Jeff Bertrand

Is this man electronically "stalking" you?

Dad sending out emails from his Chautauqua Lake property

Well maybe partially! LOL. It's our way of having a little fun regarding my father's brilliant email marketing campaign. He works 5-7 days a week sending out personalized emails to business contacts in various industries. He absolutely loves it and is amazingly good at it. He has been experimenting with direct mail since the late 1960s when he sent out direct mail for FE Mason. When the internet came along in the late 90's, he saw the enormous potential immediately.

All his kids and grandkids are always kidding him about being our family "spammer". But in truth, all his notes are personalized and respectful. He uses no bulk mail services. It's old fashion hard work. He rarely gets a negative response, but when it occurs, he writes a nice note back. This is quite different from what you might get from somebody sending "junk" mail.

What's really funny is how many people are actually getting his emails. He sends out over 20,000 a year. I was stopped by a person in my neighborhood in a totally unrelated industry who told me that he got an email from my father. I laughed so hard. My father's goal is to let the world know that we make booklet labels. He has told me many times that he has never had so much fun.

I love the Adirondack mountains

When I get a chance to get away, the Adirondack mountains are one of my all time favorite places to go. I particularly enjoy the High Peaks area near Lake Placid. Here is a picture of me on the summit of the Cascade Mountain range after a three hour hike. It's 4095 feet above sea level which is 900 feet less than the famous Whiteface Mountain.

The hike was rigorous on a well cut path strewn with big boulders, water and mud. The trail was 2.3 miles in length, but felt like 10 miles. I was amazed at the feeling of "ecstacy" that we all felt when we ocassionally came upon a flat area.

I thought the decent was going to be much easier, but it was more difficult because it was so easy to lose your footing. I fell a number of times. Nobody was laughing because they were falling too. After completing this trail, I felt such a feeling of accomplishment only to find out that it was one of the "easiest" hikes on the 46 peaks. We all laughed about that fact. We thought it was very hard and that's the story we're sticking to. The most surprising thing was the comradry that I felt on that trail among all strangers I past.

VP of Sales working on coupon foldout label

Every person who works at JH Bertrand has production training. Here you see our VP of Sales, Aristotle, working on inspecting a coupon label job. We emphasize cross training because it makes us all more knowledgable and in a pinch, it helps maintain our record of on time deliveries. Aristotle is scheduled to visit this customer out west in a few weeks. When he does, it's cool that he can say "hey-I actually worked on your job". It also creates a little more appreciation and understanding between our production crews and sales-office staff.   

Going over Niagara Falls...

From left to right- Ashley, Jack, Julia and Dad.

Sometimes you've got to take a break from making foldout labels for another passion. My kids and I are seen here going over the falls in a barrel. (not really!!) Niagara Falls is 29 miles from JH Bertrand and a breathtaking place to visit. There are so many things to do both on the American and Canadian sides. In keeping with the falls theme, we picked a 3D-4D Imax like movie giving you the feeling that you were going over the falls. My kids lasted three minutes in that movie theater because it had a 3D giant spider, spray coming from the ceiling, loud sounds and moving seats. $30 spent in 3 minutes. Oh well, I tried. It provided some good laughs later on. The funny thing is that the kids recovered enough after to still bug me to visit a souvenir shop.

When you come to visit, save a little time so we can take you to see both the Canadian and American falls. http://www.niagarafallslive.com/

Wow- what a game- Sabres fever

Jack (my son) and I went to the best Buffalo Sabres game we had ever seen. The Tampa Bay Lightning had us down by 4-1 going into the third period. Within a short period of time, the Sabres came back to tie. I was praying for the best game ever for Jack's sake and I got it. The Sabres scored 3 more goals to win 7-4. What a come back!! I had never seen such an incredible come back. The cheering was amazing. Both of us practically lost our voices from cheering so much. It was one of the best father and son things I have done with Jack.

Jennifer and Beth working hard on booklet label production

   

What we would do without Jennifer and Beth moving the projects along? They are responsible for the lion share of the development and implementation of booklet label orders. They're very detailed and organized-but love to have fun and are quick witted. You can see their personalities (with humor) in some of their favorite quotes:

Jennifer (on right)- "Don't believe everything you think." Biggest pet peeve: Native Files with no PDF.

Beth- "We are the people our parents warned us about.”  Biggest pet peeves: 4 color process artwork in Word and the customer saying "what do you mean you can't print it, it prints fine on my laser".

Keeping our place clean

                                               

This is one of our manufacturing suites. We just laid down a new high shine 3 part epoxy floor that looks like glass. We've had several people stop in their tracks thinking that they were walking into a "wet" area. Keeping our place clean and organized makes our work much easier...and impresses anyone visiting us.

Seize the day

In the movie Dead Poet's Society, John Keating took his class to look at very old alumni pictures. He had them bend down and listen to "the message" that the boys in the pictures were saying. He whispered the Latin words "carpe diem" and repeated it in English-"seize the day". His students freaked out, but some understood Keating's point. He wanted them to understand how quickly life goes and that they needed to take advantage of each day. It was a powerful message that I never forgot.

When I look at the picture of FE MASON's press room (our family's first label business), I hear the same words in my mind. This picture was taken 87 years ago. At that time, FE Mason was the leading manufacturer of foil embossed labels in the United States with state of the art presses. The faces look so much like those in our company today.

I have always been aware of how fast time goes. When I compare this picture with our current press room, I am awe struck by how far we have come in the label business. It gives me a sense of what has been accomplished in our famly with all the terrific business people. But, most importantly, I get this positive feeling of anticipation for what the future brings...if I seize the day.

Merry Christmas from the Bertrands

Merry Christmas to all the great employees, customers and suppliers we have at JH Bertrand. We had a fabulous year with just under 10% growth.

We want you to know how thankful we are to have such wonderful people that support us; We only work with the best! We wish you and your families a Happy New Year. I have a feeling that 2007 is going to be another exciting year.

This picture was taken a few weeks back while picking out Christmas trees. We tried hard to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time and smile, but it was impossible. Here's our best effort! Julie and Ashley are 4 1/2 years old. Jack is 8. Melissa and I celebrated our 15th year anniversary in December. Where has the time gone? We had a great Christmas. Jack received a Nintendo DS which after opening the present he yelled "yes" a number of times and ran around the room with his hands in the air. Julia got a Barbie bus with a hot tub and Ashley got an Easy Bake Oven. The girls also received a karaoke machine with two mikes and a copy of High School Musical. It was very cute watching them perform.

JH Bertrand takes on the commodity label players in ag chem

We grew up in ag chem. It's in our blood. One of our first applications was a bottle necker for FMC corporation that we produced in 1981. It was for Furadan granular which was taken off the market in 1998. Back then, the industry was full of great opportunities as every ag chem company needed a copy expansion solution. There was little competition. The very largest players wanted the best looking copy expansion labels and were willing to pay for them. The booklet label was in its early days.

Fast forward to 2006-What a vastly different story. The competition for booklet label business in the ag sector is fierce and at times, almost ridiculous. There is one company in particular that sells its products so low that nobody can figure out how they make money. The truth is that it is widely believed that the company won't survive for long using a "cut rate" philosophy. When a company cuts its prices by 10%, it almost has to double volume to compensate. That's a losing strategy. This is the typical story when a market becomes commoditized.

If you want to play in them, then you have to adapt in responsible ways. And, adapt we have done. The competition has made us better and stronger. Ag chem is still a major portion of our business.

We have reviewed our operation and made ourselves more efficient which has resulted in new pricing that hasn't reduced our margins. We made our already exceptional customer service better by finding news ways to satisfy our ag customers. For those who are using commodity players, we are offering a special offer for switching to JH Bertrand. We'll pay for die, plate and artwork costs for switching provided the business volumes are significant enough. Once the artwork is with JH Bertrand, on the next run, we will resume our normal plate, die and artwork charges. The customers that understand and appreciate JH Bertrand know that we have to charge a fair price to maintain our exceptional service, quality, delivery and flexibility.

I feel very good about the work that we have done at JH Bertrand. We will never be as low priced (on purpose-we aren't interested in going out of business) as some of the commodity players our there, but we make it up in being an exceptionally dependable supplier. When you give us an order, you can bank on the delivery. Our quality is first rate. We are meticulous and will give your project the attention and time it needs. We have no debt and run a very conservative operation.

With a slightly more competitive price (from efficiency gains) and some service improvements, JH Bertrand is making very good headway in the commodity ag chem market.

Jeff