Recently, my friends at WhatTheyThink.com chided me and asked if I had abandoned the writing profession. Absolutely NOT! The past few months have been filled with some personal situations that kept me from writing, but those have come to their final outcomes and all is well once again in my personal world.

My professional world has been pretty hectic also, as I continue to restructure our company’s web site, ftp site and Internet service provider. Oh, and the print production side of my responsibilities have been crazy also!

I thank you all for your patience, but it is time to begin shouting from the rooftops about my favorite subject...PRINT PRODUCTION!

Today, I was reading the latest CAP Ventures survey regarding the number of printers used by print buyers and the amount of printing multiple print-partners received. If you have not read this, please do... but finish this first!

The information contained in this report was typical in some ways, but in others, I felt a chill running down my spine.

One aspect of the survey that is not reported is the titles of the people who were polled. CAP Ventures says there were “97 respondents from all major regions in the United States with a slight bias towards the Midwest region. The actual respondents were mostly in purchasing, marketing, creative or administrative functions.”

Let’s look at that last sentence again. I find it interesting that out of those polled we find creative, marketing and administrative job titles along with purchasing. I wonder how many of the respondents who noted they use only 1 or 2 printers are not purchasing personnel. I would not be surprised to find that most of those using a small number of print-partners are purchasing trained. (See the editor’s note below.)

In the past, I have stated my feelings about print buyers versus print production experts, so there is no need to elaborate on that. I would be curious to know the split of these functions within the purchasing personnel.

As CAP Ventures pointed out, I too am shocked that print customers did not rate higher "offering new capabilities" and "listening to requirements and approaching with an overall plan" when rating items of importance when dealing with a printer. Even if saving money is the number one priority, there seems to be short sightedness regarding these two points. Listening to a print or letter shop partner who has new capabilities or offers an overall plan IS a way to save money.

Producing the same product over and over can cause a lack of interest to those receiving it. This is obviously truer when producing materials aimed at the public, but can also happen with internal marketing materials. The same format equates to the same information being rehashed (even if it is brand new information).

This next stat really blew me away when combined with the fact that only 55% of the respondents send out multiple bids on projects. Please sit down if you have not read this yet:

Nearly 40% of the respondents indicated their company had 500 or more employees, and nearly 50% of the respondents indicated they spend $250,000 or more per year on print. The average annual print spend per respondent was over $1,270,000.

Again, only 55% bid out to more than one vendor on a project and of that, 21.6% do it because it is company policy!

15.5% hardly ever bid out jobs or never do so because they KNOW they are getting a great deal. How do these survey participants know this?

Years ago, while selling web and sheet-fed printing, I made numerous calls to a prospect. This prospect “used a friend who always gave him the best price." Finally, I received an opportunity to quote a project. After receiving the quote from my estimating department, I then presented the costs to the prospect. He immediately accused me of low-balling our numbers! I informed him that I had added an additional 25% to our normal cost – just to prove that he was not getting true value for his money with his current printer. Of course he did not believe me and I walked away without the order. I wonder how much of this goes on in our business.

In so many ways, print production is still not thought of as a profit center for corporations and agencies. In the future I would like to explore this subject with you and welcome your comments, which I will use in my articles.

Print Production experts…write to me and let me know ways you have helped create a profit center for your organization.

Until next time... The more we communicate, the better we will be at our careers.