Advice for the Bosses -- DeWese

Company owners, CEOs and sales managers are always telling me that they clip my columns, photocopy them and distribute them to their salespeople. I'm going to turn the tables and give you salespeople something to slip into the boss' inbox.

It's most of the text of a speech I gave on leadership to the Paperboard Packaging Council in Washington, DC, back in March. The folks at the Paperboard Packaging Council had scheduled some famous economist to speak, but he couldn't show up so they called me to fill in. Of course, they probably called me first, but the guys at the bus station failed to page me.

Okay, the speech begins here.

You were supposed to have another speaker today—Dr. Jeff Rosensweig of CNN, where he's the chief economic commentator. Your program director learned that Dr. Rosensweig couldn't make it about six weeks ago, called me and said, "DeWese take off your warm-up suit and start stretching." He didn't know that they don't make warm ups in my size and the last time I tried to stretch I wound up in traction.

I figured I better look up the stats on the guy I was replacing. You know. I wanted to see how we match up. Here's what I learned.

Dr. Jeff Rosensweig teaches economics and finance at Emory University's Gouizeta School of Management.

Dr. Jeff Rosensweig has an MBA from Yale and a Ph.D from MIT.

Dr. Jeff Rosensweig has Alan Greenspan's cell phone number and Paul Volker's private line next to his hot tub.

Yeah, Dr. Jeff is about 6'3˝, 175 lbs., enormously handsome and superbly eloquent. I'm told this guy has about 2 percent body fat. He wears "braces" for decorative purposes. You can see that I wear suspenders for structural purposes. You know, big gut and no butt.

Jeff is the kind of speaker who casually stands beside the podium so you can see his svelteness and he magically snaps his fingers to make the slides change. Not me. You can see that I'm 5'7˝ and 230 lbs. I've got more body fat in my right hand than Jeff has in his entire body.

Mr. "Big Shot" Rosensweig is on TV about 10 times a day. He has written books on Global Leadership and Management in a Global Economy, and knows economics in-depth like I know southern barbecue. Yes, you are missing one of America's number one speakers.

I feel for you. This is about like going to a Pavarotti concert and, on your arrival, you learn Luciano has laryngitis and a local piano bar vocalist is standing in.

Jeff and I do have a few things in common. He teaches at Emory University. I attended Emory, the Harvard of the South, and actually graduated with an MBA. You had to have a 3.0 grade point average to get the diploma and mine was 3.0001.

I once lived in Atlanta and Dr. Rosensweig resides there now. He earns his stripes teaching and commenting on the economy.

I earned my stripes in Atlanta as a salesman covering Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida and Louisiana. It was there in Atlanta that my boss in New York first called me the "Mañana Man." Those of you who read my columns in Printing Impressions know that America's print salespeople know me as the Mañana Man. I have written nearly 200, 1,250-word monthly columns during the past 18 years. I try to teach print salespeople what not to do. Teaching what to do is easy.

I am the salesman who invented all the great selling mistakes that you see your salespeople now make every day.

For example, I am the guy who invented taking half a day off. It was Miami in 1969. I had a great morning of selling. Matter of fact, I did my month in that one morning. I was proud of myself, it was a beautiful day and I went to Hialeah racetrack. My boss never had a clue that I drank about a half dozen rum and cokes, and hit an exacta for $350.

Vacationing On-the-Clock

Well, this half day off thing got around; it became popular among salespeople and soon everybody was doing it. So, in Memphis—I think it was 1973—I invented taking the whole day off. I went to B.B. King's joint for the morning "biscuits and gravy" show, and then drove over the river to West Memphis for the matinee races at the dog track. As all of you know, this full day off thing has now become enormously popular among salespeople. There are even some salespeople who are adept at taking off their whole careers.

I am the guy who perfected showing up for sales calls totally unprepared. Then, I carried it a step further by showing up unprepared and hungover. Now, thousands of salespeople across this great country have mastered being unprepared.

You had expected to hear what Jeff had to say about the economy, so I thought I would summarize his remarks and then give you some of my own.

First, he would have told you that the recession is over. It wasn't very deep. It only lasted two quarters. Then he would have told that all the economic indicators are headed in the right direction. Then he would have told that we can expect modest, but good, growth this year. Finally, he would have told you that long term the economy may get better, but then again it may get worse.

As you listened intently to his economic forecast, you would have all taken notes and some of you would have recorded his message for later, careful analysis. I'll bet a lot of you would have nodded knowingly as he discussed arc price elasticity, the theory of rational expectations and market equilibrium.

I always do that when I listen to economists. I want the participants near me to think that I'm relating these macroeconomic forces to my own business. "After all," I say in my most pompous voice, "I want Compass Capital Partners to capitalize on global economic trends so that we can strategically focus our initiatives to compete in a global economy by integrating sound metrics at the end of the day."

My gosh! What did I just say? You don't know and neither do I. I just used seven words and phrases among those that I most dread. My sentence sounded like a thousand press releases being written by PR firms for CEOs across America.

Let me dwell on two of the words and one phrase. The word "strategic," or in Washington it is now pronounced "strategeric," is perhaps the most abused in our business vernacular. It means "how." I would love to read one press release where a CEO says, "We will improve our profits by 12 percent and this is how we will do it."

And then say in plain English how their company will accomplish the improvement. Strategy means we are at point A. We need to get to point B. Now, we need to figure out how to get from point A to point B. The "how" your team selects is your strategy. I think some Boston consulting group or McKinsey consultants popularized the word "strategy" in order to increase their billings.

They wanted to use a term that implied mystery, difficulty and superior intellect. After all, not everybody can create strategy. Just about anybody with any walking around sense, however, can figure out how to get from point A to point B.

The same is true for the popular and abused word "metrics." Those who use it imply that they know some magic I don't know. When I got my MBA there were no metrics. There were numbers on the balance sheet. There were margins on the income statement. There were some ratios, like current ratio and debt-to-equity ratio. Whenever I hear someone tell me they are using advanced metrics as one of their strategic initiatives, I get nervous. No, I meant to say nauseous.

Finally, the phrase "at the end of the day" has been banished at Compass Capital Partners. It was one of my only edicts ever. I wish people would simply say "when it's over, done or finished." That's enough about my semantic biases.

During the 2001 recession I got a lot of phone calls from printing company CEOs bemoaning the effect of the economy on their sales and profits. But then I get those phone calls every year. I probably see more printing company income statements and balance sheets from all the printing segments than anyone else in our industry. I also have the opportunity to know the companies and the leaders behind the numbers.

There is a true story that summarizes our general attitude about profits in the printing industry. Some of you may have read this story in various trade journals. A few years back, a sheetfed pressman in Chicago won the Illinois lottery. I think he won $5 million. Three Chicago printers were at lunch not long after the big win; no doubt they were bemoaning this tough business over a few cocktails.

One man owned a general commercial printing operation. The second owner had a folding carton company and the third guy runs a flexo label manufacturer. They got to talking about the lucky pressman.

One owner said, "If I won that $5 million, Lois and I would buy our dream mansion on Lake Michigan and furnish it with the best."

The folding carton guy said, "No, not me. If I won the lottery, Carol and I have always wanted a 60' Chris Craft and we'd buy that boat."

Always a Printer

The third owner said, "Hey guys, I've got ink in my veins. You can have your mansions and yachts. I'm a printer. I'd put that money to work in my company and keep on doing what I'm doing until the money is all gone."

That story says a lot about the general philosophy of profit in our industry.

I don't want to upset anybody, but there were a lot of printing companies that sailed through 2001 without so much as a blip. For that matter, these companies make progress every year. I am blessed that I get to look in at the guts of these high-performance companies that seem invulnerable and almost oblivious to the economy.

I have discovered that if you will really think about it—to re-paraphrase a recent president, these high-performance company leaders have discovered:

"It's not the economy, stupid! It's you!"

It's you CEOs. You leaders of your companies. You senior managers.

You, the leaders—not the economy—are, by far, the greatest influence on your company's economics. Each of you live in your own little microeconomic environment that is influenced by your leadership ability, your managerial ability, your people, your customers and their microeconomies, your competitors, your local economic conditions, your regional economic conditions and your banks.

I'm denigrating economic forces and strategy development. So, what the hell, I'll go a little further. I'll add yet another controversial pronouncement.

"It's not the strategy, stupid!" Yep. It's you again.

I'd rather see great leadership implementing mediocre strategy (plans) than mediocre management failing to implement great strategy. Too many great strategies gather dust in three-ring binders because they were never implemented. The CEO couldn't get folks who count to make it happen.

Here's a true story. I have a client who is an immigrant with an eighth-grade education. He came to the United States and, at age 15, got a job as a printing company messenger. This is a typical Horatio Alger story. Next thing you know he's a pressman, and a good one. He can run a press; he can tear 'em down, fix 'em and put 'em back together again. He's savvy. He figured out how to makeready fast, get up to color fast, and run those presses at top rated speed while simultaneously printing great dots. He saved his money and bought a small print shop.

It prospered and he bought two "dog" general commercial companies out of bankruptcy back around 1990. He merged the companies, worked hard, grew the sales and EBITDA and, in 1994, my firm valued those companies at $27.5 million. My pal ended up selling them for $28.5 million just to prove me wrong. He sold to a private equity firm and said, "I'll keep running the company and I want to buy back in for 20 percent of the equity."

In 1999, I sold the company, this time for $86.5 million cash to a huge international printing company. The private equity company was ecstatic; they hit the home run on their 80 percent. My pal got his second bite at the apple with his 20 percent.

I won't say more because some of you may guess who he is, but I will tell you that when we sold he had five plants and two of them were packaging companies with the same diecutters, blankers and folder/gluers that many of you have.

How did he do it?

I've never heard him utter the word strategy. He never had a strategic plan bound in a leather binder. You couldn't find a written plan anywhere in his company. It was always in his head and, more importantly, you could find it in the heads of his people. My pal knows how to build value through and with other people for whom he cares. And he shares the wealth.

He did it with no formal education. He damn sure did it with no prep school connections. He's not tall. He ain't handsome. He's not a spellbinding orator. He's not imposing. He's just a great leader! He has the characteristics that I have found present in all the great leaders behind the great numbers and the great plans.

When I look at great numbers and then look inside at the leader and people responsible for the numbers, here's what I've learned about the characteristics of great leadership.

They have uncompromising integrity. Their heads are screwed on straight. They are not condescending, pretentious, officious, self-important or egocentric. They pass out medals. They don't stand in line to get medals.

They care about people. This includes caring about the guy who cleans the bathrooms and the single parent back in the finishing department who supports four kids sired by some jerk who won't send her support money.

Speaking of women and leadership, I have another client—a woman. She is the chairman and CEO of a high-performance, $25 million commercial printing company. She was named businesswoman of the year nationally about three years ago. Early in her career she was married with one child and another on the way. Her husband left her just prior to the baby's arrival.

She took a maternity leave without pay from the in-plant print shop that she had been managing. A month after the birth, she went back to the big company to get her job back. They had given her shop supervisor job to some truck driver at twice her pay. They offered to hire her back as a duplicator operator at $2.25 an hour.

She told them to put the job where the sun don't shine, borrowed $700, bought her own used duplicator for $300 and $400 worth of paper, and sold printing during the day and printed at night. She now leads a great company that just sailed through the recession.

This segues to my next point.

When I analyze great numbers and discover a real leader I always find that, no matter what, they are "stand-up gals or guys." This means when they make a commitment, whether written or oral, whether it's notarized or a handshake, it is their bond.

Great leaders always take the high road. They ask good questions and listen to the answers.

They are always learning and don't embrace the fallacious concept that because I'm the leader, I possess all the answers. Or, because I'm the leader, I'm the creator and possessor of THE STRATEGY.

These leaders of great printing companies are balanced in their attention to the functions of management. They orchestrate their companies like Arthur Fiedler led the Boston Pops. They don't dwell on marketing or sales or operations or finance or administration.

Great printing company leaders are always involved in sales. They celebrate sales and the salespeople. They honor and revere the sales staff. They have high expectations for salespeople and are swift to weed out malingerers or malcontents. They are involved in sales to the extent that they regularly see customers.

How can a leader purport to know his markets if he or she doesn't listen to customers? How can he foster and embrace change if he doesn't know his clients intimately?

All the great leaders I've found in the printing industry are not afraid to make tough decisions while the decisions are still timely. There's no procrastination, requests for more study or seeking a consultant's opinion. They are not trying to please everyone. They are trying to do what is right for the company, its people, its customers and its value.

These leaders never embrace the latest management fad unless it has some relevance to their improvement. They eschew elites and experts as cop-outs. When they are needed, they hire outside professionals, but only to provide a temporary resource needed by the company.

My ideal leaders are always great simplifiers because they are somehow magically gifted with terrific analytic skills and the mysterious ability to reduce complexity to simplicity. They can communicate complexity with great clarity so that even the least among his colleagues understands and "gets it."

A very wealthy and famous leader called me last week to make an offer for a $40 million printing company that I am presently representing. He didn't send a 12-page letter of intent or a complicated term sheet. Instead, he expressed the offer clearly in a few sentences and asked me to repeat the deal back to him. I was astounded. I have done deals where it took us a week just to decipher the offer.

My dream leaders work to cause growth and the development of great people. They discipline privately and immediately when it's needed most. They never run from human confrontations; they embrace the opportunity to positively facilitate the improvement of a colleague—an important part of the team and the company's future.

David Ogilvie, the founder of Ogilvie & Mather, said and I'm paraphrasing, "If you want a dwarf organization, hire mental midgets. If you want a gargantuan organization, hire mental giants."

Great leaders never have to tell you how great they are. The same is true for great salespeople. They never have to tell you. You just know it. You can smell greatness in about 15 minutes.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, a great general and great leader, summed up leadership when he said, "Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible."

Slide this in the boss' in-basket, then run to your car and get out there and sell something!

—Harris DeWese

About the Author

Harris DeWese is the author of Now Get Out There and Sell Something!, published by Nonpareil Books. He is a principal at Compass Capital Partners and is an author of the annual "Compass Report," the definitive source of information regarding printing industry M&A activity. DeWese specializes in investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, sales, marketing, planning and management services to printing companies.