WIPUH-CCCCC in Depth

WIPUH-CCCCC in Depth

If you keep these 4 general things in mind with every interaction, you will be set up for success for the vast majority of projects. As management, our aim will also to continually ask these questions so that we can take care of our clients. This all leads back to the final letter of the acronym GIFT. T is for trustworthy. If you ask these 4 questions we will gain our clients and further strengthen our trust in  each other.
WIPUH - C

For a quick overview of the entire Prepress workflow, click here

Quick Break Down

W - What is the situation
I - Intent - Once the client receives the product, what exactly are they going to do with it? Where does it go? How does it get there?
P - Print ready files - If we don't have print ready files, coach them in getting the right files. The earlier you catch this, the better.
      Points to look out for are in this article
U - Updated Content - How do we know this the most updated content that they want to print? When we're holding people accountable, it's all about content only.
H - How and when do they need their product?

C - Check your own assumptions
C - Check what the client may be assuming
C - Check your work.
C - Check the client's work.
C - Confidence in the project/individual/team

See below for more in-depth ways to think of each letter:

W  - What's the situation?

Get into your client's shoes and feel what they feel.

This is also the time to think about the "Research" and "Listen" sections of the Standard Order Workflow article to give you a good start on handling a new order. 
Other quick fire questions to think about are:
  1.  Is the client angry/sad/happy/excited/impatient?
  2. Who are you talking to? The assistant? the Owner? the creative director? All of these things will alter the way you approach a job and interact with a client. 
  3. Are we doing a great job so the client is pleased no matter what? or Is the client angry because we flat-out failed? Were we too slow to get back to them? 


I -  Intent

The journey of our products actually BEGINS once it lands in our client's hands.
Treat your projects with this in mind! It'll answer so many questions and make you look like an absolute rock star.
For example with something as simple as a Postcard. 
  1. Will someone going to write on it?
  2. Is it going to be mailed? If it's mailed, are we mailing it? Are we mailing a lot? if so, we could print an indicia on it and use our account to pay for postage.
  3. Is it a product card? What type of audience is it for? How will it be seen i.e. on social media, handed out on the street?

The thing with Intent is that you do NOT need to be a print expert to do a good job with this. We all interact with print, so take a step back and figure out why they're printing at all. If this step is done well, it gives us an infinite opportunity for more business and will help you catch our client's mistakes, as well as our own.


P-   Press ready files

Half of the reason why print looks horrible is that people have forgotten how to DESIGN for print.

It not only slows us down, but it can hurt a client's brand. For artists, it's super disappointing when they've worked so hard on their project and the final piece does not turn out the way they hoped. 

If the file isn't print-ready, coach them and find out what is needed to improve their files. We would rather spend 15 minutes teaching someone how to get good files instead of 5 minutes fixing a file. It helps both them and us in the long term. It also gives clients a reason to be thankful for us without them spending a single dollar!


U- Update to Date Content

Updated content. NOT files. CONTENT.

How easy is it to screw up a file name? type in v4 instead of v5? How many files do we go through every day? How many updated files have you received from a single client?  A lot right?
The only way to stay engaged with what's most important is by knowing by heart what the updated content is. How sad is it when our entire team works our butts off and then the final product is incorrect because the owner's name is spelled incorrectly?

H- How and when will it get to the client?

This will help you dig down to what's actually important to a client. If a client needs something in 2 days, they don't get options. They get whatever is available. If they have 2 months and a big budget, we can happily dive into specialty papers and techniques. 

Don't forget that shipping adds an entire level of pressure to the job. 
We CANNOT recover from shipping mishaps. What happens if we forget to ship a package on Friday that needs to go to New York? There's no way we can recover from these mistakes. The job can be rendered useless if we don't hit those deadlines. Don't take shipping lightly.
Remember how important checking shipping addresses are. If you put the wrong shipping address in. It just takes 1 wrong # to completely destroy all the hard work we put in.




C - Check your assumptions.

The word "assume" at Nonstop is a bad word.
Everytime you're about to assume something or think it'll be fine. STOPPPPP. 


Our work is so custom that there's very few times where making an assumption is OK. You should be 100% certain of your decisions. If you're not 100%, check with your manager or client. We would rather have our clients be pissed at us in the BEGINNING of the job, rather than the end. Client's may be annoyed at us for being so vigilant, but guess what, thats what they pay us for. It's why we rock!

C - Check your client's assumptions.

Has the client worked with us  before? Does the client just trust that we know what we're talking about?
When the client says anything, know that they're speaking from their own collection of experiences which are typically very different than our own. Especially when it comes to print. In terms of print  knowledge even a constantly returning client can suddenly change their approach to what they have been printing with us.  It's OUR JOB to tease out the client's assumptions so we can make sure we're matching their expectations.

C - Check your work.

Pretty much same as checking one more time. But you should be constantly checking your work BEFORE you show it to a manager and before you send an email /talk to a client. Do your homework.

C - Check the client's work 

Directly links to to print ready files. Even return clients can send in a file that is not fully print ready though it may look like it at first glance.
We're all busy! We all want to rush. Our clients have the right to rush through and send us terrible things. We do NOT have the right to do the same. Our job is to watch our client's back. They are batman and we are robin (or maybe we're more like Alfred).

C - Confidence in the project/individual/team

How confident are you about the project? how confident are you in the person you're talking to? Who are you talking to? The front desk team member? The creative director? Are they brand new to the process or are they experts? This drastically affects the conversation and our approach to helping people the best way.

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