New Tech to Win More Print Business Now

Hey everybody, thank you for coming to our webinar today. We’ve got three

amazing panelists. Well, one was sort of picked by default and that’s Morgan and

then we have two others. And and really the goal here today is we want to educate.

Um if I may be as so bold to say that everybody’s looking to grow. There’s nobody looking to shrink there. But I

think there’s challenges and we hand selected this panel because we believe these are

these are all three completely separate paths that people can take that will

help them expand their business. And it may be things you’ve thought of. It may be things that you’re already invested in. But uh we think that there’s always

something new going on and I want to make sure that we can help each of you.

So, I’ll give a second or two for people to filter in. They’re coming in, but uh

I will in start by introducing myself. I’m Brad Kugler. I’m the co-founder and

CEO of Direct Mail 2.0. We are a

tech stack for direct mail. And when I say that, what is that? That means we

offer services such as improvement in tracking, improvement in response rate

as well as other products that do propensity modeling using AI to improve

your direct mail outcome as well as competitive intelligence. We’ve got three platforms, dm2.com,

dm2ai, and who’s mailing what.com. You’ve probably heard of us. most people have.

And uh Morgan will be the representative. I’ll let her go next to kind of explain a little more about what

she does and a little and and maybe cover anything I missed. Morgan, tell us who you are and what you do here.

Sure. I’m Morgan DiGiorgio. I’m the chief revenue officer for the direct mail performance stack that is comprised of

direct mail 2.0, who’s mailing what and DM2.ai. And in a nutshell, we’re marketing experts that specialize in

omni channel marketing and we help businesses improve the performance of their direct mail campaigns. So we

provide competitive intelligence, advanced tracking and attribution, lead generation tools, and as broad alluded

to, our newly released DM2.a platform and that will tell you what to change in your direct mail before even sending it

out into the mailstream to lift and improve the response and ROI. And across the print industry, our platform is

utilized as a sales tool to help grow not only the business of printers and mail service providers, but also their

clients. Excellent. Thank you, Morgan. I I may add, we’ve actually been around for nine

years. We are not a Johnny come lately to this. All right, let’s go to Tony next. Tony, tell us who you are and what

you do. Sure. Tony Mancini. I’m an inkjet specialist today with HP Corporation. So

HP, the $53 billion mogul, supports the industrial print portion of HP, which is

what I’m a part of. I’ve been in the print industry, unfortunately, going on my 40th year. Started with Xerox for 30

some odd years. I’ve been with all the major players in the inkjet world over the last uh 20 years.

Great. Thank you. And and I guess the brands that he’s worked with and who he’s currently with need no introduction

themselves. I’m sure that you all heard of them. All right, time for Chris. Chris, tell us who you are and what you

do. We see it on your placard there, but let’s let’s unpack it a little bit more.

A lot of a lot of letters and acronyms in my world. So, thanks for having me. By the way, I’m Chris Francis. I’m with

360 Advanced. We’re an IT compliance and cyber security assessment firm. Uh I’ve been with the firm uh I’m a shareholder

now, but I’ve been there for 12 years. Started at the very bottom. uh by happen stance I got kind of put print mail on

my desk and I started to investigate the industry and learn about their compliance initiatives. So I would tell

you that I help uh owners of print industry companies navigate the world of compliance around sock 2 trust PCI ISO

2701 pentesting risk assessments all of the things that they may need to open sales doors uh for their organization.

Excellent. All right, great panel. These are all very valuable products. Um, I’m

gonna start with Chris here. You know, I I’m gonna start by giving our own little story. You know, this world of of

security and compliance, you know, when I first came into this business eight years ago, almost we hardly ever heard

of it. We were new, that could be the case, but it it just wasn’t top of mind. And I have to say that if

I don’t know that you can go a day without hearing about the need for this. Now, we went through our own SOCKU

uh compliance and we’re on our I think we’re going on our third year now, Morgan. Is this our third year? So, it

it it’s it’s a it’s a shield that you hang that says you’re okay. You know,

and I gotta tell you, it has gotten us into doors that we could not get into. In fact, we signed a contract with a

very, very major brand. And even though the contract was signed, they came back

and we’re going to literally break the contract. Was they’re like, “You guys don’t have any security or compliance certification, this is a deal killer.”

And I’m like, “Oh man, it wasn’t cheap and it didn’t happen quick, but we went and did it.” And it’s opened more doors

since. So, I I’m going to give Chris the first question here. Chris, as printers handle more customer data and marketing

information, what are the risks that people have to address? So, everybody’s

been on the side where I’ve been on where you need this, but give us some examples of why it’s important. You

know, I I think that comes to the it breaks down the barriers or the objections. You know, what why is this

important? So, this is going to be maybe longwinded, but I’ll try to bull through it. So, first of all, I’m going to

address it risk. Most of our print clients are going to have large

household type names doing marketing efforts, mailing campaigns, so on and so forth. So their large client, let’s just

pick a like target as an example. They may have internal printing situation, but let’s just use that. They want a

vendor due diligence program in place that says we’re hiring vendors that are following a framework so that if we are

breached through our vendor, our cyber insurance is still going to pay out. So

it risk is number one. Then you want to we could roll this into ROI for the printer themselves. So they have what

I’ll call revenue risks in the market today if they don’t have some variation of compliance in place that they can

prove they’re following a framework, they’re following best practices, they do an annual pen test, so on and so forth. And then the lastly, I’ll just

say AI is a massive inherent risk that most people don’t understand today. And

the old days, the the good old days of people getting on keyboards and and trying to breach systems are over. They

will now use bots for that. And those bots are going to be so much more advanced than the average computer

hacker. So, how do they address this? Well, honestly, I hate that the answer

for the printers, but it comes down to more compliance frameworks and those frameworks having language adjusted to

accommodate things around AI. So it it would be, you know, more monitoring, different controls, just a different

purview of the overall landscape. Um, however, I think those are probably the three major ones. We’re going to say

revenue risk, IT risk as a vendor, and then AI as it as it comes into focus and

honestly becomes much more uh efficient at breaching systems than the average

person. Good. That makes total sense. Now, I’m going to give everybody whiplash here because I’m going to go back and forth

between these completely divergent businesses. So, hopefully this keeps everybody engaged because you may want

to hear more from Chris, but now you’re going to have to sit through and listen to each of us before we cycle through. So, I apologize for that. Listen, it’s

it’s mental pingpong for me, too. Tony, uh, printers handle more. I’m sorry,

that’s Andre. Tony, what is the technology trends that you’re h that’s having the biggest impact on commercial

print operations today? What I think we’ve all heard about variable data inkjets. Is there anything else or is

that still the leading wave? What’s what’s out there? Yeah, I think to follow on Chris’s

point, AI is at the mind is taking up the most mind share of printers and

mailers. They’re they’re hoping it’s to save all, but as we all know that it’s it’s far from uh uh fertile yet, and

we’re we’re excited about the potential as it looks to like do predictability on

service uh and uptime on the presses. There’s going to be a lot of things that AI is going to bring to the table, but

right now, I think to your point, it’s still the same old things. It’s automation, you know, it’s personalization is how do you deliver

the same product at a lower price point? You got to be more efficient. I mean,

printers and mailers are probably hearing this saying, Tony, we’ve heard this all, but you you got to act, right? I mean, it’s it’s easy to talk about it.

Uh, and you know, because I’m in the inkjet business, you know, Indigo’s been around 20 years, toner digital’s been

around 30 years, but inkjet really is at the forefront in terms of being able to

produce offset quality. So, how are you embracing inkjet into your business? because that is a true cost uh game

breaker. C just just to narrow down on that because we’ve all heard about inkjet is are

there advances whether it’s AI or something else that’s been made in the inkjet manufacturing process in the last

18 to 24 months that is might still be new to some of the people listening here. You know, maybe they haven’t

invested yet. You know, I think the well, there’s two misconceptions. One is that quality is not there yet. And I can tell you

quality is at at at or equal to any digital device and now it rivals offset

in certain applications. Okay. Um but I think more importantly is the automation that allows the press to have

you know 94% uptime. I spoke to a customer just recently at Atlanta. He said Tony I don’t know I

don’t remember the last time we had a service call. Well pretty much anybody in the digital world that’s on that break fix model it’s call my vendor

4hour response time. Call my vendor 4hour response time. when you can run for six months without a service call. I

mean, think of that in the offset world. How much uh maintenance a pressman does daily. There’s less maintenance on inkjet today than a traditional offset.

Most customers don’t know that. This may be uh biased response, but is

this an industrywide thing or is this mainly HP that’s got these uh issues that don’t they don’t have any services?

So to be fair, I think inkjet in general because of the way inkjet works, the mechanical, it’s a simpler process. So I

think everybody can offer that kind of uptime. We do do everything everything we do is different than all of our

competitors. And you know, that’s for another day. If people want to engage me on why HP is different, I can certainly

go into that. But the result is uptime and and more prints out and profitability.

Good. Fabulous. Great. Mo, what are the most successful commercial printers

doing today to win new business that others are not? Well, in my opinion, the the highest

growth printers have stopped selling print and they’ve started selling business outcomes and performance

marketing. So, in my experience, a nonprogressive printer is sitting around

waiting for an RFP, responding to a quote or order taking. they they aren’t

really selling anything and and the top performers are proactively identifying companies that are actively investing in

marketing and print and customer acquisition and then they’re actually bringing strategic ideas to the table.

They are actually selling and they’re marketing too. They’re they’re using

data to find prospects. They’re leveraging technology to personalize

and they’re actually positioning as marketing partners instead of

vendors. So from my experience too and what we see a lot of and and why a lot of

printers or or uh mail providers come to us is because they’re investing in value

based products and services and then they’re utilizing those tools to actually position themselves as doing

something different and adding value which then helps them close the loop on their sales and marketing efforts, grow

their business, get their clients better results and then they’re using technology and tools to actually prove

and show ROI so that they can ensure repeat business, you know. So, that’s

what we do here. You know, DirectMail 2.0 is a prime example of what one of those sales tools are. You know, hey,

we’re doing something different than ABC printer down the street. And now, instead of being competitive only on

price or who can do it for cheaper, you’re actually providing something of value.

Great. I I totally agree. And I was going to add something to that. So in in my experience in dealing with commercial

printers that you are having them fall into major slots amongst many others

with regard to printing. You’ve got the ones that are client-f facing that must sell a a

benefit or a as a result as you say and then behind them I’ve run into a a

pretty strong group of wholesale printers and their specialty is volume price of just putting ink on paper for

the ones that really go and sell the more specific programs. I don’t know if

anybody’s else has noticed that too, but you’re getting certain types of printers that really specialize on being more of

a marketing outcome operation versus being a manufacturing facility,

which is fine. So, not there are some that are are poised to be that manufacturing facility and that’s what

they do really well and they offer these integrated uh connection points to the ones that sell print as part of an

outcome. So, and and I I think that that’s that’s fair enough. You know,

there’s a there’s a value in specialization. You know, printing can be a tough manufacturing process, very

demanding clients who the color must be right, the timing must be right, the delivery must be perfect, and to combine

that with a marketing outcome promise, it becomes a lot for one company to

juggle. So, that’s just something I’ve noticed. If anybody’s got a comment on that, I just wanted to put that out

there. If you are just an ink on paper company and you do it really well, there is there is definitely a need for that,

you know. So, I do want to say that we do have uh a Q&A that we’ll do at the

end, but if people are just have a burning question and they just can’t, they got to sit on their hands, go ahead

and uh put it in the Q&A or throw something in the chat and I will try to moderate that while our panelists are

passing words of wisdom. All right, so we’re going to go back to Chris for the next question here.

What are the most common security gaps you see within print organizations? I think I’m going to have an answer that

you’re not expecting. Um, I hope so. Caveat it with depends on

their size, but more often than not, we’ve put family members in positions of

power and they are unwilling to change for growth. That is a problem. I’m by Morgan shaking

her head, she’s had these conversations. Not just in the compliance and security area. Yeah. No.

Leadership, everything. Yes. Yes. So, you know, is there a security gap if those people have the

right intentions? Not necessarily. But if they’re unwilling, you know, the old saying, you can’t teach an old dog new

tricks. If they are unwilling to think about things differently, it is very challenging to implement compliance. It

it really is. So, outside of that, I would say also depends on their size. The smaller ones

often don’t have cameras or logical access controls or things like that. But ultimately, I think that the cultural

change is the sh is the gap that people don’t often recognize when when you know

when you go from we don’t have compliance, we just kind of like free spirited do whatever we want to oh now we have to have a high trust in place.

Well, there’s a cultural change that comes along with that. And even though it maybe it’s not a security gap, I think it’s the biggest challenge that

printers have when they bring compliance in. And I’ve had several who who have

hired us to do the job, couldn’t get their people to acclimate to the things that we needed to do and and the project

died on the vine halfway through. So I I would say that even though maybe it’s not necessarily infrastructure specific

from a security perspective, it is the biggest gap that most of the printers out there who have most times grown

through family and and have structured a business that operates well. But when it comes time to revamp those policies,

those procedures, and the controls that govern them, uh, often that is the hardest part for them because it’s a big

uplift. It’s a lot of change. And some of these businesses, I I won’t call them hobby businesses, but they’ve been in

place and operating how they operate for 5, 10, 15, 20 years, right? And now all of a sudden, they’re becoming very

technology specific, uh, offering billing solutions and hosting services and and, you know, bringing AI into the

forefront. So it it is a it’s a big change for a lot of them and and I would say that from what I see the

conversations I have with various CEOs that is the hardest part. That makes sense. They’re they’re

brought in basically by birthright and they’re given a very senior position and

things are usually been humming for years before they got there. You just put on the boots and you walk.

But there’s a with the changes you may have to switch directions or change shoes or something. But I get it.

Yeah. I I wanted to inject a question that is my own sort of uh curiosity you

you have on your on your background there high trust ISO sock and PCI I’ve

heard of all of those do they all apply to the marketing world

and if I’m a guy which one do I need and why maybe you can help light on that

great question it is uh you know give me a minute so okay This is a business strategy conversation and I think it

starts with the current client base. What’s important to you Mr. Client? What is what is going to scratch that itch

per se? Now there’s also a position on this conversation of where’s our organization going?

Are we going to focus on healthcare? Are we going to focus on payments? Uh you know is a sock 2 good enough? I I don’t

know the answer. However, um as part of 360 advanced as we ingest new clients,

these are conversations we have with them uh and not simply for the expansion of the sale, but we need to understand

what’s the what’s the strategic growth position of the organization over the next 5 or 10 years and we can make

recommendations on where they should go from there. However, I would say that if we’re an organization today with nothing, a risk assessment, a pin test

and a sock 2 is probably going to get you a lot further than you think. Now, if we’re going to be more strategic, like I was mentioning, we want to get

health care clients specifically. All right. Well, high trust is going to play a factor or some level of HIPPA program

that you can demonstrate depending on the healthcare client. Some of them hardcore and high trust. Some of them

okay with a sock 2 plus which I can explain that that one’s not quite as known or however it always

comes down to a business strategy conversation about what growth looks like. And if it’s status quo, let’s just

hammer out a sock too and move on with our lives. But if we want to triple the size of the organization and bring in all these new industries, well, let’s

understand what kind of compliance frameworks are important to them and create a plan to get all of those in place.

Good. For some reason, I’m fascinated with this stuff, so I I I have my own

curiosities. All right, we’ll move on to Tony here. Tony, what are you seeing the greatest efficiency efficiency gains

from automation and workflow? Where where are they coming from? Is it is it software? Is it hardware? Is it the

combination of both? Where where where you’re going into a new well an old printer with a new

printing machine. Where could he expect to see the most gains? What’s it going to do for his bottom line and how long is it going to

take? Well, excluding AI, which is obviously going to play a role. You know, it’s traditional things. It’s pre-press. You

know, I’ll talk to commercial printers and say, “How many people touch a file before it gets to the press?” Do you actually open a file? Do you do manual

impossession? Oh, well, we check every file. Well, that with today’s software, there’s no reason to check a file. So,

it’s pre-press automation. You know, it’s onboarding. Another big one that hits the bottom line is waste. You know,

how do you control your waste? You know, I had a competitor one time show tell me they were running at about 13% waste. I

had another printer say he was running at 46% waste. How do you recoup? How do

you recoup that kind of a number? So, it’s really a combination, as you say, hardware. So, I’ll give you a great example. I was just at BJU Press down in

Greenville, South Carolina for a big open house they had for our for us. And now, these numbers are big, and

somebody’s going to get a calculator out and want to call me on it, so we’ll take this offline. But in the past,

traditional unautomated workflow and printing, they were running three

shifts, 60 hours, and 12 to 15 people.

today to produce the same amount of work. They run one shift, three to five

people in six hours. Wow. That’s software and hardware. Now, there

was an investment. Go, you can go on LinkedIn or on YouTube and look at BJ BJU Press and they’ll tell you the

numbers. There was a significant upfront capital investment, but nobody would

deny that that ROI. I’d want to see that on a spreadsheet to see what that looks like.

So, so let me ask you, you know, printing printing business multiples and

margins are it’s I mean it’s almost a commodity at this point. And I I’m a guy

who’s had, you know, sheetfed presses for 20 years. I’m coming to the end of

their useful life, but I know I’m going to have to spend three or four million dollars. I’m only doing five or six

million a year, maybe 10 on a good year two, three years ago.

Who’s financing stuff like this? Is it I mean, is it are these are are there if

there’s some guys out there going like I don’t think I could ever get approved. If you’ve gone into places where you’ve

had that situation where they couldn’t they just assume they couldn’t afford it and you showed them that they could get

give us a story. I I appreciate that because the one thing that we do and I’ve been may

remember I’ I’ve been part of the three major players in ancient world. The one

thing that I know uh HP does as well, if not better, let’s give them all credit, anybody else, is we offer a full no

commitment ROI or TCO analysis of your business. So, if you’re one of those

people that just say, “I’m sure I can’t afford Inkjet. Let me come in and do a study on your a job basket of what’s

representative of a month’s worth of work or a year’s worth of work.” We’ll come back and our analyst, not a salesperson, my financial analyst will

present, here is your labor savings, here’s your electrical, your space, your media. Does anybody know that

traditional offset going to roll is a 15 to 20% paper savings?

Does anybody know that on top of the paper savings, you can go from a 13% waste to a 2% waste? I have a customer

in Dallas. She says she’s now running at8% paper waste on an inkjet press.

Running 16point direct mail postcards at 400 ft a minute. Unheard of in the industry.

So give us the opportunity. You got to understand, don’t be afraid. There’s no commitment to allowing us to provide you

this analysis. We give you the data. You may take it back and and build your own business plan and buy somebody else’s

product. We don’t care. We just want the opportunity to come in and show you how can this transform or not transform your

business because it’s not all roses, right? We’ll come in and say this XL 106, you know, we only can really

profitably move 58% of your work over. Well, what am I going to do with the other percentage? Am I going to

outsource that? Do I keep it? Is there another solution, Tony? Yeah, we have indigos. There’s a lot of ways to dice

the slice up the the pie, but give us the opportunity to come and do this nocost service to you. and other vendors

offer it too. But not just here’s the cost of ink to produce a job. All that

gives your customer is a burden of doing all that work on top of what the ink cost is. We will working with you

understand your hourly rate. Is it fully benefited or not? Your square footage,

your electrical cost, the whole nine yards and produce a really useful tool that you can make those business

decisions on. Right. and and and that this is a good segue where we roll back to Morgan as

the next question. You know, I I would assume a lot of business owners if if

there’s a slowdown or let’s say the industry is not doing as well as it was doing two or three years ago, there is a

fear. There is a fear. Why would I go out and spend more money and invest in

technology, invest in new compliance standards if I’m selling less? Okay. So,

trust me, I’ve run and owned businesses for 30 plus years, and I’ve been down this road many times, and it’s it’s

probably one of the toughest calls for a business owner or executives to make.

Things are slow. Do I batten down the hatches and concentrate on what I do right well, or

do I invest? Whether it be marketing, whether it be technology, whether it be manufacturing, compliance,

certification, what do I do? I have to say, and and I’m going to give my story

for a minute because we’re we’re running good on time here. I had a business for 23 years that sold packaged media, CDs

and DVDs into e-commerce, into retail, and I think everybody knows what

happened to that business, right? It doesn’t exist anymore. That’s why I’m here. So,

we tried many things. We knew that the end of the road was an oncoming train.

It was not a light at the end of the tunnel. And I can’t tell you how many times I’d be

up at night or I’d be with my partners, my my brothers, and say, “We can spend this money and we can go for something

or we can just hold it close to the vest and maybe make our own payroll a few

extra months.” All right. In the end, we invested and we found other businesses.

Um, again, there was no point investing into a business that had no future. It’s like selling more buggy investing in a

lab in a leather business to make more buggy whips as cars are coming out. What they should have done is invested in car

seat fabrication for the cars that are coming out. So, I’m just trying to put

myself in the place of owners and executives who have a fear on spending money when things are tight. And I say,

you know, the entrepreneurs that are risktakers are the ones that going to have the chance to break out if you do

nothing. uh doing nothing is only going to extend the pain and agony that may be the

eventual end anyway. So go for it, invest. At least you’ve got more time to

get started again. I don’t know. But I I’ll I’ll go to Morgan because uh I’m a

believer in in moving forward and trying something. There’s no guarantee in anything you do anything.

um invest and and move on, you know, and reinvent yourself. But all right,

Morgan, let’s talk about stuff. How can tools like who’s mailing what help printers uncover prospects that they are

already spending money on direct mail? So, give us an example of it doesn’t

have to be direct mail 2.0 or or how do these tools help them?

Yeah. Well, instead of get I mean, listen, there’s

millions of businesses in the United States, right? So, which of these businesses are spending money on

marketing? And of the ones that are spending money on marketing, which of them are utilizing direct mail or may be interested in direct mail? I don’t know,

right? I mean, your estimation of efforts if you’re utilizing a platform like who’s mailing what instead of

guessing who might be interested in direct mail, it allows you to actually see who’s already spending money on

direct mail and will give you the contact information of the individuals managing the mail at those

organizations. So if a company is mailing every month, they’ve already approved the channel, they’ve already allocated budget, they already

understand the value of direct mail. And that’s a much easier conversation than trying to convince someone to use direct

mail for the first time. And there’s a lot of power in who’s doing what also that comes from being able to identify

trends like seeing um who’s increasing volume, entering new markets, testing

new formats, or mailing consistently because those are really strong buying signals. So you can be selective about

who you’re reaching out to rather than just cold calling random businesses. You’re targeting organizations that have

already raised their hand and said, “Hey, you know, we we believe in direct mail.” And that’s dramatically more

efficient sales strategy than and and if you have some kind of a valuebased service or something to position or set

yourself apart too, you know, from ABC printer down the street with someone that’s already utilizing or leveraging

mail. Or maybe you you look into into who’s mailing what to see what they’re

actually mailing, what the creative looks like, what the offer looks like, what the call to action is, and you reach out and say, “Hey, we think that

we can do a better job and we can offer more value or uh you know, we can we can

shorten or condense turn times and and that gives you a real opportunity to to go out there and actually secure and

acquire new print business, right? So, um, you know, it’s a very lucrative tool

and and there’s a lot of ways that you can leverage competitive intelligence out there to really utilize that as a

sales tool to grow your business in the most effective way possible and with the lowest estimation of efforts.

Fair enough. Good. Good. Again, got to invest. Good, Chris. All right. What

compliance requirements are evolving currently and what should printers being

be prepared for in the coming market? So um periodically the AICPA which is

what governs sock engagements will put out an update uh on you got to explain what that is who is

it. So the AICPA is basically the governing body for CPA firms and by default we are

a CPA firm that issues sock reports but we don’t do any tax or financial stuff so don’t don’t call us for that. Um

we’re all infosac type people. Um, so I think that it’s one keeping, you know,

lock step with your clients on what they expect. So maybe send out an annual survey. Do you have any additional

requirements? Also, that is opening a can of worms. So be careful if you do that. You better know your clients well.

Uh because they will always ask for more and sometimes it’s not always ROI specific. That being said, uh there’s

also some new frameworks coming out. Uh, one specifically that comes to mind for AI agents is AIU.

Um, it’s not even really hit the street yet. We’re on a like a

we signed up to be like one of the first ones to issue one of those. There’s one other firm out there that can do it

currently, but it’s all it’s all beta currently. Uh, and then there’s ISO 4201, which is AI specific. So, I think it’s really

taking the legacy compliance program into the AI arena. I think I think is

really the changes that they need to be looking out for. Now, with that, they need to measure the a the ROI of

implementing these programs and ensure that if we’re doing it for just one client, can we sell other clients that

are going to require this? So, I I can dig into more of that later, but really I think it’s keeping up to date with

what your clients expect, where the business is going, what frameworks are changing, and specifically around

technology. How is AI going to impact our business? and is there inherent AI risk that we need to address with a new

framework? Um, just real quickly, I’ll add to that bringing in a new framework

doesn’t mean you’re going to add 100 controls to your control set that that just say is supporting your sock 2.

Your control language should be general so that it can support multiple frameworks with one statement versus

having a specific control for sock 2 and a specific control for high trust or whatever it may be. So um again this

would be some of the value that we provide in helping people get that language right. Um however you know

adding a new framework doesn’t mean you’re you’re implementing an additional 100 controls just for that framework. We you want to find leverage across that

control set and have an overall like hierarchy of IT risk management as as a

result. Good. So I want to ask a couple little

follow-on questions. I totally agree that the clients will probably drive the need because they’re the ones that are

going to ask for it. Very few companies, including ourselves, are going to want to rush out and pay for all this

compliance that nobody’s asking for. Okay, I I would imagine that’s the case. Um,

one of the other for us I would say it’s annoying is these these surveys we get

from our clients that we have to self- evvaluate or fill in. There must be

hundreds of questions, okay? Most of them don’t even seem like they’re in the same language or they’re not applicable

or they’re completely irrelevant to anything we do for them.

Um, we they kind of circulate around the company and nobody knows how to answer them and they end up on my desk and me

and the CTO sort of work through them together. Do you guys is that part of the service because nobody likes those

things. Do you do that for your clients? So short answer is yes. We have an advisory side of the house that can

basically be the your security questionnaire repository. Now to do this

really intelligently, we’re working uh on a cloudbot that would be in a client

environment and understand the answers that need to go into specific questions and we can get like 70% of it done.

Fant I was just going to ask there is an AI aspect that we can do that uh and we have cloud licenses in

our own environment. So like that data is not being put into an LLM that everybody you know somehow uses. Um

there’s also several applications out there around GRC that can do this as well. So the old days of getting an RFP

with a 200 question security questionnaire I would say are coming to an end. I don’t think that the

technology is super baked out quite yet, but it it will happen in the near future. And I believe that the really

smart technology providers out there are going to integrate that technology with like a standard what what you would

probably call CRM we call GRC which is governance risk and compliance. And there’s a several platforms out there

that support like a IT risk assessment platform but then they also can map all

of your policies and your controls to the requirements of whatever framework you’re working on. So um we’re in the

end days of uh manually doing those things. Uh, yes, those those exist and I

think they’re getting better every day. Excellent. Good to know. All right, Tony. So, I’m sure you can you can do

this one in your sleep. And um, besides price, what should printers be thinking

about when invaluating their next equipment investment?

That’s kind of a big wide open. No, that’s I think that’s an easy one. It’s got to be what’s the total impact

to your business? Because at the end of the day, you’re printing to make a profit. So if you have a piece that

takes five touch points to get out your door and then you got 30 days net bill, what when are you going to see a profit?

Right? How long does it take for that job to get through your shop? So I usually will go right to the back to

binder and I start looking at pallets and I start asking questions. Where’s this pallet going? Oh, it’s got to go

back into digital to be reimaged for variable. Oh, okay. and then it’s got to

go to inkjetting and then it’s going to go to binder and it’s going to go out. So if that if those five touch points

were two touch points, you’re going to get paid sooner. You know, simple things like that. And

and back to that ROI understanding not just that you’re going to spend 1 million, 2 million, three, that scares

people. But if you say at the bottom end of the day, the bills that you’re paying

your vendor go down 30%. Or your profit goes up 8%. That’s the number. Those are

the numbers that drive your business, not the upfront investment because everybody has to take that painful jump

into some kind of a capital investment. But what’s the term for the ROI? If if my payback’s 28 months, wow, 28 months,

not eight years. And also, inkjet, I don’t know if you know the platform, our our stuff is

going to be around for 20 years. Our oldest press in the market was just upgraded in the field, not removed. and

the new model put in the same exact press was changed hardware a little electrical and new heads to a new model

and now they got seven more years of life. The ROIs are different these days, but I don’t think printers, they may be

afraid to invest the time to do that because maybe they think they’re giving up data, but this is all there’s no

customer names. It’s just sheets and impressions and we evaluate it. You got to you really got to look at the total

impact to your business. And I think like I said the the easiest one I walk into the back is just touch points and

pallets on the floor and space it’s taken up and how long before that that job’s going to pay you you know get your

because obviously net 30 back it up and how many more touch points you get to that.

So let’s let’s unpack the the definition of ROI here. Is ROI the savings that

you’re realizing every month less the cost to service the debt or operate the

machine? Or is are you thinking of ROI? If I buy a $3 million printer and my

savings are $100,000 a month and in 30 months I’ve paid off the printer with

those savings, what where where do you you know just for the layman out there? Yeah. What what what model are you

looking at for ROI? Yeah. So our strategy or our philosophy is we provide you with more information

on your current cost to produce compared to how it’s going to be able to be produced on another technology whatever

that so that ROI is the difference between your cost to produce with the what you got now and how it

works including the loss and the downtime and everything else. Whereas if you buy this machine this this will be

your additional profit margin based on replacing the equipment. So you’re even taking into account if there’s debt

service on an older machine and the servicing costs per month. So you’re

you’re you guys go down into those brackets rags, fluids, disposal, electrical

square footage. I mean, we’re constantly asking customers, do you know your kilowatt usage today? What is your rate? And we always whenever we do something,

we put the worst imaginable default because we know it’s worst case. What’s your paper spend? What’s your paper

waste? This is what traditionally we see. That’s not right. Tell us and we’ll change it. But I guess what if there’s no debt service on the

old machine? It’s owned outright free and clear. Does it make it harder to to to justify that ROI with a new thing or

are you So another example, uh customer said to me one day on a Friday, hey Tony, thanks

for all the uh the work. You just told me I need to get rid of six people in binder. And I said, no, that’s not what

I told you. What I told you is that you have an excess and we need to repurpose that labor and don’t have them carrying

and loading pallets and moving around your shop. With this new automated solution, you’re going to be able to go right from print

to binder and out the door. So, get them over in some other area. Understood. Understood. So, so sometimes

the the the old equipment is so dated and inefficient, the labor costs are are

more than the the debt service on the machine would be anyway, you know. And there’s one other thing we’re not really

thinking about and not not a lot of people want to talk about it out loud because the the workforce that are

manning these traditional presses. They’re all near retirement age, right? You know, and and that’s something that

HR can’t really come out and say, but I had an HR person one time said, “Tomorrow four people could walk into my

office and retire and we’re in trouble.” But I can’t be proactive because it’s,

you know, against HR to start soliciting when are you going to retire? I need to back back back in the strategy.

Absolutely. Excellent. Excellent information. I I hope that anybody else finds some of this nitty-gritty information and I hope I’m not putting

you on the spot, Tony, with some of this stuff. No, not at all. But, um, these are the things that I’d

be asking if I was in the market. So, I figure I I’m doing it for everybody’s edification. After 40 years, the most a lot of these

customers are my friends. And, you know, you establish these relationships. You want them to be successful. You just got

to get through that first kind of veil of just allow us to peel back the onion a little and help you.

Yeah. I I imagine you see a lot of financial information on a lot of commercial printers and I imagine it’s

all over the map. Some are doing exceedingly well, some are probably not doing well at all.

Are you able to actually help printers that may not even be profitable now or

are they is it off the table? You can it it there are so many times where we walk out and we don’t sell them a thing,

but we help them. Okay. Identify their opportunity areas, right?

Good. All right. Fair enough. I appreciate it. All right. Mole as AI is a huge topic. It’s already come up in

almost everybody’s discussion so far. Now, we’re going to we’re going to drill down into it. What are some practical

ways printers can use AI to improve sales performance and business development?

Yeah, I I like the focus of AI in in this er in this arena because I think

most printers are asking the wrong question about AI. They’re asking how

can I help me save time when I think the better question is how can AI help me

find revenue? Because you don’t become a market leader simply by reducing costs,

right? So AI can help a sales rep do the work of an entire research team. It can analyze direct mail activity, identify

buying signals, uncover new markets, build prospect profiles, create sales strategies, and it can even generate

campaign ideas, and it does it in a matter of minutes, right? And and that allows them to get into consultative

selling. So, you know, we can take a prospect’s mailpiece and instead of just simply quoting a job, you can upload

that mailpiece into AI and ask questions like, “How would you improve response rates? What offer strategy should be

tested?” And within seconds, you’re getting strategic recommendations that can help improve the campaign. And then

if the campaign performs more optimally, then they’re going to buy more direct mail or print from you, right? And your

sales reps aren’t now walking into a meeting talking about paper, stock, turnaround times, or price. They’re

walking in with ideas, insights, and recommendations that can actually help the client generate more revenue because

that’s what they care about. They don’t care what press you have or this or that. They care about what it’s going to

do for them. And that’s a completely different conversation. The the discussion now isn’t, hey, can you beat

my current printer’s price? It’s can how can you help me improve my marketing results? And you know, that was really

what was at the forefront, Brad, when when you had your idea about DM2O.AI,

right? Because it it actually does that. It allows marketers and printers to upload a direct mail campaign before it

even goes to print. And we provide an AI powered analysis that predicts likely

performance, identifies strengths and weaknesses, and recommends specific improvements to increase response rates

and ROI. So, you know, in my opinion, the printers who win in the future, they’re not going to be the ones with the lowest price. They will be the ones

bringing the best ideas and tools like DM2O.AI AI are going to help sales

people

into a adding value.

Right. So, I think somebody’s got a background noise, but all right. Uh Morgan, I wanted to expound on that a

little bit. I I would say, and I think you’d agree, that most of the commercial printers that we

cross paths with have a difficult time

finding and bringing on new commercial print clients. Would you agree with that statement?

100%. Okay, good. So, give a word of wisdom or

two. What tools, what things could they invest in or what could they be doing to

open up the top of the funnel? Well, I I mean, marketing for one, you

know, practice what you preach. Are you investing in marketing? What does your website look like? I talked a little bit

about it before. you know, if I go on your website, does it show me, you know, not not to throw any shade over your

your way, Tony, because what type of equipment they’re utilizing is extremely important, but don’t have a picture of

your press on your website and say what you have. Nobody knows what it is or what it means. They care about what it’s going to do for them. So, how are you

positioning yourself as a print organization? What is it that the clients see when they go to the website?

Are you talking about what you’re going to do for them? providing case studies about the types of ROI that you’ve

provided for other clients or the business that you’ve generated for them. So, I would say invest in yourself as an

organization on how you’re positioning yourself in the marketplace and number one marketing because you are selling

marketing. You are selling leads and people are going to pay attention to how you are marketing yourself first and

foremost. And if you’re not doing a good job at that, then why should they invest in you to allow you to do that for them?

And the only way to get leads is is really marketing, right? So, and practice what you preach. If you want

people to use direct mail, then you should be using direct mail. Um, have a good CRM. Be integrating artificial

intelligence into your CRM to help your sales reps utilize that more efficiently and effectively and and help save them

on time. Um, and you know, I could go on and on, but I think that investing in sales and marketing is what’s going to

ultimately drive the revenue that’s going to help you keep the presses running, the lights on, and and the

doors open. Thank you, Morgan. I want to I want to emphasize a point you made about

investing in yourself. That’s really the the the bottom line of this entire webinar today. Whether it’s in equipment

or compliance or marketing, invest in your own business, okay? Even

if it hurts, invest in your own business. And I want to give you a specific on the marketing thing that I’ve seen recently. Uh I probably spend

too much time on social media. Yes. Tik Tok reels. I I that little shot of what

is it? Endorphins from seeing a 30-se secondond clip that we all get hooked on. I don’t know how it happened, but it

did. There was a 30-se secondond little video

um of a direct mailer showing a bunch of postcards and and just claiming how he’s

blown up this business and blown up that business and why fight the the email marketing craze and this and that. Try

direct mail. I was like, “Wow, that was refreshing.” Next thing you know, I got three companies that are dominating,

dominating. When I say dominating, it’s because it’s my feed and I clicked on one and I said I liked it. So, of

course, the next day I got three more. So, the I now have found three companies

on Tik Tok that promote the efficacy and the results of direct mail. They’re

usually young ladies that talk quickly. It’s a 30- secondond video. And I tell

you something, the millennial folk, I don’t even know if they know what direct mail marketing is. I think that

everything to them is something that they see on TikTok. So having somebody,

yes, they had to find a spokesperson. They had to write and shoot the videos. They probably had to do something to get

them to show up. Maybe they’re paid. I didn’t even look. But invest in

yourself. Spend a few thousand dollars marketing what you have. explaining why you’re different and how you can help

your customers. That I just wanted to give that back. And at this point, we’re

about 10 minutes from the from the pulling the plug thing. And I did see

uh one or two gentlemans that asked several. So, I’m I’m going to go over these and I’m going to read them to you.

This is from uh Michael in the audience. He says, “Do you believe rising printing paper, ink, and postage costs have been

major factors in newspapers and magazines moving to digital formats? Have these costs also contributed to

fewer print editions and the decline of traditional cataloges? Additionally, are

direct mail companies such as Valpac placing more offers in a single envelope

to help offset the printing and mailing expenses? How much of these shifts to

digital is driven by economics versus changing consumer behavior? I’ll continue to go on and then we can all

comment on this all afternoon. If printing costs continue to rise and digital alternatives become more

effective, what will the printing industry look like in 2030? What products and services will drive growth

and profitability for printing companies in the future? Wow, that is a mouthful. Michael, uh, I I’m going to let all of

our guys give give about a minute or two each of this and I’ll start. Um,

everything you notice there is happening. It It’s people tend to go

with what they know and what they see. What don’t they see? They don’t see printed marketing materials as much

anymore because it is expensive in terms of postage, manufacturing, distribution, everything else you mentioned. However,

that being said, there are advantages to print marketing that are not being

communicated to the next generation. And you know what? We can all sit here and become the victims and and watch this go

or we can be like the printers who started doing little spots on Tik Tok

and reals who explain the value of direct mail, acknowledge that it is expensive and that it has some of the

best ROI available. It is on us to do that or we will write our own epitap

here. Um there will always be print. It will never go away. There just may be few of us doing it. So uh let’s get

bright. Invest in our plants, invest in our companies, and definitely invest in our marketing. That’s mine. We’ll go to

uh Tony next and then Chris and then Morgan to wrap it up. One of my it’s my favorite question.

Thank you. So, if you remember back in the day, Bass Pro cataloges,

that thing, I would go through that like it was Christmas and I’d circle things and circle things and circle things and

at the end of the day, I did not act. It took them probably a decade

and that they started sending out personalized smaller versions. So, I get my bait casting catalog of 10 pages and

I’m like, I want this one, this one, this one. Here’s my website. I go online and I order it. So by them printing

less, they’re getting more revenue. Say that out loud, right? Them printing less, they’re getting more revenue. Had

a customer in Winston Salem. He called me one day and said, “Tony, you know how this was about 8 years ago when all the

schools got budget cuts. So Winston Salem State University, they want to cut their budget this year in printing from

50,000 to 10,000.” And I said, “Well, what are you going to do, Lou?” goes, “Well, now that we’ve got uh this press

and our variable data, we’re going to print less, but we’re going to print more targeted.” So, they printed less.

They made more because they didn’t have the paper cost or the labor cost. And they got more students, 8% instead of 4%

response rates. So, versioning and variable data and cataloges being personalized, that’s what Valpac’s

doing. They’re all doing the same thing. You see it in the mailbox. I I have heard just to counter that and

I don’t know who told me it and I probably should know is that there is a bit of a resurgence to printed materials

again magazines and cataloges. People are getting screen fatigue. They need a

tactile sensation. So we may have bottomed out time will tell but don’t believe that this is the

end of those products. So Brad, on the on the airplane last night, I was looking at a catalog and the gentleman

next to me who sits down don’t doesn’t even know me. He leans over and says, “What are we going to buy?”

Listen, I I it’s not over and out. It’s up to us to get better at marketing and

sales and efficiency inside the plants. That’s that’s the bottom line. All right, Chris, take it away. How do you

respond to Michael there? Quickly, Tony, do you remember Sky Mall? Oh, yeah. I love Sky Mall.

Amazing magazine. I can’t even tell you how many things my dad bought. Sky Mall. Um, now I am an OG millennial.

So, what I’ll say is depending depending on the demographic you’re targeting from a client base, printing materials could

be more important or less important. For me, BassPro is a great example. Your audience.

Yeah. Bass Pro sends me an email. They have all their little things in there and I like them. I can do click two clicks to buy it and I’m in. Right. So,

I think my generation probably prefers a digital format. And, you know, everything is is right here, right? We

don’t have to carry a newspaper or a magazine or anything. It we’re seconds away from getting whatever we want, which is kind of uh maybe alarming in

one sense, but amazing in another. Uh, you know, too excessive being too accessible is a problem uh for budgets

and things, right? But, uh, I I again, I’ll I’ll go back to my original statement. I really think it comes down to the demographic that you’re

targeting. the younger they are, probably the more digitally focused they’ll be. Except for Jinzy, they seem to be super weird and want everything to

be done like it was in the 70s, which I I’ll take the pendulum swing back. You know what I mean? That’s pretty cool.

Um, and then, you know, if I if I reflect back on to my dad or his, you know, my grandparents, they’re almost

certainly going to want a hard copy of whatever it is they’re they’re reading uh in front of them. So, um I think that

as a print business, you probably and obviously need to have two different

functions of that marketing effort. Uh but one is they’re both important for their own reasons.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as far as the magazines and newspapers, I I think it’s more about consumer behavior than than

cost when it comes to those channels. I just information is so accessible via the internet now. I mean, I won’t even

pay the New York Times their stupid subscription because I could just if I see an article, I can just Google it and

find it for free somewhere else. So, with those types of mediums, it’s just more about having access to the

information in different formats and it’s readily accessible. I’m also an OG millennial. Um and I do agree with your

your conclusion about uh you know different generations preferring to digest media in different formats but

even within each individual subset you know we prefer to start the prospect journey in certain channels do research

in others and then actually convert in others and both channels are very important offline and online and yes the

nauseating you know twice a year postage increases absolutely has caused a detriment to the print industry. It’s

shrunk people’s profit margins. It’s caused a decline in the utilization of print and direct mail, but direct mail

is very effective. I mean, there’s statistical data out there that’s showing by the year 2030 that uh it’s

going to be a $75 billion business where it’s hovering around 65 billion right now. So, it is still going to grow. I

just think that the utilization of the channel is going to be different. And to Michael’s point saying that, you know,

digital alternatives are becoming more effective and just like Brad alluded to, they’re not necessarily becoming more

effective and the cost of digital is rising as well. And the the cost for the vying of eyeballs is going up

increasingly and intensively as well. So, it’s becoming even more challenging

to get people’s attention on digital because it’s so inundated and saturated in that marketing ecosystem where the

mailbox is empty and it is a prime piece of real estate where a tangible direct

mail piece really truly stands out. But if you can leverage utilization of both channels in an effective manner because

people are utilizing about five to seven different channels in a marketing journey, there is a place for both. And

I don’t see the print industry going anywhere at all. It’s just Morgan, do you know that uh I work with

a bunch of printers that happen to be in the education space? Yeah. And they say there’s a major push to the

printed book because children are having trouble on their iPads. They don’t have

connective cell, you know, uh internet coverage in rural areas. You know what? If the laptop goes down, software

issues. How many I mean, we’re professionals. We have software issues on our computers all the time. So they’re printing more and more books,

especially for homeschooling. It’s a huge business for printing. Yeah. And the cognitive ability as well.

The ability to retain information through something that’s tangible is a 24% increase in cognitive ability. I

mean, studies on that printed on paper is much more retentive than printed on a screen.

Let me let me I’ve got two last minute questions and then we’ll wrap it up. This one’s specifically for Morgan. Can

you elaborate more on a good CRM and with AI and how specifically you see AI

improving CRM? Wow, that’s I mean go you can answer that. Well, I mean a good CRM is a CRM that’s

going to allow you to ingest data and it has to be customizable in my opinion because every business is different,

right? So, there’s a lot of CRM out there that will just give you the basics, but depending upon your

business, you’re going to have to have the ability to customize it to work within your business, your types of clients, and and be able to utilize

certain tags and and depending upon what kind of sales teams you have also. But artificial intelligence, by utilizing

programs like Claude, you can create customizations through AI agents within

your CRM that actually will do the work for sales reps for them. like say, “Hey,

add these administrative notes based on these emails that I’ve sent to these clients.” And then it’s automatically

inputting notes into the CRM based off of emails that your sales reps are coming are are sending out, so they don’t have to go back in and then put

notes in a CRM. I I mean, I could go on and on, but um you know, CRM

I would suggest one check out Gohigh Level. That one seems to be on the cutting edge of of leading technology.

It’s reasonably priced. It is. Go High Level is a very good CRM. Yeah. All right, one last one. This I

don’t know who would be qualified, but which print products are experiencing the fastest growth right now? I’m

assuming you’re talking about between uh you know paper products like direct

mail or or magazines or then you’ve got wide format and you’ve got signage and

you’ve got packaging. I I don’t know. Tony, do you have anything to comment on

that? Uh to me it’s direct mail. You know, companies like uh Postcard Mania, that’s

all they do is direct mail postcards. Yeah. Express stocks, you would know by the name. All they do is 16point

postcards and they come off of the press in millions and millions of impressions every minute, every hour, every day. So,

direct mail is alive and well. The margins are good on those, too. You know, you’re talking about pennies per

piece. And you know, I I I could be talking out of kilter here, but I cost

of goods and just the ink on paper and stuff is probably 10%, you know, maybe

20%. It just depends on the volume and how deep they’re discounting. But yeah,

there’s margin and listen, printing, any type of printing has a decent margin.

Obviously, there’s a lot of overhead with that, but the margin of the actual production of the the piece that goes

out the door has a good margin. It’s, you know, is it getting eaten up elsewhere in the company, you know? So,

um, but on that note, I don’t we’ve already gone over time. I want to thank the panelists here. I think it was a

very engaging conversation. Thank you to those Michael and the others that asked questions. I hope we answered them all.

There will be a recording sent out to everyone that registered and this will end up on the dm2.com website in the

next 4872 hours. So guys, thank you very much to the panelists. Everybody have a

great week and uh we’re going to end the webinar now. See you guys. Thank you.

Thank you. Bye bye.