4. How do you respond to buyers who believe using a broker will cost more, discourage direct contact with the printer and take away their control?
(Jacobs) Sometimes [brokers] can help save money, since they have a better relationship with the source, developed over many years. And, since they always have jobs in production, [brokers] have already experienced the learning curve of a new printer. [In some cases] we are able to offer better pricing than the printer’s in-house sales force. We can also be working on multiple projects for the customer at different printers, and can therefore sell each job with a lower markup because we have a higher chance of winning multiple jobs. Making sure the pricing is fair is very easy for us; we just pull up a few past quotes and see how the manufacturing and paper numbers compare to past and current jobs.