Free Photos

Here is a special offer we want to let you know about—free stock photos. In partnership with a great stock photo agency, we are offering their entire catalog for your use, for free. Order any poster, banner, full color flyer or brochure to take advantage of this offer. Call us today to start your order and we will let you browse their online catalog or assist you with a search that fits your theme or topic. This offer will be good through at least March, 2009.

Print/Replant Redux

It is a cool feeling to surprise someone. I had a chance to do that this week. It happened while talking with a new client. I was explaining some of Allegra’s services and benefits. His head snapped to attention when I mentioned our Print/Replant program. Yes, we really do replant our National Forests with seedlings for every sheet of paper we use.

I did some calculating and came up with this statistic. Together, you and Allegra are responsible for planting an acre of forest. It is a drop in a bucket when we hear about hundreds of acres being scorched by wildfires. But, we are one printshop in less than one year into this program.

If you would like more information about Print/Replant, for information on how to get trees planted, or for a guest article for your newsletter, let me know. I would be more than happy to help.

The Best Deal at the Post Office

I was talking to a client the other day about her newsletter mailing. It's a big mailing. Not just in the number of recipients but in the size of the mail piece. It's one of these 12 page newsletters that also includes a return envelope. Their current printer is organized such that the only way to mail this piece is pre-sorted, first-class mail. For two ounces, this is costing them a small fortune.

She was hesitant when I talked about pre-sorted, Standard Mail. She was under the impression there would be all kinds of problems mailing it this way. When I assured her that thousands of companies and organizations send their correspondent out this way every day without a problem, she softened up a bit.

Then I explained something to her she had never heard before. With Standard Mail, the post office allows you to mail up to 3.3 ounces for the same cost of mailing a postcard. What a value! Now that their mailing list has gotten bigger, their total cost of mailing will go down by 25-33%.

Think about how you can use this tremendous value to your benefit. You can send out a larger mailing in an envelope with many pieces in it. This is something we call “lumpy mail.” You can send a promotional product that ties in with the theme of your mailing. You can group a mailing with your neighbors, networking group, or marketing affiliates so you can take advantage of the postage discount.

Give Allegra Print and Imaging of Rolling Meadows a call today at 847-398-2500 to discuss this and other great ways to save money on your direct mail marketing campaign.

Discipline yourself...

I watched about 30 seconds of the World Series yesterday. The announcers were talking about one of the Managers. He puts motivational sayings around the clubhouse to teach the players. One that caught my eye was this one from John Wooden that I never heard before: "Discipline yourself and others won't need to." What I find great about Wooden is that his best sayings apply to basketball but they don't. They apply to all of life. They don't just apply to athletes. They apply to all who are facing the human condition. Check out more John Wooden quotes at the link below.

http://www.sacredhoops.com/john_wooden_quotes/index.html

Henry’s Model T

Most of us remember reading somewhere Henry Ford’s famous line, “the consumer can have any color cover he wants, as long as it’s black.” But you probably do not know that when the car was introduced in 1908, in addition to black you could also buy it in red, green, or blue. Black only became the standard when Henry Ford realized he could save costs by eliminating the other colors.

Ford created a standard that is with us to this day. Businesses either eliminate choice from us or give us a wide variety of choice. We usually have no choice in the color of Cabinet of a new HDTV. But look at the choices we have for an iPod Nano. Businesses pick a niche in which to market.

Printers, like your humble blogger, are generally in the choice business. We don’t dictate what the customer is going to get, the customer tells us what she wants. Virtually nothing we print looks exactly like any other thing we print. Sure, the paper size may stay the same, there are only a couple thousand fonts to choose from (two or three of these make up over 90% of everything printed in the U.S.), and layout typically follows some pattern. But inside those limits, the choices are endless.

For years I’ve tried to come up with a niche product. Something that I can produce that would almost be off the shelf. So far, no luck. It is been far easier for us to market Allegra Print & Imaging of Rolling Meadows like a standard print shop.

That is beginning to change though. Customers are pushing us to offer more services to them. At the same time we are looking to expand our service choices to stay ahead of them. We are starting to test the definition of what a print shop is. So far, it’s going well.

By the way, the Model T was introduced the same year my beloved Cubs last won the World Series.

Voice Recognition

As an original Mac user (1984), this is a great time to be alive. Because of the growing popularity of the Mac platform, I get to see new stuff come out for the Mac almost every day. One of my favorite new toys is voice recognition software called MacSpeech. It is based on a very popular platform but the software was made specifically for the Mac.

I bought it primarily to help one of my daughters in middle school. After testing it myself, I can see broad applications for business use.

It is much faster than typing. However, it changes the way you put information into a computer. Using a keyboard has been part of my writing process since I was in college. I often tell people that getting my Mac in college raised my grades by one full letter. So this B- student became an A- student almost overnight.

An interesting change this brings is that the stream of consciousness ideas that you can speak will be put onto a page on your computer. You get to sort them out and edit later.

By the way, this blog entry was written using MacSpeech.

Add This!

We have just added a new feature to our blog. You can now link to your favorite posts and share them with your friends on Facebook, StumbleUpon, de.li.cio.us, and many other social networks. Hover over the "bookmark" button at the bottom of each post to see all the options. So, return often and see what there is to share!

Bicycle Shop Bailout Plan Debated in Congress

This is a headline you won’t see anytime soon. Obviously the big story is the financial crisis hitting our country. But there is something to my headline. From one source, about 30% of bike shops in the U.S. have closed in the last 5 years.

I have not studied the problem facing these retailers. So I can’t go into detail on that here. But here is what I think. Bicycle shops are small businesses. Big industry, but small business. Nobody is watching out for small business owners. We are on our own. These shops are also spread out. There might be one or two shops in any town or neighborhood.

Banks are big business. To some degree, banks are in the business business. They provide the gasoline for the economy. They are clearly more important than bike shops. Or corner bakeries. Or (gasp) print shops. So, banks and investment firms get government bailouts. Small business owners don’t get a “do-over.”

This is sad to me. As a small business owner I feel for these shop keepers. As a lifelong biker I am a sad customer. Bike shops and book stores are two of my favorite places to visit. Don’t get me started on book stores. They all but disappeared about 7 years ago.

I understand that the big banks need to be protected. They are too tied into our economy. However, I have not seen anything about consequences. Unless there is clear evidence of theft or fraud, I would not be happy seeing bankers put in jail. But having to pay back their ill gotten gains? Perhaps. But business survival has to make economic sense. Poorly managed businesses should fail or be bought out by smarter business people. Bike shops—the market is speaking. Investments banks—your time has come too. What do you think?

End of the Line for Kinko’s

We recently heard about the end of Kinko’s. If you haven’t heard, FedEx, the current owner of Kinko’s has decided to change their name from FedEx Kinko’s to FedEx Office. They will be dropping Kinko’s entirely.

This is a huge change for the printing and copying industry. For many years this brand-name was synonymous with photocopying. It was almost as popular as the name Xerox. Because it sounded funny it was the punch line of many jokes and story lines in sitcoms. Now it’s just part of history.

As a printer I have mixed feelings about FedEx’s decision. Kinko’s has been a standard bearer in our market’s mind. While printers have not measured themselves to Kinko’s, some customers have. This has given us a good standard to follow to point out our strengths versus them. For instance, in Illinois copy shops like Kinko’s have to charge sales tax. Print shops do not. We are considered value added resellers. In my county, this saves my customers 10%.

Nevertheless, there is still power in brand names. Once I had a customer take a long walk across my parking lot to walk in and asked me if I knew where the closest Kinko’s was. When I asked him what he was looking for and he just said copies, I said that I could do them here. He seemed to be more than a little surprised. He explained that he needed to have Kinko’s copies made. When I told him that we had similar equipment and we can do everything that they could do, he was still not satisfied. He left explaining that Kinko’s copies are better because they’re from Kinko’s.

FedEx’s decision to change the name is a puzzling one. They bought the company because it had the best name in the industry. Now that they have written off about one third of the value of the venerable copy shop, they have decided to strip most of the rest of the value of their purchase away too. It’s sort of like buying a McDonald’s Happy Meal and throwing away the toy.

Hello World!

So, here is my introductory, welcome to my blog posting. Like many beginning bloggers we find it necessary to explain that we are blogging. Again, like most bloggers I hope to post witty, informative, and interesting information. I welcome your comments and questions.