The Lifetime Value of a Customer in the Print Industry

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The Lifetime Value of a Customer in the Print IndustryHave you ever thought of the lifetime value of a customer? Have you ever thought of why that would even be important to understand or calculate?

The lifeblood of any business is its customers. They are the purpose of our business—and any purpose other than serving your customers puts your company in a vulnerable position.

The fact is, demanding customers make us better. Their needs help bring about never-ending improvement as we make changes for their benefit.

Since customers are the purpose of our business, it’s important to understand and calculate the lifetime value of a customer.

There are many ways to look at the value of a customer—here is one way: Read more

Prune Your Print Business for Better Efficiencies

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Prune Your LifeWhen was the last time you pruned your print business? Or your time and activities? Or your focus?

Pruning may be one of the most important activities you can spend your time on in order to accelerate your progress toward your goals.

As we prune away those items that do not bear fruit, we have the opportunity to re-allocate and re-focus our time and effort on items that really make a difference in reaching the vision and goals we have for our print business.

Here are several ideas and ways to prune your print business or your own activities:

  • Review Your Vision and Goals. When we do this, we refocus our minds on what we desire to achieve. This creates a better alignment between what we want to achieve and the activities we spend our time on daily.
  • Define Your “Why.” Once we have an understanding of our vision and goals, it is important to define the why—the reason we want to reach our vision and goals. The “why” or the purpose provides the fuel and motivation to keep going when progress becomes challenging. Knowing our purpose will aid us in figuring out what activities we want to spend our time on daily.
  • Conduct a Time Inventory. Go online and find a weekly time inventory sheet or use an Excel file that is broken into 15 minute increments. Take the time to record what you are working on during that week. If we are going to spend more time on what matters, we first have to know where we are spending our time so we can prune what does not help us reach our goals from our schedule and activities.
  • Review the Time Inventory. Examine the time inventory and highlight those activities that are not contributing to the vision and goals you have for your print business. This will give you a sense of what you can prune.
  • Delegate or Eliminate. Create a list of those activities that you want to stop doing. Next, decide whether the activity is even worth being done by you or someone else in your company. If the activity is not worth doing in the sense that it does not take you or your print business where you want to go and there are no negative consequences of not doing it then eliminate it. Next, review all the remaining activities and decide how you can possibly delegate it to someone else and delegate it. If you need additional support for the important activities, consider contacting a company that you can contract for a part-time person such as eaHelp.

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Improve Productivity in the Print Industry

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Have you often thought about how to improve productivity in the print industry?

Of course you have.

If we want to get better at what we do we need to find ways to continuously improve productivity. There are probably many ways and ideas to get this done.

For the purposes of creating a method to continuously improve productivity, I have suggested a process for you to follow.

Decide on Your Goal

First, we have to identify what our goal is. Do we want to increase our print revenue by 10% this year or add 10 new customers that provide at least $10,000 in new revenue or something else?

Once we have decided on our goal then we can proceed to the next step. Read more

Five Reasons Challenges are Opportunities in Disguise

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Challenges are OpportunitiesHow do you react to challenges and trials in your business life in the print industry or personal life? Are you frustrated, annoyed or angry? Are you disappointed or discouraged when challenges enter your life?

In the print industry today, we are all confronted by challenges. But challenges are opportunities in disguise. As crazy as it may seem, there are reasons to welcome challenges into your life and make the most of them.

Here are five reasons to welcome challenges.

Challenges are Opportunities for Growth

If you think back on challenges you have faced in your life, did you not grow from those experiences?

Most likely, to get through a challenge you had to grow so you could come out on the other side. Once you get through it you will have grown in your wisdom and experience. Read more

Create Tension in the Workplace for Better Results

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Tension in the WorkplaceHave you ever thought of the value of tension in the workplace, particularly for your print business?

Tension in the workplace makes us uncomfortable and may even cause anxiety and stress us out, regardless of our title. However, growth and results are where the tension is.

Why?

Tension usually develops when we want to or need to achieve a result and we are not sure we can make it happen. We may have a goal we want to achieve or generate the necessary results for our company. In the absence tension in the workplace, we will achieve less and we will not grow as a person or as a company.

If we seek the areas that create tension, that means we are pushing to make progress.

Here are five ways we can create positive tension in the workplace that leads to growth and future success. Read more

Fear: Five Ideas to Help Slay Your Dragons

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fearHave you ever been overcome by fear to the point where you think you cannot slay your dragons?

All of us reach that point on occasion in our lives, as well as in today’s challenging print industry.

Slaying your dragons in this context means overcoming our fears.

Fear holds many people back from achieving the kind of life they dream of, and from realizing the results of the God-given gifts with which they have been blessed.

There are many ways that we can overcome our fears.

Here are five ideas to help you overcome your fear, slay your dragons, and reach your potential: Read more