I just finished reading “Hot, Flat, and Crowded – Why we need a Green Revolution – And How it Can Renew America” by Thomas L. Friedman. I had read “The World is Flat” when it came out back in 2005 and had waited anxiously for the release of the new book earlier this winter. I am not selling books here, and there is probably no-one on the planet that I disagree politically with more than Friedman. But I will give him this …he is one of the great thinkers of our time.
He holds out that while a “green revolution” is needed, most commercial concerns are throwing a “green party”. Not really doing anything but taking credit for helping to clean up the planet. With that admonition we at Bluff are doing something that is a major deviation from business as usual and we ask you our dealers and customers to join with us.
Having been a dealer for many years prior to joining the Bluff team, I had a literature room with shelves full of slick glossy literature furnished by the companies whose products I sold. A stack of 50 each of 10 different models might represent 2,500 pages of printing. Multiply that by 15 to 25 product lines and at any given time my stock of printing might reach 50,000 to 75,000 pages. At a moments notice a model change or a change in address or any number of reasons might be cause to trash a model or a whole line. Filling a dumpster or at least a 32 gallon Brute. This is waste and there is a cost to waste well beyond the obvious.
I am not politically an environmentalist, but was taught from an early age to respect my surroundings and take good care of my tools. It does not matter if you and I can agree on the cause of problems, but we must recognize when a problem exists and do the right thing. We at Bluff have put our heads together and decided to do what we can to offer the best customer service yet not be wasteful.
Bluff will print a four page “full line” catalog with photos of the different product families that we manufacture and sell. That general document will be the only printing we will do in 2009. It will be distributed freely to our dealer family and on request from our industrial partners. The individual product models will each have a professionally designed single sheet with photos and application benefits on the front and drawing and specifications on the back. Each has been designed to be visually pleasing but not use up a cartridge of ink each time one is printed. These will be available in our Literature Room as PDF files. Click to view or right-click and “save target as” gets the right piece of literature in your hands in an instant. Our price list will be a PDF file and be available to our dealers upon request.
It will cut costs and those savings will allow us to build more and better products and keep our costs low. What a great side benefit of doing the right thing. We currently have a good supply of all Bluff printed literature and will continue to fill requests with those until supplies are exhausted. Waste not – want not.
Together the American people will solve our own problems – then the government will follow us.
Find out more about the books….Thomas L. Friedman http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/
