Chris Gravagna – CEO of On Demand Color Group and Co-Owner of Elitemate

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Chris has a wide range of companies including EliteMate, Spring Base Media Consulting, On Demand Color Group (housing different printing and manufacturing operations in NYC) and EliteRev an energy pill.

Chris had some great advice on why organization is so important to an entrepreneur and also gave tips on how he organizes all of his companies.

It was so inspiring to talk with Chris and I know you’ll enjoy the interview!

Check out Elitemate.com and OnDemandColor.com

Thanks so much for listening! If you like these interviews subscribe via iTunes.

Any questions or comments on the podcast let me know!

Transcript:

Welcome to the Eventual Millionaire Podcast. I’m Jaime Tardy and today we have Christopher Gravagna on the show. Chris is the CEO of Ondemandcolor.com and he is also the co-owner of EliteMate.com, an online dating company. He is actually co-owner with Victor Daniels who I interviewed just a couple weeks ago. He has a lot of other new companies that I am really
excited to talk about so thank you so much for coming on today, Christopher.

CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
JAIME TARDY: So first, you have a lot of different things going on. Can you give me a brief description of each of your companies that you have,
that you are apart of and what they look like - their size, your
business model. I know that might take a little while but I’m ready
for it.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Okay, well we’ll start with the one that was really a catalyst to everything which was On Demand and it started off as On Demand Printing and then we actually did a couple of strategic acquisitions and merger and today it’s On Demand Color which is Ondemandcolor.com. That’s actually how I met my partner Victor Daniels was through the printing. I was doing the printing for a couple other of his companies and he came to me and said, “Hey, I’m going to do this dating website and I’m looking for great people,” and I decided, you know what, I don’t want to just help you with the marketing, I
want to be a partner.
That’s how EliteMate.com spurred and that was about ten years ago, a little over ten years ago actually. We became partners in EliteMate.com. From
there, we definitely had a couple of other offshoots. We just launched a great new product called EliteRev.com which is an energy product. It’s a supplement that helps people with fatigue.
It’s in a pill form so it’s not the normal energy drink that’s going
on. So it’s a supplement.
We actually have a new credit repair product called Go Perfect Credit that is going to be launching in about six to eight weeks. So there’s a lot of exciting
things going on. On Demand Printing, On Demand Color is a print manufacturing company. We have approximately 100 employees,
$20 million in revenue so that’s a pretty sizeable company.
EliteMate.com we have, it’s got to be somewhere between 50 and
60. Victor runs the day-to-day operations of EliteMate.com so he
would know a lot more of that information than I do but I am a
very happy partner of EliteMate.com.
EliteRev is a start up and it’s growing so just a very small amount of employees right now and driving into the marketplace so no real big revenue
numbers yet but definitely something that will have a growth pretty
quickly and the same thing with Go Perfect Credit. It’s something
that we feel will be a mass appeal product and it’s something that’s
helping people. If you look at the last two products, the energy
product and the credit repair product is really trying to find things
that are going to assist people in their day-to-day lives or help
people to make better decisions and help them be able to become
entrepreneurs which is why I developed the credit product. A lot
of people don’t understand the importance of credit.
JAIME TARDY: So what’s funny is that you sort of, it sounds like, the entrepreneur’s dream. I’ve got 17 projects going and they are all doing really well. So let’s step back for a little bit because you sound so successful with all these different companies. How did you start and how did you build up
your first company?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Wow, that’s a great question and I love answering it. So I started very, very humble beginnings. I was working with my family and they had a moving company and I really didn’t like it. I went to high school, went to
college and I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur. When I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I happen to love the entertainment industry, so I decided I was going to go and start doing events and I was going to start working within the nightclub space and I was like “All right, this is what I want to do, I love dancing.”
I used to go out and meet all these different people and when I started doing events I needed to do printing to promote these events. So very different
from today where you are going to send out an email blast to invite
people or an evite. I had to do printing and do postcards and stand
out on a corner and distribute these things. I actually wound up
becoming a resource for people so I found good printing
companies, people wound up coming to me to actually do their
printing and before you knew it, I was in the printing business.
From a print broker to a print manufacturer, I became this, one of the biggest nightclub and event printers in New York. It was kind of overnight and
started with a $6,000 loan from my mom. So it’s really one of
those garage stories. One of the fun parts of it was when I was first
starting the printing side, I went to my partner and I decided I was
going to do these alien t-shirts and it happened to be around the
time of the 50’s or anniversary of the Roswell landing. The
Roswell station landing in New Mexico and I flew down there with
a bunch of my friends, 700 t-shirts, and sold about 600 of those tshirts.
Came back and said, “All right, I’m definitely getting into
the printing and silkscreen business” and that’s how I met my first
partner.
We decided this is what we were going to do and that’s how we got into the industry. So between that and the club it was like this perfect storm of stuff and
before you knew it, I totally tore away from the family business
and started a printing company.
JAIME TARDY: So how long did it take from when you decided I want to be an entrepreneur; you realized you liked dance to starting a printing company?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: I was always an entrepreneur. I mean from at 13 years old I started a company called The Busy Bees and I’d go around and be shoveling snow and mowing lawns and cleaning cars. It’s kind of in you. So being an
entrepreneur is something, it’s just something that’s new, it’s a
passion, it’s an energy. It’s a hunger for success. It was in me
from a child. When you start your first what I’ll call real company,
it was before I started seeing success, probably three years, four
years. I mean it’s a road.
I knew when I stopped doing what I was doing with my family, I knew once I started that it was going to be successful. Belief is perception is reality.
You’ll hear my partner, Victor, say that a lot. If you believe it and
you’re hungry for it, you usually can make it happen.
JAIME TARDY: Yeah, he had a great quote. I have a question though sort of going back. When you were like 13 did you know you would be successful and a millionaire then too?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: No, but I did know that I loved starting companies. I mean I was the kid at 13 that was writing up advertising campaigns sitting on my living floor. My parents were like what are you doing and I’m like no, I’m doing
this. My dad had a moving company and I was like I want to have
my own moving company. My dad was like okay and I had
commercials going on television at 13 years old.
You know how I knew I was going to be successful? It was really the fact that at 14 years old I got sued because I put an ad in the yellow pages for a
moving company that I was able to start and I was signing
contracts. That’s when I knew that if I can get a 45, 50-year-old
man to allow me to sign a contract and do a whole advertising
campaign; I had something going for me with my mouth. So,
yeah, it’s just in you.
I won’t say I knew I was going to be a millionaire but I don’t stop working. The one thing that I’ve gotten smarter in my old age is I focus. I’m very
big on not biting off more than I can chew. So although it seems
like I have a lot of things going on, I’m also very focused on
having the right management teams in place, not biting off more
than I can chew. You can juggle five balls but you juggle six, all
six fall down. I think that you need to be very smart today and you
learn this with wisdom as you guys obviously get older and having
a couple of companies fail on you.
You have to be very careful with taking on too much so you have to be smart enough to focus and be able to handle the right amount of information and the
right amount of work that you can help in making successful and be an asset to it. I turn down projects today.
JAIME TARDY: It’s funny; I mean that’s the funny thing. In your bio you say a lot of serial entrepreneurs don’t really admit it but they sort of have a level of ADD because then you are always constantly on something. I understand that
too. Go ahead.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: We definitely are ADD. The way that you help that is by being organized. You need to be highly organized. That’s my word to all the entrepreneurs out there. You have to be highly organized. It’s having good
calendars, having good folders; when I say folders, on a computer system. Just having a good organization is so important in being a successful entrepreneur.
JAIME TARDY: So tell me more about that. Tell me your organization process. I would love to know that.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: So a lot of people have these Outlook, well, I’ll start with a lot of my world is happening through online today. So I get probably about 200 emails a day and if I had one email box that where all this stuff was going and I was going to go through one email box it would be almost
impossible for me to identify what was important, what’s not and
what do I have to revisit. So I built a folder system in my Outlook
so one for separate email for the different companies. I don’t have
it all going to one inbox. I also have separate boxes that allow me
to revisit those things and understand the priority of how I need to
handle those things.
So I’ve made up ten different folders from projects I need to quote on, from what I call Chris stuff, so my personal stuff, event stuff I get invited to,
special projects, database, so I set up these multiple folders that
allow me to really go back to these things in an educated way and
attack them. There are not enough hours in a day so you need to
attack and prioritize. So I have a priority folder that I will put
things into as they are coming through my inbox and then I know
that I’m going to hit those before the end of the day.
JAIME TARDY: Then you just make sure you go back and hit those?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Then I make sure that I go back. Yes, because that’s, again, mentally, that priority folder needs to be addressed and handled before the end of business.
These are either people that are counting on me for information or
projects that need to have my interaction with it. One of the
things, if you come into my office, I have four screens. So I
actually work and whether it’s four screens or one big screen, but I
give myself enough space to open up multiple windows at the
same time.
So I have my calendar up all the time and I can still have all my other things up. So I have my calendar, my Outlook and then I have my social media
sites and my Twitter, my LinkedIn, my Facebook stuff all up at the
same time and I can see everything that’s going on at the same
time. So it’s really mainly between 25 and 30 percent more
efficient during the course of my day.
JAIME TARDY: Wow, that’s excellent. It’s funny because usually, I mean I have to say when I have Twitter or my tweet deck open I sort of get distracted. How do you stay not distracted with Twitter and Facebook and everything
open?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Well, I try; Twitter is probably the one that I keep open the most. That and LinkedIn. Facebook I try not to keep open during the day because that’s more, it’s really more personal. Twitter, I’ve been, I’m smart, I
watch it during the course of the day. I really don’t interact with it
as much. I usually spend time on my laptop lying down in my bed
when I do most of my Twitter. So I do a lot of my Twitter in the
evenings or when I’m traveling is when I really focus on my
Twitter feeds. For my personal and my business, that’s when I will do it. I’ll watch it during the day to see if anything important is coming through but I’m not interacting and writing tweets. If I see something good, I will re-tweet it but I usually keep that to my evening hours and I spend a lot of time in
social media. Social media is a big part of continued success and
what people need to focus on. So, for me, it’s important, it’s an
extension of my life. You need to be smart in the way you interact
with it so that you are not infringing on your day-to-day business
stuff.
JAIME TARDY: I definitely want to get into social media a little bit more especially with how you are using it. It’s great. What sort of office environment works best or what have you figured out works best for you in really being as
productive as you are?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Originally, I used to have a very closed office environment. Let me rephrase that – I had an open office environment then I had a closed office environment and now I am actually back to an open office environment. The printing, because it’s more manufacturing and the way it was really put me in more of a closed office environment. As I continued to
catalyst and as I continued to evolve into more of this online media
company that has these companies underneath that we launch, for
me, it’s more of an open office environment with the ability to lock
yourself in a nice conference room with a client as necessary.
The open space, interacting with individuals is very important to continue to grow, good interaction, spurring ideas and I like that type of environment.
JAIME TARDY: So even with the distractions you can get things done? Usually I’ve heard it takes nine minutes to get back.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: You got to be careful. What are your distractions? So, are your distractions conversation about personal items or your distractions constructive about new projects and information that you wouldn’t have been able to talk to that person because you are behind the closed door? What I
think you lose, sometimes instant attraction with stuff that might
have waited or maybe have another opinion before so you made
the wrong decision. It definitely benefits having an open office.
JAIME TARDY: So let’s talk about social media then because if you have so many companies how do you deal with social media in general.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Well, you know what, it’s good. So every company has, I don’t want to say every company because the EliteRev and the Go Perfect don’t have a social media platform yet which they will within the next six
weeks. But EliteMate.com does, my On Demand Color does and I
do a lot of stuff personally that drives the individual companies.
So my Twitter is @Chrisecoprint. So it’s Chris Eco Print and I
have about 20, I think I just hit 2,600 follows yesterday.
So having 2,600 followers is a pretty decent feat done all organically and without these things that get you followers. So I really went out and driven these followers through good content, good information and driving the
value. LinkedIn is a very important part of my life. I drive a lot of
relationships there. I do a lot of networking. When I look at social
media, social media is like hyper growth networking because I do a
lot of networking.
I’m out there constantly driving, doing events, meeting real people, shaking hands but then I’ll go back and take that business card then I’ll see if they
have a LinkedIn account. I’ll see if they are on Facebook and I’ll
see if they are on Twitter. Then I’ll continue to interact on a
digital level and then personal level with those people so that
there’s constant touch points. I’ve seen that be very successful for
me.
JAIME TARDY: Excellent. That’s great advice. I think we sort of try and use social media as a replacement of regular in-person networking but the fact that you are using in-person networking and just social media as the touch
point and connection seems to work a lot better, right?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: It works a lot better. Nothing is going to replace interpersonal interaction with people. I mean nothing is going to replace that. Those relationships that you are able to nurture and you are able to facilitate are so important to driving success and driving relationships. But having that constant hyper connectivity through the social media platform helps you in
nurturing that relationship. It helps you in creating a high level of
that relationship and driving that instant communication with those
people.
We all live a different world today of information overload. Being able to sometimes get to that information and now there’s a connection there helps.
Absolutely helps.
JAIME TARDY: Excellent. What I’d like to ask about because you started numerous companies whether
you’ve co-founded them with other people or done it yourself,
what’s sort of the process that you go when you are starting a new
venture?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Due diligence is very important. So what is the new venture? You have to look at, I kind of created rules today for what I’m looking to do in the future, but let’s speak from a general entrepreneur for a second because my rules may not apply to the full entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur,
whenever I was looking to start a company or I was looking to
drive a new business, I really did a lot of due diligence. So I try to
find out what else is in the marketplace. I did a lot of competitive
analysis and seen who are my competitors? What are my
competitors doing?
And also, if it was a store front type of company, I’d also look at is this the type of company I want to be in and what’s the best location I need to be
in. If it was a store front type of company, I would sit in front of
that space and see what interacted throughout that 24 hours and I
would do that through different days of the week to see what kind
of traffic that it has, what kind of people were there, were they the
type of audience that was going to want my product or my service.
Doing your diligence and speaking to other people that are in the industry and going to
seminars and trade shows of that industry are so important before
you spend real money on driving that business or that service.
That’s something that’s very important. Do your homework. Do
your due diligence. Do your homework. Really look at what the
marketplace has to offer. It’s very, very, very important.
Now, on my personal side of what I look at today, for me, it’s hyper growth, mass appeal, low maintenance products. So when we looked at EliteRev, it’s
something that had mass appeal, it’s a mass product so everyone
from 18 and over to 80 years old could take this product as long as
they don’t have a heart condition. So, when we look at products, it
sees mass appeal, hyper growth type of products that are going to
appeal to the masses and it’s a product based type of company. So
something that I don’t need 100 employees for, not something I
have to manufacture, not something that’s custom to every
individual person.
I’m actually driving more away from that model and going into what I’m sharing now is a very specific product type of growth, mass appeal type of product and that’s where I feel that’s going to be where my success is
going to continue to grow and where my monies will be made in
the future.
JAIME TARDY: That’s really interesting. So you are talking about a regular entrepreneur who is sort of just starting out or doing their first or second company really has to pay attention to risk.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Absolutely.
JAIME TARDY: But as you get better and know sort of the risks a little bit better, I mean you are talking about an industry with lots of competition which is funny because before you were talking about doing a real competitive analysis and making sure you can succeed. So now you are sort of pulling
away to a different type of market than a normal entrepreneur would do. Is that what you are saying?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: I am and when I say different it’s product based and you need to know, our advantage is we know how to market products and we know how to do this through, we’ve accumulated a lot of databases. We work with
thousands of online affiliates and companies. So we’ve developed
the relationships through our other companies. Now to really
develop a formula for launching products the way other people
don’t necessarily know how to launch those products.
So we are using that advantage to launch. Managing product space is great but if we can market more strategically and use our relationships to be able to
grab a quicker market share, that’s something that we’re going to
do. We’re looking at credit repair in Go Perfect Credit. Well you
have hundreds of consulting companies out there but you maybe
have two or three DIY products, you know, do it yourself products.
So with the Go Perfect Credit, we’re a two DVD, two CD do it
yourself. Very little competition and it’s something that’s going to
appeal to the masses.
I’m very strategic at looking at it. EliteRev, there’s not many online pill form products that are out there today with the right ingredients that we have that
don’t give you crap. I take my own product. I take EliteRev. So
when we take it, it’s something we want. We actually manipulated
and spent a lot of time on building the EliteRev product to make
sure that it would have the right ingredients and have the right
experience as a consumer on that product. That’s part of due
diligence.
JAIME TARDY: Excellent. So you said you guys are really good at marketing product. Can you give us some advice, some tips, especially for someone who is not as high level and has all the resources you have for marketing?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: I think that you have to, don’t be afraid to outsource. A lot of people want to do it inhouse and I’m going to go on and I’m going to buy Google adwords, then I’m going to go out and buy some media. Go out and
find a good media buyer. Go out and find a good online marketing company. Personally, I consult a lot for clients today on their online marketing through a media company that I have called Spring Base Media. I pick and choose my clients but you need to find, obviously it doesn’t need to be, but you need to find the right internet marketing companies.
If you go online, you can find online internet marketing, online media companies and find the people that know how to do it right. Find those companies that know how to do it right and don’t be afraid to pay a little more
because you are going to get a lot more value for your dollar. A lot of people try to be a little more cost efficient on this side. You got to be a lot smarter on this side because you can find yourself spending and wasting a lot of money on not doing the right media buys.
JAIME TARDY: That’s key advice. A lot of the times we know that information on the internet, even with internet marketing, is so out there. There’s so many things for free that we can learn how to do so therefore we try and do it ourselves.
Hey it says what to do I’ll go ahead and try it. But what you are
saying is investing in people that actually have done it before and
know what they are doing so you don’t have to spend money on
the learning curve of trying to do it, right?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Exactly.
JAIME TARDY: I mean it’s funny because you think about a start up company. They don’t have a lot of capital so you think this is sort of a very good investment of your capital?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: I think it is a good investment of your capital because you find yourself having a lot less capital when you’ve wasted the little capital that you have.
JAIME TARDY: Very good point.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: So you actually find yourself wasting money and especially with online marketing because you have to be very careful with Google ad words. You will have competitors that will click on your button and they will have rooms of people outside of this country clicking on your
button just to burn your scent. If you are in a highly competitive
market it’s going to happen. So you have to be very careful about
how you are spending money online because you can get scammed
and you can spend money. You think Google and Yahoo but you
are paying on a click and you are bidding on these clicks and you
don’t know how certain keywords work. You just don’t know.
You need to be with people that are professional that do it very,
very well.
JAIME TARDY: It’s funny because I was actually talking to an owner of an SEO firm. His name is Ken Wisnefski and he was a millionaire interview also and he was telling me about how with Paperclip and Google they have these
specialists that you talk to and I’m like “yeah I spoke to one” and
he’s like they don’t actually know very much about what they are
doing. Not to play on Google or anything but they are there to try
and get you to optimize your campaign and have more clicks and
stuff like that. I was like I had no idea because most of the time
we go oh well they are here to help me. They are my specialists. I
don’t need to hire someone else they are going to do it for me for
free and that’s not the case, especially what you are saying.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: They are not educated enough. They are just not educated enough and they want you to buy their product. The best performance is being able to do what they call a CPA which is a cost per acquisition. It’s an affiliate
marketing type of product and if you have the right product, there
are companies that will only charge you on performance where you
could actually put a pyramid and then you don’t pay when
someone clicks you only pay when someone actually buys your
product but you need to have a good product for that and if you
have a good product, well if you have a good product call me
because I’ll help you market it and I may want to buy it from you.
I’m looking for good products.
Good products you can do on this performance based marketing level and it really is one of the best, it’s the best marketing program out there today because your spend is focused on infrastructure and driving a great product
and processing and not spending a million dollars on advertising
but you get a million dollars in advertising because you have a
great product and it’s only on performance. That’s a whole other
continuing conversation.
JAIME TARDY: I know. That could be a long one. So, going back to online marketing, what about copywriting because you usually assume that your paper click doesn’t really work or even CPA doesn’t really work unless you’ve
got a really good marketing message. Do you guys outsource your
copywriting and everything like that too or do you guys see that
more?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: It matters what it is. So if it’s a highly informative product, when we were going through the EliteRev side we really wanted to make sure that we knew what we were talking about so we brought in doctors and brought
in the specialists that had the right information and were able to put
the right content into the website and into the packaging to make
sure, especially when you get with neutraceuticals and energy
products, you don’t want to mess that up. You can’t put in wrong
information and you got to make sure the content is right.
So we did actually go to find copywriters and content providers to make sure that not only were we putting it in an articulate way that would engage with
a consumer but also make sure that we were putting the correct
information. So copywriting is very important. We obviously
think that we all have the best ideas and we’re the best linguists
and then we know everything but it’s always good to bring in
outside copywriters and to have them help you in driving more
efficient and more credible content.
JAIME TARDY: Excellent. Now I want to change it up a little bit and ask you about partners because you’ve had partners in quite a few different companies. What do you think about working with partners versus working on your
own?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: It’s difficult. When you have multiple companies you need partners so you have to choose your partners wisely. Don’t jump in bed with them. Make sure that you go to dinner with them a couple of times. Make sure
you spend some time at the house. If they are married, meet their
wives and their spouses because you are doing business with them
as well even if you don’t think you are. You need to be smart in
choosing partner and you need to be smart because partners are
tough. But it’s hard to do it on your own. Let me now, being a
serial entrepreneur it’s really difficult doing it on your own.
I have partners in every company that I own. But the point is to try to pick good partners and, in my case now, as I’ve grown, I try to pick managing
partners so people that I’m able to start the company with but then
they can run it on a day-to-day basis so it allows me to continue to
be a serial entrepreneur.
JAIME TARDY: That’s excellent.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: But partners, you know, you got to be smart with partners. You can pick the wrong ones and I have in the past and you can break up and it’s like going through a divorce. You have to be smart in the partners that you
pick and just like the product or the business, do your due
diligence on your partner. See what he has done in the past. See if
he has been successful. See why he failed. Do a background
search on him or her. Him or her, I’m just trying to say him but
him or her. Double check and just be smart. Then double check
him. Sometimes your partner is a bank. Make sure you are doing
the due diligence on the bank as well because you need the capital.
JAIME TARDY: Excellent. So is there anything you specifically look for?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: What I look for in a partner is someone that’s an entrepreneur as well but that understands that, that has the ability to be a managing partner. So, not looking for someone exactly like myself. Looking for
someone that has a tendency to endure the growth stages of what
we are doing, that good managerial skills, good organization skills
but also has the ability to be the managing partner that will have no
issue running the day to day of the operation.
JAIME TARDY: Excellent. It’s funny because you spoke about looking into their failures and that’s one of the things I really wanted to talk to you about because when we hear you have so many successful companies we don’t hear about any of the failures or issues you’ve had to go through. So what are
some of the obstacles you’ve had to overcome? What failures
have you run into in doing all that you’re doing?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Two failures. I tried to start a small marketing company with a friend of mine I’ll call it and he was pushing me to start, pushing me to start. I said, “All right, okay, I’ll do it with you.” At that point, I just had way too much stuff on my plate and my day was consumed with a lot more
than, it was more, I wasn’t able to bite off more than I could chew
and I did it and it failed because he constantly looked to me to
work with him as a full partner and I didn’t make that clear that I
was only going to be able to dedicate two, three, four hours a day
to helping him with this company.
But I would dedicate my resources. At the end of the day, we had to close it because he expected something from me that I thought I was very clear in the
beginning about and obviously I wasn’t and we still have a good
relationship today but that’s a perfect example of starting
something when you shouldn’t be starting another company.
JAIME TARDY: Definitely. I was just going to say have you ever had things go wrong in the business and you come out of it either a better person or have a better business?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Well here’s a good example. When we talk about printing companies, the first one before On Demand was actually my first company, Big City Graphics, which was this company I actually wound up selling to
my partner. We started it again, you know, and, when we started
everything, it was great and we were two single guys and then all
of a sudden you have wives and children and that changes and
personalities change and wives are working with you, girlfriends
are working with you and it went wrong. The positive side of it
was one of knew that one of us had to sell to each other.
I decided that I wanted to be the one that sold to him and I offered him the same amount of money. I said, “If you don’t want to sell it to me I’m going to
give you the same amount of money that I want. This goes to tell
you that it’s fair. So I’ll either buy it from you or you can buy it
from me.” I sold to him and it wound up being great and he’s still
in business today and I was able to cash out. That would have
probably turned into a very unsuccessful business because, as
partners, we were going through a divorce. If we decided that we
were going to fight over the company and go that route, the
company would have been out of business today and it would have
been bad for both of us.
That’s a success story because I started On Demand Color and that I turned into a great success and he stayed with the company Big City Graphics and he
has turned that, it developed two successful companies.
JAIME TARDY: Yeah, which is great. So I am hearing successes still. I’m not hearing any failures.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: No but it was somewhat of a failure because I went through a divorce and it was difficult.
I don’t want to say the business failed but it definitely went down
and we definitely started losing money when we were going
through it and it wasn’t until after we made certain decisions that it
got better. You constantly are dealing with challenges in your
business. It’s the way that you navigate them is what could make
it a real bad detriment or a success. In the end, my failure, my non
success was the one that, you know, how you handle it should
always make it a successful turn.
JAIME TARDY: So now that you have children, I know your children are I guess a little bit older than
before but how do you balance that having so much to do?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Good wife.
JAIME TARDY: And the wife. I know.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: I have a good wife. I mean and hopefully she’ll listen to this interview one day because
she always says I don’t say anything but I have an amazing wife.
She is an amazing mother and she allows me to be me and she has
been instrumental in making sure that my kids don’t skip a beat
and I don’t miss any of the milestones in my kids’ lives. So I’ll
schedule my meetings or my opportunities around special days for
my kids. So I don’t miss dance recitals. I don’t miss special
games. I miss a game here and there but I don’t miss the milestone
things in my kids’ lives. That’s something that’s balanced but it’s
a constant challenge.
But you have to continue to look for balance and having a good wife that makes the kids, just helps me in doing what I do well and really helps in nurturing
the kids in the stuff that they are doing. But balance, balance, balance, balance, balance! Try to do it.
JAIME TARDY: Excellent. Yeah, you’ll have to send me her email address later and I’ll send her a copy
of this so she can hear all that wonderful stuff.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: She is great and she is an entrepreneur in her own right.
JAIME TARDY: Excellent. So what are some of the books you’ve read or researched you’ve used; tools
you’ve used, in your business that have helped you make it
successful?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: So, believe it or not, I don’t read a lot of books but I’ve read thousands of magazines.
I’m very big on short stories, perspective interviews. I’ve watched
hundreds and hundreds of interviews with entrepreneurs and
leaders. I’ve gone to many seminars. I go to a lot of trade shows
and I’m constantly going to the different keynotes and the different
events that are in these trade shows or these seminars and I’m
constantly educating myself through the industries and through
these different outposts of information gathering things. That’s
how I continue to educate myself.
I read thousands, again from business magazines, Fortune, Entrepreneur, Inc., you know, to Wired to technology magazines to Rob Report just because I
want to know what the rich people are doing. But I have never
been able to really read these major, major books that people tell
me about. But I have heard a lot about the Tipping Point which
many people tell me is a lot of how I interact. I constantly read
magazines and business magazines and entrepreneur magazines. I
go to tons of seminars, trade shows, networking events and I
interact with people that are smarter and understand more than I do
and that’s how I continue to learn.
JAIME TARDY: Excellent. That’s one thing that a lot of people don’t realize though is that magazines have so much information and when I usually ask this question nobody has ever said magazines and that’s a really key point. I get
tons and tons of magazines. So much information in short bursts
which is great. Excellent.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Right, and no social media. Let’s be honest. I get a lot of my stuff from online. So I’m reading blogs or I’m reading content. I’m getting sometimes information on Twitter. So you’ve got to know the right publications are out there.
JAIME TARDY: What are some of the blogs that you actually read?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: There are so many. I’ll send you links.
JAIME TARDY: That would be great. I’d love to post it.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: I’ll definitely send you a link.
JAIME TARDY: Excellent. I’ll be waiting because I love that stuff. So for the last question, what is one
action that entrepreneurs can take this week specifically that can
help them to their goal of a million?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: One specific action and hopefully they’ve done it, sometimes they haven’t, is set up your
social media platform at least on an individual level. LinkedIn,
Facebook, Twitter, set yourself up. I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs
that aren’t on LinkedIn, that don’t have a Twitter page and don’t
have a Facebook page and you need to create your social media
platform today because that will be an amazing source of
information and business. I get business from LinkedIn. I get
business from Twitter.
You need to put yourself out there in a digital platform and that is something that you should take in, if you’re not doing it, that is an action that you
should take today because that will help you with any business that
you’re going to start. It’s not business specific. That is something
that you absolutely want to be focused on and make sure that
you’re out there building that today.
JAIME TARDY: Great advice. So where can we find you online? I know you said you have Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and everything. Where can we find you and anything you want to promote or tell us about?
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: Sure. So we’ll start where you can follow me online and I have @Chrisecoprint which is my Twitter account. So it’s @Chrisecoprint. You can also find us online at EliteMate.com. That’s EliteMate.com. You could also
find us at EliteRev, that new energy product I was telling you
about which is EliteRev.com, EliteRev.com and that will help you
with all your energy crisis when you are feeling fatigued and tired
and you get to be that crazy entrepreneur. The last place that you
can find me is at www.goperfectcredit.com and that’s G-O-P-E-RF-
E-C-T-C-R-E-D-I-T.com so goperfectcredit.com.
You know what, I’m okay with people emailing me so if people needed to email me and ask me questions and stuff like that, you could also find me at
Chris@ondemandcolor.com and that’s Chris@ondemandcolor.com
and I’m open to taking any way I can help and you got a question,
email me and I’ll try to help you out.
JAIME TARDY: Wow, that’s the first. You are the first one to ever do that. Excellent. We really appreciate that and I will definitely put links in all the show notes and everything so everybody can take a look at all the stuff that
you are doing and I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you
so much for being here.
CHRIS GRAVAGNA: I appreciate being apart of the show and thank you for having me.

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