�?FONT size=6>QUALITY IS THE MOTHER...and we don’t mess with Mom.�?We embraced this motto early on at Successories, and I was greatly influenced by my creative partner and friend Michael McKee. Our paper stock, our color separations, our frames, and even our shipping cartons were of the highest quality.
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Making quality a priority was the most important decision I made in building the Successories brand. In fact, a few years ago in a focus group, twenty customers were asked this question: “If you could write down one word to describe your opinion of Successories, what would the word be?�?
My heart swelled with pride when eighty percent of the people in the room wrote the word “Quality�? Mom was alive and well!
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I recall an incident in the late 1980’s when we were about $5 million in sales. Cash was tight and we were watching every penny. Mike brought a copy of a new print into my office. It had just come off the press. As we were congratulating one another, my assistant walked in and pointed out that we had misplaced an apostrophe in the quote at the bottom of the page. It should have come before the “S�? instead of behind the “S�?
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Michael and I sat there stunned, because to reprint it would cost approximately $5,000, which we didn’t have at the time. Although we both knew that 999 out of 1000 people wouldn’t notice the misplaced apostrophe, our commitment to quality gave us only one choice...destroy the old prints and start over.
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It was a gut-wrenching decision given our financial situation, but it was the right one. Needless to say, it let our people know that we were willing to walk the talk when it came to quality.
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In 2002, I met Michael McMillan for the first time. He, in my opinion, is one of the best graphic designers in the country. Over lunch, he shared a story of his first encounter with Successories. It happened in 1995 while he was visiting a printer in Minneapolis to discuss the possibility of their printing the coffee table book that he had designed, Rare Air, on Michael Jordan.
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During the tour, he noticed two men with white gloves carefully looking at each print on a stack. Michael said he asked his host, “What’s going on over there?�?The printer proudly said, “That’s work we do for Successories. They insist that every print be hand-inspected and checked for any flaws before we ship them...We give them the ‘white glove treatment�?�?
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Michael said he never forgot that moment, and afterwards had a much greater respect for our work.
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One of my favorite quotes by Will Foster is, �?FONT size=6>Quality is never an accident...It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, and skillful execution. It represents the wise choice of many alternatives.�?/FONT>
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