A Chat with October’s Profile, Bill Boatman, Founder and Owner of Bill Boatman and Company

CS: What is your current challenge?

BB: The postal rates. We saw a 40 percent hike in our postal costs. The good thing with our catalog is that it has an extremely long life. Within the last year we’ve had orders from catalogs that are 15 years old.

CS: How are you dealing with that challenge?

BB: We’ve started to do a lot of co-mailing. We print slim-jims and have for about ten years now, which helps cut down on some of the cost. We’re doing a costs vs. revenue analysis to determine how we can become most efficient, how many times a year to drop the catalog. We’re still undecided on how many times a year to mail.