May 8, 2017

Meet Barak Gilor of On The Spot Photo Magnets in Venice

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Barak Gilor.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I started On The Spot Photo Magnets a couple of years ago. My friend back home had a wedding and the photo magnets were a big success! People LOVED the fact that they were getting something that they can actually put on their refrigerator or at the office, even kids were talking about how cool it is and that they will put it on their locker room. I got back home and I was thinking to myself, here is a cool thing that people like, why not to open it here in America?! I came to America 11 years ago with pretty much nothing, and went to school here to complete my education. I finished BA and started a few businesses that were not very successful and I had to close it down. However, my business sense kept telling me that I should move forward and not stop. Throughout the years, I learned a lot about business from several mentors that I have, saved up some money, and opened On The Spot Photo Magnets that today is a nationwide company.

We do events in LA, IL, FL, TX, NY, MA, NE and more. We worked with big organization such as Yelp, Harley Davidson, The American Cancer Society, JP Morgan, Hilton, and more. With over 200 events nationwide in the first year of the business we are looking to be at more states and even to go international at some point. I learned that sometimes you need to hold on and keep learning, and if you really believe in something it will eventually happen!

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I feel that to have a business nowadays is always a struggle as there are so many components and some of them are unknowns until it happens. I want to say that for a while, we were struggling financially, and that was not easy, we even ran out of money at times and needed to do whatever we can in order to maintain a working company, and we always made it even when times were super tough. People sometimes also let us down by not showing up but we always have plan B.

Dealing with clients is the hardest part to any business, and we had to learn and read a lot about how to satisfy a client, and a lot of the time also learn from the experience, it is always a learning process, but we overcome that as well.

The research and development of a business is very much related to its industry and that is something we had to also learn, and still learning, how to do best, partnerships, collaboration, which are very important for the future of the business did not come very easy and we had to work very hard to get these meetings, especially with companies that have been around for a long time and are not very open to work with new company such as ours. So we either moved on or found another big company to work with.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about On The Spot Photo Magnets – what should we know?
On The Spot Photo Magnets provides Instant Photo Magnets Keepsakes for ALL Events!

Showcase your memories seamlessly with a customized photo magnet! Our professional photographers will mingle among your guests to snap amazing photos. Within a matter of minutes our on-site production team will produce the photo magnets and display them on a stainless-steel board for your guests to pick up as party favors.

You and your loved ones can share your magnetic memories on any metallic surface in your home, car, or anywhere else that will display that kickin’ time you had with your friends and family.

We believe every occasion should be remembered. Our service offers instant, unlimited magnet production and photo-sharing–all done in real time–and our friendly staff will customize and frame your photos just as you want them!

We are proud to work with the big companies and proud that we are able to assist them with our product and service. We did an event for Sullivan’s Steak House, which is a public company and operate nationwide, close to LA they are located in Palm Deseret. Sullivan Steak house wrote us a recommendation letter stating ‘high quality product and excellent customer service’, to get something like that from a public company was very big for us. Yelp also loved our product and service.

As mentioned, our customer service and high quality product set us from the other companies, all of our equipment is top of the line and we do not save money on that, it is very important for us that our clients will be happy. We have 5 Yelp accounts in the different cities and all 5 stars.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Communication with the clients, communication with the people who works with us and for us. and to make sure that the clients ALWAYS happy! It is also important to be organized and on top of things to make sure everything goes smooth and there are not any issues that may hurt the clients. That is why we are training the people that works with them and making sure they do as we do in every event.

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