31 years in offset...

[Craig]

I'm that guy sitting here taking all your "little jobs" and making a a pretty good living at it!

Sorry about your narrow minded bosses that can't see their business plan is failing. What difference does it make if you have one job for $500 or 10 jobs for $50.00? On an offset it would be a huge hit in overhead, in the digital world it makes zero difference, especially if you upgrade your finishing equipment!

 

[dabob]

I'm that guy sitting here taking all your "little jobs" and making a a pretty good living at it!

Sorry about your narrow minded bosses that can't see their business plan is failing. What difference does it make if you have one job for $500 or 10 jobs for $50.00? On an offset it would be a huge hit in overhead, in the digital world it makes zero difference, especially if you upgrade your finishing equipment!

There are some issues with smaller jobs and their impact on the bottom line not everything is the same, It costs you the same amount of money to write the job and invoice the job so assuming its $5.00 to write it up and $5.00 to invoice it (I heard somewhere an invoice costs $7.00 but?) anyway thats 10.00 that comes out of the bottom line on every job so those $50.00 jobs just became $40.00 jobs while the &500.00 job became $490.00 . . .

just my 2 cents . . .

 

[arossetti]

There are some issues with smaller jobs and their impact on the bottom line not everything is the same, It costs you the same amount of money to write the job and invoice the job so assuming its $5.00 to write it up and $5.00 to invoice it (I heard somewhere an invoice costs $7.00 but?) anyway thats 10.00 that comes out of the bottom line on every job so those $50.00 jobs just became $40.00 jobs while the &500.00 job became $490.00 . . .

just my 2 cents . . .

In our estimating software we account for each touchpoint like consultations and job ticketing, etc.

 

[dabob]

In our estimating software we account for each touchpoint like consultations and job ticketing, etc.

So do we but having 10 "touchpoints" still costs more than 1 . . . . therefore a larger impact on smaller jobs

just wondering how much harder it would be to handle 1000 $50.00 jobs a month (50 jobs a day) or 100 $500.00 jobs a month (5 jobs a day). . .

just thinking out loud

 

[arossetti]

So do we but having 10 "touchpoints" still costs more than 1 . . . . therefore a larger impact on smaller jobs

just wondering how much harder it would be to handle 1000 $50.00 jobs a month (50 jobs a day) or 100 $500.00 jobs a month (5 jobs a day). . .

just thinking out loud

A lot harder, it is one of our biggest challenges. We do 200-300 jobs a week with an average ticket of $200. Additionally we have 300 "walk-in"/"while you wait" customers a day. Trying to separate out our large accounts from our casual print customer is challenging.

100 business cards is my favorite order. Takes 10-15min of consultation, 5-10 minutes of file prep/job submission, 5 minutes to run and cut, and 5 minutes to box, call, and close out the ticket.

So for a job that takes 5 minutes of actual production we have 25 minutes of administrative work.

 

[arossetti]

One other note, as much of a pain in the ass it is to manage all of those jobs, enter all of those tickets and consult all of those customers the benefit is that I don't have a top 10 customer base that accounts for 80% of my sales. We are so diversified that if one customer goes out of business or finds a new vendor it is disappointing but it never means that we just lost a huge chunk of our revenue.

 

[Craig]

Don't forget that the profit margins are MUCH higher (at least for me) on the little jobs when printed digitally. You certainly wouldn't want to do a few dozen set-ups on a press every day! Even though we are a digital shop we have a fair share of short and long run jobs. We really don't see much of an issue with the additional touch points on the jobs, maybe that's because we've been doing it for so long. We have also taken the additional step of scheduling jobs on our finishing equipment much like we used to do on a press for Pantone color changes. Anything you can do to streamline production, even if it means re-laying out your shop to reduce steps.

 

[dabob]

Don't forget that the profit margins are MUCH higher (at least for me) on the little jobs when printed digitally. You certainly wouldn't want to do a few dozen set-ups on a press every day! Even though we are a digital shop we have a fair share of short and long run jobs. We really don't see much of an issue with the additional touch points on the jobs, maybe that's because we've been doing it for so long. We have also taken the additional step of scheduling jobs on our finishing equipment much like we used to do on a press for Pantone color changes. Anything you can do to streamline production, even if it means re-laying out your shop to reduce steps.

Yeah . . I get that but I was working with the numbers presented $50 vs $500 - we have both digital and conventional workflows and we do a lot more 250 and 500 business card orders today than we did 10 years ago. Now we are working with an average ticket of $200 thats a bit different than 50. And from what I gathered from one of your previous posts you handle 300 "walk-in"/"while you wait" it seems to me that would be a cash register type of transaction similar to a Kinkos or Office Max type of transaction - or do you run receivables on those customers also?

We were the first shop in our area to offer a digital workflow in our area back in 2001 so we are not newbies in this.

The big question I have is would you want a 50% margin on a 100 dollar job or 15% on a $5,000 job - we like both sides of the fence on this one . . . the grass is green on either side

 

[Craig]

arossetti is the lucky (or unlucky) one who has 300 walk-ins, not me. Like you, our average ticket is around the $175 mark, but we do a crap load of business cards, which brings that average down a bit. One thing I have found with the short work, is it tends to lead to larger stuff. We don't have outside sales here so everything is word of mouth or counter sales. We also do a lot of social printing, which has lead into commercial work as well.

I agree with the margin comment. We swing both ways here, we just farm out the offset work when needed!

 

[giant1958]

Hey mailguru....send your work to us!!!

 

[arossetti]

To clarify, yes we offer Kinko's-like service as well.

Here is our lobby in "google street view" : https://goo.gl/maps/N5Kij

 

[MailGuru]

To clarify, yes we offer Kinko's-like service as well.

Here is our lobby in "google street view" : https://goo.gl/maps/N5Kij

Now I see why your walk-in business is so high. You're in a college town.

BTW: I'm an avid FSU fan -- Go 'Noles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MailGuru

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

Not even close to being your competition, but I am stealing SO MANY of your signage ideas! Thanks for posting the link! I might be PM'ing you about a few things, too!

 

[arossetti]

Now I see why your walk-in business is so high. You're in a college town.

BTW: I'm an avid FSU fan -- Go 'Noles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MailGuru

If you ever come up for a game let me know. I would be happy to give you a tour.

Edit: Hell if you ever need tickets to a game let me know. I'd be happy to hook you up with a couple this fall.

 

[MailGuru]

If you ever come up for a game let me know. I would be happy to give you a tour.

Edit: Hell if you ever need tickets to a game let me know. I'd be happy to hook you up with a couple this fall.

Thanks! Daughter graduated from FSU about 10 years ago. Used to go to all the games. Haven't been in a while, though.

 

[Craig]

Nice storefront!!!