The Post Offices (USPS) Encore or the Beginning of the End

People unknowingly think the United States Postal Service is inefficient and burdened by "government employees".  Not true by any means - sure there are always a few bad apples, but that is true everywhere.

Imagine - a private company spending millions in research and then, the moment the research is complete it must be put into public domain for all competitors (UPS, FedEX, etc ) to use.  How can it survive when your competition, which you are not allowed to compete with, has access to all your market and product research and can skim the most profitable portions of the market with that research.

Add to that a collective of general, dis and mis information and attacks on an organization that does not have a PR budget to defend itself.

Every Door Direct Mail  (EDDM) could be the savior of the USPS.  A USPS encore? For the sake of the public, let's hope its not the beginning of the end.  More to come.

A Tale of Two Cities

I very rarely express a political opinion, but I believe our politicians are tying our hands behind our backs and then holding us responsible for scratching our bellies and fining us if we don't... I fear that in our lifetimes we will experience not only what we saw in Greece, but, as an extreme, what we saw in Egypt. It will not be one groups, classes, corporations, or parties fault, but what we, as a people, ignorantly chose and even voted for - thus its what we want. Then someone will, in their documentation of history, say: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."..

From Wikipedia

In spite of what we learn, how smart we are, and the wisdom we have - history continues to repeat itself - Read about, (or even READ) A Tale of Two Cities.

The Perfect Storm (Economically Speaking)

The perfect storm involves many components coming together in sync creating a much larger storm as each of the components, rather than opposing each other in some way, support each other.

We have that in our economy now as the following components seem to be in sync, or at least they are in my opinion.

1. Pent up capital goods demand - there is lots of need to spend and buy big things, from bridges to roads (in the infrastructure arena) to fork lifts, manufacturing equipment, communicating equipment, sales tools and systems.  This trickles down in a big way to household items and discretionary luxuries. UPDATE: September 5, 2012: Auto sales rise as higher gas prices, aging vehicles spur demand (Link Expired).
2. Capital sitting and waiting for someplace to be spent.  Huge amounts of dollars are starving for a place to go - a major contributing factor to why our interest rates are so low.

So why isn't capital demand hooking up with capital supply?  In my opinion (for some reason I feel the need to clarify that all the time), political uncertainty and instability; people (its all about people) do not invest until the rules have been defined and show some form of stability.  So why do we have political uncertainty and instability today?  The media...  The media is creating news, in my opinion <smile>, for the sake of selling news - and luckily, rapidly failing as well.  Stability is here (or coming quickly).  No matter who or what is, or will be in power, stability is here, more spending will occur and the economy will be perceived and recognized as better.  The who or what will only effect the level of good - all's good.

It's a great time to have business problems and be a business owner as people dream to have the problems you are about to face.

UPDATE: September 6, 2012: Someone told me today how "Office Furniture" is one of the economies leading indicators (Forward Looking) - and how hot it is NOW...

UPDATE: December 27, 2012: Jobless claims fall to lowest in almost 4-1/2 years.  ~ NBCNews.com Business.

UPDATE: January 3, 2013: Businesses added 215,000 jobs in Dec., survey shows.  ~ NBCNews.com Business.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is one of those abstract needs where the return is difficult to quantify, but we know we need to do it because that's what everybody says (?#?#).

Here is my bottom line on this - if you have a need, learn to do it as the return is high (assuming you have the need).  The cost of good SEO is also high and since it is very much abstract, you want to know you are getting what you pay for - and watch out for the snake oil salespeople.  Note: We do it, we don't sell it - www.LightsOnGraphics.com - www.Time4Printing.com - www.Time4Texas.com - www.Time4SacramentoPrinting.com.

SEO comes in many flavors and levels.

The first, and least expensive, is that tuneup you may hear about frequently ($149 - $499). My opinion on this - if your website was built correctly in the first place it is already done. If you are being sold this, you probably don't need it.  But then again, its 500 bucks - it may be worth getting someone elses opinion.  You will hear people say things like relevant page name, page titles, page descriptions, meta tags, keywords and search engine submissions at this level.

The next level comes from those service providers who do monthly SEO service - it's kind of like getting maid service for the first time - a start-up fee (like $499) and then a monthly fee of anywhere from $39 - $99 per month.  Here we begin to move in the right direction as SEO is not a snapshot, but a process.  Regretfully, customers rarely see a return and terminate the service as this becomes apparent.  When this group is selling you, you will hear all the same words from the previous paragraph plus one other - "relevance"...

Finally, for those people who can actually benefit (financially speaking) - learn to do SEO as the process (yes, a process) needs to be continuously worked.  Think of it like marketing - it's not something you do once.  Add to that, people who know what they are doing with SEO are either doing something themselves or charge BIG $$.  Test your need with PPC (Pay-Per-Click (or CPC - Cost-Per-Click); it is not abstract.  If PPC provides a return, so will SEO and you will want to do BOTH - this, is not an either/or.

 Finally, we don't sell it - we don't buy it - we do it.

Quality, and How it is Marketed and thus Perceived will Define Success.

There are many definitions of quality in business.  The ISO 9000 definition is the "Degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements". "The standard defines requirement as need or expectation".

Quality is something a product has when it is reproduced the same over and over and over to a defined set of specifications.  Some companies maintain quality by producing the product in one place.  Some companies maintain quality with well defined and well engineered systems.

Consumers buy quality - they know what to expect because of the quality.  This does not mean that the consumer is getting a better product. or even good product; the consumer just knows what they are getting. Having a better hamburger is not enough to compete with McDonald's just as having a better print product is not be enough to compete with Vistaprint.

Followup on "Who Me, Who Three - Fixing the Local Print Business" Can the Local Printer Survive?

 There is an economy of scale that the local quick printer (franchise or independent) needs to have to survive.  Read my blog entry "Who Me, “Who Three” - Fixing the Local Print Business", it will provide some further background and insight.

The local printer's first issue is utilization of assets which means increasing it's business.  Since they have higher end and more capable equipment than the new competition (office product stores and postal stores), they have a bigger financial mouth to feed.  Reduced copy business revenue and traffic and then losing some of the higher end business to online printers has made this difficult and their future questionable. It will require some aggressive creativity for these businesses to continue as an ongoing entity.

The local printer needs to aggressively network to two groups, the graphic designer and the local postal stores and signing them up as partner/affiliates (sound familiar).  This will require very attractive commissions be paid to the partners; so attractive that they wont want to do it with anyone else.  As it is said in the venture capital business, "Do you want to own a percentage of something or 100% of nothing".  It's a strong argument.  This is one of those areas where I can tell everyone the answer, and for one reason or another (can't execute, too busy, don't have talents beyond retail, etc), its doesn't happen. Let's just say they need to begin to collaborate with each other more aggressively.

The franchisors should be all over this as they need to help (save) their franchisees.  BetaGraphics (our make believe franchisor) needs to do more than educate, but actually push their local franchise into partnering with local graphic artists and postal stores, basically offering satellite franchises (BizOps) and relationships to the local BetaGraphics.  These people are looking for a solution that the local quick printer has.

What you read is the why our business model at LightsOnGraphics exists.  A player needs to unify the fragmented local market or the local market will ultimately disappear causing everyone to lose; quality will suffer (as it already is) and prices will ultimately rise.

Bob Leonard
561-371-4113

Collaborative Marketing Efforts Make The Impossible - Probable.

One misconception I have found in talking to prospective partners and affiliates is that they think we are selling them a website - we are not.  We are simply partnering to bring local exposure (everywhere) to LightsOnGraphics.com in exchange for the local exposure of the partner and affiliate resulting in local foot traffic, additional revenues and commissions (commissions from LightsOn Graphics).

LightsOn Graphics' business objective is to increase traffic to the LightsOnGraphics.com website, and the local partner/affiliate to appear when the user traffic is in their locale.  It is not to drive traffic to (or from) a local area. The results and objectives are achieved through collaboration and not brut force.

Taking this approach gives the local printer and postal store a chance to compete for the market which is slowly being lost to the major online printer(s) as described in this past blog entry - Understanding the Changing Print Market. 

Bob Leonard