Leadership Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Marketing, content, & technology to help printers sell more printing

Fear. Uncertainty. Stress. Those are the words being volleyed back and forth to describe the feelings of everyone from high school seniors missing out on their last weeks of school to small business owners being forced to lay off employees because of mandated social distancing. How do you lead well in times like these? How do you find that elusive balance between loving your neighbor, genuinely trying to help, and doing what needs to be done to fight for your own survival? Those are some seriously tough questions. But, even though it may feel that the waves are continuing to rise and overwhelm you, take heart. The uncharted waters ahead can still be parted to lead you on a direct path to a more prosperous future and a newfound hope. The following considerations will help you get there. 5 Considerations for Calming the Coronavirus Storm 1. Make Connection Your New Currency Now, more than ever, people are feeling isolated and are craving connection. This means that now is not the time to push pause on communication with your print buyers. Rather, this is the time to press in to what you do best: connecting through print! Focus on building relationships

Whether you need inspiration, education, growth opportunities, or escape, podcasts are an excellent way to meet that need on your own time. I love listening to business podcasts on my alone-time drive time, and there’s no shortage of great podcasts out there. Here are a few of my favorites: Social Media Marketing Podcast Why I like it: Michael Stelzner always has top-notch guests that openly share their social media marketing knowledge. While the topics are specific to social media, there’s always lots of good knowledge that can be applied to other marketing channels as well. Podcast info… How I Built This Why I like it: Every entrepreneur has struggled with growing pains. This podcast features the stories of some of the world’s best-known companies, complete with all the struggles that come with the journey to becoming a “best-known company.” The stories are inspirational and encouraging. Consider this quote from one of the more recent podcasts, featuring innovative vacuum cleaner inventor James Dyson: When you feel like giving up is precisely the point everybody else gives up. So it’s at that point you must put in extra effort. If you do that, then success is literally just around the corner.

print owner, success, traits, Marketing Ideas For Printers, Leadership

The print industry has some of the hardest working and committed individuals on the planet. So much so, that I am continually inspired to be a part of it as the Marketing Director at Marketing Ideas For Printers. But as with any industry, I’ve also witnessed the flipside of that coin with printers who are stuck in their ways, who seem content to let the world pass them by, and would rather wait things out until retirement or they’re bought out. As time wages on and I continue to work with printers more directly, I’ve come to recognize that printers who are most successful share some common traits. Here are five of those traits that are pretty consistent: 1. An Undaunted Passion Across the board, the number one thing that stands out to me among these successful printers is passion. Apathy and complacency? These words aren’t even in their vocabulary. These are the guys and gals that wake up and hit the floor running. They don’t stand for good enough, and they’re in constant pursuit of refining, of growth, and of being better today than they were yesterday. This passion seems to keep all discouragement at bay, and it ignites

Do you know how hard it is to sell “happy”? As the owner of “The Happy Printers,” selling “happy” is one of the hardest things I have EVER done. I have climbed mountains, lived with nomadic tribesmen, lost a parent when I was young, and I’ve been married for 32 years. But, believe me when I tell you that trying to sell “Happy” is a bear. It’s so much more difficult than any of those other things (just don’t tell my wife, OK?) Generally, I’m a pretty happy guy. But for my employees, it can be a totally different story. Employees are human, which means they don’t always come to work with the right attitude. People can sometimes bring their “baggage” to work. Here are four and a half things that have worked for me to minimize those baggage claim tickets and retain our “Happy.” 1) Engage with as many employees as possible on a daily basis. Your time is important. But their interaction with you is more important. You’re the big boss, which mean they will naturally gravitate to you. Be sure to always have a kind word available for those around you. Your company may be your life, but to your

One of my favorite times of each week is when coworkers share their weekly Highs and Lows with me. It’s a pretty simple ritual: I send out an email to all of the Marketing Ideas For Printers coworkers on Friday morning sharing one of the high points of the week, and a low point. I then ask the coworkers to do the same and share their highs and lows with me. The topics could be anything! The topics are often work-related, but they don’t have to be. In fact, it’s often the personal stuff that provides the greatest insight into each team member’s “mental energy” for the week. Send Publicly, Receive Privately My highs and lows go out publicly for everyone on the team to see, but the replies from my team come back privately to me. This, of course, helps encourage more open and honest feedback from the team. I also make a habit of including at least one additional “High” … I want to make sure that “High” always wins in the battle of High and Low! Don’t Forget to Add This There’s one more important step to do to make the most out of this weekly ritual. When I

At the last printing conference I attended, I heard over and over again the printing industry referred to as a mature industry. It wasn’t always said in words as clear as that, but if you listened close enough, that’s what you heard. That can be pretty scary. It sounds so dead-end, and frankly, discouraging. On the other hand, if you switch your thoughts for a moment and think about sporting events, when the camera is panning the crowd, who gets the attention and ends up on the big screen? It’s the guys with no shirts in the freezing cold weather. It’s the fans with the crazy clothes that your Mom would never let you wear in public. It’s the kid dancing as if there was no one one watching. Who’s getting the attention? Not people you would think of as mature. No, it’s the fans that are acting immature! So, if printing is considered a mature industry, how should you act? Should you accept things as they’ve always been and stay where things are comfortable? Or, should you show up to work and start a new dance craze like the kid on the big screen? No, let’s not go there…please!

How do you know if you’re a leader? Turn around and take a look. Is anyone following you? If so, then you’re a leader! Mark Twain’s quote puts it even more cleverly: He who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk. It’s so easy to let the term “leadership” become synonymous with owning a business or running a meeting. Sure, it can be both of those things, but that’s also so limiting. You are leading in ways you may have never even realized! You don’t have to look very far to see the sphere of your leadership influence. Are you leading your team at work with excellence? Good! How about your kids, are you leading them with high standards? Better yet! How about that near-miss when you ran the red light with your fist raised in the air, what kind of leadership example was that? It’s worth repeating: you may be leading in more ways than you realize! Please be encouraged, both on and off the job, to make sure that all of your leadership examples are positive ones! Remember, others are following you even when you think no one is paying attention! When were you a leader

The members of our development team are some of our most highly sought-after resources, so we closely guard the time available to them. While we don’t make our development schedule publicly available, we thought you might find the process we use to determine their projects kind of interesting. Here’s how we decide what our development team works on. We started a new system this year that has worked well for us, called the Weekly Sprint. It goes like this: Weekly Sprint Each week we use the Weekly Sprint to provide a process which will allow us to rapidly develop projects and concepts in a manner that keeps the team fully informed and unified. The development team’s focus each week is divided into two priorities: Items that are Important and Urgent (Quadrant 1) Items that are Important, but Not Urgent (Quadrant 2) Our desire is to focus on Quadrant 2 items, but Quadrant 1 items will always take priority. Each Weekly Sprint has three components: The Warmup, the Sprint, and The Cooldown. The Warmup The team leader will bring 10 projects to each Weekly Sprint meeting. The strong bias for the projects selected will favor our customers, the print buyers. A

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