What do you know about what your current customers know and don’t know about your company’s capabilities and how much of their business you are receiving and not receiving? A modest investment can reward you with an incredible ROI and it certainly helps to know who and where and why to focus your time and attention.

“Print Buyers” tend to reward suppliers….who work to: (a) educate and train them in a constructive manner… (b) show them how to accomplish more….and (c) make their jobs --- easier… (i.e… not wasting their time).

What’s it worth to learn which of your customers are only awarding you 11% of their business…? What’s it worth to learn which  three of your top 10 customers are willing to tell you that you aren’t very important to them….?

Your customers do NOT know what your company can produce, they tend to only know what they buy from you. Every “Client Open-House” I’ve ever observed, resulted in “uplifting morale” including but not limited to “first-time” introductions to important customers we’d only heard about or only talked to on the phone or had not personally talked to for...

Most readers of this column have a “Customer Profile” software of some design. That Customer Profile software --- is for supplier’s customer contact personnel --- to learn and record --- “Important Customer Information”  including what each Customer/Buyer wants, needs, and doesn’t want.

  June 3, 2019- A group of concerned associations, educators and industry representatives has formed the Graphic Communications Workforce Coalition. As stated in its organizing documents, “The purpose of the coalition will be to coordinate the efforts of all organizations representing the broad scope of the graphic communications industry for creat...

Alumni in Print – Where Are They Now? The Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation is publishing profiles featuring some of their more than 6000 former scholarship recipients. This series gives you an up close and personal insight into the thoughts and motivations of the former students who are a part of our industry today.  As our current employe...

The University of Houston’s College of Technology’s Digital Media Program is the latest school to adopt the new textbook, Introduction to Graphic Communication, 2nd Edition. Authored by Cal Poly Professor emeritus Harvey Levenson and former Seybold editor John Parsons, the book is the first to use Ricoh’s free Clickable Paper app to make the printe...

Recent columns focused on understanding better what individual customers want from their suppliers…and how to escape being a “Commodity Supplier” --- winning on Price.

Are we reduced to competing on “Price” if we (and our industry) are seen as “commodity suppliers”? If we don’t know much about our customer(s) other than specifications of their projects…..the answer may be “YES!”