If you’re the bee’s knees, say it loud

Following on from our interview with Gary Peeling in the last issue, our online poll question this week was what term best describes your business?

It seems that the majority of you prefer the term ‘print service provider’, with the traditional ‘printer’ narrowly behind and the ever-so slightly trying too hard ‘marketing services provider’, thankfully, a lowly third.

While the question was primarily a fun one (as illustrated by the wag who described his business as a print operating organisation promoter – or POOP) it does belie a more serious question: how the industry sees and ultimately presents itself.

Yes, it produces print, yes, it provides a service and yes, it is a marketing service, but whichever descriptor is employed – it’s the sentiment behind the words that is most important. It’s all about self-belief.

If you believe that you’re the best at what you do, that you offer the best service, the best product and best innovation and employ the best people then others are more likely to believe it too – as highlighted in our cover feature on sales.

And if buyers like this issue’s interviewee, Sky’s Mark Cruise, are happy to simply state that print works, end of, then why shouldn’t we be?

In fact, perhaps we could do a lot worse than take a leaf out of the modest trio that separately said the best way to describe their businesses was ‘the bee’s knees’.

Because if I was looking to place a print project, I think that they sound like my kind of people.