Benefits of joining the IPIA, with Brendan Perring

In this episode of Print Matters – A Canon Podcast, co-hostJo Lloyd speaks to Brendan Perring, General Manager at the IPIA (Independent Print Industries Association) to explore what the IPIA actually does for its members as well as his hot takes on the print industry at large.

According to Brendan, being part of the IPIA has three key benefits for members:
1) Training, marketing and other educational resources 
2) Cost savings on everything from website design to credit checking
3) Access to new business leads at various networking events

The IPIA is currently working on a research project entitled, ‘Creating new narratives for print’ to educate print buyers on the power and impact of print as a channel to market with the intention of growing overall print volumes so the whole industry benefits.

Brendan concluded by revealing that if he had one word of advice for print businesses today, it would be: ecommerce.

Listen to the full episode for more on how ecommerce is a vital tool for generating revenue growth and building stronger customer relationships.

The Canon Ascent Programme is an initiative designed to support Canon’s Pro Print customers and help them future-proof their businesses. Get started on our website: https://canon.sm/PrintMattersPodcast

Find Brendan Perring online:
Twitter: @brendan_perring
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendan-perring-a69a4215/  

Transcript

Jo Lloyd: 0:07

Hello, I'm Jo Lloyd. And thanks for joining us today for the latest in our In Conversation series of podcasts, created as part of Canon's Ascent Programme. These podcasts feature selection of guests all with perspective and insight that we think will be valuable to our listeners in the print and creative industries. And joining me today is Brendan Perring, General Manager at the IPIA, a UK-based trade association focused on helping its members grow and to develop their businesses. Hello, Brendan.

Brendan Perring: 0:37

Hi, Jo. Thanks so much for being with us, Brendan. I'm really looking forward to our chat today. So to start, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you came to join the IPIA? Yeah, so I've had quite a strange path into printers, I think most people have. I fell into it. I started off really at the Edinburgh University student newspaper, as a photographer on that, because before that my dream really was to become a photographer. Obviously, when the market fell out of that with a digital camera boom, I decided to try and turn my skills elsewhere. So started being a staff photographer for the student newspaper. And then as you do on student newspapers, you get involved with everything, layup design, writing. So I really moved over towards publishing and also journalism. I got picked up by the Sunday Times of Scotland, after I graduated, after doing a lot of experience with different newspapers in Scotland around Edinburgh, and I was in their investigative journalism division for a rather scary eight months, until unfortunately, the credit crunch, saw the investigative division closed down. And I really just asked the the Editor-in-Chief, what should I do now. And he advised I go and do a degree in multimedia journalism. So I went and did that at Cardiff University, and found out all about the wonderful world of business-to-business publishing and journalism. So, started applying for roles there, and the first one that I got was to be the Editor of SignLink magazine, as well as Print Monthly magazine, at Link Publishing in Bristol. So, that is how I got into print industry. And I was the Editor of those two magazines, and then also one of the founders and developers of the Print Show in the UK, in 2015. And I stayed with them until 2018, the end of 2018, before moving over to the IPIA, the Independent Print Industries Association, who were our biggest customer at the time. Just wanted to try something new, and I am now their General Manager, for my sins!

Jo Lloyd: 2:44

Lovely. Thanks, Brendan. I bet you could tell me some funny stories about your time on the newspaper. But thinking about the IPIA and trade bodies in general, what do members get out of being involved with these sorts of membership organisations?

Brendan Perring: 2:59

So I think the real value in trade association comes in several different forms. And at least at the IPIA, we see it made up of three sort of key cornerstones. The first one of those is that a lot of SME businesses really struggle to promote themselves or have a voice. Maybe they don't have the capacity or the resources to have a full-time marketing person. And so what we do for a lot of our members is we are an extra voice for them. So whether it is through our IPIA news hub, or our social media feeds, or our quarterly magazine, that goes out to a comprehensive database of the commercial print industry supply chain, all members, just as part of the membership fee, have access to that. And any of them can have promotion for their products and services, they can literally just call the executive team and say, "hey, I've got this interesting new thing I've developed". And we'll help them build a little story and get some pictures done on it, and really help them promote that. So that's one key way is promoting our members. Secondly, is obviously trying to get our members' overheads down as low as possible. So we negotiate with really high-level service providers, very reputable service providers that we have vetted, in all the fields necessary to run a business. So HR, tax, finance, logistics, you name it, there is a benefit that covers it – video filming, marketing, website design, and so on. And so what that means is is that if an IPIA member uses all of those benefits, credit checking is another very heavily used one, small debt collection service, then they can really get their overall cost base down over the course of a year, whilst having a very, very high level of reputable service given to them that they know won't let them down and will be there whenever they need that support. So it really is an umbrella that opens when it rains. The final key tier is a supply of new business leads. And we do that through all the events that we run throughout the year, a lot of which are focused on networking. So generally in the spring, we have a networking lunch that brings together about 100 or so businesses from across the supply chain. Then, in the Autumn, we generally have a big conference. This year, it's Print in Balance, happening on September 1 at the MTC and commentary that's focused on helping educate businesses in our supply chain, about huge shifts in sustainability legislation that are coming, how they can get ahead of those trends, and also, the theme being Print in Balance, also about how they can improve the wellbeing, productivity and happiness of their team. So that's a big part of networking, there's an expo at that event. And then finally, at the end of the year, we have a really big networking, lunch, expo, annual general meeting, and gala dinner and awards evening, and that'll be on December 1 at the Crowne Plaza in Stratford upon Avon. So each one of those events is designed to bring together buyers and suppliers from across the supply chain, so that you can meet new customers, new contacts, and generate new business, because I really genuinely believe in the in the phrase that people do buy from people, I've seen it myself, if you can get people together. And then finally, we also have a digital online networking event called the IPIA Big Breakfast that runs once a month, there's a short break for summer, and that brings together online on a fantastic virtual networking platform called Remo for free, anyone in the print industry who wants to come together, on a Wednesday morning, it runs from 8:30 in the morning till 10 o'clock. At nine o'clock, there's generally a 10-minute inspirational speaking session called Freshly Juiced. And again, it's just a way to stimulate economic activity in our industry. So for us as well, we do a lot of work to campaign for the print industry, to advocate for the print industry, we have very strong connections with government, we're part of the Department of Business, Energy, Industrial Strategy's working group. And we have a weekly meeting with BEIS to feed back to them all the trends and everything's going on from our industry, assist them with with shaping policy that will affect our industry, and also where any sort of government legislation comes through that we think will adversely impact the print industry, we can advocate very strongly, and actually get that legislation amended or changed, in order that it doesn't damage our sector, and we have a great working relationship with them. So overall, I think that is the purpose of trade associations is supporting their membership, creating a very reliable and trusted community. And generally just making sure that members are better off commercially, and for the long-term, being part of a trade association than not, whilst also making sure that the industry as a whole grows through all the work that we do outside of that. So yeah, I think that that's it in a nutshell.

Jo Lloyd: 8:12

Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? I think sometimes people have a tendency to think, "oh, I won't get anything out of membership. It's better to save my money". But there is a huge value to be gained for any size business. It brings me in mind to a phrase I heard once, and that was,"decisions are made by those who show up".

Brendan Perring: 8:31

Yes, of course. Look, I totally agree. And I see that time and time again, when I'm on the floor at our networking events, when I'm out at other people's events, what you see is that when buyers and suppliers within a supply chain come together, share ideas, share pain points, have conversations, they can find – and it's often serendipitous, you know – but they're talking and suddenly a spark happens. And what comes out of that is a new business relationship. And you suddenly have someone who has found a new way of generating revenue, simply because the person they were talking to didn't know that there was a solution to their problem. Now they do. They're in a trusted environment with a fellow member. And it really is about showing up. They've decided to come out to that event, they've participated, they've made the use of that member benefit. And they really do get a lot back from that as a result, you know, and it's so much our industry is based on word of mouth, if you can just grow your business network and continue to work on that, and remember that you have to think not just now – where is the next job coming from – but where are the next 10 jobs coming from? Where's the job coming from in a year's time or 18 months time? You have to continuously be seeding that ground and we try to create environments where you can do that.

Jo Lloyd: 9:50

I know you've got one initiative currently running that's very close to my heart and, in fact, I worked on it with you. That's the value of learning and development within a business. So tell me, where did the idea for developing this sort of training framework come from?

Brendan Perring: 10:04

Yes, indeed. So our training and development framework is called Powered by People. And we were supported(thank you so much, Jo) by Cotmandene training, who Jo works with – is the founder of – and the spark from it really came, and it's how a lot of our ideas generated, from our membership. So the IPIA is made up of a number of different subcommittees, and one of those is the training and education sub-committee. It proposed that we have a focus group roundtable meeting, which happened during COVID, to discuss with printers specifically. And we had a number of different print service providers, all the way from small niche printers, all the way up to very, very large trade print houses who do everything under the sun. And what really strongly came back from that focus group meeting was not necessarily that there was a need to source specific training for sales, or HR or negotiation, or how to operate a press or a guillotine or whatever. That's all provided for in the industry. But what they found that there was a big gap, was in once that training has taken place within a business, there is a huge wastage of time, energy and effort. Because so much of that training doesn't get implemented, or if it is implemented to start, with it falls by the wayside. They also felt that, from the focus group, that there was a big gap in terms of spotting and helping develop talent from MDs. Especially in the larger organisations, they often felt that the first time that they were meeting someone who they suddenly felt had huge potential was that their leaving meeting. And they only wish they'd known beforehand how much better that was, and how much potential that person had. So out of these conversations, we then went back to the sub-committee with the findings from that focus group meeting. And what came out of it was the desire to build a framework, Powered by People, in which a business is given all of the rail tracks that they need to ensure that the spend and the investment and the time that they're putting into training their teams really, really gives them a return on investment. So that the framework covers a huge detail and variety of different areas. That can mean the MDs, decision makers, HR professionals within those businesses, just by being an IPIA member, have free access to this system, Powered by People, so that they can get the very best out of their teams, ensure that training is being implemented, improve their overall productivity, spot talent. I mean, also, another key thing that came back from the focus group meeting was that, if a team member is struggling with the training or has potential, but is showing that they're struggling with something within the business, that confidentially they have a root to feed back to upper management about those issues and implementing that as well, so the MD can hopefully turn around a situation, and really ensure that that member of staff with a lot of potential can have their issues, or the problems that maybe they're experiencing, solved for them. They can go on for the training or development to help fix those things, and then really ensure that that member of staff is retained, and increases their productivity at the same time. So overall, I'm really excited about this scheme. It's due to be launched shortly to our whole membership, it's now gone through its testing phase, and we've had the feedback from that. So yeah, the sky's the limit, really.

Jo Lloyd: 13:36

So it sounds like you've had good feedback, on the whole, so far.

Brendan Perring: 13:39

Yes, we've been very, very heartened by the response from members so far. Just to give you one example, Spectrum Plastics, Kath Doran, who runs that business, they were experiencing this exact problem. They have a great variety of different products and services they provide, they have a reputation for always being able to say yes, even to very difficult individual print projects. And so as a result of that, their team is very highly skilled and also got very broad skill base. So training and development is a big part of her business. And she also identified that, you know, a lot of it, she felt there wasn't a system in place for her, or that they could hope to really invest in quickly, that could give her the tools as the MD to ensure that all of this training and development is going is being used effectively. So she was a pilot for the Powered by People framework. She certainly enjoyed it. We've got a huge amount of positive feedback from her, made some tweaks off the back of her feedback. So yeah, it's all ready to launch now.

Jo Lloyd: 14:45

So training framework completed and ready to launch. What's next?

Brendan Perring: 14:50

So what's really important for the IPIA, and as a major priority of ours is a realisation that we also need to grow the overall print volumes coming into print businesses in this country. And the way that we can do that is through the education and the enlightenment of potential print buyers. So that's marketeers, brand managers, procurement officers, designers, small business owners, large business owners, anyone who's involved in designing communication or marketing collateral, and ensuring that they fully understand the power and impact of using print as a channel to market. Because print, ink on paper is not the product and never has been the product, the product has always just been facilitating the communication or the message for an end user, just print is a channel through which you can do that, and it's a very effective one in many, many ways. I obviously don't need to educate our listeners about that. But we do need to educate their customers about this, because as an industry overall, there's been a few decent attempts at it, and pockets of projects where there has been push and movement to educate the end users, but nothing that's been really sustained over a long period. So what we at the IPIA are doing is we've actually built a very significant research project called Creating New Narratives Print. And we have partnered with a very sizable research company called Madano to do that. And what it really looks to understand is, what are people saying about our industry, about the media and communications landscape? What are their perceptions of print, what are their perceptions, other channels of communication and marketing.

Jo Lloyd: 17:28

That sounds fantastic. It really does. And I think you're right, there's a responsibility to grow the industry as a whole. And if we can do that, then as individuals, and as companies, we can all be more successful. So thinking in other ways of supporting the industry and talking here about something like government lobbying, how effective can an industry body be on our behalf? And have you got any notable successes that come to mind?

Brendan Perring: 18:32

So yeah, I mean, in terms of government lobbying, do you know what, I don't think lobbying is quite the right word, I would say engagement maybe is a better word. Because there's no doubt before COVID hit, and all of the disruption that it caused, there really felt that there was a bit of a wall up with being able to communicate effectively with government, and specifically a department that is responsible for our sector, which is the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. But, shortly before COVID, we did manage to engage with and meet the senior civil servants engaged in that department. And then when COVID hit, just with how fast they needed, detailed data and information on what was going on in the ground, we formed a very, very close working relationship with BEIS, and the civil servants there. And really, it's now become a case where we have weekly meetings with them. And we get fed and talk to about all sorts of different government policy that will affect manufacturing and industry, not just our sector, and ask for feedback about how this will affect print, how this legislation could be tweaked to be more effective for print, and not just print but other sectors as well. And in terms of that effectiveness, all I can say is that, for instance, whether it was the furlough schemes or CBILS loans, we were being given first hand access to how those schemes were being developed before they were launched. We were being asked for our opinion on how they would affect our sector. And just to give you one example, we worked very hard and gave them a lot of detail and understanding, they did a lot of interviews with IPIA members about adding flexibility to the furlough scheme, and making it so that you could take employees in and out of the furlough scheme, in order for them to be able to be in the business one week when their services were needed, and then be on furlough another week, when perhaps a job wasn't coming in, that they weren't needed for. And that was absolutely fundamental to the furlough scheme being really effective as a support mechanism for the print industry, and we were a big part of helping to shape that. So I feel as an association, we're very proud of the work that we did around that, that and a lot of different issues and policies that came up. We've been particularly successful recently, in partnership as well with the Graphics and Print Media Alliance and all the associations that are involved in that, with tackling a recent piece of legislation that came through in regards to a substance called GBL. This is a solvent that's contained in the majority of solvent inkjet inks that are used in, for example, wide format printing solutions. And what it meant was, this legislation, if you used or had any sort of ink cartridge on your premises, you would need a very, very onerous licence, which was thousands of pounds, huge amounts of investment in security, CCTV cameras, every single member of staff would have to have been checked, and have all their background checks done. And also, the timeframe in which that had to be delivered was minuscule, they wanted our entire industry to comply within six months. So this would have meant thousands of businesses facing a choice of breaking the law, and literally becoming criminals overnight, or to close down their business because so many of them rely on this as a revenue stream, and it would literally have been shut off for them. So we got together a group of industry representatives, we lobbied BEIS incredibly hard, they responded very quickly, we had a meeting with the Home Office. After that, we gave the Home Office all of the facts and figures from the coalface of our sector. They saw good reason, and the legislation was repealed, and is now being put back in to place with the necessary caveats and exemptions to protect our industry from undue stress and undue disruption. We were incredibly supportive of the overall means of the legislation, which is to protect people against the terrible scourge of drugs such as GBH, which is used in date rape, the legislation itself is incredibly laudable, but because it hadn't been thought through properly, it was going to severely damage our sector unnecessarily. Now that legislation can come through and have the effect of controlling this terrible substance without damaging our industry. So I think that's another example of a kind of key success.

Jo Lloyd: 22:52

Do you know, I had heard of that legislation, but I had no idea that you guys had been so involved in repealing it. So a big thank you for me, because that really is quite a big deal for printing companies. Coming towards an end now, can I ask one more question, Brendan, if you were to give one piece of advice to any printing company listening to this podcast today, what would it be?

Brendan Perring: 23:18

Oh, okay, one piece of advice. I think that would have to be e-commerce, without a doubt. There are so many print businesses that we know within our membership, within our wider network, who have a fantastic set of products and services. They also have an incredible set of niche products and services that they have demand for, from, say, a regional client base, but no one else knows about them. And the reality is that consumer behaviour has changed fundamentally and that's only accelerated over the pandemic. So many more people now do shopping online, whether it's for their groceries or their clothes, or, you know, a paddling pool for their kids out the back. It's just become so much more of the norm in terms of shopping online, and that has bled into the business world as well. They want to be able to go to their supplier, be able to design source, understand and pay for their products online. And if you aren't able to provide that as a printer it will help you so much in terms of revenue growth, building relationships with your customers, making it easy for them to procure your services. And a lot of printers have started to get onboard with that. And there's a perception, I think, that it's incredibly difficult to get into this area. But if they go and talk to any of their OEM providers, or the people that provide them with their presses, they will be able to support and help them with their journey and stepping into the world of e-commerce and online selling. And if there's just one thing that they do tomorrow, it's go and do research into how they can set themselves up properly, professionally and simply to be able to interact and have their customers buy from them online.

Jo Lloyd: 25:01

Great point, Brendan, e-commerce is very timely and essential, I think, for businesses moving forwards. You're right on point with that. Thank you again, I really appreciate you being with us today, your time and your input is really valuable, so thank you.

Brendan Perring: 25:15

Thank you so much, Jo. It's been a real pleasure. And also a big thank you to Canon for inviting me on to this podcast, and for their incredible support of the IPIA. They are a great member of ours, and they do a lot. They're also a corporate sponsor, and they do a huge amount to not only support the IPIA, but also support the wider print industry, so a big pat on the back to them.

Jo Lloyd: 25:36

And thank you too our listeners. I really hope you found value in what you've heard, and that you'll check out the other podcasts in the series. Plus, the Canon Ascent Programme has a wealth of other content, articles, tools, and top tips all designed to help support your future business development. If you're interested in finding out more, click the link on the podcast page, search Canon Ascent Programme or speak to your Canon Account Manager. See you next time!