We Lost...But Really We Won

At the Mesa Chamber of Commerce's Annual Luncheon, AlphaGraphics Mesa was one of the finalist for Mid-Sized Business of the Year. We did not win. Yes, I was nervous, yes I was disappointed, yes I was a little angry for a little bit.  However, as I thought about the whole experience, I believe that when we consider the entire event, we were a winner.  Let me explain.

I have spent a considerable amount of time and effort over the last few months promoting my business with SEO efforts.  I have worked on optimizing my website with the right keyword presentation, I have started a blog, I am doing press releases online so that they are picked up by Google, I am writing online articles with Ezinearticles.com, we are distributing a monthly email newsletters, we have done a couple of 3-dimensional mailing pieces to select customers and prospects and I continue to look at other opportunities to promote my business outside of the internet, such as sponsorships and networking.

So how does the Mesa Chamber experience fit into all of this? 

Well, a few months ago, I was asked by a staff person at the Chamber to "self-nominate" myself because they had not received enough nominations from the business community.  After a little thought, I did. I then learned that I was one of two finalists in the Mid-Sized category.  This was my start of a big SEO effort. I updated my status on Facebook and Twitter several times that we had been nominated. I wrote about it on my blog. (I guess this post qualifies also). I issued a couple of press releases, one with PRWeb.com, and one with Grassroots PR.  I was interviewed by a reporter with the Arizona Republic, which was published online and in print.

I received a few benefits also. 

My new picture that I am now using in my social media efforts was donated by a Chamber member (Steve Nissle).  The Chamber did a great video on my business. I will be receiving a copy of this video which I am going to upload to YouTube and embed it into my next blog, our AlphaGraphics websites, our Google Maps site and where ever else I can put it. I have been trying to figure out how to put a video on my websites for quite some time.  Google loves videos when evaluating the rankings of a website.

In addition to the SEO activities associated with this nomination, I received some RLO (Real Life Optimization) benefits. Even though the nomination had been made public by various means, most people did not know of the nomination until the event.  I had many businesses in the area congratulate me on the nomination and comment about how well I must be doing to be nominated (I do not bring up the fact that it was a self-nomination). I had a lot of people say they wish I had won for one reason or another and our new video was played to a room full of Mesa businesses.  What can be better than that?

So here come the sour grapes. 

The difference between winning and losing was that I did not receive a framed picture of my building (which I already have). I guess I will not be able to wear the tiara, to go to grocery store grand openings or to work for world peace, but I will survive. Instead of having more material for another press release on this nomination, I will work on a press release about our new FSC Certification.

I want to thank the staff of the Mesa Chamber for allowing me to be a part of the process and I sincerely want to congratulate Invision Auto Body for winning the category. Maybe we will try again in a few years.


You can always contact us at the following websites:

AlphaGraphics Mesa on Baseline - Printing and Marketing
AlphaGraphics Tempe on Elliot - Printing and Marketing
AlphaGraphics Phoenix - Northwest Valley - Printing and Marketing

Follow me on twitter: @steveadams291

AlphaGraphics Mesa is a Finalist for Mid-Sized Business of the Year

I'm usually not one to toot my own horn, but I thought you might be interested in a press release I just published on PRWeb.com.

For Immediate Release-April 11, 2010-Mesa, AZ--Stephen Adams, owner of AlphaGraphics Mesa on Baseline Road announced today that they have been notified that they were selected as one of the two finalists to be recognized as Mesa's Mid-Sized Business of the Year. The other finalist is Invision Auto Body in Mesa. The winner of this category will be announced and recognized at the Mesa Chamber of Commerce Annual Luncheon this Tuesday, April 13th.


"We could not be prouder of this recognition by the Mesa Chamber." stated Stephen. "I have watched over the years as many deserving companies received this recognition and have secretly aspired to becoming recognized to stand among the former recipients. Our category is going to be tough to win. Invision Auto Body is a great Mesa company and a contributor to the community."

Other finalists in the other categories include SCF Arizona and the Hilton Phoenix East /Mesa in the Large-Sized Business category and FastFrame and Express Employment Professionals in the Small-Sized category. The event is being held at the Hilton Phoenix/East Valley and tickets are still available by calling the Mesa Chamber at 480-969-1307.

Some of the factors used by the evaluation committee in making their selections included service and involvement in the community, staff retention and employment practices, commitment to quality services and participation in Mesa Chamber activities.

AlphaGraphics Mesa started 20 years ago in a Downtown Mesa location near the current Mesa Arts Center. In 2000, that location was moved to the Southern and Country Club area and then in December, 2005, they moved into their newly constructed building at 535 W. Baseline Rd., in Mesa.

Stephen has been very active in the community serving as President of the Downtown Mesa Association (formerly the Mesa Town Center), President of the Mesa Rotary Club, Chairman of the Mesa Chamber of Commerce and he currently serves on the Mesa United Way Board of Directors. "We believe that it is important for all businesses to contribute to the community, both financially and with volunteerism." said Stephen.

Stephen Adams also owns two other AlphaGraphics franchises. His second center is located in Tempe near Kyrene and Elliot and his third center is located in west Phoenix near the Black Canyon Highway and Northern Avenue.

AlphaGraphics franchises that are owned by Stephen Eugene Adams can be reached at the following websites:

AlphaGraphics Mesa Printing and Marketing
AlphaGraphics Tempe Printing and Marketing
AlphaGraphics Phoenix Printing and Marketing

Twitter: www.twitter.com/steveadams291

Who is the Real AlphaGraphics Millennial Customer?

I found this video on YouTube a few days ago.  I think it precisely presents the gap between what a lot of businesses think about Gen Y/Millennials and how the Millennials think about themselves.  Honestly, I think the perception is somewhere in between, slanted toward the latter view.


The reality of the matter is that a lot of the Millennials have not ventured into an AlphaGraphics Printing Facility unless they have been trained for a design background.  We are also finding out that the trained designers are being trained for all things Internet and very little print.  In a lot of cases, we have to train our young customers on what it takes to have something printed on an offset press or that things need to be presented differently if they want to take an Internet page and convert it into a printed piece.

The Millennials are not only a significant portion of today's market but they will be the dominate portion of the overrall market in the future. So we will need to learn how to promote ourselves to them.  They will eventually learn the value of the printed piece so we must be patient in teaching them the benefits of print, combined with the digital presentation.

Previously, I published a Blog post on this subject.  You can find my thoughts at: http://stepheneugeneadams.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-alphagraphics-customer.html

At AlphaGraphics Printing in Mesa, Tempe and Phoenix, Arizona, we do more than just print.  We are also marketing and communications consultants familiar with annual marketing plans, website design, SEO, SEM, Email marketing, direct mail campaigns, news releases and blogging.  We can be reached at the following websites:

Alphagraphics Mesa Printing and Marketing
Alphagraphics Tempe Printing and Marketing
AlphaGraphics Phoenix Printing and Marketing

Follow us on Twitter at:  @steveadams291

The Benefits of Social Media

I ran across this new video on how certain businesses can identify how they have benefited from being active in the Social Media arena.  You can see how the numbers can be mind numbing.

Social Media Video:

Wondering how Social Media applies to you and your business? Tired of battling through all that misinformation and theory, when what you really want to see is hard numbers? Still trying to decide if the time investment is worth it? Watch this video, "Social Media ROI: Socialnomics," to see how other big name brands are using Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to boost sales, awareness and excitement.



Maybe all of this Social Media Activity is worth it. I have often wondered how I am benefiting my AlphaGraphics Printing and Marketing business by being on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  This video helps to quantify what can happen if you devote some attention to Social media.

You can always contact us at the following websites:

AlphaGraphics Mesa on Baseline - Printing and Marketing
AlphaGraphics Tempe on Elliot - Printing and Marketing
AlphaGraphics Phoenix - Northwest Valley - Printing and Marketing

Follow me on twitter: @steveadams291

How We Use Twitter in Our Printing Business

In conversations that I have with business associates and my fellow AlphaGraphics owners, we frequently start discussing what each of us is doing in the Social Media area.  As most of my followers know, I am very active with postings to my blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.  I have just started experimenting with Namyz, but that is really a job search site and I am not actively looking for a job.  When we start talking about Twitter, I get a lot of questions about how Twitter could possibly benefit my business.

How can posting a 140 character status update a few times a day possibly benefit my business.  In one of my older blog postings, I referred to Twitter as the "Standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona" application.  Most people have this impression of Twitter.  I'm at the coffee shop. I am having a bad week. I can't sleep. My flight is delayed.  I'll be glad when my kids are back in school.  I think I have seen almost all of these status updates on Twitter over the last several months.

So, how do I use Twitter? First, I use it as a resource tool.  I am immersing myself in the marketing and social media areas of my business.  I have started following many experts in this field, both their blogs and their Twitter accounts. By following these people on Twitter, I get a sense of what they are reading, thinking and saying at all times.  Some of the people I am following in this regard are John Jantsch, David Meerman Scott, Chris Brogan, Lisa Barone, Matt Cheuvront, Lee Odden and Seth Godin.  Every day I find someone else I should follow in order to learn more in this area. When these people post, they often give a URL link to either their latest blog post or to an interesting blog post that they just read that is informative and educational. I especially like following Lisa Barone on Twitter because she not only has a lot of insightful things to say, but she also is very entertaining.

The second way I use this tool is to keep up with what is happening in our communities.  Following entities such as the local chambers, the united ways, various city departments, certain news reporters and politicians. Following these sources on Twitter allows me to keep current with what is happening without having to refer to their specific websites for my information.

The third way I use Twitter is to promote my AlphaGraphics websites, my blog postings (this may be the way you got to this posting) and various aspects of what is happening in our business.  Since our business is mainly business-to-business, I do not use Twitter to broadcast any promotional offerings because I believe that the fastest way to lose followers on Twitter is to start promoting specific services. The hardest thing I found to do with Twitter is to grow a following of local businesses and customers.  I do spend some time searching for companies that have a Twitter account in the areas where by printing businesses are located.  I then start to follow them with the hopes that they will someday start following me.  I have had some recent success of growing my local business contacts on Twitter but this is a big work in process for me.

At the time of this posting, I am currently following about 300 people and I have approximately 150 followers.  I am finding that following 300 people on Twitter is becoming somewhat overwhelming when it comes to following postings.  Since a lot of people I follow make their livings by posting to Twitter and by blog postings, these people put out a lot a stuff. There will come a time where I will have to stop following the postings of all the people I am following and start to identify only those people that I have an interest in.

So, how are you using Twitter.  I would like to know.  Leave a comment below and give me your thoughts on how Twitter benefits your business or how Twitter seems to be a major waste of time. 

You can always contact us at the following websites:

AlphaGraphics Mesa on Baseline - Printing and Marketing
AlphaGraphics Tempe on Elliot - Printing and Marketing
AlphaGraphics Phoenix - Northwest Valley - Printing and Marketing

Follow me on twitter: @steveadams291

The View From a Declining? Industry

Is print dead? Do we need to renew the print industry? Why are direct mail volumes down? Has social media replaced the need to print marketing pieces? Has print become such a commodity item that all printing needs can be met by online printers? Will everything go back to where it was before the recession hit?

Those of us in the printing industry have all asked these questions and we continue to ask these questions, sometimes without answers. Its no secret that revenues in the overall printing industry are down, advertising revenues are down, the post office is hemorraging red ink and public relations firms are struggling.  By the time that a full recovery is achieved by our economy, I will lose quite a few of my competitors who will just close up shop because of the hard times.

I have often ranted about how my competitors are pricing themselves out of business.  It is one thing to price from a position of strength (Walmart for example).  It is something else to price from a position of weakness.  Pricing at, or below, cost has always been a formula for disaster.  However, I can symphatize with businesses that are forced to use this as a marketing strategy.  It is hard to anticipate how much in costs and expenses that need to be cut in a declining market. To battle the loss of revenues, you can either cut your costs or find ways to increase your revenues.  The panic to increase revenues at all costs results in pricing decisions that would not be made in normal times.  They see that other printing companies are pricing at significant discounts and therefore they should price at those levels even though the pricing provides no profits or overhead coverage.  This is a formula for disaster.

So here are my thoughts on the future of print

● No, print is not dead.  Yes, some may say that we are shopping for the best hospice center, but there is still life in this old bird. We are already seeing a resurgence in the need to have the printed piece in any company's marketing effort.  Businesses are starting to see that SEO, SEM and Social Media efforts, while significantly cheaper, are not always reaching the eyeballs intended, especially in a business-to-business environment.  Sure, print volumes will stay depressed as the trend towards shorter runs will continue, but the added value of personalized promotion pieces will offset some of those revenue declines.

●The loss of some printers will not be bad.  Not only will some of the bad pricing that is happening start to decline, but the excess capacity of equipment and print employees will start to level out.  I hate to be a person who roots for their competitors to leave the business, but there are way too many printers in the market who are not properly acting as responsible business people.

●The printing industry does need to renew itself. We have to be more marketing oriented.  Becoming marketing consultants to small and medium sized businesses will be a difficult transition, but it is a neccessary transition over a period of time.  A significant knowledge of marketing planning, website design, creative content, email marketing, SEO requirements, SEM, personalized direct mail (and email), blogging, demographic profiling, large format signage and fulfillment activities will be neccessary for the printer of the future.

●Equipment purchases will no longer be the name of the game.  It used to be that a printer's status hinged on what equipment was in the portfolio.  The bigger the press, the better the printer and the more that printer received in revenue.  This will no longer be the case. Most of the digital equipment that is in an up-to-date printer will satisfy the needs of the on-demand and variable markets. Employee training and knowledge will become the focus of the new printer. We will need specialists in creative, website design, SEO and the other marketing arenas.

You can reach us at AlphaGraphics at the following websites:


AlphaGraphics Mesa on Baseline-Printing Services 480-844-2222
AlphaGraphics Tempe on Elliot-Printing Services 480-413-1900
AlphaGraphics Phoenix - Northwest Valley-Printing Services 602-234-2944

Follow me on Twitter at: @steveadams291

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What's Up With The Economy?

Last week I attended a seminar put on by Lee McPheters with the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State. I took this seminar as part of my continuing education to maintain my C.P.A certification. Although he started the session saying that the outlook is not doom and gloom, when I left 2 hours later, I was significantly depressed. As most people know, economists agree that the U.S is now in recovery mode. Here is a graph showing the GDP growth rate for the last several quarters.

So, if our GDP is growing, why the doom and gloom.  Well, to start with his projections show a .5% increase in unemployment for the year in the U.S. (-1.0% in Arizona). So it looks like the recovery is not going to be employment based. His overall GDP growth rate for 2010 for the U.S. is predicted to be about 2.5%.  This tells me that the sales that we experienced in 2009 will repeat, at best, in 2010.  If you are planning on significant growth in 2010, you are fooling yourself.

Lee also discussed the lost decade.

 That's right, the S&P 500 Index is where it was in 1999. All of the stock market gains we experienced in the 2000 decade have all disappeared.

How has employment held up for the last decade?

We have fewer people employed at the end of 2009 when compared to the end of 2000. That's why we feel that we are struggling.

Lee also spoke about the U.S. savings rate.  Our savings rate over the last couple of years has increased to 5.9% of earnings, which sounds great.  However, 70% of our economy is consumer driven.  For each 1% increase in the savings rate, about $100 billion is removed from the economy.  We need the consumer to become comfortable with their position in life and start spending again.

How do you feel about the recovery.  Well, 65% of people who were polled stated that the recession is not over.  In fact, what a lot of economists have stated is that the increases in the GDP that we have seen have been caused by two main reasons.  First, manufacturers have decided to bring their inventory levels back up to pre-recession levels and that is thought to be a temporary measure.  The second reason stated is that the stimulus monies are having a temporary effect on business activity (though you could not tell it by me).

When Will the Full Recovery Happen?

So what is the timeframe for a full recovery?  Can you believe 4-5 years.  2014 is the year we may be able to celebrate and say that everything is back to pre-recession levels.  The official recession lasted 21 months where the average recession in the past has lasted 10 months.

The recession in Arizona has been significantly worse than the rest of the U.S. and the recovery will follow the U.S. In the past, Arizona has shown significantly wider variations in growth and contraction rates and will probably show a higher growth rate when we finally start to come out of this.

My Thoughts

After hearing all of this (and more), I have the following thoughts about going forward as a small business in Arizona:

Everything that you wished you had done to make 2009 a better year, do it in 2010:
If you wished that you had reduced your costs sooner or to a greater extent, make sure you make those reductions now.  2010 will not show a significant increase in revenues and your expenses will continue to grow if you do not take measures to control them.

Hire back slowly:
Be slow to fill new or empty positions with full-time staff.  Now is the time to have a plan on hiring temporary and part-time employees.  Have a good agency ready to fill temporary needs.

Explore alternative financing options:
The availability of conventional credit lines will continue to dry up for small businesses.  Even though there is a great amount of discussion about having the banks open up their lending, they still have to deal with financials that reflect two years of losses and reduced balance sheet health.  It is time to start looking into the SBA programs again and what they may have.

Start innovating again:
It seems that lately, Google and Apple are the only companies that continue to innovate (if you call the iPad an innovation considering it looks like an oversized iPhone without calling capabilities). Its time to look at your business and figure out what it is going to take to make it a profitable enterprise in this next decade. I know its hard to think about the future when you are fighting the current battles, but it is imperative to the future of your business and the economy that we start innovating again.

Make the hard decisions:
You know which ones they are.  From letting people go, to closing down an unprofitable branch, to selling off an unproductive asset or to getting another job.  These are hard times and the people who are able to make the hardest decisions are the people who come out ahead at the finish line.

There you are.  Now doesn't everyone feel better?

You can reach us at AlphaGraphics at the following websites:

AlphaGraphics Mesa on Baseline 480-844-2222
AlphaGraphics Tempe on Elliot 480-413-1900
AlphaGraphics Phoenix - Northwest Valley 602-234-2944

Follow me on Twitter at: Steve's Twitter Account

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