Published Articles

Published in: GreensheetBIZ - September 26, 2011

If you intend to remain in business - and prosper - then your No. 1 priority needs to be business development. Why? Because customers ultimately determine who stays in business! This issue of GreensheetBIZ covers this important topic and offers significant, valuable advice.

Published in: In-Plant Graphics / September 2011

How can your in-plant get the equipment and services it needs when the coffers are empty? Try some new approaches.

Here's the situation: you need to update your equipment, but your financial circumstances say, "There are no funds available." So how do you buy what you need, so you can continue to improve your operating performance, when there's no cash, and no budget approved for needed equipment?

Published in: GreensheetBiz.com / September 12, 2011

"Quite often we look but we don't see," said Mother Teresa. For print service providers, there are multiple pitfalls that can "catch you." We explore many of them throughout this edition, but we'll first focus on THE pitfall that, if you don't attend to, you're all but guaranteed to go down in ashes: generating new business - from current customers!

Published: IDEAlliance + IPA Bulletin - 4th Quarter

And Associations don't promote the facts

Most of us know the days of customers calling with specs for us to quote are all but over - unless we're pursing and serving the low-margin broker market.

CUSTOMERS WANT PARTNERS

Customers instead are looking for partners who can provide them with far more than competitively priced printing. Customers want partners who can provide advice and support on how to more effectively use print - sometimes with other communication media - to improve their revenue streams and economic performance.

Published: IDEAlliance + IPA Bulletin - 4th Quarter 2010

Several years ago, I repeatedly nagged a client to start his own hometown publication. After a year or so, he confessed, "Sid, I've come to the conclusion that it's easier to start-up the publication than to continue listening to your argument as to why I should do it."

Today, his small-town monthly publication runs 72 pages, with approximately 50 percent ads. It is his company's single largest project in terms of dollars contributed toward the bottom line. One small difference, however, is that his company owns the creative and all revenue streams. That awareness and financial success led to the start-up of a second publication for a nearby town two months ago.

"Give me a stock clerk and I will give you a man who will make history. Give me a man without a goal, and I will give you a stock clerk." - James Cash Penney, J.C. Penney

Published: Graphic Impressions, August/September 2010

"Progress I'm in favor of, it's change I'm against." - Mark Twain

A Customized Customer Survey conducted for your organization to current customers should identify for you: (a) what needs to change, (b) where there's immediately more business that you don't know about, and (c) what your current customers are interested in discussing - and buying, which - as an opinion - is at least partly why most organizations don't want to conduct a customer survey - because such information means tomorrow your activities should be anything but business as usual.

Published: Dscoop Quarterly (A Cooperative of Indigo Users and HP) - Vol 4/Issue 2 - April 2010

"You've exceeded what you promised, saved us cash flow beyond what we thought possible, increased our revenues and customer base, and allowed us to increase the number of marketing promotions, with lower required break even points. And what won't show on the income statement is that you've radically changed how we work with our marketing folks."

Published: IPA Bulletin - March/April 2010

To some degree, too many organizations in our great industry appear to have lost their way. We need to keep focused on the correct answers to: Why are we here and what's our mission?

I was reviewing with the sales representative his most recent dozen or so quotations. They appeared on the surface to be your typical specification-driven quotations, including customer and supplier quote numbers, when quote was needed, specifications, and pricing for several quantities.

Published: Graphic Impressions - February/March 2010

INTRODUCTION

Almost every client I've worked with over twenty-three years has what I'll call "House Accounts." Those are accounts that tend to buy something over the course of a year.

However, when I ask, "Who's responsible for developing revenues and improved margins in these accounts?" And individually, "Is this all the printing this customer buys?" The answers too often are something that sounds like, "All of us sort of take care of them when they call us."