What do we do?

First Place Publishing is a company that works as a Print Manager for our clients. What is a Print Manager?

Using a sports analogy, a Print Manager is like the Head Coach of the football team.  It is the job of the coach to manage all aspects of the game to reach the desired conclusion.  For a coach, that conclusion is winning the game.  For a Print Manager, the final conclusion is reaching the desired outcome of the print project. 

What are the desired outcomes in printing? A few come to mind: completed on time, within the budget, reaching expected quality and returning the desired number of pieces.  In football, a coach has a wide variety of weapons in order to win the game. On offense, he may utilize a star running back, a speedy receiver, a beefy tight end and a masterful quarterback.  If the coach only gave the ball to one player the entire game, the opponent would catch on real quick and neutralize the one-weapon attack.

As Print Managers, we don’t work with just one printer; we have relationships with a variety of local and national printers and use the one who will best accomplish our clients goals. For example, if a client has a color-critical presentation folder that requires a press-proof, we would not be using a national gang-run printer because press-proofs are not available.  However, if a client had a brochure that they wanted printed as economically as possible, a Greenville printer may charge a lot more than the national wholesale-only printer who offers good quality at fantastic prices. 

At First Place Publishing, the first thing we do with our clients is discuss expectations of quality, turnaround time required, paper stocks and of course budget.  If the customer wants the lowest price possible, we’d use a wholesale-only national printer who almost always offers the lowest fees, prices which are available only to commercial printers or Print Managers.  At First Place Publishing, one of the most popular vendors we use is the national wholesale-only printer because the quality is very good, the turnaround times are OK (usually 7 days) and the prices are great.  

What do most customers want? That’s a loaded question. Everyone will say they want the lowest price … but when you say it will take 7 days,  sometimes they say is there anything else we can do?  Yes – we can go with a local Greenville printer that offers quicker completion times but slightly higher prices.  If the client requires offset printing press-checks, that eliminates some of the digital-only printers.  There isn’t one printer in Greenville that can do everything in-house.  Many times that local printer sends your files to another printer, marks up that price and sells it to you for a higher price.  This happens all the time.  Why … because most printers specialize in a few areas but not all; some offer quick turnaround times and excellent quality but at higher prices; others offer lowest prices, decent quality and in-house mailing services.  

At First Place Publishing, we love printing.  We like almost all of the printers in the Upstate.  However, we feel it is best to use a company like ours who will figure out what is the best printer for you and your desired goals.  Sometimes people use one printer and only that printer.  We respect the loyalty but were there times when a different printer may have offered better results at better prices?  Yes.  At First Place Publishing, our goal isn’t to favor one printer over another but rather to favor our customers goals over a printers desire for more print jobs. 

If you have a print project, we would love to discuss your required pricing, turnaround time and quality demands.  We will analyze your needs and have your print job completed at a location that will give you the best outcome.  We are Print Managers in the game of printing … that’s what we do.