It's an all too frequent observation that the industry is short of characters compared to the past. Certainly many legendary names are no longer active, but others, while officially retired are still contributing, even if this happens over a convivial lunch rather than from the front line.

Among these happy few is John Byford, salesman extraordinaire whose name is synonymous with the growth of Litho Supplies. Now retired Byford’s mind retains the honed edge that enabled him to cut to the quick of a sticky matter, usually emerging from it with a story to tell and a smile. The aphorisms that spill from him and his 40 years’ experience of the industry, tracking the expansion of the litho process, retain their relevance as litho begins its decline as the dominant printing process in the industry. Around the trade are many on the supply side who learned from him and were inspired by him and can recall those lessons today. Prime among them is Gerry Mulvaney who was recruited into Litho Supplies in its early years and now runs the print production arm of Danwood. Equally Eddie Williams, still at Litho Supplies, Paul Smoult at Morgana or Richard Mason at Duplo owe at least part of their success to John Byford.

Byford’s own training was via a compositor’s apprenticeship followed by a sideways move into sales in the early 1960s. He joined a company selling office equipment and copiers “in the days when an essential part of every copier salesman’s get-up was a pair of running shoes” because of the unreliable nature of the technology. The company ventured into the then newly expanding litho print market, but was not getting anywhere. Byford took the opportunity to take on the challenge, quickly realising that knocking on doors and expecting to sell platemakng equipment on the spot was never going to happen; it would be a three month journey. But he also saw that on the shelves the company had consumables that the litho printers wanted and which would keep his cash flow running while the longer sales process for the platemaking was underway.

Faced with the board to explain this slow start, the 23-year-old Byford stood his ground, explaining the new strategy that he’d worked out. It was accepted and the southern arm of Litho Supplies was born. He learned the business side at classes run by Basil Barrett, the company’s owner, turning up on a Saturday morning to learn about what Byford calls “falling off a log stuff” – cash flow, sales ledgers, invoices and so on. In turn he has imparted this to countless sales staff under him. “It never ceases to amaze me that printers do not ask for their cash. Until he has paid a customer is not a customer, he is a potential bad debt,” Byford says.

The whole company, litho division and all, was swallowed by DRG and what had been an alliance between a Nottingham business and a Dunstable business was forged into a single entity, trading as Litho Supplies. The years that followed saw the company become the biggest customer for Kodak in Europe, a major customer for Screen and others. It culminated in a management buy out from DRG and then a flotation, creating Litho Supplies plc as it continues to be.

Throughout Byford stuck to the policy of plain speaking that marked the start of his print sales career. On first seeing the internet in the early 1990s, his first response was “who’s paying for this?” He continues: “In the early days I couldn’t find anyone to answer that question, it is only now, 15 years on, that models are beginning to emerge.” That first online encounter came at a huge international event organised by Agfa. “The good thing was they were asking where print was going. Today with the internet those events don’t happen, but I’m not certain that you can replace the experience of two dozen people who run businesses from around the world sitting around a table for a discussion.”

It was with sales people that Byford spent most of his time, trying to instill the customer service mentality that he had been given. “We would always ask what people were currently using, then ask why. Ask what they planned to do and ask why.” And if a customer quibbled about why the Litho Supplies price was slightly higher, the stock answer was “that for that money you also get me” he says.

“I wanted sales people to be the window on the world for the customer to show them what was possible.”

It rubbed off on Mulvaney. At Danwood Mulvaney says he had a customer who needed to upgrade a colour digital press but lacked the volume to support the machine he needed. To break the impasse, the customer was invited to the company’s Lincoln showroom and shown some variable data software, web2print and other applications. The result was that the new press has been delivered and the printer has increased volumes to justify it and both sides are satisfied.

However, while customers were important, more important were the suppliers to Litho Supplies. Without them says Byford there would have been no company. “Give me a supplier with a product with a margin and willing to take 30 days’ credit and there’s a business opportunity,” he comments. “It’s about building trust and confidence and if you can persuade a supplier to give you 30 days’ credit, it’s the chance to earn a margin.”

The importance of margin had been one of the early lessons hammered in on Saturday sessions. With a decent margin the company can survive a drop in turnover because the margin will continue to cover the overheads. But if the business is based on slim margins and high volumes, any slip in turnover will have an immediate impact. This is a lesson that many printers have failed to learn. In short it is the old axiom, turnover is vanity, profit is sanity.

If this was an old lesson, Byford can claim ownership of a business truism that has become known as his Pillock Principle. It was developed after Litho Supplies had a customer keen to buy a certain product but who was refusing to do so because he did not get on with the sales rep and certainly didn’t want the rep to get the credit.

The rep’s response was equally forthright: “I haven’t got the effing communication problem, he’s got the communication problem.” And Byford continues: “One wanted to buy, one wanted to sell, but they couldn’t get to an agreement and that happens so many times in business.”

When Byford was later asked to address a seminar at Ashridge Management College for Kodak’s top executives, he followed the head man of one of the high street retailers selling millions of boxes of film and cameras, and also had to follow a presentation in the pre-Powerpoint days comprising several carousels of slides. In comparison Byford’s two or three overheads seemed barely adequate. He threw them aside. “I decided to tell them about the Pillock Principle,” he said. “That was a problem to start with because many from the US didn’t understand the word pillock. Their colleagues had to explain what I meant. Then I went on.

“If you have two sensible people – one a customer, one the supplier – they will get a deal sorted out and make it happen to everyone’s satisfaction. If you have one half sensible person and one pillock, the half sensible person will make sure the deal happens, though it will take much longer to get there. But if there are two pillocks involved in a deal, you have no chance of it happening.

“Litho Supplies employs quite a few pillocks. Unfortunately we haven’t cornered the market.”