Not surprisingly, color continues to erode the black & white market and will account for 77% of revenue from equipment, supplies, and services by 2014. We often think of color printing as full coverage color printing, but in areas such as transactional printing color is light coverage. Somewhat surprising is that what InfoTrends calls “a significant number” of monochrome pages are being printed on color machines.

Overall, InfoTrends expects continued declines in the printing industry through 2014 with one exception. It forecasts growth in digital color printing because of shorter runs, personalization, and fast turnaround requirements. All in all, nothing much new, but another signpost on the way to the future of printing.

Bill and I never know how people will react to our articles and publications. However, one recent response on our new book was totally unexpected. Our book “No More Rotten Eggs – A Dozen Steps to Grade AA Talent Management” got into the library of the federal prison just south of Tucson. As a result, we have been invited to spend a few hours at the prison on my birthday, August 11, meeting with inmates who are learning how to adapt to life upon release.

One of the classes being developed by an inmate will focus on how to be “A Good Egg.” They want us to come down and provide some guidance based on our book and our staffing experiences. I hope we do okay so they will let us back out.

The two franchise systems will wrap their annual conferences around the trade show with one before and one after the two-day event at Caesar’s Palace. The show is expected to attract some 150 vendors and around 600 attendees—double what was usually found at the individual trade shows in the past. Add to that the fact that Minuteman is having its own conference a week later at the same hotel and you should have a bunch of happy vendors.

It will be interesting to see how this all works out. I doubt if there will be fisticuffs should a franchisee from one system run into a franchise from the other system at the show, but there probably will be some grumbling. If this all pans out, look for continued pressure from vendors to get other systems to go the joint-venture route.

Back in 1990, printers were charging $2.61 for one copy of one original and $1.14 each for 500 copies of one original. Five years ago, that had dropped to $1.07 and 51 cents, respectively. Today, the average price of one copy of one original is 72 cents and the price of 500 copies of one original is 39 cents. The average cost per copy of all color copy jobs has fallen from $1.64 in 1990 to 41 cents today. That said, most printers report being relatively satisfied about their color copy business, perhaps because they are no longer depending on the one-offs and are concentrating on larger jobs that are suited for today’s more sophisticated equipment.

On the self-serve copy side, it appears that this small but once ubiquitous profit center has all but disappeared. For one thing, yesterday’s customers now have their own basic copying capabilities. Also, the annoyance and lost time associated with walk-in convenience copy customers has prompted printers to deemphasize the service or drop it all together. Some have kept it as a community service, but its days as a standard offering in modern print shops are certainly over.

Of those who are using social media, only 1.1% say it is already an important part of their marketing and communications practices, while 37.8% say social media are somewhat important now and will become more important over the next three years.

What are the most used social media choices by those printers who are getting social? LinkedIn is by far the tops at 44.7%. That is followed by 29.8% using Facebook, 14.4% using Twitter, and 10.1% using You Tube or other video. Another 10.1% are using blogs, while 8% rely on online forums.

There is no question that social media are becoming more a part of printers’ marketing and communications toolbox, but it’s clear that there remains a reluctance to get involved and a lack of knowledge about how social media can be used effectively. It will be interesting to see how all this shakes out over the next year or so.

• See how printing and other services are valued by print buyers.
• Learn about social media in a three-track program for the novice, the knowledgeable, and the expert.
• Find out how marketing is done right.
• Learn how to price integrated services.
• Discover how to communicate your green initiatives, be they large or small.
• Find the secrets to getting you best customers to buy more and buy more often.

This is only a partial roster of highlights that also include the annual Supplier Showcase featuring vendors who specifically market to this segment of the printing industry. The NAQP Owners Conference is the only industry event specifically for owners or general managers of quick, small commercial, or digital printing operations with 25 or fewer employees. Don’t miss this opportunity to fine tune your business and learn from both industry experts and your peers.

I’m tired of reading material written by folks who don’t understand us. I think Forbes is one of the biggest offenders. AOL put Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Airlines, as chairman of their Small Business Board of Directors. Then there’s the likes of Inc. and Entrepreneur that assume all of us want to float an IPO (initial public offering) and get rich. And then there’s the flip side: those who treat us as self-employed and give us stories about five helpful iPhone Apps and the like. Okay, here’s the real scoop.

An entrepreneur is one who brings together the forces of land, labor, and capital and makes a profit. Lesson one is that a self-employed person is not an entrepreneur; rather they are self-employed because they employ themselves only. Nothing wrong with that audience, but that audience isn’t us.

We employ others and, as such, can take a paid vacation, for the business goes on making us money when we aren’t there. At least, it is supposed to do so. Those who are working exclusively for themselves, whether doing accounting, lawyering, or cutting grass can’t do that because if they don’t work, they don’t earn. Therefore, we real entrepreneurs have employees and real people headaches. That’s one.

Two is that we are not ever going to take our business public through an IPO. Some of us may dream of that and a few may even do it, but the vast majority of us will not. So we don’t need to know about VCs (venture capitalists). The funds for our business come from our retirement account, savings, credit cards and/or any other way we can scrounge around for a few bucks to get started. And since either the cash or the credit belongs to the family, that’s why I say we are family-based rather than market-based (as in selling stock on a broad scale). And, by the way, there are about 20,000 public companies in the U.S. and about 12-15 million of ones like us.

Three is that we are geographically oriented. We didn’t get here by figuring out the best gizmo and then moving to where gizmos were needed. No, we are where we are usually because of our family or happenstance. We look around and think, “Gee, wonder what I can do here to make a living.” And then we open that kind of a business.

Four is that we are a lifestyle business. The reason I say that is if we were all about profit we’d all be junk dealers or auctioneers because they usually have the most cash in the neighborhood. No, we’re about a lifestyle: something that has hours that agree with us, something that doesn’t require us to travel all of the time, something that allows us to hold our head high at the Rotary meeting, and something that, preferably, we have an interest in.

There’s more, but I’ve got better things to do than give lectures to the big magazines about doing some market research on us before filling our in-box with stuff that is too farfetched (IPOs) or too trivial (social media will save your business).

In looking at my travel schedule, it dawned on me that these events–and others like them–are proof that despite all the doom and gloom there are many signs that our industry segment is still alive and kicking.

At the AlphaGraphics event, I’ll be presenting awards to a group of franchisees being singled out for their contributions to the system and to fellow AlphaGraphics printers. That is only one of many awards scheduled to honor franchisee success.

At the Epson meeting, I’ll get a sneak preview of a new offering aimed at our market. To me, this indicates a confidence in the quick and small commercial printing industry on the part of a major manufacturer.

Finally, I’ll be presenting awards to the PIP and Sir Speedy top sales volume franchisees, along with awards to all of the franchisees who made this year’s Quick Printing Top 100 roster. Again, these awards show that success is possible under almost any economic circumstance.

I’m reminded of a quote I once ran across in a sales training book: “Success in life comes not from holding a good hand, but from playing a poor hand well.”

This year, the Show Daily will also be available in a digital eBook version that will have embedded video. This will offer show information in digital form and is a reflection of the digital developments reshaping our industry. I certainly hope that you will be attending Graph Expo, simply because it is the premier event for the printing industry in North America. And I also hope you will send along your thoughts on what you would like to see in the 2010 Graph Expo Show Daily.

Thanks!