I don't know about you, but the Gallup people have never, never, never called me for my thoughts on any national issue. I have never been polled by anybody. Not "CNN," Time, Newsweek, USA Today—nary any national media pollster or political party pollster has called me. Hey, I'm in the phone book. I've even got an e-mail address. I file and pay my taxes every year. I'm a registered Republican voter. I've got credit cards, and all the catalogers have my name and address. I'm not hidin'! The pollsters can damnsure find me! No one has asked me to rate the president's performance or that of
Does your company have a clearly defined pricing policy? Is it written down? If it is written, how do you monitor whether or not, and how well, it's being executed? Even if your policy isn't in writing, how do you control and measure it in operation? Experience indicates that 90 percent or more of printing companies don't have written policies for setting prices. Pricing at most printers is like the common law system of jurisprudence: We make it up as we go along, on a job-by-job basis. Then we try, as best we can, to make a decision based on precedent modified by circumstances. But we
I used to provide advice about how to develop marketing programs in the fall, when most printers were developing their plans for programs to be launched in January. Today, there is no longer a single time of the year when marketing and sales executives write their plans. New programs are likely to be launched in almost any month. In companies with fiscal years that vary from the calendar, annual budgets may kick in on July 1 or September 1. Newly acquired companies and additional capabilities also frequently lead to the development of new marketing programs in the middle of the fiscal year. So February is
Attila the editor sent me an e-mail that ordered me to his office at 8 a.m. the following morning. "Ordered" me, the Mañana Man, in his office at 8 a.m.! I was indignant! I considered deleting his electronic mandate, but I decided he must have some big assignment for me. I knew if he actually wanted to see me, it had to be important.
"Productivity is simply the ratio of chargeable hours to available man hours." Thus spoke NAPL consultant Bill Herrott at the 1997 Web Offset Conference. So, when the national economists report that "productivity" of the United States is up or down for a recent quarter, are they saying that the national ratio of chargeable hours to available hours rose or fell? In a word: No. When economists say productivity is up, they mean that the value of the gross national product, factored by the resources applied, has risen. Nobody mentions "chargeability." So if Herrott didn't mean the same thing that national economists mean, what did he mean?
Never known for brevity, I am thrilled to be able to reduce to one word my marketing advice for the new year now upon us: SEGMENT. Life is observably complex. A walk in the woods, a stroll in the mall, a visit with a client in a downtown high-rise—they all reveal diversity and the complex relationships that affect our lives. So I intuitively mistrust reductionist approaches to difficult matters. They tend to oversimplify. Still, I say to all you printing sales and marketing managers, segment your customer and prospect lists. It's true: My teeth are set on edge when I see brief guides to
Harris DeWese has been under the weather with the Cajun Flu for a few days so, I, The Mañana Man, am writing this column in his stead. As you know, I am the genius "other" personality trapped in DeWese's body, such as it is. This will give me a chance to get some things off my chest that DeWese never lets me say.
BY ERIK CAGLE It was around this time last year that paper buyers were being hit with an increase of $3 per hundred weight; approximately 6.5 percent on a typical 40/45 lb. No. 4 or No. 5 sheet. What a difference one year makes. As everyone else worries about whether their computers and household appliances will survive the Year 2000 (Y2K) bug scare or whether the new millennium party should start in 2000 or 2001, printers and their customers have other motivations to look toward the future with wonderment. No, call it glee. The paper market is soft to start the first quarter of
Judging by the e-mail response to the article I wrote about job costs as a "virtual" reality in the September issue of Printing Impressions, the relationship of cost and price is more confusing to printers than is technology! Trouble is, the bean counters, the high priests of accounting, who should know better, don't seem to have a clue. (Now watch my e-mail box fill up.) The double-entry system started in northern Italy about 700 years ago had limitations. It was "custodial" tracking of cargo contents and share ownership for sailing ships trading with the Indies. Cargoes were debits and owner ships were credits and they
I was eating a Boar's Head smoked turkey sandwich and, although I'm an investment banker and supposed to read The Wall Street Journal at lunch, I was, in fact and as is my habit, reading the label on my jar of Kraft mayonnaise. The same can be said for the Cheerios box at breakfast and Rita's tabasco sauce label at supper. I have been reading the label since I developed a fierce loyalty to Kraft at age six. That was more than 50 years ago. There should be a law that every deli and sandwich shop have Kraft mayonnaise available as an option to
