Inspiration Archives - Marketing, content, & technology to help printers sell more printing

As the world continues to feel the climate of change, it reminds me of a story that Zig Ziglar used to tell that I’m sure you’re all familiar with. A man’s wife sent him to the store to buy a ham. The man brings the ham home and his wife instantly notices and comments that he didn’t have the end of the ham cut off. “Why do we want the end of the ham cut off?” the man asks. To which, his wife replies, “I cut the end of the ham off because my mother cut the end of the ham off.” Still baffled, the man goes into the living room and asks his mother-in-law why she had the end of the ham cut off. “I cut the end of the ham off because my mother cut the end of the ham off,” says the mother-in-law. The man decides he must have an answer now and immediately gets on the phone. “Grandma, I just have to know,” he says. “Why did you always cut the end of the ham off?” Grandma pauses for a minute and then replies matter-of-factly, “I cut the end of the ham off because my roaster

I have kind of an odd question for you: Who’s the biggest jerk in your sphere of influence right now? Does your mind immediately picture a recent bad-tempered customer or an unrelenting vendor? Or maybe it’s an employee, neighbor, or that “blast from your past” on social media? As I pondered this question myself recently, I came to an eye-opening realization. The biggest jerk in my sphere of influence is ME! Surprised? Trust me. I was too. But, let me explain how I came to that conclusion and some valuable things I learned, particularly one word that is changing everything. Don’t You See What I See? I’ve had a series of marketing consult calls lately with some printing business owners. All of these conversations have included statements from incredible men and women that sounded similar to this: “I know this marketing stuff is important, but I’m just not good at marketing.” “I really see a need from my print buyers for _____, but we don’t sell _____.” “We just put up a new website, but no one is coming to it.” On each of these calls, I listened to these printers adamantly express what they weren’t good at, what they

When I was younger, I coined the phrase: “If you ain’t living on the edge, you’ve got too much room!” Now that I have matured a bit, I prefer a little more cushion or “wiggle room,” if you will. But that being said, if I don’t stretch myself from time to time, I become inelastic… if that’s a word (my spellcheck didn’t put any wavy lines under it, so I am going with it being an actual word). When I’m inelastic, I become set in my ways, and rigor-mortis takes hold over the different aspects of my life. The other day I was talking with an occupational therapist and inquiring about what they do exactly. The best I could gather, they help people stretch an injured (and then repaired) part of their body to build up strength in it again and make it more usable — the way it was created to be. You can apply this simple wisdom of remaining stretchable in your personal and business life, as well as your physical life, in a lot of different ways, including: Do something you haven’t done in a while or something new. Purchase a little something for your significant other,

In my last contributor blog, I wrote about my battle with Trigeminal Neuralgia and the 3 Lessons I Learned from Brain Surgery that Could Benefit Your Print Business. Now, you’d think I’d only get to share a story like that once in my lifetime. But, at the time of this writing, I’ve been home for three days after a 13-day stint in the hospital battling COVID pneumonia. Nine of those thirteen days were spent in the COVID isolation unit. I couldn’t see anyone except for the medical staff that looked like they walked off the set of Contagion or The Martian in their clean suits. While in the hospital, four more of the MI4P staff were also battling COVID, and although they didn’t get hit as hard, they’re still facing the lingering effects head-on. As I walked into the emergency room that Sunday afternoon, I had no idea my world would be turned upside down over the next two weeks. And, therein, lies my point. Have you ever considered how you’ll handle the unexpected at your business? Are you ready for it? While it’s impossible to lay out a contingency plan for every possible scenario, there is one thing I’m

Do you remember when you first started in the printing business? I do. It All Started When… It was 1985, and it was my dad’s hobby in our basement. He had a beat up, old A.B.Dick 360 press with a chute delivery. I was ten years old and loved hanging out with my dad while he was learning the craft of offset printing. He would give me small responsibilities like letting him know when the chute was getting full, so he could take the printed sheets out of the press to make room for more. Eventually, as I aged and matured, I was given more responsibilities. First, I learned to do wash-ups for him between jobs. Next, I learned to set the jobs up for him, but he would still run the jobs, managing ink coverage and paper feed issues. Through this process, by 1999, I had learned the craft of offset printing all the way to running four-color work on much larger equipment. In 2006, I took over the company that my father started in our basement 20 years earlier. I realized around that time that even though I made the personal decision to make a career in the

Mowing your yard or planning a vacation: that’s the kind of project you can accomplish on your own. Sometimes, though, a project is bigger than one person. A recent LinkedIn article, Growing More Than I Realized!, talked about the importance of teamwork in super-size projects. Here’s the key takeaway from that article: When your vision is grand, you have to let go and trust the team around you to carry out your vision. Trusting your team is an important part of the equation, but it’s not the only part. ENCOURAGE YOUR TEAM Just expecting your team to perform isn’t enough. You have to provide the environment, the guidance, and the inspiration for your team to make their own choice to join you on the journey. The world is filled with leadership techniques about that very topic. Leaders have poured days, weeks, and months into developing complex ecosystems around their teams. There’s a place for that, but there’s also a place for the simple day-to-day activities. Here’s a simple activity I do to help inspire the team around me. I take a few moments to scribble out a sincere hand-written note of encouragement to someone on my team. That’s it! That one simple activity can provide a big boost