Teaming Up For Success – The Muzzillos and Proforma

When Vera Muzzillo met Greg Muzzillo, whom she would marry in 2000, she was already a successful business consultant and banker. His success came as an entrepreneur, having founded the graphic communication and advertising specialty franchise firm Proforma. They make an excellent business team – in many respects, he is the visionary of the two, and is most successful at selling the company’s products and recruiting new franchisees. Vera Muzzillo, on the other hand, is proficient at all aspects of finance, commercial banking, and investments, and joined Proforma in 2001 as CEO.

Proforma is one of the outstanding American success stories of the late 20th century. Greg Muzzillo started the company in 1978 working out of the apartment he shared with a roommate. By the end of the first year, he had 300 customers and had generated revenues of $250,000. By 1982, Proforma was appearing on Inc. Magazine’s list of fastest-growing companies. In 1985, Proforma was honored by President Reagan as the Small Business of the Year.

The following year, as Proforma was gearing up to expand into Columbus, Ohio, Greg Muzzillo realized that businesses like his – graphic communication and advertising specialties – were inherently inefficient because of the amount of administrative, sales, and production work involved. He developed his franchise operation then, which freed up shop owners from having to attend to many of the administrative and production details and freed them to concentrate on selling.

More than 25 years later, Proforma is recognized as a model of a successful franchise. It offers more than 750 franchisees in the U.S., Canada, and the Virgin Islands a broad range of services and products, including business documents, graphic design and multimedia services, product management, and eCommerce solutions. Franchisees also enjoy numerous benefits, one of the most significant of which is free credit insurance. During the recession, many clients were unable to pay their bills, and the free credit insurance helped many of Proforma’s franchisees to remain in business.