OK, so you might not have realized I’ve been gone. That’s really because I have been here all along, yet somewhat disconnected much more than usual. 2013 was a strange, tough year in many ways, most of which was do to things going on outside the business. Here it is in a nutshell, we lost our family dog on January 4, completely unexpected in the middle of the night. 2 days later I found a new dog as I didn’t want my mother to be at home by herself. In March I had to put my kitty, Stoney, down after discovering cancer had spread throughout is body – it was the best thing I could do for a friend of almost 19 years. Finally, my oldest sister passed away at the beginning of July following a long illness. Even that was somewhat sudden – she was admitted to the hospital unconscious and never regained consciousness, just slipped away five days later.
I don’t write all this for sympathy. This is for my own selfish reasons and a way of clearing out my pains. The fact is a lot of great things also happened in 2013: I joined a great band (actually at the same time I was losing my sister, something she would have totally supported too), Myron & The Kyniptionz, I started an offshoot of the print shop, Hankerisms (music related t-shirts), got involved in a twice a month open mic night, played bass for a recording session on a song that took 30 years to write (!!), have been editing that song (more tracks are needed, but the basics are done) and reunited with an old friend I hadn’t seen in 26 years.
So what does all this have to do with printing? Not a lot! Printing has been through changes though. I’ve noticed a drop in brochure printing. It’s simply easier to create a brochure, convert it to PDF and a link on your website to download it. Likewise forms – you can create an online form or save it as a PDF that clients can download. So what is a printer to do? We’re concentrating first on the one item, the piece that is the number 1 marketing tool at your disposal – business cards. The best networking you can do is meeting people and giving them your business card – with all the ways to contact you including social networking sites. The fact is you still need business cards and physically meeting real people. Once you get the ball rolling you can always go virtual, but really, the best way to get started is in person, one to one meetings.
So, here’s to 2014. Take a few minutes to reflect on all the good, great things that happened last year. Now take a minute to look at your business card. It’s probably overdue for a makeover. Time to get started and back in the game.