Turning an idea on its head

I was talking to an old printer friend the other day and asked him how he was doing.  I expected the usual cautious optimism (people say you have to be an optimist if you're still in the printing game at present) but instead he said "We're making money for the first time in years".

When I picked myself up off the floor I asked him what had changed.  "It's my new marketing guru", he said.  Apparently this new advisor had asked him what boxes a new client had to check in order to be accepted as a customer.  "Are you joking?" replied my friend "it's the other way round. There are so many printers for each job that the buyer can pick and choose".

"Well," said the advisor "why not stand that idea on its head?"  What he recommended was to see if the the customer had what it takes, by checking things like:

• Will you pay me up front?
• Will you accept my prices including a reasonable profit?
• Will you accept a reasonable time frame? 

I cautiously asked my friend whether his business had shrunk at all.  "No" he said. "The customers who were haggling away my profits, paying late, or defaulting now go to the big on-line boys, where they get what service they can.  But if a customer wants proper service, with the knowledge that we'll continue to be here to serve him next year, there's a price and it's worth his while paying it.  So that proper service is what we've been selling, and successfully too."

I've heard similar views expressed as an ideal by printers, but I think this was the first time I've seen the profitability increased in this way without compromising turnover. 

I take my hat off to him!

It's a funny old game, printing, isn't it?

Strictly Come Printing

There has always been competition. You may remember the historic Judgement of Paris. There, on Mount Olympus, the hapless judge (Paris the handsome) was choosing the most beautiful between Hera, Aphrodite and Athena. The prize, apart from the title, was a golden apple. Paris was to get his consultancy fee in kind. These beauties, if the statues are anything to go by, were more scantily clad than Rachel in ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.

That’s pre-empted my other competitive example. As my wife is fanatical about the BBC’s “Strictly”, I have been sucked (if that’s the right word) into avidly following the lunges, lifts and fleckles of the gyrating contestants. The rules of the competition have been explained succinctly by the ‘retiring’ John Sergeant, as simply the gaining of judges’ points (for dancing skill) and public votes (for popular appeal) being equally important.

Now here’s where my printing brain kicked in (before you ask where this was all leading). Particularly in hard times, many printers scramble to get in work (popular appeal) – but at any cost. I know it looks good to have a fat order book. But aren’t they forgetting the judicial discipline (commercial skill)? If dancing was your profession you’d have to earn enough to live and put a bit aside for new frocks (or whatever your chosen costume may be).

Sure, you can do the odd bit of ‘charitable’ work (Charitable: Full of love and good will; benevolent; kind). But there is a limit, even at Christmas. Unfortunately, the bullet has to be bitten. Printers, to survive, must work out what their real costs are and price their jobs accordingly. Of course there are the idiots who will price jobs ridiculously to try and ruin the market for everyone else. But if you can display your skills and show confidence in your products, your customers will not desert you on a price whim. And that confidence is stronger when you know what services you can genuinely afford to offer to the market. (By the way, the Printpak free download might give you a clue to some of this.)

So the moral is ‘By all means come printing, but be a bit stricter on your commercials.’ I feel a spiritual moment coming on, so I’ll sign off and pour myself a large whisky. To misquote the perpetual Bruce Forsyth, “Keep prrrrinting!”

Norman