It’s time to get on with it - Harry Brelsford
The printing industry has been down in the dumps for so long that it’s forgotten how to look up. Well, enough is enough, says Harry Brelsford. As the end of another tough year draws to a close, now is the time to put a positive foot forward and regain our passion for print.
There is no denying that our industry has been overwhelmed by gloom and doom over the past few years. It seems that every day some printing establishment or other is closing its doors or there are claims of how new media is taking over the printed page, bookstores are closing, or the anti-paper lobby is gaining ground. This all takes a toll on our passion for the industry.
When a printing business shuts down it causes untold hardship, especially for long-term employees, and often devastation, loss of residence and even marriage break-up for the owner.
The harsh reality though is that, for the survivors, it means fewer competitors. It means the work that the closed business was doing for their customers now has to be done by some other printer. The market evens out and becomes sustainable again even though it may not be highly profitable until such time as the economy starts to grow again.
I believe that there are indications, based on our own experiences at Varsity Graphics on the Gold Coast, that the industry is coming back into balance even though it will never be the same as prior to the GFC. In stating this I am aware that unemployment levels in our town are higher than average, tourism is down and, according to the amount of plan printing we now do compared to prior to 2008, the construction industry is dead. But other sectors in our business are doing OK and we recently upgraded some of our equipment.
So we have confidence in the future and that was before we learned about the Gold Coast winning the bid to host the 2118 Commonwealth Games. Hopefully this will add some new projects into the works over the next few years. If nothing else it will help build confidence with our clients. And we all know that confidence is the single most critical ingredient necessary for turning our economy around.
I believe it is now time to get on with it, get some passion back into what we do and make our businesses grow and prosper. Here are three aspects to consider in order to start growing and improving our businesses.
Raise your prices
Impossible, I hear you say? The market is now price-driven and once loyal customers now simply shop for the lowest price. Yes, and most of those printers who bowed totally to customer demands for lower prices over the past few years are now in some other industry.
Pricing is crucial as we claw our way back to prosperity and whilst we may think it is almost impossible to raise prices it is something we have to face. We have to start thinking about how we are going to do it. Growth and security only come from running a viable business. Our industry is notorious for low margins and low profitability compared to other sectors. We are not a greedy industry, most of us simply want to make a decent living.
Raising prices has a lot to do with our confidence as business owners, managers or sales people. If we stand firm and unwavering when the price issue comes up we have a far better chance of winning the order at our quoted price than if we start to waver and show weakness when presenting the quote. Don’t ask for the opportunity to meet lower quotes.
Back in the mid 90s we had a construction company that ordered around $4,000 worth of plan printing per month, which is a nice account in our town. Our prices were competitive but one day they called to advise that due to the amount spent with us they were looking at installing their own plan printer, unless we could lower our prices. I made an appointment to see them.
A couple of months earlier I had attended a printing conference in the US with one of the sessions featuring Larry Steinmetz, famous for teaching business owners ‘How to sell at margins higher than your competitors’. I had bought a set of his tapes which I was listening to in the car at the time when the issue with our plan printing customer came up, and I decided to put what I was learning into practice.
I drew up a chart on how much it costs to buy and operate a plan printer which I took to the meeting. There were three tough construction industry veterans at the table who seemed quite accustomed to pressuring their suppliers. I went in with the attitude that we had lost the customer so nothing to lose. I ran over the numbers on my chart with my major card being that they would need to employ someone full time to operate the machine. We carried on and then I brought silence to the room when I told them that through me doing this calculation I had come to realise that we were actually undercharging and, unfortunately, from now on we had to raise our prices by 10 per cent.
They still used us for another few years at the raised prices until they went out of business due to a collapse in their industry.
Yes, this is the exception, not the rule, but the point is if we have the confidence to stand our ground, argue our case, especially when offering a reliable service and a good product then we have a much better chance of winning the order at our price.
I won’t deny that there are many customers who will simply buy at the lowest price but these are not the customers we want. If your order book is filled with these bargain basement shoppers then you need to start weening yourself off them and find customers who appreciate your quality and service and are prepared to pay a fair price for it. Remember, a customer you win on price, you will lose on price.
Recently another extremely price-sensitive customer called me for a quote on some large format prints. He told me outright that my price was always too high whilst I said we couldn’t go any lower or we wouldn’t be here next month. I argued we could do the job quickly and that our quality was good. He said he knew our quality was good but the price was too high, and put the phone down. An hour later he called back with the order. I am not saying we can do this all the time but there is no point giving a discount to picky customers who also often seem to be the ones who take the longest time to pay.
I well remember the one question Larry Steinmetz put to us at his presentation in the US. He asked who in the room was wearing the cheapest shirt they could buy. Nobody raised their hand. The fact is some people are happy to take their kids to school in a Toyota Corolla, others need to be seen in a Range Rover. The point is not everybody buys on price and it is often the printing business owner or sales rep who is more obsessed with price than the buyer who is looking for a solution to his or her problem.
Whilst building your client base with these more reasonable, appreciative customers will take some time, it should be a major long-term goal. Go to Larry Steinmetze’s website and order his book, How to sell at margins higher than your competitors, and leave it on your desk as a reminder of what you should be doing. Also consider his $235 DVD called Raising prices and making them stick. Go to
Be more confident
Our economy is in better shape than just about every other country yet, according to a NAB survey, our business confidence is lower than even the USA where conditions are much worse than ours. Their housing market is a disaster, the US government has overspent the taxpayers credit card by $15 trillion whilst their postal service is on the brink of bankruptcy. I could go on. So why is our confidence lower than the US? We base our decisions and our outlook on the information we receive and if the whole country is down in the dumps then perhaps the answer is to turn off or tune out the news, especially TV news. In your car, turn off the radio and listen to music or motivational CDs.
It’s all bad news and it is not going to stop. If it isn’t the collapse of Greece or the fall of Rome, it will be Spain or another war looming in the Middle East. If there is not enough bad news from Europe or the USA they will tell us about China having problems. Closer to home we can’t seem to get away from the fear of rising oceans and rising taxes that are going to devastate our economy. Most of it is opinion, not fact.
Consider all the catastrophic predictions over the last decade or so, yet not a lot has changed. The bird and swine flu pandemics never materialised, the ozone hole seems to have gone away, there is increasing evidence to suggest that man-made CO2 is not warming the planet. The nuclear power station damaged by the tsunami in Japan got no end of coverage expecting the worst yet there was not a single fatality from radiation. At the same time, in another story, E.coli-infected organically-grown vegetables in Europe killed 45 and sickened 3,000 people. Go figure.
Ironically the GFC which dramatically affected our lives was not predicted; most experts were saying everything was just fine. This means there is no real benefit from watching the news; turn it off. From what I hear, there is a growing trend to turn off the news, especially by those who strive to live a positive life. The important news still gets through and your outlook on the future will improve as will your confidence to stand your ground and argue your case for quality, price and dependable service.
Be faster, more remarkable, more human
According to best selling author, blogger and agent of change, Seth Godin, that is what we need to do in order to survive and prosper into the future. His book, Linchpin, is worth reading.
Becoming faster is simply a customer expectancy of the printing industry and it is unlikely this is going to change anytime soon. When you are able to produce the customers’ needs faster than your competition you gain an advantage because the customer starts working to your new shorter timeframe which nobody else can meet.
You may argue that those customers who want things in a hurry are more likely to be unhappy with their printing or delay payment or simply don’t come back after you make a special effort. And yes, there is a percentage who spoil it for your other customers, but you need to have a system that allows for urgent jobs to be completed ahead of larger production jobs. When you can produce the rabbit out of the hat when really needed you are regarded as more remarkable and word spreads.
And it may sound like a contradiction, but to become more human, to be better able to serve the needs of your good customers, you need to fire some of your troublesome customers. These are the ones who cause you to treat the next customer poorly. According to Seth Godin, a customer should be fired when they distract you and your staff from delighting customers who are reasonable.
Being more human also means taking a greater interest in what your customer is trying to achieve with their printing. There may not be much opportunity for this when the customer re-orders 20,000 DL flyers by email, but when you and your staff do get the opportunity then asking what they are trying to achieve with their printing, in order that you may be able to offer them the benefit of your experience in getting a higher return or presenting a better image, has to be seen as a benefit. And one of the most basic things, keeping your customer regularly informed of the status of their jobs, especially when there are problems, will still set you above many of your competitors.
So now is the time to get on with it. The printing industry is battered and bruised but there is still a lot of printing being done and some printing that was moved to new media has not worked and a percentage will no doubt revert to printing. The industry is still one of the country’s largest and we should be proud to be a part of it. And I was encouraged recently when hearing a young person who had grown up reading from a computer screen saying, “It is not real until it is printed”.
In order to grow and prosper over the next few years, the bottom line requires that we build our immunity to bad news. We also need to regain some of our passion for printing and get on with it. I am not saying blind yourself to reality but making progress, growing our businesses or departments requires a totally positive attitude and mental toughness. Start raising your prices, start selling the benefits of your printing, make your customers look and feel good. Start saying, ‘I wish we could lower our prices but we just can’t, but you know your job will be done right and on time and it will project your image the way you want it’.
Harry Brelsford runs Varsity Graphics on the Gold Coast with his daughter, Sharon, and a young team which is passionate about printing.