There's A dirty little secret among some of the country's largest printers. It's not something they all want their competitors to know. And it has to do with the most overlooked part of the print stream. Their secret? The bindery can sell print jobs. Traditionally, the bindery was seen only as a necessary evil, the unpopular room tucked in a corner of the plant, where the product was finished once all the "real work" of designing and printing was done. Print buyers would look for companies with the most advanced prepress areas and pressrooms, and then expect that the product would be cut, folded
A senior manager of a large printing equipment manufacturer called me back in July. He was inviting me to speak to his U.S. sales force at Graph Expo in Chicago this month. The speech was to be only 30 minutes, and I was going to Graph Expo anyway, so I said, "sure." Now, of course, I'm known as "old rhetoric breath," and I can talk about anything for 30 minutes. I can give you 30 minutes on the best timing, the breathtaking beauty and the proper execution of the suicide-squeeze bunt in baseball. In a half-hour, I can easily discuss the virtues of North
"It's the economy, stupid" is the now oft-quoted statement coined by political consultant James Carville during Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign for the presidency. It simplified issues of the Clinton campaign against an incumbent president basking in high opinion poll ratings. The phrase focused that presidential campaign on the concern of a majority of the voters of the country at that time. What Carville did was modify the old KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Focus was needed for the campaign, and he supplied it. Simplicity, for Carville, was the economy. "It's the Paper, Stupid!" Now it's our—the printing industry's—time to focus, to simplify. "It's the
A few issues back, I wrote a column about how I'm golf impaired. It's actually worse than that. I'm golf challenged. In fact, I don't play the game, period. I do garden and, because I'm out in the sun, people think I have a golfer's tan. I'm 57, I have a tan and I'm an investment banker to the printing industry.
After a year that saw paper manufacturers' bottom lines hit rock bottom, increases are being announced almost unilaterally. A recovering Asian economy is among the reasons for the boost. BY ERIK CAGLE Did you see it coming? Why of course you did. Everyone knew that paper prices were going to go up. Yeah, we don't know anyone who wasn't aware of it. Heh, heh. Nice try, pal. Like a critically acclaimed Madonna movie, the July price increases left many people with their mouths agape. According to Pulp & Paper Week, International Paper, Georgia-Pacific, Willamette Industries, Champion International, Crown Vantage and P.H. Glatfelter have announced
Budgeting. Scheduling. Loading. Financial reporting. Estimating. Production standards. Capacity utilization. We're talking about the heart and soul of printing administration. They all rely on a common function: forecasting. We spend gobs of valuable time and energy predicting the future for those systems. Then we try to operate the business using assumptions we develop from those forecasts. Want to know a sickening truth? As prognosticators, we're lousy. We're all plain stupid when it comes to making good guesses about what's going to happen. So why do we waste so much time with crystal balls? You tell me. Am I saying we're all a bunch of crummy
On the last day of June, I attended an out-of-town cocktail reception and dinner with about 20 printing company owners. June 30th was my 57th birthday, and the printers presented me a birthday cake, an XXL baseball warm-up jacket and a baseball cap. Of course, they asked me if I'd made a wish before I blew out the candles. One printer guessed that I had wished for about six more printing industry consolidators, since I'm in the investment banking business of representing the sellers of printing companies. More consolidators would mean more competition for the companies that I represent. That would have been a selfish
"I don't know your company. I don't know your product. I don't know you. Now what was it you wanted to see me about?" That's my best recollection of the caption on a cartoon published by McGraw-Hill many years ago showing a crusty purchasing agent addressing a perspiring young salesman. I've never forgotten it. I can't think of a better illustration of the value of a brand. These days we hear a lot about "branding," the value of a "brand." In the world of sports, for example, we recognize personalities such as Michael Jordan or John Madden as "brands." I glanced at the title of a
In my March 1999 column, I included a print salesperson survey and promised to send a magic "sales power" paperweight to everyone who completed and mailed in the survey. I hope I never weaken and make this kind of offer again. The mailman has been bringing in bags of surveys, and I am bone-tired from wrapping these little boxes. Furthermore, in a post-column wave of euphoric largess, I decided to send every survey respondent a Sean McArdle audio tape and my book, "Now Get Out There and Sell Something!" So, this whole stupid survey idea has cost me a bunch of money, and I had to tabulate
There are few signs that current, favorable conditions for paper pricing and availability will change anytime soon. BY ERIK CAGLE The current market prices for coated and uncoated groundwood and free sheet are progressing like a '74 Pinto spinning its wheels in the snow: going nowhere slowly and, if anything, digging itself into a deeper hole. Don't expect "CNN" to break into its regular news coverage with a special market report on paper. Same low prices, different day. Same high availability, different quarter. And still no drastic changes in sight. The price increases being implemented aren't taking hold, according to Karen Kelty, director of marketing for King
