SRPM Blog

Digital printing has opened up a whole raft of products which are now within the reach of most companies to use as Christmas gifts for clients.

The easiest way to keep your company name in front of your clients all year is a calendar.  In the past these were expensive for small quantities… not any more!  Digital print means you can order as few of anything as you like…. so if you just want to send to you best 25 customers that is now possible (ask for details).

Other ideas to help your customers remember where you are include… desk pads, note pads, pens, mouse-mats - all of which we can supply.

Steve Rushton

Anyone who has spoken to me this week will know I haven’t been well.  The dreaded man-flu.  I’m not one to moan (as my wife will testify), so obviously I have just got on with my work without complaint

Actually, some of that is true… the “getting on with work” bit at least.  I really didn’t want to spread my germs around the office - so I have been working from home.  We use a wonderful piece of software that allows us to log-in from home, and use the work PC as if we were sitting there. 

Obviously anyone else who is silly enough to get ill can now take a leaf out of my book and work at home instead of watching daytime TV…. brilliant!

Steve Rushton, caring employer.

My family and I had a great trip to Orlando in Florida recently.  The weather was of course brilliant, Disney was exactly what you would expect it to be - fun and expensive.  The thing that suprised and delighted me the most was the fantastic customer service.

It was my first trip to the states and I had heard that customer service was good - but it still surprised me just how nice people are in shops and restaurants.  The fact that I was so surprised lead to me question why?  The only answer I can find is that customer service has become so poor generally in the UK and I was therefore not used to it.  I am not of course including everyone in this, but how often do you reach a cash till and the person doesn’t even say “please” or “thank you”.  Simple manners are the very least we should expect. 

In most of the restaurants we sampled, the service was above and beyond simple manners… we were given suggestions for each course, free top-ups on all soft drinks without asking.  We were asked about what we had done that day, where we were going tomorrow.  I know that many workers rely on tips to make up their wages and maybe this focusses the mind, but training must be one of the issues we need to address in our country.

Good customer service is hard to come by, it is something I try to instill at SR Print Management, and to this end we now have a customer service guarantee in place.  Please do ring me to ask about it - I have yet to find anyone else making the same offer! 

Steve Rushton

PS - 0844 884 2260 is the number to ask me about our customer service guarantee

I’m fortunate enough to be jetting off on my holidays tomorrow.  Well, thats if the whole family can get through customs without coughing and/or sneezing.  I see today that the authorities and some airlines are going to stop anyone with symptoms travelling.  In theory - this seems like a good idea, I don’t want to be on the plane with others who may have the virus. But, is it practical to do this?

There are between 150 and 300 people on each plane leaving the UK today - I am guessing that there will be people travelling who have the virus, and that’s just the UK.  Also, what if I sneeze and have just got some dust in my nose - or a touch of hay-fever?  Maybe I or someone else will have “normal” flu - I’m fairly confident that the airports wont have labs on site to check which flu someone has.

It seems now that anyone who has flu is automatically now assumed to have swine flu.  Therefore, the scary figures we are hearing may actually be nothing like the truth - everyone might just have “normal” flu.   

But which should I want? Normal flu aparently kills 250,000-500,000 people worldwide every year… swine flu seems like the better option right now!

Steve Rushton

Over the past couple of years I have re-kindled my love for live music.  My musical taste are wide an varied.  As a 41 year old I shouldn’t really still enjoy Radio 1 - but I do.  In the last year I have seen artists ranging from The Pigeon Detectives and the Wombats through to Scouting for Girls and Girls Aloud (it was for my daughteres birthday!) - so quite a different range of music.  All those were great, as was the Oasis gig I saw in Manchester a few weeks ago.  But the prize for the best value for money entertainment goes to Take That.

The bonus of being outnumber 50-1 by women was great until it came to visiting the toilets - which were all full of women (gents included).  Wembley stadium is a fantastic venue - as a Walsall fan - this is probably the only way I will get to see the stadium!  The tickets were similar in price to those of Oasis and Girls Aloud £40 approx, but what a show for your money.  Visually it was stunning, the circus theme meant loads of “extras” - not just dancers - but circus performers including trapeze and tight-rope walkers.

Whilst I have always quite liked their music - the whole performance live was musically and creatively brilliant.  I was a little disturbed that the programmes were £20 each… I guess insider knowledge to the costs involved in the print process make my cynical on that score.

I believe there is plenty of footage on www.youtube.com and for a while there is live footage on www.bbc.co.uk/radio1 if anyone wants to sample the magic.

Steve Rushton - out-ed Take That fan.

Isn’t that the headline for this week?  The weather still makes the front pages of all the tabloids - yet here in the midlands it hasn’t been that great anyway - we have had the warmth, but we have also had plenty of rain and thunder too. 

This week has also seen the tabloid frenzy surrounding the death of pop legend Michael Jackson.  Apart from the millions his estate will attract in new download sales - I guess the mobile phone companies are enjoying the text frenzy of sick (but funny) jokes too.  Personally, I still remember the excitement that surrounded the release of the Thriller video and the 80’s were probably his best years in my opinion.  Later his life just became a bit of a joke and was quite sad to watch.  I hope his children can now lead a more normal life than he was ever allowed to.

Next week I hope to write about a British triumph at Wimbledon….. don’t hold your breath

I was recently recommended a book by Jeffrey Gitomer called “The little gold book of Yes! Attitude”.  It’s good stuff, a lot of which I had already worked out and applies to the way we work at SR Print Management.  One of the things we regularly apply is the notion of looking for the positives in any situation.  Yes, occassionally thing go wrong, but I would like to think it is the way we react to them that makes us stand apart from most printers.  We know, that our reaction to an issue will determine if a customer will return again despite the problem… thankfully, they usually do!

Another example of reacting to situations happened recently.  We had a long standing client go bust on us.  It probably means we will get little of the money owed.  Many people would jump up and down, rant and rave and never speak to those involved again.  I decided to look for the “silver lining” of the situation.  There are always silver linings to look for… in this instance, they have helped refer us directly to some of the clients they used to deal with and hopefully we will recoup our losses this way.

I would thoroughly recommend the book - a “Yes” attitude is that bit better than a positive one!  A few pages of this kind of reading a day would help us all be much better at it.

Steve Rushton

We are very lucky at SRPM, our website ranks very high on google due to being set up in the correct manner all those years ago (thanks Keir!).  However, we do occassionally try to boost visitor traffic with the use of Google Adwords. 

Last week I was creating some new campaigns to try to get accross exactly what we do.  One area we are often complimented on is the speed at which we can get work produced.  In fact “Speed Stuns” has become a mantra for the staff at SRPM. 

With this in mind I thought I would head up an advert with “Speed Stuns”. Unfortunately Google was having none of it.  The wonders of computerised systems means that it thought we were selling drugs rather than printing.  Back to the drawing board!

I was lucky enough to go to a business seminar yesterday which was run by Nigel Botterill of www.thebestof.co.uk There were many good things that came out of the seminar which focussed on business growth - even during times of recession.  The opening video was one I had seen before which is well worth a look at.  It hightlights how fast things are changing.

watch?v=Mmz5qYbKsvM

Steve Rushton

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was a “Business Advisor” volunteer for Young Enterprise.  Last weekend was their first “big challenge” in public as they attended a trade fair.  The event was held at the Garrick Theatre in Lichfield and all the Tamworth and Lichfield participants had stores selling their products and services. 

As well as meeting and “selling” their service to the public face-to-face for the first time, they even got to meet some local VIPS who were invited to the event.

http://www.michael.fabricant.mp.co.uk/news-00837.ihtml

This type of event can only help them with their personal and social skills and help grow confidence for their business lives in the future.  Their next big challenge comes in April when they have to give a presentation in front of their competitors and an invited audience at the conference centre  in Drayton Manor Park.

Steve Rushton