My festive friend, Norm, was gazing blankly at an Oxford Street window when I came across him. "Shopping early for Christmas?", I enquired. 

"Just pondering over the odd bottle for one or two of the best customers", he grunted. "Don't want to overdo it. I give them a good service all year round. It's just a little personal touch."

"I thought finding ways to cut costs was all the rage for companies at the moment", I jokingly added. That seemed to spark Norm off.

"Not in printing", he retorted. "You can't cut costs easily without risking production efficiency. Sure, you can buy materials cheaper, or at least try. But printers do that anyway as a matter of course."

"So how do you deal with it?" I tentatively posed.
"By recovering costs!". He spat out the sentence with an aggression unusual even for him. "Every pound recovered is worth ten times that and more in sales terms. It's all net profit. You've done the work. Just charge for it."

My suggestion that printers should do that automatically was met with yet more scorn. "They forget or are too timid to charge for corrections, new film or plates, proofs, sealer - the list seems endless. It is amazing what some printers fail to reclaim. I remember Alf taking a job with one printer - he introduced a good MIS system, mind - he recovered the thick end of £100,000 in one year."

"Don't worry about me spending a few bob on some presents. A lot of printers' customers must think it's Christmas all year round." It's a funny old game, printing, isn't it?

(I wonder which MIS system Alf installed? Make recoverable costs easy to identify and justify with Printpak.  You can even download a free copy.)

Recovering your costs

My pertinacious friend Norm was clucking over a competitor's quotation during our last meeting. "Look at this", he chortled. "He's done it again, underquoted on the job to try and nick more of my business..." He nearly choked on his coffee, adding "It's helpful that this customer shows me any competition I might be up against."


I asked Norm if he was going to cut his price to get the job. "Not on your Nelly", he replied. "My customers know what they get from me, a good service at a sensible price. That's what I sell."

"This is a nonsense", he went on. "Two months ago this printer sacked its salesman for lack of return. I know. The man came to me for a job afterwards and I checked him out. Looks like the new one is up to the same trick."


"It's simple", he explained. "Your salesman cuts the price by putting a very low margin on the paper, laminating or other external costs. You win the job, but the commission cripples any real profit left."

I asked him if there was any way to safeguard against such occurrences. "Of course there is", he retorted. "It's the added value you should pay the commission on, not the invoice total. And, even if you don't have a salesman, any sensible printer must recognise that the risk is huge if the job goes belly up. Too many printers go bust through risk alone."

My next question seemed to excite Norm even further. I naively asked him how you cut out risk in printing. "Just recover your costs properly over every activity. It's not rocket science! Even the best printers go under if they're bad businessmen"

I didn't ask him if he was a good businessman. Already he had his jacket half on and was making for the door.

It's a funny old game, printing, isn't it?

(Why not try the best system for ensuring your profitability and cutting your risk? It's Printpak. You can even download a free copy . We know your business. And what's more, we do our best to make sure you do too!)

My swinging friend Norm was in an expansive mood the other night. "It's all very well complaining about bigger printers under-quoting you for all the best jobs", he said, "but it often depends on how inventive you're prepared to be".

He went on to describe a job he once quoted for a local PR company.

"It was a pack of small advertising cards. There were twenty four of them. Fitted nicely on B2 board, 24 up. We hadn't got a B2 press, so we had to double up on the plates and run it 12 up. We lost the job to Harry up the road. I found out later that he'd printed it on his old Kord, just like ours, not even used his fancy new B2 presses ... "

"Eventually, over a late-night coffee, I figured out how he'd undercut us. If you swing the images around and print it 25 up, on a five by five matrix, you can do the job on SRA2 board with one set of plates. You just chuck the spare one away! Saves on materials as well. Crafty devil, no wonder he got their contract."

"It was obvious really, but so is anything once it's pointed out to you. `Course, if we'd had Printpak back then it'd have suggested the answer immediately. Instead of which, I only thought about it after Harry had got the job."

It's a funny old game, printing, isn't it?

(If you'd like to see what Printpak MIS can do for your productivity, why not download a free copy of the Printpak Community Edition and try it now?)