It's the time of the year when, no matter what your beliefs, we seem to do our best self-examination. I know that I do and lots of times I don't like what I examine about myself. I sure hope that your year-end introspection enables you to count many accomplishments in your careers, a great sense of company satisfaction, real pride in your industry and, most of all, a variety of contributions that you've made to the community and world that you occupy.
Speaking of industry pride, did ya ever notice that our great printing industry gets no national recognition? Printing never came up once during the Presidential debates. Bush and Gore talked about energy, steel, pharmaceuticals, health care, banking, automakers, the TV networks, e-commerce and high-tech companies. But they never mentioned printing.
I guess we just don't make ourselves visible enough. We do nothing to make the rest of America aware of us. The average citizen never stops to think about the source of all the printed material they see and read. I guess the people in the printing industry are too busy working hard and fail to call much attention to themselves.
Well, this ol' Mañana Man has got a solution to our low visibility. This idea is going to make printing's candle burn bright. The good work of the printing industry is going to splash across America's TV sets during prime time.
My solution is TV sitcoms and dramas. Yep, we need a couple of popular situation comedies set in printing companies! We could also use a few one-hour dramas that happen in the high-speed, pressure-packed world of printing.
Why not? There are TV programs set in the New York Mayor's office, the White House, taverns, police stations and hospitals. Why not some shows set in printing companies?
I've taken the liberty of writing a few outlines for TV pilots. I want to run them by you.
By the way, we'll cast these TV series with big-time actors like Julia Roberts, Charlie Sheen, Heather Locklear, Hugh Grant, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Anna Nicole Smith, Jennifer Anniston and any of the other "Friends" characters. You know, actors who look just like us every-day people in the printing industry.
Okay, see what you think?
"Castaways"—Five down-and-out printing companies vie to be the last standing. That's right. The last company to avoid bankruptcy wins $1,000,000 smackers. Each week the companies resort to all sorts of dirty tricks, like under-pricing the others, starting nasty rumors and stealing each others' salespeople. Whichever company is last to file Chapter 11 is the big winner and can stay in business until the million bucks runs out.
"PR" (as in Press Room)—A devious plant manager tries to outwit a bumbling sales manager, 10 salespeople and five CSRs. Each week features the plant manager and his crew of outrageous and surly pressmen who conspire to delay, lose and mess up jobs. They'll invent new ways to produce ghosting, dot gain, and hickeys that bedevil the poor dumb sales manager and his minions who have to make up countless excuses to try and retain their customers.
"The Billy Crystal Show"—A fiery band of renegades at Little Champ Litho take on the big consolidator-owned companies in this Boston-based sitcom. Starring Billy Crystal as Billy "Little Champ" O'Herlihy, the dedicated workers of Little Champ Litho find ways in each show to make more sales calls and ask for more orders than their giant competitors. Led by company president "Little Champ", they train themselves constantly to make quality sales calls that compel customers to come their way at their profit-making prices.
Little Champ's plant manager, Ernie Allgood, and his prepress, press and bindery team, strive for total quality and have a 100 percent record for on-time delivery and complete customer satisfaction. Little Champ is so good that it wins awards in printing contests that it doesn't even enter. Little Champ's sales are growing at more than 40 percent annually and its pre-tax profit is 17 percent.
Meanwhile, each episode features the giant companies' senior managers trying to figure out how Little Champ does it. They plot dirty tricks that inevitably backfire on them and cost them cases of antacids washed down with good Kentucky bourbon. Your ribs will hurt as you chuckle, cackle and chortle at the moguls' bumbling and stumbling.
"Beers"—The setting for this sidesplitting sitcom is a Chicago after-work tavern where all the printers gather to unwind. The owner/bartender, "Handsome" Jack O'Brien, is a former stitcher operator who loves the ladies. His sidekick and absent-minded assistant bartender, Bubba Cantrell, is an innocent Alabama boy whose Mama calls him twice daily to dispense motherly advice on life in the big city.
Each show will feature "Handsome" Jack courting some new lovely lady and inspiring the envy of "Beers' " two biggest bar flies, "Worm" McKerrigan and Clyde Poteski. The man-hungry barmaid, Norma, has been married six times, has seven children and will say anything. Each week this motley crew will evoke belly laughs and guffaws with their talk of printing, women, men, booze and the meaning of life.
"The Altos"—This intense drama centers on Alto Litho. By day it's an innocent printing company, by night it's an evil, mob-controlled front for their nefarious enterprises. Johnnie Alto, the company president by day and capo by night, suffers from anxiety and is secretly seeing a shrink. He worries that his machismo leadership will be lost if the "boys" discover his secret. He also fears that his ailing mother and his Uncle "Honey" Alto are conspiring to take over the company and the family.
You will laugh and you will cry as the Alto pressmen change from their khaki day uniforms into dark suits, with darker shirts, even darker ties and strap on their .357 magnums for a night of loan sharking, hijacking and extortion. The central plot for this drama centers on the printing company profits, which exceeded the sales by millions during the past year.
Johnnie Alto launders the mob money through the printing company. His numbers man, Freddie "The Finger", inadvertently alerted the IRS and then the FBI when he failed to cook the books and reported actual print sales of $12 million and the actual $54 million profit on the 1999 tax return. The feds are tapping phones and taking pictures, and you'll be on the edge of your seat for every episode.
Okay, here's the best one!
It's "The Bill Cosby and Jerry Seinfeld" show. The two veteran comedians and ratings grabbers play retired veteran multimillionaire comedians who have bought a printing company. Bill and Jerry decide to become consolidators and rock the printing industry when they acquire Quebecor and R.R. Donnelley on the same day.
You'll double up as Chairman of the Board Bill visits his plants and makes every employee believe that he's family. He travels with a sofa and invites employees to share his wisdom in informal confessionals. Bill solves the plant problems with his zany brand of fatherly wisdom. You'll roar as Jerry, playing the company president, defuses the headquarters politics with daily stand-up routines in the company cafeteria. He keeps everyone focused on his latest love relationship and the employees forget their own troubles.
I am excited. The networks are going to love these shows and I'll have residuals coming in seven figures. The printing industry will be on the tip of every tongue and, at last, we'll have some visibility. All your friends and neighbors will be envious, and we'll have folks lined up for jobs, no doubt bailing out of those silly dotcoms.
Stay tuned. And, while you're waiting, get out there and sell something!
—Harris DeWese
About the Author
Harris DeWese is the author of Now Get Out There and Sell Something! published by Nonpareil Books. He is a principal at Compass Capital Partners and is an author of the annual "Compass Report," the definitive source of information regarding printing industry merger and acquisition activity. DeWese specializes in investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, sales, marketing, planning and management services to printing companies.