Big Fat Liars

Printers are big fat liars!

I own a printing company, so I can say that!

They lie about quality;
They lie about service;
They lie about delivery dates;
They lie to cover up their own mistakes;

How do I know this, you may ask?

Well, let me tell you a story...

Many years ago, when I was a very young apprentice, I worked for a printing company in the bayou country of Louisiana. The owner was a good man and one of the hardest working people I had ever met. It was a small shop of about ten employees, one of the last letterpress shops in our town.

It seemed like we were always behind schedule, and many times the owner would even joke and say, "Philip, get off that HOT job and get on this HOT HOT job."  We lived in a state of controlled chaos; what some would call business as usual. 

When jobs ran way behind schedule and customers would start calling to find out if their job was ready, my boss would give them every excuse in the book.  At one point he called me in the office to put me on the phone, to make an excuse to a customer as to why their job was continually delayed.  I came up with some lame excuse while looking at my boss with a smile.

After I got off the phone with the customer, my boss said laughing, "Philip, you're a better liar than me!"

Now I'm not saying my boss didn't care. In fact, he tried to do his best, I believe.  He just DIDN'T KNOW the power of business systems, nor was he trained in Total Quality Management (The continual improvement in every area of a business) or any such systems.

He was a business owner who worked 12 hours a day, six days a week and sometimes on Sunday. Sound familiar? He gave his life to his family, his employees and his customers.

TRUTH IS, printing is very complicated and seems to have an almost infinite amount of variables. One misspelled word or one graphic out of place, and the whole job is bad. The list of what CAN go wrong goes ON and ON.

TRUTH IS, all businesses have complexities, and without good systems you will have chaos. Without good systems you CAN NOT promise consistent quality or service.

TRUTH IS, you often catch your vendors, and other people you do business with, telling you big fat lies.

NO, not all printers are big fat liars, but as a printer myself, and after listening to the feedback from prospects over the years, it's easy to see how folk come to that conclusion.

In 1988, when I opened the doors to my printing company,  I also didn't know the power of systems, or how to systematize a business to GUARANTEE QUALITY AND SERVICE.  Many times I dropped the ball and as a result, jobs were late, printed wrong, along with a host of other problems. It wasn't because I didn't care...it was the fact that printing is a very complicated manufacturing business, no matter if you are a small or large company.

In 1994 I decided to make a change in the way I did business and I started reading and studying everything I could put my hands on about Quality and Service Systems.  I began building a company that could GUARANTEE quality and service.

I made a decision to TELL THE TRUTH, no matter what the cost to my customers, my employees and myself.

I decided NOT ONLY to CORRECT our mistakes, but to put in a system to INSURE that a mistake doesn't happen AGAIN and AGAIN.

TRUTH IS you have to make a commitment.

TRUTH IS it took 10 years to systemize my printing company. We now ship 99.997 percent of our jobs ON TIME, EVERY TIME.

I don't need to LIE to my customers!

Do you?

But, although I never lied when I opened my own company, I sure said, "I'M SORRY" a lot ... until I systemized. 

Did I mention ... Great Systems Work?

By Philip Beyer

FREE Copy of Book

The ultimate book on systematizing your business is now in it's Second Printing...

download your FREE COPY of 

"SYSTEM BUSTERS: And How to Stop Them

In Your Business"

(Click Here)