Tom Crooks, Author
There is an old saying that goes along the lines of; “To a carpenter all problems are solved with hammers and saws.”
Gene Mallory, while developing the first Jet Letter software application had a knack for listening to his customers. People enjoyed talking to him and he listened attentively (it has been said) and responded by adding features to Jet Letter.
I think it’s fair to say that no product developer can provide all the tools one needs to do every project that comes down the pike. Some software products in this industry fall quite short in that department.
To elaborate on carpenters hammers and saws, the insidious effect of this situation is that people tend to define Variable Date Printing (VDP) capabilities by the tools they have available – NOT by what they might be able to produce if they had a more robust tool set.
Of course tools are useless if the user does not know how to use them. Tools are also of little value if the user does not know what could be done with the available tool or with better tools they might find lying around the shop. (More on “the shop” later.)
Time and again, while calling on prospects and touting capabilities of PSL, I hear the response; “We don’t do that here!” I might translate that to; “We only take on projects for which we have the tools.”
Now the last few years have been very stressful on our industry. Sadly many firms have gone away. At the same time we have found quite a few of our customers growing – and in some cases dramatically.
I’ve been keeping score – an informal, totally unstructured poll if you will. What have I found? Many of the firms who said; “We don’t do that here” are among the missing.
The firms that have grown not only acquired PSL Variable Data Printing Software but also learned how to use it – they found out what tools they had and made use of their full tool set. This in turn greatly broadened their horizons and they took on projects for which they did not previously have the tools. One firm doubled in size this last year! Another has recently added very impressive new high volume printers. Some have expanded, or are in the process of expanding their scope of product offerings -- often along the lines of multi-media marketing campaigns.
So what’s my message? See what you can do if you expand your tool kit!
Case studies of firms who have grown will be included. And, as we hope is our style, these will not be “fluff” pieces but will reveal more precisely how and why companies have grown.
In many of those cases, firms came to us with an opportunity they had in front of them and asked for advice. Quite often they asked for recommendations as to how to use PSL to get a competitive edge. Not surprisingly these discussions often led to additions to PSL. Perhaps we should adopt a new naming convention; “Doug’s Function” or “Toni’s Function”, etc. So in future editions we will review some of these and how they helped clients win business, produce jobs, and GROW.
Stay tuned!!
Tom Crook’s official title at Jet Letter is President but he also functions as PSL’s Evangelist and lead VDP Guru. Tom can be reached at;
tom@jetletter.net * 949-721-8786