PUBLICATION CENTER

Here are just five of the principles and ideas King brought up during the webinar.

Know how fast your printer runs in the mode at which you can produce sellable-quality graphics. Before you start a typical job, make a mark on the edge of the media then measure how far it has traveled one minute after you have turned on your printer. For example, if you find out that your printer runs at a speed of 8 in./min,  you can calculate that it will output 40 linear ft. (8 x 60 = 480 in.) of graphics an hour.

Know the cost of your print materials and laminating films in linear ft. Divide the cost of a roll of media by the number of feet on the roll. Although you may buy and sell materials based on cost per square foot, when you determine how much it actually costs you to run a job, you must factor in the cost per linear ft. The linear cost takes into account how much material is wasted each time you print graphics that are less than the full width of the roll of material.

Establish retail, street, and lowest prices for each product you offer. Be prepared to offer a “street” price if you find yourself competing for a job. But plan to walk away from a job once competitors start quoting prices that fall below the lowest price at which you know you can make a reasonable profit.  Offer your lowest price only for high volume, easy jobs that aren’t going to involve a lot of extra design or finishing time.

Base volume discounts on the total square footage you will be printing rather than the number of pieces you will be printing.  A job that involves making 30 copies of a 8 x 10 sign will be less profitable than a job that involves 30 copies of 20 x 30 in. sign.

Instead of giving print samples to your customers, give each of your salespeople a kit with labeled samples of all of the products you produce.  Your salesperson should be able to show customers how the same image would look on different materials (e.g. solid banners, mesh banners, floor graphics, window graphics, fabric, wallpaper, etc.). If the customer requests a sample, ask them to send you a file that you can print for them on the type of material they are considering. This opens the door for you to deliver the printed sample to them personally and close the sale. 

During the webinar, King talked about how to calculate the total costs of producing jobs and showed some of the prices he has set for different types of soft goods (flexible materials) and hard goods (mounted materials or prints output on a flatbed). He also discussed the discounts he offers to different types of customers, and suggested ways to find new clients.

SGIA members can watch David King’s presentation in its entirety in the SGIA Webinar Archives.

If you want to see one of David King’s presentations live, his website (www.TheMarketKing.com) includes a list of conferences and shows that he will be attending this year, including Graphics of The Americas (Feb. 25-28) in Miami, ISA Sign Expo (April 7-10) in Orlando, and SGIA (Oct. 13-15) in Las Vegas.