Sooner or later every print shop hires somebody to sell, and then finds out the job can’t be handed over. The problem is rarely the new hire. It’s that there’s nothing to hand him. Everything about how the shop sells lives in the owner’s head. The veteran rep has her own version, and hers works, and it lives in her head too, in a form nobody else can use....
Sooner or later, every print shop loses an account and finds out when the predictable work stops showing up. Nobody called to complain. There was no bad job, no missed deadline, no argument over a proof. The orders for the manuals came in every quarter, the trade show pieces had been printed every March for eleven years, and then one spring the buyer went...
November gives you a natural reason to reconnect with customers. Gratitude, year-end planning, and the coming holiday season all create opportunities to remind customers how your printing company can help them communicate, promote, and stay visible. The challenge is finding fresh reasons to reach out without sounding repetitive. That’s where your November...
October is a month for bold color, changing leaves, and messages that stand out, and that makes it a fitting time to remind print buyers that the quality of their printed materials says something about their business. When deadlines are tight, the office copier may seem like the quickest solution. But faded color, inconsistent output, limited paper...
Sooner or later, every print shop sorts its customers. It doesn’t happen formally, and usually not on paper. It happens in the schedule, in who gets called back first, in which job the shop will work a weekend for. Almost everywhere, the sorting runs on one number, which is how much the customer bills. That number is easy to get. Every system reports it....
September brings print buyers back to familiar routines, fuller schedules, and busier spaces, making visibility especially important. A strong message can still be overlooked when it appears in the wrong place or asks the audience to work too hard to understand it. The September 2026 marketing for printers lineup, available for download now, focuses on...
Your email list isn’t working as hard as it should, and you can probably name the reason without checking. The newsletter only happens when work slows down. Somebody writes it from scratch at 9 p.m. the night before it sends, between a quote that was due yesterday and tomorrow’s press check, and then the shop gets busy again and the list goes...
August is the perfect time for your print buyers’ businesses to reconnect with customers, share important updates, and prepare for the busy fall season ahead. For you, that creates an opportunity to position print as more than a marketing piece. It becomes a trusted way to make important news clear, professional, and hard to miss. The August 2026 marketing...
Sooner or later, every print shop owner has the same social media story. The shop’s page sits there with three months of nothing on it. The owner knows it. He has tried to fix it before. He hired a freelancer who posted generic content. He asked a CSR to “do social” on top of orders, proofs, and customer calls. Both attempts were dead within a...
Every print shop owner I know has the same Tuesday morning experience eventually. The quote list is sitting there. Some of the estimates are recent and active. Some are clearly dead. And a stubborn handful are neither. The customer never said no. They just stopped responding three weeks ago, and now there is no graceful way to know whether to chase the...
Get the latest updates and ideas from MI4P.
By submitting this form, you submit your information to MI4P,
who will use it to communicate with you regarding this and other services.
[contact-form-7 id=”22716″ html_class=”col-sm-12″ title=”COVID-19 Banner Gate Form”]
[contact-form-7 id=”21702″ html_class=”col-sm-12″ title=”COVID-19 Postcard Gate Form”]