Plenty of Print for Everyone!!

Good move

hadn't made a scary decision for a while and any decent business coach will tell you; At least one scarry decision a month is a must to keep out of that comfort zone! OK so i thought what should I treat Print Hut to; I know!!! an accounts dragon! So Charlotte has joined us. Charlotte@printhut.co.uk so watch out suppliers and customers alike. Print Hut - Plenty of Print for everyone

Keeping it local - Minister of Common Sense

I see that the FSB are promoting and encouraging us all to buy local these days, and keep local trade running. I see everywhere their corporate cry on behalf of the local tradesmen and women of the UK. Great idea I heard myself saying, with reminiscence of a bygone age to ‘keep it British’ But is it really? After a while of pondering on this something didn’t quite sit right with me, and the more I said it, the more it started to bother me. But why? Ok let’s take the FSB for example as an organisation based in or around Blackpool I believe. So are they practicing what they preach? Their monthly newsletter that sits in our visitor toilet, not quite punchy enough to have pride of place in the reception, is a perfectly presented membership document, posted out to its vast membership. Was this printed by a Blackpool based printing company, or mailed out using a local mailing house with a Blackpool postcode? I suspect annual tendering is present in their print and mailing procurement policy, so the chances of this coming out of Blackpool are slim. However, in the absence of any acknowledgement immediately visible let’s give them the benefit of any doubt. So was the paper used to print the document purchased from a paper mill based in Blackpool? The answer to this is NO, as there aren’t any mills in the UK let alone Blackpool. Was the design agency involved in the content a locally based company? Sadly No. And this interrogation will continue in the same vane if I am allowed to.
Are you starting to see why I am questioning this drive to buy locally now? What it should say is ‘BUY LOCAL IF YOU CAN PLEASE NOT WITHSTANDING ANY PROCUREMENT POLICY OR BUSINESS DRIVE’, but who would want to promote something as wishy washy as that, let alone support it? Therefore my conclusion is that the FSB need to go back to the drawing board, put out to tender their marketing communications (hoping that a local business may win it) and come up with something that is a bit more meaningful in this business climate. Buying local is out of date and out of touch. Even if I were as a consumer wandering down the High Street looking for a book for example, what is buying locally? The bookshop may be a local distributor, but what if the cashier is from Bulgaria, will that count FSB? What if the bookshop is owned by an American business? What if the author was French and so on and so forth. In actual fact a tesco store (which incidentally is probably the perceived wrongdoer) may well prove more ‘local’ than the newsagents or hairdresser!! As a business Printhut! would buy all their print supply from a locally based Ultra Wholesale printing company based in St. Neots, providing they were best of class. What would the FSB suggest in the absence of this? Close the business on ethical grounds. Hmmmm! Again a classic example of the need for a Ministry of Common Sense.

Tents & Pyramids

Tents and Pyramids!!

As a nation the UK population is becoming 11 per cent more eccentric consistently every year. Do you know what this means and more importantly what impact that will have on your business.…………assuming you are intending to remain in business after 2009.Eccentricity means we are less concerned about risk, which means we are less loyal and we are no longer worried about detail to name just a few!! This therefore would suggest the UK business community is packed full of entrepreneurs and thousands and thousands of tiny companies, barely appearing individually on the Companies landscape, but collectively contributing significant wealth and generating needy prosperity to the nation. CORRECT.   

These companies are run and owned by the ‘eccentric’ who will have the mandatory 100 per cent share capital – another trait of eccentricity. Never Ever Never Ever Never give any ownership away at any cost! So much so that even the unwritten perk of the ‘other half’ taking five grand out of the business and avoiding personal tax in exchange for a small piece of share equity wont even entertain them.The company will have no more than 5 employees and typically turnover £500,000.00 in their first year. There will be little hard asset, with the accountant’s asset register picking up on only a few laptops if you are lucky. They won’t own their office as that is a long term benefit, something that won’t appear on the eccentric’s Reticular Activating Systems just yet. There will be no structured management, no sign of the traditions of suit and ties (sorry M and BT) and no mention anywhere of hours of work in their employment contract. The eccentric’s product won’t be manufacturing, but a KBA (knowledge based asset) company.

At first sight these companies look like a liability and fragile, possibly with a worrying Dunn and Bradstreet report. However, drill down deeper and look at the returns and you begin to see the successful emergence of a new breed of business. The ‘Tent’ company is here and probably to stay for a while. If we are giving this new breed of company a name then the traditional powerhouses of BT, M &S and Tesco’s for example become ‘Pyramids’ with every conceivable tier of management, immense foundation of culture, Boardroom Management and spreading themselves throughout the whole of the UK commerce like a virus. The Pyramid companies have financial interests in everything and anything that wouldn’t be immediately associated with the product that they are  actually famous for.

However, throw up a storm that’s come across both the Atlantic and the Channel simultaneously, cut of the borrowing that the Pyramids have fed off, add a sprinkle of media ‘recession’ frenzy and soon we have a very different definition of strength and new laws for corporate survival start to apply. As Darwin once wrote, It’s not the strongest of the species that survive nor the most intelligent, but those most adaptable to change.

The UK’s economic landscape in 20 years from now (In my eyes) will be a vast swathe of tents, flapping around in the winds of fortune, but crucially surviving the occasional storm that hits our shores every now and again. Once the storm has passed all we ‘tenters’ will find on closer inspection is the occasional rip here or there to deal with.

The Economy

Dont really know where 2009 will take us, but clearly we have been influenced by negativity in the media.Last week we had 5 orders of business cards. Usually these would be orders of 500 minimum. However have seen ridiculous orders of 250 and 125 for example!! That equates to at best 4.8 biz cards a week! How on earth are we to overcome this doom and gloom if we think that 4 people a week may require our services. Hardly prospecting one thinks! I would have given out 4 by lunchtime on a Monday. Get over this credit crunch rubbish and start selling with positivity and actually start thinking that you CAN Grow this year.

Frank Golden

Plenty of Print for everyone

www.printhut.co.uk

Correction to BNI Venue

Thanks Mike! Dont why I had White Hart in my head! It is the Sun in in Hitchin and last weeks meeting went very well. Stuart did the business under quite challanging conditions. Just need to fill out that hall now with members and visitors. Feeling good about the next few months

Businesses galore

After a trip out into the town handing out 601 club invites for January's meeting at the football club I was staggered to see how many businesses actually operate in the town, but more staggering was the fact that I hadn't actually known of quite a few. However, I was left pondering on why there were so many hairdressers and beauty salons. No wonder the St.Neots girls always look so well turned out!!!

Who knows whos who and whats what

Business Link, Peterborough Business Development Services, St. Neots Enterprise Iniative, Huntingdonshire Economic Developement Team, East of England Developement Agency, and so on and so on!! Is it a valid piont to make, that these units are in actual fact a load of ol baloney!! And is it an even more valid piont that the New Building (name passes me) on Longsands Turf is also a load of ol baloney and virtually uninhabitable for a frantic micro biz like mine. For a project that was specifically targeted at me; that namely being a locally based creative agency in the St. Neots area, why wasn't I contacted by one of these 'support mechanisms' and offered accomodation? Simple because they are in competition with each other and not sharing centrally available information. Surely if someone had looked on a governmemnt register they would have seen Print Hut! as a Newly VAT registered Creative Business back in 2007 operating from a PE19 postcode!! ( Trade Classification 74402).

Minister of Common Sense!

www.printhut.co.uk Plenty of Print for everyone!

01480 216 331

How much are you worth?

It dawned on me today that so many of our punters (print for customer) really dont know their worth and struggle NOT to get involved in price battles with their prospects and customers. Get used to not concentrating on sell cost all of the time. Establish you or your products worth. Carry out a worth analysis on yourself in 2009. Ok, so how do you establish your true worth in the market place putting cost to one side.

First tip for 2009 from a printer then! If you arrive at a 'worth' figure that is less than your 'sell price' jack it in - whatever the hell you are doing and start trading dirty dish water!! An old sales director gave me this tip about establishing your worth analysis; If I printed 100,000 A5 flyers that for whatever reason bounced (rejection) what would the customer try and get out of me? Lost revenues for starters, reprint cost for 2 and cost of downtime in a mail centre for number 3. Therefore in this instance the worth analysis of the printed flyers would be how much sales they would generate and not what they cost - big big difference my friend! Needless to say you cant sell at the exact worth -  as the end user would make no profit, but at least start at that end and work down. If you start at the dirty end and work down your profits havent got a hope in hell.

Frank Golden

Plenty of print for everyone

www.printhut.co.uk

VAT on print

Will be digging out shortly the VAT doc form rev and customs telling you guys where VAT should be applied on printed matter (standard rated) where no VAT is applied (zero rated or Vat exempt). Just got to find it!! Neil in the office has a clever take on it- If in doubt call him on 01480 216 331

Frank Golden

Print Hut! Plenty of print for everyone

www.printhut.co.uk

BNI GUEST LIST

If any of you blazers out there haven't got the contact sheet here it is. ps we meet now at the White Hart in Hitchin so dont go to the Letchworth Hall Hotel please

Frank Golden

Print Hut!Download BNI_Blaze_Meeting_Form

Plenty of Print for everyone

www.printhut.co.uk

www.bniblaze.co.uk