The NAQP Operating Ratio Study has a new name, but the value of the information hasn’t changed.

It used to be called the NAQP Operating Ratio Study, but for 2010 and beyond the name will be the Financial Benchmarking Survey. I’m not sure why the powers that be changed the name, but I’m glad to see that they didn’t change the survey itself. After all, it is one of the most valuable—if not the most sexy—studies done by the association.

The survey asks 65 key questions which can be answered by using a company’s 2009 year-end financial statements. Participants will get a free copy of the finished survey and an individually customized report which they can use to make a side-by-side comparison of their profit and loss statement, balance sheet, and key financial ratios with other printing companies. In the past, the offer of this free customized report has really encouraged participation. Survey author John Stewart says he expects even greater participation in the 2010 survey

You don’t have to be an NAQP or NAPL member to participate in the 2010 Financial Benchmark Survey, and I really think you’re missing a good bet if you don’t participate. (Printers who don’t participate will still be able to buy copy of the completed study.)

Email invitations to participate will go out in mid-February. If you do not receive one, you can still participate by going to www.surveyadvantage.com/NAQP10financial to download the survey, which can be submitted electronically or by mail. The drop-dead deadline is March 22, 2010. Don’t miss out on one of the best financial management tools available to our industry.

I just got the latest Economic & Print Market Flash Report from Printing Industries of America. There wasn’t anything really surprising in it. The economy should stabilize in 2010, along with printing shipments, and grow modestly in 2011. Conventional ink-on-paper printing will continue to decline in 2010 and stabilize in 2011. Etc. All that said, there will be some segments that will fare better than others. Among them, digital print, both toner-based and inkjet, should grow between 4% and 5% over the next two years. Meanwhile, ancillary services will also grow, by 2.7% in 2010 and 4% in 2011.

None of this is any reason to throw a party, but it is better news than we have been getting for the past couple of years. Right now that’s about all we can expect.

Well, we just got the February issue of Quick Printing out to the printer. It should be in your mailbox the first week in February and up on our website around the same time. Everybody knows that trade magazines in our industry don’t have as many pages as they used to, however we managed to get a lot of good content in the space we had available.

Karen interviews vendors on CTP advantages and trends, Nancy DeDiemar outlines the challenges ahead for printers, mailers, and the USPS, and John Giles discusses Quark Marketing Services and QR codes. Meanwhile, Dave Fellman talks about grabbing customers when a competitor goes out of business, and Tom Crouser points out the perils of letting an employee disrespect an owner’s spouse who works in the business. Finally, John Stewart leads off talking about printing scams and then shares the wisdom of a printer who has successfully transitioned out of his business into a comfortable retirement.

That’s just in the printed edition. Additional content that will be available exclusively at www.quickprinting.com includes a roundup of CTP products available to the quick and small commercial printer and a discussion about what makes a digital press different from a digital copier/printer. Also, while the printed edition only comes out once a month, you can find daily news updates on our website and get weekly industry information in this e-newsletter.

At Quick Printing we are well aware that technology is changing our industry and we are committed to using technology to keep our readers up to date on these changes and on the best business practices necessary for success. There may be fewer pages today, but that doesn’t mean less information.

Most printers understand the importance of marketing, but it somehow seems to get put on the back burner as they deal with production issues, personnel crises, selling efforts and the like. With most of the capabilities necessary to mount an effective marketing campaign, printers too often put their own marketing efforts last—if they do any marketing at all. Part of the problem is that marketing usually does not have an immediate and measurable result. It takes lots of repetition and often it is difficult to directly connect sales increases to specific marketing efforts.

What is the difference between marketing and advertising? For the most part, advertising promotes a product while marketing promotes a brand. That’s not to say both can’t be accommodated in the same vehicle. Papa John’s latest ad campaign has a marketing message and a product offer. “Better ingredients, better pizza—Papa John’s” is the marketing message, while two one-topping pizzas for $12.99 is the product offer. That’s pretty straightforward.

However, Domino’s latest marketing campaign puzzles me. Basically, it says that the company has been listening to customer complaints that its sauce tastes like ketchup and its crust tastes like cardboard and they are going to do better. Better crust, better cheese, better sauce—at least, better than that stuff we’ve been pushing for the last several years. That is one bummer of a marketing message. “We’ll try not to suck as bad as we did before.” The product offer: If you still don’t like it, we’ll give you your money back—all of it.

I’d call that “mea culpa marketing” and have serious doubts that it will accomplish much except to remind people of the reason they switched to Papa John’s in the first place.

We long ago gave up on the wild New Years Eve parties. Actually, we’ve pretty much given up on wild parties in general (with a few notable exceptions such as the Print 09 bash the magazines threw last fall for our readers and advertisers). So, while the ball was dropping in Times Square, we were sitting quietly on the couch sipping brandy and scratching the cat.

There is something to be said for slowing down from time to time. The constant barrage of electronic communications and social and business obligations takes its toll. It is quite enough to simply stop and smell the flowers. We don’t have to take a picture, post it on Facebook, Tweet about it, or forward an account of the incident to everyone to whom we are LinkedIn. Fact is, that while all of our wonderful technology makes business and communication more efficient than ever, it can also contribute to stress.

As author Natalie Goldberg once observed: “Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.” How can we avoid getting stressed out about our increasingly hectic lives? Well, Tom Crouser suggests that we sort things into four categories—Urgent and Important, Important but Not Urgent, Urgent and Not Important, Not Urgent and Not Important—and then deal with them accordingly.

I also like the quotation from author James Carroll: “We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things [but] there are times when we stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.”

Have a happy and prosperous New Year and remember to slow down from time to time. It’s good for you.