Greedy competitors really bug me. Don’t get me wrong – competition is good and I am as liable to try to take your client as you are mine – but I have never quite understood the greedy printer.

You know the one – the sales rep who cannot sit in a meeting with a client without rubbishing you and trying to snaffle up every bit of ink on paper in the place. It must be exhausting for the purchasing people to deal with them, and half the time I think they get work as it is the only way to get them out of the office.

I find that kind of printer so irritating that if I do get into a new client I like to stay as far away from the marketing people as possible. The greedy printer smells out all that over-specified work and makes a beeline straight for it. Every time I have been hooked into marketing departments I end up spending half my time re-quoting jobs against the craziest printers in town. What a waste of time – let them have it and chase each other down into voluntary administration.

I much prefer the stuff being ordered by the receptionists and the factory managers. They are more loyal, easier to work with and the greedy printers cannot be bothered with them.

Occasionally though you cannot help but get involved in a fight with another printer. I had a long term client who had been ordering from us direct but asked us to deliver to the warehouse of their stationery supplier, a medium sized company who managed their stock and distribution. This arrangement went well for years – we made money, the manager made money and the client was happy. Then a new rep came in for the stationery manager and asked us for a price list, seeing as we had been doing such a good job and working well – maybe we could do more work together. My ever-trusting father gave them one and they promptly used it to go to the client and try to cut us out. Our client gave us a chance to respond and while we did not particularly want to do it we submitted a proposal to cut out the manager and do their job. We won and the manager had the fun job of delivering all the client’s stock to us. They never got another order. And why? Everyone was happy and everything worked – they just got greedy.

Recent events have reminded me of how this kind of greed can be bad for you. For years another printer and I shared a big client – neither one of us could handle all their work by ourselves and we each supplied different products. If the client ever wanted what they did I would send them to the other bloke and I always presumed he did the same.

But then all of a sudden he got greedy. He shared our client’s details with a print broker mate who rang the line managers, telling them they had to deal with him exclusively. Not being idiots, they saw through that but I did start getting asked to match his prices. Unfortunately for him, he was one of those boneheads who hid as many costs as he could in the fine print. This did not endear him to the client once I pointed it out.

At first my competitor tried to deny he was behind all this but once I saw one of his quotes the jig was up and I went at him guns blazing. It was irritating because he was in a field I had no interest in and there was a learning curve. But I got there – I stopped referring clients to him, answered the inquiries myself and took most of his business with our client off him. Now he only gets what I don’t want to do.

It’s very satisfying nailing someone like that but I will never understand what makes someone rock such a good boat.

From a situation where everyone is happy and making money, to one where there can really only be one winner – whatever they say, greed ain’t good.

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