It is so nice to be back home in my beloved label industry where I have spent over 30 years making friends who have motivated, and challenged, me to always learn and enjoy my professional life. The word “networking” goes far beyond making contacts with people and companies who can advance your personal and company-based objectives. I didn’t always understand it this way, but I now recognize committing to an industry helps grow and improve both your company and your soul.
I remember it like it was yesterday, I was leading the marketing efforts for a fast-growing label company called Spear, and I kept hounding the owners to get more involved in the label industry associations, seminars and exhibitions. To be fair it just wasn’t their thing, but they became so tired of my pestering that they said, “If you think it’s so important, why don’t you do it?” The rest, as they say, is history.
It didn’t happen overnight, but over the next few years I became a frequent attendee at industry events which led to me being recognized as an industry “expert” (not sure the word applies to me) in everything label. My passion led to helping lead label industry environmental, regulation and work-force initiatives. I became a frequent speaker at universities, industry seminars and customer led innovation events. I was given the honor of chairing the board for North America’s leading label association, TLMI, and ultimately spent several years as its president.
Personally, it was a lot of fun and rewarding, but the real success was that my company (Spear and Constantia-Flexibles) became a much better label supplier. We became friends and confidants with the entire supply chain, including some of our most vicious competitors. Believe it or not our competitors led us to become better operators. You can’t perfect your craft in a vacuum. It requires boots on the ground and working with the entire industry if you really want to innovate and become the most creative and drive the lowest total supplied label cost.
Through the power of “networking” my company literally used our competitors as subcontractors when our customer demand created capacity issues. We were able to sell some of our proprietary developed materials with the broader market place to help grow the industry for all of us. Banding together through networking, we were able to link arms with our competitors and solve industry environmental, regulatory and work force challenges because none of us had the scale to solve an industry issue on our own.
At the end of the day, I still like to win. Believe it or not, it is possible to win big in the label industry and still celebrate the victories of the competition. Their success drives your success. The label industry is full of great people and not all of them worked at Spear and Constantia-Flexibles. Not all of them work at AGH Labels, but I can tell you that a whole bunch of them do. You are going to begin seeing AGH wave our flag high and low, near and far because we are going to win. Part of our winning strategy is going to mean embracing the label industry outside the walls of our factories. There is a lot we can learn from the label industry, but I would argue even more that the industry can learn from AGH.