A couple of times a month, I blog for Printing Impressions (www.piworld.com) on print buyer issues. Here’s a post of mine from several weeks ago. In an upcoming Print Tip, I’ll share a list of what buyers DO want.

Last week a printer emailed me, asking if I had a handy list of what print buyers want. It got me thinking. Any list I compiled (or anyone compiled, for that matter) would have to be generalized. Print buyers don’t all think alike. They have individual styles, priorities, skills, and buying practices.

While I intended to create that list here, today, I opted instead to turn it on its head and tell you what print buyers don’t want. Next time, I will tell you what they want.

22 things that print buyers don’t want…

1. To be harassed by cold-calling print reps who have nothing exceptional to offer.

2. To be contacted by print reps who haven’t done their homework on a particular buyer and her or his company/industry.

3. To be surprised by an unexpected ANYTHING during the production process.

4. To be kept in the dark when problems arise that will jeopardize the deadline, cost, and/or quality of the printed piece.

5. The runaround. They don’t want to have to chase down their sales or service rep when they call the plant looking for them.

6. To be lied to. About capabilities, pricing, quality, delivery dates, paper spec’d.

7. To be the last one to hear that one of their printer’s has suddenly shut its doors.

8. To wait for estimates.

9. To get an invoice that doesn’t come close to the expected price.

10. To be forced to work with a printing company chosen by someone else (i.e., their boss).

11. To be spoken to condescendingly by a printer who doesn’t take the time to find out how much experience they have.

12. To be intimidated by jargon-spouting print reps who don’t take the time to find out that a buyer is brand new in the field.

13. To be treated like corporate stepchildren, while Creative & Editorial get all the glory.

14. To be excluded from marketing strategy discussions.

15. To have to pull teeth to get basic info from a printer when a job’s in production; i.e., when will the proof be ready, when did the job ship, where one’s samples are.

16. Printers to automatically assume that price is their #1 priority.

17. To go through all sorts of hoops getting a simple job quoted and sent to a printer.

18. To have to hunt all over a printer’s web site looking for key information, like company contacts.

19. To find out that the equipment list on a printer’s site doesn’t match what’s in the plant.

20. To have a printer switch a spec’d sheet for something else – without conferring with them.

21. To work with inefficient project management systems/software.

22. To be undervalued as professionals.

Food for thought? These are my own reflections. Hope they inspire you – and your comments, of course, are most welcome.

© 2010 Margie Dana. All rights reserved. Your comments are encouraged. You’re free to forward this email to friends and colleagues. However, no part of this column may be reprinted without permission from the author.