Hope for the Industry’s Future
I was contacted recently by a young woman who is getting ready to graduate from college. Get this...She is a PRINT MAJOR! How cool is that? I guess I knew that there were schools where you could actually study print technology, but here was a real live 22-year-old person who has staked her entire future on our industry. I was THRILLED. So here are the takeaways from this...
YOU SHOULD CONSIDER HIRING THESE PEOPLE.—They are young, technologically savvy and passionate about print. What more could you want in a new hire for your company? This woman is already interviewing with companies like CGX and SGS.
She has over two months until graduation, and will likely have landed a job and be moving to the Chicagoland area right after she graduates. This is an impressively proactive young woman, and one of the few who, statistically, will not be moving home to live with Mom and Dad “until the economy improves.” I am feeling better and better about our future just thinking about her.
SOCIAL NETWORKING WORKS!!!—This person found me on Girls Who Print, a group on LinkedIn. (Mad props to MaryBeth Smith who started Girls Who Print. I’ve never met her, but “talk” to her on various forums and groups frequently and hope that one day I will meet her face to face.)
I know I sometimes sound like a broken record when I talk to you about social networking, but IT IS WORTH IT. Get on LinkedIn if you haven’t. If you have, use it more—you will learn, meet people and get your problems solved, all in a co-opetitional setting (that means part competition, part cooperation). We ALL want to see print succeed and thrive, so we all owe energy into this bucket. We will all win, if we all play.
Blogger, author, consultant, coach and all around evangelist for the graphic arts industry, Kelly sold digital printing for 15 years so she understands the challenges, frustrations and pitfalls of building a successful sales practice. Her mission is to help printers of all sizes sell more stuff. Kelly's areas of focus include sales and marketing coaching, enabling clients to find engagement strategies that work for them and mentoring the next generation of sales superstars.
Kelly graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Political Science and, among other notable accomplishments, co-founded the Windy City Rollers, a professional women's roller derby league. She is also the mother of two sets of twins under the age of ten, so she fears nothing.
