The biggest issue in business consulting isn’t the solution. Solutions are straightforward. The hardest part is diagnosing the correct problem in the first place. One can spend lots of time and effort on solving the wrong problem and obviously get nowhere.

For instance, one could think there’s a sales problem when cash is tight. What they could be overlooking is a problem with the way debt is structured or paid which leads to tight cash. One could think they have a production problem when it may be a problem with the way people are trained. Rarely are real issues straightforward.

This is why on-site visitations have always been a part of the CPrint® program. Your consultant comes to you and works with you and your workers and your customers in your market. It is this familiarity with your surroundings that makes your consultant such a valuable resource for you.

So what do they do when they get there?

During the first day of the typical* two-day on-site visit, the consultant first listens to you in describing your concerns and challenges. Then they gather facts. They do that by interviewing your workers and reviewing your financial performance. They go through a checklist** of hundreds of items that we have ran into over the years to protect you and your business.

So day one is focused on compiling facts, not jumping to conclusion about solutions.

* Sometimes firms with fewer employees won’t require a two-day visit; sometimes large firms will require more or more than one consultant. Sometimes firms in our Essential program will receive shorter but more frequent visits.

** Example: Florida owner told us they had a current lease. Turns out the lease expired a year earlier and they were required to move within 30-days. Almost killed them. We now ask to see a copy of the lease so we may check expiration dates. This practices takes only a few seconds but we have caught another dozen businesses where this could have been a factor.

Day two is about solutions: developing a specific action plan and budget to reach the goal.

By the beginning of day two, your consultant reports to you and your signficiant stakeholders their assessment of your business using our exclusive rating system. Then, because the consultant now has enough in-depth facts to be current with your business; they help you create a cash-flow budget as well as action plan.

And if you have read about our CPrint® Board program, you will note that we also work on budgets and action plans at twice-a-year meetings. That’s because budgets are not adopted once a year and forgotten. Our budgets being today and extend out for a year regardless of what day it happens to be. That way we can start making a positive change on your business now without having to wait for a new year to begin. In fact that’s why we have been so successful in helping owners with cash and meeting their goals: because we focus our program on helping you with cash and meeting your goals.

]]> http://cprint.com/?feed=rss2&p=1497 0 http://cprint.com/?p=1168 http://cprint.com/?p=1168#comments Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:03:18 +0000 admin http://crouser.com/test/cprint/?p=1168 CPrint® board meetings are more than a group of printers gathering for social purposes. Each CPrint® affiliate is applying the CPrint® model to their business and the board meeting provides structured time for each to work on their business instead of in the business.

Every six month board-affiliates meet with their management committee that consists of up to five non-competing business as well as CPrint® staff. That’s important because the CPrint® model is based on best business practices in the areas of finance, organization, personnel, family-based business and business-to-business sales. And it’s not just theory. The model has met the test in hundreds of businesses over the past twenty-five years.

In fact, the board-affiliates who participate have to meet basic business standards before they are invited to a board. And that’s a big difference between these meetings and a peer group of printers. For instance, it does little good to meet with other businesses who don’t have basic financial information, who aren’t organized around functions and who have unresolved family-business issues. Companies like these are first placed into our CPrint® Essentials program to work with their CPrint® professional staffer to install the building blocks necessary to be able to get to the larger issues of competition and performance.

Many of us find ourselves in the vicious cycle of “I’m too busy to solve my problems which will provide me with time, cash and business skills because I’m too busy.” Once basic tools are in place, CPrinters meet in a Thursday-Friday format in a convenient regional location. Currently, one or more boards meet in: Jacksonville, Florida; Richmond, Virginia; Nashville, Tennessee; Chicago (Schaumberg), Illinois; Denver, Colorado; and Long Beach, California.

What happens in a meeting? Owners of up to six companies meet with their mentor and CPrint® staffer. The mentor is a printing company executive who is a senior in our program. They do not participate as an affiliate in the meeting, rather they run the meeting and keep everyone focused on their issues. The CPrint® staffer does the staff work necessary such as maintain the budgets and keep minutes of the action plans so that everyone has the opportunity to make progress on their significant issues rather than just ponder theoretical situations.

On Day One, each affiliate brings a starter-budget (with staff assistance) to the meeting along with their most pressing issues. Day one is dedicated to identifing all issues and options with the assistance of their advisors. The purpose in day one is not to solve all the problems, but to make sure they are properly identified since identification of the real issue is the key to an effective solution.

Day two is focused on developing solutions you will implement, creating a budget you will live within and writing down your action steps which you will take. In fact, immediately after the meeting you have a complete list of what you have committed to do so you may begin taking immediate action.

But there’s more. On the evening of Day One, the group meets in the host hotel for a celebratory gala where awards are given for management performance and sales increases. Part of the CPrint® services include press releases to your local media for your accomplishments in the program.

Also time is devoted to Management Training in pertinent subjects such as supervisory techniques in dealing with workers, interviewing and recruiting skills, understanding finance and financials and a strong emphasis on selling skills among other topics.

Also important is the fact that members of a specific board often meet together for a period of years since every meeting provides everyone with more knowledge about your specific situation; so the longer you meet, the more value your management committee becomes to you. In fact, we have some affiliates who have met with boards since the very first CPrint® board meeting in 1986.

]]> http://cprint.com/?feed=rss2&p=1168 0 http://cprint.com/?p=1155 http://cprint.com/?p=1155#comments Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:58:53 +0000 admin http://crouser.com/test/cprint/?p=1155 CPrint® hosts special optional conferences throughout the year focused on Selling as well as Production. Not only owners, but key workers are always invited to learn more which helps you earn more.

The CPrint® Sales Summit focuses not only on techniques of sales but brings to affiliates new technologies that keep you and your business relevant to your customers. Websites, QR codes, pURLs, email broadcasting, mobile sites and much, much more have been presented to CPrinters long before they become common in your market.

The CPrint® Production Conference has always been devoted to best practices in small press and digital shops along with giving owners and production personnel techniques and tools from PDF workflows to the latest equipment and software betterments to help you make the best investment decisions.

In these conferences, we are honored to have with us many leading industry vendors who bring to us their latest thinking and solutions to our common problems.

That’s not all though. Other schools and conferences have been presented around Management Training (great for owners and owners-to-be), CSR Skills and even schools for Sales Training which help you and your people learn the best and easiest techniques to improve your business.

]]> http://cprint.com/?feed=rss2&p=1155 0 http://cprint.com/?p=873 http://cprint.com/?p=873#comments Mon, 05 Sep 2011 20:27:25 +0000 admin http://crouser.com/test/cprint/?p=873 CPrint® brings training to your people in your shop through our exclusive CPrint® University online courses as well as numerous webinars throughout the year.

Here are some of the many offerings available to CPrinters 24/7:

Finance and Financial Statements
Basic Concepts
Attest Letter
Balance Sheet
Income Statement
Statement of Cash Flows
Depreciation
Statement of Retained Earnings and Footnotes
Inventory
Justifying Equipment Purchases Using Payback
What Your Printing Business is Worth

Sales and Selling Classes
Networking, Basic and Advanced
Making Time for Selling
Intro to Sales: Battleground
Intro to Sales 2: Differentiation
Intro to Sales 3: Using a Well Defined Selling Process
Intro to Sales 4: Making the Call
Think Like a Winning Salesperson
Strike Zone, Product Line and Selling Proposition
Working Your Top Accounts
Dealing with the 4 Common Initial Objections
Lessons Learned from Canvassing
Thoughts on Getting the First Appointment
15 Pretty Good Questions for the First Appointment
Dealing with the Voice Mail Challenge
Rebuilding Relationships
Price Objection Negotiation
Listening Skills
Intro to Sales Call Reluctance
CPrint Scripts

Classes for Customer Service Representatives
Major Printing Processes
Focus on Offset
Color Theory
Entering Printing Orders
Printing Jargon
Paper Basics
Ink Basics
Type History
Type 2 Anatomy
Type 3 Selection and Use

Production and Technical Classes
Digital 1: Understanding Digital Workflow
Digital 2: Pricing Customer Created Files
Digital 3: Industry Standards for Digital Files
Digital 4: What Customers Must Know
Digital 5: What Salespeople Must Know
Digital 6: Role of Production Manager
Digital 7: Role of Prepress Staff
Digital 8: Digital Opportunities
Digital Common Sense Pricing
What Production Manager Needs to Know About Prepress
Preflighting Publisher Files
Digital Standards and Sales
Automation of Workflow
Ink as Peanut Butter and Jelly
Cutting: a Basic Primer

Mailing
Getting Started in Mailing
Mailing for CSRs
Clean Data (What is it and how to get it)
Pricing Variable Data Projects
Designing and Processing Variable Data Jobs
Selling pURLs or Response URLs: parts I and II
Facing an OSHA Audit
Production Manager’s Responsibilities
Equipment Maintenance

Personnel
Making Good Decisions
When Conflict Occurs: CALM method

]]> http://cprint.com/?feed=rss2&p=873 0 http://cprint.com/?p=1 http://cprint.com/?p=1#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:30:48 +0000 admin http://crouser.com/test/cprint/?p=1 CPrinters are honored at every board meeting for increases in sales as well as management proficiency.

That accomplishes several things.

First it surely honors and recognizes affiliates who receive the awards. After all, you can’t go very many places and get a standing ovation for increasing your sales no matter how well you did.

Secondly, it allows CPrint to recognize you where it counts: in your specific market. We do this through our CPrint Public Relations program where we help each affiliates maintain a contact list not only of local media but of special media that is meaningful to the affliate such as a civic club or a chamber of commerce. Here is an example of a release that hit the local papers within a week of a recent Nashville board meeting Click Here. Scroll down to CPrint honors Davis for sales growth

Thirdly, and arguably most important, it validates performance among CPrinters. Remember those guys you ran into at the trade show who were telling you how to increase sales a zillion percent? Did they do it? How do you know? So, the primary reason for CPrint’s award program is to validate an affiliate’s performance. You certainly want to listen to those who have Superior Performance and at CPrint functions, they’re easy to spot because we highlight and honor them. Makes each of us want to be treated that way as well which is even more reason to have our Awards program in the first place.