specializedprinting.com Blog

Small businessman who took a chance getting started is honored for his efforts in promoting his clients’ businesses.
 
By Robert Rodriguez / The Fresno Bee

Pete Estrada doesn’t want to be known as the gadget guy, but he is.

Estrada’s company, Specialized Printing & Promotions Inc. in Clovis, can print a company’s name or logo on just about anything — from Frisbees to flashlights.

“Sometimes I feel like I should wear a coat with all this stuff inside of it,” Estrada said with a laugh. “But you have to understand what your customers want and what is going on in the market.”

What’s going on is the growing demand for promotional products, an $18 billion-a-year industry that Estrada’s company has seized on. His clients include Vendo, ChevronTexaco and the California Department of Transportation’s “Don’t Trash California” campaign.

And after nearly a decade in business, the former Vietnam War veteran also is earning some recognition. He was recently named the Central California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s Businessman of the Year and the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Central California Minority Small Business Person of the Year.

“He has a unique company, and he is very community minded,” said Ron Truly, deputy district director of Fresno’s SBA office. “To be successful is one thing, but Pete believes in giving back. That is very important to him.”

Estrada is humbled by the honors and thankful for his success. But he also isn’t about to rest on his laurels.

Working in a highly competitive industry, which has more than 200 printing companies doing the same trade in the central San Joaquin Valley alone, Estrada hits the trade shows, talks up new clients and has learned to be nimble and responsive to customers.

“I called them up with a request, and they had graphics out to me the next day,” said Ron Millar, owner of QA Line, a testing equipment supplier in Fresno. “It was so fast.”

Estrada’s business skills are honed from his life experiences as well as his career working in the tire and printing industries.

He recalls with pride selling lightbulbs door-to-door to raise money for Boy Scout camp, delivering The Fresno Bee and hawking cooking spices to his neighbors.

“I have always wanted to work,” he said. “It has been in me from the beginning.”

As an adult, Estrada became a manager at Moore Business Forms in Fresno. But when the company’s inside sales division was relocating from Fresno to Colorado Springs, Estrada didn’t go along.

He and his family liked their life in Clovis, so the natural-born salesman began working for himself, out of his garage.

He knew it was a risk, but he didn’t want to pass up a chance to work for himself. He remembered the missed opportunities his father, a chef, had to run his own restaurant.

“I told myself that I couldn’t be afraid, that I had to take this chance and make the best of it,” Estrada said. “And that’s what I have done.”

Estrada became adept at creating business forms and delivering them to customers faster than his competitors. He eventually moved out of his garage and into an office on Clovis Avenue, where he works alongside his wife, Eileen, and six other employees.

Although the bulk of his business involves printing forms and other specialized items, the promotional printing has taken off.

“It used to be a small part of what we did, but now it is almost half of our business,” Estrada said. “Companies have really jumped on this.”

Anne Lardner, spokeswoman for the Promotional Products Association International in Irving, Texas, said advertising specialties and marketing promotions have continued to grow over the past six years. The organization has more than 7,500 global members.

“This is an $18 billion-a-year industry, and a lot of people are realizing that,” she said.

“When we talk about promotional products, we are talking about anything you can imprint on — that is thousands of products. The only limit is creativity.”

Estrada has handled thousands of clients’ imprinting requests, including grandfather clocks, watches, stadium chairs, pocket knives, flash drives and even a portable ash tray.

“It is a great form of advertising,” said Deena Klein, a sales manager at Specialized Printing. “If you put something in people’s faces long enough, they are going to remember it.”

The company’s slogan says a lot about its mission: “We print on everything but air and water … and we are working on that.”