When it comes to those essential once-a-year business decisions that pop up without fail every twelve months, there are of course more important examples than that of next year’s corporate calendar. However, the very nature of business calendars is such that it can be highly inadvisable to take chances on a lackluster printing partner for the sake of the brand’s overall reputation.

When a business hands out its annual calendar and the product itself is something of an eyesore, it generally faces two equally undesirable futures. The most probable is of course that it will go straight in the trash, but if it doesn’t, it’ll probably find itself being lamented and ridiculed on the wall it hangs for the full year, or until those around get sick to the back teeth of seeing it.

Suffice to say, in both instances this does not do your brand any good – precisely why the choice of printing partners matters…a lot.

But with so many calendar companies out there all competing for the same contracts, how can you know that the choice you make it the right one?

1 – Dedicated Specialists

First of all, there are calendar companies, there are business calendar suppliers and then there are dedicated corporate calendar specialists. The difference being that this third example will go far beyond the other two, which may for the most part offer corporate calendars as a secondary sideline. The fact that quality matters means that there’s really no room for cutting corners when it comes to the supplier’s focus and area of specialism. So unless it’s clear that they are in fact a dedicated corporate calendar specialist, you’re already running a risk.

2 – The Widest Range

There’s one enormous problem that comes with ordering a calendar from a company that has a very limited range to choose from – chances are there will be dozens of other brands choosing the exact same design. This totally defeats the purpose of trying to come up with a unique, memorable and effective business calendar as chances are it’ll be interpreted as nothing more than another generic knock-off. So while there are matters more important to address than range alone, a clearly limited range is to be avoided at all costs.

3 – Unique Imagery

Each year, millions of business calendars are printed with the same set of stock photographs as those of last year…and the year before…and so on. When a client, a peer or any recipient of any kind takes home a new calendar with the same bog-standard images they’ve seen a thousand times before, chances are they’ll never bother giving it a second look. By contrast, put together a calendar with 100% unique imagery and memorability comes as standard – something else to consider when seeking a provider.

4 – Total Control

In some instances, a corporate calendar designer will request an outline of the calendars to be printed after which the whole order is run off and hundreds of the things are printed. For obvious reasons this isn’t the best way of doing things, which is why it’s good to side with a printing partner that puts the business in total control. You should be able to see how things are going every step of the way and not have to agree to anything before seeing a full and accurate sample.

5 – Client Feedback

Unless a calendar printing firm has literally only just emerged, it really should have accrued a decent archive of feedback from satisfied clients…assuming of course there are any to speak of. Feedback really does matter as it’s the only way of gaining a realistic and accurate insight into how the business performs when put to the test for real. And when there’s none to be found, you have to question whether it may have been hidden from view for a reason.

6 – Guaranteed Results

Last up, it’s really just a standard way of doing business to back every sale and every step of the process with a range of reassuring guarantees. This should cover everything from the quality of the images to the originality of the photographs to turnaround times to customer service and pretty much all other essentials across the board. In short, if there’s another that’s not covered by a guarantee, you’re taking an inherent risk by placing an order in the first place. And if the policy on guarantees isn’t abundantly clear, it’s crucial to ask for clarification before going ahead.