The Postal Service is enacting new procedures for auditing compliance with circulation standards for Periodicals requester publications, as well as standardizing procedures across Postal Service publications. The Postal Service is also revising the applicable Customer Support Ruling and Postal Service customer handbooks to reflect this DMM revision. Although the Postal Service will not publish these revisions in the DMM until Nov. 7, 2022, the standards are effective immediately.

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8.1.3Ěý¸é±đłŮ±đ˛ÔłŮľ±´Ç˛Ô

The publisher must keep records for each issue of a publication for three years from its issue date, except for circulation records for general or requester publications for which USPS verification of circulation is done by a USPS- authorized audit bureau. A publisher whose records are verified by an authorized audit bureau is not required to keep source records of requests and subscriptions longer than required by the audit bureau.

Revised

8.1.3 Retention

The publisher must keep records for each issue of a publication for a minimum of three years from its issue date, except for circulation records for general or requester publications for which a USPS-authorized audit bureau verifies USPS circulation. In addition, the publisher must retain records for paid subscribers for a minimum of 12 months following the issue date. A publisher whose records are verified by an authorized audit bureau is not required to keep source records of requests and subscriptions longer than required by the audit bureau, provided that the authorized audit bureau retains records related to such requests and subscriptions for a minimum of three years following each issue date.

Previous

8.2.2 Authorized Verification

USPS employees or an authorized audit bureau may conduct verifications of circulation for an application for Periodicals mailing privileges, reentry application, or other required circulation verification of general or requester publications.

Revised

8.2.2 Authorized Verification

USPS employees or an authorized audit bureau may conduct circulation verifications for an application for Periodicals mailing privileges, reentry application, or other required circulation verification of general or requester publications, provided that the Postal Service will have the authority to review audit procedures upon request. In addition, the Postal Service reserves the right to verify each audit bureau’s compliance with Postal Service audit procedures. The Postal Service has the authority to revoke any audit bureau’s authorization to conduct verifications if it finds the audit bureau failed to follow approved audit procedures.

¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ continues to seek and share the latest postal updates and information to help our customers understand and navigate changes to mailing and shipping. When any policies, procedures or forms are updated, ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ will be sure to share announcements.

The post Two New Updates from the USPS You Need to Know for Your Periodicals appeared first on ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ.

Postal rates just changed on July 10, and within a few days I was already fielding many questions like these. I don’t have a solid answer for any of these questions, but I do have a couple hints.

On July 14, just days after the last USPS postal increase, the USPS released an Industry Alert about a January 2023 Release Overview. This Overview shares information on items the USPS is planning to change. And its planned effective date of January 8, 2023, hints at the date of our next postal increase.

At the most recent MTAC (Mailer Technical Advisory Committee) meeting, the Postmaster General announced the rate increase is being pushed a couple weeks from January 8, 2023 to January 22, 2023. This is, of course, subject to approval by the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), but it will allow software vendors a couple more weeks to update after the new pricing is announced.

Now that we have a clue about when to expect the next rate increase, let’s look at how much it may affect us. Working in the industry, I hear a lot of rumors. Lately, I have been hearing mentions of a four to six percent increase, but I have not seen anything concrete to support this rumor with any confidence. For reference, the last couple of price increases each landed at around six to nine percent.

A factor that may cause the next rate increase to be higher than expected is the new numbers produced on July 13 in the Consumer Price Index summary. The CPI measures the average change over time in prices paid by consumers for goods and services. The pricing at the USPS is basically tied to the CPI, and the updated data supplied by the shows that the CPI increased by 1.3% in June alone, compared to the total of a 9.1% rise in the CPI over the last 12 months. This high rate of a monthly increase may impact the pricing at the USPS as they plan for the next fiscal year.

Transportation and fuel pricing continues to influence everything. Challenges in these areas will drive the pricing of all aspects of delivery for all consumables, and I expect mail and in-home delivery to be no different.

The Overview has quite a few topics of interest with the disclaimer that this document is pre-decisional and open to changes by the Board of Governors and the PRC. Here are a couple of items I found interesting…

• Postal network redesign and classification updates
• 2023 Mailing Promotions
• First Class and Priority Mail Changes
• Zone Moderations and Removal or Eliminations of several services.

I don’t want to go into any of these too deeply since these are early discussion points, but if you want to have a look for yourself, please seek out the .

For methods to manage rising prices in your marketing mail, read my last blog, 4 Ways to Deal with USPS’ New Postage Rate Increases.

¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ continues to seek and share the latest and greatest postal information to help our customers navigate this turbulent postal landscape. When any plans become concrete, ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ will be sure to share announcements.

The post What We Can Predict About the Next USPS Pricing Increase appeared first on ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ.

As a print buyer, you want to be aware of the printing particulars that impact your print product; not line-by-line specifics. You don’t have time to get stuck in the weeds and lose sight of the bigger picture.

When it comes to printing, you need someone looking out for you. A representative who works hard and understands the entire printing process, from prepress to packaging.

At ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ, we believe in creating value for our customers with end-to-end digital and print solutions. But that value relies on our ability to execute. It doesn’t matter how quality a printer’s solutions are if they can’t deliver on them each day and with every project.

That’s where our Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) step in. They are the crucial point-of-contact who guide our customers throughout the printing process.

Since ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ’s hometown Marceline was founded as a railroad hub, a passenger train is an apt analogy to describe their importance to our operation:

If our printing presses are the engine, our Customer Service Representatives might be the train conductors. They make sure the train is on schedule; they coordinate with the crews and make sure customers are comfortable. They have an eye on everything; the train doesn’t move a millimeter without their approval.

If you peel back the process behind any one of our print projects, you’ll find the fingerprints of a Customer Service Representative.

Extensively Trained, Experienced Experts

Given the prominent role they play in every project, our Customer Service Representatives don’t just hop on board after hiring. Newcomers to the department spend six weeks training to learn about everything from our unique prepress process through our finishing processes. After this training, they are paired with a mentor for continued development. That being said, “new” is relative. Our CSRs have been part of the ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ family for 20 years on average.

Regardless of experience, Customer Service Representatives are constantly learning and training. There are numerous training sessions throughout the year that update the entire team on new operating procedures.

For Dana Kelly, a passionate problem solver and CSR who has been with ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ for 22 years, learning is a key part of the job.

“I will never know everything about the printing business, but I’ve learned to keep asking and I will find the right person to answer my question,” Kelly said.

The core focus of our CSRs is to act as the intermediary between the customer and the press facility. They are customer advocates working to make sure their customers’ needs are continually met and that the project proceeds smoothly through the printing process.

Given this relationship, they must understand all aspects of the printing process: From the minutia of proofing to big picture planning around deadlines.

But beyond having an expert understanding of the printing process, our CSRs also have empathy in no short supply. They must be problem solvers who care and great communicators who are quick to respond to customer needs.

Putting people first

It’s fitting that “customer” is the first word in their job title, because at the end of the day, the customer is their top concern.

Our Customer Service Representatives are experts at what they do, and not just because of their extensive training and experience. Our CSRs are integral to our operation — and to any successful print operation for that matter — because they value the people behind the project.

They create value for customers through helping the project overcome any complications first and foremost. But equally important to the collective success of a project is the close working relationships our CSRs cultivate with customers. These strong foundations help projects overcome any challenge. In this sense, they truly embody ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ’s value of putting people first.

“We feel like we are your only client,” said Chris Keene of the Zoological Society of Milwaukee. “Customer Service is very responsive, and the print quality is always very good.”

Some of the relationships between customers and CSRs even span decades. These representatives have been there for customer milestones such as marriages and births, as well as more somber moments. No matter what the future holds, you can bet our CSRs will be there for customers in whatever way they are needed. Not all of these ways are necessarily in their job description. But it’s some of the most important work our Customer Service Representatives do.

Whether it’s last-minute changes or late-night phone calls, our CSRs are driven. They do whatever it takes to deliver a quality print product on time and budget.

All of our employees are important in helping keep ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ running — from prepress and technical support, to press operators and the sales teams. As our CEO Don ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ always says, “Our people make the difference.”

But without the tireless efforts of our Customer Service Representatives, our train would never leave the station.

The post When the Extra Mile is the Most Important appeared first on ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ.

We’re grateful that Paul took time from his busy schedule to share his story about being a leader in an association that has helped the craft brewing market grow and thrive.

¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ: Who is the Brewers Association?

Paul: The Brewers Association is made up of a voting membership of over 4,000 brewers. Other parts of the membership include suppliers, such as malt and hop companies, beer distributors and retailers. They represent key segments of a market made up of approximately 7,000 craft breweries in the United States.

There are around 46,000 members in the American Homebrewers Association. And the organization as a whole employs 64 employees, mostly located at our headquarters in Boulder, Colorado.

Can you help me understand the difference between the BA and the AHA?

The BA is for professional businesses, specifically those brewers required to pay excise taxes, licensing costs, etc.

The AHA is for hobbyists who brew beer at home simply because they love beer and want to experiment with the brewing process. Of course, many professional brewers have come from the amateur ranks.

Is it safe to assume that the BA has impacted the general public’s awareness of craft brewing?

Yes. People see craft beers in stores, restaurants and concert venues. So, in terms of the consciousness of the American public, people are very aware of the craft brewing scene on the professional side.

There are probably more than a million people brewing beer at home in the US currently, with many others who have brewed beer at home sometime in the past. But unless a person brews at home or has friends who do, they’re probably not that aware of what is happening on the home brewing scene.

What are some of the things the BA has done for craft brewers?

The most recent big accomplishment for the BA was to facilitate the approval of a 2-year excise tax reduction. While all businesses pay taxes, there are extra taxes for the alcohol industry. The BA worked with government agencies to approve the reduction, which is almost a 50 percent savings from the previous excise tax rates. This has meant craft brewers have additional budget to invest more in their infrastructure and employees.

The BA also works with state brewers guilds, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory agencies.

The three main parts of the BA’s mission are to:

• Promote craft brewing,
• Provide technical assistance to help brewers brew better, and
• Provide legal and general business assistance to help brewers be successful, whether it’s gaining access to markets or maintaining access to suppliers and raw ingredients.

What have been some of the business challenges the BA has helped with?

A good example would be an education campaign the BA created when the FDA published a proposal to heavily regulate the handling of spent grains as part of the Food Safety Modernization Act.

Our education program was successful in convincing the FDA that the age-old process of transferring spent grain from breweries back to farmers was safe and effective. The result was that the FDA withdrew the proposal, relieving brewers of a regulation that would have been an expensive burden on their businesses.

Tell me about the publications the BA makes available.

The BA has a book publishing division called , and we release two or three books per year. Our distributor for those is the . We also supply homebrew supply shops with these books.

Even at a time when brewing information is all over the internet, we’re still growing our publication offerings. The mission of our information to help people brew better beer is very niche, so that helps. If you’re in the brewing scene you really want our information and the best practices we’re providing.

We also publish two magazines. for professional brewers and for amateur brewers.

We’re very happy with our partnership with ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ as our magazine printer. With all aspects of communication, quality, timeliness and consistency, that relationship is going very well for us.

We also publish a myriad of technical brewing pieces related to things like brewing safety or draft brew quality. These publications can be anything from a one-page white paper, to a 40-page manual on , to a 100-page manual on .

So, we do a lot of publishing, and our creative department helps ensure the information is presented in a polished and professional way.

How has the BA influenced the public’s attitude about craft brewing?

The BA has worked with the media for decades to help make beer brewing more accessible to the public, and to be understood as an agricultural product made in local manufacturing facilities.

When I first heard you could make your own beer, I was shocked. The revelation changed my life.

Back in the late 1980s, this was a mystery to me and most of the public, but now it’s widely understood and we see local breweries everywhere, popping up all over the place.

A positive shift in public attitude has come about because local breweries have become community meeting hubs and an important component of their local economy.

You see a lot of taprooms around the country now where you can go into establishments that have brewing going on in the back and have a public space in the front where families, and sometimes even their dogs, are hanging around enjoying beer, socializing and tossing cornhole or whatever.

It’s great to see local breweries become community hubs, and I think they’ve prompted a big shift in attitude because people can touch breweries now and experience these community connections themselves.

How did you get from not knowing you could brew your own beer to working for the Brewers Association?

Well, I was working for a non-profit environmental group back in the 1980s when I first heard you could make your own beer. I was chatting while shooting pool one night when I scratched the table felt and exclaimed, “What? You can make your own beer?” And, by the next morning I was already starting my first brewing attempt.

Then, in the early 1990s, I started working at Boulder Beer here in Colorado, as well as a local homebrew supply shop. I bought into the supply shop, and while I was an owner there, we opened up a second shop, and that kind of put me on a career path.

The association recruited me in 1998 to run the homebrewers side where I was also publisher of Zymurgy Magazine for a few years. Then I took leadership of the professional brewers division in 2001 and handed over the homebrewers division in 2005.

We’ve been growing a lot as an association, with an annual budget that has gone from under $3 million at the turn of the century to around $30 million today.

Since craft brewing is growing so much, what has the BA been doing to grow membership?

We’ve found the most effective thing is offering a personal touch, connecting with brewers individually.

One of the areas we focus on is trying to retain members as they go from planning a craft brewery to actually running an operational brewery. You know, when somebody is in the planning stage for a new business, they’re looking for resources, and they have money then to invest in things like association membership to get the information they need.

But as soon as they flip the switch and become operational, they’re pretty much broke because their money is going toward the next piece of equipment, like a new tank. Or they’re buying hops and barley to make beer with.

And so we spend a lot of time giving personal attention to brewers who are just opening up, and we have one staff member dedicated to onboarding them so they understand the resources the BA offers and how membership is a critical part of their new business being successful.

Are there membership growth tactics you’ve used that have worked better or worse than expected?

We make our staff available to state brewers guilds and have a set of ambassadors who give talks on specific areas of the brewing industry. For example, we have a Quality Ambassador, a Sustainability Ambassador, a Safety Ambassador, a Diversity Ambassador, etc. We send these people all around the country to speak at state guild meetings and state conferences for brewers.

I don’t think of it as a tactic for membership development, but it has really helped in that area. And, it’s helped us provide that personal touch I mentioned before, keeping people connected with our association.

Since many new breweries are tiny, many use life savings to get up and running. We understand that membership is competing with buying that next piece of equipment or another box of hops or barley.

Tell me a little about your typical day as association Director.

I travel around 75 days a year to various industry conferences and technical meetings where we’re networking with people and organizations that impact the beer industry.

When I’m in my office, I generally start my day by reading about what’s going on in the brewing world so I know what’s going on out there. Then I focus my day on internal projects, staff management, and a lot of meetings to make sure we’re all on the same page and are making the decisions that will help our help our member brewers be successful. I try communicating face-to-face whenever possible, rather than through my computer.

At 4:30 in the afternoon, we open up our staff bar at the office, which we spell BAr, because we’re the BA. That’s one of the benefits of working in the beer industry.

And since it’s beer, I make sure not to take myself or my job too seriously. Beer is about fun, and if we’re going to help our members sell more beer, we have to keep it fun and it can’t be serious all the time.

What have been some of your favorite projects?

One of my favorite projects is judging beer. I remember getting a call back in the early 1990s asking if I would be a judge at the Australian International Beer Awards. I’m on the phone with my mouth hanging open in surprise and saying, “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re going to fly me over, put me up and feed me, and all I have to do is tell you what I think about these beers? Yeah, I’ll do that.”

Another project I got a lot of satisfaction from was when we published our draft beer quality manual. That was our first time publishing something that brought together a group of large brewers, small brewers and other technical people, and basically deciding on how draft beer should be treated in the United States. We made those decisions and published them in a 70-page booklet a decade ago, and now we’ve seen what’s actually happened in the market place with people treating draft beer so much better than they used to. That gives me a lot of personal pride.

My current favorite project is our Craft Campaign, which is a marketing campaign for craft brewers. One of the key components of the campaign is a label that certified independent craft brewers can put on their packaging. The seal’s logo contains the image of an upside down bottle with the words on it.

The idea is that qualifying brewers are certified as an authentic independent craft brewer so that the public can distinguish their products from those manufactured by giant conglomerate brewers promoting themselves as craft brewers.

Probably my least favorite projects are the regulatory filings. It’s really dry material with a lot of legalese dealing with anything related to labeling, advertising and regulatory rulings from the Tax and Trade Bureau or the FDA. It’s very technical and time consuming because brewing is a highly regulated industry.

Let’s talk about the future. How would you like the BA to influence what seems to be a thriving market?

The one thing we’re hoping to accomplish is the permanent reduction of the excise tax, or to at least get an extension of the savings that is currently scheduled to sunset at the end of 2019. That’s going to be a huge focus going forward.

Another thing I’m confident we will accomplish is to continue helping keep brewers in business. It’s very competitive out there with so many breweries, and there’s not enough shelf space for everyone who wants it. But we’ll be working with retail groups, with beer distributor groups, and providing resources and information to help some brewers be successful who wouldn’t make it without our efforts.

I would also expect there to be a continued share-shift from light lager and American lager, to craft beers. Over the coming years, we want to help independent craft brewers be more regularly seen and understood as a differentiator in the marketplace. I don’t think we’re there yet, since we just launched the Independent Craft Campaign last year, but within a couple of years I think it’s going to make a major difference and help craft brewers grow their sales.

Thank you to Paul for sharing his experience at the Brewers Association. You can learn more about what they do at . Be sure to check out their 2018 “” for more on the industry’s growth.

The post A Day in the Life: How Paul Gatza Became an Association Leader for Craft Beer Brewers appeared first on ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ.

Olsa took time out of his busy schedule to discuss best practices for launching a publication startup and company operations with ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ. This is part two of our Day in the Life interview with John Olsa. You can read the first part here.

Do you have any best practices that you’ve learned or developed?

Yes, I really have one that I live by: it’s always easy to remember the truth. I’m not a good liar to begin with, so I don’t do it. Plus, I never have to remember a lie.

The one thing that I’ve instilled in my sales people and in myself is: we do what we say we’re going to do. Because your integrity is really what you have.

I don’t fuss around with manipulating things to get it to go my way. If someone says no to me on a sale, then they’ve got a reason. I’m not a pushy person when it comes to selling things. I’m a straight shooter.

I’m a big believer that the people who are with you the longest get the best rate when those things come around. A new person never gets a better rate than one of my current clients. I am the exact opposite of the real world, I think. Cell phones, cars, name it – somebody new is getting a better deal than a longtime subscriber or client. I do the exact opposite.

For instance, my current clients that were with us that first year, their rate never goes up no matter how big I make it because they had the faith to come along with me the first year. And it gives me that base of advertising.

When you’re consistent – that’s another thing I like to be – when you’re consistent, people notice it. You can be honest. You can say, “Hey, I had to raise the rates this year.” It opens it up to where you can run your business, and not worry about, “Oh, gosh. What did I tell them two years ago?”

So that’s kind of the one thing – you never have to remember a lie if you don’t tell any. I’m a big believer in that.

What else should people know about you or your company?

I’ve enjoyed it.

I operate a little differently. I base a lot of my business on personal relationships with people. Whether they advertise with me or not, if we’re friends, we’re friends. I try to send out and do a very good job with our products. People aren’t foolish. They’ll understand what I’m trying to do; if we can help them, they’ll come to us.

We’ll contact them, but I’m not overbearing and I’m not a “sales person” or a hard seller. If we can help you, let’s have a conversation.

I’d like to be thought of as someone who takes very good care of my people. My employees, they get paid first. There’s been some times in the last two years that John didn’t get a paycheck. That’s another thing I would tell people who are trying to go out on their own: there are going to be some times that you write that paycheck to yourself and you just look at it for a little while instead of cashing it. But that’s just the way it goes. Your people always get paid first.

I try to treat Chris and Rachel right. They don’t have to come to me and ask for a raise. I do that before they ask. I know what they do and I know how hard they work and the effort they put into creating what they do, so they’re rewarded for it.

If I started being a not very good leader, they’re going to leave. Then I’m stuck with nothing.

I’m in my late 40s. I plan on doing this for 12 or 15 years, and then I already have an exit strategy set up for when I hit my early 60s. And that’s when I’ll have my, quote, unquote, payout, when I turn it over to the next person to run the company. I’ve already started thinking of that, and I put that process in place.

It’s something else that I’d tell to people starting their businesses – you’re going to be very gung-ho at first and be excited, and that’s wonderful. But someone of my age, starting his own business at — gosh, what am I? I started at 46. You’ve got to plan, because I’m on the back nine of life so I have to plan for those things.

So it goes back to having a model and having a plan and having a process. And thinking down the line. When you start your own business, there’s no short-term disability, there’s no safety net, there’s no unemployment. It’s me. I’m the person responsible. But I was ready for that because I’m a little older.

I’m not going to try to outthink people who have owned their own businesses longer than I have, but if you don’t have good people, you really don’t have anything at all. You really don’t. There are things I don’t know how to write and I don’t know how to create. I know how to come up with ideas and I know how to lead, but I know what I can’t do. So I find people and I compensate them well for doing their specialties.

It’s also having good partners. ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ is a tremendous partner of mine. Printing is my biggest expense, by far. And then comes postage – two things I can’t get away from as a publisher. So I want to have a great partner in the printing area that makes my products look great; and when they come out, they’re consistent.

If I didn’t have someone like that as a partner, then I don’t really have anything either. I could shop it around, but I want a printer that understands what I like. And that’s what I get with Jason [Jason Marsh, ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ rep] and the gang in Saint Joseph.

It’s been a unique experience. The first year, I was the bank; the second year, it operated on sales; and now, this third year, which will be the second year of printing, now people are starting to see. “Okay, I didn’t want to jump in because I wanted to see how you were going to do.” I had that a lot, which is frustrating, but it’s the truth. People want to see if you’re going to be around. So now I’m coming into my second year, and the best thing in my business is when people call you and say, “John, I want to buy advertising.” It’s a unique phone call to get, because it doesn’t happen very often.

I like to think of myself as a matchmaker. I’m the invitation for you to meet my readers. I want to introduce you, the advertiser, to my readers.

The post A Day in the Life of a Startup Publisher: John Olsa’s Best Practices appeared first on ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ.

Olsa took time out of his busy schedule to answer ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ’s questions about what it took to successfully launch a publication startup.

Tell me about your experience launching a new publication.

I had a couple of ideas that I wanted to chase on my own, and I saw an opportunity to do that. I started with two projects. One is Great Lakes By Design magazine, which is our creative persons publication – architects, boat builders, engineers, interior designers. I consider it all the things that I’m fascinated with that I can’t do. So I enjoy the magazine.

We also do a golf publication called The Golf Explorer. It’s a publication about golf in Michigan. I want it to be a national magazine in the end, so I distribute it quite far away, all the way west to Phoenix, throughout the Midwest, throughout the East. It’s all about coming to Michigan and staying here, so I don’t even accept out-of-state advertising, which is a concept that’s not used very often.

What I did in March of 2016 is I went off on my own. I had a bank of money. I had always worked with [¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ Sales Rep] Jason Marsh at my old company. He was the first person I called because the products are always printed well. It’s something that I have to have, and the company provides it.

I hope this endeavor lasts as long as I think it’s going to last. I enjoy doing it, making my own decisions and having a good team behind me to execute what I know needs to be done. It’s been good so far.

You have the growing pains, like you always do when you try to start. We started in March of 2016, and didn’t have any billings that first year. But we survived 2017 quite nicely on the revenue from just the year. And we’re going to grow in 2018. I’ll expand both pieces.

We run the gamut of print. We do our own websites so we can do digital. My goal is to merge the print and the digital, because I still think print is a better-than-viable way to get your information or content. I consider it the last unimpeded piece of media. If you don’t like it, turn the page.

Where millions and millions of emails have to be sent out, the open rate when my magazines go out is probably close to 100 percent. People are going to open it because there’s something to holding it in your hands. You’re going to open it, you’re going to see what it is.

On our website, I put no advertising. It’s all content. No videos to close, or sounds to hear or try to turn off. It’s just pure content.

It’s a different model, but it’s also a double-edged sword. It takes me longer to find the following because I’m not letting everything track to my site. I’ve got to build it from scratch, but that’s the way I want it. I want it clean and I want it to be engaging our readers.

That’s part of the reason I love print so much. I’m a big catalog fan. I want an uninterrupted experience for the reader. I want the websites to be clean. I don’t stuff my magazines with advertising. I would make them bigger first before I stuff them with advertising.

The model works, it just takes a little bit longer.

Since this is for our Day in the Life series, can we talk about a typical day, or as close as you get to a typical day, especially in the midst of a launch?

My typical way of doing things is always different. I’m a “five steps down the road” thinker. If I do something, it’s going to trigger a series of events. So I’ve always thought that way. My parents taught me to think that way because if you make a decision and you don’t think about what may happen from it, you usually get caught in a trap. And that’s the way I operate day-to-day, be it planning for selling, how I do my accounting, how I do my budgeting, how I pay my people.

That’s been something of a challenge. I’m the accountant, I’m the banker. I have an accountant who helps me, but I have to do it. I am the head sales person, I am the tie-breaker between Rachel and Chris.

On a typical day, I do really a little bit of everything. It’s planning for the next issue. It’s budgeting for the next year. It’s finding new people to buy advertising. It could be new content ideas, or changing the websites so they’re more user-friendly.

Day-to-day, it could be anything. I deliver a lot of magazines, so the folks down at ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ in Saint Joseph see me quite often. I take our pickup truck down there, grab 50 or 60 cases of magazines and deliver them for our custom publishing clients. There’s a lot things that, if I don’t do them they won’t get done.

It’s really doing everything.

It’s been fun. Has it been challenging? Yes, but it’s been a fun challenge.

On a typical day, my goodness. The days usually start at about 4:30 a.m., and then I’m usually up at around 11:00 or 11:30 p.m. because I have an idea. Instead of writing them down on a notepad next to my bed, which is probably the healthy thing to do— my office is at my home, so I walk right into my office and turn the computer on. And I do that often.

There are good and bad things about working from home.

Yes, there are. I try to dress for work as I would if I was going to an office, but sometimes I just don’t feel like it. I don’t really have a set schedule. It’s just when things need to be done or I can get a lot of things done. I like to call Friday afternoons our SVK Friday. At 12:00, I’m usually at the golf course unless I have something very important to do.

In my business, it’s very hard to find people on Friday afternoons, especially in the summertime. So I say to Rachel and Chris, “You know what? Go do something. Go away for the weekend if you want. Take off.” Because really at 11:30, quarter to twelve, you’re not going to find me.

I like that balance, where you know you’re going to get away for that one half of a day. Turn the phone off and enjoy something else.

John Olsa and his wife, Sandy

Any advice for somebody else looking to launch a publication? Anything that you’d suggest they keep in mind?

Yeah, there’s a lot of things. The one thing that I’ve learned this first year and second year that I would give as advice to someone is cash flow—spreading out your invoicing.

First, have enough money to get you through the first year because it’s not inexpensive to print things. That’s not a knock at ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ because I realize they have costs and they pay their people. That’s not my angle. But it’s expensive, what I do.

I’ve done a pretty good job, but one of the things I missed is cash flow. Plan your invoicing, plan your receivables, know how your customers pay, when they pay and how they pay because a lot of people now are using bank transfer or credit card. As an owner, I have to pay that transaction fee. I’m making that adjustment for 2019 when I do the media kit. Those are real costs that a company can’t just eat.

As to the accounting, I consider myself pretty intelligent, and this accounting is – it’s just different. I’m very good at math, and this accounting math is different. You need a good accountant and a good attorney. Hopefully you never really need either of them, but have them.

Protect your work with copyrights and trademarks, especially the copyrights if you’re doing magazines like I do. If you’re in the news business, get publishers insurance.

Set a plan. I’m a long-term thinker, some people are very short-term thinkers. I don’t want to get way out there and then have to backtrack, so I’m a slow mover. It takes me a while to get to where I want to be, but I rarely hit big holes in the ground. I’m pretty consistent. That’s just my mentality.

Be consistent. And always be mindful of what your business is doing. Look every day. I look every day at my accounting, I look every day at anything copyrighted or legal trademarks.

That’s the advice. Have a good plan and be honest to yourself about costs.

When you’re doing a project, you can’t be afraid to say “No, it doesn’t fit my model.” Because if you say yes and you go over on costs, you’re eating those costs. And now you’ve wasted your time and your money.

The product might be good, but you lost money and you lost time that could have been spent on a project that would have made money.

When you run it through the model, you can’t be afraid to tell yourself no if you can’t do it. I think that’s a big hurdle. Most people, they have their business and say they can do it, and then they spread themselves too thin. And then mistakes get made.

Have a model, run the process, and make sure that it fits. That’s the key, because then you’re not going to get surprised on the backend.

And, finally, you are going to make mistakes. When that happens, own up to them, fix them, and make a note to avoid doing it again.

John Olsa is entering his third year as the owner of SVK Multimedia and Publishing. In that time, he’s accumulated a large bank of knowledge on starting a publishing company. His insights were so extensive, we’ll be publishing part two of Olsa’s interview next week. Check back or subscribe to our blog to receive updates.

The post A Day in the Life of a Startup Publisher: Meet John Olsa appeared first on ¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ.

Kelli Wondra is Exhibits Manager for the (AHIMA) in Chicago. She is currently preparing for their annual conference Oct. 7-11.

¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ interviewed her as part of our Day in the Life series. We want to shed insight into the day-to-day requirements of successful associations.

Let’s start with the basics. What are some of your main responsibilities as exhibits manager?

I have several. This particular job is both an internal- and an external-facing position. My major responsibility is to create and manage and sell the exhibits program.

We do exhibits for our annual convention, but we also do exhibits for some of our small programs as well – such as the Assembly on Education, the long-term care meeting, and a couple of other products throughout the year.

I organize the space. I am the main contact person for sales, but then I also am the person who is the logistics operator. So, I provide the service kits and all the materials that our vendor partners need access to in order to be set up for the meeting.

On the inside portion, I also organize all of the internal things on behalf of the association to bring the commerce to any given space. Whether it be Los Angeles or New Orleans or wherever we’re going, I’m that person working on the shipping, I’m that person who is working on all of the on-site signage. I assist with the coordination of transportation. I assist with the coordination of security. I’m the main person who is working with the decorator that we hire, our general contractor, to create all of that beautifully branded space that you see every time you walk through the door of a convention.

And then there are other, smaller facets of responsibilities that I have. I work with the AD vendor as well, both on the exhibitor side and then on the show management side.

There are many, many areas that I’m responsible for. The challenge is always making sure that the external and the internal are working harmoniously together so that you have a nice flow of events from the preplanning to the launch to the execution, and then tying it up at the end as well.

How do you begin most work days? When you come into the office or wherever you happen to be, what’s the first thing you normally do?

I usually look at my calendar the night before just to see, “What’s the shape of my day, for the next day?” And then I look at my several to-do lists. I have a couple of different calendars that I look and I merge them together so I can see, color-coded by project and by task type, what my time is going to look like.

Some days are really nice and easy because I look at it and it might be in what everybody else would consider a fallow period. There’s always that month, six weeks after a show where you’re like, “Whoo! My show is done!”

But actually, that’s the time when you’re really ramping it up and you’ve already started your planning for the next fiscal year. That’s your sweet spot because the show is kind of done, and you’ve got all the things that went well or didn’t go so well in your mind. You’re already firmly planning for that next year.

I look at the day to see that. Those are the fun tasks for me, because that’s where you get to do your daydreaming and your big ideas. And then, juxtapose that with some of the other tasks, which are a little more mundane, like a mail merge.

Sometimes they might be a little more mundane or maybe a little tedious, but you look at the day to see how it’s parsed out, in terms of internal/external and then the broad thinking versus, “OK. I have to pay a lot of bills today.”

Every day is very different because it depends on what day of the year and which show you’re in. It’s never boring. Ever.

Do you have a method for prioritizing the order you’ll tackle different tasks each day?

I do, because the world has changed so much in the past few years. As much as I love technology, I’m constantly inundated with phone calls and text messages. Notifications pop up everywhere all the time, and it’s really easy to let yourself get distracted by something that looks like it’s an emergency when it really isn’t.

I like to use the early part of the day, when it’s like 7:00 in the central time zone, and nobody on the West Coast is up yet and people in New York, they’re marching forward with their day. So, from 7:00, 7:30 until about 9:00 it’s really quiet. If I have something that is very exacting – maybe a merge task or business metrics that require intense lookups – I like to do it then because my mind is rested and I find that it’s easy to see things that early in the day.

And then, as the phone calls start to trickle in, I can gauge the needs of external stakeholders with those of the internal stakeholders and address them as quickly as possible. And then by the time I’m getting to the end of the day, I have that free window where everybody’s starting to leave. And then I can go back and think about those larger issues, when I’ve got most of the day’s work behind me.

That’s typically how my day rolls out, but it’s the association world as well, so in between every one of those things is a meeting (laughs).

That’s how I like for it to go. It doesn’t always go that way. I also commute, so there are those times when you’re standing for unforetold moments, waiting for signal clearance because that’s just the way trains are sometimes.

How do you think working for an association is different from other office environments?

It’s not that much different. It depends upon the mission of the association, of course, but it’s really not that much different.

Maybe in terms of challenges and demands, I think in some cases it’s much harder to work in the association world. That’s because I think people who commit to association work have it in their core, they’re kind of driven by that mission-based objective. It’s easy to go out into the wide world, the wide working world, and say, “Hey, I’m going to go to work for this bank or this agency,” and get caught up into a nine-to-five routine.

Once upon a time I worked in a Wall Street company. You get into these microenvironments where you sort of lose touch with the rest of the world. Your mission is about making that particular agency or that company lucrative. So sometimes that more obvious economic goal kind of suffuses everything that’s mission-driven about the company.

In that sense, it’s very different. I come to work here and we’re looking at how to make health information better, make it more accurate, make it safer. We’re trying to help improve patient safety and outcomes.

Every day as you take on your tasks, even on the operations side where I’m located – my daily task list may be about moving five skids of boxes from point a to point b, but at the same time I’m doing it in the service of an organization that’s seeking to make healthcare better.

So, it’s always with that mission very clearly highlighted for you. It makes the work better, easier, it’s very different. I appreciate it.

On the surface, the tasks are the same across the spectrum. But, for me, there’s just a different sense of purpose when I come to work here.

Do you have anything cool you’re working on now?

We have an innovation classroom on the exhibit hall floor at our annual convention. We have different stakeholders coming in to do some micro-classes within the context of the exhibit hall.

That’s something new for us. We haven’t done it before. I’m excited about that prospect because there sometimes can be a division when you have larger trade shows. Oftentimes attendees who don’t plan to buy anything won’t go down to the exhibit hall for anything.

We’re a little bit novel in our approach, in that we feel that if there’s educational content to be found we can offer it to our attendees. So, we offer educational content on the exhibit hall floor.

In past years we’ve had the product world theaters and they’re very popular. We thought it would be interesting to add a small innovation classroom. We have a classroom that seats about 50 and we have presentations that will be going on during normal track times. It’s a small, intimate classroom and it will be interesting to see how people will respond to it.

What kinds of projects are you always working on, like when the conference is over and things are a little less busy?

We’re always trying to look ahead. My colleagues and I, the planners on the AHIMA meetings team, we always go back to our own source organizations. We’re trying to see the new things out there, the new technologies that we can bring into the meeting that will help make the experience for the attendee more engaging. Something that’s – not necessarily whimsical or novel – but will grab their attention and keep it for the four or five days they’re on-site.

We’re also looking at ways to make things leaner, make the task easier for ourselves and make it as little work as possible for an attendee to come. We want them to be interested by the meeting, register for it, come have the experience, and think about us for the next year when they leave the meeting site.

We’re constantly planning. We have mini bi-weekly meetings where we talk and share articles we might want to try out. We spend a fair amount of time doing a lot of “what if” thinking – looking at the risks, the ups and the downsides of trying to implement new technologies or maybe just a different way of configuring a classroom.

We don’t want to be just a series of talking heads. We’re looking at how it all impacts expenses and whether it’s realistic.

We do a lot of – I guess you’d call it daydreaming. We get into a conference room with a whiteboard, and make lists, and crazy caricature drawings, and we try to work it out. We vet these ideas with leadership so everyone’s on the same page.

It’s never a down time for us, but that post-meeting time is a great time where you take all of the great knowledge you learned while you were on-site. You run with it, and try to keep it fresh and lively and build something new. For me, that’s the most fun time because that’s when you’ve really connected with your colleagues. You’re talking about content you’ve seen or things you’ve experienced.

That’s what I love doing, the what-ifs and the thinking about how to do it, tweak it. You want to find those little ways of bringing wonder into the educational sessions, getting that spark of curiosity and keeping it fresh throughout.

Do you have any advice for other people working for associations?

Stay curious. Go to other association meetings, go to other meetings. Go to events.

It kind of depends on your work cycle. Those things that you find, when you start a career, that are really new and that you love – sometimes when you get embroiled in your career and you kind of get trapped in that day-to-day slog, it’s hard to see beyond that.

So plan for time every week to get out of your office and do something that gives you a different perspective on your own life and your association’s work. Because if you’re not fresh, then you can’t be bringing fresh ideas back to what you’re doing at the association level.

Also, understand that sometimes you can’t do every single thing in a day. Come to terms with the fact that you can only do so much in one day, so plan accordingly and keep looking forward.

If you or someone you know would like to be interviewed for our Day in the Life association series, please contact Sarah Scott at sarah.scott@walsworth.com.

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Tina Angley is the Manager of Member Publications at the .

¶¶Ňń¶ĚĘÓƵ interviewed her as part of our Day in the Life series. We want to shed insight into the day-to-day requirements of successful associations.

When you come into work in the morning, what’s the first thing you typically do?

It’s funny you ask that. Up until maybe a few years ago, I used to spend my morning checking email. And one day I was speaking to a colleague, and sort of complaining about how I felt like a slave to my email and I needed to work on making my mornings more productive.

She said she doesn’t actually open email until maybe 10 o’clock, after she’s taken care of the things that she wanted to accomplish first thing in the morning.

So now what I do is I take a few minutes to set my intention for the day and make a list of all the things I want to accomplish and make progress on for the day. I usually start with yesterday’s list – what didn’t get finished – and go from there.

When you’re making your list for the day, how do you prioritize different tasks? What’s your process?

I try to start with small things that I can do quickly, that have the greatest impact either for myself, the people I work with, or the organization as a whole.

Sometimes those little things can make you feel like you’re overwhelmed and just have too many things going on. So, if you can bang out a few things that take a little bit of effort but have a bigger impact ̶ and just get them off your list ̶ then you can move on to things that have deadlines, which is usually the next thing I work on.

I’ll prioritize things that have the soonest deadlines and work on those first. And then I look for things that can’t wait until after that first deadline and try to take care of those or prioritize those during the day somewhere so I can really focus on the things that have an urgent deadline coming up.

And, invariably, you’re going to be asked to help out with other things, or new things will get added to your list. Rather than just tack those onto my list, I usually try to ask for a timeline. I want to know when they need it by, to see if it can wait until after my deadline. That helps me prioritize adding new things to my list and helps set expectations for other people, so they know that I won’t necessarily be able to work on something right away.

Do you have anything cool that you’re working on right now?

I’m working on a couple of things. I can tell you about a special issue that I’m working on developing.

One of the biggest things our organization does is an event we put on every year: our annual safety conference.

I started thinking about ways that we can, as a publication, be part of that event in a meaningful way. Because it’s something that takes place in time, whereas a publication is more of a lasting piece.

So I started thinking about putting out a special issue, like a 13th issue.

Being a print publication, it’ll probably be kept by people for a while. My thought is to find ways that a publication can be part of the action while the event is taking place. That’s where all the magic happens, with our attendees and our members networking. It’s sort of like a dedicated time for them, when they are focused on and immersed in an educational experience.

Once they get back to the office, they’re busy doing their regular jobs, but when they’re at the conference, they’re a captive audience in a way. They may be more likely to read what you put in front of them.

So we’re trying to come up with a way to do that with the publication and be a part of that event.

That sounds like a great big project. Let’s also talk about some of things that you have to do every day – some of the less exciting parts of the job.

There’s always proofreading. That is a basic element of my day. Proofreading anything, copy editing. I’ll be working on writing news items for the next issue.

I really enjoy copy editing and proofreading because – I’ve made the analogy that it’s like vacuuming. You’re cleaning things up as you go and what you leave behind is a beautiful thing, hopefully.

Do you have a busy time of year?

There’s always the holidays. Everybody knows the holidays are really busy in publishing, but you know it’s coming and you find ways to plan ahead for that. You may keep issues shorter, start earlier, things like that.

For us, the busiest time is probably the months leading up to our conference every year, which is in June. And everyone at the organization is involved in putting that on, so we all have to re-prioritize our regular jobs.

For me and my team, we still have a publication to get done, but we have to finds ways to do that and still contribute to the bigger picture.

That time is really busy, but it can also be really exciting. That’s when you’re surrounded by people who are at their most creative. Everybody is trying to come up with new and creative ways to do things, or developing new programs to offer our customers to give them the best experience possible.

It could be, one day you’re stuffing envelopes and another day maybe you’re sitting on a brainstorming team working on a new project. It’s all over the place.

When things become less busy, what kinds of projects are you trying to catch up on?

It’s kind of tough these days. Being a print journal, we also produce an e-newsletter and a blog and some other digital content. The time between issues, it’s not really what it used to be.

But there definitely are projects that need attention between those issues, and some of the longer-term projects tend to get put on the back burner because they don’t have an urgent deadline.

Like this 13th issue, that’s a ways off. What I’ll try to do is break it down into smaller chunks that I can tackle one at a time, or a little bit at a time every month in-between issues. That way I’m making progress and making sure that project is moving along.

How do you think working for an association might be different from other office jobs?

Working at an association, at least in my experience, you have many hats to wear. Usually associations are on a tighter budget or more limited budget with limited resources.

Everyone’s expected to find ways to accomplish things with a smaller staff. And that may require you to do more things – I don’t want to say less effectively, but maybe you’re not as dedicated on one thing.

For example, working on the journal, we have a three-person staff, essentially. We’re creating the journal and the other digital publications.

So each of us has to be able to proofread, copy edit, write, design page layouts, do production, and work with advertisers and external providers to be able to produce the journal every month.

We may not be the best writers out there, but we also can do many other things. So I think that might be a little bit different from what it’s like in the for-profit realm. While you may not be the best expert at one particular thing, you are pretty good at a whole bunch of things.

And you can actually see the whole process or the whole picture and touch each element of that process, if that makes sense.

Do you have any advice for others working for an association?

The best advice I could give is: Look outside your specific area. When you’re trying to work on a big project, solve a problem or develop a new idea, look outside your department or your own area.

Because I think, working where I am, I’m surrounded by people who are serving the same membership as I am. And my colleagues and co-workers probably have another perspective or a more creative way to solve a problem that I never would have thought of.

So find ways to work with your peers to solve problems or approach a project in a different way than you would have been able think of on your own.

In that way, I think, the more perspectives you have working on a project, the more successful that project will turn out for the customer.

If you or someone you know would like to be interviewed for our Day in the Life association series, please contact Sarah Scott at sarah.scott@walsworth.com.

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