Heather Chapman
Bill Nichols in front of the Bluegrass Integrated Communication’s new digital inkjet printing press.
When Bill Nichols launched a secretarial service in 1974, he started out with a few rented desks, a typewriter and a simple goal: To help local businesses streamline office-related tasks so they could focus on the business at hand. Nichols had only a handful of employees, and he wasn’t sure his fledgling company would make it. But, thanks to a tireless work ethic, business savvy, a supportive family and all-star employees, Bluegrass Integrated Communications (BIC) is still thriving 45 years later.
Today, BIC has nearly 100 employees and handles a wide range of business tasks from its 60,000-square-foot space on Nandino Boulevard, including designing and printing brochures and manuals, mailing out sensitive financial and health care documents, managing and promoting local magazine subscriptions, and soup-to-nuts direct marketing campaigns. They also store, pack and ship merchandise for more than a dozen online-only businesses.
That’s a long way from the company’s humble beginnings. At first BIC offered only typing services, but within months a client asked if they could handle some bulk mailing too, and Nichols was happy to oblige. “We had no idea what we were doing,” Nichols said. But they were determined to learn as they went and continued expanding services a little at a time.
That’s not to say that every venture has been a success. Before starting BIC, Nichols also owned a waterbed store (that fad went bust) and a “hippie” bar on Short Street (the hippies were broke). He also tried adding a temp agency service and a local culture and restaurant website to BIC’s offerings, but those weren’t sustainable. Nichols believes that business leaders should always be on the lookout for ways to expand and improve their services, however, and shouldn’t hesitate to try new things. “To be successful, a business must embrace change, because [the world] never stops changing,” said Nichols. That was a critical factor in the company’s success, especially since the digital revolution has transformed the very nature of Nichols’ business.
In the early years at BIC, before personal computers, “we kept mailing lists on cards that we typed a person’s name and address on and then arranged the cards in the output we wanted,” Nichols said. “Those cards were then copied with a special machine that would transfer the names and addresses to labels that then were applied to the envelopes or mailing media.”
Heather Chapman
These days, the company is a little more high-tech—and lot more high-volume. Overall, BIC moves between 2.5 and 4 million pieces per month, especially during election season, Nichols said. That kind of activity requires some serious equipment, but they’ve upgraded and invested over the years to keep up. Their seven Prius-sized printers can each crank out between 125 and 150 color letter-sized impressions per minute. In February 2019, they bought a 40-foot digital inkjet printing press that outputs an incredible 1,400 letter-sized impressions per minute.
But machinery isn’t what makes Bluegrass Integrated Communications successful, Nichols said. It’s the employees, many of whom have been with the company for decades. “An organization’s people are a business’ most important asset. That’s one thing I think a lot of businesses forget: It’s not necessarily you as the leader or what you’re doing. It’s the people that make you successful, so I think it’s important to make sure that they grow as you grow,” Nichols said. For him, that means making sure they get the best pay and benefits possible, the chance to grow in their roles and a nurturing workplace atmosphere.
"An organization’s people are a business’ most important asset. That’s one thing I think a lot of businesses forget: It’s not necessarily you as the leader or what you’re doing. It’s the people that make you successful, so I think it’s important to make sure that they grow as you grow.” —Bill Nichols
Another secret to Nichols’ success is his family. When he started his company—then called Bluegrass Secretarial Services—his mother showed her faith in him by becoming one of his first employees. She wasn’t the last family to work in the business. Nichols’ sister worked for the company for a while in the ’70s; his wife has worked in the accounting department for the past 30 years; his brother-in-law was the Controller for more than 20 years; and two of his oldest friends have worked at the company for more than 40 years.
Nichols credits his father for inspiring him to own a business in the first place. “My father had always said to work for yourself. It was a dream he had, but the responsibility of taking care of a family never allowed him to be able to do it until later in life. He sort of engrained that in me from the time I was young,” Nichols said. Around 1982, his father joined BIC full-time to give Nichols some much-needed help with the accounting for his booming business.
Heather Chapman
BIC’s on-site warehouse stores not just printing supplies but also merchandise for online-only companies.
Nichols tries to pay it forward by offering marketing advice to clients and other business owners on the company’s blog (www.wearebluegrass.com). Some of that advice is particular to certain fields, like political campaigning, but other tips can help any entrepreneur, Nichols said. That includes spending money to make money, listening to what your clients say they want, and diversifying your offerings without spreading yourself too thin.
Above all, be willing to take risks, Nichols said, which he acknowledges is sometimes easier said than done. When he launched BIC, he was young, and he didn’t have a wife or children. “So that made it easier, because you can take more chances that you can’t take with a family,” he said.
But knowing that he had employees—including family members—relying on him for a paycheck has made him more determined to succeed, he said. “Yeah, it made it more difficult, but it also made it where you tried harder and made it work.”
Nichols said he plans to retire someday, but in the meantime he still feels like he has a lot to accomplish, such as overseeing efforts to reduce BIC’s carbon footprint. The company is working with local nonprofit Bluegrass Greensource to learn how to implement more sustainable practices, such as increasing its recycling, replacing disposable foam coffee cups with washable mugs, and installing skylights, solar panels and motion-sensing LED lights at headquarters to save energy.
“I still love what I do. I love the people that I work with,” Nichols said. “For me, working is better than retirement. We have a great management team here at Bluegrass; they can run without me, but I still have a little more to give!”