Keep up the good work!

To Clarify:
We do not take business from brokers with whom we have contracts.
Nor do we chase their customers the minute a contract expires.
We do go up for tenders against brokers.
We do promote ourselves directly at trade fairs.
We do advertise.
We do develop networks of contacts.
We do spend time developing strong brands and cultivating relationships with our direct customers.
AND as much day-to-day contact from broker-sourced customers as part of the contract comes direct (at the request of the broker), our communication skills benefit the broker-customer relationship.

In my opinion, in some cases, it is our business what a broker does for their money. Those brokers who insist on lower price are essentially asking the printer to pay for their service (finding and managing new business). In such cases, printers should be treated as customers.

The confusion always seems to be over what the broker is selling & to whom.
Successful Brokers today, seem to concentrate on selling a service of provisioning and managing printing (not the print products themselves) to the customer (not a salesforce to the printer). The brokers should then approach printers with offers of business.

As an example:
If we advertise print prices, and a customer goes to a broker and says “but this pritner is cheaper”, the broker needs to make clear their selling a serivce, not the print product itself & can provide a level of supplier-independance to reduce risk and inrease flexibility. This is a prime way brokers can add real value for the customer that a printer cannot directly provide (although disaster recovery schemes do help with continuity & trust).

While we as a printer can, and do compete on price, service, reputation, branding, relationship management, data interfaces and client communication, we cannot deliver true supplier-independence as (even with full DR) we are just one supplier.

Sincerely.
Print&IT

I also agree that many customers will choose pay more to go through a broker as a one-stop-shop for their print outsourcing (hence the term Print Management is often used). But to imply brokers are free (as in the original post) is to mislead.

The general economic model point is that an extra layer in a market
1) obscures the real cost of a product, which can (and I stress can) breed profiteering.
2) generally moves some profit from the supplier to the broker, meaning greater investment is available in those sourcing customers and suppliers, and less for product and technological development in production, which could drive efficiency and innovation.

If the majority of print work goes through brokers then fine. But giving the hard-sell to printers by implying they are fools for going the direct sales route (as per the original post) doesn’t sound like an industry comfortable with it’s position.

Essentially, if a printer’s offering is wide enough, and they have resource enough to generate a strong brand, they will be able to compete with brokers.

So for brokers to truly thrive, they need be more transparent that they sell a procurement and supplier management service to the customer, they do not sell print products. This is where they should be adding value, rather than by squeezing supplier margins, or making unacheivable demands on their timescales (as the lesser among you seem to do).

Sincerely.
Print&IT

p.s.
not so keen on the “heard but have not verified that 95%” statement.
The quote “lies, damn lies and statistics” comes to mind. That’s not to say you intend to mislead. I don’t know how much truth’s in that statistic, but then neither do you.

It’s none of your freaken business what a broker does for his money.

I came of the street (as a potentially huge new customer) to hand a printer 80K worth of magazine work (for starters), he wanted a clause in the agreemnet where by if my clients approached him direct, he could do their work.

Do freaken people think we came up the river in a bubble or what?

I don’t buy the excuse that American businesses HAVE to behave in the way you described to force lower prices to stay in business. They may say that’s the reason and then pay their executives exorbitantly. They are beating them up to buy mansions for the few is my impression.

As for printing, that isn’t true. It isn’t giant conglomerations forcing a low ball price. It is China, Pakistan, and India luring our business away with prices we can’t possibly match. Minimum wage here is 10X greater than what they pay their workers according to Reuters. If my expenses are 1/10th of my competition, I can sell it for 50-60% less and make a whale of a profit. That is unfair competition, and doesn’t help the workers at all. It makes the businesses in those countries rich and drives our businesses out.

Think Wal-Mart and all that we hear about their predatory practices. Imagine what they tell their Chinese managers and the fear that comes with the threats.

We live in a global economy and to compete, American companies must go where the prices allow them to stay in business. The small guy loses. Survival of the fittest and all that. And the Chinese workers in those factories may be earning low pay but it is more than they made in the rural villages where 800 million Chinese live in poverty earning far less. That is one reason why so many Chinese are flowing into the manufacturing centers from the countryside. What they get paid, may not seem like much but to them it is much more than they could earn scratching a living from the dirt growing a crop.

I find it disturbing that China often gets the blame while many countries like India, Pakistan, etc. are cutting prices and paying low wages to get the contracts from American corporations. How much does an American working for GM make on an assembly line and that worker doesn’t even need a high school education?

I understand that Ford has factories in South America that are more automated and competitive than factories in America because Unions won’t allow them to build factories like that in the United States so American auto workers can keep being over paid for a low skilled job.

Check out what the former President of American Color is up to.
http://www.gslusa.com/about-gsl.htm

Strategic Partners:
http://www.gslusa.com/strategic-partners.htm

Not very American at all!

Thanks!