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Saturday, March 17, 2007

Funny ADB stories...

We sent the covers for boosters 13-14-15-16 to press. (We won't need 16 until July but you print them four at a time.)

I tracked the job carefully, and they were to the point of cutting and scoring today.

Then they called. "drive over here and see this problem."

Got there, and the booster 14 cover has three big thumbprints in the middle of every copy. How it got onto the printing plate is anybody's guess.

Problem. Without the cover of 14, we can't sell 13-14-15 on schedule Monday.

They decided that it was their mistake and they would re-run the 14 cover over the weekend and have it Monday. We would need about 100 by 3pm Monday and 500 more by 5pm Monday which was "doable." The only problem was that running one cover was going to be expensive for the printer, and while it was their mistake and not ADB's expense, they would lose money on the entire job.

I remembered that we were scheduled to run out of Booster covers 1-2-3 in July, so I had Matt and Leanna email them over, allowing the printer to run all four copies and charge us for three of them, so they didn't lose money. All we lost was tying up a thousand bucks for four months, say $50 in interest costs (which is a phantom, as we don't get interest on our money -- it's not in the bank that long -- and don't pay interest as we have no debts). Not a great thing, but not a disaster.

The printer now loves me since by my going to extra effort, they avoid losing money, might even make a few bucks. A favor in the bank to call in sometime later, like when I need die cut counters made for Origins.

In business, when one of your vendors is about to lose money, if there is a way that by losing $50 you can prevent them losing ten times that, you do it, because you're partners and friends. This is how you BUILD partnerships and friendships in business.