15 Minutes
PP: How did you end up in the printing industry?
TF: My dad went into the printing industry after serving in World War II. He sold business forms and struck out on his own in 1952.
PP: What is the best business advice you ever received?
TF: From whom and which time? The stage your company is in will define the best advice you have ever received. In the early stages, you may be looking for advice on growth. Then, as the growth starts kicking in and you are running out of capital, you say to yourself, "I need advice on how to finance the growth." Now the next problem comes along: You don't have the right equipment to do the job, so you seek advice on equipment and so on. I can't think of any one piece of advice that was the best, except for one thing I continue to think of all the time: "Common sense is not all that common." I think if you take a common sense attitude toward business, things will start to happen. It will bring in customers and then you can apply all of the other best business advice ideas one at a time as the company evolves.