The Real Value of Relationships

By Paul Jagielski President, Bell Binders, LLC

In business we are prone to boil down complex ideas into simple easily understood (at least superficially) buzz phrases. Innovative thinking becomes ‘thinking out of the box’; smarter, more efficient logistics becomes ‘just in time delivery’, etc. We throw these catchy lines around as if we truly understand them, when very often our understanding merely scratches the surface. I can confess to sometimes smiling and nodding while expert chatter flew well over my head.

Over that last several years we’ve all been hearing about the importance of relationships in business. The fundamental idea of a business relationship is that each party in a transaction benefits from a deeper understanding of the each others needs. This operational paradigm requires a substantial knowledge of your customers’ business and leveraging that knowledge to your mutual benefit. This process requires an investment by both parties and is generally initiated and nurtured by the seller.

Lately I have been thinking a great deal about our best relationships and what makes them so special. It will come as no news that the last few years have been difficult for most businesses and ours has been no exception. Still we have weathered the ‘Great Recession’ largely because of our terrific relationships with a handful of key accounts. I believe that we work well with those clients because we have developed a meaningful understanding of their needs while they are sensitive to ours. This allows us to have honest conversations focused on producing the best possible outcomes (not just selling them something).

Here is my checklist of what I believe to be the key qualities that we bring to our clients and that we look for in our vendors:

• Access:  Can you get them on the phone or does your call always go to voicemail? Do they return your calls or emails in a timely manner?
• Reliability: Can you really count on their product or service?
• Flexibility: Will they work with you to solve your problem or to help you find another way? Or do they sell you into what they want?
• Responsibility: When they cause a problem (or even sometimes when you cause a problem) do they own the problem and fix it quickly and fairly?
• Honesty: Do they tell the truth? Any relationship that is not based upon truth is tenuous and ultimately dangerous to your business.
• Commitment: Are they willing to send you elsewhere, even to a competitor, if that is what is best for your business?

At our company we prize these qualities. We believe that in the final analysis, providing real value to our customers is the key to mutual long term success. We also believe that developing and nurturing a real relationship is the best way to create that value.

The Next Generation

Recently I was happy to have my daughter Rachel join our staff. Rachel graduated in June of 2010 from Ohio University's Scripps School of Communication with a B.S. in Communications Studies.

As is true with all of our staff, even myself, she goes wherever she is needed, working one day in production, the next in marketing and so forth. This flexibility, being wonderfully executed by our staff, is a huge part of our recent success and an important element of our business model going forward.

Rachel’s primary project at the moment is working with our marketing team as we revamp our local marketing, review and update our internet efforts and launch a new and exciting product line. The training that she received at Ohio perfectly suits her for these tasks. I am extremely excited about the improvements that we are making and very confident that our efforts will produce the desired results.

It occurred to me the other day that Rachel and her twenty-something friends bring a uniquely modern perspective to marketing in the 21^st century. They are amongst the first generation that was born and educated entirely during the internet era. They have always had email and social networking. They are savvy in the use of the most modern tools and not intimidated by the fast changing technology.

I remind myself quite often these days to talk less and listen more; to use my experience as a manager to leverage the terrific talents of our wonderful staff by giving them what they need and getting out of their way. Now when we gather for our weekly marketing meetings I am excited by the mixture of youth and experience and especially excited about the next generation.

Paul Jagielski, President Bell Binders, LLC

How to Recycle a Vinyl Ring Binder

For the last couple of weeks I have been working on developing a line of branded green binders. (We can already produce green binders, truthfully nearly any bindery could, but I want to make more of an effort to market and publicize these binders.)

As a part of this project I have been researching green binders online and keep running into a common query: how do you recycle a three-ring vinyl binder? Contrary to what you may have read online, vinyl binders can be recycled. It just takes some knowledge and effort.

Turned edge covers

Which kind of binders should you buy?

This is a tricky question. The most recyclable option is a cloth and foam board turned edge binder. Turned edge binders are made by gluing cloth directly onto the board and then riveting the metal ring mechanism to the board. These are easily recyclable and the glues are all-natural. Unfortunately turned edge binders can be expensive (we make ours by hand!) unless ordered in bulk. Also, you will be hard pressed to find a turned edge binder in a big box store.    

Excluding turned edge, an ordinary vinyl binder is the easiest to recycle, and most green websites recommend that if you cannot buy a fully green binder you should purchase vinyl over stiffer polyethylene binders.

While it is true that polyethylene is difficult to recycle, polyethylene binders can last longer than many vinyl binders. Case in point, my dad Paul Jagielski who has worked with binders for over 22 years, always gave me polyethylene binders for school. I can tell you anecdotally that the 1˝ polyethylene binder he gave me eight years ago for American history class is still going strong.   

How to recycle a vinyl binder

First, you must break the binder down into its various components.

Carefully use a razorblade or shop knife to remove the spine of the binder from the two covers. Then remove the vinyl from the two covers by carefully making a cut along one of the sides. If the rivets on the binder’s spine are weak then you may be able to simply pull the binder apart. If that does not work, use an electric power drill to manually remove the rings. Be aware that drilling into the rivets will make the metal hot; I have given myself minor burns while handling a hot ring metal.  

Now comes the really tricky part:

Most county recycling programs will not take vinyl with their normal plastics. If that is the case I would recommend checking Google or your local phone book for binderies in your area. Binderies routinely recycle their scrap vinyl and will be more than happy to add yours to the pile.

If you do not have a bindery in your area many binderies will be willing to recycle your binders if you can ship your old binders to them. Just call ahead and ask.

The metal mechanisms are easier to dispose of and can usually be dropped off at recycling centers.

Hopefully this has answered any questions you may have while trying to recycle a binder. If not, give me a call at 1.800. 533. 2463. 

Rachel Jagielski

Weird and Wonderful Binders on the Web

 Periodically I set aside a few days to research binders online. Mostly I’m trying to figure out what our competitors are doing online but also how well our website is showing up on search engines.

Binders being what they are, a search for “custom ring binders” yields a predictable enough result.  Knowing that, I was considerably intrigued when I found a link displaying this picture:

Apparently a fellow going by the name Jeff, was attempting to sell his used Apple Powerbook on Ebay.com. According to a forum thread posted by Jeff himself, he eventually received an email from a potential buyer in the UK who wanted to buy the computer but send payment via an escrow account.

Believing the seller to be a scammer, Jeff instead shipped him the decidedly custom binder pictured above. Read the full story here: http://ohinternet.com/P-p-p-powerbook!!!.

Having read both the Ohinternet.com story and the original forum thread, I am not completely sure who was being scammed here. But one thing I do know is that that “P-p-p-powerbook” is one amazing custom ring binder. 

Rachel Jagielski

Why Bell Binders has a Blog

In my experience most businesses’ blogs take one of two forms: (1) tech/customer support or (2) product information i.e. advertisements. Neither of those formats makes much sense for a company like Bell Binders and frankly I would not want to write a blog like that.

So what are we going to do instead?

We are going to work to make this blog interesting to people beyond just those who know us and do business with us. Rather than write about how great our products are, we want to write about what it’s like to be a part of a small manufacturing company in Toledo, Ohio.

We are working on some new and exciting projects around here, one of them being this blog, and I think we will have plenty of interesting things to say. Here we can talk about our thoughts while going through a web redesign or the considerations and discussions that go into a new product line.

Beyond that, this will be a place where we can have fun. I have already written a post about a binder mocked up to look like a laptop that I got a kick out of writing, and I want to do more of that. Through this blog a reader should be able to get a sense of our company and culture beyond our products and services.

So this is going to be a different kind of business blog, one that tries to not only promote what we do, but to also be an interesting read about business.

We sincerely hope you enjoy what we are able to do here.

Rachel Jagielski