How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Recession

By Matt Valentine

At KDF Reprographics, we are, as our name suggests, in the reprographics industry. Lately, there is a growing fear that the reprographics industry is facing a crisis of sorts. This crisis is not just some imaginary fear derived from the panic of a recession; it is fear based on some very real and very scary facts. For example, some estimates suggest that the printing industry lost 2,844 firms in 2009.

Furthermore, while many sectors of the economy are slowly recovering, the construction industry, the industry many reprographics companies rely on heavily to generate revenue, has continued to lag far behind.  According to an article in Business Week, written by Courtney Schlisserman on April 1, 2010, construction spending in the U.S. fell in February to the lowest level in more than seven years, signaling this part of the economy remains in a recession.

While these stats are frightening enough there are several other factors that should and are giving us in the industry cause for concern. First, we live in an increasingly paperless world. As information and communication are decimated through different electronic mediums the use of paper documents has become less relevant. Not exactly a new trend, but a troubling one for those of us in a paper based industry. Second, as previously stated, the recession has had a profound impact on the reprographics and printing industry. And as a direct result of the first two factors there has been a decrease in the available volume of printing projects and therefore a smaller pie for all of us to eat. 

Before we go any further let me make one thing clear, because I don’t want to give people the wrong impression. We, at KDF, are not struggling; in fact we just had one of our best months ever. We achieved this mainly by positioning ourselves as the company to turn to for large format printing needs from reprographics, to vehicle wraps, banners, posters, document scanning and trade show displays. Mention one of these items and we are likely the first name to come up in our local area.

While this is obviously good for us, the fact remains that the reprographics industry and the printing industry as a whole are in a state of flux. The days of mom and pop operations are rapidly coming to an end as they struggle to meet the challenges from large national chains, other local competitors, and outside factors like the recession.

Diversify

We started taking  more of a "Long-Tail" approach. If there was, as I stated earlier, a smaller piece of the pie to be had by all in our traditional markets, then we would have to move into others. We launched new product lines, and new websites, focused on different niches and demographics well outside our "usual" customer base.  If we couldn't sell a ton of our traditional services then we would sell smaller amounts of a wide range of products and services.  Which led us to the next key strategy.

Embracing Technology

I consider myself to be fairly tech savvy, having grown up in the digital age where I've seen my cell phone go from green screens, to color screens, to touch screens, and watched my desktop shrink to a laptop, which shrank to an iPad. It's clear that in order to stay ahead we have to embrace new technologies; including new ways to reach out to customers. Embracing new trends like social media, and even SMS (text message) advertising, though I have debated against it here in the past  (http://kdf-comp.blogspot.com/2010/04/is-mobile-marketing-dangerous-business.html) are crucial  if we intend to stay in business. Which brings me to my next point.

Targeting Generation Y

Gearing our efforts toward attracting Generation Y-ers will be integral for the future of every business for several reasons. First, Generation Y is the largest generation in American history. At 77 million strong, they even outnumber the baby-boomers. Which means soon enough every business will be relying on the economic power of Generation Y to keep them afloat. If you are not speaking to them on terms they understand you're continued existence will be put in jeopardy.

Another important factor to consider is that while all of the other generations changed their spending habits during the recession the Y-ers remained remarkably consistent, hardly changing their spending habits at all. Which means that if you are able to capture their attention and retain them as customers you can rely on them in good times and bad.

Second, Generation Y is extremely influential. In fact, they are the trend-setters. Trends trickle up from them to their parents and so on. They may have been the single biggest factor in determining the outcome of the previous Presidential election, and as far as I can tell it doesn't get much more influential then that. More importantly to us, is that they have the ability to influence the buying decisions of older generations, as well as their peers.

Third, they are incredibly tech savvy. Being a part of Generation Y, in my mid-twenties, I have a deep understanding of what these people look for and the ways in which they obtain, and spread information. That is why it is integral that we embrace emerging technological trends be it, SMS, social media, or whatever else emerges in the years to come.We as a generation are constantly plugged in, we never leave home without our phones. We want to be in touch and respond instantaneously and we demand immediate gratification.  If you cannot provide that for us, we will find someone else who can.

Knowing how and when to adapt is the key to survival, be it in business or life in general. I believe adopting these strategies, amongst others, will be key to the survival of many businesses.

5 Ways To Become A Social Media Super Star

By Matt Valentine

When you really think about what Social Media is, why it started, and why its become so popular, it boils down to one basic thing...a need for attention. It's that primal human instinct to be wanted, to be liked, and to be accepted. This instinct, originally engendered in us as a method for survival, has continually evolved around the social structures we create and so, where once we needed to belong to a tribe or clan as a way to ensure the continued existence of our species and our own personal survival, this instinct has taken on a new form. In todays day and age this instinct is shaped by a desire to be accepted and noticed on a mass scale, not because it is necessary to survive, but simply because it makes us feel feel all warm and fuzzy and special when people pay attention to us.

Now, some of you may be thinking that this isn't true. That you use Social Media as a means to project your expertise, to let people know about your business, to fill your friends in about whats going on in your life, etc. etc. but let me ask you one simple question: If a tweet doesn't get retweeted does it make a sound?

The simple fact is Social Media is a numbers game. We are all in it for more followers, more fans, more friends,more retweets, more likes, more whatever, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar!

But, enough with the serious talk and on to the reason why you came here in the first please becoming a Social Media Super Star!

Allow me to take you on a little journey, a quest if you will. Allow me to be your Sherpa on your mountainous traverse to becoming a Social Media Super Star!And on too...

THE LIST

1. Be a Gorgeous Woman

Unless you are a really ridiculously good looking man, much like myself, one sure fire way to become a Social Media Super Star is to be, or become a good looking lady; because if there is one thing social media nerds of the male variety like more then social media itself, its hot women who like social media. Look it up, its a fact.

If you're not a beautiful woman and you don't want to invest the money to turn yourself into one (sex changes are not as simple as they look), a simple suggestion would be to find and use the picture of a hot woman as your profile picture. Tip: try to get permission first, or risk suffering the legal ramifications.

2. Be Someone Who is Already a Celebrity or Athlete

Believe it or not already being famous seems to be a great launching pad toward Social Media stardom.You can even be a huge douche like Ashton Kutcher and still have a strong following.  Yea, I don't get it either, but stats don't lie. The real question is how does one become a celebrity in the real world?

Becoming a celebrity in the "real world" is no easy task, well relatively speaking anyway. My advice, have a bunch of kids, the more the better, if you can top somewhere in the vicinity of 20 you're a ready made star, (this is more of a long term strategy), if instant stardom is what you're after have 8 or 9 kids in one shot and I can almost gaurantee a contract with TLC will be waiting for you in the nursery of the hospital.  This strategy is the only one I could think of that nearly everyone can do, because let's face it if you were going to become a star athlete I am pretty sure it would have happened already.

3. Be Unique, Very Funny, or Find Someone Who is and Exploit Them


For most of our lives many of us have been led to believe that we are special and unique, like beautfiful snowflakes. Let me just clear this little misconception up right now, you're not and you never will be and anyone who told you otherwise was probably obligated to by law or by paternal instincts.

If we were all really that unqiue and always had unique and important things to say then there would be no such thing as trending topics on Twitter ( I know, pretty sound logic, because how could anything be trendy if we were all saying wonderfully unique things?). So, tweeting that Corey Haim died just 20 short years after his career did, while completely awesome and hilarious and possibly offensive does not qualify as being unique.

In fact, here's a little test. Ask ten people what makes them unique and see if more then two of them have an answer that actually makes sense. Personally, I have an awesome answer because I have three nipples and that totally qualifies as unique, but most people will not even come close to that level.

What was I talking about? Oh right, will since you're not unique and being funny is a gift god bestows upon so few of us you're going to have to find and exploit someone who is funny or unique, or you could just pay me to do it...either way.

Finding this person will be difficult. As previously stated, funny and unique people are rare breeds and seeing as how most of these people are probably already using some form of Social Media, finding one that isn't will makes this task that much more difficult.

I recommend finding on old person. This old person should be generally grumpy, but capable of dropping charming tidbits of wisdom about life much like the Old Man on Pawn Stars (if you don't know who that is look it up, that guy is amazing) or this guys dad http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays cus he's funny too.


4. Be an Animal 


Are you an animal? Can you type? If you answered yes to these questions then I have no idea why you're reading this because in all likely hood you already have a bigger following then most people do. If you are not already an animal the chances of you one day becoming an animal are sadly enough, pretty slim. I know, it's depressing. I'm just hoping I live long enough to see science catch up with my dream of becoming a Beagle. No, not the dog, but a hybrid bear/eagle. Much like this:

In case you were wondering this cat http://twitter.com/sockington has over 1.5 million followers and counting.


5. Be the Founder of a Social Media Site


Everyone knows Tom from MySpace mainly because we've all been forced to become friends with him, but thats the point. If you are the founder of a social media site you can literally force people to be friends with you. So what are you waiting for? Go make it happen.