Rain rain, go away

Wow, it sure has been a while....

Anyone living in New England can definitely understand my feelings right now towards the weather.... it's been raining for about a month. I know its bad when my 2 year old wakes up in the morning and says to me "Mama, it's still raining. Why is it raining?"  Massachusetts does not usually experience this type of weather is June.... I wonder if Seattle has been sunny? 

In any event, the presses are still running and the ink's still flowing so there is work to be done! I'm into my second month as a sales representative, and well it's definitely different than anything I've done before.  You learn a whole lot about the printing industry that you never knew before, which is strange for someone like me who grew up here, literally. There are pictures hanging up in the shop of me as a 3 year old playing with paper. Just when you thought you knew everything....

I clearly don't know everything, but I am going to share with you what I've learned in that past month being on the road: 

1)  People love notepads.  I drop off scratch pads to people all the time when I go visit or cold call, and they love them!  I think working in a printing company, we under-estimate the importance of paper. 

2) Ask the client what the end use of their product will be. Sometimes they think they are ordering the best stock for their stand up brochure, when in actuality they are ordering the worst. It helps to know what the piece is going to be used for in making suggestions. 

3) Everyone thinks they want top of the line, best of the best, until they see the price. I think some people don't understand that just because its our "house stock" doesn't mean its the cheapest there is, it just means we order the most of it so we can get a better price. 

4) Not everyone is a graphic designer, not everyone knows the ins and outs of indesign and pagemaker.  It is helpful to suggest letting our design team look at an original file in order to save the customer time and save printing hassles in the future. There is usually little cost involved allowing our designers make minor changes and the savings in time for everyone involved is tremendous. 

5) I will succeed in sales more if I stop trying to "act" like a sales person and start just being myself. 

I'm sure I'll learn much more about printing and about myself as my time goes on, and I'm sure I'll share my "words of wisdom" with you all, but for now.... I'm off to make more cold calls :)

Jessica

Change is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies

Lots of changes are happening.... lots and lots of changes. Not just in the world, but here at Fowler Printing. 

Changes I happen to be really excited about for a couple of reasons, but I'll get into that a little later. First, I'll tell you about these exciting new changes. 

We are in the process of switching from just "Fowler Printing & Graphics" to "Fowler- let's start communicating".  This is exciting to me because my background is in marketing, so communications is what I love. I'm currently working on a postcard mailing for us to let customers know about all the new things we are going to offer, but more importantly I'm moving to sales in a few weeks!!!  I won't lie, this is both exciting and nerve-wracking for me, but with all the new changes and technologies that Fowler is going to be implementing in the coming months, I feel confident that our services will be so unique, there won't be an opportunity for price shopping. 

What are these new services, you ask? Well, I'm just going to give you a small preview, I can't give everything away (unless of course, you want to set up a meeting with me and be my first client!!) Essentially, we are now providing multi-media marketing campaigns for our customers (which doesn't just include direct mail and email marketing) it's a whole lot more than that. We are still in the beginning stages, but things are looking good :)  

We also now offer promotional products, large format printing, web design along with our regular offset printing, digital printing, graphic design, etc, etc (I won't bore you with the list!) 

It's exciting stuff happening here for Fowler in the printing world, or should I say "business development" world. 

Not only do our new developments add diversity to our portfolio of services, but they also help YOU. If you are a company that craves simplified marketing solutions, we can deliver. Our in-house offset and digital presses combined with our design concepts and multi-media marketing give you all the solutions you need for print, web and beyond, under one roof. No need to outsource, no need to worry about multiple vendors at once, it can all be done at Fowler and it will all get done right! 

Let's start communicating.

Hey Mr. Postman

Can you believe it's May already? April definitely came "in like a lion and out like a lamb" and believe me, in Massachusetts, we are happy to see the warm weather creeping in. 

With May comes some new Postal Regulations that professional mailers 

and those who are designing pieces that are mailing need to be aware of. The first change is the price of a first class stamp. Instead of being $0.42, on May 11 the price will become $0.44. This will be the new price for a stamp, but if you use a professional mailer, you can save up to 12% on your postage (so the cost per piece will be around $0.38). 

There are a few things to ask yourself before you consider using a professional mailing service

• How many pieces am I mailing? To mail first class presort rate ($0.38) you need at least 500 names to qualify for the discount. The mail at the standard rate ($0.33) you need at least 200 names. 
• How soon do I need my mail piece to arrive? With first class mail, each post office has 24 hours to move the mail piece along to its next destination, whether that be another post office or the address the piece is mailing to. With standard mail, the post office can take up to 2 weeks to deliver the mail. 
• What size is my mailing piece? This is a big one, and a lot of things depend on this. Let's start with postcard sizes. In order to mail something at first class postcard rate, the card can not be bigger than 4.25" x 6". The same holds true for first class presort postcards (but for presort remember there has to be at least 500 names). There is no such thing as standard rate for postcards, if you have piece that is regulation postcard size, but are mailing it standard, it will be mailed at letter rate. Second issue with size is the aspect ratio (or width to height ratio) If you divide the width by the height, the number must be between 1.3 and 2.5 in order to qualify for discounted rates. If you are mailing something square, for example, the aspect ration will end up being 1, no matter the size, and you will have to pay MORE than first class amount to mail it. 

My head is spinning from all this info, how about you??  Just a few more quick things, I promise....

• The USPS has changed the rules on address panels for flat pieces (catalogs, 8.5x11 pieces etc) If you are mailing a flat, make sure you and your printer are aware of the changes
• Also effective May 11 are new tabbing requirements for letters and cards, this basically means where and how many wafer seals need to be on the pieces. Again, make sure you and your printer know the regulations, or the cost difference could be significant. 

Phew, now that all that is out of the way.... the moral of the story here is to make sure your printer is aware and in-touch with all the USPS regulations, because the postmaster in each individual post office is the final authority on mailing matters. In the case of a rule dispute over a "gray" area, the individual postmaster has the final say- even if his ruling seems to be in disagreement with the USPS rules. So, make sure that your mailing company is clearly following all the rules and regulations. 

That's all for today... and I think it's enough, the post office rules are confusing! 

Have a terrific week!! (and I almost wrote Tigger-riffic, that's what you get when you have a 2 year old!) 

Jessica

Can you hear me now?

Allow me to introduce myself...   

I'm Jessica and for everyone reading this, thank you.  My goal in writing this blog isn't exactly clear to me at this point, but if nothing else, I hope to entertain and educate current and potential customers as well as anyone interested in the graphics/printing industry. 

I'll start off with the basics about Fowler Printing (as my blogs progress, they will get more interesting and entertaining, I promise). We are an offset and digital printing company located just outside of Boston, MA (go red sox!). Fowler was started over 50 years ago and with one press and one folder, and has grown into a company with 4 presses, a full bindery department and a new (and very impressive) digital department as well as a complete pre-press department including graphic design and typesetting. We also handle mailings and variable data printing in-house.

 Instead of listing what we can print, because print buyers pretty much already know that, I'm going to give a little insight into what value Fowler Printing can have for you if you choose to use us.  I think I'll make a list:

1) You can trust us.  I realize that this is a loaded sentence, but it's true. 95% of our business is from repeat clients, some have been customers for 20+ years. Our sales people are local and think nothing of dropping by 1 or 2 times a day if that's what it takes to get your job done and done correctly. 

2) We do quality work, and we can prove it. Just ask! We have boxes full of printed samples that we can bring you (and you can keep them!).  We have offset & digital samples as well as tricky folds and fancy embossed samples. Our range is broad, and we can prove it.  AND if that's not enough, in 2008 we won a national Premier Print Award for our offset work (we beat out over 4000 other printing companies nation wide!) 

3) We have so many capabilities, you're project stays in-house so there isn't ANOTHER vendor to worry about. We can design, print, and mail your next project from our plant so no need to worry about timelines with 2 other companies- Fowler can do it all, and we can get it done when you need it.  

4) We are honest. If we can't do something, we'll tell you. If we don't think we can make your timeline, we'll call and let you know. Our prices are competitive and our sales and customer service team is reliable. Everyone works together on every project, and there isn't a job in the shop that the president hasn't seen, so when I saw everyone, I mean everyone. 

5) We care about the environment! Fowler was given it's first award for recycling almost 17 years ago- before it was even fashionable! We now have extensive recycled programs implemented throughout the office and shop and we have an Environmental Health & Safety Committee that meets every couple of months to discuss environmental and safety issues and how to fix them. We have extensive notes on that, too. So if you are interested in learning about our improvements, feel free to ask. 

Now, it's about 3:30 and it's definitely time for that "I've been staring at the computer screen and I need a pick-me-up" afternoon coffee. But let me just tell you a few quick links before I get my fix of caffeine:

Our website-  www.fowlerprinting.com

Connect with me on Linkedin-  www.linkedin.com/jessbrennan

Follow Fowler Printing on Twitter-  www.twitter.com/fowlerprinting

Feel free to email me personally at Jessica@fowlerprinting.com

or direct all your environmental questions to - printgreen@fowlerprinting.com

Thanks!  I look forward to sharing my knowledge about the graphics and printing industry with everyone. 

Jessica

And I'll leave you with a movie quote- bonus if anyone can tell me what move it's from (what kind of bonus, you ask? I'm not sure, this is the virtual world, after all....)

"Days get shorter and shorter, nights longer and longer, before you know it, your life is just one long night with a few comatose daylight hours."