Last week I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who owns a direct mailhouse. It wasn’t long before we were talking about the “future of direct mail business” –  in fact based on his outlook I questioned why he did not sell now and get out.

I sat for almost a half hour listening to why post office rate increases are going to kill the industry followed closely by the demise of direct mail due to digital communications. (BLAH, BLAH, BLAH)

His jaw nearly dropped to the floor when I insinuated maybe it was his fault! What other industry can you boast of a 3-5% success rate (or a 95-97% failure rate if you are glass ½ empty person) and feel good about.  Even baseball players who strike out 70-80% of the time offer better percentages.

So what is going to happen to the direct mail industry?  Postal rates will impact direct mail but direct mailers have the opportunity to mail less and make more.

What are your thoughts?

Next blog: Mail less, make more and bat 300

I am always amused when I hear someone use the word visionary, particularly since I believe that true visionaries are few and far between.

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary the definition of VISIONARY is: 1: one whose ideas or projects are impractical: dreamer 2: one who sees visions : seer 3: one having unusual foresight and imagination.

The first visionary that comes to my mind is Jules Verne, he was a dreamer and his ideas were certainly impractical for the time.  Just one example of Jules Verne’s visionary capabilities: (and this is a bit spooky)

Taken from “How Jules Verne Invented NASA”

A hundred years ago, Jules Verne wrote a book about a voyage to the Moon. His spaceship, Columbia, took off from Florida and landed in the Pacific Ocean after completing a trip to the Moon.

• Verne estimated that the mission would have cost his day’s equivalent to $12.1 billion. Surprisingly spot on–the Apollo program up through Apollo 8 (the first manned vehicle to circumnavigate the moon) cost $14.4 billion.

• As with Verne’s book, that mission also had a crew of three astronauts. Verne’s were named Ardan, Barbicane, and Nicholl–Apollo 8’s were Anders, Borman and Lovell
• The launch occurred 132 miles from the site of Verne’s prediction.

We all can’t be visionaries but we can be visualists!

There is a great deal of latitude for us all to be visualists. Look visualist up, google it, look in the dictionary and your results will vary. And it really does not matter.  I have decided to put a stake in the ground and share with you MY idea of what a visualist is.

A visualist is a person who: 1.) assumes the natural evolution of something, 2.) draws conclusions and 3.) acts upon them

The evolution could be a variety of things such as technology, human behavior, government regulation, aging, you name it!

Just a few simple examples of natural evolutions and conclusions in the document space:

• Postage rates will continue to increase, so mail volume will decrease.

• Storage and archiving requirements will increase so more content will be stored and accessed on the web.

• The next generation (Generation Z, born in the early 90’s) communicates mainly via text and mobile communications and most likely will never receive a printed bill.

None of this is rocket science and if each of you look at your businesses (or your personal lives) you can identify natural progressions or trends and draw conclusions. You may already have done it. The most important aspect of being a visualist is to act. Each one of the examples above represents opportunity.

If you print bills and statements, you can resolve yourself to the fact that mail volume will decrease due to postage costs and let your business shrink or you can offer ancillary services for mobile delivery and archiving and storage services OR increase the value of the mail piece so the postage cost is insignificant. (or both).

Every business has a natural evolution, conclusions that can be drawn that present opportunity. Close your eyes, visualize and enjoy the ride!

Next blog …. Can you make postage costs  insignificant!

In my last blog I indicated I would address the concept of visionary and visualist but I decided to write about a recent ING meeting I attended.

Last Saturday I had the privilege of meeting and addressing the Imaging Network Group (INg), a band of entrepreneurial service bureaus (print for pay) that grew from Xplor.

What is interesting about this group is they meet and openly discuss issues affecting their businesses and share their successes and failures in dealing with them. This despite the fact that they probably have become competitors due to the internet.

Their companies vary in size but most are considered small businesses. Their capabilities vary, but all print transactional documents and direct mail. They have  always pushed the envelope in terms of applications and driving new products.

These people get it. They know technology is changing how we communicate and look at these changes as an opportunity. They wrestle with new technology, find out how to apply it, offer it as a service.

The underlining theme I saw in the brief time that I was there listening to presentations was the importance of accurate data, delivery of relevant information and offering output in a variety of media.  Delivering the right message to the right person at the right time in a format that the recipient chooses to receive it.

These are “glass half full” people who do not subscribe to the demise of an industry but the opportunity to be part of a changing one.  This is what our industry needs to embrace.

Next blog … are you a visionary of visualist?

Technology like anything else, it can be a blessing and a curse.

Taking a look at technology advances in the last 20 or so years it has done a great deal to increase productivity. We can now receive and send email from anywhere in the world at any time. We can receive messages, as well as email, on a device that once was a “just a phone” but has become so much more.

Every day we communicate via email, text, social networks, facebook, twitter, just to name a few. In fact the average person has very few excuses for not being accessible.

But have we as individuals become too accessible?

Being able to get that last minute proposal out or helping solve a problem at work certainly qualifies as a blessing and is extremely helpful and productive. But I find more and more that the technology is consuming us and not only affecting us but the people around us.

Nothing grates me more than when I am sitting in a meeting that someone invited me to attend and they are constantly looking at their “smart phone” or asking to be excused to take a call. Is anyone or anything so important that they can’t focus and tune-in for a short period of time?

A few changes I have made:

1.) I have created “my time” each day. Turn off my phone, rid myself of outside distractions and do what I want or need to get done. Could be personal or business related.

2.) I never talk on my phone when I am in a line somewhere anymore. Believe me the cashier appreciates it.

3.) I make it a point to turn off my cell phone at meetings, in front of all. It shows them you value their time and they have your attention.

Try this and let me know how it goes. Next time you are in a meeting, try turning off your phone. If you are in line at a grocery store, smile and say hello to the cashier.

Is being accessible affecting who you are?