Printingforless.com customer Wheat Montana, still holds the Guiness Book of World Records for cutting, milling, mixing and baking 13 loaves of bread in 8 minutes and 13 seconds.  Don’t worry, nothing else about their food tastes fast or processed. 
If you are hungry for great homemade taste made from healthy ingredients, and driving through any large town in Montana, you will most likely find a Wheat Montana Deli.  And if you get the inkling for Wheat Montana bread or flour, their products are carried through dealers throughout most of the United States. 
While local legend states that some of the farm land was “won in a poker game” at a nearby bar, it is a testament to the tenacity of this local family that one family and one farming operation has tilled the same ground for the past 3 generations.

One of the great things I love about living and working in Livingston, Montana is that we are about a one hour drive from Yellowstone National Park.  I was just there this past weekend hiking around the Old Faithful geyser basin and fly fishing in the Madison River.  It typically costs $25 per car to enter Yellowstone but this coming weekend admission to all National Parks is FREE.  There are also several other free days scheduled for this year:

June 4-5
August 14-15
September 25
November 11

So why not plan a trip to Yellowstone or a National Park near you. If you are in the Yellowstone area, drop in at one of Printingforless.com’s customers – the Yellowstone Gateway Museum in Livingston.  Their mission is “To collect, protect and educate concerning the geology, archeology, and history of Park County, its surroundings and Yellowstone Park, for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”  They house an extensive collection of historic Native American and pioneer artifacts and photos from the greater Yellowstone region. You can even visit an original one-room school house.

Yellowstone Gateway Museum
118 W. Chinook
Livingston, MT 59047
Hours: 10am-5:00pm, daily, May-Sept.
Phone 406-222-4184

Business owner and Printingforless.com customer Debbie Endres just celebrated her six year anniversary of owning and operating The Gourmet Cellar located on Park Street in scenic Livingston, Montana. 
Deb carries over 400 wines to meet the needs of any palate and any wallet.  Not in the mood for wine?  Choose from a wide range of microbrews and special imports.  Hungry?   Pick from a great selection of cheeses, specialty foods, pasta, sauces and chocolates.   Thanks Debbie for having a great store with fantastic products, and congratulations on six years!   We look forward to enjoying your store for years to come!

How many of you fell in love and asked your future spouse to marry you all in the span of 45 minutes? I would venture to guess not many. For those who have, congratulations–you are rare. So my question is why you consider interviewing a prospective employee to be any different? I have spoken to many companies out there that interview a candidate for about 45 minutes and maybe check a couple of references, hire and then they wonder why they are disappointed that the person wasn’t who they thought they were.

It is important to spend the time to get to know your future employee. You have to dig in and bypass the nice suit and the canned interview answers to see the real person. Here are a few things to watch out for when looking for that perfect hire:

1) Are you desperate to fill your position or is the person desperate to get a job? Either one is fraught with peril, not to mention very unattractive. Both parties will usually see and hear what they want to and ignore any potential warning signs that it is not a good match.
2) Does the candidate bad mouth their former employer? Even if it might be warranted this is a big red flag for many reasons. One being if their former employer was so bad and they were so good why did they stay there? Two, you may as well sign yourself up to be the next in line for the bad mouth train.
3) Don’t hire with your gut. You hear employers say “I went with my gut on this one”. Well you may as well throw a dart at a wall full of resumes and hire that person. Your gut may give you some inkling about someone, BUT you have to follow that with doing your due diligence to prove or disprove what your gut told you.

So when you interview the next “A player” for your company, remember to start off with the goal of really getting to know that person and determining if there is a long term match there, not just filling the empty chair in your company. Everyone will benefit from it.

As an online print provider you would think we wouldn’t have a ton of interaction with our customers, but we do—countless phone calls and emails are the norm here.  PrintingForLess.com started out basically as a vending machine for printing.  As time went on we realized that something was missing—to truly satisfy customers, we needed to interact with them, get to know them and their businesses, and help them.  And with that, being easy to do business and making our customers successful as they define it was born as a way to guide our business.

While the old saying that “the customer is always right” may be true, there are times we need to step in and do what we do best: make them and their print job more successful. Have you ever tried to tri fold a book mark, tab and mail it to your self-made mailing list? These are situations that we guide our customers through on a daily basis, with a high success rate.

But one of the best parts of my job during the last eight years is getting to know our customers, and finding out that they do a ton of cool stuff!  I have worked with:
Hunting Guides and Outfitters
Alpaca Breeders
Glass Blowers
Ski Resorts
Funky Artists (stone, glass, paper, steel, copper)
Wind Farms
Ear Candle Makers (if you don’t know, Google it)

So always keep your customers top of mind, and don’t forget that they are the core of your business. And take the time to get to really know them and their business. You might be surprised at what you find out, and earn a customer for life in the process.

The people of PFL send our gratitude this Memorial Day to all who have served. Thank you.

Today seems like the perfect time to share the story of a red white and blue remake.

Florida insurance broker Hugh Barndollar wanted to stick with his American Flag theme when it was time to print some new presentation folders (aka “pocket folders.”) But he felt that he could use a little more fireworks, so he upgraded from black & white to four-color process, and really let the colors shine.

Check out the before and after to see how full color printing made a big difference on these presentation folders.

How many times have you heard someone say “this job would be so easy if it weren’t for the people”?  How many times have you said or thought it yourself?  One thing I’ve found during my career is that if your team isn’t giving you what you want, its probably because you’re not giving them what they need.

Of all the leadership training / studying I’ve done (and with too many degrees, and nearly 8 years at some of the best leader developing companies in the world, I’ve done more than I probably should have) my favorite is still situational leadership.  Simple concept, yet fiendishly difficult to apply consistently.

The upside, if you can do it well, most of your “people problems” will magically go away.  About two years ago we rolled out the model and supporting training to the managers and team leads within PrintingForLess.com.  To start understanding the model, Wiki has a good overview, and for great training, see this site.

It was eye opening for many, and so helpful that we continue to provide training and support to almost every new team lead in the building so they can learn to flex their style and get the high level of performance from the team that everyone wants to give. Give it a shot and see what kind of leadership you can cultivate in your workplace.

Ed Edelson painted the home and barn at his Bed and Breakfast, Cornucopia at Oldfield B&B. He didn’t want to take new photos, but did want to show the new color scheme.

Solution? Photoshop magic.

We are constantly amazed by the creativity and the ingenuity of our customers. Since we have the luxury of seeing so many great designs come to life here at PFL, we thought we would share a few examples of some of our customer’s work.

We can all use a little inspiration sometimes, so if you would like to share yours send an email (daniel@ printingforless .com) and we’ll add it to our blog.

While we print and mail a ton of postcards for our customers, we typically don’t get to see the results our customers generate from their marketing efforts. So it was especially good to hear back from one of our local print customers – The Community Closet – about a campaign they recently ran.

 But first, a little context. The Community Closet is a non-profit thrift store serving Park County in Livingston, Montana. Since 2005, they have been providing low-cost, pre-owned, clothing and household items to those in need in the local community.

 In addition to donating merchandise to schools and other non-profit organizations, the Community Closet board of directors distributes store profits to Park County non-profits, civic organizations, and individuals in crisis. One of these non-profits includes the Livingston and Park County Food Pantry – and Community Closet typically donates $1000 each year. But due to the poor economy of late, and the increase in demand at the food pantry, they wanted to give even more. The store set aside this past January as Food Pantry Month, and committed to donate 10% of revenues to the food pantry.

 To promote their Food Pantry efforts, they came to PrintingForLess for help in designing both a postcard mailer and a print ad for the local newspaper. They spent just over $1,000 on their marketing campaign (postcards, postage and newspaper ads combined) and shared the following results with us:

•  An average daily revenue increase by 20% compared to January of 2009;
• Total, January 2010 donations to the Food Pantry were $2,184.00 with a cash donation increase of 114%;
• Many donors commented on the Food Pantry program when they came into the store with their thrift donations; and
• The Community Closet was able to build positive awareness in the local community.

Caron Cooper – the Executive Director of the Community Closet – was ecstatic with the results they generated from their advertising campaign, and made the comment that she had never before seen such a direct correlation between their advertising efforts and results (increased revenues – and in this case, an increased donation to the food pantry).

 Kudos to the Community Closet for a job well done and for being such a positive influence in our community!