Elephant in the Room: Revealing Chat with Industry Experts

Let’s do this. I’m I’m going to quickly introduce myself and then I’d like each you guys to run through. But I am Brad Kougler, the co-founder and CEO of

Direct Mail 2.0, which recently acquired Who’s Mailing What, which had been

around for, I think, 40 plus years. And we’re just on the cusp of launching our

AI direct mail modeling platform, which is open for beta, dm2.ai.

Um, I love technology. I love talking business and uh nothing more exciting

than get a couple of divergent and varied viewpoints of this industry together to kind of give their shed

light on on what they see and and we’re going to use you guys as an audience to tell us what you see too. So I’m going

to turn it over to Mike who’s at the bottom of my screen here and that’s why he’s called first and no other reason.

Mike, introduce yourself, please. Great. Thanks Brad for having me. Uh Mike Philly with the Philly Group. Um so

I spent all my career in the printing industry the last since 2007. I offer consulting services to owners and CEOs

and senior teams are trying to get their company to play to their potential.

Work with companies all over the country, write blogs, do these um have a

have a great time in this business. uh have a lot of lot of passion for this and a lot of upside still in everything

that we do. So happy to be here. Thank you. Erica, you’re next up.

Hi everyone. Erica Stoker from Case paper Company. I have been so I started my

career in sales right out of college. Uh Indiana University. Go Hoosers. Uh any Hooser alums out there? Any Hooser fans?

Um but started at KS right out of college. 12 years in sales um developing

business in the Midwest region um as I said in in in around the Chicago area in

states and spent the last three trending to four years in business development. So really overseeing our business growth

um from coast to coast. Case Paper is a privately held distributor converter of

paper and paper board grades that support the print and packaging um applications um in business and we’ve

been in in business 80 plus years um at this point. So coast to coast um we

service most customers nationally. Thank you Erica. All right Mark tell us

about what you do. Hey guys. So um my name is Mark Johnson. I am the senior global segment manager

for commercial print and direct mail. That’s just a big long title that says I’m the DM guy in HP’s industrial print

division. So, you may know us because of our Indigo presses or our pagewide inkjet presses. Um, we’re probably

pretty well known in the in the DM space. We are in eight of the top 10 direct mail printers according to

revenue in North America and around the world. You know, direct mail is not quite as strong as it is in the US.

We’re still the leaders in the world. we still have a very active and and vibrant direct mail business. Um, so that’s what

I do. I care very deeply about direct mail and want to do anything I can to help you guys make it the most

productive and ROI driven medium advertising medium possible.

Thank you, Mark. And last but not least, Jim, tell us about what you do. Good afternoon. I’m Jim Russell with New

Direction Partners. We are an investment banking firm that specializes in the

printing and packaging industry. Those are the only industries we work in. So, we help uh business owners when they’re

ready to sell or exit or move on to their next phase of life. We help them find uh the right buyer, put together

the deal, and um hopefully find a buyer that’s the right cultural fit for their

business. So, um, like Mike, we work across the country, uh, in any segment

of the printing and packaging industry. Excellent. Thank you, Jim. Uh, I I

painstakingly curated this group for a reason. So, this this is talking about the elephant in the room as it was

titled, and we’re going to have a very frank and open discussion about changes in the industry. So if you if you can

see the from what these each of these panelists do, you know, one is a a

hardware manufacturer that is very well known. The brand speaks for itself. Uh a

supply chain of case paper, Mike Philly who consults printers and ownership and

and anybody and then Jim of course who’s works on M&A investment banking in this industry. If anybody’s got a view of the

state of the industry, these five viewpoints are absolutely poised to probably give the most accurate cons at

least a a a formation of data that if you pull all of their viewpoints together, you’ll probably get the best

possible view of it short of Winterberry State of the Industry or some of the other ones we’ve read. But these are the

live people. And what I like to do here is no one’s really selling anything. Everybody’s come here just for the fact

that they want to participate in this discussion and I just don’t want their participation. I’d like the audience to

participate. Um, I have a couple of questions that I’m going to put up in a second, but what I’d like to know and

and Jim had brought this up is what is the demographics of the audience? If you

want to throw up in the chat and I’ll read them off. Are you a commercial printer? Do you focus in direct mail,

wide format? Are you not are you part of the supply chain? Are are you a manufacturer of some sort? What is your

relation to this industry? So, if you can just run some of these off, I’m already seeing an MSP, um, direct mail,

direct mail service provider. It’d be good to know who we’re talking to. It helps us couch our responses. So far,

we’re 10 for 10 printers and PSPs and MSPs, a digital marketing agency, a

former owner, DM service writer, uh a BTOC marketing agency. So,

this is what print broker, a software vendor, print marketing,

uh direct mail designer, in-house printer, marketing consultant.

So, USPS even good. Uh, print and direct mail. This is great. All right. So, is

anybody sort of on the fringe of this or not even anything to do with this industry? I don’t want to bore you, but

we would like to make something relevant to what what’s going on out there. But that’s fine either way. It it just helps

us know who we’re talking to. 35 years in direct mail and print marketing. It’s

great. Great. Great. Great. AI print manager, former CMO of an e-commerce

firm. Fantastic. Fantastic. That’s excellent, guys. So, the first thing I

want to do is because we want everybody has a feeling about 2026. In my

conversations, I talk to a lot of people and and and I like to put my ear to the rail like anyone else does. So, the fir

the only way to get a feeling about something is you sort of have something to compare it to. So, I’m going to and I

would appreciate if people are honest on this. It’s absolutely anonymous and I’m not asking for any numbers. Um, I’m

launching a survey right now that asks you how was your 2025 compared to 24.

You have to pick one. Were you up nicely? Were you up a little? Flat. Flat means up 1%, down 1%. Anything that’s

within 1%, don’t worry. That’s considered flat. slightly down or

definitely down. Um, I want to see

if my predictions are correct. So, they’re coming in now.

Uh, I don’t know. Is there a way to share this when we I want to let it run for a minute while we’re letting this

run because I I really would like to get almost everybody to respond to this. Uh

my company was up 1.5%. Topline revenue. Uh

our our EBITA was actually up a little more than that thankfully, but um

that was pretty small growth compared to what we’ve had in previous years. So obviously as as a founder and an owner,

you know, and we we we worked we turned over every rock for that 1.5% growth.

I’m telling you, we gave disc. We did it all. I I don’t know what else we could

have done that we didn’t do. And um I I am transparent and honest, but up is up.

So, I’m happy that we are up. Uh any of you care to answer on those? I mean, you

guys have different business models, so I I don’t know that it correlates, especially Mike and and Jim. You know,

theirs isn’t really based on somebody coming and making an order. It happens when it happens, you know. But, uh, go

ahead. Uh, who would like to comment first? We’ll we’ll start with Jim. Out there. I was going to say I I from a

hardware perspective, we’re we’re I think a little little different than than folks actually producing mail. When we looked across our user base, I can

track things like supplies usage and clicks and pages and stuff like that. And from our vantage point, the folks

specifically in commercial and direct mail, our customers were up about five

to six% as a overarching rule of thumb. So is that revenue or number of pieces

since you guys? Number of things. Yeah. Number of things, pages or clicks. So the quantities were up and that’s

consistent with how it’s always been for our customer, our user base over the last, you know, when I track it for about 10 years. That’s about what our

customers do is they always tend to beat the market by by some kind of a factor two to four. I was just looking at

Winterberry’s numbers and they just came out a couple weeks ago and Winterberry

said, if my computer will cooperate with me, you know, there we had a little bit

of a decline. There was a flat with postal volumes uh from 63 to 61 billion

pieces. So, a little down. But if you pull that out and look at what’s transaction versus what’s publication

versus what’s direct mail, which they don’t do, and I’ve got some friends at Mindfire that do do that kind of

research, we’re seeing that the selling the marketing direct mail is actually up a scoch

at large. That’s what we saw. Erica from from the supply chain side.

Yeah, I I like um Mark’s vantage point too because they can dial into some unique data which which makes it

interest rate which makes it interesting. Um but at KS we made some deliberate decisions this year to

strengthen our business for the long term. So we had some consolidation. So that does impact our our numbers

slightly but revenue for us sales revenue at least was down probably about 6% I would say. And then when I, you

know, paralleled that to volume and what that equates to, it was about 9% for us.

So we were slightly down um this past year in 2025.

I think what I’m seeing kind of correlates with that. If you look at at the the mass mailings, the I hate using

the term junk mail, so forgive me for that, but the the mass non-personalized stuff that’s traditionally done with

with offset printing, that stuff we’re seeing go down dramatically. And what we’re seeing is the digital stuff, the

higher value stuff going up, not quite enough to compensate. So that that that correlates with your volume decline.

Yeah. Right. I think there was there was a printing united Alliance survey that came out on 2025 and it

basically said in round numbers twothirds of the printers saw sales decline, onethird saw a sales increase

and overall it was about a 0.7% increase in 2025. So not a not a stellar

year for most printers. No. And Mike, you as a consultant, what how do you what have you seen? You read

the tea leaves probably as close as any. So, so the way I look at it is I I I look back at the companies that over the

last two or three years were growing considerably. They were on a pretty high high rate of trajectory of of growth and

you know if two or three years ago they had grown 10 12 13%

those guys this past year maybe they grew five maybe four maybe six. Um, but

then the other thing that I see though is that at least with the people that I, you know, hang around with, uh, the

bottom line is lagging to that. Um, right. So even though they grew, the

bottom line is isn’t where they wanted to be. Um, and a lot of it is digesting the heavy growth that they did in the

past. It could have been through an acquisition that maybe Jim helped them with, uh, or maybe maybe another one,

right? But when I when I look at if you strip out the acquisitions, uh the growth in there, four, five, six% for

the at least for the more progressive companies that I see, the other guys are probably holding steady kind of it’s

kind of a wash, you know. Um and um I can only tell you from from my

perspective, my business up about 11% last year. I track that pretty

religiously as well. Good. That that’s great information. I don’t know. Can you guys see the survey

or don’t you see it? You don’t see it. Okay. Um I don’t want to push end

because then maybe it goes away. But so I’ll run through it. I’ll push end and we’ll see what options it gives me. But

uh we had about 57 58% of the people on

fill it out. It looks like um the largest category was flat, you know, up

or down plus or minus 1%. That was it looks like that turns out to be about

30% of the respondents. Okay. Um the next largest category is slightly up

which I put that at about 20% not even yeah maybe 22% actually up 1 to 9%.

The next biggest category would be up nicely 10% plus. Uh that was 13

respondents out of 79. So that percentage I guess I put it roughly in

the high teens or so. And then the slightly down uh was was fourth and the

definitely down was the fifth place. So I’m going to end the poll and see what see if it shares share results. Okay,

here we go. So we’ll share it and then people can see for a minute what

everybody said. It’s pretty balanced. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s a typical bell curve that you’d expect. I was expecting

a bit worse. Now, not everybody participated. Um my guess is either wasn’t relevant or

there may be some shame. I don’t know, you know. So, um we’ll see. We’ll see.

Interesting correlary. We I I mentioned the winterberry numbers for postal volumes were were down a little bit. It looks like their overall revenue for

direct mail, they reported down 3.1%. which as as you know you especially you

know that that revenue number could be very much impacted. It’s a marketing spend so that very much could be you

know it could be that there volumes have gone up whether

the re the marketing spend for direct mail doesn’t always correlate to volumes. Yeah. Yeah. I I totally understand

especially with the the price increases of postage and and you know people some

people like to discount some don’t. I saw in the chat I don’t ever discount. Good for you. Hey,

um maybe maybe he should be on the webinar next to teach us how to do that.

But um all right, so let’s we I have I have another one of these that are that are kind of fun. Um

and basically and it’s asking it’s it it wants to I know it’s very early. We’re

barely a month into 2026, but it’s more about sentiments. Okay. A lot of what

people make in their lives I believe is based on mindset. So I want to see and

please please don’t fake and be positive to be part of the team. Tell us how you

actually feel. Okay? It’s important that we we

be honest here and not try to put something in your mind that may not be

what you’re feeling. You know, of course, you can do whatever you want, but it gives us the ability to discuss

and see what we can do uh with these answers. So, they’re they’re coming in

quick. God, we’ve almost already hit the the volume of the last survey. So, um we

may have more participation in this this quiz here.

Um I can give you a little preview as it’s coming in. I don’t want to cut it off. that by far one of the responses is

it’s going to be a struggle just like 2025 but I’m being optimistic that

there’s only three choices. The the other choices very positive a definite

return to growth of everything is coming up roses already. Okay, that was the that was the and then of course the last

one was negative looking for a direction or andor something to change. Okay,

that’s the the white flag. And listen, if there isn’t at least 10% of those, I

don’t I don’t believe it. You know, there’s always 10% of those. Um and and

we’re going to discuss that because, you know, everybody has those days. I’ve had those days and I try to stay very

positive, you know. So, um definitely more participation in this one. That’s

great. I’ll I’ll I’ll tell you some of the uh comments. Uh, somebody says he’s

positive because of the discounts he’s getting. So, obviously there’s a few of us giving discounts, myself being one of

them, you know. Um, another one said, “Listen, I’m trying I’m choose a because I want to manifest

it. I understand and I I I tried to mitigate that with my comments, but it’s going to happen.” Um,

uh, there’s a little back and forth with the discount issue. I don’t need to

ferment that fire. It is what it is. All right. I think I think everybody’s answered. We we got 10 more people

participating in this one and I’ll share this and then you know I’ll let the panel uh comment. All right. And I

already think I have some questions. So you guys can all see that now, right?

Yeah. There we go. Okay.

Yeah. A lot of realists out there. A lot of realists, which is okay, you know. I mean there has to be some some

truth and acceptance in order to find change you know so I would put myself in

that middle category as well you know

um I saw a comment or question from somebody that I I feel the need to bring

it up uh I’m going to find it here because we’re getting a lot of interaction

Well, Jesse Mansfield says to everyone, “The trend is down, seemingly in 2025.

What are the causes? Down is under reportported always. Up is over reported always.” I think there’s some truth to

that. People have always said, “Good news travels fast, bad news travels slow in most cases.” Um,

the next question is, “What are what are the reasons?” I want to hold off because

the last quiz asks them what their reasons are and then we can kind of

discuss that. But um interesting. I I would say there’s no

real surprises other than I’m surprised that more people were were up than I had

expected for 2025. So that’s good news. Good news. All right, I’m going to move

on to the next one. This is fun, isn’t it? I I like doing this, you know. I I tend to

you find out so much just ask the people. All right. So, this one is about the biggest barrier to growth. Okay.

This one has about seven or eight. Uh the poll is now open. It’ll take some

people to but I’ll I’ll read it to the panelists. What do you think is your biggest barrier for 2026?

The first is new customer acquisitions. And again, audience, you can only choose one. So, it’s asking for the biggest,

the most problematic or deterministic of your coming year’s revenues. There you

may have issues with all of these and I understand that. Um, anyways, new customer acquisitions.

The next uh is tariffs and government regulations. The third is customer

retention. The third is economic and socopolitical uncertainty.

Uh the next is personnel management or succession issues.

The next is capital investment and interest rates. Capital requirements, investments and

interest rates. So that would be a cash issue. Uh supply plain issues. Um not to

pick on anyone here, but nobody’s picked that yet. So that’s a good sign. Um the next one or the last one is

technology adoption, integration and modernization. And then I’ve left an open category

called other if it’s something I didn’t didn’t list. And and I’d love to see in the chat the people that have chose

other. What other items did I forget? Okay. I am not a commercial printer and

which 90% of you seem to be. So I don’t know all your struggles. I would have a

feeling that my panelists would know your struggles much better than I would. Although we get lots of objections when

we call them for various things and I’ve captured most of them here. So, all right. So,

what do we have here in some of the other I’ll read you these as people take their time. I know there’s a lot of

options here. Um, now putting postal on there was was a

miss. Yeah. Yeah, I’ve seen that. Uh, marketing is print owner’s biggest

weakness from Warren Warbbit who we all know Warren. That’s valid. That is valid. I don’t know if it’s a barrier.

It’s a weakness. Uh, postage rate increases 100%.

Um, convincing this this it must be um

rhetorical. Convincing beer drinkers to start to love wine is a losing battle. How do we get individuals and

organizations who understand and want to leverage print and mail to do more and to a better effect? That’s a great

question and I will spend some time going over that because that you’re talking about increasing the size of the

pie which I believe to be a monumental task but it is worth discussing.

Um, well, just think about it. All the all the marketing folks you deal with in in your day-to-day, how many of them don’t

come with with a knowledge of print or the understanding of how print marketing works and what it can do? I mean, I

spent I I I spend a good portion of my time talking with print sales teams

about how they can engage the new generation of marketeteers that they’re talking to who don’t get print, who

everything to them is social media clicks and and responses that way. getting them to understand and then

prove it out that le layering print on top of your digital campaigns actually

is an accelerant. So it’s but it’s a consultation. Whoever asked the question

in in the SC in the chat, how do you you know get get printers to start talking about that? That’s that’s the magic is

having those consulted conversations and it’s it’s a whole different ballgame from what print sales reps did 10 years

ago. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so, so actually Mark, let me jump in on that real quick

because I I totally agree with you all. It’s it is it is a different ball game. I think one of the snags are is that

it’s a different conversation we need to be having with our customers, right? Not how many how many do you want when do

you want them, but but what what’s the net effect of this? How will this help drive your business? What’s the impact

on this business? Right? It’s a business conversation and it’s to me it’s always

been starting at a higher level and kind of working your way down to really understand what you know how print helps

to drive the success of this organization and if it and if it does great if it doesn’t then you’re probably

following the wrong people. Yeah. Right. But it’s it’s too often we well and you guys see it as well. We have a

lot of a lot of sales organizations that are they grew up in a time when you just

had to kind of show up and you could take orders and really they’ve become really good account managers. Um and

they take care of their customers very reactive all over all over the request. But as far as the proactivity, as far as

digging deeper, digging higher, digging wider within an organization, that’s the part that they struggle with. And Mark,

to your point, if you’re going to have those conversations, you have to change you have to change the questions you ask

and who you ask them to. Terry said it in the chat. Stop selling print. Right on, Terry. We’re not

selling print. We’re selling results. Right. Actually, that that’s that’s really the key point. And I’ve noticed that the

commercial printers that still think they’re a manufacturer and they’re not selling marketing that

that’s seems to be the break between the people that that grow and the people that stagnate. Now there is a need for

just trade printers that do not. They are experts in manufacturing in quantity

and delivering that result. They are not trying to do anything else but manufacture ink on paper and there is a

need for those. Uh however, economies of scale will win in the long run. And as

there’s consolidation, acquisitions, mergers, whatever, the people that want to just be manufacturers

and they build and make that business efficient will continue to do well. The

ones that are the smaller print companies that also say they do

marketing will need to rise to the occasion and become more of a service

company. Yes, they still manufacture, but maybe at some point you get good at that and then you don’t necessarily

manufacture. That goes to the guys who are experts at it. Again, not a printer, not a consultant. I’m just an

entrepreneur. But Jim, I I’d love to hear your view on this. You’ve been quiet and you know, from a long-term

value perspective, Mike is absolutely right. What adds value to your business

is selling solutions, not selling jobs. And uh the more sticky you can make your

customer, the more value you add to your business. Um and then from a commercial

printing perspective, um the more you can shift from static

commercial print to onetoone direct marketing, personalization,

transactional print. Uh that adds value, that adds stickiness.

uh that’s selling solutions, not selling jobs and that will build value for the

owners over the long term and over the course of time. Those companies can can

generate the exact same revenue and the exact same IBIDA as a traditional

commercial printer, but they’re going to be valued at 30 or 40 or 50% higher when

they go to sell because of the type of work they’re doing. Right. I I totally agree. Erica, your

turn. No, I I mean I I agree. It’s going to be more of a consultive um like advisor

type of role as we continue to move forward. I think if you look at some of these barriers and you look at some of

the things that they’re right, tariffs, government regulations, economic uh succession issues, supply chain, a lot

of these things like the link between all of them is uncertainty, right? And when people are uncertain, they’re fearful. And when you think about that,

um, the way that they feel more confident, you know, with the people they’re partnering with is how well

they’re educated. So, what are we doing, you know, as we go out there in front of customers, whether it’s print, whether

it’s paper, you know, whichever part of the supply chain you’re in, how are we better educating them? Are we partnering

with, you know, our other counterparts to educate ourselves as much as we can? because the more knowledge we can have,

the better and more confident we can feel in some of those decisions we’re making and and kind of how we’re growing. Um, but uncertainty is really

the link in a lot of these barriers. Um, and and how you advise people, how you

educate them, you know, what you bring to the table to help them feel more confident in the things that you’re

providing and and the service you’re providing is going to make the most impact, right? And I think we all agree print is

not going away. Direct mail is not going away. We are in a transitionary period

technologically and consolidation and specialization wise. But um someone just

made a comment that print volume is increasing 3.5%

um cumulative year-over-year growth and it should trend towards 704 billion by

2021 2031 I’m sorry from 594

billion this year. So there is good growth but that commercial print is including absolutely everything. I

imagine that’s probably books. Books are growing. Yeah. So, so if you sub divide that into

subsets, I know that there’s many I mean we all believe and still I’m pretty sure

you would know more than me. Wide format is growing. Um, uh, signage is growing.

I mean, all that’s considered print, you know, packaging. Yeah. So there there definitely is, but

those gross may be what’s pulling the rest of it up where maybe direct mail or

marketing uh mail transactional is probably growing every year. More people have

credit cards. There’s more regulation. You got to send out those those little forms. It’s not growing. I I get those

7% 7% decline year-over-year for the last last four years. And it’s forecast to keep going down. But what we’re

seeing in transactional Yeah. that 7% decline you’ve got it’s being I’ll let

you finish but yeah transactions that’s interesting to me because I figure as the population grows and

regulation they have to disclose more and more those little eightpage tiny print little things we get from our

credit cards that go right into the trash by the way I don’t know anyone that’s ever read those in the history of

the world unless somebody will charge you a$150 a month if you

want a paper statement and and paper communications. So, we’ve got some banks actually going down that

route. They fought hard for the regulation changes to let them do that.

Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. I’ll give you I’ll give you a case in point. I I went out with one of the large printers in Chicago to a very very

very very very large bank who does a lot of direct mail and a new VP came in and

his attitude was, “Oh, we’re going to get rid of all this paper stuff and 100% digital.”

radical change in in mindset, almost a zerobased budgeting approach. And they went down that road for about a month

and the results were so horrible. They went back and realized layering

omni channel. That’s how you get the magic, right? So Nordstro there’s a lot of case studies

that have been done over the last five years. Nordstrom has gone through this. Jill’s gone through this. You we’ve had a lot of retailers that have stubbed

their toes saying, “Oh, we’re going to move away from direct mail.” You learn your lesson. And and the smart money is

on testing, finding what works, proving that to your customer, let them realize,

ah, okay, it makes sense to do an email two days after I do the direct mail or the email as a warm-up, you know, two

days before the direct mail hits. So, we’ve got the technology with the postal service and some of the incredible programs they’ve got. We’ve got this

this cool technology to know when a piece is going to be in home. IMDb works or IMB works. You can layer that with

your omni channel campaigns. There’s so much magic now in in the workflows that we can put together. We can make these

campaigns jin up ROIs off the chart, right? You know, hey Brad, hey Brad, if I could

add uh one of the thing two actually two points. One that I want to echo something Erica said

about the the way that we speak to people and the way we sell from a consultative standpoint. I’m reminded of

uh the book the first book I bought when I got into sales called strategic selling and then the follow-up was consultative selling with Miller Heman

that was like in 1980 and guess what it’s still very very

as rele if not more today than ever before. The problem is, and this this would be a great poll, uh ask ask the

company owners or sales leaders how many of their sales what was the what was the best sales book anybody in their sales

team has read this year or actually in the last five years. I’ll wait.

Yeah. All right. If anybody if anybody’s read a sales book that they recommend, put it in the chat. Uh I’m a big

believer always be learning. Always be learning. You know, here’s the other part though, Brad, is

that, you know, we talk about the overall market and whether it’s increased or whether it’s it’s flat or

decreasing. One thing we can’t overlook is that the distribution of the revenue is changing

dramatically. Meaning to me anyway, the have it’s the halves and have nots. We’ve always had

profit leaders in the industry and we had everybody else. If you go back to I think it’s the 2008 2009 recession up

until that point the gap between both of those groups kind of stayed consistent right everybody increased as business

got up everybody went down when business went down but since then the gap between the halves and the have nots continues

to increase it gets gets wider and wider and wider and I think it’s those firms that as I view it they’ve tightened

their circle meaning they’re trying not to be all things to all people anymore where they’ve picked either three or

four different verticals and really become great at that or they’ve become two or three product lines and really

really be good at that. Um they they they’ve elected not to be a public utility which means they just do work

for anybody just anybody who’s checkable clear, right? And and and there is still room

for that. Don’t get me wrong, right? Because there’s a lot of different uh and Jim see this all the time. You have

companies that are more lifestyle businesses and they’re doing just fine and they will be here like forever. And

but the companies that are really trying to grow and really trying to create opportunities not only for their staff,

their their community, their customers, those are the ones that are really making those difficult decisions

um and and electing to kind of again I use Iight tighten up the circle. Instead of doing work for this many people,

we’re going to do work for this many people. But you know what? We’re going to be the very best of at what we can do.

And I was I was just going to say, Mike, before you started that, and you’re absolutely right. More and more today,

we see the real successful companies print as a percentage of their total

revenue is maybe 50 or 60% or 65% of

revenue. And their other revenue is driven through data analytics, fulf through fulfillment, through ad

specialty sales, through other services that they’re charging for on top of the

print and print is part of what they sell. It’s still an important part of their goto market strategy. Uh but they

have become uh successful MSPs and and one-stop

shops for those customers. But again, not selling to everybody. They’re selling to a select group of clients uh

that they’ve targeted and they want to go after. And print now is 60% of that

revenue they derive from those clients. I’ll Jim I’ll just for a second. Uh I

have a lot of dumb sayings, but one of them is that we’ve really become a technology business that happens to put

ink and toner on paper. and and the companies that have accepted that and

embraced that and staffed for it and invested in it are the ones that are

taking market share from everybody else. Um the others are trying to figure out

what to do. Agreed. And they’re growing and they’re the profit leaders.

Let me let me take back the moderator hat for a second here. And I wanted to so uh to our audience again, we’re here

for you. I’m hoping to have an open Q&A session. You’ve got some very talented

people here that you can ask direct questions. I’ll try to start that in five to eight minutes. So, I’ve cleared

the Q&A. So, if you’re going to ask a question, please not in the chat, put it in the Q&A so I can keep track of it and

who you would like the question asked to. So, please put it there. there’s so

much going on in the chat that it rolls up several screens every few minutes and then I I can’t find it and keep track of

it and and moderate this panel. You know, I’m a oneman producer here, guys, today. So, um but I would like to ask

some some questions and I I’ll start with giving my own answer

is you know everyone’s going to ask this so hopefully I’ll preempt it is where where do you see the growth opportunities? And

I think a lot of us have already mentioned that. And and for me, it’s it’s really comes down to two things

that I have found work. Specialization of your craft. It’s very difficult to be

all things to all people. Okay? PE there’s companies that do it. Amazon,

you know, but you got to have some real money and some big

huge amounts of talent behind you. The other thing is you must give before you

receive. Okay? You have to help your customer before they will trust and give

you money. So whether it’s free advice, whether it’s going that extra mile, whether it’s marketing advice, whether

it’s doing webinars like this, I’m not making anything. I’m not charging anybody anything. I am I am doing this

and I’ll be honest to you, I like to learn. I like to understand things. So why not share this information with

everybody? You become a trust leader and someone that somebody will come to you

for things. So that is my growth opportunity advice. If you’re if you’re in a MSP and you’re not growing or you

want to grow quicker, I’m going to I’m going to go to Erica next to Yeah. And I I think we’ve you know kind

of hit on some of these so I I don’t won’t spend too much time on it being repetitive. Um but kind of like services

wrapped around the product, right? So, um, value ad, really zoning in on what

are those things that you can be a one-stop shop on vertical integrated. Um, you know, how are you how are you

adding more value to the product or um the service that you’re providing and

and being in one place so that there’s not multiple touch points um throughout that process. And then I would say like

talentled differentiation. I’m trying to trying to find the white right way to word that. Um but with this new

generation coming in utilizing AI, utilizing different technology um and

and education. Um right. So again to to be repetitive, it really is that key

that key part. How are you helping um your customers? How are you helping your partners? How are you working um within

your supply chain? just to to educate yourself, to educate um the people that you’re working with um and really be

that that support structure for them. Everyone wants um as you said that Amazon experience, right? Everyone wants

it. So, what can get you closer to that to make it easier for your customer?

Excellent. Mark, Jim, you have anything to add? Mike’s already been quoted with giving the best advice so far. So,

no, Mike Mike is awesome. I I love following him on LinkedIn. what I’ve seen. So, you’re the guy. I knew there was

one. Yeah, you got you got a fan base, Mike. No, what I was going to say is one of

the best things I’ve seen really really smart print sales professionals do is is

the on-site lunch and learn, right? You got you you got your ally in your client who gets it, who likes what you do, but

they’ve got to sell what they want to do inside the organization to the other marketing folks, to the business line

owners, to to a whole cadre of other folks that you as a print saleser, you’re never going to get in front of. They don’t want to talk to anybody about

print, but they’ll talk to their internal marketing folks. So the the best thing I’ve seen done is set up shop

in in in a lunchroom. Bring bring pizzas in whatever. Get the kids who don’t know that much about burner or haven’t seen

some really inspirational campaigns. Get them exposed to what’s possible. Show

much much more showand tell than than a talk and tell. And that’s how you get the vi the verality of it, right? You

get get more people talking about, hey, I saw this really cool idea. Why don’t we give it a try? So, it’s that kind of

inspirational, you know, turn the light bulb on moment. And sometimes the only way to do that is is physically in

person, put things in their hands and and they start to get it and then then talk about it internally.

Excellent. Thank you, Mark. And Jim, where do you see growth opportunities? What can people be doing?

Well, I think uh still seeing a lot of growth uh opportunities in packaging

from the print perspective. that’s uh that’s still growing rapidly and we see

direct mail I mean particularly marketing direct mail personalized onetoone direct mail from a marketing

perspective is still growing and still very popular. So um you have to be able

to sell both of those and and uh it may be a different cell or a different department that you’re calling on but

those are still uh great ways to uh to grow your print business.

Thank you. And Mike, you want to put a cherry on top of that point? Yeah. So, I’m gonna I’m gonna peel the

onion back a little bit. So, I I agree with what everyone said about picking picking something, picking three things,

you know, doing those kinds of things. I think very very important. I think one of the one of the tactics that will help

them get there though is to really take a hard look at how they make decisions internally

because I see that as a huge barrier to growth for those that struggle with it. and a huge uh accelerator to growth for

those who’ve got it down. Meaning, okay, what information do we need to make a

good decision? Who’s going to make it? Pros, cons, let’s debate it. Let’s make

a decision. Let’s go. Uh I’m not and I’m not saying that to be reckless or

careless or you know make decisions off to cuff because I understand the consequences of making a bad decision

but I also have witnessed the the huge impediments of not making decisions

right and that’s that’s where I see a lot of this go so you can you can pick packaging pick direct mail what what do

you have a passion for in fact if you really want to work on it read read Jim Collins’s good good good good good good

degree and understand what that hedgehog concept is, right? Focus on the things that you can make money at, you can be

the best at, and you have a passion for. If you don’t have a passion for it, it’s just a job,

right? Um I haven’t I haven’t been in this industry for 47 years,

uh because it’s a job, right? This is this is fun figuring this stuff out,

right? But but understand your what’s going on in your organization. make

better decisions. Don’t don’t let them man I see too many opportunities where people they can’t

they can’t decide so they cancel each other out and then they just don’t make a decision. They just keep on going down the way they’ve been going

and it’s just and and they struggle with it, right? And so they they need some help with that.

Yep. I I I I agree. It’s it’s that’s why I say it’s it’s 90% a mental game, you

know? You have to be able to persist and drive. Get excited about what you do. And even in the in the face of problems

and barriers, you got to figure a way to get over through or around the mountain. You’ve got it. You know, so

this this is a tough business. Let’s not make any light of it, right? Uh whether whether you’re at the bottom or you’re

at the top, it’s not any easier. It’s it’s a tough tough business. A lot of moving parts.

Well, thank you. that those are all great points and um I did want to ask

each of you kind of because you know we all have different vantage points. Well,

there’s there’s two things. I’ll start with the shorter term one. What is the next disruptor in this industry in the

next two to four years? What and and we’ll start with with Erica on this one.

Yeah. What do you think is the next big disruptor? You know, some people have mentioned postage and I know I’ve seen

AI in the chat a few times which is still playing itself out and it could be. What What do you think it is?

Yeah. And and I I do like the the tech side of it, right? Because tech is is

very is very real, but I think it’s it’s broader than that. I really think it’s like the next generation. So, that may

may be a little bit broad of an answer. Um, but it kind of ties into um

succession and the next uh generation that’s going to come up and fill in um

the void for the workforce today and how they’re being trained and how they’re being educated. this next set of leaders

that’s about to step into more of the the leadership roles um within the this

the industry um and and how they plan to lead and and how things are so different

and then how everyone else rallies around what that change looks like right so it is also very important to

understand that change is inevitable change is going to happen um and there’s

no way to know if that change is going to be is going to be a positive impact or a negative impact until you kind of

start to get through it. Um, and and start to persevere through it. So, I

think this this next generation, you know, and and how receptive everyone is to it could could be the the disruptor.

I agree. In fact, I want to have Jim follow on on that. Is there a succession issue within this industry where the

next generation, it’s not print is not cool, it’s not sexy, it’s it’s

manufacturing, and they’re not interested. So it’s the companies are merging, selling, consolidating,

liquidating, whatever. What what is the is there a succession problem, Jim?

Maybe. Um big picture, yes, there is. For all the

reasons you just said, if you go back the last five or 10 or 15 years, you

know, businesses that had been second and third generation, that next generation didn’t have any interest. The

business was not sexy. It wasn’t growing. it wasn’t profitable enough for the

whole family to make a nice living out of it. Uh so for all those reasons,

succession planning um is is a problem in the industry. With that said, there

are also a lot of examples uh and and I guess I’ve recognized it more just in

the last year or two where I see good companies with good young leadership in

their 30s and 40s that are taking the helm, have been well trained. Uh, and I

when I say they’ve been well trained on what’s worked in the past, but they’re also very open to new direction and new

ideas and new strategies. And um you know I would just say from

clients we’ve worked with in the last year and a half I’ve become a little more optimistic about that uh about a

successful transition to that next generation that can carry the business for another 20 years or so.

Great. So Jim, just to follow just to follow up a little bit with that too, it it really does make a difference, you

know, with how prepared someone is to step into that spot, right? So when you look at the broader generation versus,

you know, zoning in on some of those specific companies, like you said, they took the time, they’ve trained their way

in, and the company really built um they really rallied around and got prepared

for that impact to the business. Um, and they made that that successful, you

know, change and they they built that plan. I think was it Mike that was saying, you know, it’s really the

leaders at the top right now that are developing those plans and what that looks like, right? If it doesn’t start

there and they don’t start thinking about it and they’re not developing it or getting the business ready for it,

that’s when you can see it as a disruptor. Yeah, I I think that’s a good point.

It’s it’s there’s been a lot of transition. It takes time. It takes training. Uh but when done right, it can

be very rewarding for the outgoing generation and the next generation and

all the employees and the and the legacy of the business. When when we talk to printers and ask

them, you know, your biggest pain points, inevitably labor pops up as as

number one, number two, or number three issue. And it’s it’s labor across the board. It’s they need to find people to

run their presses, not trying to find offset pressman. Good luck with that. The average age is pushing 60 in a lot

of plants and and what they’re finding is having new funky fancy digital presses, they can attract a different

level of operator. But what all of that is driving, the labor issues, the efficiency issues, what all of that is

driving is the this incredible demand for how do I produce more with less? How do I automate things? And I’m talking

not just just the automated workflows to get the data into the into the whole whole shop. It’s the automated workflows

to get the paper to move from where it starts to where it finishes to get the mail trays out the door to get from step

one to step two or reduce the number of steps in production. Right? Going with the full inline automation system. So

we’re seeing printers looking at everything they do. How can I shrink the number of handoffs? how can I shrink the

number of steps which then shrinks the amount of labor needed which alleviates the labor issue but that also gets them

to be more productive higher throughput more efficient and and you see that just

across the board we’re a consolidating industry you have to be more efficient you have to be able to do more with less

and those are the those are the folks that win and and I think to your point Jim it’s it’s a lot of the companies

with those younger smart leaders are looking at it through that lens how can just just how do I white sheet it. How

do I You can’t completely blow everything up and start over, right? But how can I take what I’ve got, start with

a white sheet, and rearrange things? And I’ve I’ve seen companies that are 60, 70 years old do that,

you know, good question everything. Yeah, exactly.

A question from the audience and it’s we haven’t talked about this, so I’ll bring it up and I hope that I’m directing the

answer and I’ll take the lead on. Todd says, “How do you see marketers integrating AI into into their print

channels?” So, I’m assuming I’m reading this question, is marketing agencies or people who do marketing for for as

clients or companies using somehow using AI that directs them more to print as a

channel. Um, I think that we know here here are assumptions. AI is

smart. It knows what works and what doesn’t most of the time. Direct mail works most of the time.

However, direct mail is expensive and I think everybody on this webinar has had

a client or an experience where direct mail has not worked and they have not been happy. The client nor the print,

you know, the the PSP doesn’t like to have a failed campaign either. Um,

AI will help bring the level of certainty. There are no guarantees in

marketing, but AI will help the marketer make less mistakes in print, which is

expensive. Therefore, I believe it will help. In fact, not to toot my own horn

here, but we have built a platform that predicts direct mail outcome based on

AI. And uh we’re in beta mode right now. And

this has not been easy. And I’ll tell you, you know, I just thought, oh, we’ll throw up some data. We’ll crunch some numbers. We’ll get some creative and

we’ll mash it together and output will be the the the hand of God telling

people what to do or they don’t lose money. Well, that didn’t happen. Okay. Um AI is not easy. If it was that easy,

everyone would do it. So you know we retoolled a couple of times and improved

the algorithms and then we even went and got help from you know chatpt and and

Google Gemini and claude to improve it and now we have by survey produced a

application that gives actual recommendations that people believe at

this point will improve their direct mail results that’s based on past

campaigns. So in terms of AI, AI can improve anything. So things that are

more risky, more dangerous, more uncertain is where AI will come in best in my eyes. It will speed things up and

it will make things more accurate and make things more efficient. Uh direct mail is is right for that and that’s why

I built an application and we’re we’re actually building all of our applications in AI and cross referencing

them for even more value to the customer. So, if you guys would like to talk about different AI products you’ve

seen, I’d be happy to hear about them for the last couple of minutes here.

Anybody? Hey, hey, Brad. Actually, I’m gonna I’m gonna uh steal something here. I want to

go back to the succession thing real quick if I could. Um because I see a lot of that.

And yeah, there is another question about that. That wasn’t you, Mike, that put this in here for me, was it? Uh no, no. Um but the uh it’s it’s it’s

twofold, right? It’s getting the current generation ready to teach and ready to let go, right? And their inability to

let go because it’s it’s hard to let go. um and doing it and and for the incoming

generation to understand the psychological part of their parents or

their aunts and uncles, whoever it may be, of what it means to kind of walk away and and how can we help them do

that with dignity and and make it make it smoother. I mean, that’s a big deal.

Um the other part of it is oftentimes that next generation isn’t ready. They’re just not ready, right? And

that’s a shameless plug. That’s why we started the the leadership institute, the graphic communications leadership

institute. We’ve got about 20 companies represented in that of upandcomers, sons, daughters, nieces, nephews that

are learning how to become better leaders. I also think though that that’s and Jim can maybe speak to this

uh because there is that void. That’s where we’re seeing even more and more PE get involved uh in the business. uh even

at smaller levels, you know, they used to be involved in just the big companies. Now they’re getting into even

the smaller smaller companies. We’re seeing more family offices getting involved to try to invest. And we’re

seeing I’m running into people that got into it through uh ETA uh entrepreneurship through acquisitions. I

asked, “How did you get into this business?” Well, you know, I I was looking for to buy a business and I stumbled into printing and they’re and

they’re taking off. uh one of the things that they don’t have uh to contend with,

they don’t have to unlearn how things used to be. They see how things are and

they see things how they where they want to be and they they work from there. So there there’s a lot of lot of great

opportunities out there for all on a succession side. Um Jim, I’m sure has

all kinds of tricks up his sleeve that he can help help those folks. Let me read you this last question that’s specifically about this and then

maybe Jim can answer it. Um, by the way, I’ve put the slide up. So, if anybody wants to contact any of our panelists

directly, there’s a QR code for you to scan to reach them directly. The least I can do is is pass along this

information. But I’ll read the I’ll read the question by an anonymous attendee. In succession plans and growth strategy,

how do you convince an ownership group in a small commercial printing company of 14 people to invest the time, the

people, and the capital to turn your shop into a service provider that puts ink and toner on paper? Especially when

you’re in a leadership group with your hands tied to the overall ownership of

the company in the later life later stage cycles of their career. Does that

make sense? I I think I seems like a great question for Mike to answer.

I’ve never seen I’ve never heard of that situation before. Never at all.

Seriously, Mike can probably answer it better than me, but the um you know, a 14 person company is a pretty small

company. There’s going to be a lot of challenges on where to invest because

they probably can’t afford to invest in all the places or opportunities. they

can’t afford to make a mistake. Um, and if they’re that, I shouldn’t say that

small. I mean, it’s still a nice size company, but, uh, they’re perhaps hesitant to hand off the reigns to

others and take chances on things that they haven’t tried out. But Mike, what

are your thoughts on that? So, yes, to what Jim said, here’s the I

would to the the anonymous poster on this. I would go back and look at the

mirror and how well how well have you sold this. I mean, obviously it sounds like you

have some good ideas that that you’re having a difficult time and getting across the finish line. I mean, I get

it, right? So, how how have you done it? And is there a different way to approach it in such a way that you can convince

them that it’s a good idea? Um, I I’ll I’ll give you a quick antidote for that. a million years ago, one of my first

stints as a sales manager, I kept trying to convince the CFO to to to I forget

what I was trying to do, but trying to convince him of something. We would have these lengthy conversations and he would

just look at me very politely and nod his head and I’d walk away and like

nothing would happen. We would just never get off the dime. And I realized and then one time for some reason I

decided to write something down and I gave like a two-page dissertation on why I thought it was a good idea. The next

day he said, “Yeah, this sounds like a great idea. Let’s go. Let’s go for it.” It was the same thing that I had been

saying all along. But, you know, so one of the things it taught me was people uh

absorb information differently. And you can you can tell me that the the the the

moon is is made out of cheese and all that kind of whatever and I’m not going to believe you until I see it in

writing, right? You can say it’s it’s we’re going to give you a free ride to the moon. No strings attached. Uh but

until I see it in writing, I’m not going to take you seriously. Some people you just need to tell them. That’s why when

you go to a when you go to a conference, what do they do? They give you the handout so you can read it. They tell

you what they’re going to tell you before they start. They show it to you on the screen and they a they and in in

an audio sense the guy talks about it. So hitting all those senses. So I would go back and have that person take a deep

dive as far as basically if have to improve your selling skills.

Thank you. Just to be cognizant of everybody’s time, I really want to thank

obviously our audience, fantastic participation, our panelists, amazing sharing of ideas and concepts for

everybody. It’s been great. Uh please if if you want to contact any of these

people on the panel, they would be more than happy to talk to you and continue their conversations.

But this has been fantastic. There will be a recording up on our website within 48 hours. But I’m gonna let everybody go

and thank you again panelists and attendees. It’s been fantastic. All

right guys, thank thanks. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Thank you guys. Take care. Thank you.