We are in the middle a discussion about pricing. At this point you should have some data in your hands that shows you costs and what you are currently charging for the work you produce. The best outcome of your look at costs and current pricing is that you are hitting the margins you expected across your entire product range. Remember, you want to look at both the margins on every individual product and variation as well as for the whole business. You should have looked at both the hard products you sell and at services.

In case you missed the services, let’s start there.

There is a common thread across the printing industry when it comes to services. They are often a hidden cost that is never passed on to customers, even when the contracts specify that there will be charges for things like approval samples, file repair, design touch up, or color profile development. For every task that takes a staff member time to do, there is a cost to the business. How are you accounting for that cost?