Skipped a week......

Last week it seemed that Blogger was down so I got to skip a week which was great as things were flat out and it was hard to pin my team down for some time to discuss their working week. The studio got a boost this week with the start of our new intern Elle, coming to us from Norwich University where she is doing a degree in Graphic communication. We have lots of projects for her to work on and we can already see she’ll fit right in. I am thinking of asking El to write her own blog about her time here.....I will let you all know where to look.

After the joke of a working month that was April we were looking forward to getting back to normal, while we only really had two and a half working weeks we still managed to be 15% over our sales target, we are pleased but it does make you wonder what we could have done with a full month. The big wins are from both new business generated by traditional sales and account management and from web and social media – we are seeing a very good steady growth in our “Social” network and it’s pleasing to see that this also includes some of our existing clients. We are on target for sales in May and I hope we can really step it up for the rest of the year.

When we talk about our sales success I can help but feel it’s massively helped by our design talent, Rebecca, Michelle and Louise now also being helped by El. We are winning projects we could not have hoped to a few years ago, across many industry sectors and both large and small clients. The design team are also thrilled to be working with the prestigious Corn Exchange over the coming month to design and develop their 150th Anniversary campaign. The initial ideas will be presented next week to General Manager Joanne Windsor and Marketing Manager Ian Wilmot with the intention that the design will be used on various mediums. Rebecca added, 'The Corn Exchange have some exciting ideas to celebrate this distinguished anniversary - so keep your eyes peeled for more details this summer!!'   this, our work with the Watermill, Newbury Spring Festival and many others really help us get our name and credentials out there.

Our 5 colour has continued to run at hi-speed this week, as some of you may be aware this machine can run at speeds up to 16000 sheets per hour, printing at 2400dpi – it’s a constant battle to keep it filled but it’s one we have been winning so far this year, with its automated make ready features and our direct to plate system our prices on high volume printing have come down massively and our capacity grown to match – give us a shout if you would like me to have a look at any printing projects for both shout digital printing or the longer run projects.

This week at Apple it’s Mark’s Birthday and we have rewarded him by having loads of web / POD projects on the go, both Mark and Matt have been very busy and the fruits of their labours will come clear in the next few weeks. All that remains to say is the London to Brighton Bike ride is rushing up on us....I think I am ready and may even take the stabilisers off my bike this week.....if anyone fancies picking me up in Brighton and running me back to Newbury then just drop me a line.

Early post.......

I know it's a bit early but I am off to Blackpool for a few days and thought I would sum up the week so far........it was short.

Honestly, it was not that short as by the time I go home I would have done 25 Hours in two days - we still have loads on press and are running double day shifts to catch up.....it's all good as I love the sound of production. The print room is now well on top of their work and it has been going well, the cross section of work has been amazing as it has been Letterheads, Brochures, Price Lists, Books and loads more besides - this kind of work is lapped up by our two high production presses and backed up by our digital printing solution, we really can manage such a variety of work but I am beginning to think our prices must be to low :) - While we have not had many sales days for a couple of weeks the work is still rolling in, I think this has to do with the fact that while we can service the UK businesses for their print needs we really have made an impact in our local market and I hope we can continue offering this all round quality service for years to come.

Here at Apple Print this month through social media, our local Newspaper and on our website we are going on the hunt to grow our Internet service offering, we have had meetings about what this is and feel the just an honest business approach to be the way forward - too often we are approached to produce a website when the client has not considered the business plan behind the decision, with over 25 years combined experience in this market coupled with a successful business model, Matthew and Mark working with a project manager can really add value to any web project. If you just wanted to have a chat about your options then please drop us a line for a meeting.....you will find that we are easy to deal with and talk plain English, even Mark! Projects we hope to get sign off this week include Crescent Signs (old site here) and the 1st design of a new site for ECEX a great business and good friend of Apple Print, Richards business offers such a great range of services and can be a help to most of us.....check his current site here. http://www.ecex.co.uk/

We are also in the debt of Magneticrc this week for finding us such a great freelance designer at such short notice, Marie came in and did a great job and was an instant hit with the studio so thanks Clare - hope we can do it again soon. Also coming up soon is an event by MD2MD, also our business Coach - see this link for more -I have attended these events before and can really say you walk away with real benefits. Apple Print can, as a sponsor of this event, offer our Guests a special price so drop me a line if you would like to attend.

As it is Star Wars day (May the 4th be with you) I will sign off with this super secret still from the proposed next movie - special effects like you've never seen!

A Royal Crafty week of design and print.

To start this week everyone here at Apple Print would like to wish all the best to the Royal Couple and that we were really pleased the event went off so well without any issues.

As April drew to a close I was surprised to learn that we had managed to hit our incoming sales targets, if fact we beat it by a massive 3%, joking aside I was pleased as the short working month could have had a much bigger impact on our sales figures.  I am going to imagine that invoiced sales may be down as we run out of production time to get the work out to clients but I still think we’ll do ok.

As I said at the end of March we had a visit from the Newbury Sound Apprentice, you can now see and hear how he got on by clicking here – It was a real pleasure for everyone here at Apple Print to have Chris in with our design team and we hope we hope we can get him back at some point to try another of our departments.

We still have a huge amount of work in progress and one of our big areas of concern is the amount of Print Finishing we have right now, we have had almost 5 full time staff working for the last two weeks trying to stay on top of this issue. As I mentioned last week we have also had some issues with planning for the +200 jobs we have as we grow, one solution we are looking at is an upgrade to our current MIS to Tharstern Primo and I will be looking at the print forums out there to see what people think. We feel the time for investment in this issue is now and will let you know what we find out.

Next week we are back to full strength in our design and web teams which I hope will enable us to step our marketing up a little bit more, our social networking is doing really well, Facebook, Twitter and getting lots of hits, LinkedIn is doing ok but I am still not sure about the best use of this service. We are going to be hitting the direct mail trail over the next few weeks and will also be suggesting people start thinking about their Summer/Autumn promotions both traditional and electronic. Our web based competition will be coming to an end tomorrow and will be replaced with a competition to win two tickets to a top show at the Watermill Theatre so watch out for how to enter for a chance to win – I have decided that I will have a competition every month until the end of the year.

Before I sign off and jump on my bike for the ride home I thought I would offer one last reminder about the Crafty Craft event in Victoria Park tomorrow – over 40 teams will be making their way from Hungerford to Newbury on their home made craft......8.30am in Hungerford with Jo Brand there to film for a show she is making for Dave and then events start in Victoria Park at 10am onwards......take lots on pictures and send them to me for the web gallery.