The Write Stuff – Choosing the Writing Instrument That’s Right for You

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

If you have to do any amount of writing for work, study, or in your home life then you are bound to have been dissatisfied with your pen at some point.

Either it’s just too ‘scratchy’ on the paper, or the tip has become all gummed up, or it’s leaked, or the ink didn’t dry quickly enough and it ended up smeared halfway across the page. Yes, I know, you probably should have been more patient and let it dry for longer, but who has the time to wait, right?

Whatever the issue, spending a few minutes thinking about what pen suits you, and what you are writing, is worthwhile.

So, what’s the deal?

Finding a pen that is right for your needs should be pretty easy. In today’s market, you have a much greater choice than was once the case.

If you’re looking for a cheap, effective, disposable option to fill up the stationery cupboard then you probably need look no further than a box of simple ballpoints (see below).

If the pen is for personal use, then it’s worth trying a few options. Many pens these days come in a variety of ergonomic designs, including cushioned gripping surfaces and nicely balanced weights to suit most writing styles.

Let’s run through a few types of pen. You are probably familiar with them, even if you don’t quite know the differences between them or maybe even what they’re called.

Ballpoint pens.

Ballpoints are the most common ‘stick’ pens on the market. Loads of people in the UK refer to these pens as the ‘Biro’, which is understandable (Lazlo Biro was the Hungarian inventor who developed the first ever ballpoint pen) but most stationers will list the pens as either ‘stick’ pens or, more commonly, ‘ballpoints’. They are inexpensive, usually disposable, and use an oil-based ink that dries quickly on the page. However, over time the ink can start to coagulate and collect dust in the tip of the pen, which creates gummed-up blobs. Because these pens are available so cheaply in large quantities, they are the usual ‘pen of choice’ for stationery cupboards in businesses and schools. A typical example would be the Bic Cristal pen – a pen that is so common it’s almost impossible for you not to be familiar with it.

Rollerball pens

Rollerballs. These pens use similar technology to the traditional ballpoint, but they typically have a finer tip (producing a thinner, neater, line when writing) and they use a water-based ink. The ink flow of a rollerball is therefore much more consistent than a ballpoint so it ‘skips’ less often when you are writing. You also need apply less pressure, so it can be much more comfortable to write with than the ballpoint. They do have a greater tendency to leak than ballpoint pens, however, so a rollerball is not a pen you would want to store in your shirt pocket. Also, the ink takes slightly longer to dry than the oil-based ink in a ball pen so, if you are left-handed, a rollerball may be a turn off for you, depending on your writing style.

Gel pens.

Well, the clue is in the name… these pens use a thick gel instead of an oil-based or water-based ink. The gel does have a shelf-life (it dries up after about three years, so an older gel pen may not work) but whilst they are working they are very nice to write with. They have an effortless ‘gliding’ feel to them as the pen slides across the page. However, these pens require you to be patient. The ‘ink’ takes a long time to dry so don’t go touching it too quickly afterwards, or you will end up with your writing smeared halfway across the page. Again, as with rollerballs, gel pens may not be great for left-handed writers.

Fountain pens.

The fountain pen is the oldest form of pen that is still commonplace in the market. Typically, these pens come with a selection of interchangeable nibs, making the fountain pen a versatile writing instrument that rewards practice with some truly excellent handwriting results. The application of different pressure whilst you’re writing can also result in different weights of line, making the fountain pen a more technically challenging instrument to use, but also one that can yield very good results. The downside of fountain pens in general is that, as mentioned it does take quite a bit of practice to use a fountain pen well, and they can have a tendency towards leaking too. However, it can be worth persevering and there are some fantastic relatively inexpensive fountain pens on the market – Lamy do a range of brightly coloured, modern, pens that are comparatively easy to get to grips with.

Felt tip pens.

There are a bunch of different felt tips on the market, most of which are a sort of halfway house between a stick pen and a marker pen (so not something you would normally use for writing). They can be good for bigger, bolder pieces of writing, but not on a lighter weight or matte paper because the ink will tend to ‘bleed’ on the paper. If you want to write on unusual surfaces (i.e. – not paper) then you could do worse than choose a felt tip pen like the world-famous Sharpie – a brand that has become almost synonymous with ‘permanent marker’, and is rightly lauded for its ability to write on almost anything.

Fineliners.

Fineliners are pens that are worth a mention because, although they are intended for use with graphic design or drawing, a lot of people favour them for writing too. Fineliners have a fine fibre or plastic tip and a long metal-clad nib, and they use dye-based inks. The inks are not always permanent, so if you want your writing to last then it’s worth checking that the ones you are buying use lightfast and waterproof pigments.

Hang on, aren’t posh pens kind of expensive?

Sure, you can spend anything from a few pence to a few hundred pounds on a writing instrument and whilst you might not be in the market for a high-end pen, you might want to consider giving a refillable pen a go. It means you have a pen that you get to know well and that you love writing with, and for from being expensive it’s actually cheaper in the long run.

Fountain pens are the most obvious example of refillable pens. Most of the modern ones come with plastic ink cartridges, although you can also still get the old-fashioned type that have a reservoir that you fill from an ink bottle.

But it’s not only fountain pens that are refillable. The more expensive gel pens, ballpoints, and rollerballs are also reusable rather than disposable. And here’s the thing. Refill sticks or cartridges use up fewer resources than a disposable pen so, not only will you have a nicer writing experience but also, it’s a bit better for the environment too.

Thanks for reading, and if you think that this information will be of use to someone else you know, please don’t hesitate to share it.

Inkjet vs. Laser – Battle of The Printers

Things to Consider When Choosing a New Printer

It used to be so easy – laser printers were ‘business’ machines and inkjet printers were domestic machines.

These days, it’s more confusing with new innovations in technology making the decision a whole lot harder than was once the case.

In simple terms, the difference in the basic technology is still easy to understand:

·       Inkjet printers use liquid ink which is sprayed through microscopic nozzles on to the paper.

·       Laser printers use a toner cartridge (which is filled with a very fine powder) and a heated fuser.

So, with the technology being so obviously differentiated, making a choice between the two types of printer ought to be straightforward:

·       Laser printers have always tended to be more expensive than inkjet, but they have typically been faster (once they have warmed up), and have a higher output per cartridge. If you needed something fast that could handle heavy office workloads, you bought a laser. Hence, they have traditionally been the choice of business.

·       Meanwhile, if you wanted high-quality, affordable colour printing for the home or professional quality photo prints, you went for down the inkjet route.

So far, so simple.

But things have changed:

Colour laser printers have now started to retail at prices tempting to home users, while business inkjets have been taking strides forward in development so that they are becoming more of a credible business choice.

The last couple of years have seen the evolution of a new breed of inkjets that are faster than their ancestors, and more ecologically friendly than their toner-consuming laser cousins.

So, what’s the real story?

Both Inkjet and Laser printers still have advantages and disadvantages, although it is fair to say that improvements to the core technology are helping both types of printer to push past their limitations. There are five main things you need to consider when you are looking at choosing your next printer:

1.       Speed

2.       Quality

3.       Durability

4.       Costs

5.       Networking and security

1.       The Fast and the Furious. Time is money; speed is important.

It has traditionally been the case that laser printers were the fastest kids on the block, but inkjets are the new boy-racers.

Not so long ago, inkjet printers topped out at around 30ppm (pages per minute) in black-and-white and only 10ppm in colour. Yep – the printer equivalent of a Granny in a Honda doing 50mph in the slow lane. Meanwhile, laser printers were routinely hitting speeds of up to 40ppm, irrespective of whether it was printing in black and white or colour. Ferrari territory.

Now, though, laser printers are hitting speeds of 60, and even 70ppm. You might think that this would be like the lasers simply upgrading from sports car to supercar; widening the performance gap between the two types of machine and leaving the inkjets in the dust.

Nope.

The new generation of inkjet printers now have print heads that span the entire width of an A4 page, and they can spew out pages at a ridiculous speed; up to 75ppm, which matches and even beats some of the fastest laser printers, and turning preconceptions on their heads. Granny just overtook Vin Diesel doing 120mph in the outside lane.

2.       Quality is king

In many cases a good quality laser printer will still have the edge when it comes to clean, crisp black text and colour graphics for most business documents.

However, whilst not quite stealing a march on the lasers just yet, inkjets have improved dramatically. Inkjet text reproduction is now easily good enough for all internal documents and even most external use.

Add to that, inkjets almost universally produce the best results when printing photos, and you can see that the newer generation of inkjet printers are very much a contender when it comes to selecting a credible business machine. 

3.       Durability – your business needs a workhorse

This is where laser printers have always smashed it out of the park. They are built to handle enormous workloads of anywhere between 2000 and 20000 pages.

Even with the new generation of inkjets, they still wimp out after a monthly workload exceeding the range of 1500 to 5000 pages (depending on model).

But, you know what? 1500 – 5000 pages is a lot.

In fact, it’s probably going to be perfectly adequate for most smaller SMEs (where an average print job is around four pages) or small departments in large businesses. So, even on the durability front, don’t count out the inkjet just yet.

4.       Money, money, money. How much does it cost?

In printer lore passed down from days of yore, we know that lasers are expensive to buy but cheap to run, while inkjets are cheap upfront but cost you more in the consumables, with a laser toner cartridge churning out thousands of prints, and an inkjet cartridge running out every five minutes.

But, as with so much else in this brave new world of printing devices, this conventional wisdom is no longer reliable.

On the one hand, lasers are getting cheaper to buy up front. Budget models are coming with smaller starter cartridges that run out fairly quickly, though the standard or super-sized cartridges will still have impressive lifespans. In toner alone, expect the cost per page to come in at around 2p for a black-and-white page and 5p to 10p for a colour page.

On the other hand, business inkjets are getting their own costs per page right down, to the extent that some models can now produce prints for around 1p per page for black-and-white to 5p per page for colour. Meanwhile, extra-large cartridges have hit the market and so too have clever innovations like Epson’s Ecotank range. This means a lot of newer inkjets are able to print over 9000 pages (black) or 6500 pages (colour).

It’s only fair to note that there are other costs to consider.

Laser printers still deliver excellent results even on plain paper (although smoother paper will always produce even better results), so there’s no need to splash out on dearer paper.  

Having said that, inkjet paper is no longer so much more expensive, and inkjets usually consume less power than lasers, so they are cheaper (and more ecologically friendly) to run in terms of power consumption.

Combine that with a lower purchase cost, and there’s definite scope to save your business money.

5.       Networking and Security – plug in, baby

It is still true that the top-end enterprise level laser printers offer more management tools, plus support for more high-end networking (e.g. Gigabit Ethernet and IPSec).

But even in this area, inkjets are coming into their own. An increasing number of office inkjet printers have the same or similar embedded management features that laser printers have, plus document security features that you normally only get with MPS (managed print services solutions), such as secure pull-printing, where jobs are held in a queue until released at the printer with a PIN code.

Not only that, but also the new generation of inkjets come with wireless and cloud-printing features that enable the printer to work with a wider range of devices or take print jobs from remote locations.

So, a laser might offer more management and security features at the top end of the market but a business inkjet can still give you all the tools most businesses need.

What’s the bottom line?

It’s no longer a straightforward decision of ‘laser for business’ and ‘inkjet for home’. But that’s a good thing.

As technology has evolved, the range of functions and applications available across a wide range of different machines means that your business can now take advantage of the features it needs at a price that is competitive. Combine a smart printer choice with a MPS solution, and you will be optimising your efficiency in terms of your business expenditure and your operational effectiveness. 

Thanks for reading, and if you think that this information will be of use to someone else you know, please don’t hesitate to share it.

Managing Your Office Supplies Spend - a Simple Check List

There Are a Lot of Office Necessities, But Are You Wasting Money on Your Office Supplies?

Whether it’s stationery, furniture, office machines, paper, accessories or just the tea and coffee in your office kitchen, it can be hard to keep track of all the supplies you need to keep your office going.

This stuff is as basic to your office as lighting, heating and having air to breathe, so it can be hard to keep an eye what your business is spending.

Why does this matter? It’s only a few pens and pencils, right?

Not necessarily – like a lot of businesses, you could be spending far more than you need to. Precisely because many businesses don’t see office supplies a significant overhead, they don’t regulate their spending particularly closely. Office supplies can easily become a big hidden cost in your business.

If employees want to order in a few extra toner cartridges, so be it. An extra tin of coffee or two for the kitchen? Where’s the harm in that? If the warehouse manager wants to keep a stock of health & safety notices ‘just in case’ they are needed, what’s the problem?

Well, the problem is, it soon mounts up.

What’s the real story?

Tracking and managing office supplies might seem to be a challenge, but only because it’s one of those things that tends to get forgotten about in a lot of businesses. The good news is, it is reasonably easy to get a grip of the expenditure. Like a lot of things in life, it’s a matter of applying common sense.

Just run through the checklist of ten simple questions below:

1.       What items do I need to keep in stock at all times? (What are the basic requirements that I need to have to ‘keep the trains running on time’?)

2.       How much of each item should we keep in stock?

3.       Which department or person is requesting this item, and how much do they need?

4.       What is the purpose for the request? (Think about the example above of the warehouse manager ordering H&S signs ‘just in case’).

5.       What is the urgency?

6.       How reliable is the supplier?

7.       Have we benchmarked the costs?

8.       Can I get this on a next day delivery if it becomes urgent?

9.       Have I received it and, if so, when?

10.   Was it out of stock, do I need to reorder it, is there a reasonable substitute that will do the job, or can I go without?

The bottom line:

Getting started on the questions above might seem difficult. How do you even answer question one?

After all, as we said earlier, ‘Office Supplies’ is a broad church covering almost everything you use on a daily basis in your business. From wastebaskets and filing cabinets, through kitchen and janitorial supplies, to paper, pens and pencils; almost all of the stuff you need to keep your business running comes under the heading of ‘Office Supplies’.

But if you compile a simple office supply checklist (and keep reading, because we have got something FREE that can help get you started), you can track what your business is buying, and start to see trends of how often items are being ordered.

When you have done that, you can start to drill into the information and use it to manage your capital spend and your stockholding more effectively.

·       Are you seeing waste?

·       Could you even have a theft problem?

·       Are you stocking the right amounts? You may have too much of some items and not enough of others.

You can track whether you are receiving all the items you order. You can identify if you are having a problem with your supplier, including seeing how long it takes for an order to arrive. Then you can start to buy smarter – for example, if your supplier can get stock to you quickly and efficiently, do you need to keep as much in stock? You may want to reduce your stock holding on some items, unless there is a cost advantage to ordering in bulk.

Here’s the deal:

To get you started Office Prime Supplies have produced a FREE officesupply checklist in a simple adaptable template. The link takes you to the document which you can download in Excel; a nice, clear, easily adjustable, and printable format. It’s ready populated with 440 commonly-ordered products.

Okay, it’s not rocket science, but it helps to get you going. The Excel document is only an example. It’s intended to be a useful base that you can build upon so adapt it or come up with your own. Just download it and edit it for your business’ specific needs.

Other things to consider:

You may want a manager’s signature for approval and date line at the top or the bottom of the final form if management approval is part of your process (and if it isn’t, maybe it should be?)

Of course, if you open an account with Office Prime Supplies we can help you with this.

Our simple, secure online account ordering structure allows you to set user access privileges for your employees. You can give some people in your organisation the ability to create an order, but not the authority to place that order. Very simply, the order will go to you or to a user you appoint (like a buyer or someone in your finance team) to be authorised before it is submitted to us as your supplier.

Thanks for reading, and if you think that this information will be of use to someone else you know, please don’t hesitate to share it.

My New Boss Has No Concept of Work-Life Balance

First posted on LinkedIn

Like the headline says, I have a new boss. Frankly he’s a nightmare to work for.  

He has absolutely no concept of work-life balance. I’m expected to work at strange times of the day and night. The hours are not only irregular they are long, and he won’t tolerate anything but my best work.

I would go so far as to say that my new boss is the most challenging person I have ever worked for and trust me, after a long time spent working at senior exec level in some demanding corporate environments that is really saying something.

That’s right, you guessed it.

Ever since the 1st of June this year, I have been working for myself.

I’ve always enjoyed my career. I have always enjoyed work. Some call me a workaholic, which I take as a compliment. I have been privileged to be constantly engaged and challenged in some exceptional roles.

Highlights included Bargain Booze, which I joined in a marketing role in late ’99. I co-led the private-equity-backed MBO of that company in 2005/6, and eventually left in 2012 before the business floated. Later, after doing my Masters and an interim project for Costcutter, in early 2014 I joined the 120+ year old stationery and office supplies chain Ryman.

During the last couple of decades I have worked with some great people and I have covered a wide range of functional disciplines. Marketer, retail operations, sales, call centre director, MD, COO … But the roles I have had can basically be boiled down to being a retailer (running large estates of small stores) and to being a business-to-business supplier (from my days managing hundreds of franchisee relationships within the Bargain Booze business right through to my time directing the development of a direct Office Supplies business for Ryman).

And whether I was dealing with consumers on the high street or business customers, experience has repeatedly reinforced one lesson - customer experience means everything.

"The customer is king/ queen" is a cliché, but it’s true. And there are a bunch of other truisms that -for me personally- come under the umbrella of putting the customer first.  

Here’s my top ten:

1.      The customers’ experiences should reflect you, your business, and your brand.

2.      Build a product or service that you would like to buy. If you believe in it, are passionate about it, and you are proud of it then the chances are you will succeed.

3.      Keep it simple – you know what your customers want and what they need. Give it to them, and charge a fair price. Everyone is happy.

4.      User experience drives advocacy … Deliver a good customer experience and people sing your praises. Advocates are the best marketing tool a business can have.

5.      The ‘hard sell’ approach might get you a sale, but it doesn’t win you a customer.

6.      Treat people (customers and colleagues) the way you would like to be treated.

7.      Always be fair. Respect, courtesy, and keeping your promises all go a long way.

8.      Business is about people. If you don’t like people, you shouldn’t be in business.

9.      Nice guys do not finish last. People buy from people and if you are fundamentally a decent person, that will help you to build long-lasting and mutually-rewarding relationships.

10.  You could be unfair to a customer for short-term gain, once. Maybe twice. But if you do, they will never shop with you again. On the other hand, a partnership based on mutual benefits can last a lifetime.

These aren’t just words, they are the way I like to conduct myself in life and in business. These are my personal values. So, after 18 years of working for other people, I figured it was time to put my money where my mouth is, take the plunge, and try my hand at running my own business.

And yes, as I said in the opening paragraphs above I am perhaps a bit demanding to work for right now. But, here’s the secret…

…I am having an absolute ball, and I am proud to say that the business that I am building is one that can absolutely deliver on the kind of customer-focused ethos that I’ve described above.

Having left my previous role on the 31st of May, I was able to ‘soft launch’ my new website on the 30th of June, just four weeks' later. The first part of July has been spent on a bit of tidying up, some bug fixing, and adjusting content, and now the site is ready to start taking orders.

If you would like to know a little more about the business it is called Office Prime Supplies, and you can visit us now at www.officeprimesupplies.co.uk

We cater mainly for small-to medium-sized businesses, home workers, and the public sector, but anyone can take advantage of our fantastic product range – there are over 20,000 products available on the site and if you cannot find what you want, let me know personally, because I can probably find a source of supply and get it for you.

If you would like me to take a look at your office products expenditure to see if, with my low overheads, I can match or beat your current pricing then feel free to contact me at matthew@officeprimesupplies.co.uk