Wages In Printing Industry

I was driving home the other day and it occurred to me that if I really wanted to sell a lot of Wage and Benefit Studies in the printing industry all I would have to do would be to market directly to employees rather than owners.. I am sure such an approach would not be looked upon favorably by many printers!

Fortunately, I am publishing the  NAQP/NAPL 2012-2013 Wage and Benefits Study on behalf of NAQP/NAPL, and thus I will not be in a position to be selling the study directly.

Nonetheless, think about the value such a study might have to a general manager, or senior graphic artist or maybe a press operator. Let's say that individual plans on making this job their career and they plan on spending most of their life in the business, so long as they are rewarded favorably.

While for many employees it may not be all about "money," it is still an important consideration.

Just musing for right now... would spending $155-$179 be a wise move for an employee just to check out how competitive his hourly wage is compared to someone else with similar skills?

The answer is a "no brainer." Let's say a person is currently earning $14.50 an hour and after thoroughly analyzing the study determines that $16 per hour is more realistic, and he approaches the owner. An increase of $1.50 per hour amounts to $3,120... even a $1 increase amounts to $2,080!

One owner pleaded with me recently not to use the company's email address because he didn't want his employees to know anything about current wages! Wow, I thought... do they not read or talk to each other or know friends that work for other printers? Of course they do, so trying to keep info about wages a "dark" secret is a fruitless and impractical goal.

New Wage Study Will Shock Many

SPECIAL NOTE: I am having problems with the table data provided below... I cannot get tabs to work, but I wanted to share with you the data, even though it is a bit difficult to read. The first column is from the 2007-08 Wage Study and the second column is the latest from the 2012 Wage Study (Preliminary.). I will try to get this corrected ASAP. I think it is fixed now.

The 2012-13 NAPL/NAQP Wage and Benefits Survey is well underway. I suspect that when the final study is published it will be a shock to many.

Excluding companies reporting sales greater than $10 million, the average sales of the first 150 participants is $1,658,299 and the median sales is $850,000.

This compares with the 2007-2008 average sales of $1,370,000 and median sales of $850,000.

Looking at just three positions we find that:

I suspect many owners are going to be wringing their hands together wondering what they are going to do and whether their employees will ever read about some of this data. Unfortunately, as for the latter question, the answer is "Yes." You can't keep determined employees from finding out what competitors are charging whether it's in the same town or across the country.

All I can tell you at this point is that the response rate has been great so far, and in fact the deadline has been moved up to Feb. 5 to submit your own data.

If you want to participate and get your own free copy go here:

www.surveyadvantage.com/2012NAPLWWages

Visiting Bank - A Funny Story

This is probably admitting my advancing age, but I have a funny story to tell.

A couple of months ago I drove to the bank to make a deposit or cash a check, not sure I remember!

Anyway, nothing special about the visit and I only had to wait for one or two cars ahead of me. I finally pulled up to the teller window and before the teller could even come to the window or push the deposit drawer in my direction, I hit the "down" button on the driver's side.

Nothing happened immediately, and I hit it again, and again, two or three more times. Knowing the teller would soon be coming to the window, I tried to figure if the other windows were working and they were... the passenger side window worked fine, going up and down as I commanded it to do with my button. The windows in the back worked as well. Only my window was stuck.

I tried again with my button. Nothing happened. I checked the window lock button and clicked it a couple of times but nothing would happen. My window was still in the up position. I am really getting to panic. I know it's only a matter of a few seconds before the teller shows up and pushes the drawer out in my direction.

What the hell am I going to do? How am I going to communicate my predicament? My window is up and how, I wonder, am I going to use hand signals to let her know my window is suddenly not working. I am already thinking ahead and wondering whether I should pull forward or back up, because I am so close to the wall and the drawer that I couldn't open my door if I wanted to.... how the hell was I going to tell the teller about my plight. Could I back up and somehow edge the door open slightly, squeeze out and then walk up to the window?

Well, the teller comes to the window and I am starting to make stupid hand gestures to indicate that I can't get my window down. I put one or both hands up to the glass to start this sign language crap when one of my hands suddenly pierced the plane of the window. My hand shot right through what I thought was the pane of glass.

Oh my God, my window had been down the entire time. My button had worked. The window had been down the entire time. You can't imagine how stupid I felt thinking all the time that the window was up0 when ir was really all the way down!

I will say it was really clean and I will stick to that until my death. I hope this incident at least brought a smile to your face.

Client Reports Digital vs. Offset

One of my long-time clients contacted me the other day with some info his manager had gathered. According to the memo, sales in 2011 had increased 8% over 2010 and was the best sales of record.

Most interesting of all was the manager's report that for the first time every sales from digital copying 31.8% had slightly exceeded those coming from offset printing at 31.0%.

Since we will be conducting a new Operating Ratio Survey within the next couple of months I will be extra curious to find out if this trend is representative of the industry. I suspect it is, but I can't be sure until I analyze the numbers.

If you have any similar data you would like to share I would like to hear from you, confidentially or not.
John Stewart

Threats by UPS Store owner

Boy, some things really piss me off. I've been conducting studies in this industry for more than 25 years... in the past few years, I have come to rely almost solely on email blasts to get to the largest possible audience.


If someone asks to be removed we offer the typical "remove" options at the bottom of every email. If someone decides instead to respond with a "Please Remove" in the subject line I forward it on immediately to my list managers.


I rarely get a disgruntled recipient. I realize that not everyone who receives an email fits our survey parameters nor do we fit theirs. We do the best we can with the lists we have. A couple of days ago I sent out 40M notices as to how someone could get a FREE copy of the upcoming Wage & Benefits Study.... just complete a survey!


Today, I received the following from an owner/manager of a UPS Store #4085... his one line response to one of our emails was:


Do not contact us again. Any further SPAM will be reported to the FCC.


I responded almost immediately, trying to keep my famous temper in check. I advised him I would do the best I could, and also advised that the most automated and simplest process was to use the "Please Remove" feature at the bottom. I also added that I don't take very kindly to threats, no matter who they come from. I've had run-ins with the best... the FBI, FAA and even Homeland Security (TSA)... and I mean in person with agents, so threatening to contact the FCC with a complaint about SPAM is almost humorous - Especially so when these emails do not qualify as SPAM - all this does is bring my blood to a boil.


About five minutes after sending my response I get a CC copy from him containing some reference number to an FCC complaint form.


One minute after that I responded with the a "F*** Y**." If he thought he was going to intimidate me he was quite mistaken. I proceeded to write a letter to UPS World Headquarters in Atlanta describing this guy's attitude and the threat to turn me in for a simple email invitation! As I told UPS, "you've got to be kidding."


Anyway, I repeated the statement that I really didn't like being threatened by one of their store owners and I was holding them responsible for disciplining this owner and asking him to cease his "childish" behavior.


Of course, as I always do, I sent it out Priority Mail with a subject line on the mailing label, highlighted in yellow that said: "Threats and harassment by a UPS Store Manager/Owner."


Well, that should get someone's attention. What a jackass.