With the dawn of a new administration, we thought it would be appropriate to poll members of Print Buyers Online.com to see how they felt the election outcome would affect their businesses. Last week, we asked: Over the next year, what kind of impact will the new administration have on your business? Below are the current results of the poll, which is still live at Print Buyers Online.com.
As the chart below demonstrates, there was a huge difference in the reactions between print buyers and print suppliers. While 38% of print buyers felt the Obama administration would have no impact on their businesses, only 25% of print suppliers shared this sentiment. Even more interesting: the percentage of print suppliers who felt the new administration would have a negative impact on their business was almost double that of the print buyers.While we don’t know the exact reason for these divergent views, chances are that the less hopeful suppliers are the ones operating smaller businesses – and they are concerned about increased corporate tax rates. At least that is what we gleaned from some of the comments we received:
David G. Rosenthal, CEO of Shepard Communications Group, Inc. shared, “The little that we do know about Obama and his policies, his statements throughout the campaign are NOT FAVORABLE toward business. This applies to policies, i.e. tax, regulations and environmental. Hey Obama, small business is the engine of economic growth and job creation."
Tim, a print buyer, concurred. "I feel the Obama administration is going to negatively impact my business, and most businesses, by increasing corporate tax rates, increasing regulation and various other environmental initiatives. This is going to make the cost of doing business go up, causing many industries to cut jobs."
“Some of my smaller vendors have spoken of being fearful of what is going to happen to them and there has been no conversation among my larger vendors,” shared Linda, another print buyer. “It is not a popular subject to bring up – and it is mostly an off-limits topic of conversation."
Of course, many of our members were optimistic about the new administration. Mona Howell, owner of COVI Communications is one of them. "I am a graphic designer filling the niche of agency-like range of services without the agency-sized overhead,” she shared. “My clients are corporate and find themselves on the cusp between needing a full agency and needing the services of a dedicated outside source. When the economy improves under Obama, I am sure to reap the rewards of bigger advertising and print budgets and more movement in the marketplace in general."
What are your thoughts on this sensitive subject? Obviously it is difficult to make projections when Obama is not even in office yet, but if you have Comments (via the box below) to contribute, we would love to share them with our members.
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this comment from Dan Hebert, a sales rep for Printing Plus: "All change is good. Either for better or worse, in the long run change helps everyone; it clears the air and gives us renewed hope for the future."