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.

There are a lot of printers going out of business or about to go out of business because they can’t change their business model. Customers no longer walk in and ask for something to be duplicated. The day of commodity printing is over. People no longer need forms to collect information. It is now done on a computer. What print customers now need is help in finding the best way to communicate their message with their customer. The answer isn’t always ink on paper.A recent report by John Stewart for the National Association of Quick Printers found that the average age of a print shop owner was in the mid-50s. They opened their businesses when making a copy required expensive equipment. Today, everyone has a copier attached to their home and business computer. The print services people are buying have changed. Those services aren’t best served by having a walk-in location in a high traffic area.

Printers need to add new services that take advantage of the Internet. One area would be content development for electronic media. Adobe and Quark have released new software will help printers and designers turn their InDesign and Quark files into documents and apps that can be read on iPads, tablets, and smartphones. If the major page layout software developers are taking their businesses into a new electronic direction, printers might want to follow. Adobe has also introduced a line of apps to create content on tablets including a Photoshop type of app. If printers are going to survive and compete they must now learn how to create content that will work in environments other than on paper.

Website development, mobile marketing, QR codes, and other Internet related products can be integrated with print to make a message stronger. Printers will have to learn about and provide these services in some way if they expect to compete in the new electronic communications world.

Printers don’t have to go out of business. They need to evolve their business. That evolution needs to begin today.

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.

By John Stewart

I am excited about my new, second video titled, “Chart of Accounts.” I just viewed a rough cut and, with only minor changes, it is ready to post. I am hoping that it will be available before the end of this week.

If you haven’t had a chance to view my first video on “Sales Per Employee” I encourage you to visit my website or watch it on MyPrintResource.com.

I have another video in the works that deals with “Key Financial Ratios,” and a fourth video titled simply “Cash.” This video takes a somewhat light-hearted, humorous approach at how a stack of $1,000 dollar bills is distributed to pay all the bills in a “profit leader” firm versus how these bills are paid by a “profit laggard” firm.

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.

I learned early in consulting that when owners self-diagnose, often true issues are hidden. In fact, one of the criticisms leveled at consultants is their solutions are so simple that “anyone could have said that.” Sure, solutions are simple. Where a good consultant earns their money is asking good questions so that real problems can be defined; not in just providing solutions. My last post was a great example of this phenomenon when my printer-friend asked, “What percentage of sales should rent be?”

I thought, “Why do you suppose the owner asked that?” So, after I responded (5% to 6.5% with a typical of 6%, which is up from 4.5% over the past five years), I asked the obvious: “Why do you ask?”

And now we get to the rest of the story.

The owner wrote back, “Thanks so much for the information. I was looking back over previous years P & L’s (pre-2007) and saw that rent was running around 7% of sales. Since 2009 my rent has been at 10% of sales. This can be attributed to lower sales volume and rents increasing due to the terms of the three year contract I signed when I purchased the company.”

“My reason for trying to get a percentage of sales number was due to my need to renegotiate the terms. My landlord came back with a proposal that would reduce my rent to around 8.5% of current sales. I agree with your statement that I may have more square feet than I need given my current volume. My problem is that the new terms require I sign for three years with an escalation in rents clause over those three years.”

“In this economy and given the outlook, who knows where we will be in three years? I may want to move to a smaller space or sell/merge with another printer into their larger facility and then I will be stuck in a binding contract. The obvious answer is to go get more sales, easier said than done … Again, thanks for your help. I hope to one day get my volumes and cash flows back up to acceptable levels so I can join your group. For now however, I feel like the “Dead Printer Working” that you so often describe.

So what’s the real problem? The printer’s question was about a benchmark in helping to renegotiate his lease with the landlord. That’s valid but why was he having a time renegotiating his lease? Well, as he later told me, his sales had decreased by half in the last five years. That meant his rent doubled as a percentage of sales and I’m sure everything else was squeezed cash-wise as well.

Now what’s the printer’s reaction to it? In this case he’s putting the squeeze on the landlord to reduce the rent because the print shop’s sales are down. How come the sales are down? Well, I don’t specifically know for sure but can give a fair guess: sales are down because he’s not doing a lot about it.

Oh, yes, we hope and wish for better sales, but unless we actually do something about it; unless we specifically spend our time on selling activities, we’re not doing anything about it.

Well, and again I’m guessing here, but he can’t spend more time on selling activities because he’s got too many other important things to do. Like what? Well, get jobs out, pick up paper, deliver jobs (no, that doesn’t count as a sales call), answer the telephone and more.

In short, he doesn’t have time to sell.

And that’s for two reasons.

1. He doesn’t make time to do anything, rather reacts to whatever happens. This is most typical of small business owners regardless of their type of business. We don’t accomplish important projects (in this case selling activities) because we can’t dedicate “heads down” time to any specific project. And the reasons for that are many.

They can range from workers not being trained to do specific tasks (can’t set up the folder or can’t price jobs or whatever) to the owner self-inflicting their own wounds (owner has to price all jobs because no one else has the touch which, in turn, really means the owner hires people to stand around and watch them work).

Answer I often use here is to work with owners in establishing a weekly time planner. Yup. You can actually plan your day within reason. Specifically you plan for interruption time as well as heads down time. And then you work to eliminate the reasons why you can’t stick with it.

There’s too much to this to go into it in depth here, but if anyone’s interested, let me know and I’ll write more about it later.

2. He or she doesn’t want to sell because he or she doesn’t want to do it. Why? Not trained in “how” is the most common reason but it’s not the only one. In straightforward cases, most implement a plan once they are trained and know what to do and why.

Notice I said “most” though. Occasionally, you will find owners who have a deeper reluctance or a reluctance based on other reasons. Good news here is that there are tests for true reluctance as well as proven remedies and training for the various strains of reluctance. Yes, I will write more on this soon as well.

Let’s go back to our friend, though.

His real problem is that his sales have dropped by half and he didn’t really do a lot about it. What he was doing was focusing on the symptoms (lease was up and landlord wanted more rent).

Even worse, that’s about to lead him into a really bad decision. Again, he wrote, “I may want to move to a smaller space or sell/merge with another printer into their larger facility.”

Moving to a smaller space is logical given the right conditions (not impacting sales that much and an immediate bounce back in sales isn’t imminent).

Getting married to another printer, however, can cause many more problems than high rent. The merger of two weak companies does not make a strong one. Additionally, figure at least $1 million in sales per prime family living out of the business to prevent cannibalism. There’s more but that will do for now.

And a final word; he mentioned, “I hope to one day get my volumes and cash flows back up to acceptable levels so I can join your group. For now however, I feel like the “Dead Printer Working” that you so often describe.”

Well, lots of folks feel this way. In fact, some of my best clients felt the same way before they sought help, but really what they found was that you can’t wait until your volume and cash flow improve to seek help to get your volume and cash flow up. That makes as much sense as waiting for your cancer to subside so you will have strength enough to drive down to the hospital.

The purpose of our programs is to help owners with cash and time issues. If you want information on the particulars in your case, send me an email to tom@crouser.com.

Okay, I made some recommendations to our friend which did include getting some professional assistance. What’s important for the rest of us is the point that when we treat the symptoms, we often miss the problem. In this case the printer was dealing with a symptom (rent was getting too high as percentage of sales) instead of the real problem (significant drop in sales and not doing anything about it).

This blog originally appeared on www.tomcrouser.com.

by William Gindlesperger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, e-LYNXX Corporation

The United States Government Printing Office (GPO) Strategic Plan for 2011 through 2015 has been published, and it is an eye opener for what it only tangentially acknowledges. And that is: the contribution of private sector printers that have traditionally printed the bulk of the federal government’s printing.

In his February 2011 posting on Facebook, Public Printer William Boarman did give credit where credit is due: “The majority of the firms we deal with are small businesses, many with 20 employees or fewer. We annually award contracts to more than 2,500 vendors nationwide, representing potentially 50,000 jobs. The total number of contractors registered to do business with us is around 16,600, representing potentially 332,000 jobs.”

At one time, more than three quarters of GPO’s print work was awarded to the private sector for an annual revenue flow to them that easily exceeded half a billion dollars. With the advent of digital and other technology and the online culture in which we now live, it is understandable that the printing of some documents will fall by the wayside.

Disturbingly, the flow of GPO work has been dropping steadily over the years. In 2010, the total value of GPO work awarded to private sector printers was $358 million. This year, it appears to be on a course to be less than $300 million. This is troubling because the livelihoods of the 50,000 men and women mentioned by Mr. Boarman depend on GPO work. So does our economy, if it is to rebound.

Most disturbing is the fact that federal agencies are skirting federal policy by printing some $800 million of their own printing in-house. Title 44 of the U. S. Code states that all federal printing, with a few exceptions, is to be channeled through GPO. If this work were to pass through GPO and awarded to private sector printers it would be a boon to an industry that needs a shot in the arm.

Mr. Boarman’s Facebook provides detail: “Data recently published by the Office of Management and Budget as part of the FY 2012 budget shows about $1.4 billion in direct obligations for printing and reproduction for the Federal Government for fiscal year 2010. Excluding GPO’s component of $104 million for congressional work and printing for our Superintendent of Documents, this leaves nearly $1.3 billion in direct printing obligations for the rest of the Government. GPO’s procurement revenue last year was about $500 million, or about 40% of these direct obligations, leaving a balance of about $800 million that did not come through GPO. Our sense is that it most likely represents work produced in-house by Federal agencies. That’s a significant volume of printing which, if opened up to GPO’s procurement program where costs could be reduced by as much as 50% compared with agency plants, represents a potential annual savings of up to $400 million for the taxpayers. More private sector jobs will be needed to handle that additional volume of work flowing through the procurement program, which will help our Nation’s economic recovery.”

This, however, seems to be contradicted throughout the 2011-2015 Strategic Plan with references to GPO needing to invest in employees and technology to create first-rate, system-wide solutions. The only reference to private sector printers in the five-page report is a line under “Enhance Strategic Partnerships” that reads: “Create and/or enhance current partnerships, i. e. FedEx Kinko’s, Google, independent printers.”

It would seem that if GPO is serious about channeling more federal printing to the private sector its strategic plan would place more emphasis on redirecting the $800 million being done by agencies to independent printers.

The plan does say in its “Statutory Foundation – Title 44 U.S.C.” section that the GPO will identify and pursue federal print jobs not now being done by GPO. What it does not say is whether that work will be going to private sector printers or whether it will be done at enhanced GPO facilities. Even a quarter of the $800 million now being done by federal agencies would bring GPO work for private sector printers back to the half billion dollar level.

Something isn’t adding up when Mr. Boarman’s Facebook posting is compared with the 2011-2015 GPO Strategic Plan.

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.

We’ve all heard the expression “Time is money.” When people say that, they are most often talking about an employee wasting time while on the clock. But have you considered dedicating an hour to learning something that can help your company make lots more money?

Printers so often pay lip service to training employees or their own continued learning, but when it’s time to fish or cut bait, they find all kinds of excuses not to follow through. Considering the bounty of free webinars available lately, if you’re still making excuses it may be time to take a hard look at your motivation. Money isn’t holding you back—they’re free. Time isn’t holding you back, either. The majority of these webinars are only an hour long, and if you can’t break free or can’t spare an hour of your employee’s time while they’re being broadcast live, most of them are archived so you can access them at your convenience.

In the past week, I have probably added 15-20 webinar notices to the industry calendar on MyPrintResource.com. There are free webinars about mailing issues, financing and tax planning, multi-channel media, sales management and techniques, and digital printing strategies. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We hosted free webinar on September 21 in which QP’s Sales Clinic columnist Dave Fellman spent an hour sharing ideas about how to prospect for new sales. More than 200 people signed up for it, but that’s a mere fraction of the number of people who could benefit from the information. If you missed it, you can still listen to the archived recording by signing up for the next two webinars in the series (click here).

While some presenters may drop in a brief marketing message, these webinars are probably as close as you’ll ever get to pure altruism in a for profit marketplace. Take advantage of them while you can. Don’t leave money on the table!