spent the time producing a £1,000, £5,000, or £10,000 quote, why would you simply email it over and hope for the best? Pick up the phone. The same applies to your existing database. Printers are often obsessed with finding the next customer while sitting on hundreds, sometimes thousands of people who already know them. The now is about conversion. It’s about making more of the opportunities already sitting in front of you and ensuring the work going through the business is actually profitable. If your machines are running flat out but you’re selling work at ridiculously low margins simply to keep them busy, that isn’t success. That’s the commodity trap, and it’s very easy to fall into when all you can see is the revenue target immediately in front of you. Build the Next The “next” is different. I think of this as roughly the next 30 to 90 days, and this is where consistency becomes much more important. This is your LinkedIn activity, email marketing, direct mail, networking, video, case studies, and ongoing sales activity. It’s the work that makes somebody think of you three months from now when they suddenly need exhibition graphics, a fleet of vans wrapped, a new signage rollout, or hundreds of embroidered garments. This is also where impatience kills otherwise good marketing. Posting on LinkedIn six times and declaring that LinkedIn doesn’t work is ridiculous. So is publishing three articles and deciding SEO doesn’t work or sending an email to your customer database only when the order book gets quiet. You’re trying to build familiarity and demonstrate expertise. You’re giving people reasons to remember you so that when they eventually enter the market for something you sell, you’re already in their head – that takes time. The businesses that do this well aren’t necessarily doing anything revolutionary. Quite often, they’re simply doing the basics consistently for longer than everybody else. While their competitors jump from one tactic to another looking for the magic marketing button, they keep showing up. Don’t Forget the Later Then we have the “later”, and this is probably the one print business owners neglect most because there is always something more urgent to deal with. Another quote needs to be done, a customer wants an update, a machine has gone down, or there’s another job that absolutely, definitely has to leave today. Suddenly another year has disappeared. The “later” is where you ask bigger questions. Where is the industry going? What markets do we want to be in? What technology should we be looking at? What could AI and automation remove from our business? What skills will our team need? What type of work do we actually want more of? Perhaps an even better question is: what type of work do we want less of? Growth isn’t always about adding more. Sometimes one of the biggest improvements you can make to a print or signage business is stopping doing the work that keeps everybody incredibly busy but makes absolutely no money. There’s a huge difference between activity and progress, although when you’re in the middle of a hectic business they can feel remarkably similar. The latter is also where investment sits. A new MIS, workflow automation, staff development, or moving into a new market might not deliver an obvious return next month. That doesn’t mean it isn’t working. If you only ever invest in things that can demonstrate an immediate return, you risk building a business that is optimised for today but completely unprepared for tomorrow. Three Timelines, One Strategy The important part is that you need all three running at the same time. “Now” keeps the lights on. “Next” keeps the pipeline moving. “Later” makes sure you’re still relevant in three years. You can’t abandon “next” and “later” every time “now” gets uncomfortable, because if you do, you’ll probably be having exactly the same conversation again in three months. Ironically, businesses with a strong “next” and “later” generally have fewer “now” problems. They’ve built the pipeline, developed their reputation, invested in their systems, and given customers reasons to keep coming back. They aren’t starting from zero every month. We also need to get better at measuring the right things. If you send a direct mail campaign specifically designed to generate enquiries, absolutely measure the leads and sales it creates. But if you exhibit at a trade show to build relationships in a new market, judging the entire exercise purely on orders taken during those three days doesn’t tell you very much. The same applies to content. Nobody should expect a £20,000 print order every time they publish a LinkedIn post. Initially, you might look at whether the right people are seeing you, whether conversations are increasing, whether your database is growing, and whether opportunities are being created. Eventually, of course, it needs to contribute commercially. I’m certainly not suggesting we keep throwing money at something indefinitely because “brand awareness” sounds nice. We simply need to give the right activities the right amount of time. Perhaps the biggest change print businesses can make is to stop treating the first of every month as though somebody has pressed a giant reset button. Your customers don’t work in neat 30-day cycles, and neither does your marketing. The LinkedIn post you publish today might start a conversation three months from now. Someone you meet at an exhibition might become a customer next year. The quote you follow up on this afternoon could become an order tomorrow. They’re all valuable; they’re simply operating on different timelines. So, take a look at your own business and ask yourself three questions. What are we doing “now” to convert the opportunities already in front of us? What are we doing “next” to build the pipeline for the coming months? And what are we doing “later” to build the business we actually want in the future? If one of those areas is empty, you’ve probably found a problem. If everything is sitting in “now”, you’ve definitely found one. You can’t build a great print business by constantly reacting to whatever is screaming loudest today. Get the “now” under control, build the “next” consistently, and protect some time for “later”. That’s how you stop being busy for the sake of being busy and start building a business that actually works for you. The ‘later’ is where you ask bigger questions. Where is the industry going? What markets do we want to be in? What technology should we be looking at? 28 email: editor@signlink.co.uk Issue 267 - October | November 2026 INDUSTRY TIPS | COLIN SINCLAIR MCDERMOTT
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