Don't be so quick to place the marker.

The Internet has been buzzing with reports of the demise of printing. The book industry in particular has been all aflutter about The Kindle, The Nook, and iPad. Are they right? Have electronics finally won? Is printing dead?

I am old enough to remember all of the predictions of a paperless office. Computers were supposed to eliminate the need for paper. Instead, printing flourished at a time when the era of paper was sure to be over.

It is different this time. Although I think it is too early to write off printing, I do believe that the boom we saw with the advent of computers won’t repeat. The business climate has changed, not only for now, but also for the future. There are several reasons for this:

• Direct Mail Advertising has been wounded–not fatally, not yet.

1. The first arrow to strike was postal charges. Unfortunately, the post office has a blind spot when it comes to pricing. They don’t understand that there is a direct correlation between rising prices and declining customers. The higher stamps cost, the more people turned away.  The US post office has been the greatest friend email could ever have.
2. The second arrow was the Internet. Websites provide options that ink on paper can never duplicate and at incredible prices. Electronic advertising has eliminated much of the need for media. No paper. No ink. No presses.
3. The third arrow was the recession. Companies of all sizes hunkered down behind walls of cash refusing to spend until the customers were ready to buy. The customers, of course, having lost jobs, having had salaries decreased, and in a tightening credit market find themselves unable to buy. It’s what is known as (with apologies to our neighbors south of the US) a Mexican standoff. Where were the easiest places to cut their budgets? Printing, particularly direct mail.
4. The fourth arrow is book readers. Book readers are coming on strong. I myself, love books. I have a well-stocked home library, but there are books I can get free and others that I would like to be more portable. I, the defender of printing, will get a reader for myself. Actually I already have one in my iPhone, but every book bought electronically is a book that isn’t printed.

• Form Printing and Envelopes have taken one to the chest.

1. Nearly everyone uses on-line forms to pay bills, buy something, or get credit. It’s quick, user friendly, and no one has to buy a stamp or wait several days for delivery.
2. The changes is bill paying greatly reduce the need for envelopes. From the millions upon millions of envelopes purchased by the financial industry alone to a bare trickle.

• Catalogs, Newspapers, and Magazines are dropping dead in their tracks.
  

1. Pundits warned us of the paperless office, but they didn’t tell us about the paperless home. Who could have predicted a family breakfast scene without the father figure sitting behind the daily news? Oh sure, we still have many of the same magazines, but their page counts are down to half or more. And their sell price has gone up. They raise prices and just as surely decrease buyers.
2. Catalogs are experiencing the same problems as magazines. It costs too much to mail, so they reduce their page count. The point where catalogs split from magazines is the Internet. Newspapers and magazines have served for hundreds of years as paid information sources. Information on the Internet has been free. People expect the Internet to be free and therefore they are unwilling to pay. Catalogs never had, and never will have a paid subscriber base.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Printing has changed and many of the changes are permanent. All that being said, I’m optimistic about the future. There are innovations introduced all the time to make printing, better, cheaper, and faster. The Internet for all its puffery and bluster has been proven to be less effective than direct mail as an advertising medium. Yes, you can get a great CPM (cost per thousand) but there is such a massive overwhelm that customers have learned to tune the advertising out. If you want a buyer to pay attention to your message, put something in their hands.

My $52,000.00 Payday

The biggest print order I ever handled was a mailing package for cable TV. The package consisted of nine different elements and it went to one million customers. The total print billing was over $650,000.00. Now that in itself wasn’t the incredible part. Many who might read this blog work for, or have worked for large web plants that could easily handle this job. I didn’t. I was employed by a small sheet-fed printer. Our “biggest” press was a 25″ 5/color with a CPU. At the time presses with CPU’s were just coming into the market and we were darned proud of ours.

Never Overlook the Unlikely

The customer was an unlikely advertising agency that was so small it wasn’t on anyone’s radar. They were located in my area, but not in my regular path of travel. Anytime I found myself near them, once a month, or so, I’d dropped in to say hello and see if they were anticipating any printing orders. The answer was always no.

An Estimator Can do More than Sit in the Office

One day out of the blue they called. Over the phone they described a job so complex that I felt I needed help with the specifications so collared our estimator and took her with me. I was glad I had the estimator because she had been a former press operator with our company and came up with some suggestions on the spot to simplify the job.

Persistence Beat Price

Within a few days we submitted our bid. I didn’t think that there was a ghost of a chance we would get it, but I had to see it through. When the bids were in, we were second. The lowest bidder was a well-established 40″ sheet fed printer in town. I never saw their price, but it was close enough that the agency decided that I should be rewarded for my persistence in calling on them.

Thank Goodness My Sales Manager Didn’t Hear What I Said

That’s when I said something that my sales manager would have kicked me for if he had heard it. I said, “I would love to do this job, but it really belongs on a web press and not sheet-fed.”

My customer responded with this question, “Will a web press give me better quality than sheet-fed?”

I told him, “No, but 95% wouldn’t know the difference.” Actually the 95% figure was a bit low. Without a side-by-side comparison I doubted that anyone would know.

What Made the Sales Manager Strut Like a Goose

To my surprise we were awarded the job. The next hurdle was collecting a half-down. To offer the bid we did it required the purchase of a great quantity of paper. We settled on a $360,000.oo figure with the balance due on completion.

I remember the day I went to the agency to pick up the check. Their customer had given them a cashiers check made out to us. I brought in the dough and gave it to the sales manager. He balanced the check on the upper frame of his glasses and leaned it back against his forehead and then proceeded to strut through the office, the sales bullpen, and the shop inviting everyone to see the biggest amount of money ever seen by our company.

It isn’t Over ‘Til it’s Over

Later the estimator who had been so helpful asked me, “Bill, you don’t seem very happy about this, what’s going on?”

“I am happy, but more than that I’m concerned that we’ve bitten off more than we can chew. It is going to be a nightmare around here until this project is finished. I’ll be happier when it’s done.”

Pinned by the G.A.S.F.

I wasn’t wrong. To this day I think the customer should have heeded my advice, but I got 8% commission on over $650,000.00 so in the end I have to say I did okay, and a few months later I was presented with a diamond pin for achieving the highest annual sales award given by the G.A.S.F. The money, except what went into my IRA, is a distant memory, but I still have the pin.

Note: If any reader would like to add their own favorite printing story, just go to “comments” at the bottom of this post and share it with all of us.

As a printing broker one of the most difficult challenges I face in trying to determine bid specifications is paper. Why paper? Because most people have no idea how many different kinds of paper are available. Usually I have to resort to questions like, “Does it feel about the same as the paper in your office copier?” Or, “Is it more like poster board?” These questions at least get me in the ballpark. Then maybe I can start pinning it down by asking about the surface of the sheet. “Is it smooth, or textured?” “Is it shiny, or flat?” “If you scratch it with your fingernail does it leave a shiny spot?” “If you hold it up to a light source can you see a watermark?” Anyone in the printing business will understand what I am talking about. It’s like a game of twenty questions, particularly if we’re speaking on the telephone.

Here is something funny–I was discussing a job with a customer the other day–and to help me determine the weight of the paper, he flipped the corner of the sheet over the mouthpiece. When I asked what he was doing, he half-seriously said, “You [Bill] have been in the business for so long that I thought you’d be able to tell how much it weighed by the sound.”  That was a first. I’ve had customers expect me to read their minds, but never has one asked me to identify the weight of paper by the sound.

Of course, the easiest way to figure out what kind of paper a customer wants to use is to have them provide a sample. Usually the stock will become immediately evident, but then there are those occasions when it is not a domestic sheet and importers don’t carry it either. I had that problem once with a local company who represented a skin care line of products manufactured in France. They produced a paper sample that neither I, nor three different paper merchants could identify.

Some of the problems come from the paper industry itself. Paper has been around a long, long time. Just like a foot became a length of measurement by the King’s shoe print, paper weight had rudimentary methods of comparison. How many shovel-fulls of this or that went into the mix. For example here is a list of some weights you may encounter when buying printing: Cover, Text, Book, Bond, Ledger, Tag, Duplex, Blanks, Bristol, and Index. To make it more confusing you can buy 80# Cover, or 80# Text but they aren’t the same thing–not at all. 80# Cover is heavy more akin to poster board, and 80# is similar to your office stationery but probably a little heavier. People will often say something like the paper is  eighty pound and be sure they answered the question, until I ask, “Cover or text?” That’s when they get stuck.

Most stationery is printed on bond and you can often recognize it by a watermark. A 24# bond sheet weighs about as much as a 60# offset. Confused? We haven’t even gotten started yet. No wonder customers can’t figure out what they want the printing/paper industry has made it impossibly difficult. Not on purpose, but there it is.

If your job requires interaction with printers, I have some recommendations to simplify communications:

1. Always try to provide a sample of the paper you would like to match.
2. Create a paper sample book. Put various papers in a binder and label them with their weight, finish, and color. By doing this you will have a ready reference to help you.
3. Watch for paper that crosses your desk. It might be direct mail, catalogs, or invitations. Slip them into the pocket of your binder if you like them and have your rep identify them later.
4. If you find a paper that you particularly like and want to use it often, ask your print rep to get you a swatch book to keep with your binder. The paper mills put them out to display their wares and they will show you all of the weights, textures, and colors that the paper comes in.
5. In many markets, the paper merchants will conduct seminars to teach customers about various aspects of paper like weight, thickness, surface, and brightness. Ask your printer if there are any learning opportunities like that in your area.
6. Avoid using phrases like, just regular paper, something cheap, you know what we like, or something like we did last time. Honestly we want to help, but most of us in the printing business are terrible at reading minds.