Cover Story
experiences with you and your business,
your customers become an additional
fleet of ‘free’ outside sales reps, so to
speak, who spread the word on your
behalf. This helps more like-minded
people come together to do great work,
which in turn, creates a larger fleet of
sales reps, growing your business every
step of the way.
FOURTH: It’s your turn to make a
‘ruckus’
“It’s easy, it’s fun and it’s guaranteed
to work…..all of that is true except for
the part about easy, fun and guaranteed.”
Godin believes that innovation is
defined by failing over and over again
until you find something that works.
Innovation requires strong leadership
and he believes that there’s a funda-
mental difference in the way companies
should think about ‘management’
ver sus ‘leadership’. To ‘manage’
means to do what you did yesterday
faster and cheaper. How can you
offer the same printed products in
five business days instead of seven?
How can you reduce the costs associated
with making business cards to compete
with cheaper web-to-print providers?
Furthermore, he argues that great
innovation and ruckus-making always
happens too soon. The example he
provided was of Gutenberg’s commer-
cialization of the printing process in
the mid-15th Century.
At this time in history, many Europeans
were illiterate or at least unable to
read anything complex. Additionally,
very few books other than religious
texts existed in the world. It’s estimated
that 15% of people needed reading
glasses (which hadn’t been invented
yet) and there were no bookstores in
which to sell books. Needless to say,
if Gutenberg had waited to move forward
because of these constraints, we
would be no where close to our current
existence as humans on the planet
today. His commercialization of moveable
type and printing technology gave way
to mass literacy all over the world, the
proliferation of new ideas (the ‘Intel-
lectual Big Bang’), and communication
technology that came after his work.
Thank you, Mr. G, for leading us into
the modern age.
In Godin’s infinite wisdom, he reveals
this advice about making a ruckus:
“The thing is, there’s no easy way to
do this. No simple way to quiet the
noise in your head, no proven method
to earn the respect and applause of
your family and friends, no guaranteed
approach that’s going to insulate you
from heartache. This might not work.
It might not be fun. But I hope you’ll
do it anyway.”
Finally, the most powerful part of his
keynote presentation was the moment
he requested the audience to: “Raise
your right hand as high as you can.”
We all dutifully played along (knowing
there would be an impending twist).
He quietly looked out at a room full of
right hands raised as far as they could
reach and made another request:
“Now raise it higher.” And guess what
happened? Every single hand in the
room inched a little higher towards
the ceiling!
The lesson here? We all hold back. We
all have more to give. There are always
new ways to think about solving old
problems – and it’s our job as leaders
of the graphic arts industry to help our
customers solve problems that they
don’t even know they have. Leading
means being remarkable in our offer-
ings, using storytelling as a way to
share our remarkabilit y, building
meaningful relationships with our
prospects, and ultimately making a
ruckus on our way to the top.
Thanks for the reminders Seth. It was
indeed a pleasure – as always.
Diana Varma is an Instructor at the
School of Graphic Communications
Management at Ryerson University and
the Owner of ON-SITE First Aid & CPR
Training Group, a health & safety
company that provides training to the
Graphic Arts Industry.
To ‘lead’ means moving forward knowing
that what you’re doing might not work.
How can you refine your offerings to
a better serve your most important
customers? How can you speak more
directly to the immediate needs and
wants of your customers to make an
impact? Leadership requires an affinity
for feeling tension. Godin argues that
there’ll always be tension involved
because it might not work.
20 | April 2019 | GRAPHIC ARTS MAGAZINE
graphicartsmag.com
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