Here's what your fellow professionals from our LinkedIn group had to say in November and December.
Can nationwide chains like Vistaprint match you on quality?
As has always been the case in print (and in life!) you pay your money and take your choice. No doubt there is (unfortunately) a market for the likes of Vistaprint but just don't expect to impress your blue chip corporate prospect when you hand over your business card or try to follow up the cheap and nasty leaflet you sent in the post that went straight in the bin. There is a value in quality print and printers need to work maybe a little harder on selling the value of what they do rather than striving to be the cheapest kid on the block.
Steve Brown, telephone account manager, The Paper Company
How do you get clients to stop talking about price?
Service, support and quality. Costs are the side effect of the purchasing process and a positive experience should ideally overshadow the dollars involved in providing that process. Client satisfaction is only achieved when both the tangible (product) and intangible (service) successfully combine.
Andrew Durnford, sales and marketing executive, Industrial Printing Company
When FSC and PEFC first appeared a few smart printers jumped on the bandwagon and became certified. When talking with these printers around Australia it was discovered that some of them had sales people who did not fully understand what these certifications actually meant and so problems arose with how to use the logos etc. Then after a period of, say, three years, questions were being asked by the accountants, such as "we have spent a lot of money and what is the return for the outlay?"… Environmentally these chain-of-custody certifications are great for the tracking of the product from forest to end user, but we have to realise that they do not have anything to do with how the mill operates and what emissions the mills produce. We have to realise that these two certifications have been marketed to the end users who of course want to be seen to be green, so they asked for either one of these two certifications… to be used on their printed products, again not realising what they actually are. A good example was a corporate who wanted FSC because they thought that it meant that the stock was 100% recycled. As to your question are FSC and PEFC worth it, yes to a certain extent, [but] a life-cycle assessment of the product is better.
Peter Cottam, sales and marketing manager, United Printing & Packaging
Do you charge extra for additional pre-press services and file-fixing?
We do a lot of 'hand-holding' with our regular clients and will usually fix many small issues without even telling the client – if these can be done without impacting the integrity of the job. As more and more work is being provided in PDF form by clients, we try to 'train-up' our clients in file preparation. If it's a new or one-off client we generally do charge for file-fixing. When you employ graphic design and pre-press specialist staff, their costs must be covered too.
Michael Santer, managing director, Jamida Group
What would be the best result from the Blue Star NZ sale process?
What a joke – a good business, my backside. If we had a $100 mil of other people's money to waste, eg the bondholders dosh, it should be treated as a giant Ponzi scheme and investigated as such.
Phil Jones, managing director, Thames Publications
Are staff in your business allowed to work from home?
The issue then appears to be whether the person employed at home is a contractor or an employee and if an employee and not a contractor the same issues as workers comp and hours of work remain as there are specific matters that must go on a pay slip such as hours of work… There is another issue as well as to who is in control of the work, and if the person working from home is an employee how does the employer know they have taken a meal break as prescribed by the applicable award and what if the employee at home works hours of work outside of the ordinary span of hours of work as prescribed by the award and which must be paid as overtime. Another example is the employee working from home injures themselves while hanging out the clothes… which raises the question does it become an injury incurred at work or not. Too loose for me and I have had to deal with the legal issues in previous matters and I represent employers and they are in a no win situation in a matter like this.
John Tamplin, managing director, Solutions for the Workplace
Do catalogues have a bright future?
Ok, I am a little biased, but I love catalogues – read them, shop from and with them, and look forward to them.
Andrew Gasper, sales and marketing manager, Hannanprint
[Related: What your fellow professionals said in October]
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