The International Gallery is the most important tool the members of the IAPHC have to enhance the awareness and prestige of an organization to which they are proud to belong.

It's becoming ever more important to separate yourself from your competition in your best clients eyes -- what better way than to be able to congratulate your client on their project winning an International Award? Winning an International Gallery of Superb Printing Award is a savvy market positioning statement in the increasingly tough competition for new customers. All around, we see signs of the tightening of the lines of longitude and latitude which grid our globe.

Every printer will need to say: "My printing competed on an International stage and won, therefore my printing will allow my customers to compete better in the global marketplace."

Winning an International Gallery of Superb Printing Award can only happen if a printing firm excels in the arts and sciences of printing a job furnished by a customer. Every existing customer is crucial to survival. Without the customer, there is no job.

An existing customer is a potential gold mine. Worth a lot more than possible prospects. It is truly wise to attempt winning an International Gallery Award on behalf of a customer. The customer feels pride. The customer feels that their printer is skilled and accomplished. They stay with the printer.

Consider the employee who is encouraged and supported by their employer to enter printed pieces they have had a hand in creating or producing in a competition known as the International Gallery of Superb Printing. Suppose the employee's entry wins. The employee is rewarded with that intangible benefit called recognition and obtains the added satisfaction of knowing that it was an International victory.

Simultaneously, the employee implicitly understand that every customer's job is important, that excellence in the arts and sciences of printing does matter, and that only through this type of continuing success will job security be maintained. Happy customers make for happy bosses. And so do happy employees.

"When Paula Steenson needed a plastic card printer in the upper Midwest I steered her towards Diamond Graphics because they entered Gallery. When Bruce Kenworthy of Calgary needed a printer of tattoos I steered him to Modernistic because of that firm's past Gallery entries. Carol Kersley of Portland needed a web printer in Western Canada, I was able to send her to Transcontinental in Calgary because of their 20 entries last year, Lauren Sisto of Seattle needed a job run that is 30" x 80" -- I referred her to Superior Lithographics in Los Angeles because of that firm's oversized entries in 1998; and to bring this tale full circle, I spoke to Len Petitti of the Rochester New York Club who needed Charles Miller's address and phone number in Kansas City because he may have some business for Charlie!"