Despite some recent signs of slight economic improvements, the overall economic outlook remains gloomy. So it isn’t surprising that quick and small commercial printers expect 2011 sales to wind up flat, according to NAPL/NAQP’s most recent survey of this segment. Back in May, those surveyed anticipated a gain in the five percent range. Maybe springtime puts people in perkier moods than does late fall.

However, in looking more closely at the findings, we see that around 40 percent of respondents expect 2011 sales growth, compared to 31 percent who expect sales to decline. So, while the average of the group points to flat sales, a healthy chunk of respondents see sales gains.

The point is that averages are just that. Could the economy be better? Of course. Would that translate directly to sales growth? Maybe or maybe not. My read is that those printers who expect growth are not worrying too much about economic conditions. They are doing what they need to do to grow sales and profits—adapting their job mix to meet changing demand, running more efficiently, marketing themselves, and, above all, going out and selling something.

Some predictions are that it will take years for the economy to recover to pre-recession levels. That may be so, but it isn’t going to do anybody any good to sit around and wish that things were better. Things are what they are and it appears that some 40 percent of printers have figured that out and are dealing with it.

I’ve mentioned before that we do our best to keep the printing presses rolling by subscribing to a raft of magazines from Time to Smithsonian to Bark. This time of year we double and triple our contribution to the printing industry when all of the holiday catalogs start showing up in our mailbox.

We returned from vacation Sunday and waiting for us after our short four-day jaunt were the following catalogs: Signals, PBS, The Great Courses, Nature’s Jewelry, Catalog Favorites, What on Earth, Smithsonian, Potpourri, Southwest Indian Foundation, Heifer, Wind & Weather, Wine Country Gift Baskets, Wireless, Old Durham Road, Personal Creations, and GaelSong.

These all went into the magazine box to join a couple of dozen of their brethren that had arrived earlier. No doubt this week will bring even more examples of quality 4/4 magazines and catalogs.

This catalog collection proves a few things. First, once you buy anything from a catalog you will be on their mailing list forever. Second, companies buy each other’s mailing lists, so one purchase can lead to many more catalogs. Finally, although you have the option to order by mail, by phone, by fax, or online, it is far easier to purchase online.

We do at least thumb through each of these catalogs and we often run across an item that strikes our fancy, but which we never would have gone looking for online. After all, when was the last time you went online to look for: a circle of cats, a personalized casserole dish, a hound dog pencil holder, a kinetic pinwheel garden sculpture, a wood weather station, a Zuni rattlesnake, a hippo collectable box, an Albert Einstein bobble-head doll, yoga frogs, a solar mosaic dachshund, handcrafted penguin earrings, or a flying witches tea light holder?

If you’re interested in any of the above, I can give you the details and the website you can access to place your order. They’re each in one of the catalogs that were waiting for us when we got home.

The latest color copier survey by Larry Hunt’s Color Copy News shows that color copy volume is on the rebound.

We all know that the economy has had very adverse effects on our industry but we are increasingly seeing signs of recovery, however modest. One of the more recent is from Larry Hunt’s latest color copier survey. In the last survey, only 33% of respondents said their color copy growth was good or excellent while 56% said there was no growth or a decline in volume. In this year’s survey, 45% said color copy growth was good or excellent and only 15% reported no growth or a decline.

As Dirck Holscher, who has taken over the publication, noted: “While not yet back to boom times, these figures are a lot more encouraging than last year’s numbers.” That comment is right on the money considering that the 56% of good or excellent growth reported is still far below the 70% reported in 2007.

One other interesting note about the latest survey is that black-and-white copies account for around 24% of total volume on color machines. I find that a little puzzling, but then I’m not in the color copying business.

The USPS is pushing direct mail to shore up revenues.

If you hate it, it’s junk mail. If you print it, mail it, or read it, it is direct mail marketing. In any case, the USPS is encouraging folks to use more of it in order to make up for the shortfall in First Class mailings.

Last week, I lamented that I hadn’t written or received an honest to goodness letter in ages. Personal and business communications have gone online. Now, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the First Class mail nosedive has prompted the USPS to start: “running promotions, easing rules, and planning television and radio ads to encourage more businesses to send pitches by standard mail, the official term for bulk mailings used by marketers to prospect for customers.”

This comes on the heels of a recent campaign to point out how physical mail can drive people to websites by offering a 3% discount to direct mail that contained QR codes. Other aspects of direct mail promotion include allowing businesses to bring as many as 5,000 pieces of advertising mail a day to the post office to be delivered to every home on every carrier route at a cost of 14.2 cents per piece. This does away with the need to buy mailing lists in order to get exact delivery addresses for the printed piece.

I make two predictions. First, printers will be able to make more money printing more direct mail pieces if they get out and sell these new USPS incentives to their customers. Second, the direct mail push will give new ammunition to the “Do Not Mail” campaigns, which, so far, have remained bottled up in the various state legislatures.

Stay tuned.

Email has been the death of letter writing and contributed to the problems at the USPS.

I went to the post office today and mailed two letters. Actually, they were two belated birthday cards. I don’t recall the last time I mailed, let alone wrote, a real old-fashioned letter. I’m not sure when I last received one, either.

I get lots of direct mail touting grocery sales, pizza specials, car bargains, and the like. I also get a ton of printed catalogs featuring everything from cute garden gnomes to world-class educational courses on CD. I get more magazines than I can read. I get printed reminders from our vet about which critter is due for what shot. I get Medicare pamphlets and credit card offers. I get bills (which usually get paid online). I do not get letters.

When I was in the Army, mail call was pretty important. Getting a letter from home was a treat and broke up the monotony of cleaning rifles and peeling potatoes. Letters were almost always hand-written, although my mother typed hers on a portable Smith Corona typewriter. My old high-school girlfriend even used scented stationery when she eventually sent me that long-expected “Dear John” letter. When Dad wrote, he did so longhand, and I was never completely certain what all of the words were. I have inherited his handwriting.

Despite all the direct mail and magazines, the post office is teetering on the brink of oblivion and I can’t help but think it is because people have stopped writing letters. Today they send email. Emoticons have replaced love and kisses. It’s progress, I guess, but I still fondly recall those patchouli-scented notes of yesteryear, even the kiss-offs.

I’m going back to Las Vegas, but not for anything to do with printing.

Frankly, now and then I need a break from the printing industry. I’ve just spent more than a week at the NAQP/NAPL Owners Conference and Graph Expo 2011 and I need a change of scenery. That’s why I’m going back to the city I love to hate—Las Vegas.

Why am I doing such a thing? It is because of my dogs. You see, they both are rescue dogs and I am very interested in animal rescue. (We also have a rescue cat, but she’s not talking to me at the moment since we put her in the cat kennel for 10 days.) So, I’m going back to Las Vegas for the sixth time this year to attend the 2011 No More Homeless Pets National Conference sponsored by the Best Friends Animal Society.

I’ve been donating to Best Friends for years to help support their no-kill efforts and their animal rescue sanctuary in Moab, UT. My donations got me on the Best Friends mailing list and that’s how I found out about the conference. I probably would have dismissed the event as something worthwhile but not something I needed to attend until I saw one workshop track: “Saving Lives the New-Fashioned Way—Marketing, Media, and Communications”.

Well, I’m in the media and communications business, so that intrigued me. Maybe I could learn something that would be of value to our local animal rescue efforts. So I signed up and booked a ticket back to Sin City.
On this trip, I’ll try to ignore the fact that I’m going to Las Vegas and concentrate on how great it will be to hang around with 1,000 other people who love animals. Who knows, a few of them might also be printers, but I won’t hold that against them.

For me, and for much of the Cygnus Graphics Media staff, this is the longest week of the year. It is also one of the busiest.
Starting last Thursday, Karen, our publisher Kelley Homes, and I were attending the NAQP/NAPL Owners Conference, a two-day affair that this year attracted some 150 attendees and featured the annual vendor showcase tabletop exhibit.

I’ve been going to the Owners Conference for a couple of decades and have always enjoyed my time with the attendees. In years past, when the conference closed I was on my way home. However, since we started producing the Show Daily for GRAPH EXPO last year, the Owners Conference is just the beginning.

As I write this, we are nearly finished with putting together the guide for the third day, which needs to be at Quad/Graphics by 6:00 pm for printing and delivery to McCormick Place and attendee hotel rooms by the crack of dawn.

Several printers I know have asked how we manage to produce a 64-page 4/4 tabloid on a daily basis. Actually, we only have 16 live pages each issue. The rest of the guide is pre-printed prior to the show and is then married with the live signature. It’s still a lot of work. After the files go to the printer, the entire edition is digitized and distributed electronically to tens of thousands of printers who are not attending the show. If you are reading this, you are one of those tens of thousands.

Enjoy!

Next week quick and small commercial printers will gather in Chicago for the annual NAQP/NAPL Owners Conference, which will feature winners of the PrintImage Excellence Awards printing competition and will honor Printer of the Year Craig Dellinger. Next on the agenda will be GRAPH EXPO 2011, which will kick off with the Executive Outlook Conference on Saturday and the opening of the expo show floor on Sunday. Also on Sunday morning at 8:30, I will be presenting a seminar session tailored specifically for quick and small commercial printers in Room S503d at McCormick Place.

Along with the usual comprehensive seminar slate and a host of co-located events, GRAPH EXPO 2011 also will provide attendees with a chance to explore all of the new vendor introductions and show-floor demonstrations. Again this year, Cygnus Graphics Media will be producing the GRAPH EXPO Show Daily, which will be available to attendees in printed form and to thousands of other printers in digital form.

There is also another new feature this year, a GRAPH EXPO 2011 mini-site which will report all of the daily news updates and events as they occur. Click here to access the site.

Hope to see you in Chicago.

Several years ago I wrote a book called: “Everything I Know About Service I Learned from my Dog”. It was fun to write and sold rather well. It contained such tidbits as “It’s hard to get worse when you practice,” and, “In the land of the rude, the polite can be kings.” Hardly earth-shattering observations, but true, nonetheless.
Well, the muse (Clio, I believe) has moved me again and I am now at work on a second tome—title as yet to be determined. Target publication date is November and the subject is small business success. Where is all this material coming from? It is coming largely from my many years of observing and working with a great group of small business owners who happen to be in the printing business.
I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the book writing project and am entertaining title suggestions. And rest assured, I will make references to that great patriot, founding father, businessman, and printer Benjamin Franklin.
There is a story told about Franklin during his years as a print shop owner that speaks somewhat to setting a sound pricing policy. A man came into his shop and spent some time browsing the various books that were for sale. He finally took one and asked the assistant what it cost.
“One dollar,” he replied.
“A dollar? Can’t you sell it for less?”
“No. The price is one dollar.”
“Well, let me see the owner then.”
When Franklin came out of the back of the shop, the man again asked what the book cost.
“One dollar and a quarter,” said Franklin.
“But your assistant only wanted a dollar.”
“Had you bought it from him it would have cost a dollar, but you have taken me away from the business I was engaged in.”
Not taking the hint, the customer again asked how low Franklin would go on the price of the book.
Said Franklin: “One dollar and a half. And the longer we discuss it the more of my time you are taking up and the more I’ll have to charge you.”

I’ve just finished with the 2011 printing franchise convention schedule and I have had my fill of Las Vegas. This year, five of the franchise events were in that city and that was way more than enough for me. I’m looking forward to next year when the conventions will be in places like Baltimore and Orlando.

Despite the venue, one thing I did notice was an upbeat attitude, even in light of the economic mess caused mostly by ideological hard liners and an incompetent Congress. I sat through many awards presentations where franchisees from the various systems were honored, not only for huge gross sales, but also for sales growth—sometimes as much as 35%. There was very little doom and gloom at any of the events.

Frankly, that didn’t surprise me. I long ago realized that the franchisees who show up at these conferences are, for the most part, the ones who run good businesses. They take advantage of the franchise support, industry resources, and shared peer knowledge. I’d venture to say that the majority of them are in that top quartile of top performers almost every industry study singles out.

The latest NAPL report on the quick and small commercial industry segment clearly outlines the huge gap between top performers and poor performers.

The report, sponsored by Xerox, found that “individual compensation varied widely between the segment leaders—sales up 16.4% and compensation at 18.2%—and those in the bottom 20%, where sales fell 6.8% and compensation was in negative numbers (-1.3%).

I would imagine that those folks in the bottom 20% are not so upbeat. I also bet that few, if any of them, were at any of the franchise conferences I attended this year—despite being the ones who most need the support and education these events offer.