Blog Archives




 

  • Changing Hair Dressers AGAIN!
    - Wednesday February 23, 2011
    This may seem like a silly topic, especially to men, but it definitely tells a story about customer retention vs. customer exodus. I spend quite a bit of money yearly on my hair, as I’m sure most women do. And now that I’ve tipped over the age of 50 I’m even more vain and willing to pay even more money to keep the gray hairs from showing their silver/white strands. So, not only do I pay to have my hair cut, but I pay to have it colored and highlighted. I pay for the special products I need to treat the specially dyed hair, and I pay for all the other products that will make it poof when I want it poofy, or go straight when I want the flatter look. The end result is any hairdresser who wants to earn a good living...

  • Make Your Business Card Memorable
    - Wednesday February 23, 2011
    By John Foley, CEO, Grow Socially Don’t you hate handing out your business cards with the fear of prospects forgetting who it belonged to moments after they leave your sight? Two tools you can use to keep your business card on someone’s mind are QR Codes and YouTube. If you use these together for your business card, it will remind the prospect of who you are, what your business is, where you met them, and how your business can help them. Adding these to your business card will also give you an idea of when and how many people view your cards after you give them away. QR Codes are a great way for you to connect any type of print with any link on the Internet using a smart phone. Because of this special ability, QR Codes on...

  • Heidelberg Hypes Hybrid
    By Bob Hall - Tuesday February 22, 2011
    Heidelberg is going hybrid. That’s what the trade press has been talking about since late January when an article in the UK’s PrintWeek raised the subject based on Heidelberg sources. The original piece included some very challenging remarks from one Heidelberg executive about how the new set-up will make current high-end digital production presses “irrelevant.” That’s pretty bold. The new offering is expected to team a Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 52 with a digital color output device in the 80 to 90 ppm range—presumably from a current digital vendor. Software would decide which output option is best for a particular job and parcel out the work accordingly. The key, according to the PrintWeek report, is Heidelberg’s Anicolor...

  • Print Works!
    By Bob Hall - Monday February 14, 2011
    Printing Industries Association of Southern California (PIASC) launched its Choose Print campaign last month and it is worth checking out. The campaign is reaching out to some 2,000 key marketing executives in the Los Angeles area via direct mail. It is also encouraging association members to get involved in promoting the campaign by displaying the Choose Print logo on their delivery vehicles, websites, and emails. PIASC describes the campaign as “designed to promote the value of print and to reinforce the fact that print is a recyclable, renewable, and sustainable environmental choice.” The website www.chooseprint.org offers industry statistics, news items, and other resources member companies can use to promote the value of print...

  • One Bite at the Apple, An Opportunity for the New Public Printer
    - Wednesday February 9, 2011
    by William Gindlesperger, Founder, Chairman and CEO of e-LYNXX Corporation Publick Printer. That’s the title that founding father Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) gave to the job of coordinating printing for the then new United States government. He was the first “publick†printer, and he felt strongly—having been a printer himself—in establishing a single authority to ensure quality and fair pricing for the printing of federal government documents. This led to the founding of the United States Government Printing Office (GPO) in 1813. Today, as then, GPO’s role is to be the centralized printer and procurer of printing for the federal government including the Executive Office of the President...

  • Rescue Mission
    By Bob Hall - Monday February 7, 2011
    My father’s last career move was to leave the world of accounting to become a travel agent. He had moved all over the world as an accountant for various conglomerates and defense companies, but his innate love of traveling had not been fulfilled. Thus, the career move. At that time, computerization was just coming into the travel business and he dutifully learned the ins and outs of this new technology, but retained the old knowledge of manual trip planning and booking. When the computers crashed, he was the only one who could write out tickets by hand. He once rebooked a 25-person overseas vacation trip that had run into airline problems, using only the Telex. (Anybody remember the Telex?) I thought about this last Friday during the...

  • Bye-bye Phone Book
    By Bob Hall - Monday January 31, 2011
    It’s another sign of the electronic times, but we shouldn’t be that surprised that the printed phone book white pages are on their way out. According to a story in the EDSF Report newsletter, a Gallup poll in 2008 found only 10% of folks counted on the white pages as their primary reference source for finding phone numbers. That’s down from 25% in 2005. New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania regulators have already given Verizon permission to discontinue printing the white pages and Virginia is poised to do the same. Telecommunications companies in 12 other states have petitioned for permission to cease printing the white pages. Verizon and AT&T will offer electronic listings or a CD phone book. A printed copy will be...

  • Researching the Big "E"
    By Bob Hall - Monday January 24, 2011
    It is very obvious that electronic technologies have had an effect on traditional printing, but this conventional wisdom has sometimes been lacking in solid facts on what that impact might be. Sure, printed mail has taken a hit from email and printed books are being affected by e-books, but just how drastic have such things really been and how drastic will they be in the future? Researchers often speak in jargon, but the aim of a new study by PRIMIR is pretty plain: “The study will provide an understanding of specific technologies that exist today, or are on the horizon, that may impact print.†Among the technologies to be studied are: “electronic reading devices (laptops, mobile devices, e-readers), display technology...

  • A Taxing Question
    By Tom Crouser - Saturday January 22, 2011
    Hmm. Is the 1099 provision of the Health Care Act really that onerous? I work with hundreds of small businesses in the US, mainly in the printing industry, and 99% utilize QuickBooks and/or a similar automated system. Those out there who are still on a manual system should be automated for their own best interest. Now in QB, the ability to track purchases from a vendor is a couple clicks away, and printing out 1099s is fairly simple and quick. The hard part would be collecting the FEIN numbers. I anticipate vendors will quickly begin providing this info on invoices should this provision stand. Why? Vendors won't want incoming calls seeking the information any more than we small business owners would want having to track them down. So...

  • NFIB Being Unfair to Members?
    By Tom Crouser - Friday January 21, 2011
    So what’s up with the National Federation of Independent Business? I’ve engaged in a Tweet-a-thon with them @NFIB in which I’ve tried to point out inconsistencies of a member organization soliciting other members in direct competition with many of their own members. As a matter of disclosure, I work with hundreds of printers, copy shops as well as small businesses engaged in packing and shipping throughout the United States, many of whom are NFIB members, as is my firm. Fact is, I encourage and recommend the organization for it is an efficient voice of small business, and their basic model is great. They survey the opinions of small business owners and pass them along at the highest level in Washington as well as...

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