Monster Media 1994 #1

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================================================================== BROKERING FOR PROFITS A Blueprint For Increasing Profits Outline for Cy Stapleton's Talks on Brokering Quick Printing Magazine's "Supplies and Services Survey" indicates that the average small printer spends almost $18,000 on brokered items. Some 95% purchase business cards; 87% purchase social & wedding printing, etc. Those figures should be 100%, and $18,000 would be a reasonable figure only for a very small shop. I love brokering. If it weren't for those "quick printing" jobs that my customers require today or in the next couple of days, I might very well think seriously about closing my shop, move my office back to my home, and to my neighbors, look like I was retired. Some experts have the philosophy that you should do everything possible in-house. There are undoubtedly cases where that may be valid, but from my personal experience, that is not the case most of the time. Nor, is it the case of a lot of small printers I have spoken with. I can assure you that I certainly enjoy that $3,000 to $8,000 bonus I take out of my order-out account each month. My Shop In most ways my shop is a pretty much average small shop in the beautiful pineywoods of deep East Texas. Lufkin has a population of about 30,000 (but for 21 years I operated the same way in Houston - the only difference was that the market was larger in Houston) The shop is operated by myself, my wife and three outstanding employees - they have to be to put up with me. I produce about what I am supposed to produce with that number of employees, but I only try to keep enough work in house to keep them busy and cover my overhead. As long as I keep them busy, I broker everything I can - even though I might be able to produce it in house. IMPORTANT NOTE...do not go overboard and try to broker everything that comes through your doors. Do enough of the work you can produce most profitably, then broker the rest. If you follow this philosophy you can substantially increase your profits with no additional equipment or employees. I am not the run-of-the-mill consultant whose expertise is theory or passing on what someone else has done. I can't learn enough to write or talk about it unless I have done it myself, and when it comes to brokering, I certainly feel comfortable in writing and talking about it to other printers. Let's get on with getting on... But, let's look at brokering from a different perspective. Suppose I didn't have these great employees. Suppose I had to make my living exclusively from brokering. Suppose it were just my wife, Libby, and myself. Could we survive and prosper? I think the answer to that is a definite maybe! What Do I Personally Broker The numbers I am quoting here are actual number of jobs taken from my job ticket log. I did not, however, actually broker all of these items. I wish I had, because I certainly couldn't typeset, print, box, deliver and invoice those business card orders I produced at a the $15 or so I would have paid had I brokered them. Some of the mentioned jobs we actually printed in our shop. The "average" month was determined by taking the total number of jobs produced during the period and dividing by the number of months. My gross sales will range from the $16,000 range to the high $40,000 range, or a total of about $350,000. In early 1991 I had two back-to-back months of less than $15,000 each, then jumped up to almost $45,000 the third month. Ain't the life of a small printer hell? IMPORTANT NOTE - when I speak of "gross sales", I am speaking of in-house printed jobs. As you will see a little later, I keep all brokered items separate. In an average month in 1990, we produced some 50 business card orders, at an average billing of about $30 per order. My average cost is about $15 per order, or a gross profit of about $750. I then had about 10 orders for wedding invitations or the such, averaging about $125 per order. Figure a 40% gross profit, or about $500. Over the past two years, we have averaged about $4,000 per month in snap-outs and continuous forms at a profit of about 30%, for a total of $1,200. My milk cows each year are two theme parks for whom I may broker as much as $125,000 in business at about 5% after all expenses, or a profit of $6,250 - broken down to a monthly profit of about $520.00. Then there are the Christmas cards, which, depending upon how much effort my customer service person and I put forth, can amount to a gross of less than $5,000 to $25,000 or more (when I had a girl on the street several years ago starting in September selling nothing but Christmas cards at 50% of my profit - TATEX loved us that year) at a 25% profit, or a possible $6,250. Broken down to a monthly profit, that is about $520 per month. Each month we will do a few bucks in rubber stamps, nameplates, buttons, plaques, etc. Labels and decals will amount to a couple of hundred dollars a month at 50% profit or another $100 profit. High speed copier services will average about $225 per month at a 100% profit or another $112 per month (this kind of a markup won't fly in a metropolitan area where there are many high speed copiers, but in a small community where there are none, people like Copies Tomorrow in Houston can both improve your bottom line and make your customers that are used to paying at best $.06 per copy love you). Etc., etc., etc. If Brokering Is This Profitable, Why Have A Shop? Forgetting about everything else, we could probably survive if I were to just take the aforementioned brokered items. Working at home there would be virtually no overhead other than a few telephone calls, a little postage and a little in the way of business forms and stationery. But, can you make it by putting yourself in the position of brokering all of your work? If you didn't have a shop to produce those fast turn-around jobs would you be able to get that much business? I have my doubts, but that's not the reason for the above. The above drivel is simply to show that brokering can be very profitable to any small printer if you have suppliers you can depend upon. This piece was written as a blueprint to put you on the road to additional profits. My purpose is to get you started. Once you get started you will massage the idea, set your own methods of operation and customize it to best fit your needs, and hopefully get back in touch with me to let me know how you are doing. The Secret to Brokering for Profit The secret to making big profits brokering is: 1). Work hard to develop a rapport with reliable trade houses. In your shopping for a supplier, look for a combination of price, turnaround time knowledgeable CSRs and quality that you can live with. Try several of them. When you find a supplier that can fill these bills, be loyal to him. 2). Be reasonable in your mark-ups. If you do your job well you will lose few jobs. Making a couple of hundred dollars on a couple of thousand dollar job is a heck of a lot better than letting someone else have the job. 3). Look for those printers who are not in direct competition with you, but who have capabilities you may not have. These you can find by asking other friendly printers who they use for one thing or another. Except for very large jobs where freight is a major factor, don't worry about where the vendor is located. I'm in Texas and one of my best snapout vendors is located in the Northeast. UPS is wonderful. Shop vendors until you find one you like, then stick with him. Establish that rapport. Once you have established that rapport, don't dump him for another because of a minor misunderstanding or a few cents difference in price. Let him know what the problem is and I bet he will bend over backwards to correct it - if it was his fault. Have you ever messed up a job? If you can answer "no" to that question, you must have just opened your doors. 4). Take advantage of the expertise of your vendor. Quite often they can show you how to produce a job more profitably, assist in design, even give you ideas as to how you can sell more of their product. 5). Always, always, always ask your customer about other products. Suggest such things as labels, rubber stamps, raised printing, business announcements, proposal covers, etc. It doesn't cost a cent to ask, and many of these prompts will result in orders. IMPORTANT NOTE - Policies of vendors change over a period of time just like your own change. Check their prices periodically to make certain you are still getting the best deal possible. While this blueprint was not put together as a commercial for my software program, BFP, it can be the key to making those big profits. If you decide to go for these profits, that will be the best $99 investment you ever made. However, don't feel bad about trying this blueprint before jumping in and ordering. Most important is to use BFP or develop a similar program on your own!!! If you do, I absolutely guarantee that you will add many, many dollars to your bottom line. If you get an inquiry for a fairly large number of "widgets", then contact every vendor of widgets in your database for pricing. You will be amazed to see those extra bottom line profits build fast. One of our very first users of BFP tells us that the first two times he used BFP he picked up an EXTRA $700 profit on two jobs he already had in house - a pretty good return on a $99 investment. He simply FAXed an inquiry to the various vendors and ended up finding two new vendors who quoted him a total of $700 less than the vendors he had intended to use. Other sources for potential vendors will be discussed later on. I always prefer using the smaller vendors wherever possible. The reason for this is that I am generally dealing with the owner or decision maker - the one who can make an exception occasionally. The most menial employee can tell me "no". I want to deal with that person who has the authority to say "yes". In my book, one of the all-time best trade printers is the giant, Ennis Business Forms - with one exception. While they have very knowledgeable customer service persons, are consistent in their pricing, quality and delivery, in the decades I have been dealing with them I have never been able to get that little extra price concession to help me get a job, nor have I been able to squeeze an extra few days off their normal scheduled delivery time on a rush job. The upside to that is that you know every one else quoting on that same job is getting the same price and delivery quote that you are - and they are masters at making their promised delivery dates. Many printers feel that they must double (or more) their cost to come out on a brokered job. Hogwash!!! That will cost you a number of very profitable jobs. The philosophy of doubling the cost of brokered items is about as valid as the philosophy of pricing in-house printing at 3-times your paper cost. On business cards and other low ticket items, you certainly want to double your cost (or more) to cover the inevitable error that is your fault. But, you have as good a chance of getting that 100M 4-color brochure as does the local large printer who does it in-house on a 4-color Komori - providing you aren't too greedy. Just remember, you naturally aren't going to be as careful on a $30 dollar business card order as you are on a job that costs you $8,000. However, if you handle your brokered jobs properly, there should never be a case where there are errors that are your responsibility. Bid the jobs carefully, and watch those profits grow. (We keep a separate "order-out" checking account where all of this income goes into and all order-out payments are paid from. How fast that account grows will surprise you.) You will also find that there are small jobs where you can more than double your cost. I seldom pay a great deal of attention to the "suggested retail". If a label manufacturer offers me a 35% discount off his published prices and my customer wants only 1,000 labels, depending upon the competitive situation, that label order that retails for $50 and has a cost of $32.50 might go for $75 or more. Remember, many of your customers are not just buying 1,000 labels. They are also buying you. Don't get greedy. Settle for a fair margin of profit. Sometimes that margin is high, sometimes it is low. As an example, we recently did an $11,000 job for a school district. We only did the typesetting in-house - a total of 11.8 hours and a little black-on-white part of the job. Most of the rest of the job was brokered. The brokered part of the job took two phone calls and about a half hour of my time, and cost $9,100. I took a markup of about 14% and made about $1,300 on the brokered part. A long way from a keystone markup, but I beat out all of the larger printers who had the capability of doing it all in house, and still made a handsome profit for the time and effort involved. And to top it all, I have a plaque on my wall awarded by the State Education Board for the finest packet of its type in the state. On another $8,000 job, I took a 5% markup, got the job and pocketed $400 for about 15 minutes work. On yet another, I took a 300% markup on a wedding invitation order that no other local printer could turn around in two days - even though we all bid on the same invitation from the same vendor. I delivered on time, made about $250 profit and the customer thought I was wonderful. I just FAXed the copy and had the out-of-state vendor ship the order via next day air. Use "perceived value" in pricing - not a percentage of mark-up. If you are one who insists on working on a certain "margin of profit", consider that a 20% markup will generate a margin of 16.7%; a 25% will generate a 20% margin; a 30% will generate a 23.1%; a 35% will generate 25.9%; a 40% will generate 28.6%; a 50% will generate a 33.3%; a 100% will generate a 50%; a 200% will generate 66.7%, etc. Or, take your SALES PRICE minus your COST divided by your SALES PRICE to get your margin of profit. To me, that's too much trouble. All I want to know is that I am going to end up with more in my order-out account at the end of the month than I started with. I couldn't begin to tell you what percentage of profit I made last month, but I can tell you that I took several thousand dollars out of that account for me last month and there was still enough left in the account to operate another month. Payment Terms One very important thing to consider on brokered (as well as in- house printed items) is your payment terms. It is our policy that if a brokered job is going to cost us $100 or more, we negotiate payment terms - even with old customers. As an example on the job for the school district I showed the school district how I could save them a substantial amount of money if I could work on their money rather than on mine. I got payment in advance, sent payment with my order to my vendors, got an extra 5% for cash in advance (on top of the 9% I had originally figured on), and everyone was happy. I do the same thing with the two theme parks I work with. These are large volume print buyers. There are few printing jobs they require that I can't save them a substantial amount of money on. Every printer in the area attempts to get their business. But, for 5% of the best price I can come up with, the parks can buy me, and in over a decade I have never let them down. If someone comes in with a lowball price, they let me know, I shop the price, and if I can beat it, I get 50% of what I save them. If I can't beat the price, I lose that one, but the person who came in with a lowball to get his foot in the door is going to have to do the same thing on every other job. My vendors don't worry about when they will get paid, because I send a check with my order. With many smaller vendors that can get me all kinds of perks. With others, that is their normal way of doing business. BFP is an incredibly powerful tool in shopping for that best price when you need it. Other tactics I use are one price for jobs paid in advance and a substantially higher price for jobs that must be billed. Our policy is strictly cash with order on business cards, Christmas cards, socials, and stock forms unless the customer is a well established one with an excellent payment history. On other type jobs, we require 50% with order and the balance upon final proof. If there are overs on the finished job, that amount plus any shipping charges are paid on delivery. The customer okays the proof and we send either camera ready art or a negative to our vendor. In over three decades in this business, I can remember being stung only three times when I stuck to this policy. Two of those times it was the buyer's fault and I lost in trying to protect their position (which neither appreciated) and the third was a dumb thing on my part for giving a large job to a new vendor who shut his doors (after receiving payment in advance) before my job was completed. That is not to say that I have not lost on other brokered jobs, but where I have lost is when I deviated from my established policies. Keep the Bookkeeping Simple I keep a separate checking account for my brokered jobs. I started off with $1,000 seed money in that account. All brokered income goes into that account and all vendor payments are made out of that account. It will astound you how that account will grow. Once a month my wife writes us a bonus check with the excess money in that account, and more often than not, that bonus is more than our salary. If brokering is not now a major profit center for you, why not consider starting brokering and dedicating those profits for something you really want but think you cannot afford? It will not be long before the money is there for that "something" and you will be sold on Brokering for Profits. I am somewhat unconventional in the way I look at brokering. I do not assign any overhead to the order-out portion of my business. All overhead is charged to the work we produce in- house. That means that with the exception of any sales tax (which is uncommon for us in that most of our customers are non-profits or institutions who are tax exempt, or larger companies who pay their own sales tax), what is in the order-out account is bottom line before tax profit. From an accounting standpoint, come tax time we simply give the order-out account statements to our CPA firm and let them do whatever it is they have to do to satisfy the bureaucracy. The highly respected industry consultant, John Stewart, feels that this a very foolish and unorthodox method of accounting. That may be the case for a larger operation, but I ain't no GM or EXXON (both of whom are in deeper financial trouble than I have ever been). My philosophy is that it has worked for me for over three decades and if something ain't broke, don't fix it. I also know that I have gotten many, many other small printers working in this manner and they like what they see (or at least that is what they tell me). When the Customer Worries About an Order-Out Quite often customers want to be assured that you are going to produce their job in your shop. I never attempt to indicate that I am going to produce a job in house that I intend to broker. My response to this type of question is that I am associated with a printer who has specialized equipment that enables him to produce this job more economically than I can in my shop. This printer prints only these types of jobs for other printers he is associated with and not for the general public. Where the commercial printer may receive a half dozen or so of this type job each month, this specialty printer may produce hundreds of this type job for printers all over the country each month - thus saving the customer a substantial amount of money. The example I use is a typical 2- color business card produced in-house or through a specialty printer who will produce hundreds of similar jobs each day. I emphasize that these specialty printers print only for other printers, that we have dealt with them for quite some time, that they are totally reliable, and that their turnaround time is as fast or faster than I could produce it in house. I also let them know that I only send out that part of the job that the trade shop can do more economically. I may do the typesetting, layout and camerawork in house, then send that plus the paper stock for a trade shop to throw the ink on it for me. Or I may print the job in house and send it to a trade bindery for finishing. Building Your Own Database I have made a concerted effort over the years to develop a list of reliable vendors and during the fifteen years I published Printer's News I was considered a major source for information about hard-to-find sources. I still get regular calls from printers all over the country wanting to know where to find this or that. For the first time I will expose how I compiled this source directory so that you can start building your own. I started building a list of vendors on 3x5 cards in the late 1960's. In the late 1970's I started putting them into a computer database. Building the list was easy. I subscribe to virtually every English language graphic arts publication. When a magazine comes in, the first thing I do is turn to the classified section and start entering new advertisers of trade services into my database. I also look for the mention of unique printing services in other than graphic arts publications, and contact those companies for information about their company, talk to other printers about their sources, and carefully search out potentials at trade shows. Even so, invariably I will periodically receive a request for an item that I don't have in my database. I will take a few minutes to go through my collection of telephone directory Yellow Pages; look in the Thomas Register; contact the reference librarian at my local or the state library; contact our trade association; or call one of a number of other printers I know who are willing to share their sources. On occasion I will see a prospect for my database in a retail store and I will contact the manufacturer to see who his vendor is (as an example, hologram or 3-D postcards or beer coasters). It is seldom that I get stumped. When I get a name and number, it goes into my database. Occasionally something comes up that makes all of this effort worthwhile. As an example, recently Helene of Coast Publishing's "Helene's Hotline" called me to see if I knew of anyone who printed business cards on wood. Helene is another great source for hard to find items. The question was most timely in that Cards of Wood was one of the very latest addition to my database. I had read an article about unusual business cards in some nondescript magazine I found in my doctor's office, contacted the publisher of the magazine for the addresses of the companies mentioned - one of which was Cards of Wood - added them to my database. Helene was impressed when I had her information in her hands within minutes. That might not sound like much to you, but to me, it was like having the Encyclopedia Britannica call me to request the answer to a question that they couldn't find the answer to. Another caller needed to find a 2400 baud modem and serial card for an old Commodore computer. It took four phone calls before I found a California supplier who specializes in impossible-to-find computer parts and accessories. In BFP you will find a classification under products named "Publications". These are the various graphic arts publications I am aware of. You should subscribe to each of these and check out their articles and ads for unusual or interesting products and sources. When you find one, add it to BFP. You never know when it might come in handy. Who are my favorite vendors? I have a lot of them. As I noted above, my favorites are generally the smaller companies where I have a rapport with the owner. In the database that accompanies BFP you will find the details on some of my all-time favorites. I am not attempting in any way to promote one over another, nor do I attempt to claim that these are the only reliable sources. Some are strictly trade shops and some are simply commercial printers who have capacities I don't have. Some I have worked with personally and others I know by reputation. Others are simply names I have come across at one time or another that I felt might come in handy some day. Some will protect your accounts and some won't. The best bet is for you to develop your own, and a good starting place is BFP. Bindery Services To go into the subject of services such as trade binderies would not be appropriate in this program because of the fact that BFP is marketed internationally. Each area has its own complement of trade binderies, and I am only familiar with the few I deal with in this area. Except for very specific applications, you will want to deal with a local bindery. However, there are some things to look for. There are the newcomers who do a marvelous job with state-of-the-art equipment, but who have little if any of the old work-horse equipment found in companies that are over a half century old. Where would you go if you had 25,000 paint can labels and need two bail holes put in each of them? Anyone with a letterpress department could diecut those two 1" bail holes, but you need to go to an old timer like A.V. Emmott & Sons in Houston or Ellis Bindery in Dallas to find someone who can "punch" the holes 1,000 at a time with their bale hole punch. Know what type of equipment your area binderies have - not just the major pieces, but those oldies that sit around gathering dust until just the right job comes along. Let your competition wonder how you got those 50,000 bail holes "diecut" so cheap. There are many other local services such as embossing, diecutting, proposal covers, rubber stamps, tubes, cones, etc. that you may not have the capability of producing. Don't turn down those jobs. Look for vendors in your area. If you run into a dead end, contact me in and I almost guarantee that I can point you in a direction that will offer additional bottom line profits. All you need to do is change your way of thinking. Your philosophy should be "if it involves ink or paper, I am the source." Why not be the largest small printer in your market area? Zing the Competition If you really want to zing the competition, on that next extra special business card, post card or advertising bookmark, contact Cards of Wood, 1267 House Rd., Belmont, MI 49306, (616) 887-8257. They print on 120 varieties of wood veneer. And, while they do not have a dealer price structure, for something as unique as this, you can make a nice margin by marking up their normal prices, plus have your customer telling everyone he gives one to where he got them. If you have some real zingers in your list of suppliers, I would appreciate it if you would share them with me so I can add them to my growing list. Just drop me a note at 3200 S. John Redditt Dr., Lufkin, TX 75901, call me at (409) 637-7468, or FAX me at (409) 637-1480. If All Else Fails If you are at wits end and simply cannot find a product that you need, FAX me all of the details at (409) 637-1480 . I will make a concerted effort to get the information to you in the shortest time possible. On the truly difficult requests I can generallycome up with an almost immediate answer. The impossible requests may take a little longer. In either case, you don't need to follow up if you haven't gotten an answer in an hour or even a day. Wait a couple of days to follow up. Your request may be taking a little longer to find. Secondly, please don't ask for a list of suppliers of XYZ. In an attempt to get the information back to you ASAP, I provide you with the first one or two suppliers I am able to locate, or in the case of a product where I have numerous vendors, I will give you one or two in your area. There is no cost for this service. However, if you do not have a FAX, I will mail you the information unless you need it faster than you might expect from USPS. In that case, I will telephone you the results of the investigation providing you give me the authorization to call you collect. I can't promise how long that might take. When you request a source for a product, give me all of the information you would give a vendor who was going to quote on the job. That includes quantity, stock, color of ink, is it camera ready, finished size, bindery work required, delivery time required, etc. The Commercial How We Verify Vendors In BFP Most of the entries in BFP have been verified. We do this in one of two ways. First of all, we FAX a questionnaire to the vendor, briefly explaining what BFP is and the reason for our inquiry. If we have only a voice number for the vendor, we call that number, ask for their FAX number and the name of their Sales/Marketing Manager. If they have a FAX, we FAX the inquiry to that individual. If they do not, we attempt to complete the form by voice phone. When we send out the FAX, we enter a product, company name and phone numbers in a master copy of BFP. When we get a response, we pull up that company and complete the filling out of the data fields with the information provided by the vendor. Periodically, we do a print-out of the ones who have not responded and follow up in an attempt to get the information from them. If, after a third contact we have not heard from the vendor we remove them from the master database. A copy of the form we use is included with BFP as an ASCII text file named FAXREQ.TXT and also as a .PCX file which is in a self-extracting archive to save space. That file is FAXREQ.EXE. While I cannot guarantee the accuracy of any of the individual entries, I have made every effort to see that each is correct as of the date it was entered into the database. The earliest of these entries is June 1, 1991. Some 6,000 requests are outstanding. No fee is charged, requested from, or accepted from vendors included in BFP. Being A Registered BFP User Being a registered user has its benefits. You have technical support for 12 months from the date you purchased your copy. In addition, you will receive notice of any database updates (mailed around January and June). These updates are on disk and will contain a minimum of 500 new verified vendor/product records. As a registered user, you can purchase these updates at $25 each. Minor upgrades may be downloaded from our bulletin board at no charge. Your copy is registered to you by us the day we ship it to you. For Technical Support If you require any technical support, please describe your problem and FAX it to us at (409) 637-1480. Include your FAX number, the version of BFP you have, your serial number, and the problem you are having. During normal working hours (9am to 5pm CST, Monday-Friday) you should have a response within the hour. If you do not have a FAX, call (409) 637-7468 and leave your name, telephone number, the version of BFP you are using, your BFP serial number, authorization to return the call collect, and a brief description of your problem with the operator. Your call will be returned promptly. FAX requests take priority over all other requests. Our Bulletin Board: Give our bulletin board a call when you have a chance. The number is (409) 637-4973. You will find some great programs that you can download, as well as any updates to BFP. This is a different type of bulletin board in that we do not attempt to have as many programs and nodes as possible. It is a support board for printers and a forum for printers who wish to share ideas. The downloadable programs range from outstanding utilities to type fonts and Windows applications. We are not looking for huge numbers of callers, but rather to provide an easy access to support for our BFP users. Registration The registration fee for BFP is for a single computer. The dis- tribution copy normally shipped is not network compatible. If you wish a network or multiple site license, contact DataWare Productions at (409) 637-7468 for further details. Multiple registrations are priced as follows: 1 $99 2-9 Less 25% 9-24 Less 40% 25 up Less 50% Note, the pricing for the IBM compatible or the ASCII text quote/comma delimited format program is the same. PC users can export to either straight ASCII text or a "," delimited ASCII text file from within BFP. Mac users must request a special Mac formatted "," delimited ASCII disk. The full PC version is included with the Mac formatted file in anticipation that most Mac users will purchase a PC as their next computer system. If you are interested in becoming a dealer for BFP, contact our office for details. MasterCard, VISA, or check is accepted. Cy Stapleton DataWare Productions 3198 S. John Redditt Dr. Lufkin, Texas 75904 (409) 637-7468 FAX (409) 637-1480 BBS (409) 637-4973 IF YOU HAVE ANY IDEAS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE... I love hearing from users as to how they use BFP. I am going to start collecting those ideas and passing them on to other users. One Louisiana user came up with a great idea. He exported the data to an ASCII file, then brought that data into another database program that enabled him to create a user-defined report. He then generated a report of all of the various products that are in BFP. Once that report was generated, he imported it into PageMaker and created a mailing piece that listed all of the products and services his company offered. He mailed that piece to all of his customers and prospects, and from what he tells me, that mailing not only generated new business from some of his existing customers, but also generated some new customers. IF YOU FIND ANY INCORRECT PHONE NUMBERS OR ADDRESSES IN BFP... We make a concerted effort to make certain all entries are as accurate as is possible. But there is also the unfortunate typo, and businesses do move, change their phone numbers, go out of business, etc. If you attempt to contact a vendor listed in BFP and find he has moved, changed phone numbers, gone out of business, or no longer produces the product we have him listed for, please fax that information to us at (409) 637-1480 and we will immediately update that information in our master file. IF YOU HAVE SOME FAVORITE VENDORS WHO ARE NOT LISTED IN BFP... If you find that one or more of your favorite vendors are not listed in BFP, please fax them a copy of our FAX REQUEST form, which is included on this disk. Hopefully they will complete that form and return it to us so that we can enter them in BFP. An alternative to that is to fax us their names and fax numbers and we will fax the form to them. IF YOU HAVE ANY IDEAS AS TO ENHANCEMENTS WE CAN MAKE TO BFP... Virtually every enhancement in Version 2 of BFP is the result of "wish lists" sent to us by readers. If there is something you would like to see in the program, let us know. If you have any ideas as to how we might improve the program, please let us know. Some of the requests we are working on for Version 3 include the ability to generate a request for prices and fax it to the vendor(s) from within the program; mouse support; Windows support; user defined reports; printer drivers for specific rather than generic printers; etc.