Let me answer that with a personal story.
As has been addressed in at least one other blog, I have been in the print yearbook industry since 1976 as a Sales Representative. That’s a long time to be in one job. Why didn’t I ‘move up’ or even ‘move over’ to a new job? Because I loved (and still do) being in this industry. I LOVE working with my schools, advisors, and especially my yearbook staff.
As also addressed in another blog, my schools began asking if I could get them a digital yearbook. After trying to find something digitally relevant and finding nothing, I decided to create one myself.
So, after several years and all the money I had… and some I didn’t have, I created YearBoxx. I was, and am, SO EXCITED about this product!
I also thought that the company I had been working with for a very long time, Balfour Publishing, would be very excited to add a truly NEXT GENERATION digital product to their line. It was my plan to offer YearBoxx to them, it just made business sense to me. Balfour would be the only yearbook company with a product anything like this and, I surmised, would make them very successful. I was excited to give my fellow sales reps (many of whom I called friends) a product to sell that our competitors did not have. I was going to be the most popular guy in the company!
But I wasn’t…
After putting on 14 focus groups and getting insanely positive reviews (there was not a single person out of the hundred-plus in the various groups who didn’t love YearBoxx) I was ready to show it to my fellow sales reps. They all loved it but… some had reservations about introducing a new product (new, untried products are frequently fun to buy but, to some, scary to sell). Most of them also had another concern which is addressed below.
Undaunted, I next approached a few of the Balfour sales managers. They universally LOVED YearBoxx. By the way, initially, it was called – IdiomConnect. Few liked that name and we rebranded to YearBoxx. I think I like that better! Sales managers are focused on sales growth and they all realized that being the first company to introduce a Next Generation product to the market was going to achieve just that.
Buoyed by this success, I worked my way up to the ‘C’ Suite (CMO, CFO, etc.). I knew things were going well for me when the CFO of Balfour began telling ME why YearBoxx (IdiomConnect at the time) was SUCH A GOOD IDEA.
I was sure I was going to be celebrated by everyone at Balfour, how could I not?
Well… the ‘C’ suite people now brought YearBoxx to the guy in charge… the President (the first time I did this was with Balfour, however, the experience was the same at the other print yearbook companies I met with). He was decidedly NOT pleased. “This digital thing is going to cannibalize our print yearbook, why the h@#$ would we do that?” he bellowed (yes, I was told there was bellowing going on). “Students will eventually only want the digital yearbook, especially this one?” (I took that as a nice compliment)!
It turns out that the profit margin for an $80 print yearbook is WAY bigger than a $9.99 digital yearbook.
And so, after multiple meetings that went the EXACT same way, I finally realized that the print yearbook industry was not pleased with me and I was not going to be a hero in my own company (I really wanted to be a hero in my own company).
My salesmen friends all eventually thought the same way and stopped being my salesmen friends (yes, that hurt my feelings).
So… here I am, doing this alone. That is not truly accurate, while I am doing this without the help/support of the print yearbook industry, I do have INCREDIBLE support from a magnificent team of creative professionals who are smarter than me and keep me from doing stupid stuff.
The yearbook industry is going to change just as a myriad of other industries have been changed by the advent of digital. There is a part of me that is saddened by this as the print yearbook industry has been such a big and exciting part of my life. But customers are ready for this change, are asking for this change and students are going to get a far better product, a far more relevant product for a fraction of the price.
For our customers, this migration to digital is going to be a very good thing.
