Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 16:20:08 -0500 
Subject: Hotline Newsletter: Helene's Hotline Updates
To: martin@printusa.com
Content-Length: 7362
X-UIDL: 835974541.002


Hotline Newsletter #20 - June 26, 1996
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Hotline Online Newsletter Copyright 1996 Cy Stapleton. If
material is reproduced in its entirety, no prior consent is
required.
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Subject: Helene's Hotline Updates
DATE:  : June 26, 2996

After months of trial and error I have come up with a way to
respond to Hotline inquiries by email.

Please put one of the following email addresses into your email
phone book:

             hotlinecy@aol.com
             

An email inquiry will be able to be responded to in a much
faster manner - generally within hours rather than several days.

The 2nd announcement is that for those who wish to search the
database online, you will be able to do so by July 15 on
PrinterNet.

Hotline via email...

To understand why Hotline responses have not been faster in the
past you need to understand just what happens. While the number
of inquiries vary each day, there will be a minimum of about 50
inquiries up to somewhere in the neighborhood of 125 per day. I
respond to between 2,000 and 2,500 each month.

When an inquiry comes in it goes into a basket for me to work.
When I start working the inquiries I first take the inquiries
and sort them out as to either trade services/products or ad
specialties. I then launch either BFP or ADBFP, depending upon
which group of inquiries I am going to work first that day. I
take the first inquiry and search the database for prospective
vendors. When I find a couple of prospects I jot a brief note to
the reader and then print that information by doing a screen
dump of the vendor's product record. I then paper clip the
screen dump of the source(s) to the reader's inquiry and put it
in a basket to be faxed back. This takes about 1-2 minutes per
inquiry. If I cannot find a prospective vendor in the database,
I put that inquiry in another basket to work after I have done
the easy ones.

For inquiries I cannot respond to from information in the
database (somewhere between 1 and 3% of the inquiries) I will
search my library of sources, call contacts who might be able to
point me in the right direction, or any of a myriad of other
resources. As soon as I find someone who can provide the service
I add that vendor to the database and make a standard response
to the reader.

When I have worked all of the inquiries I have time to work that
day I go to the fax and start faxing the inquiries. Sometimes I
do the faxing myself and sometimes I use a high school student.
When we fax the inquiry we also include a one-page flyer
advertising the Hotline database and recently, a questionnaire
that asks for information about the caller's computer system(s).
It takes approximately 3 minutes per response or a total of in
excess of 100 hours each month in front of the fax machine and a
phone bill of about $850 for the fax line. This free service is
paid for from the revenue of the sale of the Hotline databases
and those sales come primarily from the promotional flyer that
is included with each inquiry.

Using email rather than the fax I can now eliminate that 100 or
so hours each month in front of the fax - as well as much of
that fax phone bill. It takes no longer to paste the screen into
an email response than it does to do a screen dump to my printer.

For my Hotline column in Southern Graphics and Quick Printing I
have to have copies of the inquiry and my response. All I have
to do is print a copy of selected inquiries and responses and
there is the info for my column.

BFP Online Search...

Dr. Terry Montgomery of PrinterNet has come up with a searchable
version of the Hotline database that is in the final debugging
stage. It is scheduled to come online on or before July 15.
While it is impossible to use the full featured Hotline database
engine, you will be able to search for a Vendor, Product, or
State by either of these fields or can browse the entire
database. This will give you an idea of how comprehensive the
data is. The data on BFP ONLINE will be updated weekly from the
Hotline database. Since BFP and the Hotline Ad Specialty (ADBFP)
database are identical except for the data, we do not intend to
put ADBFP online.

BFP and ADBFP are two inexpensive programs that every printer
should have on their own computer. Your personal copy of either
BFP or ADBFP is incredibly fast and when you touch the select
key you instantly have the record on screen. An online search is
somewhat slower because you are dependent upon the amount of
traffic on the Internet and the speed of your computer.

When you search BFPONLINE keep in mind that I use abbreviations
extensively throughout. As an example Business Cards are
listed as BUS. CARDS, ??? This is obvious on your personal
copy of BFP but you need to page through the products in
BFPONLINE to see how they are listed.

If you like, you can order BFP or ADBFP online and immediately
download the software.

You can reach PrinterNet and Hotline at http://printer-net.com

Remember, BFPONLINE is not scheduled to be available until July
15, 1996.

Til next time, God bless you and yours...

cy