Quick Printing

Many of the printers I work with on a daily basis are reporting increased customer activity as schools start around the country. It is always good to hear about a bump in business, but it doesn’t overshadow the news of the demise of other printers. Printers continue to close their doors because they just don’t have enough business. There is still printing to be had out there, but you have to work harder to get it.

One basic task that will help quick printers survive is having sales activities. Customers need to know where you are and what you do. The only way that will happen is if you tell them. Printers have to get on the telephone and out of their offices to ask customers for their printing business.

How many sales calls are you making a day? A printer could increase sales if he would just call customers about reprinting the jobs that the printer already has on file for the customer. Most printers use computerized pricing programs that have a built-in tickler file. When you enter the original order, the CSR puts in an expected repeat date. The printer can then run a weekly or monthly report about what jobs are due to be reprinted. Printers I work with report that almost 20% of their sales volume comes from repeating work from existing customers. The regular call also uncovers things about the customer that the printer needs to know to keep the business. Making regular calls can let a printer find out if a print buyer has changed or if any other changes have happened with the customer. Printers who are sitting back and waiting for the customer to call them are waiting and waiting.

The same thing holds true with estimates and quotes. Printers constantly provide customers and prospects with prices. Successful printers follow up on the estimates and quotes to find out if they have the job. The calls also allow a printer to find out why he didn’t get a job. How many estimates do you have sitting in your computer right now?

Not only are these tasks simple, they give you a reason to call the customer. Study after study shows that most companies lose customers to inattention. If you aren’t reaching out and touching your customers on a regular basis, they may end up taking their business somewhere else. You want to be the first printer a company thinks about when they have a printing job to order.

The computer also has other good sales information. Have you compared your top 25 customers this year to the top 25 customers last year? Have you looked at who is buying more? Have you looked to see who is buying less? This list will show you which customers you need to be talking to and with who you may have to rebuild a relationship.

Printers have a ton of information on their computer that will make them money. The only thing a computer can’t do is make the call to the customer. Owners who make the call are going to be the ones who are still standing when the economy turns around.

Is your prepress department ready for the future? The role of the prepress department will expand and evolve as more services are added to the arsenal of products sold by printers. But before any printing company can add services, it has to be sure that the prepress department can handle the services now being sold.

Typesetting, design and file output are the standard services now offered by most printing companies. If you look closely at most financial statements, you’ll see that the prepress department is losing money because the printer isn’t charging enough to cover the department’s cost. As John Stewart says, prepress is a black hole.

To survive the future, the typical printers will have to attempt to reinvent themselves and offer more cross media services. Most of these services will be computer and Internet based so the logical department to produce the services is the current prepress department.

Print owners need to make sure their prepress department is making money today. Typesetting, design and customer file output should be profitable and not considered loss leaders. Printers can do this by using outside design and typesetting services to supplement the work produced in house. Printers can set standards for customer files and use the automation and workflow tools that come with most digital presses and direct-to-plate systems to cut production costs and increase profits.

It will be very difficult for a printing company to add additional services if the prepress departments are already losing money. If a prepress department is inefficient now or the prices charged for the service too low, then there will be no way to add other services to offset the current losses. If it isn’t profitable now it is never going to be.

You have to get ready for the future today. Make sure your sales people are charging fair and profitable prices for design and typesetting. Printers shouldn’t be giving away design work just to get the printing job. If you can’t produce it profitably in house, then use an outside vendor.

Automate now. Require customers to provide PDF files that are constructed according to your specifications. Use the hot folders and workflow systems that come with your equipment. Make the prepress staff learn how to use the tools properly.

It is up to the owner to make sure the changes happen. The owner needs to lead and make sure pricing for prepress tasks is correct and profitable. The owner has to make sure the staff is using the tools available to be more efficient. Printing is more competitive and as printing evolves it will be harder for the typical print shop to survive. You can no longer afford to live with a “black hole” in prepress sucking away profits. Unless you plug the profit leaks now, you won’t be able to add the new services that will be required to stay in business. The black hole may not just suck away prepress profits. It just might suck away your future.

Quick printers have a lot of technology at their fingertips, but it isn’t worth much unless customers need it. PDF files can automate the workflow, but printers don’t tell customers the benefits or how to use it. Online ordering is easy to provide to customers, but how is a customer suppose to learn about it? Printers buy technology because they think it will increase their sales. When it doesn’t, the printer is disappointed and disenchanted with technology.

The problem is that printers aren’t listening to their customers. Printers are just telling them about technology and hoping the customer is interested. They should be trying to find out what their customers need and what they want. They must find out the benefits the customer is seeking from a printer.

To be successful, printers are going to have to improve their listening skills. I’ve been helping a number of quick printers dissect their sales calls and the recurring problem is that the printer uses the first sales call to talk about his company—not to find out the needs of the customer. The printer is so afraid that he won’t get the chance to talk to the customer again, he hits the customer with everything he has. This leaves the customer confused and the printer looking like, well, just another printer.

Cool technology will get you in the door. Statements such as, “We can make your ordering easier using the Internet,” or “We can help you avoid problems submitting your files,” can get you in the door. Once you get there, you need to just listen. Ask questions. Find out what the customer needs. Find out his pain. Asking questions and listening will help you build a solid foundation for the relationship.

The standard practice of many printing salespeople is to list what they do and hope the customer has a need. If you will take time to learn about the customer, then you can begin using your experience to solve problems and offer benefits for using your company. Don’t start selling until the second appointment when you know something about the customer and really can help them with their printing needs.

This morning another printer asked me the question, “How can social networks such as Facebook and Twitter help my business?” That’s a good question because without a plan or focus, the printer may only be adding to the noise and clutter on the Internet. Social media tools need to be part of a complete selling program or they will just waste printers’ (and their customers’) time.

Facebook and Twitter are great tools to keep your face in front of the customer and develop a dialog about what the customer’s printing needs are and how you can fulfill them. Printers can use social media to promote their expertise and become a source for print information in their local cyber-community. With this viral marketing, you can solidify your relationship with current customers who will spread the word about your company. The payoff on social media is when prospects become interested in your service.

Social media fails most printers because they just do it and hope for results. Getting out your message via social media can be like putting your shop at a busy intersection and hoping customers will just drop in so you can try to sell them something. Just because you are there doesn’t mean people will come in and buy. You have to be proactive and be out in front of your customers, asking for the order. You have to have a purpose for your use of Facebook and Twitter. It has to compliment the other sales activities you do. That purpose should be to either get the customer to contact you or to let the customer know who you are when you make the sales call.

To get started, I recommend that you use Facebook and Twitter to drive customers to your website and your blog. You should have an interactive website that has information to make print buying and ordering easier. You should have a blog that has information to help your customers and explain the benefits of printing. You should also be trying to capture information about your site’s visitors so you can begin a dialog with them. You want to give the impression to the customer that you are the printer from whom they should be buying.

Combining social media with direct mail, outgoing telephone sales calls, and face-to-face sales opportunities will increase the sales activities that will generate new sales. Even in printing, selling is a numbers game, and the more times you touch a customer and ask for the sale, the more successful you will become.

If you are printer, you need to invest in a smartphone. A smartphone is a cell phone with an Internet browser and a camera. What it does is open a new service opportunity for printers called mobile marketing.

Mobile marketing links the print world with the Internet. By scanning a QR code that is on a printed piece, a smartphone user can be instantly directed to an Internet page on their smartphone’s browser. Mobile marketing is big in Europe and the Far East and it is just hitting the US. Printers should see any company that sells a product and has a website asking about including a QR code on their printed marketing material.

Haven’t heard about QR codes? A recent episode of CSI New York featured a QR code as a clue in an investigation. The National Basketball Association used a QR code for a promotion during half time at this year’s All-Star game. HBO ran a special QR code in a television ad during the final episode of Lost. QR codes are quickly going mainstream in North America.

If you are a printer, buy a smartphone and make sure you have a QR code reader application downloaded. You need the application to read the QR code. Then you will need to learn how to create QR codes for your customer. It is a simple process that is explained through hundreds of YouTube videos online.

What is exciting is that mobile marketing will drive printing as more customers try to drive eyes to their websites. The QR code uses are unlimited and can make printed material even more powerful when linked to the Internet.

Now printers will ready need to get a functional website to promote mobile marketing.

People buy from people, but for some printers, it looks like their shop is a cold and impersonal facility with equipment and that’s all.

Most quick printers could benefit by making their websites more personal and welcoming to customers. Photos of the staff and facilities will make the site more recognizable to visitors. Personalization should also include individual email addresses for the CSR, prepress, and bookkeeping staff to make customers comfortable with contacting specific individuals.

Many printing websites avoid any personalization. It is almost impossible to find a photo of an actual employee. I dare you to find contact information for a real person other than the company telephone number or a generic email address such as info@quickprintcompany.com. If you have a question, who would you call? If you work with someone at the shop, how do you contact them other than by telephone? What if you want to leave a message after working hours?

Experts say a personalized website is more welcoming and attracts more visitors. Personalization makes it easier to communicate and develop a relationship with customers online.

I recommend asking a few of your friends and associates to give you their honest opinions about how welcoming your site is. Does the website feel like it is an interface with a group of people behind it ready to help you? Or is it just another faceless information page on the Web? How does it compare to your competitors? Do they have a site that welcomes you to find out more about their company?

Since most printers aren’t very proactive when seeking work, they will need to make their websites as warm, friendly, and hospitable as possible so a person will want to contact them for more information.

More and more businesses get their first impression of another business from the Internet. You need to make sure you are putting your best face forward.

Does anyone have anything positive to say about the quick printing industry? Many of the quick printers I talk to have a negative attitude about quick printing industry. They lament the changes and talk about how their customer base is shrinking. They point fingers at competitors such as Staples and Office Max or FedEx and the UPS stores and say those businesses are taking their customers with cheap copies. They complain about lazy employees who won’t do anything or equipment suppliers who keep the costs high. Everyone is out to get them.

I can’t agree. Most of these complainers are business owners who are in charge of their own destinies. They just fail to do the basic business functions any business needs to do to survive. They don’t maintain adequate financial records to know how they are doing. They don’t make sales calls. They think making a delivery of a completed job and asking if there is any other printing is a sales activity. They don’t train their employees. They don’t take advantage of the technology they have.

Of course, the industry is changing and you will have to adapt, but you can still make money in quick printing. There are printers doing just that. Those printers get out and talk to customers and prospects. They use the technology that is available to them. They make it easier for customers to buy printing. The successful printers are proactive and get in front of customers with ideas and solutions that can be provided by a printed piece.

If you are a quick printer, I have one question: how many sales calls have you made this week? If you aren’t out asking for new business then you will probably be one of those people who are complaining about the printing industry. If you are talking to customers and learning what they need, you are going to have a better attitude because you will find out there are businesses buying printing. You will know what changes to your company you will have to make to survive in the future. You just have to make a sales call and ask for their business.

QP Editor Bob Hall’s recent comments about offset being at the crossroads are correct. Printing is changing and the equipment used to produce the equipment is changing. But just because the amount of offset sales dropped doesn’t mean the end for the printing industry.

Many quick printers build their business on providing convenience printing for the printed material needed to run a business. The desktop computing revolution has eliminated that work. No longer does a business stop by to get copies. Almost anyone who owns a computer has a printer attached that can take care of those needs.

There is still money to be made in printing, serving the small business customer. The printing shift is from functional forms to sales material. Printing is still the most powerful and cost effective way for small businesses to reach customers. With the new technology, especially in color, printers can produce high quality work that can be used to help a business sell something to someone.
I’m not talking about developing a marketing and advertising program for a business. I’m talking about reproducing the basic sales material customers need to sell their products and services. It doesn’t require a marketing degree or advertising savvy. All it requires is a printer talking to a customer and letting the customer know what a printer can do to help his business. 

The printers who are going to succeed and grow their businesses are the ones who actually get out and talk to customers about printing and stop waiting for customers to call them because they mailed out a postcard a couple of months ago.