Quick Printing

Do you know any printers who measure success in ways other than sales volume?

There is a letter in the February issue of Quick Printing from Tom Rockers in Independence, MO, that made a very good point. Success is not always measured in dollars. Some successes “are measured in other areas such as friendships my wife and I have made with most of our customers. You cannot put a dollar sign on that type of reward,” Rockers wrote. He also said that it would be nice to read about printers who have been successful even if they are not million dollar shops. I think that is a fine idea.

Do you know someone who measures success in ways other than sales volume? If so, let us know about them and perhaps we’ll share their story in a future issue. Remember the old adage, “Success in life comes not from holding a good hand, but in playing a poor hand well.”

The NAQP Operating Ratio Study has a new name, but the value of the information hasn’t changed.

It used to be called the NAQP Operating Ratio Study, but for 2010 and beyond the name will be the Financial Benchmarking Survey. I’m not sure why the powers that be changed the name, but I’m glad to see that they didn’t change the survey itself. After all, it is one of the most valuable—if not the most sexy—studies done by the association.

The survey asks 65 key questions which can be answered by using a company’s 2009 year-end financial statements. Participants will get a free copy of the finished survey and an individually customized report which they can use to make a side-by-side comparison of their profit and loss statement, balance sheet, and key financial ratios with other printing companies. In the past, the offer of this free customized report has really encouraged participation. Survey author John Stewart says he expects even greater participation in the 2010 survey

You don’t have to be an NAQP or NAPL member to participate in the 2010 Financial Benchmark Survey, and I really think you’re missing a good bet if you don’t participate. (Printers who don’t participate will still be able to buy copy of the completed study.)

Email invitations to participate will go out in mid-February. If you do not receive one, you can still participate by going to www.surveyadvantage.com/NAQP10financial to download the survey, which can be submitted electronically or by mail. The drop-dead deadline is March 22, 2010. Don’t miss out on one of the best financial management tools available to our industry.

I just got the latest Economic & Print Market Flash Report from Printing Industries of America. There wasn’t anything really surprising in it. The economy should stabilize in 2010, along with printing shipments, and grow modestly in 2011. Conventional ink-on-paper printing will continue to decline in 2010 and stabilize in 2011. Etc. All that said, there will be some segments that will fare better than others. Among them, digital print, both toner-based and inkjet, should grow between 4% and 5% over the next two years. Meanwhile, ancillary services will also grow, by 2.7% in 2010 and 4% in 2011.

None of this is any reason to throw a party, but it is better news than we have been getting for the past couple of years. Right now that’s about all we can expect.

Well, we just got the February issue of Quick Printing out to the printer. It should be in your mailbox the first week in February and up on our website around the same time. Everybody knows that trade magazines in our industry don’t have as many pages as they used to, however we managed to get a lot of good content in the space we had available.

Karen interviews vendors on CTP advantages and trends, Nancy DeDiemar outlines the challenges ahead for printers, mailers, and the USPS, and John Giles discusses Quark Marketing Services and QR codes. Meanwhile, Dave Fellman talks about grabbing customers when a competitor goes out of business, and Tom Crouser points out the perils of letting an employee disrespect an owner’s spouse who works in the business. Finally, John Stewart leads off talking about printing scams and then shares the wisdom of a printer who has successfully transitioned out of his business into a comfortable retirement.

That’s just in the printed edition. Additional content that will be available exclusively at www.quickprinting.com includes a roundup of CTP products available to the quick and small commercial printer and a discussion about what makes a digital press different from a digital copier/printer. Also, while the printed edition only comes out once a month, you can find daily news updates on our website and get weekly industry information in this e-newsletter.

At Quick Printing we are well aware that technology is changing our industry and we are committed to using technology to keep our readers up to date on these changes and on the best business practices necessary for success. There may be fewer pages today, but that doesn’t mean less information.

Most printers understand the importance of marketing, but it somehow seems to get put on the back burner as they deal with production issues, personnel crises, selling efforts and the like. With most of the capabilities necessary to mount an effective marketing campaign, printers too often put their own marketing efforts last—if they do any marketing at all. Part of the problem is that marketing usually does not have an immediate and measurable result. It takes lots of repetition and often it is difficult to directly connect sales increases to specific marketing efforts.

What is the difference between marketing and advertising? For the most part, advertising promotes a product while marketing promotes a brand. That’s not to say both can’t be accommodated in the same vehicle. Papa John’s latest ad campaign has a marketing message and a product offer. “Better ingredients, better pizza—Papa John’s” is the marketing message, while two one-topping pizzas for $12.99 is the product offer. That’s pretty straightforward.

However, Domino’s latest marketing campaign puzzles me. Basically, it says that the company has been listening to customer complaints that its sauce tastes like ketchup and its crust tastes like cardboard and they are going to do better. Better crust, better cheese, better sauce—at least, better than that stuff we’ve been pushing for the last several years. That is one bummer of a marketing message. “We’ll try not to suck as bad as we did before.” The product offer: If you still don’t like it, we’ll give you your money back—all of it.

I’d call that “mea culpa marketing” and have serious doubts that it will accomplish much except to remind people of the reason they switched to Papa John’s in the first place.

We long ago gave up on the wild New Years Eve parties. Actually, we’ve pretty much given up on wild parties in general (with a few notable exceptions such as the Print 09 bash the magazines threw last fall for our readers and advertisers). So, while the ball was dropping in Times Square, we were sitting quietly on the couch sipping brandy and scratching the cat.

There is something to be said for slowing down from time to time. The constant barrage of electronic communications and social and business obligations takes its toll. It is quite enough to simply stop and smell the flowers. We don’t have to take a picture, post it on Facebook, Tweet about it, or forward an account of the incident to everyone to whom we are LinkedIn. Fact is, that while all of our wonderful technology makes business and communication more efficient than ever, it can also contribute to stress.

As author Natalie Goldberg once observed: “Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.” How can we avoid getting stressed out about our increasingly hectic lives? Well, Tom Crouser suggests that we sort things into four categories—Urgent and Important, Important but Not Urgent, Urgent and Not Important, Not Urgent and Not Important—and then deal with them accordingly.

I also like the quotation from author James Carroll: “We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things [but] there are times when we stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.”

Have a happy and prosperous New Year and remember to slow down from time to time. It’s good for you.

I just finished my 2009 travel with a two-day trip to Los Angeles. As is often the case, the trip included an unscheduled hotel night in Atlanta due to a late arriving return flight. When you have a fully booked 767 that gets delayed at LAX for six hours, you’re sure to create some pretty testy reactions. This was certainly the case on this trip.

Despite being told that the delay was necessary in order to fix the airplane so it wouldn’t fall out of the sky, some folks seemed to take it personal. They griped, they argued, they insisted, they called for supervisors, and all too often, they shouted and screamed at the gate agents. None of which did squat to change the situation. Meanwhile, scattered throughout the gate area were individuals who seemed calm and contained. They had the right attitude—Zen, que sera sera, roll with the punches, don’t sweat the small stuff—whatever.

The importance of attitude cannot be overstated. I wonder if those folks who were screaming and swearing would want to hire, associate with, or date somebody who consistently behaved like they were behaving? QP columnist Deb Thompson preaches that we should hire attitude and teach skills. I don’t care how skilled those obnoxious passengers might be, I wouldn’t hire them. I would, however, look for the kind of attitude displayed by those who kept their cool in a bad situation.

This is my last blog for 2009, so I’ll leave you and the year with a quote from Carlos Castaneda: “The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.”

Best wishes for the New Year from all of us at Quick Printing.

It was only a matter of time before somebody suggested that perhaps Graph Expo/Print should not be an every year event. I couldn’t disagree more. Despite recent drops in attendance, the annual Graph Expo and its four-year rotation with the Print offer a valuable and necessary resource for the entire printing industry.

Not that long ago there were a number of regional printing trade shows serving the industry, but they have fallen by the wayside. Aside from Graph Expo/Print there are only two remaining shows that could be considered major events—Graphics of the Americas and On Demand. Both of these events have also suffered from attendance declines. GOA has become more and more oriented toward the Latin market and is no longer the major draw for North American printers it once was. On Demand is a digital-only show with no offset component, meaning it only represents one segment of the evolving printing industry.

Graph Expo/Print is the only show with offerings for all industry segments and it has continued to expand its coverage into areas such as wide-format, mailing services, newspapers, etc. It has attempted to change as the industry changes and has, for the most part, been fairly successful. As far as attendance goes, an improving economy might help some, but there needs to be an emphasis on attendee quality as opposed to attendee quantity. Sure, it’s nice for students to attend the show and learn about the industry. It’s also a perk for non-management employees to attend, but neither of these segments buy or recommend purchases.

Vendors have always had a love/hate relationship with trade shows and the recent economic turmoil hasn’t helped things but until there is an effective and efficient alternative to a well-run and comprehensive printing trade show Graph Expo/Print will remain a valuable and viable venue.

I have often said that I really like editing a magazine for the quick and small commercial printing industry. Quick Printing readers are mostly small business people with great entrepreneurial spirit and strong opinions, which they are not afraid to express. I don’t always agree with some of the opinions, but I never find them dull or boring. Not to disparage other industries, but I doubt it would be anywhere near as much fun to put out a magazine for accountants, concrete finishers, or proctologists. I doubt their conventions would be as much fun either.

Now I’m involved as executive editor with two other magazines, Printing News and Wide-Format Imaging. Are those industry segments as much fun as the quick and small commercial segment? Well, it’s really too early to tell, but there are certainly many similarities among the readership of the three publications. For one thing, they are all print service providers, or PSPs in the current jargon. For another, they all are finding that being just PSPs is not going to be enough to grow and prosper in the future.

Readers of all three publications are dealing with digital workflows, competition from electronic media, environmental concerns, business efficiencies, employee retention, equipment acquisitions, regulatory considerations, and a host of other common concerns. Sure, many readers of Printing News are larger commercial printers who also print in larger formats and most readers of Wide-Format Imaging often print even larger stuff on a wider variety of substrates, but the similarities outweigh the differences.

As we move into 2010, you can look for a more consistent exploration of these similarities across the three titles in both print and in our growing electronic media capabilities. Also look for more coverage of the capabilities, concerns, and opinions of their readers. In the meantime, you might want to take a look at the other two websites, www.Wide-FormatImaging.com and www.PrintingNews.com to see what their industry segments are dealing with as we all look to the future.

I’m a print addict, but I am under no illusion that I can improve the health of the printing industry by simply upping my dosage. That’s just too simple. We can’t just urge people to buy more print, we have to get them to buy print differently—as a vital part of the whole communications process.

Those who both predict and lament the decline and possible demise of print are part of a long line of folks who got this technology evolution thing wrong. Television did not kill the movies, as many predicted. In fact, it now provides an even more diverse outlet for films. TV didn’t kill radio either, partly because TV does not offer a drive-time audience. These three communications technologies co-exist quite nicely.

The same will be true with print and electronic communications, although just where and how that balance will be struck remains to be seen. Newspapers are now allowed to count certain online readers in their circulation audit. We put out 43,000 printed copies of our magazine, but we also have a wide variety of electronic products that are increasingly important profit centers. Most studies now show that print can effectively drive traffic to the Web and vice versa. That’s where the future of print lies—as an effective and integrated communications tool.