Dave Hultin, Author at Marketing, content, & technology to help printers sell more printing

Belief is powerful. What you believe in can guide you, give you purpose, and fill you with hope and optimism no matter what may come your way. 2020 has been a year that has required much belief. So much belief that the events of 2020 may make phrases like “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” feel like they lack the meaning and depth they usually carry. But, hold on. Allow me to share one of the greatest stories in history with you – a story where clinging to the belief of a brighter future yet to come marked a moment so significant that we recalibrated our calendar to that moment. You may choose to receive this story of a snapshot in time as nothing more than history. Or, if you’re like me and you look at history through a spiritual lens, perhaps you’ll see a deeper meaning as Christmas Day 2020 arrives. Finding Belief Amidst Silence If you were a citizen of the ancient nation of Israel 2,400 years ago, you would be used to hearing words of instruction and caution from those that God chose to speak His words through. In fact, you would have been accustomed to the mighty moves of your nation’s God shown both in blessings

Are you charging too little and leaving money on the table? Or maybe you’re charging too much and scaring potential customers away before the money even makes it to the table? It’s hard to know… Until now! With this simple assignment, you’ll be able to verify that your pricing reflects what the market will support. Your Guide to Goldilocks Pricing Getting that “just right” pricing for your print company can be an intimidating project if you let it. But there’s safety in numbers; you don’t have to go it alone! You have the opportunity to join hundreds of other printers in the National Print & Sign Owners Association (NPSOA) 2020 Offset & Digital Printing Pricing Survey. This survey, written by printers and created by printers who are still in the industry and relevant, will provide you with valuable insight as to how your pricing strategy compares to other printers. By participating, you’ll get a sense as to how close you are to your desired “just right” Goldilocks pricing. And speaking of pricing, guess what? All NPSOA members and non-members who participate in the survey will receive a free copy of the 2020 Offset & Digital Printing Pricing Study when released

What would you do if you saw a young child drowning? Consider this story: You and a friend are having a picnic by the side of a river. Suddenly you hear a shout from the direction of the water—a child is drowning. Without thinking, you both dive in, grab the child, and swim to shore. Before you can recover, you hear another child cry for help. You and your friend jump back in the river to rescue her as well. Then another struggling child drifts into sight…and another…and another. The two of you can barely keep up. Suddenly, you see your friend wading out of the water, seeming to leave you alone. “Where are you going?” you demand. Your friend answers, “I’m going upstream to tackle the guy who’s throwing all these kids into the water.” That story is a public health parable (adapted from the original, which is commonly attributed to Irving Zola), and provides the starting point for Dan Heath’s book, Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen. We’ve all been there, right? The daily fires and emergencies demand attention. They’re all we see. But sometimes these problems are just blinding distractions that keep us from seeing

Printers have a habit of working in a production timespan measured in days, if not hours! Why? Because print buyers demand a faster turnaround, and efficient technology makes it possible. The print production scheduling guidelines of “one day per task” from back in the day when I started my career in print just don’t apply anymore. With those ever-shrinking production timelines, how does a phrase like “Print Production Started Last Year” even make sense? Here’s how: You started building the customer relationship long before that first production step was scheduled. You may have scheduled the physical tasks for each step of print production, and those tasks may cover the span of a few days or hours, but you started building a relationship with the print buyer long before that first production step was scheduled. When Does Print Production Start? Print production begins before the print buyer orders printing; before they know you are a print and communications expert. It even starts before you take the time to sit down and show your prospect how print is a powerful vehicle for communicating their important ideas. Print production begins the first time you proactively contact your prospect, and that first touch may have occurred last year, before

I’m not even sure when it happened. At some point, Fargo, North Dakota, the city in which Marketing Ideas For Printers calls its home, changed from a big little city into a little big city. And that means dealing with big-city challenges, which lately, haven’t been pleasant. An Upside-Down World A few nights ago, I watched a live stream video showing violence and destruction in downtown Fargo as visiting insurrectionists used the tension associated with the death of George Floyd to bring their dangerous message to our little big city. I know we’re not the only city wrestling with this kind of violence, and I pray you’re all safe. Along with this topsy-turvy violence, our society as a whole continues to adapt to the twists and turns of the COVID-19 pandemic. Again, I know we’re not the only city wrestling with coronavirus, and I pray you’re all safe. So, how do you handle the challenges brought to your doorstep? How are you adapting to lead others well in such tumultuous times? Here are three things I like to keep in mind. 3 Things to Remember When Embracing the Challenge of Change 1. Perspective is Everything There’s currently some internet wisdom

Woman watching Coronavirus Resources For Printers webinars

Do you remember when you first realized that COVID-19 was not just “some other continent’s problem,” but was indeed something that would hit close to home? When you felt that impact coming, did you lose sleep? I think most small business owners did. All of a sudden, we found ourselves wide awake at night running through a checklist of things to do to keep our companies surviving and brainstorming ways to ensure we could help others during this time. A New, Bigger Team Focus For us, those sleepless nights led to the rapid creation of the Coronavirus Resources For Printers webinar series. This webinar series was launched to provide help and hope to printers during these unique times. As this series has grown, not only have the core values of Others First and Positive Attitude had the opportunity to shine, but Team-Focused has branched out to include a whole community of printers that have rallied together to share ideas for the benefit of ALL printers. This community continues to expand to include other industry vendors and consultants who share that same desire to provide help and hope. (And there are a lot of them! There are a lot of good

As the coronavirus continues to affect nearly all businesses across the world in some way, you might find yourself trying to brainstorm creative solutions to ensure your print business not only survives the pandemic but thrives after “normalcy” returns. Let me add to your brainstorming by throwing out an idea for you – an idea that could have exponential benefits for your company: adding a subscription-model to your print business. Now, before you dismiss this idea and quickly retort, “Yeah, but hold up. I’m a printer, and I don’t offer subscriptions,” consider the following: A recent study shows that 76% of Americans have a least one subscription service, while over 60% have two or more. The average subscription billing vendor is growing 30-50% annually. The subscription e-commerce market has grown by more than 100% percent a year over the past five years. Subscription-type businesses, whether in-part or in-whole, help businesses (like yours) weather times of crisis such as these because of the economic “moat” they’ve surrounded themselves with. How Subscriptions Could Benefit Your Print Business Subscriptions have a unique way of providing what consumers are looking for, such as personalization, convenience, and straight-up simplicity. There’s also the fact that: Subscriptions

At the time I’m writing this article, our country is adjusting to a new normal forced upon us by the Coronavirus. We’re all calibrating to this new normal by the day (if not by the hour), so by the time you read this there may be even a different version of the new normal. Here are some tips to help you survive (and even thrive!) in the new normal. Empathize with Your Message The Coronavirus update email faucet turned on wide-open once it became clear that the Coronavirus would be sticking around for a while. There are the obligatory emails from our kids’ schools and our church; those get an automatic pass through my personal “pay attention” filter. Then there are the emails that are nothing other than a disingenuous series of sanitized words carefully crafted to show the reader that a company was actually able to implement the common-sense virus-fighting suggestions and best practices. I’m sure you’ve received these emails too. The subject line is almost always a tip-off. Here are some examples of those email subjects, fresh from my inbox: A Message to Our Clients COVID-19 Action Plan Coronavirus: What you need to know Account Update: ____’s Response to COVID-19 COVID-19 and our commitment to you I understand that these messages are important (at least to the sender!) and may indeed even be necessary, but they sure are impersonal. They’re almost always

Next week, you might be one of the many printers passing through the Houston airport as you arrive for the 8th Annual Spring Conference for the National Print Owners Association (NPOA). I thought you might find it interesting to know that as you head over to claim your luggage at the baggage claim, you’re experiencing the result of some creative problem-solving. The Problem With Waiting Several years ago, passengers passing through the Houston airport often complained about how much time they had to wait to claim their bags. Airport management was concerned that the number of complaints was excessive, and as any good customer-focused business would do, executives at the Houston airport addressed the issue head-on. The Conventional Solution Additional baggage handlers were added, and the average time to wait for passengers to claim their luggage fell to eight minutes, which was a wait time well within accepted airport benchmarks. Problem solved! Or was it? Even with the reduced wait time, the complaints kept coming. The airport executives found they needed to explore the problem from a completely different angle. So, they zoomed out their perspective on the wait-time issue and learned that while the baggage typically arrived at the

Running a print business is hard work. But did you know that you need to be running more than just one business? That’s right. You need to be running three! (Hold on now, take a deep breath, and keep reading!) While that might sound incredibly overwhelming, it’s not as scary as you might think. The truth is, you’re already running three businesses; however, you might not be giving them the attention they deserve. Three Businesses in One Your three businesses are: Your “Get” business, Your “Serve” business, and Your “Keep” business. Each business represents the different ways of approaching your customers and prospects, and the purpose of each of these “businesses” is different: 1. Your “Get” Business The goal of your “Get” business is to turn prospects into customers. Your “Get” business communicates the value you offer and encourages print buyers to use your service for the first time. In this business, you’ll need to remind your prospects over and over again on why they should choose you as their printer. Your success in the “Get” business will be measured by how many of your prospects become first-time customers, and it will depend on your efforts to ensure a steady

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