Grow Market Lead
By Kerry Pipes
CEO
profile: Way To Grow!
AlphaGraphics CEO focuses on transformation
K
evin Cushing began delivering newspapers in Chicago when he was in second
grade. He eventually delivered more than 1 million. “I knew I had
to get those papers out or the readers
would not know what was going on in
their world,” he says.
Lofty goals for the lad, who says it
was during these early years that he
became what he calls “a lifelong small
businessman.” Today Cushing is CEO
of Salt Lake City-based AlphaGraphics, where he has held the reins since
June 2004.
Cushing graduated from college in
1978 and began working with a shopping center leasing company called Terratron, which oversaw retail properties
in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Some of
the shopping centers’ tenants were independent restaurants, and when they
would go out of business Terratron
needed something to replace them. That
“something” turned out to be franchised
Hardee’s restaurants.
“We started with just a couple of
units and did well with them,” says
Cushing. Eventually, Terratron oversaw
81 Hardee’s units in 7 states. In 1991,
he became president of Terratron and
began to experience the itch for owning his own business.
Name: Kevin Cushing
Title: CEO
Company: AlphaGraphics
No. of units: 282
Age: 55
Family: Wife Jill; children Jack, Patrick
(PJ), Claire, and Sean
Years in franchising: 33
Years in current position: 7.5
8
Franchiseupdate Iss u e I, 2 0 1 2
“I had a good friend who was an AlphaGraphics franchisee,” he says. “I did
some due diligence before deciding this
was for me.” It was a good move. Starting
in 1995, Cushing was a successful franchisee and recognized by AlphaGraphics
as one of their Gold Circle winners for
strong system performance.
By 2004, he was eager to be “more
aggressive” and was searching for ways
to do so. A call from AlphaGraphics
“Together with our
franchisees we are
writing the story of
one of the greatest
transformations
of a brand in the
history of small
business and
franchising.”
corporate, asking if he’d be interested
in leading the organization, solved that
problem. He was hired in June that
same year.
At the helm, Cushing is characteristically pushing for change, growth, and
system-wide advances. Technology is
changing the way marketing and printing
are done, and he is busy incorporating
these progressions into AlphaGraphics.
“We’re focusing on taking our product from a print-centric approach to one
of multi-channel communications,” he
says. “We’re going beyond just providing mail flyers for customers. Now we
can help them acquire new customer
databases and design specific marketing
campaigns to help them reach customers in a more focused way.”
His goal for AlphaGraphics? “To
become the largest provider of marketing services to small and medium-sized
businesses.”
Leadership
What is your role as CEO? Visionary,
architect, builder, and captain. (1) Visionary: define a unifying direction for
the organization; evolving the brand to
maintain relevancy and appeal as a franchising business opportunity. (2) Architect: develop strategy for achieving the
vision. (3) Builder: form the team that
is inspired and motivated by driving the
strategy. (4) Captain: drive the execution
of the strategy through all levels of the
organization. Accountability through
franchisor and franchisee teams.
Describe your leadership style: Con-
structively challenging and collaborative. Continually leading and mentoring team members to grow and evolve
our organization and themselves to the
next level.
What has inspired your leadership
style? Great mentors. I’ve been lucky
to have many great mentors in my life
who have helped me w&