll give a lower quote if we can."

Breakout has been able to maintain competitiveness thanks to an innovative idea to form an alliance with rival printing firms.

"People spent a lot of money buying a significant amount of equipment and they're now scrounging for jobs to pay for it," Collins explains.

"We now have an alliance so that instead of competing with other printers we now share customers, capacity and facilities. To service our customers we needed bigger and better machinery, so instead of investing, we have saved on capital and we supply paper and machine time and share clients."

Breakout does invest in new technology within its office, particularly in computers and software. Of the 12 permanent staff, half are ex-prisoners and the other half top-flight professional designers.

The business has about 150 clients and turnover of $2 million but growth is flat and Collins is always looking for new opportunities to grow and increase profit so he can do more for Justice Action.

"I don't find a conflict between the business and the pressure group," he says, estimating that he spends about 80 per cent of his time on Breakout.

"I always make the decision that's best for the business because that's what funds the other side. The commercial basis is the best basis for a decision."

CHALLENGES FOR BREAKOUT

? Growing client base in a contracting industry.

? Winning support from the corporate sector.

? Forming more alliances.

© 2005 Sydney Morning Herald

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