by admin | Oct 22, 2015 | Company News, Customers/Examples, Label News
Being successful in business and life is all about being intentional – planning and executing. You can’t run full speed all day long without burning out and failing. The seasons of the year provide an excellent reminder about taking the time to plan for future success.
Now is the time to set the intention and the plans for a prosperous 2016.
Three Reasons to Plan for Success Today –
- Fall is very nice transition. Summer is over, kids are in school, and the craziness of the Holiday season isn’t quite upon us yet. Regardless of your life or family situation, everyone can benefit from taking a breath, relaxing, and preparing to surge in the new year.
- You have a pretty good idea of how 2015 will end. This far through the year, you should have a very accurate prediction of how the year will finish. Did you meet your goals? Did new challenges come in? Are you trying to hang on? Or are you looking to invest profits to take advantage of tax benefits? All of these should be pretty clear by this point in the year.
- There is still time to make something happen. Planning for the new year in the last week of December doesn’t allow you enough time to investigate all the possible options for the coming year. You may want to target new markets, partner with new vendors, or hire new people. All of these things take time – and you may not get them right the first time. By starting now, you can do a thorough review and make a solid plan for success, even if your first idea doesn’t pan out.
If part of your 2016 plan includes a marketing face lift, we can help your labels start the new year with style! Bold new designs and graphics can make a dramatic impact in the new year.
We are blessed at Rose City Label to be on track for another record year. Thanks to the great customers that trust us every day – we are able to make plans for even greater success in 2016. If we can help you with labels, or if you just want to talk about your business goals for the new year, please call us today.
We are all here to help you succeed – call us today – we can help.
by admin | Sep 9, 2015 | Company News, Customers/Examples, Technical
Now that we are back from the Chicago Technical conference, we are starting to apply all the good lessons we learned. I also wanted to share more detail about my presentation. It was fun to share out story with the room full of excited learners. The presentation was 15 minutes.
Slides for the lecture are available here in PPT format. Here are the main take a ways:
1. Hiring – this is the hardest part.
Because of our reputation, and the fact that our average employee has been with us 12 years, we have a much better pool of qualified applicants than most. Even with this advantage, our best new hires come from our existing team. Our people know what it takes to do the job at Rose City Label – they don’t want poor performers to make their own job harder. And, they don’t want anyone upset with them if they recommend a bad apple.
2. Training – learn from within.
Our very best option – and the one that people in Chicago agree is best – is to train from within. We let our senior press operators mentor the newer people. Printing is a craft – you can’t learn it from a book, or a classroom training session. Hands on learning, in our shop, with our best operators by their side, is the best option for us.
3. Retaining – the fun part.
“People don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses” – this was a great quote from another one of the presenters last week. I couldn’t agree more. We work very hard to make Rose City Label a place people WANT to work and are proud to work for. We have fun and celebrate success, we are green and we are moving forward with new technology. These two things, along with a good crew to work with and a flexible personnel policy, are the keys to long term retention.
Of course NONE of this would be possible without you – the people that read our blog and share our passion for great labels! Thank you for trusting us with your labels – we are honored to serve our customers every day.
If you are still a ‘future customer’, please call us today. We look forward to serving you.
by admin | Aug 20, 2015 | Company News
We continue to grow and learn here at Rose City Label. Helping us do just that is Neal Otto. Neal Otto is the founder and primary trainer for Jumpstart’s Computer Training. We are updating our email from Goldmine to Microsoft Outlook and Neal gave us personal training right here at RCL. That’s right, he brought the classroom to us. We had a fun time learning new tips and tricks. Thanks Neal!
Click Here to Visit JumpStart
by admin | Aug 7, 2015 | Company News, Label News
Even though digital printing is the FASTEST GROWING part of our business, we still do 85% of our volume on traditional, long run presses. One of the big advantages of these traditional presses is the flexibility. We can perform so many more operations on press – laminate, die cut, slit, score, back slit, perforate, and sheet. This offers much more flexibility – especially for labels in sheets. Sometimes, however, it isn’t easy to cut the labels down to their final size on press. Or sometimes we just need to trim the sheet after printing. That is where this new (to us) machine comes in.
We were able to trade our older, much larger machine for this one. It is smaller – much better fitted to the size of labels we typically run – and it takes up less floor space and power. This machine does everything we need in a more modern, compact format. And, since this is a critical tool for many of our jobs, it is very nice to have a more modern, reliable machine in this role.
Finally, we are pleased that we were able to buy a used machine – and sell our machine to be shipped out of the country. This way, likely two machines were kept out of the landfill, all our needs are met, and we have a reliable, cost effective, eco-friendly solution. This is a win-win-win for everyone, and that is what we like at Rose City Label.
If you want labels from a company that is always moving forward, with an eye on the environment, please call us today.
We look forward to helping.
by admin | Aug 4, 2015 | Company News, Environmental Green
Seems like everyone is finding a use for our old pallets. Check out these beautiful pieces.
- Reduce – the best option is to use fewer resources from the start. If you can do the job with 500′ of label stock, then don’t use more. The same applies to every other resource, ink, paper, or packaging in your product. Reduce at the source – this is the gold standard.
- Reuse – if you can re use the same box, paper, ink, or computer again, that is also a great victory. Re using a product for the purpose it was originally intended is a great way to extend life and reduce cost to your business or household. If you can, use the product again.
- Upcycle – If you can’t use a pallet again as a PALLET (since we generate so many), these photos show a way to use the same material for a higher purpose – to build backyard decks. This isn’t what the PALLET was designed for, but it is an alternative, high value use for the product.
- Recycle – if all these are exhausted, grinding the pallet up into bark chips is the final option. At least it isn’t ending up in the landfill!
The idea is to USE LESS at the start, but if that isn’t possible, we want to get more life out of every resource with the least possible processing. Processing and reworking anything is costly and difficult – it takes even MORE resources to rework that pallet. Using it as a PALLET is ideal, but if not, then upcycle if possible. It that isn’t available, then recycling is still a better idea than making more solid waste.
These are NOT easy problems, but we have solved several of them.
Need help? Call us today!
by admin | Aug 2, 2015 | Company News, Customers/Examples
Since not all our customers are from the local area, we like to include a little data about our local economy from time to time. Christian Kaylor is a fantastic local resource for Portland business. He is a workforce economist with the State of Oregon and he publishes this wonderful economic data recap each month – and it is free!
To see the latest data report, and to get Christian’s contact info to subscribe, please click here to download the simple one-page PDF.
The big take away items for me – everything is going well in Portland, our primary market. More specifically, manufacturing jobs are growing – this is even better news for us, since most of our customers make some type of product in a bag, box, or bottle. When manufacturing does well, so do we!
Take a look at the report, then subscribe to get this info in your mailbox every month.
If you want to partner with us, and continue to help Portland business prosper, please call us today about your next label project. We look forward to helping you.
