Stay in “Touch” With The Master’s Touch, LLC Printing and Mail Services

Volume Three

FROM THE DESK OF JIM COTÉ

The Master’s Touch, LLC 1405 N Ash StSpokane, WA 99201509-326-7475Sales@themasterstouch.com

The Master’s Touch Print & Mail 270 Kuulei Rd, Ste 204 Kailua, HI 96734 800-301-1347TMTHawaii@themasterstouch.com

Sincerely,

Jim Coté President

Masters@themasterstouch.com

Stay in “Touch” With The Master’s Touch, LLC Printing and Mail Services

December 2010 Issue #4

I can’t believe we did it again! In spite of this tough economy, our sales grew again this year for the 16th consecutive year. Our annual volume of mail grew by roughly 28%. We thank the Lord for His blessing and all of our customers for your continued support. The Master’s Touch, LLC now has 900 customers in 12 states.

Our staff and resources continue to grow just as the business continues to grow. This past year, we added two more customer service and two more full time mail service staff. Each of these new employees comes with many years of experience in the printing and/or mailing industry, so they have hit the ground running. Still, as they will quickly tell you, they have each had to learn the more rigorous quality standards we require – much greater than what they have been used to in their previous employment.

Yes, printing can be precise, but mailing requires an even higher degree of precision; First-Class mailing requires even more stringent scrutiny, and First-Class mailings that carry confidential information spanning multiple pages require the utmost quality and assurance that statements are properly printed and inserted so that breaches never occur. Our team understands the difference and works hard to provide our customers the peace of mind that their mail is being handled with the utmost care and security.

In addition to new employees, we have added two brand new state-of-the-art Pitney Bowes inserters. Our initial intention was to add additional capacity and to replace an older inserter with new technology that would not only run faster but would also provide a higher degree of integrity with the latest 2D barcode technology. Great idea, but I soon realized we had no backup for this new technology since all of our older inserters only read OMR barcodes. So, we recently installed a second inserter that duplicates the capabilities of the other one installed late summer.

Why is 2D technology important? Well, OMR barcodes tell the inserter as the statement is passing through, “I am page one, I am page two, and add a special insert for this mail piece”. This is good, but

who knows if my page one is being inserted with your page two and vice versa? With 2D technology, the information the inserter is reading is, “I am Jim’s page one, I am Harry’s page two, and I am to get one of three different inserts”.

The 2D can contain a statement number and a page number so that it is virtually impossible to ever mix up two different statements. Additionally, the date and time that each sheet passes through the machine can be recorded so that we can later verify if a particular statement actually got printed and inserted. This technology, along with the USPS’ OneCode Confirm service can allow every mail piece to be tracked through our mail production facility right through to entry into the USPS system and finally to the carrier who delivers the mail piece. Now that is what I call transparency and integrity!

If nothing else, we hope this provides our customers with assurance that The Master’s Touch, LLC is serious about the integrity of your mail and is committed to continuing to provide the highest quality mailings at very economical prices. I hope you also see that we are reinvesting our profits into personnel and equipment that will help us be more effective and efficient with your mail for years to come.

As many of you know, I have been working hard to get the word out on IMB. At my last PowerPoint presentation delivered at the Assessors conference in Colorado, there were still only 7 or 8 hands out of about 50 raised when I asked how many had heard of the new Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMB). So there is still a lot of educating to do! I’ll be on the road a lot again during 2011 getting the word out and helping customers understand how to save the most postage possible while getting more mail successfully delivered rather than returned as “undeliverable”.

TMT CustomersWelcome Aboard! New TMT Customers

The following organizations have recently chosen The Master’s Touch, LLC for their printing and/or mailing needs:

City of AberdeenCity of Grand Junction

Lake County Oregon Tax CollectorMountain River Credit Union

City of Oak HarborAlamosa County Treasurer

Broomfield City & County TreasurerConejos County TreasurerCostilla County TreasurerDelta County Treasurer

Gunnison County TreasurerHuerfano County Treasurer

Moffat County TreasurerOtero County TreasurerPark County Treasurer

Pitkin County TreasurerPueblo County TreasurerRoutt County Treasurer

Saguache County TreasurerSan Juan County TreasurerSedgwick County Treasurer

Welcome Aboard!

Software Solutions for Local Government

• Financial Management • Payroll/Human Resources • Customer Information Services • Land Management

Springbrook Software 111 SW Fifth Avenue, Suite 1850

Portland, OR 97204

Phone: Toll-free 1.866.256.7661 Email: sales@sprbrk.comWeb: springbrooksoftware.com

Congratulations!!! 2010 TMT STAFF AWARDS

Penny (accounting) was awarded the TMT Employee of the Year award, and Shelly (customer service manager) and James

(production manager) were our runners-up. Their 2nd-Mile attitudes and work ethics have been greatly appreciated!

Ann (production) won the TMT 2nd-Miler of the Year award and will be taking a trip to Hawai‘i!

ADDRESS FOR SUCCESS:

NCOA (National Change of Address) is an extremely valuable tool we can use to update your addresses. When someone moves and fills out a change of ad-dress form with the USPS, the two addresses are linked together in an NCOA table. That table is released to NCOA licensed vendors who have purchased permission to access that database. The Master’s Touch, LLC can provide you with the new address information by processing your mail list against the NCOA database. There are two options - 1. NCOA regular provides address updates for the previous 18 months and 2. NCOA_48 which provides address information for up to 48 months. Our default at The Master’s Touch, LLC is to always provide NCOA_48 for our customers. That way, if the move is older than the 18 months the USPS keeps track of, we can still provide you a way to track that move.

ncoa

Is your data safe?Although a SAS70 audit doesn’t guarantee safety, it does provide assurance that an independent auditing firm has reviewed the environment, data security, and procedures that are involved in protecting your data. The Master’s Touch, LLC has had that audit performed. A confidential copy of our report can be requested.

COMING SOON TO THE MASTER’S TOUCH, LLC:

SAS 70 Type II

The Master’s Touch, LLC has worked on quite a number of projects with TUI with great

success. You might consider giving them a call for a demo of their equipment.

Where in the World is

Jim Coté? December21st-January3rd–Vacation(Whoknowswhere?)

January3rd-January9th–Hawaiioffice *January10th-January12th–AMCOandMACOConferenceMinneapolis–StPaul,MN

January12thand13th–OregonStateAssociationofAssessors–Portland,OR

February16th-23rd–HawaiiTVBowling–Kapolei,HI

March1st-March3rd–MailComConference–Washington,D.C.

March24th-March26th–ColoradoCreditUnionConference–ColoradoSprings,CO

April8th-17thHawaiiCreditUnionLeague–Waikoloa,HI

April30th-May3rd–NationalPostalForum–SanDiego,CA

May3rd-May5th–SpringbrookConference–Portland,OR

*May24th-May27th–SouthDakotaCountyTreasurers–Oacoma,SD

If you would like to have Jim speak at your next confer-ence or event about the new Intelligent Mail Barcode, and/or reducing your undeliverable mail, please call Christina at 800-301-1347 to get on Jim’s schedule.

*Jim will be speaking at this event

Our company’s vision statement:“To provide complete print and mail service solutions

that minimize costs and maximize efficiencies in order to produce highly effective mailings with 100%

accuracy and unsurpassed turnaround times. We will be driven by our passion to not just meet customer

expectations, but to exceed them whenever possible.”

The staff at The Master’s Touch, LLC would like to wish the following TMT

employees a Happy Birthday:Art (mail service night manager), Dec. 15th

James (production manager), Dec. 20thChristina (marketing), Jan. 17th

Ann (production), Jan. 22nd

Happy [employment] Anniversary to the following TMT staffers:

Shelly (customer service), Dec. 1998Ann (production), Feb. 1997

Spotlight on a TMT employeeVolume Three December 2010 Issue #4

Here is a recent quote fromNEZ PERCE COUNTY TREASURER

“It is with great pleasure that I write this letter of recommendation for you and The Master’s Touch, LLC.When discussions began about outsourcing our statement mailings to The Master’s Touch, LLC, I was appre-

hensive and yet hopeful that the quality and service you spoke of would be genuine. Once we made the decision to try your service, we were pleased to discover your quality and service were beyond what I had imagined. When you say you go the “second mile” for your customers, you are not kidding.Throughout the process, your reassuring interest made the transition a pleasurable experience. In spite of the complexity of our process, you and your staff handled each of our questions and concerns in a professional manner. Your willingness to cus-tomize our form is greatly appreciated and enabled us to present our statements in a format we were unable to accomplish on our own.I would like to thank you and the entire staff for the excellent service demonstrated by The Master’s Touch, LLC. With the affordable charges, savings in postage and manual labor, it no longer made sense to continue our in-house mailings.Based on our professional association and your relationship with the Idaho Association of County Treasurers for the last 7 years, I would strongly encourage any organization looking to outsource their printing and mailing to give The Master’s Touch, LLC a call. Should anyone need more than a written recommendation, I would be happy to give a personal reference.It is rare today to find a company that makes promises and keeps them; you are one of those few.”

Sincerely, Barbara A. Fry, Ex Officio: Tax Collector, Public Administrator

Another Satisfied Customer...

SPOTLIGHT ON A TMT EMPLOYEE:

FRANK: LEAD PRESSMAN

Hi! I’m Frank.

I am the lead pressman for The Master’s Touch, LLC.

My primary duty is to run the presses in order to get your newsletters, statements, inserts and envelopes printed and ready for our mail service team to use for your mailing. I understand the need to insure your pieces are printed accurately and on time. I’ve been in the industry since graduating high school some 30 + years.

I am married and have two daughters. All have worked at The Master’s Touch, LLC at one time. In fact, Shelly (my wife) is the customer service manager here. You have likely worked with her at one time or another. She pretty much tells me what to do! I mean, she sets my production schedule for what jobs I am to put on press next. (She does a great job!)

Here are a couple ideas that will help me help you lower your printing costs.

When designing your art, keep in mind I need 5/16 inch clear area at the edge of the sheet whenever possible. This is the area where the paper is gripped as the sheet

is pulled through the press. Without this minimum 5/16” clear area, we must purchase and run a larger press sheet, resulting in a higher paper cost.

If your statement requires a perforation, try to use our standard perf positions at 3 1/2, 7, or 3 2/3 inches. This allows us to use existing materials and tooling, eliminating the cost of having to set up something new.

Proof your art thoroughly. Although I pride myself on catching mistakes, once the approved art is given to me to print, my job is to get it through my department as quickly and efficiently as possible. A mistake that has gone undetected at this point will most likely be printed.

There are other things that I could mention, but these are the principal ones. Keep in mind, we can do pretty much anything you want, but following the above steps will be less expensive.

My hobbies when not at work: I like doing triathlons and relaxing in my back yard with my Labrador Retriever Luke and my Pit Bull Quila.

Jim’s comment: “Frank is a highly valued employee who is selfless in his willingness to do whatever it takes to help a customer with a project that has an important deadline. Frank has been with The Master’s Touch, LLC for nearly 10 years and is an important reason why your print and mail jobs always go out on time.”