The manufacturer's archives were so great, in fact, the size of the book quadrupled. Prescott-Ellen handled the extensive prepress job in house. Then it faced perhaps the biggest challenge: How could it affordably produce a very short run of a hardbound book that was hundreds of pages long? The project "didn't fit on any press for the volume the client wanted," Frederick says. Prescott-Ellen opted for a digital approach--the book was printed on a Heidelberg NexPress 2100 digital production color press.
The client was delighted with the end result, but Frederick says his company's creative advice, prepress services and other input were the true keys to the project's success.
"With all the new technologies, the actual print process has been transformed from an art form to a commodity," Frederick says. "We control the front-end and the back-end to bring value to our customer."
Taking the Helm
Mathew Murphy agrees that when it comes to commercial printing, you can buoy up customers by offering top-notch service. In the Boston area, everybody can do your catalog with "museum quality," says Murphy, a sales executive with distributorship Kelley Solutions, Portsmouth, N.H. "But after you order it, what happens? Is it delivered on time and fulfilled the right way? Are the postage costs high?"
Murphy provides brochures, catalogs, posters and other commercial printing to a variety of clients, ranging from freight companies to cruise lines. His sales strategy is to be a problem-solver. "I like to figure out how to fix problems, to find the client's pain," he says.
An ability to fix problems has led some distributors into uncharted waters, working on commercial printing projects that extend beyond standard trifold brochures and product sell sheets. Prescott-Ellen worked on a project of titanic proportions for a company in the hardware industry. The client, which sells products to stores such as Lowe's and The Home Depot, provides guidelines for retailers to help set up displays of its products.
Previously, the hardware supplier gave stores 81Ž2 x 11-inch sheets with instructions for placing its products on shelves and reordering. While most stores placed the sheets on pegboards in their warehouses, the sheets weren't particularly helpful. For example, they included text on how to display products rather than diagrams. In addition, they lacked specific reorder information. Prescott-Ellen suggested a larger, easy-to-follow solution.
The distributorship supplied 2-color oversized maps, called Plan-o-grams. The 48 x 80-inch maps feature grids depicting exactly how stores should display the hardware supplier's products. The Plan-o-grams also include detailed reorder information, including product names and SKU numbers. They are printed on 100# coated stock and shipped to stores along with the merchandise.
Patrick Ward, a sales associate for Clarity Corp., a distributorship in Northbrook, Ill., solved a packaging problem for a financial company with a streamlined vessel that holds many marketing pieces. The company wanted to promote new services to 5,000 to 10,000 existing customers. "They knew they needed a CD with some printed materials," Ward says. "They didn't know exactly how to package it all."
Clarity provided a blue saddle-stitched presentation folder with the financial company's logo printed in 4-color process on the front. The inside cover included photos and information about the new services, a pocket with sell sheets, and business card slits. A CD was mounted on a plastic CD hub on the right. The folder's design complemented the artwork on the CD. The folder and materials looked great, Ward says, and the completed piece had an added bonus: "By integrating everything, we actually did it cheaper than the client expected," he says. Previously, the financial company spent more money for separate marketing materials.
Navigating Icy Waters
Commercial printing is a competitive niche, and distributors can be frozen out of accounts if they don't heed some sage advice. Here's what industry pros say:
* Assemble a team of professionals. Prescott-Ellen provides catalogs for approximately a dozen companies. Handling the projects from conception through fulfillment requires a host of players: Some people, such as the designers, work for the distributorship. Others, such as technical writers and photographers, are freelancers. The distributorship aligns itself with the right professionals for each job. "You can't go to a photographer in a phone book and have them do a quality product shoot," Frederick says. Pick your team carefully.
* Consider controlling the prepress process. "A lot of distributorships act as a sales force and don't have an internal group to handle prepress," Frederick says. But you can spend a lot of money hiring ad agencies, freelancers or vendors to oversee the process. Prescott-Ellen has two designers who work on Macintosh and PC platforms and handle everything from design to proofing. "Our biggest benefit to clients is that we control prepress," Frederick says.
* Take time out of your day everyday to learn. "Be ravenous for knowledge," Ward says. "If there's any information out there, absorb it. Not everything will fit your niche, but you must know what your competition is doing and you must be able to talk the talk." In particular, he recommends attending industry trade shows, reading trade publications and visiting printing companies' web sites.
* Interest yourself in what happens after the printing. A beautiful--and expensive--full-color piece can be ruined by poor planning. Murphy cites an example: "Imagine a magazine with a million-dollar image, but a mailing label is stuck to the front," he says. "You've come three-quarters of the way for the client, but you finish it off with a cheap label." Kelley Solutions offers a range of services, from printing to fulfillment to mailing, to oversee 100 percent of a project.
* Maintain one-to-one relationships. People buy from people. Frederick says his biggest competition is internet-based printing, but he often wins accounts because of personal service. When companies ask what Prescott-Ellen offers compared with low-cost internet printers, he tells them, "I can name 50 reasons I can compete with them, and the first one is I'm here talking to you face to face." Employees at the distributorship work closely with clients at design consultations and press checks.
Susan Keen Flynn, a freelance writer based in Cleveland, is a frequent contributor to Print Solutions. Email us your comments at bholt@printsolutionsmag.com.
The client ran his hand over the book and beamed. The 600-page, hardbound book was exactly what his company wanted. The wire and cable manufacturer, celebrating its 100th anniversary, planned to give the keepsake books to its board of directors.
Prescott-Ellen Inc., a distributorship in Franklin, Ohio, supplied 25 full-color books with gold foil on the cover. While the books were impressive, it was arguably all the other services--those floating below the surface--that made the project a success.
When the wire and cable manufacturer approached Prescott-Ellen, the client envisioned a 150-page memento for its board members. "There were no budgetary constraints," says Thomas A. Frederick, the distributorship's CEO. "This was a piece the company wanted to showcase to the board." The books would chronicle the company's 100-year history and feature old photos, newsletters, annual reports and more. "This company has great archives going back to when it did business with Thomas Edison," Frederick says. Prescott-Ellen helped its customer with the time-consuming task of sorting through a century's worth of documents and photos.
Proprietary Program Keeps Company Ship-Shape
This fall, 100,000 brochures arrived at Prescott-Ellen's warehouse for a client. The customer ordered new brochures from the Franklin, Ohio-based distributorship when it made a few changes to the marketing pieces. One change included adding the names of some of the company's international product lines on the cover. Unfortunately, this seemingly simple alteration proved troublesome.
The customer wanted the product line names to appear in a phantom screen, but the names were too light, according to Thomas A. Frederick, CEO of the distributorship. Problem? Yes, but not for the client. Thanks to Prescott-Ellen's quality-check process, the customer never saw the flawed brochures. The distributorship had the brochures reprinted and delivered to the client within days. "Our customers don't see any of the hiccups," Frederick says.
That wasn't the case a decade ago. When Prescott-Ellen noticed problems with product quality, the distributorship decided to implement a quality-check process as part of its proprietary Reduce, Consolidate and Eliminate Program. The program helps to reduce clients' processing costs, consolidate documents that can be combined and eliminate those that are unnecessary. Every product that enters the distributorship's warehouse is thoroughly inspected. "All projects are signed off on by our warehouse person, graphic artist and project manager," says Amanda Lewis, president of Prescott-Ellen.
To avoid problems, the distributorship sends detailed purchase orders to its manufacturers. After orders are printed, virtually all of them arrive at Prescott-Ellen's warehouse: Very few items are drop-shipped from plants directly to customers. When the distributorship's receiving department accepts deliveries, it runs products through the quality-check system prior to entering them in the computer system as inventory.
Prescott-Ellen has quality-check guidelines for various types of orders. For instance, employees might examine every card in a box of business cards and spot-check 10,000 catalogs. Employees inspect packaging, binding, paper stocks, print quality and more.
"We spend a lot of money on quality checks, but we catch problems before they go out," Frederick says. "We rarely have reprints, and we don't lose customers." In addition, Prescott-Ellen's Reduce, Consolidate and Eliminate Program has allowed it to target $50 million-plus companies. "It has been the catalyst for moving Prescott-Ellen into the large-company arena because it gives our clients a substantial competitive advantage over other businesses," Lewis says.
