Or, what to print and when

Recently, I started redoing my home office; changing it from somewhere I worked from home for my employer on occasion, to my main place of work for my business. The two are I have found, very different.

The main thing that is different is the hardware I need. Working in the IT sector I have most things I need but there were a few omissions; a large monitor with high resolution (actually two) and a printer. Yes, I had a printer; one of those little HP all in one inkjet printers. Great for the home and okay for an office, printing once in a while and nothing too flash.

What does a business need in a printer?

Speed, silence, cheap, and one heck of a good finish. I think that should cover it. Now to find one. I have an all in one inkjet and there is no reason to replace it. So, I thought about getting a decent color laser printer. Then I thought about all the laser printers I have used over my career, and what I have used them for: running off email, proposals, policy documents, reports and marketing material. For the first two examples on this list and some of the third they were fine; for the fourth and fifth: forget it.
So, what do I need to print in my business? Well very little, invoices go via the web; policy documents go via email or straight to a server; proposals may be printed and presented; reports no; marketing material yes. My experience of business laser printers costing from $1000 to $5000(or more) was not that good for marketing material. Pages tended to curl, and the resolution was never that great. Especially, if you threw some images in. I had once spent hours putting a training package together for a large client, then lost a discussion with my director over printing it. At his insistence, we did it on the company printer. It looked cheap and was noticed by the client. It also took me a lot of time nursing the printer. Next time I won the argument (feed back from the client helped). I took the file to a print shop, gave them the specs, got a price and went back to doing my work. A day later, I collected all the training manuals, boarded and bound. Very professional. Thumbs up from the client and we got the deal.

Selecting a printer

For a small or medium size business your choice will be based on how much you can afford to spend on the purchase but this can actually cost you more in the long run. Your printer could escalate your running costs e.g. time taken fixing jams, cleaning cartridges, wasted paper, refilling ink etc.
Unfortunately, spending more money the printer purchase is no guarantee that these costs will be avoided. I know this from experience.

Have a look at these comparisons from the nice people at tekserve.com

As you can see, the actual running costs are very much the same for comparable priced laser and inkjet printers. These figures are however, only rough as there are many factors which make it hard to judge true running costs. The most important being: what you are actually printing on the pages. How much ink is used? How much is wasted?

The cheapest thing to print is black text (we will revisit that fact later).

So, if the running costs are the same the other differential is the purchase price. The printers listed here are in US dollars but are generally of similar price in New Zealand. So, it may well be worth looking at a low end laser instead of a mid to high end inkjet. In this range they are not very different in price.

But, with lasers you can pay a lot more, up to $1500 for a home office machine and up to $8000 for a SMB/ corporate machine. But, do the running costs reduce if you spend that extra money? Not really, not unless you are buying in bulk and reducing cost on purchase of ink. It still takes the same amount of ink to produce the same results.

So which is the best value for a small business (not just a home one)? A laser, get a colour one but use mostly black.

As for silence and speed

No contest, lasers are faster and quieter. Plus they dont tend to shake you desk when it has a coffee on it.

Quality of output

While, at the end of the day, business owners may make decisions on price, decisions  should also be based on quality and on the effect our printed material has on our customers. That is our return on the investment.

Even if you are not creating image- heavy brochures or photos, your letterhead and your invoices should be clear and noticeable. One should help attract customers and the other should help them pay.

This brings me to the other part of our printing needs as a business, that being the quality of our branding and the quality of our documentation and marketing material. A common mistake is to think that marketing material is the flash stuff we give out to potential customers at Field Days. Sorry, but that would be forgetting one major rule of business: “return business is more valuable than new”. So, each time you supply an existing customer with a piece of your company stationary or a document, you are reinforcing your brand, in effect, you are marketing.

So, when you go to see a designer about your site or your brochures, get them to do your letterheads and cards etc too. Keep it uniformed and branded. Unless you are a designer, make use of one. I know that I for one, need help with colors, but that is only the tip of the iceberg of what a good designer can provide for you.

Here is an example. The other day I sat down to thrash out my new business cards, opened up Adobe Indesign and got to work. An hour later, I was annoyed and frustrated. I am not an Indesign user normally and it showed. But worse, while I thought I knew what I wanted, I had broken one of my own rules that being I wasted an hour of my time which could have been much more productive. Well to be honest, two hours because I had to calm down and have a cuppa. When you charge people for your skills, its because you do something better and faster than they can. Faster, because you know the short cuts and what works. I have now taken my brief to a local designer and will get them to set it up for me.

One last word on quality from PCWorld.co.nz

Take a look at the print quality and the price difference. Do you really think you will get a good ROI on those figures?

Conclusion

After quite a bit of research I decided on my perfect setup. Something to remember, I print very little, most of what I produce is passed electronically. But should I start to print more this conclusion will be just as (if not more so) valid.

In the near future, as my printing increases I will purchase a black ink laser printer. I will keep my inkjet for its great scanner and for the occasional document in color.

I will have good quality letterhead paper in color. I then only need add the text. Should I need proposals or reports which require color, I will email them to my local printer to run off and then collect them or get them to drop them off.

This way I know I am not wasting my valuable time doing things which are not cost effective such as cleaning or fixing the printer.

I won’t have an expensive printer which is not reaching its potential but is depreciating.

I can check with the people who know printing for ways to improve my presentation.

I ensure I don’t run out of ink at the wrong time (or toner).

I know my marketing material will always look right.

And I save money on electricity. Bonus.

As someone once told me ” Do what you do best, then get someone to do the rest” very wise words.

Take care and happy printing.