Does Anyone Get It?
Presentation folders are an art in and of themselves. They represent you and your company at a glance, and they’re the most powerful first impression you can make while giving a pitch. No one will remember that your tie was a little loose while you were giving the presentation. Everyone will remember what your printed materials looked like and the impact they had, because that’s what goes back to the office with them. You only have one chance to get this right, and you know it.
It’s easy to get it right on the first shot when you have a thousand chances to go over something, and can spend weeks working hand in hand with the person designing, and the person responsible for the logistics. It’s much harder to get it right the first time when you’ve got 48 hours to put your presentation folders together.
So The Big Call comes, and you tell the of course you’ll be there. Maybe you’re a small business and don’t have a relationship with a local printing firm that can turn printing around in 48 hours. Maybe you’re a sales rep on a 1099 and the company gives you no direct support, expecting you to buy everything you need and expense your printing costs against your sole proprietorship. Maybe the boss dropped the ball. It’s even possible that you dropped the ball, although you’re here looking for viable solutions so you’re probably the fixer in the office. The fixer is not usually the one who creates the need to turn around printing overnight, so you’re probably responding to someone else’s mistake and trying to fix it in the most efficient way possible.
Maybe you’re even a nice guy and trying to fix the mistake at a low enough price that the company doesn’t notice the extra line item in the expense report, and the person responsible doesn’t get called on the carpet for it. Whatever the reason, you’re here because you’re wondering if anyone can help you. You’re wondering where to find a printing firm that can turn around posters overnight. You’re wondering where to find a printing company who can get presentation folders to your sales reps by Tuesday. You’re wondering if anyone has a pre-planned solution for exactly this sort of instance. You even wonder if there’s someone out there who knows that companies will make mistakes, forget to order the printed marketing materials, run out of presentation folders before a big pitch, and lose out on sales because the left hand knows not what the right hand is doing.
Yeah, we can do that. We know that large companies run out of brochures. We know that the CEO’s nephew has zero qualifications and is learning on the job, while being responsible for fulfillment and distribution for a national organization. We know that incompetence rises to its own level in the corporate world, and sometimes the folks on the bottom need to take action first, solve the problem, and then ask for forgiveness for overstepping their bounds (while saving that big client) later. We’re a bunch of guys who get it.
That’s why Print Farm has developed packages especially for urgent, short-run digital printing needs. Doesn’t matter that you don’t know who printed the last run. Doesn’t matter that the guy on top dropped the ball.
Just because you sell widgets doesn’t mean you’re in the widget business. That’s a fallacy. You’re in the business of providing solutions to immediate problems, just like everyone else. We know it, and we’re in the same business. When you team up with Print Farm to get your marketing materials printed quick, you’re partnering with guys in the same line of work – providing solutions. You provide solutions to your customers, whether you sell one plastic gear that goes into the cupholder of a $50,000 car or whether you sell multi-million dollar IT solutions to global companies. Print Farm is here to provide printing solutions for you.
Print Farm is full-service. We’re glad to work with you in the long term and handles your marketing logistics from end to end. We’re also glad to get you out of a jam today, help you with your overnight brochures, next day catalog sheets, and 48 hour pocket folders.
Overheard between Print Farm’s CEO and the maintenance guy in the lunch room:
“Albert, I know all about loss leaders, but it doesn’t make sense for you to basically give away free pocket folders or free glossy posters. With all this rush work you’re doing below cost, it seems like folks in a sticky spot would buy because it’s cheap and then plan better the next time to avoid the need for rush digital printing. If these people are only buying from you once, and it’s at a loss to you, then you can’t be making money!”
“You have to understand, Calvin, that if we get someone out of that tight spot once, and earn their trust, they’ll bring us their business in the future. If I sell garbage to someone in trouble, they’ll know it. It solves their problem in the short term, but they won’t be back for their day to day needs. On the other hand, if I give someone in trouble the same quality everyone else gets, and a fair price, they’ll know I treated them fairly when they didn’t have very many options. They want their problem fixed right away, and they’ll pay what it takes today. But later on, when they need someone to handle things that are important, but not as time-sensitive, they’ll remember whether the guy who fixed their problem in a hurry treated them fairly or was a thief. Nobody wants to do business with a thief. Everyone wants to do business with an honest man who proved it when he clearly had the chance to take advantage of them, and didn’t. If we’re honest with someone in a tight spot, they’ll come back later when they have time to think about who they want to do business with when they have the chance to make that choice.
The best way to sum up that conversation is this: Print Farm handles 100% of the printing for a major cruise line on an ongoing basis. But Print Farm gives the same attention, quality, and professional finished product to the little guy in a tight spot because it’s the right thing to do. You may “only” need 500 pocket folders, and you may need them in a hurry, and your business may host its web server our of someone’s basement, but you’ll get the same level of honesty, trust, and quality as a multi-billion dollar global corporation. That’s the Print Farm way.
