Welcome to round three of my blogging duel with Matthew Parker. TEAM USA is claiming victory for the last two rounds based upon your feedback, but TEAM UK is a formidable and knowledgeable opponent and I don’t expect the streak will last!
Quickly – here are the rules:
Each month Matthew and I formulate a topic question and both write posts in response that are 500 words or less. We set a deadline, and trade posts to see what the other has written, and post our blogs on our respective sites. I include a link to Matthew’s response at the end of mine, he does the same, and then we leave it up to all of you to decide which answer is best – however you define that. Some might agree we me, or with Matthew, or with both of us, or neither – whatever it may be, we want to know!
Please leave a comment below or where it best suits you and follow #UKvUSA on Twitter for some extra fun! And now… on to this month’s duel!!
#UKvUSA Three Questions Every Print Buyer Should Ask A Print Supplier
There are so many angles to take, so many questions that could be asked, how do you get it to just three, and have those three be the most relevant? I decided to take a good look at the biggest picture, and what the most relevant thing I would need to know would be. Quite simply, it boils down to “what can you do for me?”… and here is how I would get there.
Q1. What do you know about my company? This question will let me know right off the bat of I am a cold call, or a prospect you have strategically geared-up to woo. I would expect you to know the type of projects I produce, who my clients are, and any topical news regarding the company that is relevant to our discussion… for example… a pending or new merger with another Ad Agency could completely change the way print is purchased, and by whom.
Q2: Based upon what you know about my business, where can you add value? I reference this post I wrote for Printing Impressions a lot when it comes to this subject because I think it’s the best strategy to take. If a Print Supplier is going to engage me with the “better quality, service, price” conversation with regard to value it is going to be a very short conversation. If instead that question is met with examples of how their capabilities could be enhancing my work, and how their knowledge and experience could help me expand my offerings to my clients, now we can have a real conversation and value is already being shown.
Q3: Is your company financially stable? Quite honestly I have never asked this question before, but recent economic conditions and some horror stories I’ve seen shared over the past year make me think it might be the most relevant. Since I am not a finance person, I would seek advice from my CFO as far as what to ask specifically, what to ask for as far as documentation, and if need be put my CFO in touch with someone at the printer before I entered a new vendor into my system. In general terms, this matters to me because: I don’t want to invest my time and effort into developing a partnership with a company who isn’t going to be here in six months; I don’t want my work abandoned if the doors get closed; and I don’t want my main contact replaced every time there are cutbacks or re-organizations. In other words, I don’t want to go down with a sinking ship.
What are three questions you would ask? If you are a printer, what do you think the most important questions would be for me to ask?
Looking forward to your comments, your VOTE FOR TEAM USA!… and here is Matthew’s TEAM UK response to the topic at hand!
Next month: How can Print Suppliers make their email marketing/newsletter appealing to Print Buyers?
One Response
I feel the fundamentals of buying print, be it in Europe and/or in North America, remain the same. They all point to answering the question “can they / can we work with this company”. Establishing new suppliers for printing services is all too often tasked to procurement individuals. Some have limited or no experience of buying printing services. At worst, this manifests itself in placing work with suppliers who are not capable of fulfilling the work and subcontract work without the buyers knowledge. Driven by a one size fits all approach to buying borne out of an inappropriate adversary relationship sometimes from both sides and resulting in poor service levels, price creep and invariably end in acrimony coupled with lengthy contractual dispute. This has seen procurement individuals faced with sourcing new vendors often engage with print management and/or large printing groups to conduct work. Although this addresses the some of the problems previously mentioned it does not guarantee best buying practice and that important visibility in delivering actual cost savings ( not made up ones !), speed to market improvements and innovation.
I had the pleasure of working with North American and European suppliers in the early 2000’s while i was working for an international publishing company. In the case of my working with North American i wasn’t sourcing these vendor relationships from new. I was ultilising opportunities for co-productions in conjunction with my USA colleagues massive direct marketing campaigns by leveraging combined volume. By reviewing their campaign schedules in advance and placing work directly with vendors based on specification including significant variable data changes and volume attributes. The CPM rates were significantly lower than if i purchased from a limited number of suitable UK vendors. Even after shipping costs most production brought a savings range of 40% to 50%. Although this approach had a sizable financial risk if you missed key schedule dates the benefits were tangible.
Procurement process, if done correctly, brings many benefits. And when combined with a pragmatic print buying approach it is a winning purchasing strategy.