Mark Schmidt is the Owner of Unicorn Group, a company that provides professional print-to-mail solutions for local businesses and nonprofits. After working in the corporate world for 12 years and completing his MBA in marketing, Mark began his entrepreneurial career by purchasing a local business: Unicorn Printing. To take it further, Mark purchased two direct mail marketing companies, Guarantee Mailing Services and Mail Communications, and consolidated these three companies into Unicorn Group.
At Unicorn Group, Mark and his team help businesses and nonprofits save time, make money, and get better results. In 2011, Unicorn Group was named San Rafael’s Small Business of the Year.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Mark Schmidt discusses his transition from chemical engineering, to marketing, to founding the Unicorn Group
- Mark, Katrina, and Greg talk about direct mail communication
- Unicorn Group’s plans for development
- Tapping into creativity as an entrepreneur
- Mark discusses projects he’s working on with his new printer
- How can you build on your creative skills?
- The benefits of working in the printing industry—and how you can get involved
In this episode…
Being an entrepreneur requires problem solving, creativity, and the desire to learn. But what resources are out there to keep developing on both a personal and professional level? And how can you build a career in any industry—even when you don’t have prior knowledge?
Before Mark Schmidt began his career in the printing industry, he worked in the chemical engineering and marketing fields. But this didn’t slow him down: because of his wide range of experience, Mark knows how to continue challenging yourself as a leader and entrepreneur no matter what industry you’re in.
In this episode of Watching Paint Dry, Greg Owens sits down with Mark Schmidt, Owner of Unicorn Group, to talk about the ways you can grow as an entrepreneur. Mark discusses new technologies, the most effective ways to challenge yourself, and how to bring creativity into the workplace. He also shares insight from his own experience as he leads, learns, and innovates within the printing industry. Stay tuned.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Greg Owens on LinkedIn
- Katrina (Hayes) Stephenson on LinkedIn
- McCarthy Painting
- McCarthy Painting Contact No.: 415-383-2640
- McCarthy Painting Email Address: info@mccarthypainting.com
- Mark Schmidt on LinkedIn
- Mark Schmidt’s Contact No.: 415-492-2222
- Unicorn Group
- Bella Notte Linens
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, where we serve commercial and residential clients all around the San Francisco Bay area.
We’ve been in business since 1969 and served companies such as Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, First Bank, SPIN, and many more.
If you have commercial facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and need dependable painters, visit us on the web at www.mccarthypainting.com or email info@mccarthypainting.com, and you can check out our line of services and schedule a free estimate by clicking here.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we feature today’s top facility managers, property managers and property owners talking about the challenges and opportunities of managing hundreds of 1000s of square feet of real estate and how to beautify and improve their properties. Now, let’s get started with the show.
Greg Owens 0:32
All right, this is another episode of the Watching Paint Dry podcast. My name is Greg Owens. I’m the owner of McCarthy Painting. It’s a company that was started by my uncle in 1969. And we paint homes and businesses throughout the whole San Francisco Bay Area. And we’ve done a lot of work for a lot of different fun companies. We just finished a Chase Bank down here in Mill Valley. We’ve done work for Abercrombie and Fitch, h&m stores, we’ve done work at Google, we’ve done work at spin, and many, many others. If you were interested in painting projects, and you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, come to our website, McCarthypainting.com or you can email us info@McCarthy painting. And I’m super excited to have Mark Schmidt of the Unicorn Group of printing companies actually our printer, it’s a mail house printing, and he’s gotten into new things too. And we’ll find out more about that. And I also have Katrina Stephenson on the call also. And she is sometimes chimes in, she’s with McCarthy Painting, and helps out with adding some color to these podcasts. Welcome, Mark. Happy to be here. Yeah. So how are you your family? How’s everything going there?
Mark Schmidt 1:55
You know, we are all hanging in there. I got you know, we’re all who avoided getting sick. And the kids are, you know, doing their distance learning thing. And still very hard to know. Still, well, actually, my daughter just got to go to her first day of class yesterday. So she was very excited. And she got to Yeah, she got to drive herself for the first time to school ever. So that was a big deal. That is
Greg Owens 2:15
a big deal. You must have been like, how are you feeling about that?
Mark Schmidt 2:20
Well, you know what, I’m thrilled because I don’t have to drive to school anymore. Even though it was special time. Yeah. But you know, the school that she goes to school from nine to nine to 12:30. So if I were to drive her it would be disruptive to my day. So
Greg Owens 2:35
I you know, I my parents were like, against like buying kids cars, and I was I kind of had that sort of philosophy, but I look back on it. Like, that’s lame. You have this like, kid that’s like so excited to drive. You should get them a car and they can take care of like part of the deal though is you got to go grocery shopping. You got to go here. You got to pick up your brother. You got to pick up your sister like the whole thing, right? Oh, it’s
Mark Schmidt 2:58
it’s liberating for a parent to Yeah,
Greg Owens 3:01
yeah. I love it. I love it. Katrina you.
Katrina Stephenson 3:04
You’re in the country then Greg. So there was like no sidewalks. No, you know, no,
Greg Owens 3:09
- Yeah, I mean, try getting a driver’s licence was everything. For me as a kid growing up in New York. I as soon as I turn. Yeah, I’ve even before I had a car before I turned 16. And was already driving on roads and stuff. My parents just didn’t know about that. Totally. Well, that’s great. That’s great. Really good to hear. And, and so tell us about the Unicorn Printing Group and sort of your origin story with the Unicorn Printing Group?
Mark Schmidt 3:40
Well, you know, it’s sort of funny to, to roll into the story going back because I, you know, went to college, got a chemical engineering degree and then worked at Clorox in a manufacturing plant doing probably more electrical
Greg Owens 3:54
engineering than chemical engineering. Interesting. At Clorox doing more electrical engineering. Yeah, chemical, I wouldn’t think that would be the case. But
Mark Schmidt 4:03
yeah, it’s just the projects I fell into and, and what the manufacturing plant needed at the time, so so I did more electrical work. But that was that was fun. And then I moved into manufacturing management. Then I went to the corporate headquarters and did new product development, project management. And at the time, I got my at the same time, I got my MBA from UC Berkeley in marketing. And so and then I sort of moved into marketing, and then consumer products, marketing at software companies in Marin County. And then then, like, you know, the whole.com bubble, and things started getting crazy. And then the technology sectors and so, you know, as I said, You know, I really like living where I work, and I want to find it, you know, I’d rather be self employed so I don’t have to worry about if the company I’m working for is going to fail or not. So I started, I spent a year looking for a company to buy and, you know, I didn’t have a huge nest egg. So I actually had to buy You know, I couldn’t like, you know, invest in, you know, invent my own business, because they didn’t have the capital to do that. But I found a business that had decent cash flow, then a bank would lend me money. So I’m cool. So I actually was able to buy a, a Unicorn Printing business it about that was about 15 or 16 years ago, you know, now that I own Unicorn Printing, you know, I started, I was able to build on that. And so, so that’s kind of like the weird way to get into this printing business. Because it’s not like I’m some printing expert, that wanted to develop a printing business. So I’m more of a more of a marketing guy who wanted to be self employed.
Greg Owens 5:40
Yeah, they wanted to work and wanted to work near close to home and being in another major commute and all those guys exactly. Right. Yeah. Those are solid reasons to have your own business.
Mark Schmidt 5:51
Exactly. And then the, let’s see, lots of transport goods, you know, I’m sure they’ll happen again. But I was gonna say, my, my main, my manufacturing background, at Clorox early is helpful here. Because I mean, at one level, I’m running a manufacturing plant with, you know, 10,000 square feet, seven employees, and some are doing customer service, but the majority of them are working, working in the machines and manufacturing printed paper products and other things nowadays. So you know, and I have a 10,000 square foot warehouse and lots of equipment and storage, and, and we do a wide variety of things. I’m sure we’ll get into. Yeah.
Greg Owens 6:30
How long have we have long have I known you, Mark? Do you remember
Mark Schmidt 6:33
just thinking that? Well, definitely, from the least? Well, 15 years? I mean, because that’s when, because you were already a customer of Unicorn when I bought them?
Greg Owens 6:43
I remember that now. Yeah, yeah. And then what I really I think that I really appreciated about your business, a tremendous amount is that you can we were doing a lot more direct mailing 15 years ago than we do today. But the you can print it all. And then you also can do the mailing of it all, which was a big deal for us. Because like, you know, we didn’t want to have to like go to a pick it up, and then bring it to another place to have the mailing mailing it ourselves. And when you’re mailing 20 or 30,000 pieces, that’s a lot of pieces to deal with.
Mark Schmidt 7:13
Well, yeah, there’s a lot of parts to it. And I have some customers who, who try and you know, work with different vendors and try to pull, you know, do the project management themselves. And, you know, the graphic designer might design it one way, and then it gets, then they go get it printed, then they bring it to me to mail. And I said, Oh, if you had designed it this way, and printed it that way you to save 50% of your postage expenses. And what when they thought they were saving money, they actually work costing themselves a lot more. So I always tell my customers, it’s good to you know, if you let us help you through the whole process, we look for opportunities to make sure you save your your entire budget, not just a piece of it.
Greg Owens 7:55
Yeah, no, that’s I mean, that’s something I fully appreciated, you know, in that in working with you all this time is that it’s like one stop shopping, you actually do have graphic designers and that kind of stuff in house, you guys. Sometimes you even jump in and tweak things to if you see it. And you because you have that marketing background, which is super helpful. And you’re like, Hey, we can do this. And you’ve been really instrumental in helping us kind of build out our list and kind of dial that in to write and a lot of people think direct mail is, is dying, right. And I think in some ways it is because I know for myself that like, I don’t get any mail. That’s important anymore, right? I go out to my mailbox, and it’s like, I walked back to the recycle bin and I’m like, I go through things, right. But it’s pretty amazing that it’s still, but it’s still a very viable
Mark Schmidt 8:46
marketing tool. You know, even amongst the millennials and younger age groups, you know, the, there is a huge trust factor. There’s been some research done, where they trust in the direct mail, they receive that trust factor, even though millennials may not know how to address an envelope, but
Katrina Stephenson 9:13
I’m like one of the old school, my grandmother and I swear her mother probably before her, we’re just we just write letters and I’m constantly on pictures and I’m I use the Postal Service a lot more especially in this job, but my wedding actually the invitations, it was super important to have everything, you know all 100 things stamped and sent out to people but I realised No, I should have just tapped into a unicorn because what
Mark Schmidt 9:46
I was when I said that I was laughing because what came to my mind is I can remember when my son, you know, he was dead. Where do I put the stamp? Where’s the stamp go? And, you know, he wrote the address on it. Like you’re that Top of the envelope was like, No, it doesn’t go there. To teach you how to write a letter that was just for knowing how to do that.
Katrina Stephenson 10:10
How old was he when when he asked them super curious?
Mark Schmidt 10:13
Well, he was in high school. Okay, all right. Yeah. He’s actually he’s actually in Delaware now working on his working on his PhD. So no, though. He’s come a long way since not knowing where to put a stamp.
Greg Owens 10:25
So he’s gonna surpass you with the credentials.
Mark Schmidt 10:29
Apparently.
Greg Owens 10:31
You’re gonna have to call them doctors. Really? Yeah, I remember it was funny, because like before the internet and all that when I was 16 years old, it was like, it was like 18 partner in McCarthy Painting this business with my uncle, right? My uncle, maybe a very young age, I took all of our accounting and moved it to a new thing called Quicken at the time, and on a computer thing called a computer, right. But I remember I had this mentor that I really wanted to connect with. And he was in Atlanta, and I went to the library to get a business book on how to write a business letter, because I had no idea. No idea like I but I didn’t go to school or anything. So I just I read it. I just didn’t know. And I wanted to make sure it was correct. And it was right, you know, important to me, I valued it. So that’s great that they still think though I know Katrina’s an old soul, she definitely have three millennials in our office there. And I’m always amazed at how often I’m a tech guy, you know, it’s just sometimes concerning?
Mark Schmidt 11:38
Yeah, well as as a business owner, you get to be the tech guy, the accountant, the, you know, Chief Financial Officer, the, you know, the HR person, in the end the technology, you know, your product specialist. So it’s a treat.
Greg Owens 11:53
I was just talking to Sophia, who’s in our office and about that yesterday, in that I’m always blown away at how many hats how much I have to know about so many other people’s jobs, to make sure that, you know, to make sure it’s correct that I’m asking the right questions to make sure that and then sometimes, it’s like making sure that they’re going in the right direction in a lot of ways, but they’re the expert in their field. I’m just always amazed at how much we have to know as business owners,
Mark Schmidt 12:20
right? Oh, yeah. That’s what makes it fun, though, because you get a wide variety, never, never at a loss for variety.
Greg Owens 12:27
That was that’s all let’s enjoy that. That that’s for sure. So I know you have some new toys and new things that you guys are exploring and doing. You did some you did our van logo recently. And it came out really well. I just, you know, I just saw it the other day, and driving by and I’m like, Man, that looks really good. And it’s awesome that you can do that. Tell us tell us why you’re getting you’re branching out and expanding your different offerings and what they are?
Mark Schmidt 12:54
Well, yeah, as you’ve seen over the past year, given COVID, and everything that’s going on, you’ve seen a lot of businesses, you know, grow and some businesses disappear. And, you know, it’s, you know, there’s definitely very few businesses who are just the same old, same old business. So if you’re not growing, you’re disappearing. So, you know, there’s been a lot of opportunities have been have been cropping up and what you know, there’s a business similar to mine in San Francisco, and what they don’t do the mailing. So he now would partner a lot together on mailing projects, you do some printing, I do some mailing we work together on things for customers, but the way he decided to handle the COVID dilemma issue, evolution. He just he just he furloughed some of his employees and in scaled back and just as running the business himself. And so he had the opportunity to rent out some of his space and but he had this equipment that was in the way and he couldn’t run all the equipment all the time, you know, just one person he was able to, he literally he sold it to me for an offer that I couldn’t refuse, which is you know, you think about it, the middle of COVID last thing I want to do is invest a whole bunch of money in some equipment, that’s not going to generate a lot of revenue until things start coming back. But you know, the price was right. And I moved in a bunch of wide format printing equipment and some specialty, it’s a CNC cutter, it’s a computer operated cutting machine. And that’s that’s a that’s a fun toy in general. And so that’s how I was able to expand our business in the summer into be able to print some other things and actually, you know, it’s picking up steam and of course, you know, I have to do this talking about we got a MacCarthy There’s our logo.
Greg Owens 14:43
Yeah,
Mark Schmidt 14:45
I got you know, celebrate our podcast sponsor here. Hey, so, I love it. But you can see we, you know, we printed this on a on a sticker, and then I laminated it so that it would not be destroyed. By the weather, and then our little computerised cutter, which, you know, it would trim this little edge and go around. And the little little hole right
Greg Owens 15:09
there. Yeah.
Mark Schmidt 15:11
You know, so it custom cuts things any way you want. So, so yeah, there’s my first vehicle graphic. And I think I was panicking. Katrina Sophia. Well, because I was talking about this, and you’re not, you know, since it was my first time doing a vehicle graphic, I was saying things that probably mean, the thing is, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But, you know, we, you know, we figure these things out as we go, you know, as an entrepreneur, you know, when someone comes to you and says, can’t, you know, I’d really love to buy this product from you. And, you know, the first thing I have is sure, I could do that. No problem. And then I turn around, go, Oh, no, I gotta figure something new out. And I mean, Greg, you know, I remember, you know, you were, you know, you painted our house one time and, and the roof part over our front door was very fallow, so rain would hit our front door, and then at the front door look like garbage. So, like, Greg, I need this roof to be longer. And he’s like, Sure, no problem. We can do that. So Greg does a lot more than than just this painting. It’s, there’s construction involved. So yeah, you just as an entrepreneur, you you expand wherever you can, and obviously, with COVID, you know, you probably recognize Stan,
Greg Owens 16:22
I was wondering if you got into that market. Yeah.
Mark Schmidt 16:26
So same thing, you know, I’m printing this on that wide format printer, you know, I get a sheet like six feet wide and 12 feet long with 100 of these things printed on it, and then that cutter just trims the little sticker around thing. And then, you know, at the grocery store, you know, you got to go down that aisle. You know. But Wow. You know, with with this cutter thing, it’s amazing how it can cut. You know, I mean, I’ve seen a sticker you have two sheets of paper glued together, right? Yeah. So this cutter can cut around, it’ll cut. It’s so precise. It only cuts halfway through the sheet of paper. That’s crazy. And just
Greg Owens 17:02
the top half and at the bottom half. To me. It’s amazing. Yeah, yeah,
Mark Schmidt 17:06
one customer had us print this little sticker sheet. So you know it but literally, it’s, you know, it the stickers peel off. But look at the detail on that, like,
Greg Owens 17:20
Katrina, we need to do a sticker sheet client, like paint brushes and stuff.
Katrina Stephenson 17:25
I was just thinking that. Yeah,
Greg Ownes 17:28
Yeah.
Mark Schmidt 17:30
A little handout for the kids. You know, they love it. So as I’m, as I’m learning this, this computer control cutter thing, I’m just saying to do all kinds of crazy stuff. One of my customers, you know, called me and it’s a retail it’s called Bella Notte. And they’re a retail, they’re a wholesale vendor of linen products, that retailers will will sell, you know, bedding and such. And so they had, they have this really cute, really lovely cursive logo. And years ago, they had someone print or not well print, but cut out this logo so they could put it on the wall above their products. And so they they called me and said, well, Hey Mark, do you know what do you do you know, a vendor who can do this? And you know, yeah, at first I was thinking, yeah, I can’t do that. And then sure enough, you know, cuz this cutter thing has a router attachment. And y’all in the construction industry will appreciate this. But I took a I was able to cut their logo out of quarter inch thick MDF wood. Right. And you know, it was this is just the be part of it. But you know, it says Bella Notte all nicely cursive and you paint into gold. And then yes, and I called my favorite painting contractor and said, Tell me, tell me what kind of paint I need to use. And what kind of primer goes with this stuff. So I had good direction from my friends at McCarthy Painting, and was able to paint this thing and while the customer was there, thrilled, they were so happy. And I was shocked I was able to pull this thing off. So
Greg Owens 19:07
about business, you know, because like I was just thinking, as you’re talking about that, you know, we have a we have a company that does that was doing our vans, right? And they were good. They were fine. But I don’t know them. I they’ve never like I’ve never gotten to know them as a company, right? And so when you said hey, I do vans now. And I can do van logos. I was like, you know, I told Katrina and Sophia. And the opposite of that. No, let’s let’s have Mark do it. Right. And I trust Mark and I know Mark and I want you to have more business with us. So it was like, you know, yeah, for sure. And you You called me and said Greg, don’t worry about anything. If it doesn’t, you don’t like anything, I’ll fix it right? And that’s part of like, our relationship and I know you and I trust you right. So it was good. It’s a great add on and I can be helpful to you and helping you make more money and grow your business because you’re good to us in so many other ways when it comes to printing things and that kind of thing. Right? So In business is about relationships so many times, right?
Mark Schmidt 20:03
No kidding. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, that’s the hardest part about the whole COVID thing right now is it’s maintaining these relationships is getting more difficult. Yeah, you know, I can’t just pop over and say hi
Greg Owens 20:17
to all unless you start a podcast. Yeah, really?
Mark Schmidt 20:23
You know, I get to see the Say hi, and pet the little dogs over at Katrina Sophia’s office, you know,
Greg Owens 20:29
yeah, yeah. And and you know, what also love about this conversation is because it’s tough to keep things fresh and do when you’ve been doing it for a long time. So you’ve been in the printing industry and running a business for 15 years. And I can tell from your level of excitement that you actually are excited about these new toys in your company and new things that you can design and new things you can build? Because it sounds like it taps into that side of you that loves creativity.
Mark Schmidt 20:55
Yep, absolutely. The creativity, problem solving, figuring things out.
Katrina Stephenson 21:00
That’s my favorite feature, I have to say, Mark, of working with you directly is is so tapping into my creativity, and you totally get it when I’m like, throw some random things in the mix. And you’re like, here’s what we can do. You can be creative, which is so fun.