DeWese--Special Day Brings Thoughts of the Future

Another one of my stupid birthdays happened, as it does every year, on June 30th. It was my 58th birthday!

The good news is that, at 58, I am healthy enough to have passed a physical to buy another $2 million in life insurance. The agent has already delivered the policy and I've paid the first year's premium. I'm kind of an insurance junky. I'm insured for everything. Insurance agents hear my name and they drool.

The bad news is that I wrote my first Printing Impressions column 16 years ago when I was 42 and still had a flat belly. Sixteen years writing this column every month, and still no Pulitzer Prize. More than 220,000 words and my picture has never once been on the cover. Of course, now I'm too big

to fit on the already extra-sized cover. Maybe they could fit me on one of those two-page centerfolds? In 1984, I would have easily fit on one page.

The good news is that I still have a lot to do; so at this advanced age, there's no thought of retirement meandering around my head. I'm a horrible vacationer, so I know I would be a bad retiree. I'm supposed to be on vacation as I write this column, but I keep calling the office to get my voice mail. The office is forwarding my e-mail to this laptop and I even bought a lightweight fax machine to bring on the trip.

Here are some of the things I'd like to do before my family collects all those life insurance checks.

I've given money to Habitat for Humanity, but I've never helped build one of the houses. If Jimmy and Roslyn Carter can put on their jeans and drive nails, so can I. Except, of course, I won't be wearing jeans. Fifty-eight-year-old fat guys shouldn't be wearing jeans.

They'd be happy to have me. I'm also a hardware store junky and I've got great power tools. Of course, I can't use any of them very well and I'm prone to accidents that require stitches. Habitat for Humanity will probably assign me jobs like nail counting and water bucket filling.

Before I croak, I want to establish some system for accurately tracking the performance of the printing industry on a segment-by-segment basis. There is far too much generalized disinformation about the growth and profitability of the printing industry—and bad information adversely affects both privately held companies and publicly held ones.

Wall Street and the banks do not understand the printing industry and I intend to do something about it. I'm working on it now.

Long before I venture to that great pressroom in the sky, I want to give more money to NAPL for its Management Plus program. I want to give money and work hard on the board of the GATF Scholarship Foundation that provides money to students who plan to enter the printing industry.

I want to do more to help women who are victims of spousal abuse and their children. I would like to help create a program that draws women who need to return to the workforce into the printing industry.

I want the editors of House and Garden to drive by my house, notice my perennial garden and feature it in their magazine. You see? All these endeavors take money, so I've got to keep working. Yep. I've forgotten about retirement. It's not part of my plan.

All of this, of course, was my lame segue into to the subject of planning. I'm talking about sales planning and company planning.

When I listed some of my personal objectives above, I was committing, in front of about 150,000 readers, to a plan. I have learned the hard way that plans work only when there is commitment and action to implement the plan. There's some magic about writing it down that helps to make a plan happen.

This will shock you, but many print salespeople and many printing companies have no plan. None. Nada. Nary a notion about the future.

Here's what I'm gonna do. The rest of the column will be a clip-n-save. I'm going to write a plan for all the planless salespeople and a plan for all the companies that are sans plan. If you fit in either of those categories, you can clip your plan, tape it to your bathroom mirror and implement your way to fame, fortune and a fortuitous future.

Salesperson Plan
Repeat the following, then actually do it; and use the check boxes if the mechanics will ensure your follow-through.

• I commit to productively working four more hours each week.
• I commit to making five additional new account calls each week.
• I commit to developing two new accounts each quarter. (The dollar level of sales should depend on the kind of printing or graphic arts services that you sell. Obviously, a half-size sheetfed account will not generate as much as a heatset full-web account.)
• I commit to increasing my sales to my existing accounts by at least 5 percent annually.
• I commit to increasing my overall job profitability by at least 5 percent annually.
• I will increase my sales and my personal income by at least 10 percent annually.

  In case you're worried about the math, trust me. If you gain eight new accounts annually, increase sales to existing accounts by 5 percent and don't lose any major accounts, you will increase your sales and income by 10 percent annually.

• I will invest at least 20 hours improving my selling skills annually.
• I will invest at least 40 hours improving my technical know-how annually.
• I will share a tad of my new-found wealth with those less fortunate or with my community.

Now, throw in a few personal objectives involving your desire for liposuction, a BMW, some $400 Ferragamo shoes or whatever and you've got a plan.

Printing Company Plan
Repeat the following, then actually do it; and use the check boxes if the mechanics will ensure your follow-through.

• We commit to improving our sales by 10 percent each year.

  Printing companies must grow in order to finance future equipment needs. It's too complicated to explain here so just take my word for it. This means that you will have to take some work away from your unworthy competitors and that we will have a few more bankruptcies. But keep in mind that demand for most printing segments is growing in the range of 5 percent to 7 percent, so there is new work to be had.

  By the way, in order to achieve this objective, you will have to develop a series of tasks that fit your company and that support the attainment of the objective. Take a moment to do that:

• We commit to developing a series of tasks that fit our company and that support the attainment of our objective.
• We commit to reducing our cost of goods sold by 5 percent each year.

Now, some of you are saying, "The Mañana Man is smoking funny cigarettes." I am telling you, on the other hand, that it can and is being done. You just haven't tried. This, too, requires the discipline of developing a series of tasks to support this objective.

That's it. That's the company plan. If you can accomplish these two objectives, the value of your company will double in 24 months.

Now I've got to get back to work on my plan. If I fail, they might send me to the old folks' home, and you already know I'm not a good candidate for the home. I don't think they let you have cell phones, laptops and fax machines there. Nursing home administrators want the residents to play bridge, cribbage and participate in the ballroom dancing lessons. There's no midnight snacks, smoking or watching Letterman.

Matter of fact, the whole notion of the home puts me in the mood to get out there and sell something! If I'm in the mood, I think everybody else should be too. So, get out there and sell something!

That's an order! No questions. Just do it!

—Harris DeWese

About the Author
Harris DeWese is the author of Now Get Out There and Sell Something! published by Nonpareil Books. He is a principal at Compass Capital Partners and is an author of the annual "Compass Report," the definitive source of information regarding printing industry merger and acquisition activity. DeWese specializes in investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, sales, marketing, planning and management services to printing companies.