Is Your Print Sales Team Holding You Back?

a purple image of hands breaking chains

In my work consulting with sales and marketing teams in printing companies, I hear a common refrain from the marketing side: “Sales reps want more print sales from leads, but they’re not converting the ones they have.” Sales managers agree that “lead burning,” as I call it, creates morale issues and generates antagonism between sales […]

Authenticity Matters in Brand, Print Business and Personal Messaging

a blue image of fake and fact written into blocks

Authenticity for brand, personal, and print business messaging has become more important than ever. Whether it’s in advertising, social media, or everyday conversation, people want to feel that the messages they receive are genuine and truthful. Last week was International Women’s Day and the flood of messaging on March 8th showing support for women was […]

Five Signs You Are a Print Junkie – 2023 Edition

cmyk ink in cans are you a print junkie print media centr

Do you see print everywhere? Do you count down the days until the new printing press or finishing equipment arrives at your print shop? Do you know what Pantone color the sky is? Do you make vacation plans around printing industry events or incorporate them? Do you look at digital marketing and come up with […]

2023 CMYK Manifesto: Disrupt, Disclose, Do Better

Greetings Citizens of the Printerverse and welcome to a New Year! For the first time in 3 years, it feels like an actual NEW year and not a continuation of what I refer to as the uni-year. The uni-year covers anything that happened between March 2020 and December 31, 2022. All the maintaining status quo […]

Print Samples: Before You Ring in the New Year…

a multi color image of a retro Television with an antenna

  At the end of every year, it is good to take some time and look back at where you’ve been. The world of print samples became vibrant again this year as many trade shows fired up their engines, attracting creativity that was remarkable. From Print4All in Milan to PacPrint in Melbourne, a host of […]

Twitter Advertising is Dead. Long Live Print!

mario gives the finger from fake Nintendo Twitter account

Print has always been a potent channel for direct marketing and communication, and one of the safest. This is not new information to us. But recent events on Twitter including the image above sent out by ‘Nintendo America’ have sent shockwaves through the socialverse. The reputation and stock prices of brands caught up in the […]

Print Samples: What DO YOUR Business Cards Say?

a multi color image of a retro Television with an antenna

Before every trade show, event, or customer meeting, look at your business cards. What do they say about you and your company? Do they give your company, name, title, and contact details? Perfect! They should. But if you stop there you miss an opportunity to create a billboard for your story. A couple of years […]

How to Tell if You Are Considered a Print Vendor or a Print Partner

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If print customers are thinking of you as a print vendor and not as a print partner, you are in serious trouble. You are interchangeable. You are competing on price. You are a number on a spreadsheet. You aren’t top of mind for recommendations or referrals. You are on the way out and you probably […]

Print Samples Sell Your Association

a multi color image of a retro Television with an antenna

Every print association has had the same problem – how do you keep members engaged and interested in your events? Over the pandemic years, we were confined to online meetings, and some organizations found that sending out boxes with cups, hats, pins, and buttons to their association members ahead of an online event brought more […]

5 New Business Development Takeaways from KushCon Tampa

an image of cbd hemp and wellness packaging

On August 6th, I attended KushCon Tampa with Will Crabtree – aka #WillThePrinter, co-host of the PrinterChat series on Podcasts from the Printerverse and owner of Tampa Printer, Gorilla Gurus and Sign Parrot, and Jim Cox, General Manager of Tampa Printer. KushCon is billed as a Hemp & Wellness Expo. There were tons of CBD […]

Video (and More!) Marketing Strategies for Your Print Business (Part 2)

multicolor video color bars

People love video marketing. OK, maybe that’s not true for everyone. People love video! Yes, that is true, especially on the internet. Facts: People spend 88% more time on a website that has video. Video generates 1200% more shares than both images and text. By including video in your marketing strategy, you can gain more […]

Building the Future with Print

a yellow and green futuristic city

The viable future of print business is dependent upon how print is used, and what it’s used for. We saw this firsthand in 2020. If printing wasn’t essential, it wasn’t produced. And when things started to open, ‘essential‘ was applied to the spending, not the materials; was/is it essential to spend money on this? The […]

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