I am traveling on business in Ohio, visiting Cyril Scott. So, posting is and will be light – at least until my fingers thaw out again.

Recently, I have posted several articles about the confused marketplace and printers re-inventing themselves to sound “cool” or perhaps confuse buyers as to who they really are.

I saw this breif video this morning posted on what they think, and it about sums it up – from a print buyers perspective. I encourage you to watch it!

Print buyer and marketing exec Brittany Fenning: What “marketing services provider” means

Value added services should be embraced by both printers and clients alike, but printers need to keep in mind what their core competencies are, and how they can truly help a client.

Those of us in sales often look upon November and December as the two biggest sales months of the year. Not so much because of the volume of work, but because these months are looked at as “planning” months for the next calendar years activities. What are our customers needs going to be? How can we help them meet those goals? What will our product mix be this year compared to prior years? What do we need to do to continue to be a good resource to our clients and help them meet their goals? With the PIA  predicting a 2.5% drop in print sales next year (on the heels of a 4.5% decline in 2009),  the number of US printing plant closures at an all time high (the number of plants falling by 18% this year alone), and the report only yesterday that October shipments were down 13%. We as printers* need to be even more diligent in our planning.

I am building my 2010 plan around these 5 key assumptions:

• My clients will have to deal with a continued spate of fiscally unstable printers, and plant closures. Short term, that means that they will be benefiting from what I like to call “unsustainable pricing”. The good news? This level of pricing in not sustainable. The bad news – the value of what we print will be forever reduced in the eyes of our customers.

• With the number of opportunities decreasing, the average print buyer/marketing executive will become even more inundated by printers “cold-calling” to get the chance to “quote” on a project (those reps without a plan will simply rely on “making more calls”)

• With the increased workload being put on the shoulder of print-buyers/marketers, now more than ever they will be considering a single source solution for their communication needs. Seem far fetched? Look here (a PDF Doc will open).

• Printers will be scrambling to re-invent themselves. Hey – look at us – we do PURL’s, we are a marketing firm! Look over here – we do e-Brochures, we are multi-media experts! Hey – we have mailing in house – we are now data experts! Look – our pre-press department is slow – we can design that for you! This re-invention will create a confused market place. Who are THE experts in any given arena? And, more importantly, how will the client know the answer to that question?

• Sustainability; it has been a been a key issue on the west coast for the better part of three years and is now catching on in the mid-west and east coast. Now that it will be the “assumed” that every player is going to have at least one sustainable COC certification, How will we continue to differentiate ourselves as printer’s in this arena? And, can we quantify those statements?

So, with those key assumptions, I continue to build my plan for 2010. Will my plan be effective? Only time will tell.

Are you a print buyer? A designer? A marketer? A Printer? How do you my assumptions sound to you? What challenges are you facing that I am not seeing? How can a printer* do their job better in 2010 to help you meet your goals? Leave me a comment, or drop me a note – I am going to post some more thoughts – and will include any great ones that I missed!

Drop me a note, let me know what you think!

* I am using the term “printer” in its most simplified form, understanding that we must be well versed in all disciplines of marketing communications to be successful now and into the future

The U.S. Postal Service has some mailers in a panic because it is reportedly planning to issue complex, last-minute changes to the rules for Full-Service Intelligent Mail discounts.

Not to worry: After getting a sneak peak at the rules that will supposedly be released Friday to mailers and to the employees who will enforce the rules, Dead Tree Edition offers this simple, exclusive analysis: Using Full-Service Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMbs, AKA FUBAR codes) is like having a first-class cabin on a luxurious cruise ship — The Titanic.

In The Postage Discount No Mailer Wants, Dead Tree Edition explained two days ago a few of the ways the FUBAR code has been a disaster so far. As if to underscore that article’s point, postal officials revealed to some mailers today a number of rules changes that they might announce on Friday for implementation three days later on what Lisa Bowes at Intelisent is calling Black Monday. The Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) noted that the proposed changes have to do with “Full-Service IMb Verification procedures and error tolerances and postage consequences.

Bowes sums up postal executives’ thinking on the FUBAR code this way: “Let’s acknowledge that there are major issues with Intelligent Mail, but proceed as if ‘everything is fine’ anyway.”

Another of her top ten thoughts today from the “Intelligent Mail think tank”: “Let’s write and then continually edit/update at least a dozen different guides and specifications necessary to do Full Service Intelligent Mail.”

I know what you’re thinking: “OK, Mr. Tree, I’m so interested in these new rules that I can’t wait until Friday. I’ve already called my relatives to tell them I’m skipping Thanksgiving dinner to get to work on this, so give me the details.”

Here you go: They’re rearranging the chairs on the deck, and the captain insists on trying to break the record for fastest crossing of the Atlantic. Yes, this will be an historic trip. No, you don’t want to be on it.

For the foreseeable future, that’s all you need to know about Full-Service Intelligent Mail.

Courtesy of:  Dead Tree Edition

I have had the chance to participate in a recent “vendor” review with a long term client as they have been put in the uncomfortable situation of having multiple print vendors close their doors.

In an effort to continue the transparency aspect of this blog – my client felt that I was “uniquely” qualified to help them, as I was at the helm of one of the shops that closed and was employed by yet another as a sales manager. They reached out to me to help them establish some “criteria” by which to judge current and future print relationships (and yes, my current employer remains on their active vendor list after undergoing the vetting process).

Over a series of posts, I am going to share some of the ideas and suggestions that they implemented.

Fiscal Stability (part 1):

Ask for recent financial’s.

Not fiscal year end, but quarterly reports. If they are fiscally stable, they should have no problem sharing these with you. Some vendors will react negatively to your request, and they have every right to. You are asking to see their profit and loss. I advised my client, that if the vendor was wiling to do so, they too must be willing to share with them their most recent quarter/yearly print spend.   You must also be willing to sign a confidentiality agreement or a NDA. Almost every print vendor you look at will be showing a loss – but you need to dive in deeper – are the losses growing?  Are they cutting costs? Do their numbers fit within industry guidelines (there are some real simple metrics to look for in regards to billing per employee etc available from the Printing Industries of America or PIA). You want to make sure that they have the current fiscal stability to weather this financial storm while still being able to afford you strategic cost savings (a great reason to show them your print spend – how can they benchmark any savings if they don’t have a starting point? A real starting point).

A CPA or a CFO can look at these numbers in a second and give you a pretty accurate guess as to the stability of the company in question. If my client were to have looked at my financials, they would have seen a debt to equity ratio that was out of whack, and lack of cash reserves, and COG (or, “Factory Expenses”) that was in excess of 83% (based upon industry standards I should have been at <75%) and COS (Cost of Sales) in excess of 12% (Again, based off of industry standards, I should have been <9%).

Resources:
“Rules of the Road”: The PIA Ratios

Bottom-line, if you are looking for a long term, mutually beneficial relationship – you need to be willing to ask some hard questions, share some information and be willing to spend time talking with your vendors about the economy and your cost savings goals. They are relying on your continued relationship as much as you are relying on theirs.

I look forward to your thoughts and feedback.

steve@puttingdotsonpaper.com