Quick Printing

NOV 2014

Quick Printing is the only business resource serving the quick and small commercial printing niche in North America. Quick Printing is the authoritative source for business information, emerging technologies, shop profiles and management insight.

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N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 4 / Q U I C K P R I N T I N G 23 w w w. M y P R I N T R e s o u r c e . c o m How Not to Lose Money in Prepress Next Year Slumping December does not have to be a complete loss: Get back to basics. By John Giles But December doesn't have to be a complete loss. The end of the year is a good time to get back to the basics while you have free time, especially in deal- ing with prepress, design, and customer- created files. If you are still losing money in the prepress department, December is the time to start making changes for the new year. 1 Review your prices When was the last time you reviewed and raised your prices for design, typesetting, and pre- press? Hourly rates, especially for design work, continue to rise as customers look for creative work to make their message stand out. You should have both a rate for typesetting and a higher rate for design. The creativity your designer brings to the table is worth it. How do you compare to the market price? To the prices charged by graphic designers? Are you competitive or are you leaving money on the table? 2 Review if you have actually been charging for the work. Too many printers pay lip service to their design and typesetting charges. They will say that they charge a certain hourly rate or price, but you can't find it on the invoice. Owners should review their invoices to see if the charges from prepress are accurate. Customer changes and alterations create additional labor costs that should be recovered. Does your prepress person have access to your pricing system so he or she can add additional costs as they occur? Your production manager should be reviewing the prices to make sure the prices reflect the time and value of the job. 3 Review your digital standards for customer- created files. Customer-created files still account for much of the loss in revenue for a prepress department. Prepress staffs con- tinue to correct and rebuild customer files so they will print correctly without either charging for the extra time or telling the customers about the changes. Too many times, the money lost by the prepress department is more than what a printer is making on the run and bindery por- tion of the job. Most problems are caused by customers not following file creation standards. Do you have a published list of how you want a customer to properly prepare a file? 4 Review your sales staff knowledge. The first line of communications with the customers is through the sales and customer service staff. If they don't understand the prepress pricing or the digital standards, then you can't expect your customers to know. Digital services are always changing, and Decem- ber could be a good time to test and refresh staff knowledge. 5 Identify problem customers and start training them. Most customers don't want to submit problems files and even fewer want to incur additional charges when they were trying to save money. The slow time in December would be a good opportunity for your staff to visit with customers and explain the right way to submit files for print. Either one-on-one or in groups, customers will DIGITAL ORIGINAL appreciate the time you take to make their jobs easier. Educating your cus- tomers will strengthen the bonds with the customer and set you apart from the competition. 6 Raise your prices. If you really want to increase your efforts to making the pre- press department profitable, raise your prices to take effect January 1. Everyone is used to seeing prices go up the first of the year, so it is a good time for you to make any needed adjust- ments. Prepress departments continue to be overlooked. The prepress staff works hard and, in many shops, touches almost every job that comes through production. Staff members have special- ized skills and would be sorely missed if they had to be replaced. In addition, most printers have a big investment in computers and software in the depart- ment and now have ongoing software subscription fees to cover each month. Add in the fact that almost all the new services (variable data, wide-format, website development, and much more) are now part of the prepress workload, it becomes even more critical that the prepress department provide its fair share to the bottom-line profits. If there was ever a time to fix the pric- ing problems, it would be now, as the workflow begins to lighten as Decem- ber approaches. ◗◗ John Giles is a consultant and the tech- nology director for CPrint® International (www.cprint.com). He is the author of 12 Secrets for Digital Success and The DTP PriceList. He can be reached at 954-224- 1942 or john@cprint.com. You can also find John on Twitter.com at @JohnG247 and Linkedin.com. His blogs can be found at johngilesiii.blogspot.com and at MyPRINTResource.com. I t is November, so it is too late to do anything about the holiday slump that many printers report in December. If you want to avoid low sales in December 2015, you have to start flling up your production pipeline in August and September.

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