Category: Printing

Being proactive in a Sales situation essentially all boils down to one thing, can you anticipate your customers future requirements in relation to your business? Oh, if only it was that easy!

That said, I will try and highlight a few of the things that we find helpful:

Listening

A crucial piece of advice that is easy to forget in the eagerness of the moment. The temptation can be to run on about all the things you can do, before taking the time to fully understand what is required to resolve the issue.

It may seem counterintuitive that listening, which seems like a passive action, is something we class as highly proactive. Yet information received is key to formulating your ideas and knowing where to take to conversation in the sales context. Finding out where they are taking their business will enable you to think of ideas and come back with solutions, proactively guiding your products to fit opportunities.

By listening and empathising with your customers struggles, or exciting projects that they are working on, you will gain a deeper understanding and rapport. Take the time to have a thoughtful conversation and you may be surprised where it leads.

Offer Advice

Offering genuine advice will help your customers feel at ease and understand you are not trying to “just sell them something”. Often that advice may not even relate to your product range but be a relatable and applicable piece of business experience that can be passed on.

Ultimately the hard sell direct route will rarely work, and it will almost certainly not lend itself to building a lasting reciprocal relationship with your client.

If you build a solid working rapport and really take the time to listen to their needs, you will be in a better position to recommend products and services that will benefit both of your companies as opportunities arise.

Highlight New Products

“Build it and they will come” is a luxury most businesses do not have. It can be easy to have a great product yet still fade into obscurity, so talk to your customers (rather than bombarding them with emails), or better still first send them samples. Often a tangible item to engage with can bring a much higher rate of engagement. Our senses are powerful and if your products lend themselves to in person rather than digital viewing the investment in delivering can be well worth it.

Don’t feel embarrassed about reaching out to your customers, it’s okay to contact out to your clients first with relevant information.

Keeping up with industry trends (your own and those of core customers) is a great way of getting ahead of your competition. You stay relevant, and your clients will want to see and hear from you to find out about exciting new innovations and products that can add value to their own business.

Follow up on quotes

Sending out quotations and chasing them up can be rather painful and often avoided. It is crucial though to gain feedback, both positive and negative, to help you course correct for the future. It also helps to hone your skills over which types of lead are hot or cold and to be blunt a time waster. The other thing follow ups can resolve are the occasional times that the original quote does not arrive with the requestee, perhaps due to postal or email issues or spam settings. Over the years many times this sort of thing has occurred and the follow up saved a lost opportunity that progressed to an order being placed.

The points above are by no means a definitive list, however they will hopefully give you some food for thought and be of benefit to you and your business.

We really enjoy helping bring our customers ideas together and printing different companies brochures. To work with fantastic photography, high end text and layouts brings a smile to our faces.

If your design is ready to print we can help you decide on the right papers to complement your brand and advise on recycled elements or finishing touches such as hot foiling. We can also help you decide on the best binding method which may be saddle stitched or pur bound depending on the page count and materials used.

From novel types of papers to foil printed covers or embossed logos, we will help you create engaging content with thoughtful layouts and ideas. Your brochures will get noticed and assist you with growing your business.

A brochure or booklet is an important ‘shop window’ for your clients and for you to tell them what you do. With lock down restrictions lifting in the future you can re visit your customers and show them your new brochure, which will re-invigorate your customers minds to use you and your products.

Send us your concept, give us a brief and let us spin our magic and come up with some new angles. We’ll help you stand out from your competition.

With over 30 years worth of paper & print knowledge we know the potential pitfalls. We understand various techniques that will enhance your job including die-cutting, laminating, UV varnishing, foil printing, gluing and binding. We can help you make it the best it can be!

When it comes to paperback versus hard back there are pros and cons to both types of cover style, many of which we have summarised below:

Paper Back

Pros:

• Distribution is easier due to size and in turn more cost effective per copy.
• If Production price is a factor they win out over hardbacks in this respect.
• Hard wearing, as they flex and can withstand a level of abuse.
• Easy for the reader to handle and transport with them due to reduced weight and size.
• Easily recycled along with other paper.

Cons:

• May damage and shown signs of wear and tear depending on how they are used.
• The competitive nature of the production costs may mean you are able to command a lower selling price than a hard back, given the nature of the market.

Hard Back

Pros:

• Durability is high given the protection the hard cover affords the pages.
• Premium feel and a higher price point can be achieved.
• They are nice to keep and people like to retain them for many years.

Cons:

• Price, it can be a factor as the cost involved in production require a higher selling margin for the book to be profitable.
• The weight can put people off, especially if they are prone to falling asleep reading in bed and being woken by a book hitting the bridge of their nose!
• Distribution costs can be high given the weight of the book.
• Lead times are longer due to the complexity of production compared to a paper back.
• If you need any advice on your book project and the types of papers and binding methods that would suit best, get in touch and we can help you.

Vellum invitations are so popular right now, and we can understand why, this beautiful semi translucent paper gives a touch of glass to any wedding suite whether it is using it as a vellum jacket or a belly band, the main invite or just an overlay.

Vellum is so versatile and can create the extra “luxe” feel that you want when designing your invitations that gives a softness, looks super chic and will give a great first impression.

Vellum is also known as tracing paper or translucent paper and comes in a variety of weights from 110gsm to 200gsm.

Simple stationery can be enhanced with the addition of a vellum overlay, each wedding invitation suite can be wrapped with a vellum & with a block lettering design this can really finish your suite off beautifully.

For more information contact us at [email protected]

Every day people say they want foil embossing but often they really mean hot foiling. The image below gives you a quick look at the differences.

Hot Foiling: The foil is pressed very slightly into the face of the substrate.
Embossing: This can be either with foil or without (blind) and the artwork is pushed up from the substrate to give a raised finish.
Debossing: Best effects are achieved blind (no foil) and the image is pushed heavily down (deeper than hot foiling) into the surface.

THE BENEFITS OF HOT FOIL PRINTING?

On of the best ways to use Hot Foil printing is to use it to enhance traditional litho print or digital print. It can work best if you try to use as an accent rather than covering the job and using foil everywhere. That being said it is often only the imagination of the designer that limits what we can achieve with these processes and we have hot foiled some amazing pieces that have worked just as well full foil as a mix of foil and print.

Dynamic Certificates Online have been foil printing in Norwich since 1990. We foil print for the trade and end users. Foil printing is the best way to enhance both litho and digital printing if you want to raise the bar and stand out from others and your competition.

FANCY FOIL PRINTING?

Fancy a morning learning the tricks of the trade of digital printing, hot foiling, embossing, debossing and die cutting? When things are back to normal we will be offering monthly work shops on how to do just that. Using technology dating backs to the 1950’s we can show you how to hot foil – emboss – die cut and deboss why not email us on [email protected] for more details or call 01416 731655

Value Added Tax & Printing. When is it chargeable and when is it not? 

VAT rules relating to Print are a little complex at first glance, although the matter becomes clearer when checked against the HMRC guidelines.

Broadly speaking any printed items which are made to be written on have VAT applied at the standard rate. For example stationery, greetings cards or postcards.

If the items are promotional or information based they will often be zero rated for VAT. Examples of these products would be books, brochures and leaflets & flyers. Although leaflets & flyers are one of the tricky items, as they can under certain conditions move from zero rated to standard rated for VAT.

If a leaflet or flyer is designed to be written on, used to obtain a discount for goods or services or for admission purposes it will become standard rated for VAT.

Based upon the current information from HMRC we have put together a simplified guide version.

As always with VAT, if in doubt it makes sense to check the up to date position on the HMRC website. Or if you have a specific or unusual VAT question relating to your print requirements with Dynamic we will be happy to answer this for you.

We were very happy to be featured in Bride Magazine showcasing our Wedding Stationery ideas. From our seeded paper to hot foiled invitations – Dynamic Certificates Online offer such a vast array of options to create the most perfect wedding.

Read the full article here