Printshop owners rely heavily upon their traditional industry suppliers when upgrading or restructuring. Better, faster equipment could ensure a competitive edge against the Printer down the road.

But today competition usually isn't just local printers with better presses. It's Printers hundreds of miles away and other media. - Which means Printshop owners need to involve a whole new supplier circle of sales, marketing and 'new media' specialists...

It's a difficult transition, after all, what do these people know about print? But if you listened to the '4 Steps to Sales' interview with Winston Marsh (right), they usually don't have to know a lot about print. At the end of the day, you're selling a product. Modern sales and marketing principles still apply. 

Another perspective on the need for a mindset change was made recent by one of the Industry's wisest soothsayers,  Heidi Tolliver-Nigro 

"For printers who have not yet made a thoughtful, purposeful decision about how they are going to structure (or restructure) their businesses to react and adapt to today’s environment, tough decisions face them"

Do we really need more equipment?

I've seen examples of highly profitable print operations where the production equipment was old and cheap, but selling, customer service and production processes and workflow were superb - It's a real concern that the print industry spends so much time focused on equipment, when the problems today are mostly sales, marketing and process.

We all need to invest more time examining our workflows, and also going to business seminars, listening to practical advice from people like Winston.

Equipment investment has its place. e.g. You're running 3 aging presses with 6-8 staff, when one new press and CTP with just 2-3 staff could easily do a better job in under half the time! Perhaps too if a new market opportunity is seen (photographic printing, direct mail etc) and requires a new digital press investment. Advances in automated finishing technology I always find incredible, achieving in hours, what presently takes many days to do manually or when outsourced.

Why not investigate alternative methods of growing your print sales and margins, besides adding more people or expensive equipment? Look beyond the pressroom. Beyond your existing hardware or consumbles suppliers.

Talk to vendor-independent professionals like ourselves who work in both the print and new media markets. Get a different perspective. We can examine your strengths and weaknesses, then lay out some cost-effective, risk-free options.

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Comments (3)

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written by Steve M, June 23, 2007

All true. We do appear to be caught in a time warp, obsessed on production issues.

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written by Brian, April 28, 2007

Certainly in other industries more time is invested on their industry sales and business issues, instead of trade training, health, safety and employment problems.

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written by Terry M, April 28, 2007

Hmmm. Isn't this all something our industry organisations should be examining?