Farquharson/Tedesco on Business Development: Mimic How the Octopus Adapts

Let's start off with a quick printing history lesson from a couple of ex-print-sales guys. During the past 30-odd years, what's been required for sustained growth in our industry has changed repeatedly.

The progression has gone something like this:

1. Back in the 1980s, simply offering a quality product and adopting the right technology (e.g., electronic prepress) consistently put dinero in the banco for printers.
2. By the '90s, quality had become ordinary, but printers with fast turnaround speeds stood apart from the crowd.
3. In the 2000s, the goalposts moved again: only printers that had complete value propositions—with perhaps a smidgen of digital marketing excellence on the side—were growing.

Printers today need to nail items 1, 2, and 3 to even have a shot at growing in the traditional, organic way. Just one problem: we're no longer a growth industry. In other words, executing in all the areas above to squeeze out market share growth will likely get you… about back to baseline. Whoopee!