🎙SMB15: Quitting a Life on the Railroad for SMB Ownership with Scott Gunter

This is SMB15, a rapid-fire interview series featuring small business owners, investors and service providers. We dig into different industries, business models, and SMB topics. Hosted by Will Fry, founder of Mainshares.

Listen now on Spotify or YouTube.

After 14 years as a railroad engineer, Scott Gunter bet the house — and $116K — on a single container of packaging from a Chinese supplier he’d never spoken to. That gamble paid off. Today, he runs JarCo, a growing print and packaging business in Arkansas with clients in food & beverage, schools, and beyond.

In this episode, we get into what it takes to run a hybrid printing and packaging company, from custom merch and labels to flexible packaging and import logistics. Scott shares how he evaluates customers, the differences in margin and effort between print and packaging, and what he looks for when buying small businesses.

Some takeaways:

1. Competing with offshore labor requires speed and trust. JAR Co’s value isn’t in being the cheapest. It’s in responsiveness and flexibility. For customers in the $10M–$50M range, Scott’s pitch is simple: he’ll handle the complexity, move faster than your team can, and still save you money.

2. The 10–50 million revenue customer is the sweet spot. These customers are big enough to place meaningful orders, but not big enough to bring sourcing in-house. They rely on trusted vendors and value simplicity and a one-stop shop over squeezing every penny.

3. Sales becomes the bottleneck. As Scott’s scaled up the team and brought some production in-house with his acquisition, the struggle has been in balancing fulfilling customer orders with continuing to do outbound sales for new print and packaging customers.

4. Once a customer buys packaging, they often buy print. Scott found that once he landed a packaging client, they’d eventually ask about branded apparel, promotional products, and signage. Cross-selling became a natural upsell — because buyers want one vendor they can count on. Print customers, however, may not have a need for packaging.

5. He advises business buyers to assume a 20% customer loss post-close. No matter how strong the transition, Scott’s seen customers leave due to loyalty to the seller. His rule of thumb: build a buffer, do your diligence, and expect churn when a business changes hands.

Where to find Scott and Arkansas Marketing & Promotionals:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-gunter-492668333/

• Website: https://www.arkansasmarketing.com/

In this interview, we discuss:

• 0:00 Leaving Union Pacific for Entrepreneurship

• 1:31 Starting in Packaging

• 3:50 First Container Arrives

• 5:04 Freight Forwarding

• 8:42 Why Customers Choose JAR Co

• 10:52 Building Out the Team

• 12:23 Acquiring Arkansas Marketing & Promotionals

• 13:15 Flexible Packaging

• 15:19 Print vs. Packaging

• 16:58 Scott's Big Focus

• 18:52 Advice for Buying a Business

• 20:42 Key Metrics to Watch

• 21:32 Advising Aspiring Owners