Re: Chronic pain sufferers (mainly ones stuck at home now) - get together for virtual businesses?

On Aug 14, 3:28 pm, Sean C <redh...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <1186996145.330965.253...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,



PAINxtreme <dave...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
As i have more than dabbled in this realm, both employed and as a
partnered proprietor, there are many ins and outs that make a lot of
this far from simple. First and very importantly, you would need sales
in each market you hoped to tap into, and in my 25 yrs in the business
I have found that people and companies much prefer a company and
salesperson to be connected to their community rather than a telephone
order taker. The exception to this is the product printer, somewhat
like you describe. I live in a huge Printing/Graphic Arts metropolitan
area, and I know of 3 product printers, 2 of them I know ownership
personally. The one thing they have that gives them national
credibility is very well designed and packages catalogs. I designed
one of them back in 2001. This gives an aura of success, a
demonstration of abilities and mostly business clout. Sean, as you and
I know these cost a premium to produce properly. And its a cutthroat
market. When I began my company I started initially to be a desiner
only, but with a twist. I have formal art education and training, plus
I spent 12 years in graphic production, first as a proofer, then dot-
etcher, film stripper, then the Mac revolution began, and I was
fortunate to be there at the very beginning, working for the
University of Kansas. I tell all of this because my twist was this: I
had seen all sorts of horrible to poorly at best executions of
design....sometimes they were a very pretty picture onscreen, but were
in no way practical for production, and in quite a few cases, the
couldn't even be made printable unless I was given all the original
images in whatever quality they had, and re design their
design....unbelieveably many balked at the charge of this and told
us...just print it as is, its too costly to fix, which we had them
write and sign on their laser proofs to eliminate liability. I started
my business to be able to approach customers with a simple pitch....Im
an excellent designer, heres my portfolio, and I have these references
to vouch for my years of pre-press production of other so called
designers files to be able to make this guarantee. my designs will
print precisely as the final proof that i provide you, not an onscreen
look, a hard proof. There will be no color issues, no resolution
issues, no font issues, just an airtight design. It worked better than
I even hoped, so much so, that in addition to designing, I was
willingly forced into brokering the printing as well. I have superb 60
day credit at 5 printers in my area, and I could give them competitive
bids, and also recommend that although company x is 200 bucks cheaper,
company z is better suited for your project and will give you a better
result.

I may have gotten a lil off track there, but my point was...it was me
that I sold. And it went in cycles....when I was selling, I wasnt
producing, and when i was producing, i wasnt selling. Luckily pdf's
came along and made the early proofing stages easier than driving
proofs all around town, but the personal touch was huge. It is also a
24/7 job, my customers thought nothing of calling me 9am on Sunday,
wanting to meet me at Perkins to drop off some photos or a disk at 10
am...they knew I would do it. I was in a catch 22 however. I made dang
good income, but not enough to hire a runner at least, not to mention
a good salesperson....so it was a load.

The promotional stuff you speak of is neat stuff....I helped a lady do
a sales catalog of high end houses in the ritzy part of town monthly,
she was a huge pain in the ***, and the company ended up firing her
as a client. Just last week my insurance agent asked me to start doing
dry erase refrigerator magnets with local businesses advertising on
them, because they wanted someone with hometown tie in to lend a
knowing personal touch to it....as Ive pondered it, Ive thought....in
the size of the little town i live in....outside of the big city, I
could maybe net 3 or 400 bucks on the project. One issue is I would
make them all pre-pay, even though I can get 60 days at those
printers, one deadbeat would ruin my standing with them, cuz I couldnt
cover. These days I would have to run credit checks on any customer to
give them net 30 terms. Long ago I had a company go in the tank owing
me 4500, 2100 of that I owed to the printer. Luckily, I was a
consultant to that printer, and i worked it off.

Im getting long winded, but for us to do something like this as
widespread as we all are would take one hell of an effort, and some
people who are very sharp at what they do. Im not trying to be the
turd in the punchbowl, and Im not saying it cannot be done, but even
though im not pessimistic, I think its good to look at all the
details, good and bad....then armed with knowledge and an ironclad
business plan...thats when I start dreaming. :D

Deus Vobiscum,
-dave

I agree with what you say 100 percent. One of the reasons I wanted to
produce a good quality real estate guide is that most of the real
estate guides in my area look horrendous. Since these guides are
usually produced by newspapers which own their own presses and can
distriubute the guides with their paper or through their normal
distribution channels, you cannot compete with them on price or
circulation. But you can compete on quality with decent paper and good
design. It doesn't have to be perfect, just good.

My idea is based on what some others are doing, particularly this guy,
who very conveniently includes the rates he charges. His publication
has over 100 pages every month, and this is what I am basing my
estimates of the earnings potential on.

http://tinyurl.com/2dyaza

He primarily covers Columbia County, New York and small parts of
surrounding counties, so we are talking a population of like 100,000
people, mostly rural, and there is another magazine identical to his
serving this area. So I think the potential for this in a bigger area
with more realtors is huge.

Note his circulation is just 7 to 10,000, whereas the cheezy,
newsprint-quality guides from the papers in my area (The Catskill
Mountains of New York) boast around 30,000. He also insists that new
customers pay up front, and I would do the same. I spoke to a few
realtors in my area, and while every market is different, most didn't
seem to be too concerned with circulation, and one lady kept cutting me
off when I tried to discuss it, like it was taboo or something. What
realtors are concerned with is "how much is this gonna cost me?" and
they assume you are lying about your circulation anyway unless it's
audited. In the begining, it is probably a good idea to start small
with a good price, and even glossy paper is not a must. $300 for a full
page ad with that cirulation is a good price, and you can post pdfs of
each edition on your website. I would avoid color at first until you're
established because of the price.

I'm not sure how every printer does things, and I should note I am not
a graphic designer, and don't know all that much about the print side
of things outside my little niche, which is doing placemats. I have no
great design talent, but am more in the desktop publishing realm.
However, my abilities are more than up to the task of a real estate
guide, as they tend to be very simple in design. I have never used a
web press for anything, so I am not sure of the quality you can expect,
particularly for color. How are they compared to photo offest off metal
plates?

I got a quote a while back from a New York printer who is full service
and does top notch work at a reasonable price. I believe he does the
printing for Homebuyers, and I know he does it for their competition.

For 10,000:

8 pages $912 $114 per page additional thousand $59
16 pages $1163 $73 per page additional thousand $76
24 pages $1463 $61 per page additional thousand $93

For 15,000

8 pages $150 per page
16 pages $97 per page
24 pages $80 per page

This is for web offset, film included, saddlestiched on 30lb newsprint,
which I've never used and don't know how good it would look, but I
showed him a sample of what I wanted and this is what he quoted me.
This quote is over 4 years old.

Note that you get a huge price break based on the number of
pages--almost half the price per page for 24 vs. 8, and also a break on
quantity of booklets. He also told me up front there would be more
price breaks and better turnaround time if this became a regular thing.

You don't have to charge the client any more to get more pages, but you
do have to charge more to cover the cost of more booklets, so less may
be more until you're established at which point you can say "due to
demands from our advertisers, we are increasing circulation and will
have to raise the price to cover it".

I agree to pull this off would be far more difficult than I make it
sound here. I mainly tossed this idea out there as it might be doable
for an individual if he had a few people locally to work with him. It's
ideal for a husband and wife team. I know I really can't do sales and
don't want to get involved in the money and billing aspects of it, I
just want to do the ads themselves.

You are obviously a high-end designer so this would be a piece of cake
for you if you could do the work physically, and could find reliable
people to take up the slack for what you can't do. With your abilities
and a good printer it is doubtful anyone could compete with your for
quality.

I am glad you are being realistic with me as reality is what it's all
about. To make this work would indeed require concrete plans, but for
now, I am just tossing ideas out there and seeing what happens.

--Sean C

The whole problem for me in my existing health is, I cannot guarantee
enough good health days in a row to guarantee a deadline, which is a
deal killer. Ive been hoping to find some small monthly thing to do
just to add a little cash...heck even 200 would help us out, but those
kinds of things without a hard dealine are a mere luck find.

Thats is very interesting pricing policy that the NY printer has...Ive
never seen quantity cause a higher unit cost while page count lowers
it...more pages equal more press runs...perhaps his web is harder to
set-up for a narrower roll of paper to accomodate an 8 pg layout.
Newspapers are printed on webs as well, but they are schloky presses
and they dont pay any mind to quality as long as its running, folding
and cutting, they may check one paper per 10,000. A good web printer
(web is also offset) can get near sheetfed offset quality if you have
a good printer. The real advantage to web printing other than the
things I already told you is, the average heidelburg sheetfed press
can print 12,000 sheets an hour if its really humming, a web press can
do about 60,000, which is why quantity is usually lower unit cost.
30lb newsprint is what newspapers are printed on...similar to a
publication like AutoTrader if youve seen it would be a good example
of a book being printed on newsprint. the next small step up is called
groundwood gloss which is about what it says, its ground up wood, and
its slightly glossy, lower end magazines, such as seed catalogs are
printed on groundwood.

My best suggestion is to ask for a variety of samples of publications
your printer has done that are similar to what youre planning, then
look for the company info of each publication, call them and ask how
their experience with the printer has been. hey will usually be pretty
candid, as far as do they stilol do business with them, were there
hidden or soft charges, deadline efficiency, service and all the
things that will be important to the project.

I have to thank you for bringing this idea up. For me, if nothing else
it gets my blood stirring to just talk about a career that was once
one of the dearest aspects of my life. A graphics guy can never stop
talking shop i guess.

take care, and let me know if i can help in any way im able,
-dave

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