Establishing Relationships with Professional Printers

Some desktop publishers let their clients worry about printing their projects on their own. This can be beneficial on one hand and detrimental on the other. Sure, your life may be easier if you never have to deal with the printing side of the equation. But it also prevents you from being able to use words like full service, or providing your services to clients who are not capable of doing the print in house. That means you will need to develop relationships with professional printers in order to grow your services. Of course, building a good relationship with a printer may not be as easy as it should be. If you are interested in finding one, then these steps can help you.

The first thing that you will need to do is find out which printers are in your area: This can be done simply with a phone book or a web search. Once you have some choices we can move on to step two.

The research step is going to take a bit longer. You are looking to get a lot of information from this process. To be completely thorough you are going to have to take multiple steps:

Step 1: Look for complaints about the business. Check with the Better Business Bureau, your local chamber of commerce, and with a search engine. Most businesses have at least one complaint, but stay away from any with multiple complaints.

Step 2: Get a price list. A business with comparable services should have similar rates. You do not want to direct your customers to someone that over charges.

Step 3: Ask to see sample work. Many printers have a book on hand that you can view. Be wary of those with no samples.

You may want to do a few test orders from the company. Nothing big mind you, just a flyer here or calendar there. The idea is not ony to get custom samples, which is something that you will need to see. It is also because you want to get an idea of how they treat customers. Do not recommend any service that puts small orders on the back burner or gives poor service.

Once you know a service is suitable, it's time to make contact with the owner or manager. You will want to discuss the potential of a relationship where you refer each other. If your talks go well, you may be able to negotiate a business discount. If that happens, then you may be able to offer your clients printing services as well.

Now you can build a relationship that will benefit both of your businesses, and increase your offerings. Best of luck.