It is natural to be proud of the machinery. You spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on a press. You spend months training the staff to run it. You know exactly what the dpi capabilities are and how fast it can run a SRA3 sheet.

But here is the uncomfortable truth.

Your customer does not care.

T...

There is a phrase I hear from print shop owners that sets my teeth on edge every single time. We will be sitting, usually surrounded by samples of incredible work, discussing their sales pipeline.

I ask them how they plan to get new business in the door next month.

They lean back and say they rely...

I had a bit of a disaster with a takeaway order tonight.

It was a new place with great branding, but the operations were a complete shambles. The food was late. It was cold. The order was incorrect. It was a classic case of style over substance.

It reminded me of a trap a lot of printers fall into...

It’s the start of February. The press room is quiet. The phones aren't ringing off the hook like they were in November. You check the bank balance, and it looks a fair bit leaner than it did before the Christmas break.

For a lot of print owners, this is 'squeaky bum time'.

But here is the hard tru...

Every business has things it cannot control. Suppliers fail to deliver on time. Couriers miss collections. Systems break down at the worst possible moment. These are the all-too-common realities of running a print or signage business. Great leadership is recognising exactly where responsibility ends...

I hear this all the time in my coaching sessions. An owner tells me they have a process for quoting or production, but when I look closer, it turns out the team only follows it when it is convenient. If you do not enforce your processes, you do not actually have a system. What you have are preferenc...

I have always believed that simple, honest communication will beat clever copywriting every day of the week. And here’s why…

We live in a world where everyone tries to be too polished. We are constantly bombarded with complex marketing funnels, over-engineered sales scripts, and emails that sound a...

I often see business owners trying to hit the ground running at the start of the new year. But for many print companies, that is just a recipe for a messy February.

I get it. You are refreshed and eager to start the new year with new goals, new projects, and a pile of fresh ideas. But are you about...

As we approach a time when most people can enjoy some much-needed rest, it’s worth reflecting on the causes of burnout throughout the year.

I find that most business owners don’t burn out because of the workload. They burn out because of the noise of constant interruptions and the never-ending stre...

Do you ever look at your team and wonder why they don't seem to care about the sales figures as much as you do? 

It is a common frustration for business owners. You are obsessing over the monthly target, checking the bank balance, and losing sleep over the pipeline. Meanwhile, your team seems to cl...

It is 10:30pm. You are sitting on the sofa, trying to unwind after a long day at work when your phone buzzes…

You can’t resist a look, and as usual, it is a client. They have a quick question about an installation or a quote. The question for you is, do you answer it?

For many of my clients, and I...

You’ve spent hours crafting the perfect newsletter. You’ve obsessed over the subject line. You’ve tinkered endlessly with the layout. But when you eagerly check your stats the next morning, hoping to see thousands of engagements, are you too often disappointed?

While you focus all your energy on ma...