Esther Butterfield
Sales director
Blink http://www.blink-print.co.ukWhat’s having the greatest impact on your business at the moment?
Blink has recently employed two new staff members to help with growth/sales. They have very diverse backgrounds and skills in print and POS because we feel our clients want to not only be talking to someone that knows how things are done but can actually do them.
Where do you see the greatest wide-format opportunities?
For Blink, within POS. We are especially competitive where retailers require full in-store kits with anything from our small format offering to super large window banners, in-store wall backdrops and Blink designed permanent and semi-permanent display units.
What would make your day-to-day operations easier?
We look to technology to help our operations run more efficiently and are currently looking to integrate our MIS deeper into production, enabling our account managers and our clients to see at a glance thorough a Web portal where their projects are at any given time.
Your favourite bit of kit is..?
I love our Zund cutting and routing table. It has opened up the range of materials we can work with the types of products we design in-house.
What’s the best bit of business advice you’ve been given?
Never say no. Even with the large range of skills, services and experience at Blink, we still come across requests we haven’t yet handled. These are the requests that push the team to keep learning, keeps the buzz alive, and keeps the business moving forward.
What are you most proud of achieving?
From a marketing perspective I am very proud of our recent rebrand and image. Our new image more accurately reflects Blink as a business - fresh and diverse. I am also very proud of the way Blink has changed over recent years, evolving with the marketplace, technology and clients to become something very different than in previous years.
What lesson does the wide-format sector need to learn?
That professionalism is always key. There are a lot of back street ‘hobbiest’ printers out there, always looking to undercut you. Offering an eye for detail and quality - which comes from our conventional litho mindset - along with quality service levels, helps when dealing with clients with higher expectations.