Delivering a job with errors is a sure-fire way to become a commodity vendor. The print industry, in which a single typo can be cause for rejection, is especially brutal.
A poor reputation due to mistakes makes it tough to get and keep clients, and you can forget about getting premium prices.
So why do so many mistakes happen in this industry?
It’s been my experience that 99% of reprints happen because of a mistake in proofing.
Proofing is probably the step most taken for granted in the printing process. Yet it is without doubt the most important step of the printing process!
Far too often, people barely even glance at their proofs before they sign off on them.
When they get their finished print job, they come back with "how did that happen," only to find that the error was easy to spot in their soft proof.
There are two things we can do to stay out of this 99% and become a ‘1 Percenter.’
It’s been my experience that 99% of reprints happen because of a mistake in proofing.
Proofing is probably the step most taken for granted in the printing process. Yet it is without doubt the most important step of the printing process!
Far too often, people barely even glance at their proofs before they sign off on them.
When they get their finished print job, they come back with "how did that happen," only to find that the error was easy to spot in their soft proof.
There are two things we can do to stay out of this 99% and become a ‘1 Percenter.’
First—we can take the lead from critical industries like healthcare and aviation—use simple checklists.
Surgeons and pilots use them every day.
A Proofing Checklist
To ensure that no mistakes will make it to press, ask and answer the following questions about your proofs:
- Are all the fonts rendered properly?
- Is the color correct? (color match print only)
- Is the text readable?
- Do the pages or folds line up the way I want them?
- Is everything as expected?
Remember, printers provide proofs for several reasons but one of the most important of these is to ensure that nothing has gone wrong during the processing of your electronic files.
Start with this simple checklist and add your own critical items as needed.
Second—When a mistake happens, let’s learn from it.
What can we do to ensure it won’t happen again?
In Strategies for Learning from Failure, Amy C. Edmondson of the Harvard Business Review writes,
"Avoiding consequential failures means rapidly identifying and correcting small failures. Most accidents in hospitals result from a series of small failures that went unnoticed and unfortunately lined up in just the wrong way."
Even the smallest of mistakes add up over time. Every minute you spend fixing a mistake is a minute you’re NOT doing something profitable.
One of the things we do at Western Trade Printing to prevent mistakes is that we follow a strict G7® Methodology from proofing through print production.
In addition to mistake prevention, G7® methodology does three more things to help your customer succeed:
- It ensures color consistency.
- It reduces turnaround times, proofing costs, waste, and make ready time.
- It makes it possible to communicate accurately about color across multiple organizations.
Be sure to use your checklists and use WTP to take advantage of our methodology. Be a printing ‘1 Percenter’ to grow your business with confidence.
Bookmark our guideline on proofing, here.
Get More Printing Business Tips Here
