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9 x 12 Catalog Envelopes in Bright Colors

By admin on Jul. 9, 2008.

We now offer 9 x 12 Catalog Envelopes in a mix of bright colors:  Red, Yellow, Blue, Green and Black.  These are all made with 70# paper that has a smooth finish.  Brightly colored catalog envelopes are great for sending out calendars, catalogs, sell sheets or announcements.  Our customers have told us that a colored 9 x 12 Catalog envelope is a great envelope for mailing resumes.

Colors:

Check out these great colors and all our 6 x 9 and 9 x 12 envelopes on our website www.envelopesexpress.com

 

NEW! 4 x 6 Photo Invitation - Assortments

By admin on Jun. 13, 2008.

We are pleased to announce that Office Express now offers two new ways to get the most popular 4 x 6 photo invitation envelopes in easy to order packs.

 

4 x 6 Photo Astrobright Assorted colors Pack

 

This pack includes 5 of the most popular Astrobright Photo Invitation Envelopes. Colors included:

 

Astrobright Assorted Color Pack

 

These envelops measure 4 1/8 x 6 1/8 and sport a gummed invitation style flap (square).  These are the perfect envelope for mailing or storing your 4 x 6 Photo or Invitation.

 

 

4 x 6 Photo Popular Color Pack

 

This pack includes 5 of the most popular envelopes in our 4 x 6 Photo Invitation line.  Colors Included:

 

Popular Color Pack

These envelops measure 4 1/8 x 6 1/8 and sport a gummed invitation style flap (square).  These are the perfect envelope for mailing or storing your 4 x 6 Photo or Invitation.

 

Visit our website to see these and all our other great envelope choices and as always standard shipping is FREE to all locations in the continental United States.

 

Office Express, Inc.

www.envelopesexpress.com

How to hire a BAD employee.

By admin on May. 21, 2008.

So you have yourself a nice growing company.  You’re starting to make money, customers are even telling their friends about your company. The business is finally growing and you just realized that you can’t do everything yourself!  How are you going to keep the company growing?  You figure all you really need is a warm body to help out.  You aren’t very picky so you hire the first person you can find.  

Its the big day and your new employee starts.  Its a typically busy Monday and even though you are swamped with orders and calls you spend the morning proudly showing your employee the operation.  You didn’t really give any thought to what you wanted the new employee to do so you throw them into the work and expect them to just kind of figure it out, after all thats how you learned.  At the end of the first week you feel that you are making a bit of progress you don’t even mind that you have been working late every night fixing the new employees mistakes.  After all you get paid the same no matter how many hours you work. 

You feel that you are lucky, the new employee comes in everyday almost on time and works on whatever you give them to do that day.  Sure things could be going better for the company and you really don’t understand why you have even less time to work on the business than before. 

 

After a few weeks of this you begin to think that the new employee may not be working out and so one day you fire them.  This time, you think to yourself, maybe what you need is TWO new employees so that you can finally get something done…

 

One of the toughest jobs any small business owner faces is when to hire staff.  This changes the dynamic of the business overnight.  When the company is small you or your partners do everything.  You know all the customers, all the products and how everything works.  This is your dream and you are determined to offer your customers the best products and customer service possible.  Once you add the first outsider everything changes.  You no longer know EVERYTHING. To your shock you find out that the new person is handling some of the business. 

Most owners look to family and friends as their first employees.  If your brother or sister is smart and hard working then this might be the best move you could make.  I’ve seen many small businesses that have a trusted friend on staff.  This key staff member can be as knowledgeable and dedicated as the owner.  This combination can make a good company even better.  Keep in mind that the rules we are about to discuss should be applied to all new employees, even your old college buddy.

 

Rule #1: Make up a job description. Before you hire your first employee make sure you know what you want them to do for you.  This is the biggest mistake that most business owners make.  All they really know is that they need help.  Now I know that the whole topic of job descriptions is a running joke with most big company employees but believe me its essential for a small company to survive.  In a small company, each employee will do lots of things but the main job of each employee should be spelled out.  This way the employee knows what is expected of them.  More importantly, you know what they are going to do to help you and your company.  If you need help on the phones, then the job description should read that the employee must answer all calls, this doesn’t mean that you can’t help out when things are busy it just means that the main duty of this employee is to answer the phone and help out the caller.

 

Rule #2: Interview the employee.  You should have a good idea of the type of person you are looking to hire.  Take the time to make up a list of questions and go through the list during the interview.  If you are looking for a salesperson make sure the person you are interviewing is not too shy to answer your questions.  If you can’t get them to speak during the interview I guarantee they won’t get any better at it later.

 

Rule #3: Don’t hire the first person you see.  It is often tempting to jump at the first decent person you interview.  Your fear is that someone else will snap them up.  This may happen but taking your time to interview a few people will help you quickly zero in on the kind of person that will be a really good fit for your company.

 

Rule #4: Don’t keep people hanging.  Once you have finished the interview process and have picked a new employee (and they have started) make sure you send a note or an email to everyone that interviewed thanking them for their interest and informing them that you have filled the job.  This is basic common courtesy but it is also good business.  Each of these people will remember that you were polite and will tell their friends.  I don’t know about you but I’d rather have a bunch of people saying good things about my business than bad.

 

Rule #5: Train the new employee.  Take the time to really train your new employee.  The best way to ruin a potentially good employee is to ignore the training aspect.  Yes, you are busy but you should never be too busy to invest some of your time to bring on new people the correct way.  Any time you spend up front will be repaid in freeing up your time later.

 

Remember it is a lot easier to hire a bad employee all you have to do is nothing.  If you take the time to work through this list you will improve your chances of actually getting someone who can help you grow your business.

 

 

Postal Service Rate Hike - Monday, May 12th

By admin on May. 9, 2008.

Just in case you hadn’t heard yet the Postal Service is raising rates on Monday, May 12th 2008.  Here is a brief summary of the changes:

Priority Mail: 1 lbs Priority Mail Packages will increase from $4.60 to $4.80 for all zones.

First-Class Mail (Letter: 1 oz) increases from $0.41 to $0.42

First-Class Mail (Letter: 2 oz) increases from $0.58 to $0.59

First-Class Mail Large Envelope (2 oz) increases from $0.97 to $1.00

First-Class Mail International to Canada or Mexico (1 oz) increases from $0.69 to $0.72

New Announcement Envelopes in Baronial Ivory Color

By admin on May. 6, 2008.

We are happy to announce a new addition to our ever growing Announcement Envelope line.  We have just added Announcement envelopes in a beautiful Classic Laid Baronial Ivory paper.  

Sizes available:

Paper: 75# Classic Laid Text - Baronial Ivory

Flap: Standard Square - Gummed

The perfect envelope for your special event.  This is a thicker higher quality paper that has lines embossed into the paper to give your mailing that extra special appeal.

Announcement Envelopes - Classic Laid Baronial Ivory

 

These fine envelopes can be viewed on our Fine Paper Envelopes page at www.envelopesexpress.com

 

Paper Prices continue to Rise!

By admin on Feb. 19, 2008.

Plan your envelope and paper purchases.  Paper prices are going up again.   

By our count, paper prices have risen five times in the last three years.  Most envelope companies (including our own) have been able to buy ahead and keep envelope prices to the consumer steady but multiple increases in paper as well as the ever increasing fuel costs of delivery are forcing most envelope companies to pass along a price increase.  Expect to see envelope prices increase around 6% early this spring.   

If you have an event planned you might want to purchase your envelopes earlier and save yourself some money.

The Post Office Sucks

By admin on Feb. 18, 2008.

As you have probably figured out, if you have read my about page, I run an ecommerce site called envelopesexpress.com. We sell blank and printed envelopes throughout the United States and Canada. We ship a lot of packages each day. We ship via UPS, FedEx and through the Postal Service. We offer FREE standard shipping to any location in the lower 48 states so its important to us to find a good balance between speed of delivery and cost of shipment. We have designed our systems to automatically pick the best Free shipping option for our customer. Both UPS and the Postal Service have good systems, but I have to admit I like UPS the best. UPS will pick up the packages each day (for a modest charge) and I can track the progress of all packages as they work their way through the UPS system.

Now the Postal Service will also pick up their packages everyday, and its FREE. The Postal Service sends out a driver everyday with a truck and a symbol bar code scanner. At the end of everyday I print a Scan form from the USPS online shipping system that lists all the Priority Mail and Express Mail shipments being picked up that day. If you use this method the Postal Service actually shows on their tracking system that they have received your package (now they don’t show any other information until the package is delivered but its a start).  

Warning! Just because the Postal Service employee scans your packages at your place of business that does not mean that your package has been actually accepted by the Postal Service. We found this out the hard way. I have a good long time customer that asked to have their package sent via Express Mail. We checked and found that their destination was a one day delivery (Note: not all US cities can be delivered in one day with Express Mail) so we shipped the package. The Postal employee picked up our package at 4:30 in the afternoon and scanned all our packages for the day. For some reason the employee did not get back to the Post Office until after 6pm. The package was NOT delivered the next day and the Postal Service would not honor its service guarantee. We went to the Post Office to make our claim and was told that having the Postal Employee scan the package means NOTHING. They won’t take responsibility for the package until it reaches the Post Office. This means that if they lose the package on route to the Post Office they won’t cover it with insurance nor will they honor any service commitment until they get it in the Post Office. So be warned.  

Use the Postal Service, it can be a very cost effective option, but you might want to take your Express Mail orders directly to the Post Office.

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