Surfing With Purpose --DeWese
Everything I know that is really worth knowing, I learned from someone else.
That's it! I'm out. I'm outin' myself. You thought I was a great thinker and now you find out that I'm just a great listener. Oh, I suppose I had a few original thoughts in the old days—after a few fingers of Jack Daniels.
The really great thinking, however, always came from someone else. It coulda been from Peter Drucker on marketing or management. It mighta been from Socrates or Plato on human behavior. Sometimes it was the shoeshine guy at the airport on the subjects of politics or the economy.
Plentitimes my great sports thinking came from Casey or Yogi or the Ol' Diz.
Many times, if it had to do with selling, it was something I learned from one of my many customers. That's the advantage of having a lot of clients. You can learn a lot more from more people.
I have learned a lot about our industry—how it works and how it behaves—from people like Dr. Joe Webb and Dick Gorelick. Frank Romano and Andrew Paparozzi have taught me even more about how our markets work and how to assess the future. But then, my clients, their companies and their printing segments have taught me even more about this industry.
One of my early mentors, Ivan Smith, helped me when I was in my 30s. He made me understand that he or she who controls the information, controls. This principle, like so many others, is vital to the success of print salespeople. It has certainly been vital to my success and has made me a lot of money.
So I didn't flinch last week when I had the opportunity to be one of the charter subscribers to Dr. Joe Webb's new information service called www.PrintForecast.com. This is up-to-the-minute information and analysis from, arguably, our industry's best thinker. I have to say "arguably" so Dick Gorelick, Dick Vinocur, Ron Davis, Andy Paparozzi and Frank Romano don't get their noses bent out of shape and blackball me again when I reapply to the printing industry Mensa Club.
