Distributors save the day with innovative label solutions.

It's not often that you find someone who enjoys confronting problems head-on. But, in the eyes of end users, solving problems can turn mild-mannered distributors into superheroes.

Handling customers' problems is the best part of the job for Jeff Townsend, CFC. "It's very fulfilling to take an application where you really have a need, do the research and find a solution to the problem," says the president of Townsend Business Forms, a 33-year-old he in Indianapolis. "The value and credibility you get with a client when you're able to do that is just incredible." Labels account for 27 percent of the distributorship's sales.

Super Solver
When a client approached Townsend with complaints about labels it purchased from another distributorship, he sprang into action. At the time, Townsend Business Forms had been providing the client-an international central laboratory that performs clinical trial testing for pharmaceutical companies-with traditional business forms. But Townsend saw this as his opportunity to shine.

As part of its clinical research, the central laboratory distributes drug kits to hospitals and doctors' offices. Depending on the tests being performed, the kits include between 3 and 12 polypropylene test tubes of various sizes to collect blood and urine samples. The lab direct thermal-printed bar codes on the labels, which were then affixed to the test tubes. Direct thermal labels have heat sensitive coatings that allow the labels to be imaged on printing presses without the use of ribbons.

Once the hospitals and doctors' offices collected the blood and urine samples, the test kits were packed in dry ice and returned to the lab. Some test tubes were refrigerated; others were frozen for short periods at -76 to -94 F. The lab thawed frozen samples in water baths, then tested and refroze them up to three times before discarding them. However, some labels fell off test tubes during the thawing process. "It just became a bad situation for the lab," Townsend says. "At that point, they had samples that weren't labeled, and they had no idea which label went with which test tube."

Other test tubes were frozen for long periods of time at -238 F. "This facility is about 10 years old," Townsend says. "They have some samples in [long-term storage] that are 10 years old. They've had to put tape over some of the older labels to make sure they don't [fall off]."

The lab experienced additional problems with test kits distributed to its facilities near the equator. Test kits en route to those facilities were not packed in dry ice, and some were subjected to temperatures in excess of 140 F while sitting on airport tarmacs. The heat caused problems for the direct thermal bar coded labels. "They were getting a lot of [labels] coming from those areas that were all black," Townsend says.

After extensive testing of approximately eight different label adhesives in extreme temperatures and conditions, Townsend provided the lab with 2 million test tube labels of various sizes. The distributorship solved the bar code problem by advising the lab to switch to thermal transfer labels. The labels are now imaged at the client's location by a heated printhead that contacts a ribbon coated with thermal ink. This causes the ink from the ribbon to transfer onto the label and create the image.

Some distributors may not have wanted to take the time for the extensive testing process, Townsend says. "People seem to be in a hurry to do everything now," he says. "Sometimes you have to slow down and take things a step at a time....The vendor that had this business prior to us knew this [adhesive] problem existed for approximately two years. They were just satisfied that the labels they [were selling the lab] were the best products on the market, and they weren't going to try anything new."

The lab has become one of Townsend Business Forms' largest accounts, ordering 26 to 30 million test tube labels and 3 to 4 million kit box labels each year. "Hardly a day goes by that we don't get a new label request from this organization," he says. "It's just incredible. We've got file drawers after file drawers of labels that we've done for them." The distributorship also provides the client with shipping labels, traditional business forms, letterhead, envelopes and more.

Super Lead-ins
Solving problems can help distributors save the day and get their foot in prospects' doors. "It's amazing to me how often you'll be in an interview with a prospective client and discover that they're having problems," Townsend says. "You'll ask, 'How well are your labels working now?' For the most part, they'll start off saying, 'They're working fine.' But when they really get into it, you start hearing a lot of different places [they're having problems]."

Three years ago, Donald Wenk, president of Business Printing Plus, a 15-year-old distributorship in Owosso, Mich., made a cold call to a water conditioning company that sells swimming pool filters and other pool supplies. Another distributorship had been supplying the company with 4 x 6-inch stock labels with standard adhesives to affix to its metal and plastic pool equipment. The labels were printed with warning and instruction information regarding the use of the equipment, as well as the customer's name and contact information. The labels, which were exposed to hot and cold temperatures, water, chlorine, salt compounds in softening equipment, and sunlight, were fading and falling off the metal and plastic parts.

The water conditioning company asked several other distributorships to find a solution to the problem, but none of them could find a label that worked well. The company tried using metal tags, but couldn't determine how to apply them to curved metal and plastic parts of the pool equipment. When Wenk walked in the company's door, he says, workers thrust the application at him just to get him out. "I think that they almost figured that we'd fail, too," Wenk says.

Wenk immediately called one of his label manufacturers and explained the label environment and conditions. Together, Wenk and the manufacturer created a label with an aggressive glue that would adhere to metal and plastic surfaces. The label was also coated to prevent information from fading.

The water conditioning company was surprised when Wenk returned with label samples, but was doubtful that his solution would work. Reluctantly, the company ordered 1,000 3 x 5-inch labels, but soon asked for more. "They were ecstatic," Wenk says. The company placed a second order for 10,000 labels.

Business Printing Plus saved the client time and money by preventing it from making the switch to metal tags, and the new labels helped the company increase its revenue. Because the new labels stayed in place on the pool equipment, the company received more service calls from its customers. Business Printing Plus now provides the client with 10,000 labels annually, in addition to checks and invoices. Labels account for 25 percent of the distributorship's sales.

"You're a hero in your customers' eyes because you solve [their label] problems and save them money," Wenk says.

Super Growth
While the forms market is declining, the label market is growing faster than a speeding bullet. Many firms are looking to labels as marketing tools, says Cindy Berger, president of K C Forms Inc., a 12-year-old distributorship in Baltimore. "So much business is being done on the internet now," she says. "People aren't spending as much money on brochures and such. They're doing a lot of their marketing online." They're doing more shipping, too, she says, looking for other avenues to get their names out, show their logos and "be more of a presence than just a name on a UPS label."

Recently, a steel parts manufacturer called K C Forms looking for a way to distinguish the cardboard boxes it uses to ship parts to customers nationwide. The manufacturer had considered preprinting its name, logo and address on the boxes with black ink, but wanted color shipping labels instead.

K C Forms provided the manufacturer with 10,000 6 1/4 x 5-inch and 10,000 3 x 4-inch, 4-color shipping labels for two different box sizes. Designed by Berger, the labels included the manufacturer's name, logo and address. "They were ecstatic [when they saw the labels]," Berger says, because the labels projected a more professional image.

Almost everybody uses labels in some capacity, Berger says. "If someone wants to have a brochure made, he usually can go to the yellow pages and find at least six companies that do that," she says. "With labels, it's a little trickier because commercial printers don't do them...and a lot of label manufacturers don't deal directly with clients. Companies really need to go through distributors to have labels done [right]."

6 Ways to Be a Label Hero

1. Understand your realm. "When you're selling labels, it's extremely important to [investigate] the environment that they'll be subjected to," says Donald Wenk, president of Business Printing Plus, a 15-year-old distributorship in Owosso, Mich. "Probably the biggest problem with labels is that people don't do the research....Once the initial investigation is done, they're an easy repeat."
   
   
2. Put an "S" on your chest. "More and more, companies want people to know who they are," Wenk says. Marketing information can be added to shipping labels, warning and instruction labels, product information labels, price labels, and more.
   
   
3. Have a strong ear. "Ask questions about how people are using their labels," says Jeff Townsend, CFC, president of Townsend Business Forms, a 33-year-old distributorship in Indianapolis. "If you spend a little time to investigate, you may very well find an alternative that will either be cheaper or more productive....It seems simple, but when you're out in the marketplace, you don't see a lot of that."
   
   
4. Combine strengths. "Some customers may be interested in doing form/label combinations if they're using [the labels] for shipping purposes," says Cindy Berger, president of K C Forms Inc., a 12-year-old distributorship in Baltimore. Such products can save clients time by streamlining operations.
   
   
5. Be honest about costs. "With business forms, most things are camera-ready and usually there aren't a lot of setup charges," Berger says. "There are plate charges every time for new label orders." One of Berger's clients, a steel parts manufacturer, paid $360 for eight plates to be made for its 4-color shipping labels. "If somebody is coming to you because they want to get a label [as] an inexpensive fix for something, they really need to take into consideration plate charges," she says.
   
   
6. Ally yourself with other heroes. When you take on a label project, "get in touch with a credible manufacturer," Townsend says. "They've always got [technical gurus] that are very knowledgeable and are more than happy to share that knowledge."

Kara S. Carpenter is an assistant editor at Print Solutions. Email her your comments at kcarpenter@PSDA.org.