DLT Direct--Playing to Win
What Ruth did in baseball, Sterling, VA-based DLT Direct and its owner David L. Taylor and General Manager Chester "Chet" Ruby, have now done in direct mail printing. Starting from zero, with seven employees and a used six-color Didde web press, DLT Direct not only recouped all of its start-up costs and lease-hold improvements in its first six-month year (1995), it earned a tidy profit of $78,000 too! Its second, third and fourth years brought sales of $2.4, $3.7 and $4.8 million, respectively—and all were profitable. Figuratively looking toward that center-field wall and calling its next shot, DLT forecasted its 1999 fiscal year—and blasted another home run—coming in at $5.4 million. With its whopping, 300 percent growth rate, the firm's expansion appears to have earned DLT Direct a permanent spot in the Hall of Fame of fastest growing printers in the U.S. In all, Taylor and Ruby have consistently called their shots, six years in a row.