Jeffrey Offutt and Jita Printing: Getting to Yes

Abstract

Jeffrey Offutt had overcome many hardships and personal difficulties to better himself and build his own graphic-design and corporate-printing business: Jita Printing. Just as it seemed his efforts had begun to pay off in the form of steady work and a loyal clientele, Offutt was hit with two problems. First, designing and printing marketing materials for a small local theater had started as a quick, small undertaking for deeply discounted prices, but had turned into a drawn-out job with multiple design stages. Second, a hardcover book design for a flower shop, involved an entirely new business venture for Jita, and Offutt was having a difficult time coming up with a quote that was both competitive and profitable. How should Offutt deal with these two problems? This case is used in entrepreneurship electives at Darden, but would also fit well in a small business strategy course for non-MBA audiences. Excerpt UVA-ENT-0195 Rev. Feb. 27, 2020 Jeffrey Offutt and Jita Printing: Getting to Yes Introduction The sun had long set on the small Houston office that housed Jita Printing (Jita), a graphic design and corporate printing business, by the time Jeffrey Offutt sat down to his computer. A familiar pang of anxiety gripped him as he pulled up his email. Offutt had put off responding to two of his newer clients all day, and he knew they expected answers by the morning. It was July 2011, a mere two years after Offutt had started Jita with his wife out of their home, and the company now had its own office, an industrial printer, and a loyal client base. Offutt had built Jita from the ground up; he delivered every printing job personally, sometimes adding a handwritten thank-you note. Building and maintaining strong, personal client relationships were, in part, what set Jita above its competitors. Offutt had spent much of the week contemplating his responses to both clients and had yet to come up with the right decisions for his company. Both jobs were proving to be more complex than Offutt had anticipated. The first, designing and printing marketing materials for the Performing Arts Theater, was supposed to be a quick, small undertaking, but had turned into a drawn-out job with multiple design stages. The second, a hardcover book design for Bloom, a local flower shop, was a step outside the usual operations at Jita, and Offutt was having a difficult time coming up with a suitable quote. Offutt stared at the blinking cursor in his blank email document, knowing that his responses would affect the future of Jita's revenues and daily operations. He began to think back on how he ended up at this juncture. . . .