Use Your Best Bait When Fishing

We all know how difficult it is to get business these days.  Those of us in the printing business have to be ready to provide our accounts with anything they want printed.  I think it’s clear that we need to do more.  We need to find way to differentiate ourselves.  It’s called the “differentiator.”

We know something about a lot of things but we also know a lot about a few things.  Put your best bait on the hook and give it a good toss.  It’s a great way to pull in a big fish.

My Son Wants To Be a Mail Man

Last night, my 6.5 year old son told me he wanted to be a mail man when he grows up.  I wondered if our dinnertime discussion of the day, and my involvement with the postal industry, had rubbed off on him.  Why do you want to be a mail mail, I asked.  “Because I get to walk around all day and see where everybody lives!” my son replied.

This morning, he told me he wants to be a singer instead.

American Idol 1, Jack Potter 0

New Website!

Last week was big.  I am still recovering from it.

Sari and I were invited to Atlanta to present Conformer in the context of the book Blue Ocean Strategy to the Envelope Manufacturers Association.  It was a great opportunity for us to spin the wheels on our re-branding strategy in front of 300+ CEO’s of the biggest envelope manufacturers in the country.

To reinforce our new branding effort, we launched a new and radically improved website with the help of Jonathan Jaffe and his team.  Take a look at our new website, and you will notice one striking difference.  Besides the new graphics and copy, you will discover the word “expansion” has been scrubbed clean off the site.  Why, you ask?  As Sari wrote a few weeks ago, we did this because the word “expansion” is just a small part of the value our products deliver, yet the word “expansion” has become almost a liability for customers who dismiss the other Conformer benefits altogether because they don’t think they’re in the market for an expansion product.

The new website is exciting.  We have pulled together a lot of cool Web 2.0 technology.  You will find a completely re-worked site map allowing us to present new information efficiently and clearly.  You will find new product photos and powerful product videos, and we integrated this blog into the site.  You will also find deeper corporate history, executive team bios, and an all new “How It Works” section.  We now have full connectivity to Web 2.0 tools like Digg, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Dig in, have a read, and let us know what you think.

by Bob Makofsky bmakofsky@conformerinc.com

Hall of Shame #4: Thanks for the Mess

My wife recently purchased hair products from a manufacturer called Deva Concepts.  She purchased the product online from a beauty supplier and told me to expect the package at my office.  I was surprised when the package arrived a few days later.  It was huge.

Note: The shipper taped two medium-sized cartons to create a single package. Slick.

Fancy hair product inside the big box.

Contents :

1 – Bottle of shampoo
1 – Bottle of conditioner
2 – Packages of travel-sized hair supplies

But what really surprised me was the volume of wasteful packaging used to protect the shampoo and conditioner.

Is this a joke?

Packaging :
2 – 4” x 14” x 10” cartons
3 – Large UPS bubble packages provided by UPS for overnight shipping
10 – Void-fill airbags
½ a roll of packing tape

While the hair products arrived undamaged, the branding effort scores a zero.  Nice work maintaining a luxury brand image.

And the kicker – there was not a shred of marketing material inside this heap to encourage a re-order.  No coupon, no free sample, no catalog, nothing.  The only evidence of the supplier was its logo and address on the invoice.

Here are some ideas to preserve the luxury brand image and promote re-orders :

• Don’t use the “free” bubble mailers provided by UPS as package filler.
• Branded packing tape – simple, but effective.
• Discount coupon for a customer’s next order.  Everyone wants to save money, and loyal customers are less price driven.
• Include samples of new products.  Customers love free samples.
• Promote related product sales with samples or coupons.  In this case, include hair styling samples along with a shampoo order.

by Bob Makofsky bmakofsky@conformerinc.com

Blue Ocean Moment: Steer Clear of Best-in-Class

The Blue Ocean Strategy

Bob and I are delivering one of the keynote speeches at the Envelope Manufacturers Association (EMA) annual meeting next week in Atlanta on innovation.  Maynard Benjamin, the EMA’s president, has been a strong advocate of the innovation that Conformer Products Inc. is bringing to the industry, and he asked us to speak to this illustrious group on the alignment of our innovation process to the principles in Blue Ocean Strategy, a terrific business book by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.

So we’re presenting “Swimming in the Blue Ocean.”  And although Conformer Inc. tread this path years before this book appeared on our radar, I have to say that it is quite gratifying to see our strategy laid out so well in this book.  Essentially, the B.O.S. “challenges companies to break out of the red ocean of bloody competition by creating uncontested market space that makes the competition irrelevant.”

Last night, I attended a terrific Forum for Women Executives & Entrepreneurs (FWE&E) event in Silicon Valley.  And the speaker Dee McCrorey, addressing the topic of creating a personal innovation brand said, “Why strive to be best-in-class?  You’re still in the class!”

Though McCrorey didn’t reference Blue Ocean Strategy, her comment got right to the heart of breakthrough innovation.  The book discourages best practices and competitive benchmarking in order to “break away from the competition” (which is an intriguing idea for MBA-types like myself who have spent many hours best practicing and benchmarking).

This concept also addresses how lonely and isolating it can be as a start-up that is committed to zig when others zag.  At times, pitching our patented solutions has made me feel like a crazy person.  Well, the tide has certainly turned, hasn’t it?

I’ll let you know how our speech to the EMA goes next week and post a copy of it on our blog.

-Sari McConnell at smcconnell@conformerinc.com

Conformer is No Longer Expanding

I just wrapped up an important re-positioning  project I’ve been working on for the past year with some very talented marketing people in our industry.   Over time, we’ve learned some remarkable things from the marketplace as to why customers choose Conformer products, and our marketing communications had fallen far short of expressing those benefits.

New Conformer logo

And we landed in a pretty amazing place.  For starters, we’re taking the word “Expansion” out of our name.  Our products and our company are now simply Conformer Products and Conformer Products, Inc. respectively.  We did this because the word “expansion” is just a small part of the value our products deliver, yet the word “expansion” has become almost a liability for customers who dismiss the other Conformer benefits altogether because they don’t think they’re in the market for an expansion product.

We also mashed ideas together for months in search of a  great tagIine that would capture the essence of Conformer.  Drum roll please…“Conformer Products.  Creating presentation and mailing solutions that DO MORE.”

Our benefits:

• More durable (360۫۫۫  perimeter protection)
• More functional and versatile (holds a little or a lot)
• More professional looking (it stays flat no matter what you put in it)
• More environmentally friendly (FSC certified, recycled stock, less material and reusable)
• Plus, Conformer products also have the potential to save a lot of money in postage and fulfillment costs, while providing superior performance.

Now our products scream “value” and “superior performance” … it’s amazing what you can do by banishing one little pesky word to the corner.   Why shouldn’t Conformer products be the incoming industry standard for presentation and mailing solutions?

Remarkably, these changes are a reflection of what we’ve learned from our customers and the value they believe our products deliver rather than an aspirational marketing ploy that we hope will stick during a recessionary economy.

This is a seismic step for Conformer Products.  Thanks for helping us take it.  And please share your thoughts and reaction to our news.

–Sari McConnell at smcconnell@conformerinc.com

A Terrific Backhanded Compliment

I got a terrific backhanded compliment on Friday from a good friend and respected colleague in the human resources industry who handles a lot of training materials.  “I’ve always known about your envelope business”, she said, “but I was never particularly impressed by it.  Until now.”  That “now” moment occurred at that lunch, when I put a Conformer poly portfolio in her hand for the first time.

This is what we call a good learning opportunity.  Take my friend’s previously well disguised indifference to my entrepreneural endeavor.  That’s my fault.  She just assumed that a Conformer envelope was just a modest modification of a ubiquitous product…not sexy, not exciting, not worth pondering deeply.  It’s near to impossible for a customer to describe you a product they want that doesn’t yet exist.  It’s almost as challenging for an innovator to describe a breakthrough innovation without showing you how it works. 

So I can blog all day long, but if you’ve never had  a Conformer product in your hand, stop reading and ask us for a sample.  Put samples in the hands of the influential people in your business and your industry.  And just maybe you’ll get a backhanded compliment too. 

-Sari McConnell at smcconnell@conformerinc.com

Bill Clinton Distributes Conformer

Former President Bill Clinton was interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today Show this morning to kick off the Clinton Global Initiative’s Annual Meeting which takes place this year September 22 – 25.  The CGI Meeting began using a Conformer portfolio to distribute its materials to its attendees last year.

9 1/2“ x 12” Conformer Paperboard Portfolio with 5/8" capacity and tuck-in-tab closure for Clinton Global Initiative.

“CGI Annual Meetings have brought together more than 100 current and former heads of state, 14 Nobel Peace Prize winners, hundreds of leading global CEOs, major philanthropists and foundation heads” according to the CGI website. To think that all of these notable individuals are carrying around a Conformer product, produced in blue linen, is quite something. The CGI has raised over $46 billion over the past five years impacting 200 million people worldwide.

-Sari McConnell at smcconnell@conformerinc.com

Conformer to Speak at Envelope Manufacturers Conference

The executive team here at Conformer, Marvin, Sari, and I will be participating in a presentation and panel discussion at the Envelope Manufacturers Association fall conference.  The topic of discussion is a core value of our organization — innovation.

The presentation will center on the book Blue Ocean Strategy.  The book provides a “systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant and creating uncontested market spaces.”  The Blue Ocean Strategy argues that corporations can either battle in the shark infested waters of red oceans where products and services are equal and price is the primary differentiator, or we can create blue oceans where innovation opens uncontested markets.

Product innovation is not foreign to the envelope industry, but what Blue Ocean Strategy suggests is that companies need to create dramatic changes in their product line up whereby new offerings create altogether new markets, not simply improvements on existing products.  For example, two years ago we introduced the Conformer Media Mailer, a radical shift in product packaging designed to mail CDs and DVDs at dramatically lower postage rates.  Until our innovation came along, the primary packaging available to the media fulfillment industry were ubiquitous bubble mailers and small cartons.  Our Conformer Media Mailer enables low cost envelopes to compete directly with higher cost product categories. When you factor in halving the postage rate, our Conformer solution makes our “competition irrelevant”.

We are in the process of writing our presentation for the October 29 event.  We will share it with you in the coming weeks.  To learn more about the Conformer Media Mailer, click here.

by Bob Makofsky bmakofsky@conformerinc.com

News from Postmaster General Jack Potter

Greetings from National Postal Customer Council Day, aka National PCC DAY. I attended this event in San Francisco while my colleagues Marv and Bob heard Jack Potter speak live to the NY chapter. My live televised version of this events happened to feature a close-up of Marv so I know he was paying close attention to the speech.

In past years, the Post Office has largely focused its priorities on operational issues — the roll-out of its Flat Sorting System (FSS) for example.  Conformer products have a lovely relationship with this automated processing equipment, but even so, I was excited this time when PMG Potter’s address made a distinct shift away from operations and to squarely address customer needs.  Doing business with the post office is not as easy as it could be for our customers, to paraphrase Mr. Potter, and that’s about to change.

We’ve spent enough time talking to the folks in Washington D.C. over the years to have already picked up on this sea change in attitude towards innovators like Conformer Inc. who have been working tirelessly to keep the U.S. Postal Service’s customers happy and “in the mail.”   We’ve been praised for our expertise in the USPS’s operational and pricing changes, and for our commitment to partnering with the post office to make sure that our new products are well tested and proven on USPS processing equipment and meet all requirements.  Conformer Inc. is reaping the rewards of playing by the rules and our work is being recognized as a very good thing for the U.S. Postal Service.  A happy USPS customer is a customer that stays “in the mail.”  And we all know that the USPS needs every customer it can get.

-Conformer General Sari McConnell at smcconnell@conformerinc.com

Jack Potter, Postmaster General