What we do at Alexander’s

One of Alexander’s main goals is, and has always been, excellent customer service. Along with that, we are fine-tuning our focus on the primary services we provide—the ways that help us serve our customers and help them succeed.

Through this positioning process we have narrowed down our services to five categories or specialties that we want our customers to turn to Alexander’s for and know more about.

With my next few posts, I’ll share details about each category, but for now, the five are:

Complete Print and Fulfillment Solutions

Communication Consulting

Marketing and Public Relations

Web and Social Media

Technology Solutions

First and foremost, people are learning that Alexander’s is a lot more than just a printer. We are a full-service print, marketing and corporate communication company. We think our tagline, Communication Transformed™, says it all.

We help our customers bring all kinds of projects to life. Often they have been turned down by other companies because their project was ‘impossible.’ But we welcome the challenge.

At Alexander’s, we get the job done. Where others fail, we succeed.

Therein lies the true motto of Alexander’s success, because we only succeed when our clients succeed.

Introducing Communication Transformed

In a world of offset printing — before fax machines, cell phones and digital print — I opened Alexander’s Print Stop. The year was 1979. Little did I know how much the industry and my fledgling company would change over time.

33 years later I’m surrounded by 60 team members in a 45,000 square-foot building providing services that span from printing to social media optimization. We’ve turned Alexander’s into a comprehensive corporate communication service provider.

Advances in print technology have led to variable data printing and the marketer’s dream — being able to send unique consumer messages to specific individuals, even addressing them by name. Technology has not only revolutionized print, it has fundamentally changed the way we communicate, both as individuals and as organizations.

Through my experience in the private and public sectors I’ve learned to embrace change. It’s coming, whether we like it or not. I credit much of Alexander’s success over the years to our ability to foresee future trends and embrace new technology.

This brings me to July 2012. With the acquisition of a digital marketing and public relations firm (more about that in our company newsroom), Alexander’s continues to evolve to become much more than a printer.

For years our team members have been valuable counselors and consultants for clients, involved from the get-go in brainstorming, outlining and delivering stand-out products as embedded members of client marketing teams. Now we have even more expertise with strategic public relations and website optimization counselors as part of our team.

I believe the future is bright for the Alexander’s brand of complete marketing and communication services, something we’ve dubbed Communication Transformed. Whatever your need, whether physical or virtual, Alexander’s has the resources to help you succeed in a cluttered, competitive world.

I tell my team each week that we are only successful when our clients are successful, and it’s not just lip service. I absolutely believe it.

As always, I welcome your feedback. Thank you for your trust and commitment to Alexander’s.

Learning Social Media

One of the hardest things for me is keeping up with social media. There is so much to learn, but I have been able to find some good sources to learn from. One of the best books I have read on the subject is “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” by David Meerman Scott. The book covered many subjects in promoting a business but it really gave a great overview of Social Media. If you need to learn about the subject, that is a good place to start.

I just found an interesting interview with Guy Kawasaki about social media. It is worth checking out.

http://www.linkedin.com/news?actionBar=&articleID=5582131575325208644&ids=dP8Se3gRcjgTcjkSdz8PczwRdiMQd3oUc38RczcRdPkNcP4Oe3kRb3kRcPwPdz4VczoUejwSdj4UdjkIcz0RcPATdz8OczAUejgSc3wRdiMRdz4Qdj8QejgSdjkPc3wTdPkR&aag=true&freq=weekly&trk=eml-tod2-b-pub-3&ut=1Sq5dyw2kqwB81

Honesty is the best Policy

I had an experience yesterday that reminded me of a business principle that is a must do. Honesty is the best policy.  I learned many years ago the importance of being honest with others, even when it is tough on a relationship. By not being honest with somebody you may spare them some grief now, but it could jeopardize your relationship when they learn you were not honest with them in the first place.

I had an experience with a customer yesterday where I learned they haven’t been honest with us about paying their bill. They’ve had ongoing excuses that we hadn’t delivered the product or we hadn’t sent them the right paperwork to get the payment approved. This has gone on and on. It all came to a head yesterday when we learned the truth, that the problem isn’t us but them, they don’t have the money to pay.

It would have been much easier, in the very beginning, to let us know they were having cash flow problems. When we know the hard truth then we can deal with the issue. Now, there is no trust. They want to put together a payment plan but I don’t believe they are sincere about honoring a payment plan. That mistrust comes from not telling the truth in the very beginning.

Honesty really is the best policy even when it temporarily hurts a relationship. It is better than permanently destroying trust.

Appreciation for Others

In the hustle and bustle of the work week, one of the most important principles of life gets lost. This is the time of year when we get an opportunity to reflect on our lives and the things we are grateful for. It is too bad that most of us get so busy we don’t express appreciation more often.  This quote for Gordon B. Hinckley has helped me to understand gratitude and appreciation. “Gratitude is the beginning of civility, of decency and goodness, of a recognition that we cannot afford to be arrogant. We should walk with the knowledge that we will need help every step of the way.”

Most of us are pretty independent and we don’t want to admit that success in life doesn’t just come because of the things we do. There have been, and continue to be, people all around us who have helped us in our success. It may be our spouse and other members of our family. It could be close friends and associates and in most cases our employees. Not only do they help us with our work but they help us develop the traits necessary to succeed.

Now is a great time to remember others and express appreciation. Whether we want to admit it or not, we can’t enjoy life alone.

Occupy

I love how some people make assumptions. Take, for instance, the people involved with the “Occupy” demonstrations. According to them, they are representing the 99%. Really? There isn’t that many of them.

Does anybody really know what they stand for? If the occupiers really wanted to help they would have strategies in place. Apparently they are upset with the banks and business. I would imagine they think the government is going to be their solution. As I’ve watched their movement they appear more like victims. Blaming anybody they can for their problems. Too bad, some of them sound like pretty intelligent people. Their time might be better spent in helping find solutions rather than just “occupying” their time in protest.

Listening to Customers

I have been attending a seminar for the last couple of days and part of the time we have been listening to presentations from a supplier. I have found it very interesting that many times during their presentations they have mentioned the importance of listening to their customers but most of the time they haven’t left any time for us, their customers, to ask questions or make comments. 

It is very easy for all of us to say that listening to customers is important and it is another thing for us to do it. In our business we have tried to be responsive to customers but just a few weeks ago we realized we needed to be more proactive. We began calling customers to see how we were doing and it has been very helpful. I am grateful they have been willing to share ideas of how we can deliver a better service to them. 

It doesn’t take a lot of time but it is worth our time to ask customers what they think of our services. If we listen, it will give us the opportunity to improve our businesses.