Dickeson--Don't Play "Printers' Roulette"
Most often our systematic approach to pricing is to first look inward, to predict our costs. Yet the results of setting a price are external, with the customer who neither knows nor cares what our costs are. Don't we have it all backwards?
In setting a price for a job, we must look first to the customer—look outside the business. Shouldn't the first questions always be: For what is the customer paying us? What value does the customer perceive we're adding to the raw paper and inks we convert to printed pieces? What are the results, the benefits, the "bennies," the customer expects to gain from our conversion services? What are the customer's alternatives for achieving those bennies? What makes our conversion service better or different from others? What do we add to perceived customer value that is special—that adds bennies—not available from other media or direct competitors?
