“Are you a broker?”

How many times has this been heard, with the prospect’s obvious attempt to call out a broker for being a ‘phony’? The most amusing part of this is that a prospect would not even consider asking Kinko’s, Alphagraphics, Sir Speedy, Quick Copy and others if they are brokers, and almost everyone in the print business is a broker, including the big names mentioned. For the most part, the printers I have seen go direct, and do not wholesale, are commercial printers that focus on Fortune 1000 clients.

The reality is that printing press equipment is incredibly expensive, so printers need volume in order to stay alive. Unfortunately, printing press equipment also takes a lot time and effort to set up for each job, so they tend to not have time to ‘hit the pavement’ to sell their services. So printers encourage relationships with brokers in order to increase their revenue. On the other hand, brokers choose to keep their costs low by not buying printing equipment, and understand that it is better to leave the printing with the printers, who are experts in their field. This is not an uncommon approach in any business, and it works very well in the printing industry.

Furthermore, printers are kind of like computer people – they tend to like their own personal space. Conversely, brokers are like sales people- they tend to like OTHER peoples’ personal space. Needless to say, printers would rather work on projects and have someone else sell for them, and brokers would rather sell/service and have someone else do the projects. A beautiful matching of abilities.

So when someone asks me if I am a broker, I sometimes like to reply with, “You mean like Kinko’s and Alphagraphics?”. That usually takes the ‘wise’ out of the ‘wise guy’.

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