Here is a free lesson on flexibility. Now, bend over and touch your toes...Ha-ha...us old printers do like a laugh! No, what I want to talk about is being flexible with your printer. We often have people stop by and want prices for printing on some odd sizes, colors,and papers. Some times a printer will suggest a discount on a job if they can run the job on some odd stock they have laying around. What can then happen is the job is always run on a wierd stock or color etc... If you can be Flexible, tell your printer and ask for ideas.
Every print shop has certain sizes and stocks that work well with their machinery. Most quick print shops get nervous with anything over eleven by seventeen inches. In contrast, some shops will run a twenty by twenty-six in sheet, or twenty-eight by forty, or twenty-five by thirty-eight. Now heres the interesting part. A print buyer will understand the best size sheet to run a job on and will learn which shops run that size. However, most businesses now days have eliminated the print buyer position, and have given this fine job to the first person that said yes. This new buyer goes for a drive to find a printer. Usually one can be found next door to a Pizza shop or the Dry Cleaners etc... When they walk in the door and show the printer behind the counter what they need printed, you will see a smile spread across their face. They know just the printer for the job, and are happy to mark the cost up to pay for the wear and tear of calling and ordering that job done by another print shop. The customer will pay a hefty price for not being trained to buy printing.
A good print shop will explain to their customers what jobs they can't do in house, and will offer to prepare the job for another shop and handle the finishing etc...
NO ONE SHOP CAN DO IT ALL !!!
Forget the stupid adverts that yell--No job to big-No job to small, we do it all!
What that kind of ad should say is "We don't do anything very well"
If you can be flexible, and open to suggestions, you will find a shop that you can work with, and then get out of the way and let them do what they do best. We love to print and bend over backwards for our customers.
