MONKS MAKING $$MILLION$$ SELLING TONER

[Anonymous]

The monks who made millions out of printer ink
 August
2007Yesterday was another sticky day in western Wisconsin and Bernard
McCoy rose early – 4am, in fact – to prepare for the day ahead as
founder of his successful printer ink business. There would be no
shooting off in the company plane or taking the purebred horses,
recently purchased on healthy revenues, out for a canter. As on every
Friday, it was his turn to clean the lavatories at corporate
headquarters.If this seems like a rum sort of routine for a harried
entrepreneur, consider a few other peculiarities. The room in which he
awoke before dawn is a minuscule cell with a wood-hewn frame for a bed
and, as on every day, at least eight hours would be set aside for
chanting and prayer. To find the time actually to run a business must
take a very particular kind of man.

A monk, in fact. To give him
his full title (aside from chief executive officer), he is Father
Bernard McCoy one of just five members of the tiny Cistercian Abbey of
Our Lady of Spring Bank, located in rolling farmland outside the modest
town of Sparta. It is his blessing that the abbey nowadays doubles both
as a place of prayer and a buzzing hub of seemingly incongruously
mercantile activity.It all started about 10 years ago, when the monks
found themselves so strapped for cash their very survival was under
threat. With rents from local farmers dwindling to nothing, they could
barely mend the leaks in their moulding trailer home. One day, as he
was searching on the web for ideas for a suitable business to raise new
funds, Fr McCoy’s printer ran out of ink. The cost of a new cartridge
horrified him.And so it was that he and the other brothers hit upon the
idea of creating a company supplying discount printer ink, initially to
other abbeys and local Catholic churches. They called it LaserMonks Inc
and by fiscal year 2002, their annual revenue had hit $2,000 (£1,000).

Much
more startling, however, is where they are today. Last year’s revenues
were $4m and they are expected to rise to nearly $7m in 2007.
Encouraged by their success, the monks have hired two lay people to run
the business day-to-day and expanded into other office supplies,
including furniture. A recent addition is a range of coffee products
that go under the brand name, Benevolent Blends.The company is a
charity and the monks take no salaries, but there is no doubt that
their lives are dramatically improved. There is the plane, albeit a
1969 turbo-prop, to ferry Fr McCoy around the country delivering
motivational speeches, the two Peruvian Paso horses and a new abbey
replete with artists and woodworking studios. A book on them,
LaserMonks, 900 Years in the Making is due out in October.The title is
a reference to the entrepreneurial endeavours of trappist orders over
the centuries. Think beer. Indeed, think calligraphy, printing and, by
extension, ink. “Nine hundred years ago, our forefathers were charged
with making ink and creating the tools for illuminating manuscripts,”
Fr McCoy, 40, told the Los Angeles Times. “We figured, why can’t we do
the same thing now?”

The monks say that once roughly 80 per cent
of the revenues are spent on running the company and the abbey itself,
the remaining 20 per cent is distributed among a variety of charities.
Indeed, that, says one of the lay company managers, Sarah Canitlia, is
part of the reason for the company’s success – customers are getting a
bargain and doing good in the world too.”What we all love about this is
that we help other people. That is our big thrill out of it,” Ms
Canitlia explained. “For customers there is a special appeal also from
buying from LaserMonks, because they know it is going to charity. If
they went into a chain store there would be no emotional dimensions. It
sounds like wonderful marketing, but it happens to be true.”So it was
yesterday, when Ms Canitlia expected to commit money to these among
other causes: giving two scholarships to local teenagers to attend a
Baptist academy, donating office supplies to a nearby Indian
reservation and funding development projects in Third World countries
growing coffee.

Monks in business
* Trappist monks at St
Sixtus monastery in Belgium have been producing a rich, dark-brown beer
for more than 160 years. But the 26 Cistercians became reluctant
celebrities in 2005 when their beer was named the best in the world.
They were deluged with orders, and stocks ran out.

* The
Benedictine monks of Devon’s Buckfast Abbey began selling their tipple
as a medicine when first produced in 1890. But it earned an unwelcome
reputation after “Buckie”, which has a 15 per cent alcohol content,
began finding favour with under-age binge drinkers.

* With
farming methods dating back to the 12th century, the monks of North
Carolina’s Belmont Abbey have tapped into the current trend for
wholesome, home-grown produce, and are enjoying the rewards.

[Author]

August 22, 2007 at 1:13 PM