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A PUBLICATION OF AICC, THE INDEPENDENT PACKAGING ASSOCIATION

September/October 2016 Volume 20, No. 5

STEVE YOUNG THE 2016 HALL OF FAME

AWARD WINNER is a tireless champion for AICC members

and the independent packaging industry alike

ALSO INSIDE Marketing in a Digital Era The Importance of Persistent Leadership Tips for a Near-Flawless Installation

TABLE OF CONTENTS September/October 2016 • Volume 20, Issue 5

COLUMNS

54 ON THE COVER AICC President Steve Young

FEATURES

54

66 72

STEVE YOUNG The 2016 Hall of Fame award winner is a tireless champion for AICC members and the independent packaging industry alike

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76

THE IMPORTANCE OF PERSISTENT LEADERSHIP Continued education and sharpening your skill set are pivotal to success

84

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FLAWLESS INSTALLATION But here are a few tips to get you on your way

CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE

6

SCORING BOXES

13

ASK RALPH

14

THE HIDDEN FACTORY

18

SELLING TODAY

20

TACKLING TECH

22

LEAN LEARNINGS

24

LEADERSHIP

28

SUSTAINABILITY

88

THE ASSOCIATE ADVANTAGE

92

THE FINAL SCORE

DEPARTMENTS

MARKETING IN A DIGITAL ERA Finding the right strategy for your company is essential MARKETING IN THE BOX BUSINESS Get noticed in four simple steps

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WELCOME NEW MEMBERS

33

GOOD FOR BUSINESS

46

POINT OF VIEW

48

MEMBER PROFILE

90

ICPF UPDATE

WEB EXCLUSIVES

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BoxScore is published bimonthly by AICC, The Independent Packaging Association, PO Box 25708, Alexandria, VA 22313, USA. Rates for reprints and permissions of articles printed are available upon request. The statements and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of AICC. The publisher reserves the right to accept or reject any editorial or advertising matter at its discretion. The publisher is not responsible for claims made by advertisers. POSTMASTER: Send change of address to BoxScore, AICC, PO Box 25708, Alexandria, VA 22313, USA. ©2016 AICC. All rights reserved.

Visit www.aiccboxscore.org for Member News and even more “Point of View” responses.

Scan the QR code to check them out!

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

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OFFICERS Chairman: Mark Williams, Richmond Corrugated Inc. Vice Chairman: Tony Schleich, American Packaging Corp.

Vice Chairman: Al Hoodwin, Michigan City Paper Box Vice Chairman: Joe Palmeri, Jamestown Container Companies Vice Chairman: Jay Carman, StandFast Packaging

Immediate Past Chairman: Greg Tucker, Bay Cities Container Corp.

Chairman, Past Chairmen’s Council: Mark Mathes, Vanguard Companies Secretary/General Counsel: David P. Goch, Webster, Chamberlain, and Bean Counsel Emeritus: Paul H. Vishny, Esq.

DIRECTORS-AT-LARGE Jim Akers, Akers Packaging Brad Albright, Touchpoint Packaging Matt Davis, Packaging Express Marco Ferrara, Cajas de Cartón Sultana John Forrey, Specialty Industries Inc. Jana Harris, Harris Packaging Corp./American Carton

ASSOCIATE MEMBER DIRECTORS Chairman: Keith Umlauf, Haire Group Vice Chairman: Jeff Pallini, Fosber America Secretary: Ed Gargiulo, Equipment Finance Corp Director: David Burgess, JB Machinery Immediate Past Chairman: Brian Kentopp, Bobst

REGIONAL DIRECTORS Region 1: Vacant Region 2: David Deline, Deline Box Company Region 3: Kevin Ausburn, SMC Packaging Group Region 4: Eric Elgin, Oklahoma Interpak Region 5: Gary Brewer, Package Crafters Inc. Region 6: Clay Shaw, Batavia Container Inc. Region 7: Finn MacDonald, Independent II Region 8: Joe Hodges, Mid-Atlantic Packaging Region 9: Larry Grossbard, President Container Group Region 10: Peter Hamilton, Rand-Whitney Corporation Region 11–12: John Franciosa, McLeish Corr-A-Box Packaging & Design Region 14: Yair Caballero, Corruempaques Overseas: Kim Nelson, Royal Containers Ltd. President: A. Steven Young, AICC Headquarters

ADVISERS TO THE CHAIRMAN Tom Skinner, Phoenix Packaging Inc. Craig Hoyt, Buckeye Boxes PUBLICATION STAFF Publisher: A. Steven Young, syoung@aiccbox.org Editor: Virginia Humphrey, vhumphrey@aiccbox.org EDITORIAL/DESIGN SERVICES The YGS Group • www.theYGSgroup.com Editorial Director: Annette Gray Managing Editor: Ashley Reid Copy Editor: Steve Kennedy Associate Editor: Drew Bankert VP, Marketing Services: Jack Davidson Creative Director: Serena Spiezio Art Director: Jason Deller Account Manager: Brian Hershey

SUBMIT EDITORIAL IDEAS, NEWS & LETTERS TO: BoxScore@theYGSgroup.com CONTRIBUTORS Maria Frustaci, Director of Administration and Director for Latin America Cindy Huber, Director of Meetings and Conventions Chelsea May, Member Services Coordinator Laura Mihalick, Senior Meetings Manager Taryn Pyle, Director of Training, Education and Professional Development Richard M. Flaherty, President, ICPF ADVERTISING Information: Taryn Pyle, tpyle@aiccbox.org Opportunities: Howard Neft, InTheKnow Inc. 847-899-7104 • thneft@aol.com Folding Carton and Rigid Box Advertising: Taryn Pyle 703-535-1391 • tpyle@aiccbox.org AICC PO Box 25708 Alexandria, VA 22313 Phone 703-836-2422 Toll-free 877-836-2422 Fax 703-836-2795 www.aiccbox.org

ABOUT AICC AICC, The Independent Packaging Association, is uniting and celebrating the success of inspired, independent packaging companies. We are a growing membership association which has served independents since 1974.

AICC SERVES: Passionate professionals; The independent and united; The responsive and agile.

AICC WILL: Connect and cultivate; Deliver success.

Chairman’s Message

AICC’S PERSISTENT LEADERSHIP “Patience is a virtue, but persistence to the point of success is a blessing.”

I

saw this quote posted on a bulletin board at Altria during a plant tour with the Emerging Leaders group in Richmond, Va., in June. Actually, Scott Ellis saw it, pointed it out to me, and then emailed me an executive summary from a blog post.

My take on it is was this: In business, the lines between patience and procrastination are a little blurry, and if you want to move your business to the next level, then you need to take action and lead—persistently. If you are standing still, then you are losing ground. Get focused on where you want to go, and get moving. If you demonstrate hard work, determination, and persistence, people will follow. There will be obstacles along the way. Take them on one at a time. They will slow you down or even knock you down, but when they do, don’t give up—keep moving forward toward your destination.

It will be a blessing when you get there.

AICC members have been very fortunate to have had Steve Young at the helm of the association for the past 21 years. In addition to many other fine characteristics, Steve is chock-full of persistence. His dedication to the mission of AICC and his determination have had a giant ripple effect on so many independents. Through his calling as president of AICC, he has made an amazing contribution to the packaging industry, member companies, and so many individual members. Steve, thank you for all you have done and congratulations on being honored with this year’s AICC and Paperboard Packaging Magazine Hall of Fame award. You deserve it!

It has been an honor serving as chairman of AICC this past year and making the rounds on behalf of this great association and its members. I have learned a lot along the way and have met a lot of new people. It doesn’t get any better than that. The association continues to thrive in an evolving industry and is committed to doing so.

It has been great working closely with Steve Young and AICC staff and the dedicated volunteers who served on the board of directors. I had a blast, and I look forward to staying involved in the years to come, starting with the upcoming Tony Schleich administration. In the meantime, keep on rolling, and I look forward to seeing you at SuperCorrExpo®.

Mark Williams President and CEO, Richmond Corrugated Inc. Chairman, AICC

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

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Scoring Boxes

HEALTHY RETAIL SALES BOLSTER PACKAGING DEMAND

BY DICK STORAT

T

he current U.S. economic expansion is in its seventh year, making it the second-longest on record. While growth has been subpar during this lengthy expansion, consumer spending still remains a robust contributor to economic growth. Overall, consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of domestic economic activity, and it has continued to grow at a pace between 2.5 percent and 3 percent for the past several years, as the chart below depicts.

This year, spending on goods has been growing at an annual rate of 3.4 percent, outpacing the service sector’s 2.4 percent annual growth rate. Since goods are much more packaging-intensive than services,

that is good news for independent corrugators. Even though adverse exchange rate conditions have encouraged imports and discouraged exports of packaged goods, demand for corrugated packaging has still grown by 1.6 percent through the first half of this year and is poised to continue growing apace during the rest of this year.

The latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau confirm how rapidly consumers are changing their shopping habits from traditional in-store shopping to e-commerce media—the internet and other online systems. This shift is accelerating as online platforms expand from computers to smartphones, smart TVs, and most recently,

Chart 1: Consumer Spending Year-Over-Year Percentage Change 4.0% 3.0% SOURCE : BURE AU OF ECONOMIC A N A LYSIS

2.0% 1.0% 0.0% -1.0% -2.0% -3.0% -4.0% 09J

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

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13J

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15J

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speech-activated options such as Amazon’s Echo Alexa voice-activated speaker platform.

Between the first quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of this year, e-commerce sales have grown from 3.2 percent of total retail sales to 7.8 percent of total sales.

Over that period, total quarterly retail sales grew by 20 percent while online sales almost tripled from $31.7 billion in the first quarter of 2007 to $92.8 billion in the first quarter of this year. During this year’s first quarter, online sales surged by 15.2 percent, while total retail sales grew by 2.2 percent.

Even though internet shopping is having a dramatic impact on how consumers shop, and accordingly, where and how purchases are packaged for delivery to consumers, other significant shifts are occurring in how consumers satisfy their demand for goods and services. The chart on Page 8 shows the percentage of growth during the first half of 2016 for total retail and food service purchases, and also shows the various growth rates that different kinds of businesses reported to the U.S. Census Bureau for the same period.

Overall retail and food service sales grew by a healthy 3.1 percent during the first half of the year, but the chart highlights some of the dramatic differences in growth rates at competing outlets.

Auto and truck sales and furniture sales, at 3.2 percent and 3.9 percent growth rates respectively, do not differ markedly from total retail and food service sales.

While much research is done online

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Manufacturing Department

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Scoring Boxes

Chart 2: Retail & Food Service Sales by Kind of Business (Percent Change First Half 2016)

Nonstore Retailers Building Material Stores Pharmacies & Drug Stores Eating & Drinking Establishments Furniture & Furnishings Stores Motor Vehicle & Parts Dealers SOURCE : U.S. CENSUS BURE AU

Retail & Food Services Food & Beverage Stores Department & General Stores Clothing Stores Electronics & Appliance Stores -4

-2

when shopping for these goods, the purchases are still made in the store for the most part.

For several years now, consumers have shown a growing and lasting preference for eating out instead of purchasing foods and beverages for off-premises consumption, even though grocery stores have made major shifts to add convenience and prepared foods to the choices offered to shoppers, and they are gearing up to add internet-ordered home-delivery services.

The most recent numbers show that this trend is continuing. Eating and drinking establishments racked up a 6.4 percent first-half sales gain this year, while traditional food and beverage stores grew sales by only 2.5 percent.

Building material stores, which include garden equipment and supplies dealers, posted a relatively high 7.7 percent gain during the first six months of this year.

Aided by continuing low interest rates, the construction sector of the economy

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

0

2

4

has continued to lead nonconsumer growth. Also, the growing popularity of do-it-yourself projects has supported the above-average growth in this sector.

Pharmacies and drugstores, aided by the tailwinds of subsidized medical care, have also posted above-average sales growth, measuring 7.5 percent during the first half of this year. Department and general stores, which include traditional department stores as well as warehouse clubs and supercenters, have suffered the most, as consumers have migrated to online shopping platforms. Compared to the 10.6 percent growth in retail sales by nonstore retailers, these traditional stores have advanced sales by only 0.4 percent. Nonstore retailers include mail-order houses as well as online shopping platforms.

Changes such as these have a paradigm-​ shifting effect on corrugated packaging demand. Focus on shelf-ready packaging for supercenters often contrasts with the

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needs for greater size selection of corrugated packaging at online fulfillment centers to provide for efficient packaging of smaller individual orders. The traditional types of corrugated packaging used for so many years to deliver food supplies to grocery stores differ greatly from the packaging needs of food and beverage ingredients being sent to restaurants and taverns.

Fortunately, the flexibility and inno­ vation shown by independent converters keeps them in the vanguard of economical and effective packaging options for goods, regardless of how consumers choose to receive them.

Dick Storat is president of Richard Storat & Associates.

He can be reached at 610-282-6033 or storatre@aol.com.

New Members

WELCOME, NEW MEMBERS! CAJAS Y LAMINAS EXPRESS BERNARDO GARZA General Manager Diego de Montemayor Nte No. 223 Monterrey, NLE 66267 Mexico Phone: +52 81-14929286 Website: www.calex.mx Email: bernardo@calex.mx

CAN-AM PACKAGING EQUIPMENT CORPORATION DON BOGARDUS VP of Corrugated Sales 30 Pulpit Rock Rd. P.O. Box 191 Pelham, NH 03076 Phone: 630-463-8320 Fax: 630-635-7139 Website: www.canampackaging.com Email: don@canampackaging.com

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

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Ask Ralph

RIGHT WEIGHT PACKAGING HITS MEXICO AGAIN

BY RALPH YOUNG

A

t the recent 15th-anniversary celebration of AICC Mexico, there was a breakout session on the movement to low basis weight packaging.

It was standing room only for an audience ready to hear about this movement and what one needs to do to participate.

Containerboard The lead-off presentation focused on the increasing supply side of linerboards and mediums, and also the proliferation of modern corrugators and flute profiles.

Several mills are able to produce linerboards below 26# per MSF (125g/m2).

Grades at 32# and below now represent more than 13.5 percent of all linerboard production in the United States.

While the industry has seen the conversions of uncoated freesheet, newsprint, and solid bleached sulfite machines, to make a category Test 1 linerboard sheet with 100 percent old corrugated containers (OCC) and/or mixed waste requires a greenfield mill or one that has been built from bare bones. These products, which fall into different test categories, are available, and so is the demand for the packaging that fits these newer offerings.

Europe is more than 15 years ahead of us in this respect and also in delineating their linerboards into five different quality statuses based on performance criteria. When looking at European specifications, one will soon discover additional physical property attributes such as machine direction and crossdirection tension and tear and taber stiffness. One will also learn that STFI and not cross-direction ring crush is the

preferred method of testing for stacking strength potential.

Corrugating the Low Caliper Substrates Greg Grdinich, national sales manager from BHS Corrugated–North America, spoke on their commitment to improving corrugated board, reducing washboarding, and offering new flute profiles to increase stacking strength. Grdinich also reiterated the European push into the 15–18# linerboard range, noting it will be a long time before we see that here in North America. Because short-span compressive test falls off rather abruptly below 18#, the thought is that this substance will be the line in the sand for our countries for some time.

To obtain the highest box compression test and not sacrifice edge crush and flat crush, we will expect flute heights to increase and pitch to decrease. Just the large proliferation of flute designs such as D, S, R, and T would indicate that the corrugated board pioneers are willing to take calculated risks with new board combinations and right weight constructions.

In conjunction with that is the need to change the division ratio in double-wall combinations so we have more flute tip to flute tip adhesive contact points.

Converting the Combined Board Rick Putch, director of technical services at National Steel Rule, next took the audience on a journey through the gentle converting of combined board, which is less robust and less strong than what we have used in the past. He related significant board crush to four areas in

the converting process, not including feed roll crush during printing: • Cutting die construction.

• Cutting die wear and tear.

• Machine conditions and maintenance.

• Structural design of the corrugated board itself.

Like Grdinich before him, Putch also talked about how combined board has changed the aspect ratio on double wall.

He went on to talk about the changes that need to occur when die cutting hot board.

A New Way of Assuring Excellence Randy Banks from SHARP International shared new testing and monitoring technology to assess the loss of bending or torsional stiffness from the hidden aspects of board crush. Known performance targets for specific board combinations and flutes can be compared to the actual test results. Software, which is an integral part of the testing apparatus, measures the actual retained stiffness property of the combined board after combining and after converting. Results are immediate, and corrective action can be taken on the plant floor before other combined board is compromised.

Ralph Young is the principal of Alternative Paper Solutions and is AICC’s technical adviser.

Contact Ralph directly about technical issues that impact our industry at askralph@aiccbox.org.

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

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The Hidden Factory

THE ECONOMICS OF FULFILLMENT CENTERS

BY LES PICKERING

O

ur travels throughout 2016 have been more diverse than ever—a smorgasbord of learning due to the digital revolution currently underway.

An area that caught the attention of Q5 in our travels is fulfillment centers.

Sometimes these are dedicated buildings or parts of warehouses converted for the needs of fulfillment. The fulfillment sector has been and continues to be an excellent add-on to existing packaging companies. They provide an obvious advantage for clients in dealing with the packaging provider, removing an additional supplier from the value stream.

Unfortunately, having seen numerous facilities over the years, many companies think that fulfillment is an area with Rubbermaid tables for towers of pallets with corrugated on the top for a work surface. Heavy engineering tables are also not optimal due to their difficulty to move because they lack wheels, resulting in the requirement of forklifts to move them. Worse still, small teams push them around the floor in an attempt to get them close to where they are needed.

Some facilities have moved to roller conveyors. Narrow, cheap roller conveyors that sit on the floor make it difficult to move or clean at the end of a job when undertaking line clearance or end-ofshift cleanup.

We also observe glue bottles resting on product and people looking around for them. Time is money, as they say, and fulfillment items are high-margin products.

What is the true cost per minute of looking for glue? The glue station is a barrel on its side with corrugated sheets on the floor to make cleanup quick. One has to ask, “Why is there glue on the floor?”

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

Other common observations are: • The floor manager of the area seems to work like a circus master, training new people in the work area and correcting noncompliance work—an endless task.

• In most centers, partially built work is everywhere.

• Line startup is slow, and work after lunch and breaks starts sporadically because people are not on station together.

• It’s difficult to know how many people are on the line at any one time or how many people you need before you start work.

Due to the nature of fulfillment and its changing needs, this is an area that must be set up for flexibility and speed. If, when complicated jobs come in, you simply throw additional people at the job, then this area is not set up for optimal workflow.

Now, as this work has been historically very profitable and remains so today, most facilities don’t allocate enough resources and time improving these areas. This scenario is typical within packaging until

the sector becomes a commodity. When that happens, margins are eroded, and then we look to decrease costs. If we examined the work today and made huge improvements, then we could, as it is said in the film Die Hard, “be sitting on a beach earning 20 percent.”

Fulfillment is not a commodity, but rather a catalyst. Change is coming to this area, and I believe the catalyst is going to be titled 3PL—third-party logistics.

3PLs are logistical specialists that are looking for ways a company can branch out for additional revenue. This goal is executed through the means of fulfillment. These 3PL companies set themselves up similarly to what we have in most packaging facilities—just a little

ILY-OWNED FAM Est. 03.03.03

AND

O PE R AT E D

The Hidden Factory

3PLs hire the same people you do, use similar resources such as conveyors and tables, but they have something that the packaging companies do not that is hard and expensive to do well in packaging: tracking infrastructure. better. 3PLs hire the same people you do and use similar resources such as conveyors and tables, but they have something that the packaging companies do not that is hard and expensive to do well in packaging: tracking infrastructure.

Their specialty is to track multiple items in the workflow, perfect for bringing

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

visibility of multiple items together for fulfillment. Their main advantage is that they are going to produce data of the fulfillment status daily or by the hour.

This transparency of data is very attractive for customers. Allowing them to see the status of fulfillment is very powerful.

This one fact alone is what 3PLs are

doing to move the needle of the world of fulfillment.

What does that mean for packing companies? Competition that is going to be difficult to compete with—additional competition not just from packaging companies, but now also from logistical companies. So, if you have a fulfillment center, get good and do it quickly—this is the best strategy you have to stave off the dynamics of 3PL. Les Pickering is co-founder of Quadrant 5 Consulting, based in San Francisco. Les can be reached at 415-988-0000 or leslie.pickering@ quadrant5.com. Follow him on Twitter @Q5cLP.

Selling Today

ALL FLASH, NO SUBSTANCE

BY KIM BROWN

I

saw a post on LinkedIn this morning that compelled me to write. It contained a picture of a prospecting letter that had been received by the person doing the posting. The salesperson had included cash with the letter—a very real $50 bill. The first sentence said to donate it to their favorite charity or give it to a hardworking employee who deserved it.

In exchange, they asked for two minutes to deliver their sales pitch.

This post received more than 4,500 likes—a level of support indicative of the desperation salespeople feel in trying to capture the attention of a buyer. More than 500 comments were made, and although there were mixed reviews of the tactic, the vast majority viewed this as a positive method of introduction.

And I strongly disagree.

Reason #1: Bribery is not selling.

Bribery has many forms. In this case, two take center stage.

The definition of a bribe is “something offered to induce another to take a particular action.” Suggesting the recipient use the cash to donate to charity or give to a deserving employee doesn’t detract from the overall message that the salesperson was “buying” time with a prospect.

The emotional bribery present in this scenario is almost even more insulting, and certainly more damaging, to any long-term relationship. I agree that the buyer has choices in what to do with the money, but the only one that doesn’t result in a feeling of obligation is returning it. So either they’re left

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

feeling like a hostage who must take the call, or they’re burdened to return the cash in a method that ensures receipt.

Some will be concerned enough about the possible ramifications to involve HR or legal departments in the conversation.

The outcome in either case does not create, in the buyer’s mind, a positive association to the salesperson or her company—definitely not the introduction to create a foundation of trust.

Reason #2: It’s boring and tired direct marketing content with a cheap trick thrown in as a bonus.

Remove the recipient’s name and address, and the letter could be sent to every company on the salesperson’s prospect list. It is several paragraphs long, yet says nothing. Nothing written indicated she knew anything about the recipient or his company. It was standard sales spam focused on the salesperson’s company, what they do, and how many they’ve done it for. The only thing missing was the free set of steak knives.

Reason #3: 4,500 likes does not translate into 4,500 potential customers.

Having the letter liked by 4,500 people does not automatically convert them into prospects, and it certainly cannot be used to calculate ROI or customer acquisition cost. The critical number to success is not the 4,500 people who saw the post, or even the ones who took the time to read the letter. The important number is the conversion percentage into actual customers and/or revenue-generating opportunities. Of those 4,500 people

who did read it, not a single comment was posted about having contacted the salesperson; not one expressing an interest in learning more or doing business.

Admittedly, several did wish to get included on her prospect list to receive their own $50 cash prize.

There is no disputing that it is more challenging today than ever to capture the fleeting attention of a buyer. This is felt in business-to-business or businessto-consumer relationships, or even with those sitting around our dinner tables every night. Shutting the phones off for just an hour has become a game to see who can last the longest. Capturing the undivided attention of your boss, your teen, or even your spouse is hard, let alone those who don’t even know you. But perhaps rather than investing in marketing tactics that only devalue you and your company, we could choose to invest time, energy, and resources into learning about each individual company we wish to reach. Create a personalized and well-thought-out method of introduction, one that shows we’ve done our homework and built something that actually matters to the recipient.

Oh, and that $50 bill for charity? It was generously donated to happy hour.

Kim Brown is the founder of Corrugated Strategies.

She may be reached at 317-506-4465 or kbrown@corrugated strategies.com.

AICC’s Got Class

(es)

AICC’s Packaging University continues to expand the largest and most recognized curriculum of industry-specific webinars, forums, workshops and e-learning courses for independents in the Corrugated, Folding Carton and Rigid Box business. From Sales to Maintenance, Production Managers to CEO’s, AICC has comprehensive, targeted, training programs for all levels. Our instructors, both in and outside the paper and packaging industry, are respected and knowledgeable consultants with direct experience in the topic at hand.

It’s time to go back to school and get your business to the head of the class at AICC’s Packaging University.

Log on to the AICC Packaging University site at AICCbox.org, contact Taryn Pyle at tpyle@aiccbox.org or call 703.535.1391 to receive AICC’s new course catalog.

T HE I NDEPE NDENT P AC KAG ING A S SOCIATION

113 S. West Street • Alexandria, VA 22314 • Phone +1.703.836.2422 • www.aiccbox.org

Tackling Tech

BASEBALL MARKETING: CAN YOU COVER ALL THE BASES?

BY JOHN CLARK

I

n developing a productive and accurate marketing strategy for your business, you must first understand the competition, the markets, and your company’s goals. Once a solid forecast and long-term sustainable plan are in place, you will then have the information necessary to build a comprehensive marketing strategy encompassing branding, lead generation, client engagement, and customer retention.

Today, there are dizzying varieties of tools for implementing an effective marketing plan. You must understand three critical components to develop your strategy: • Marketing is not a one and done effort.

You must consistently communicate a compelling message over time.

• The channels by which you reach your intended audience are evolving rapidly, and each generation has a preferred method of transmitting and consuming information.

• Repetition is important, but content is king!

Craft your messaging around the specific tools your company will use. For example, a tweet is limited to 140 characters, whereas public relations, websites, and direct marketing offer a functionally unlimited playing field to present yourself and your ideas.

In addition, you must understand your end users and determine the best way and best medium to reach them.

For example, millennials will be more

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

likely to respond to social media, whereas the silent generation, baby boomers, and Gen Xers have their own preferred ways of gathering and processing information. Collecting data on your customers will provide the analytics necessary to select the best tools to get the most compelling message into the most actionable hands.

Recognize that each medium and tool will require a substantial commitment of time, energy, and manpower to create a compelling message. I would suggest the following to make people aware of your message and build stickiness with your clients: Update Your Website • Refresh the look and feel.

Simple, direct, and accessible.

• Update content regularly. No news means no visits.

• Focus, simplify, and refine your message. Enforce who you are and what you do.

Add E-Commerce • Online store. Make it easy for people to conduct business.

• Customer portal. A quick gateway to place and track orders.

• EDI (electronic data interchange).

Streamline the process while enhancing stickiness.

• Collaborative tools. Bind your client to your staff through interactivity in design and approvals.

Social Media • Presence on the web. Establish and frequently refresh accounts on such sites as Twitter and LinkedIn. • Personalize the message.

Involve your staff in your vision.

• Digital portraits. Use short, 30-​ second-or-less video clips to introduce yourself to potential customers and reinforce why you are integral to your current clients’ success.

You must rethink your marketing reach, because the diversity of today’s marketplace is facing a generational divide of how people communicate, learn, and conduct their business. Create an internal committee composed of sales, IT, and customer service to drive the message forward.

So the answer to the question, “Is it possible to cover all the bases?” is yes. Not just yes, but a resounding, bases-loaded, down by three with two outs in the bottom of the ninth home run to clinch the World Series cheer of YES!!!

Like it or not, the way business is conducted has changed. If you don’t adapt to the new ways of the world, you may risk being thrown out at the plate.

John Clark is director of analytics at Amtech Software. He can be reached at jclark@ amtechsoftware.com.

Lean Learnings

STARTING THE JOURNEY TO BECOME A LEADER

BY MIKE NUNN

I

recently had a tremendously rewarding experience occur at work, where a young employee approached me to ask about their candidacy for an open teamleader role that reports directly to me.

Although he was not ready for this specific role, I still interviewed him to give constructive feedback and encouraged him to start the journey to leadership.

Two days later, I connected with him again on our plant floor to ask whether or how he had processed what we discussed.

He thanked me and said he would own it.

In addition to our meeting, he asked that I email him my thoughts from the meeting so he could refer back to them as he worked to grow into a leader. Here is what I told him.

The biggest piece of advice I can give is to treat everyone the same—be one person. Start this now. If anyone ever gets—or already has—a feeling that you treat or communicate with different people differently, then your climb to leadership will be dead before you even get started. You need to interact with your superior and all other team members by showing the same respect, honesty, and openness—every time. This is integrity.

My Top Leadership Keys Fail. Make informed decisions, but don’t be afraid to fail; it’s how you learn.

Reflect. Whether it went well or not, reflect on your results. Why did you get the result you did? What could you do differently next time?

Ask the right questions. Start with why, then how, and lastly, what. Why are you doing ______? How are you going to

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

do _______? What needs to be done to achieve ________?

Set goals and expectations. Setting goals for yourself and your team is vital.

Without goals, growth is left to chance and luck.

Think strategically. True leaders need to find better, newer, and less-wasteful systems and processes.

Be honest. Tell the truth, even if your voice shakes.

Learn. Never stop learning and acquiring knowledge; it’s the foundation for career growth.

Think positively. Don’t let the negativity of others affect your focus on positivity.

Serve. Leaders go first. They help their team achieve, and they lead by example.

Recommended Reading Here is the list of books I recommended to this leadership understudy: • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

by Stephen Covey. I’ve read this book four times and gotten something new from it each time.

• The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. As I was reading this book, I felt like Hardy was talking to me, about me.

• The Leader Who Had No Title by Robin Sharma. You have more influence than you know. Harness mastery and achieve your greatness.

• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Ten thousand hours ... that’s how long it’s going to take. Take for what? Read the book.

• The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim

Huling. Goal-setting, improvement, and accountability simplified.

• Start With Why by Simon Sinek. If you want to inspire, start with why.

• Developing the Leader Within You

by John C. Maxwell. After reading this book, I bought a copy for all my team leaders.

Shadow the people who are already in the place where you want to be. When shadowing a leader, ask lots of good questions, and be open to constructive feedback. I don’t know any leaders who wouldn’t be more than happy to share their experiences and spend time with someone eager to grow.

Lastly, I told him, “It’s up to you.”

You’re the only person who can get yourself to where you want to be. You have to make the choices and chart the course, then be disciplined and persistent with the choices you make.

At the end of our conversation, I gave him some tangible first steps to make some immediate progress toward leadership. First, read all the books on the list. Second, shadow the leaders whose level you wish to achieve. Third, embody the character traits of great leaders. Lastly, be yourself and have fun.

Mike Nunn is vice president of operations at Ideon Packaging and is Lean Black Belt–certified.

He can be reached at 604-524-0524 or miken@ ideonpackaging.com, or followed on Twitter @mikednunn.

Leadership

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

BY SCOTT ELLIS, ED.D.

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

Photo by Scott Ellis

I

recently had the privilege of spending a day discussing leadership with AICC’s Emerging Leaders (EL) group during the third annual Chairperson’s Field Trip. In anticipation of the meeting, many of us had gathered online to discuss different types of leadership and prepare interviews with leaders in our own businesses. The ELs arrived in Richmond having conducted interviews, read articles, and completed leadership assessments. For a few months they had also been submitting questions to a panel of seasoned leaders.

I came away with a conviction that this generation differs from mine in two important aspects: They are more teachable and more transparent. Boomer expectations were reflected in comedies like How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, in which J. Pierrepont Finch advanced from window washer to board chairman in two weeks. “Fake it till you make it” was his strategy. Our leadership expectation was that we should just know how to do our jobs, and if we did not, we would try to figure it out without admitting ignorance. This group of ELs is not afraid to admit inexperience, and they actually listen when experience speaks. In fact, they prioritize trust, transparency, and reliable feedback as being the most important aspects of leadership.

Do they expect ever-increasing opportunity, wages, and influence? They do, and so did we, but they are unafraid to say it out loud. Do they want all this increase to happen within a 40-hour workweek? Yes, they do. However, being a constant worker myself, I will not be the one to talk them out of seeking balance between work and whatever happens out there when people are not working. When

The Emerging Leaders Initiative-theme team with the coveted Chairperson’s Challenge flag at the third annual Chairperson’s Field Trip.

they understand the value of the objective, they are as dedicated as any who came before them.

As a mental health professional, I will go on record that attention spans are getting shorter, the ability to delay gratification is diminishing, and the volume of information is increasing logarithmically as comprehension decreases. Our brains are changing the way they process, but disciplined thought has always been a learned skill. The ELs I have spoken with are aware of the need for hard work before comprehension and influence may be gained. If you would contend that the diminishing attention span is generational, I will dare you to wait 20 minutes before Googling the next time you have trouble recalling even the most trivial

memory. Disciplined thinking, including memory, will atrophy without practice.

The panel, affectionately referred to as Emerging Elders, included Chairman Mark Williams, Andy Pierson, Joe Hodges, Jana Harris, Jerry Frisch, and David Callif. Each shared invaluable lessons learned from their mentors, and their mistakes. Their remarks were characterized by humility and gratitude toward those who saw the spark of leadership in them and provided opportunity.

The ELs’ interviews of their employers fueled further discussion of leadership expectations. The structure of the interview was open, but I asked them to include the following: • Please tell me about the transition or development you went through

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Leadership

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when you first gained authority. How did you develop influence? What difficulties did you encounter?

• Knowing me as you do, is there any coaching you can offer to help me increase my influence?

They found that once the subject was broached, the conversation was easy and enlightening.

The panel responded with wisdom and personal experience to questions such as these: • I think that some of my ideas are dismissed because I am young. In your company, how would you want me to address that impression?

• In your family business, what can a nonfamily member do to get onto a leadership track?

• If I were dissatisfied because of lack of advancement, how would you want me to approach it in your company?

• How do you identify what goals the company should pursue?

A number of panelists expressed surprise at how much they learned in the exchange.

The open dialogue allowed a senior leader to ask, “How would some of you like a boss to communicate to you about a problem?” Another checked his own perspective, asking, “What do you need from your supervisors to feel valued for your work?” I asked one question that received a short and immediate reply: “Do we make too big a deal of the generational differences?” They said, “No.” To exercise all this leadership knowledge, the ELs contested the Chairperson’s Challenge—a leadership-themed cake-decorating competition.

Each team was judged on execution of their assigned leadership theme, decoration skills, cake edibility, and teamwork. The Initiativetheme team took the honors and signed their names to the coveted Chairperson’s Challenge flag. No one else got an award; what did you expect?

Scott Ellis, Ed.D., is a partner in P-Squared (P 2). He can be reached at 425-985-8508 or scottellis@ psquaredusa.com.

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Sustainability

NEW RESEARCH SHOWS FRUIT PACKED IN CORRUGATED IS SAFER AND FRESHER THAN IN RPCs

BY DENNIS COLLEY

N

ew scientific research indicates that corrugated packaging keeps fruit fresher and safer than reusable plastic crates (RPCs) and can significantly reduce contamination from transferred microorganisms.

The research, conducted by the University of Bologna and initiated by the European Federation of Corrugated Board Manufacturers (FEFCO), found that corrugated trays ensured higher-​ quality packed fruits with reduced microbial cross-contamination and longer shelf life. Lower bacterial contamination decreases the risk of foodborne illnesses and increases the fruit’s freshness, scent,

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

appearance, and taste. In both cases, the role of packaging can be critical.

Corrugated Proven Safer Microbiological contamination of fresh produce is a very big deal for retailers and for the growers and shippers who supply them. Their entire operations and distribution chains are scrutinized whenever an outbreak is traced back to contaminated produce, and the stakes could not be higher. Pathogenic bacteria can make people very sick and sometimes even result in death.

Grower/shippers carefully consider every element in their product

cycle—from growing operations to packaging and distribution—to identify potential contamination sources. When they purchase transport packaging, they need to know they are using the safest option.

We know corrugated is clean when it reaches the grower/shipper. Now, this new research shows corrugated, in addition to cushioning and protecting produce, also mitigates the spread of contamination.

These findings come in the wake of other concerns being raised over the hygiene of RPCs. Last November, the Department of Food Science at the University of Arkansas showed that typical industry

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cleaning procedures failed to adequately sanitize RPCs. The research team, led

by Dr. Steven Ricke, found salmonella cells on the crates even after cleaning. He noted that bacteria hide in the cracks and crevices of the crates’ surfaces, making it difficult for industrial sanitizers to reach them.

and Food Sciences. It examined the exchange of microbes between produce and packaging and vice-versa, focused especially on determining how differences in packaging materials can influence cross-contamination.

Scientists deliberately contaminated both corrugated trays and RPCs with

We know corrugated is clean when it reaches the grower/shipper. Now, this new research shows corrugated, in addition to cushioning and protecting produce, also mitigates the spread of contamination.

Corrugated Keeps Produce Fresher In addition to public health concerns, spoilage bacteria reduce shelf life.

Freshness and appearance of a store’s produce are critical to sales. Entire supermarket chains’ success depends on the sales and profits generated in this most important retail aisle. Fresh produce is a main driver for consumers in deciding where to shop. A hefty 75 percent of shoppers say that the quality of produce is the most important factor in choosing a grocery store.1 The ability of corrugated packaging to increase shelf life could translate into significantly reduced shrink and potentially millions of dollars in savings for retailers.

Research Design The research was led by Professor Rosalba Lanciotti at the University of Bologna’s Department of Agricultural

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

the same number of Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Pseudomonas spp. microorganisms. Fresh peaches were washed with tap water, sterilized with a sodium solution, rinsed with sterilized water, and then air-dried before being placed into the containers for testing.

Next, researchers measured the levels of bacteria that transferred to the fruit over time.

Results The results showed that fruit packed in corrugated fared better—with fewer transferred pathogenic and spoilage bacteria—than the fruit packed in RPCs. The differences in microbiological quality were statistically significant.

Fruit packed in plastic crates reached contamination levels generally associated with spoilage 48 to 72 hours earlier than the fruit packed in corrugated trays.

Contributing factors such as storage temperature, length of time before sale, and superficial damage on the peaches were also considered. Results showed that all these factors influenced the microbial transfer from packaging material to fruit, but the transfer of spoilage microorganisms was always lower in corrugated trays.

The tests also showed that in some conditions (e.g., high storage temperature), up to 95 percent of peaches packed in the deliberately contaminated RPCs were infected with E. coli after 48 hours. By contrast, the E. coli contamination level never exceeded 25 percent of the peaches packed in corrugated containers that had been contaminated with the same levels of microorganisms.

The Big Picture Corrugated has long been the shipping container of choice for most grocery products. The RPC industry is targeting fresh produce for conversion away from corrugated. Our industry has longterm, established relationships with growers and shippers who predominantly prefer to keep using corrugated for many time-honored reasons. As an industry, we are responsible for obtaining and sharing verified, third-party-generated facts that support grower/shippers’ preference for corrugated. This latest research is one in a long line of scientific studies that proves, once again, that corrugated makes the most sense.

Dennis Colley is the executive director of the Corrugated Packaging Alliance and president of the Fibre Box Association.

He can be reached at 847-364-9600 or dcolley@fibrebox.org.

1 http://www.businessinsider.com/trends-that-are-changing-grocery-stores-2014-4

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AICC TOOLBOX .......................................................... 33 MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION ...... 34 CASE STUDY . . .............................................................. 38 AICC INNOVATION .................................................. 42

BOXSCORE TIPS, TRICKS, AND SOLUTIONS TO BETTER BUSINESS

AICC TOOLBOX LOG IN AND LEARN MORE AICC membership is for the full company, so every single employee at all company locations has access to member benefits. To make sure you are getting the most out of your membership, check your profile, create a login, and update your information.

Creating a Password If you are getting emails from AICC, then you are in our system, so setting up a login to have access to member benefits is easy. Go to www.aiccbox.org/login and click on the “forgot my password” link.

Enter your email address, and you will receive an email from AICC with a link to reset your password. You may need to copy and paste this link into your browser.

Finding/Updating a Profile If you are not receiving emails from AICC, the first step is to locate your profile. Visit www.aiccbox.org/find to search for your name. You can update your email address here and use the “email password reset link” to receive a link to reset your password.

Can’t Find Your Profile?

Go to www.aiccbox.org/new to create one. Enter your contact information, then, in the Primary Organization field, type the first few letters of your company’s name. At this point, a dropdown list will appear. Then, select your company name/location from the dropdown list. This action is what adds your record to your company’s membership. If you just type the company name in this field, our system will not know you are with a member

company, even if the company name is the same.

Now Enjoy Once logged in, you will have access to members-only information on the website and member pricing for registrations and publications. Once you are logged in, you can also click on your name at the top of the page to view your profile. Here, you can update your name, email, or title, and see your past orders and attendance at AICC events.

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

33

MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION NAVIGATING THE LEAP INTO SOCIAL MEDIA

BY HOLLY GREEN

T

weeting, linking, snapping, posting, liking … oh my! Today’s world offers a plethora of channels to “speak” to others, build your brand, and increase sales. As a leader, it is important you at least know the basics about social media today. These are channels that reach millions of people. To use them well, you need to know enough so that you can leverage them to achieve your strategies and goals. Here are a few things to keep in mind: First, consider your marketing and sales strategy. Who are the targets, and what types of content are they most interested in? Think broadly about this one. You don’t just want to share information on corrugated. Consider leadership, manufacturing tips, retail trends, sustainability insights, etc., as valuable content as well.

Providing valuable content gets you noticed and builds your presence on all the channels.

Next, create your company profile. Your profile shows the world who you are, and first impressions count. Every element should showcase your best content and accurately reflect your business identity.

Then search out followers. Each of these channels works best when you build up followers and produce valuable content so they connect back to you. This builds your reach as well as the number of touches for each target. Think about your current and potential clients as well as key associations, publications, etc. The search function in each channel makes it easy to find and follow others. Post periodically— at least monthly—to keep your content and profiles fresh and up to date.

The following are the critical four platforms you should use to start your social media journey:

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

LinkedIn Create both a personal and a company profile. For your company profile, your logo, a compelling headline, a summary of 40 words or more, products/services offered, areas of expertise/differentiators, and expertise/skills will cover the basics.

For your personal profile, adding a profile photo, a compelling headline, and a summary of 40 words or more, filling out your experience section, and adding your skills are great places to start. You can fill in the rest over time.

Join groups of target clients and connections. AICC has a group, of course.

For both personal and business pages, publishing posts is a great way to showcase your professional knowledge, position yourself as a thought leader in your industry, and highlight some of the interesting things your company is doing. Comment on others’ posts periodically.

YouTube YouTube is the world’s largest video-​hosting site. Get a YouTube-linked video on the home page of your website.

Create two- to four-minute videos, and post one a month on your own channel. Showcase your company in a variety of ways, including noting products and services, differentiating expertise, client testimonials, the culture of your company, answering questions about packaging, etc. You don’t need fancy video equipment. It is likely you have everything you need right on your smartphone.

You are probably not going to be as popular as Grumpy Cat, but you will get search engine optimization points— meaning you will be more likely to show

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Good for Business Offer value by combining a timely mix of content about your business with thirdparty content, such as links to industry blogs and forums. up when someone types in the key words you tag your video with.

Twitter Twitter is primarily a marketing platform in the business-to-business world. It can also be used very effectively for customer service. Tweets are limited to 140 characters or less, so you have to be concise.

Tweet with a link to content you have on

your other channels. Retweet the content of others that you think your followers will find valuable.

Don’t forget to follow @FindABoxMaker (AICC’s twitter handle).

Facebook Offer value by combining a timely mix of content about your business (product tips,

wasatch container Wasatch Container would like to extend a sincere thank you to Steve Young for the great support he has given to the independent packaging manufacturers over the years. The AICC is our voice and Steve has led a great team with keen precision and professionalism. He has undoubtedly earned his place in the hall of fame.

Congratulations, Steve! Wishing you the best as you continue down this path of excellence for many years to come!

**Wasatch Container has been a proud member of the AICC for over 20 Years.

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

sales events, behind-the-scenes items, and photos) with third-party content, such as links to industry blogs and forums (check out AICC’s page). This builds your credibility as a resource of value to users. Facebook is all about the personal experience, so treating it simply as a promotional outlet will get you nowhere. Post news and updates in a simple, informal, and fun way.

Happy connecting!

Holly Green is an experienced business leader, behavioral scientist, and consultant with The Human Factor Inc. She may be reached at holly@ thehumanfactor.biz.

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CASE STUDY SOCIAL MEDIA AND VANGUARD PACKAGING

BY JARED MATHES s a member of the generation who grew up with the rise of technology, I can tell you that the concept of social media in the workplace is discarded or embraced on many different levels in our industry. On one end of the spectrum, there is the camp that believes that it is a waste of time to view things as ridiculous as the type of drink you got at the gas station across social media platforms. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there is a camp that believes that there is value in knowing what type of drink people are buying, and in our industry, what type of packaging that drink is associated with.

A

It is important to remember that social media goes beyond Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Vanguard Packaging was founded in 1975 by my grandparents, Jack and Bobbie Mathes. These were the glory days of the brown box salesman—out on the road, armed with a paper map, a roll of quarters for the pay phone, and the idea that a handshake and the word of the salesman was good enough to get the deal done. My father and now owner of Vanguard Packaging, Mark Mathes, has taken our company beyond the production of brown boxes to more of a creative agency that offers full-service design, manufacturing, assembly,

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

co-packing, and distribution in the retail environment. Jack was one of the most intelligent salespeople I have ever known, but as in all companies of that era, he was limited on the growth of Vanguard due to the technology of his time. My two-year-old daughter already understands how to work an iPad and find her favorite learning apps. It is more common to send a text or an email to someone than to pick up the phone or meet in person. Creativity and customer service are often pushed aside in favor of the lowest/quickest price. This is the new business world we live in, and embracing social media and technology is how you show value add to your customers.

Defining Social Media So what is social media? I’m sure there are many ways to answer that question. To me, social media is how we share or promote information on an online platform.

Smartphones, tablets, computers—all are used to connect individuals to an idea.

What most people first think of when they hear “social media” is Facebook. It is important to remember that social media goes beyond Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. I actively participate in blogs, podcasts, and online magazines. These are all ways for me to receive information or get ideas to the masses.

But, does the introduction to an idea or concept in social media always come from a smartphone, tablet, or computer? The answer is no, and this is where a company such as Vanguard Packaging comes into the picture. Our customers are creating campaigns for their customers or the end users of their products. As our customers use their brands to build campaigns around their products in a retail

environment, we facilitate the concept on point-of-purchase packaging. We work with our customer base to increase their reach and growth by suggesting how our products can align with their campaigns.

As a brand gets more exposure to the end user and more products are sold, Vanguard has the opportunity to capitalize on the increased sales through a larger manufacturing of our products.

If I were asked, “What are your most innovative approaches to marketing and social media? Who develops and runs your campaigns?” my answer would be, “I don’t know if we have been innovative in our approach.” I believe that we have accurately identified the business realm that we live in and have attacked it accordingly. We let our customers present an idea, and we run with it. We take a concept and grow it to something that will maximize exposure. Everyone develops and runs our campaigns at Vanguard.

It is our job to understand what has worked and what could be promising for our customer base. This knowledge is built into our sales team and design team to create a marketing department.

So, like all successful companies, our definition of social media is molded to fit our needs.

Gauging Success The most important aspect of this for us has been how to use smartphone technology to gauge the success of our product on the retail floor. Displays have inherently suffered two major disadvantages over other forms of advertising and marketing. The first is proof of placement. In almost every multistore environment, the store manager is the ultimate decision-maker as to whether or

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

not a display will be placed on the floor.

Another way to look at this is, “How do we prove that the investment in the display was a wise investment in the first place?”

The second is, “How do we prove that the display performs as it was designed when it gets onto the store floor?”

Our answer to this was the major tool of social media—the smartphone.

We began to develop a suite of apps on a common platform that we call the Retail Assessment Tool, or RAT App. This app allows anybody with a smartphone to prove the placement of the display on the floor and then grade its effectiveness based upon whatever criteria the customer selects. This information, along with a photo of the display, is immediately sent to the cloud, where we have predetermined options for data collection and data analytics. All of this is available in real time if required. The beauty of this app is that anybody with a smartphone can act in the capacity of a data collector, thus gathering vast amounts of information in very short periods of time. So, in the case of Wal-Mart, their 2 million employees could all act as retail assessment auditors.

This app provides lots of opportunities for compliance data collection as well.

So at Vanguard, social media and the tools of social media spread well beyond LinkedIn, Facebook, Snapchat, and all of the other platforms we traditionally assign to this category. We believe that social media in its purest form is about communication, and when you think that way, there are no boundaries as to where this can go. As for us, we went with a RAT. Jared Mathes is marketing and brand development director at Vanguard Label Inc. He may be reached at 816-455-4000 or jamathes@vanguardpkg.com.

Good for Business

AICC NNOVATION

AND THE WINNER IS…

BY VIRGINIA HUMPHREY

A

ICC members do many great things. AICC recognizes excellence each year through various competitions, scholarships, and awards.

COMPETITIONS Innovator of the Year The AICC–Board Converting News/ Corrugated Today Innovator of the Year Competition is designed to recognize innovative solutions created by both AICC box plant and supplier members that enhance the efficiencies, productivity, product quality, and bottom-line profitability of the independent box plant.

Developed more than 20 years ago as a forum for boxmakers and suppliers to put forward their best innovations, the Innovator of the Year award has since evolved into a highly competitive arena that highlights the technological innovations of AICC members in production, material handling, manufacturing, training, and administration. Each year, the AICC Plant Innovations Committee

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holds a call for entries and, after reviewing the submissions received from AICC members, determines the finalist entries that are then voted on by AICC Annual Meeting attendees. Co-sponsored by Board Converting News, the competition alternates its focus among boxmakers, suppliers, and nonmachinery aspects of the converting industry.

An Innovator of the Year is awarded every year in the fall, in four rotating categories: Boxmakers, Nonmachinery, Machinery, and Information Technology and Training.

Join the AICC/TAPPI SuperCorrExpo® general session on Tuesday, October 18, at 8 a.m. in Orlando, Fla., to vote for this year’s winner in the Machinery category.

compete for first, second, and third place as well as honorable mention awards.

Contestants also have the opportunity to win the coveted People’s Choice or take home the prestigious Judges’ Choice Awards.

Since 1981, in its packaging design competition, AICC has been proud to recognize, showcase, and reward independents who have met and exceeded their customers’ expectations of their packaging designs and displays.

The next Independent Packaging Design Competition will take place in the fall of 2017 at the Annual Meeting, to be held in Las Vegas in conjunction with PackExpo. Entry information will be available in early 2017.

Package Design The biennial AICC Independent Packaging Design Competition features corrugated, folding carton, and rigid box categories, providing a wider reach into the entire packaging market and a greater diversity of ideas. Independent box plants

Student Packaging Design Competition The annual AICC Student Packaging Design Competition honors the best student designs entered in three distinct categories and allows AICC members a glimpse of what’s in store for the future of the corrugated packaging industry. Entry

Good for Business

into the student competition provides students with the best opportunity to show off their talent and creativity to corrugated packaging and display professionals from around the world.

This year’s categories included: Category One: Design to an Opportunity, PART I — Structural Design Challenge: Create a “March Madness Party Pack” to be on display at local retail stores to promote March Madness.

Category Two: Design to an Opportunity, PART II — Graphic Design Challenge: Create and design the graphics for your “Party Pack” from Part I of the Design to an Opportunity project.

Category Three: Corrugated as Art — Design a musical instrument of your choosing out of corrugated. The final product must be one of a kind and not commercially reproducible (no production run possibility).

Join the AICC/TAPPI SuperCorrExpo® general session on Tuesday, October 18, at 8 a.m. in Orlando, Fla., to congratulate this year’s winners.

Designers’ Lab Challenge The Designers’ Lab Challenge, held biennially, gives designers the opportunity to learn new techniques in both structural and graphic design from experts in the field, and to share knowledge and experiences with peers. Participants are teamed up to work together to address a specific design problem and create a final design on-site. The designs are then judged by a panel of experts.

The challenge is open to corrugated, folding carton, and rigid box designers.

The next Designer’s Lab Challenge will take place during the 2017 AICC Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, September 25–27, 2017.

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Operation Safe Shop Operation Safe Shop is a biennial competition that reviews safety program effectiveness and excellence in several categories of member companies, and awards first-, second-, and third-place honors in each category that receives entries. The competition considers entries in the following categories: • Corrugator Plants • Sheet Suppliers • Sheet Plants With Fewer Than 50 Employees • Sheet Plants With More Than 50 Employees • Folding Carton and Rigid Box Companies The Operation Safe Shop Competition is more than just a compilation of manhours and recordable injuries and illnesses.

It is a companywide examination of such things as the company’s overall safety program; ownership commitment; the company’s safety practices and training procedures; safety awareness methods and incentives; maintenance programs and housekeeping; and other key elements of box plant safety.

The next Operation Safe Shop Competition will take place in 2018.

Applications will open in January 2018.

AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS Hall of Fame The AICC and Paperboard Packaging Magazine Hall of Fame Award annually recognizes those who have made significant contributions to the independent sector of the paper and board packaging industry through active membership in AICC and broad-based involvement in the industry.

Join the AICC/TAPPI SuperCorrExpo® General Session on Tuesday, October 18, at 8 a.m. in Orlando, Fla., to honor this year’s winner.

J. Richard Troll Memorial Scholarship Fund Each year, the trustees of the J. Richard Troll Memorial Scholarship Fund grant monetary scholarships to three undergraduate-level college or university students and one graduate-level student of exceptional quality who are majoring in packaging engineering or a related packaging field. The J. Richard Troll Memorial Scholarship Fund was established to honor the memory of the late J. Richard Troll, a founder of the Association of Independent Corrugated Converters and the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation.

Applications for the 2017 scholarship will open in early 2017.

AICC Region 6 Scholarship Each year, members of the AICC Region 6 Board award a $2,000 scholarship to two deserving students whose parent, grandparent, or legal guardian is employed full time at an AICC member company in good standing in Region 6. A candidate must be a high school senior who is provisionally accepted as a full-time student into an undergraduate degree program by an accredited junior college or full four-year college/ university, or a full-time student enrolled in undergraduate or graduate studies at an accredited junior college, college, or university.

Applications for the 2017 school year will open in May 2017. For more information, contact Nelva Walz, vice president business development, Elegant Packaging, at 708-652-3400 or nelva@ elegantpackaging.com.

Virginia Humphrey is director of membership at AICC.

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Point of View

Q

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What are your most innovative approaches to marketing and social media? Who develops and runs your campaigns?

arketing is a reflection of what a business is and what it has to M offer. And, as a company grows and evolves, so must its marketing.

At Haire Group, we’ve grown from a seller of preowned machines to a tier 1 new machinery provider. Naturally, with that business evolution, our marketing has undergone drastic changes. We are still working to take our message to the right target, but now we are engaging a different target with a different message. To do that, we’ve had to update our marketing pieces to better reflect who we are as an organization.

Marketing is a critical component in creating new relationships. Often it’s the first encounter someone has with you, and it provides ongoing touch points with existing and potential customers. Through our growth, we have learned the significance of being open to change and updating marketing, and it has made all the difference.

— Keith Umlauf, executive vice president of sales, Haire Group

Recently, we have begun using some of our longtime, faithful employees as the centerpiece for some of our advertising.

The idea is to give people a glimpse inside the doors of Alliance Machines through a look at the hardworking American employees that make our business successful. We have had an extremely positive response to these advertisements from customers and suppliers alike. — Danny Lopez, senior territory manager, Alliance Machine Systems

The Pamarco podcast is one of a kind in the printing industry and includes a wide variety of technical information that is quick and useful.

With experts from our team and guest experts from partners, the podcast is a valuable tool for printers.

This, along with our instructional videos, makes our social media marketing not only about branding our company, but about educating our peers and customers on subjects that are pertinent to packaging industry trends. As active participants in the markets we serve and with input from customers and our sales team, we deliver valued information to the industry. — Katie Graham, marketing and communications manager, Pamarco

In order to get in front of our target audience from different angles, our marketing strategy is very integrated.

Although we have a lot to say about Bennett’s products and services, we take the billboard approach with our messaging—it has to be targeted and quick to read. In this age of Twitter, Vine, and Instagram, people are spending less and less time reading and absorbing. We only have a few seconds to grab someone’s attention and try to hold on to it to get the point across.

Because of this, the content needs to grab attention, be memorable, and lead viewers to our website to learn more.

— Traci Strickert, director of marketing, Bennett

BOXSCORE September/October 2016

Following a niche marketing strategy whereby we have narrowed our focus to a few ideal targets and end-use markets has worked well for us. When you understand client needs deeply, you can more easily hone in on an innovative solution that truly benefits the target market. Creating a customized, supporting marketing message communicated through both traditional and social media marketing channels will then help turn the audience into fans who will buy and recommend you to others in the industry.

— June Dutka, director of marketing and communication, TimBar Packaging & Display

Green Bay Packaging adequately captures marketing objectives by evaluating three metrics: awareness, sales, and advocacy.

We understand that effective promotional campaigns are less likely to lead to a sale and more likely to result in an internet search, where consumers’ behavior can be tracked.

It is imperative to touch the lives of customers through electronic marketing, thus keeping your company name at the forefront. In today’s digital world, brands are no longer mere corporate assets to be leveraged, but communities of belief and purpose.

We have a team of marketing specialists that design, create, and execute our marketing campaigns. They work hand in hand with our sales team to create the most effective marketing campaigns for each product, as well as customer targeting. — Bryan Hollenbach, executive vice president, Green Bay Packaging

With regard to social media, every Thursday we feature current work in our “fresh off the press” themed content.

It’s a great way to share the creativity of our clients, along with our ability to bring their ideas to life.

For general marketing, we do a lot of personalization. As a leader in digitally produced packaging, we find it valuable to demonstrate the personalization, variable content, and unique capabilities we encourage clients to use.

Our marketing and social media are managed with an outside firm that provides on-site support at least one day per week. This allows our team to have marketing participation without having an in-house team. The partner organization has resources well beyond what we would have with our own staff.

— Richard Brown, president, The BoxMaker

I think that our eVMI (electronic vendormanaged inventory) marketing campaign has been an excellent, successful campaign for our company. We draft our message to include links, images, and text, and using Outlook, send it to a target list of specific accounts and prospects. This approach allows us to track who received it, who opened it, and who expresses interest in hearing more about the program.

Our brochures are very original, too, in that they are focused on what we believe are the important segments of our business.

The print version can be left on a sales call or sent out in a mailing, and the electronic version is posted all over our website.

Our most recent brochure, highlighting our wine packaging, looks great and is targeted for that specific industry segment. We added a video on our website to show how to use this packaging.

We continue to feature testimonials and case studies that focus on innovative solutions, and allow our customers to tell the story of who are and how we service the market.

— Bill Madl, director of marketing and product development, Jamestown Container Companies

We develop and run 90 percent of our marketing and social media campaigns in-house. Most of our marketing innovation comes from testing different approaches to messaging and design layout. We’re able to view and understand analytics across our digital efforts and quickly react based on trends we’re seeing in clickthrough, conversion, and bounce rates.

For example, just by changing the color of a call-to-action button, we saw a 20 percent improvement in click-through rates. When possible, we try to transfer these successes to nondigital efforts (wording, layouts, etc.). At the end of the day, Frain’s marketing is just a bridge to our engineering and sales support team, which remains one of our strongest assets according to customer feedback.

— Drew Metherd, director of marketing, Frain Industries, Inc.

LPC has been successful with our marketing campaigns using a team approach.

We established a group of people from different areas in our company to bring ideas and input for various marketing campaigns. The group meets once a month to discuss current and future events. To date, our most successful campaigns have been around Halloween and the holiday season. These two events give us the opportunity to create a specialized product that highlights our services and scope of production capabilities.

A similar approach is taken with social media. Specifically, our July 4th campaign was a contest that allowed our customers and prospective customers to show their patriotism and have some fun at the same time. They did this by posting photos with a holiday-specific hashtag (#LPCRedWhiteAndYou) using props that are printed and mailed to customers as part of the marketing campaign. It’s also great for the winners, who receive a nice prize for their creativity. — Kirk J. Kelso, vice president, sales, LPC

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

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Member Profile

PACKAGE CRAFTERS COMPANY: Package Crafters ESTABLISHED: 2003 JOINED AICC: 2008

Gary Brewer

PHONE: 336-431-9700

Photos courtesy of Gary Brewer

WEBSITE: www.packagecrafters.com LOCATIONS: High Point, N.C., Savannah, Ga. (Creative Packaging—separate company) PRESIDENT: Gary Brewer

S

ometimes job hunts can yield the most unexpected fruits. With an MBA degree fresh in hand, Gary Brewer turned his job hunt into the creation of a company—one that has continued to grow since its founding in 2003.

“I started Package Crafters because I couldn’t find a job,” says Brewer. “It’s a true statement.”

Package Crafters launched with six employees, including Brewer’s father as CFO. It was a launch that Brewer made after not being able to find the type of job he was looking for upon earning his MBA from Wake Forest University.

Brewer started his professional career as an engineer, holding degrees in chemical engineering and pulp and paper science technology. He was in the paper manufacturing business when he decided to

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return to North Carolina to get an MBA, convinced he would need an advanced degree to get ahead.

It was then that the president of a major independent corrugated manufacturer in North Carolina got wind of his plans—in no small part because his father was their CFO. The president asked Brewer to come visit him. The president told him that Brewer knew his raw material like no one else, and not only did he want to hire him, but he wanted to pay for his schooling.

It was a deal, and Brewer was now in the corrugated manufacturing business.

After five years, he received his MBA and there was no longer a job available at that company, so he was out on his own. After some job searching, Brewer decided to start his own company. He approached the banks with a business plan. When

they approved it, he sold everything he owned—despite being freshly married— and moved back in with his parents at age 34.

“We had no customers, just the knowledge and a team,” says Brewer.

“My father was a key person with his financial expertise. I also had an operations gentleman, a sales manager, and a plant manager. I was smart enough to know that this was bigger than I am and that I could not do it alone. Had one of those people said they were not interested, I wouldn’t have done it and would have kept looking for a job.”

The first few years were tough financially, as everyone worked hard to build the business and their reputation.

“We hit the ground running here in North Carolina,” Brewer says. “My father and I were literally taking turns mowing

the grass, making deliveries, and cleaning the bathrooms. I worked for a couple of years without any compensation. Then the snowball started rolling, gaining momentum. We started getting customers and growing, and then it took on a life of its own.”

Now, Package Crafters has just under 45 employees in two plants located in two different states. They’ve built a reputation with their customers and grown their business to offer all the products and services that one might expect from a box business. Some of their work includes such things as rotary die cutting, flatbed die cutting, inline gluing, specialty folding and gluing,

stitching, litho laminating, large-format printing and slotting, engineered foam fabrication, and vacuum and thermos forming. They also offer such services as receiving, cataloging, and securing a product; assembling, bar-coding, tagging, sorting, labeling, and packing a customer product; and preparing and shipping the product to the customer distribution facility or directly to the customer.

They specialize in designing and fulfilling “club” and “pallet” pack designs.

Brewer says if the customer gets them the product, they package it and deliver it to the customer so everything is together, saving them labor at the customer end.

A Conservative Approach Brewer has grown the business with an emphasis on simple, basic business practices. He continually reinvests the profits of the company back into the company. However, he is conservative in that approach. He doesn’t buy a machine and hope to find business for it—he builds the business first and then buys the machine.

He also tries to avoid debt at all costs.

“What I say to people is: Show up to work on time, don’t lie to me, don’t steal from me, and if you make a mistake, let’s talk about it and prevent it from reoccurring,” Brewer says. “It’s amazing what simple business principles will get you in life. Do what you say you’re going to do.

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

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This guide is divided into several sections, each containing information that will be helpful during your decision making process including equipment capabilities, physical requirements and productivity specifications.

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Provide a quality product. Be genuine and be grounded.”

These are the principles he tries to communicate to his employees, inspiring them to create a company culture where customer orders are high-quality and

agile. Also, the last thing we try to do is to say no—it’s all about the customer.”

When he’s meeting with customers, Brewer finds a way to make Package Crafters stand out in the market—and some of that comes from his engineering

“It’s amazing what simple business principles will get you in life. Do what you say you’re going to do. Provide a quality product. Be genuine and be grounded.”

— Gary Brewer, Package Crafters

delivered on time. He says he strives to be consistent and to never overpromise, whether he is reacting to a customer situation or an employee one.

“I’m a conservative guy by nature; I’m level-headed, not full of politics,” Brewer says. “I’m a put-your-head-down-andget-it-done kind of person, and that’s what I try to portray to everyone who works for me.”

Even though he had never sold a box in his life before he started Package Crafters, Brewer says he now sells 50 percent of the company’s annual sales.

He meets personally with customers to tell them just how Package Crafters can meet their needs with its trademark hustle and to educate them on what they can do.

“In our industry, we pretty much buy the same materials from the same players,” says Brewer. “We pretty much have the same equipment, though there is a little better technology in some places. It simply comes down to hustle. What got me on the map in my local market was, I was able to offer improved delivery schedules and a shortened lead time. We like being

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background and his intimate knowledge of paper products and how they work. He brings in new designs and slowly proves himself over time, earning the respect and trust of customers.

“When I’m in front of a customer, I refer to what my competitors offer as chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry are fine, but I can provide you with Rocky Road, and it can perform equally or better. I use my intimate knowledge of paper grades and flutes. I’ve had great success with that instead of just being a ‘me, too’ business.”

Poised for Growth Last year, Package Crafters acquired Creative Packaging in Savannah, Ga., in the first of what Brewer hopes will be several geographic expansions. The purchase sprang out of a casual conversation with the former owner. He went to visit the facility and found a great group of people, something he says he could foster and grow into something similar to Package Crafters. It will remain a separate company, one located 300 miles from his home base, with synergies being

created when it comes to accounting and business systems.

It is the type of expansion Brewer plans to do more of in the next five years. He says he hopes to acquire one to two other facilities, none in his current market, but all expanding his reach to other areas.

“What I see currently in my peer group is a lot of gentlemen and ladies who started facilities in the ’70s, and that group is wanting to retire,” says Brewer.

“They have no family to pass it on to, so the timing is good for me to grow.”

Value in AICC As a box professional, Brewer says AICC has been absolutely wonderful. The meetings, he says, pay for themselves with the information he gets from them.

Just over two years ago, he joined a CEO group that he says has been invaluable in getting feedback and talking about the business.

“We get together with a group of key people that either own their own plant or are the senior person at that plant,” Brewer says. “We don’t compete against each other—we’re out of each other’s markets. We get together to talk about the issues and struggles of a small business, whether they be family, operational, or financial. It’s great to have peers at that level that you can have very candid conversations with.”

From paper engineering to box manufacturing, Brewer has built a career around simple business principles that have proven successful for him. He takes an active role in his business—showing up every day and even making deliveries.

“I have a close pulse to the market,” Brewer says.

Taryn Pyle is director of training, education, and professional development at AICC.

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Steve 54

BOXSCORE September/October 2016

Young The 2016 Hall of Fame award winner is a tireless champion for AICC members and the independent packaging industry alike

BY ASHLEY REID

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

55

Top: Steve poses with John Bird of JB Machinery and wife Sandra.

Middle: Steve hits the slopes at the AICC Region 1 Ski Meeting.

A

ICC, The Independent Packaging Association, was established in 1974. Now in its 42nd year, it continues to not only endure, but thrive. Many would assert that one of the main reasons for its prosperity is that the association has a very sturdy foundation—a foundation based on the undying pursuit of integrity, the notion that members should always be a priority, and a passion for the independent entrepreneur. AICC President Steve Young serves as a tireless crusader to keep this foundation rock-solid, and his hard work and dedication are being honored with this year’s AICC and Paperboard Packaging Magazine Hall of Fame award.

This prestigious award annually recognizes those who have made significant contributions to the independent sector of the paper and board packaging industry through active membership in AICC and broader involvement in the industry as a whole. In Steve’s case, however, the word “significant” doesn’t really do proper justice. Steve has served as president of AICC since 1995, but has been involved in the association in some capacity since 1983. That’s more than 30 years of service! Needless to say, if anyone in the industry is worthy of such an honor, it is Steve.

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

Old School Meets New It could be said that one of the things that makes Steve such a great leader is his ability to balance tradition and innovation.

He understands that the personal touch—a handshake, a warm smile, a handwritten note—is still as vital today as it ever has been, while recognizing the need for growth and adoption of new ideas to remain relevant in today’s changing technological landscape.

Keith Umlauf, executive vice president of sales at Haire Group and AICC associate board chair, says, “I really appreciate that Steve operates from such a place of integrity. His word and handshake are his bond, and in this day and age, that is so rare.

Despite his immense expertise and standing in our industry, he is always focused on people—still sending handwritten notes, of which I have received a few. He is truly a class act.”

Going out of one’s way to show true appreciation for employees and peers alike is the hallmark of any great leader. Steve seems to have this down to an art.

“Steve and I walked into the industry within weeks of each other 33 years ago,” explains Ralph Young, technical adviser for

“

Steve has seen the Association though great and difficult times. He brings this unwavering belief in what AICC does and how it can help our members be successful.

—VIRGINIA HUMPHREY, AICC

” BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

57

AICC. “From that first journey together came the first in a series of thank-you notes. I have kept every one of them, and I cherish them all. They represent a huge mutual appreciation for each other and the contributions we have made to independents and associations for more than three decades.”

As for association growth and development, Lee Shillito, president and CEO of Triad Packaging and former AICC chairman, had this to say: “Steve has led the association through a number of five-year plans over the course of his 33 years with the association. One occurred during my term as chairman. As an association, we needed to find other revenue streams to continue growing, and Steve has been right in the middle of those efforts.

In addition, Steve has worked to form alliances with other associations. He has been instrumental in setting goals for the association and working with the board to achieve them.”

Knowledge Is Power To be an effective leader, one must know the business inside and out. After more than three decades with AICC, it’s safe to say Steve Young is the authority on the independent paper and board industry.

Richard Flaherty, president of the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation, can attest. “Steve has had almost 35 years of exposure to the industry from a global perspective at AICC. He is an encyclopedia on the changes that have occurred within the industry and at individual AICC member firms.”

We’re not just talking about industry jargon and awareness of state-of-the-art equipment; no one knows the association members quite like Steve either.

“Steve has an uncanny ability to remember names,” Umlauf asserts. “These are people that he might see once or twice a year, and to be able to recall literally hundreds of names—even spouse’s names—is remarkable.”

Second from top: Steve with Emma and Gorden Hay of CTI with Wayne Gross, former president of TAPPI. Third from top: Ron Spice of Alliance Machine; Jack O’ Connor, former sales instructor of AICC; and Steve at AICC’s 2007 Mexico Meeting in Santa Fe. Bottom: Steve with longtime friend Carol Strickfaden.

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Chelsea May, member services coordinator at AICC, is also thoroughly impressed by Steve’s ability to retain such details.

“Steve has such great knowledge about our members, to the point where he can tell you their address right off the top of his head! It’s incredible!”

Laura Mihalick, meeting manager at AICC, agrees. “Steve could probably list every member company, including their employees, location, and what they do, off the top of his head.

His passion for the members extends beyond the workplace environment; he genuinely cares about the members and wants them to succeed on both a personal and professional level.”

Standing Firm in Faith Steve is a man of great faith, and that shows through in his unfailing guidance and direction. As Cindy Huber, AICC’s director of meetings and conventions, says, “He has a strong devotion to his faith and the courage of his convictions.”

It is this strong sense of faith that allows Steve to revel in the triumphs and weather the storms that come with being the head of any association.

“Steve has seen the association though great and difficult times.

He brings this unwavering belief in what AICC does and how it can help our members be successful. So much of who he is comes from his faith,” says Virginia Humphrey, AICC director of membership and marketing.

Scott Ellis, partner at P2, perhaps says it best: “Steve is a servant leader. There is a seamless boundary between his work and his faith, though he never mistakes his desk for a pulpit. He exemplifies the phrase attributed to Francis of Assisi: ‘Preach the gospel continually; use words when necessary.’ ” Marching to His Own Drum Something that may come as a surprise about Steve is his drumming ability. Taryn Pyle, director of marketing and communications at AICC, had this to share: “One moment I remember well of Steve was his participation in a band at the National Meeting for an ICPF fundraising event. Steve rented a set of drums for a few months to perfect the skill he had learned in high school. We as staff had shirts made with his picture on it, and a message that said, ‘We are here for the drummer.’

Steve Young laying down some beats!

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“

Steve is a genuinely kind person that loves this industry and represents us all well. His name is synonymous with AICC. — JEFF PALLINI, FOSBER AMERICA

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”

Counterclockwise from top: Steve Young at the AICC Canada meeting. Steve as a baby.

Steve at a regional meeting fishing trip.

Steve strikes a pose with a baby boy.

It was a side of Steve many of us never see, and he was an excellent drummer.”

Steve has proven he can literally march to his own drum, and this translates to the unique traits that make him one in a million. While remaining true to his own beliefs and convictions, Steve manages to meet every situation with a sense of diplomacy and openness.

Pyle recognizes this fact. “Of course there is always conflict within an organization when someone disagrees with a concept or feels strongly about their position. I have always found Steve willing to listen, consider the other side, look at things differently.”

“The membership is made up of confident individuals, entrepreneurs, and owners of companies with strong opinions,” says Mark Williams, president of Richmond Corrugated Box and current AICC chairman. “Steve is adept at keeping peace and being diplomatic. In the board meetings, there can be differences of opinion—sparring going on—and he is good at processing all of these opinions and keeping things productive. Steve is always a couple of steps ahead with the ability to see what’s coming.”

Jim Porter, president, paper solutions, at WestRock, echoes this sentiment. “I think Steve is an incredible leader, and he is really outstanding at building a consensus around complex topics with diverse individuals and constituents. He’s a great listener

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and one who can pull out the involvement and input of others, David Goch, partner at WC&B, LLP, agrees. “The while also respecting the strong egos and Type A personalities association is his legacy. AICC is a product of Steve.” that are often at the table.”

As Jeff Pallini, president, Fosber America, explains, Brian Kentopp, vice president of business unit sheet fed “Steve is a genuinely kind person that loves this industry at Bobst North America Inc., agrees. “Over the years, Steve and represents us all well. His name is synonymous has been a conscientious listener, hearing and addressing all with AICC.” member concerns equally. In addition, he has been running “As an advocate for AICC and the industry in general, successful AICC meetings for a diverse group of individuals. there is no other who compares with him!” affirms Maria The job that Steve has done is exceptional.”

Frustaci, AICC’s director of Latin America. “Steve is Steve Young has touched so many lives during his tenure articulate, a true, ardent advocate, and is absolutely with AICC, and as he continues in his role as president, he passionate about AICC’s mission, its preservation, and will remain a champion of both the members of the association and the future legacy.” independent, corrugated, and paperboard industries. His compassion, tenacity, and vigilance have served as the backbone of this organization, Ashley Reid is managing editor of BoxScore. and this honor could not be bestowed upon a worthier recipient.

“He’ll be a hard act to follow,” says Dave Burgess, North American sales director at JB Machinery. “Steve’s a giver.

He cares about the business, the industry, and the independents.

He puts his heart into it.”

excellence has far reaching effects Congratulations to 2016 Hall of Fame Inductee AICC President Steve Young For all you’ve done to improve our industry and the lives of everyone you’ve touched.

FROM YOUR FRIENDS AT LIBERTY PAPER AND LIBERTY CARTON PART OF THE LDI FAMILY OF COMPANIES

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Steve, Your years of dedication and service have made AICC the valuable resource it is today.

Thank you!

CONGRATULATIONS

on becoming the AICC/RISI Hall of Fame’s newest member.

www.bobst.com

OUR DESTINATION This past January the AICC Board of Directors developed a Destination Model, a three year strategic plan. AICC has stretch goals for each year. This year you will see:

We are growing to give you a greater network. AICC is working with a membership recruitment firm to build a broader network for you by growing membership with at least

50 NEW MEMBERS.

We want to hear from you.

This year AICC Board and staff will be reaching out to

SPEAK WITH EACH MEMBER COMPANY.

Tell us your challenges and success so we can create the best member benefits for you.

GROWING THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS.

AICC will grow the AICC Emerging Leader Program to 100 participants, helping your future leaders receive the knowledge and connections they need to thrive.

And this is just the beginning. Join us on this journey, because there is so much more to come.

THE INDEPENDENT PACKAGING ASSOCIATION

A/CC, the Independent Packaging Association is uniting and celebrating the success of inspired, independent packaging companies. We are a growing membership association which has served independents since 1974.

A/CC Serves: Passionate Professionals; The independent and united; The responsive and agile.

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A/CCW/11: Connect and cultivate; Deliver success.

AICC • 113 S. West Street·Alexandria, VA 22314 United States (703) 836-2422·www.aiccb ox.org

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

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Marketing in a Digital Era Finding the right strategy for your company is essential

BY LIN GRENSING-POPHAL

T

he World Wide Web went live on August 6, 1991. A lot has transpired in the 25 years since then. For those who worked in box manufacturing back then, the changes are almost mind-blowing. From websites to mobile devices to smartphones, digital apps, and augmented and virtual reality, marketers now find themselves faced with myriad new options to get their businesses, products, and services in front of customers—not just down the street but literally around the world.

These new digital marketing opportunities mean different approaches for box manufacturers. Here we look at how three different companies are taking very different approaches to their interactions with existing customers and their efforts to attract and engage new customers.

Digital Delivers Guy Ockerlund is president of Ox Box (www.oxbox.com) in Addison, Ill. For more than 60 years, the company has manufactured shipping and storage containers with a focus on heavy-duty industrial packaging for customers primarily in North America.

There have been a lot of changes over those 60 years; in recent years, one of the biggest changes has been the advent of digital marketing. Ox Box launched its website in 2004 and has continually modified it since then to keep up with trends and client needs.

Because its market is narrow, says Ockerlund, they’re typically looking “for those needles in a haystack.” Or, more specifically, they’re trying to help those “needles” find Ox Box online. The internet has had a dramatic impact on how Ox Box markets to and interacts with customers. Most of their business, says Ockerlund, comes through online inquiries.

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“We’re a small company, and we don’t have a marketing budget. The internet has enabled us to do things we could never have done and reach people we could never have reached 20 years ago.”

— Guy Ockerlund, Ox Box

In terms of marketing strategy, according to Ockerlund, the internet was a natural decision. They were actually ahead of the curve in terms of their market recognizing the value of the internet for finding the kinds of products Ox Box offers. “It just took the internet time to mature and get to the point where people were actually using it to find industrial stuff.” That strategy, he says, has saved both time and money. “We’re a small company, and we don’t have a marketing budget. The internet has enabled us to do things we could never have done and reach people we could never have reached 20 years ago.”

Without the internet to reach customers, Ockerlund says, they would have been challenged to advertise to the extent they would need to in order to raise awareness of their products. Digital marketing means not only that they are able to be found by those few, but important, industrial customers, but that they’re also able to save significant time that would previously have been spent going physically back and forth between the client location and their manufacturing facility.

The production cycle, he says, “is super abbreviated for our internet customers.

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We can go from initial inquiry to shipping product out to them in about three to five days.” That includes designing, quoting, processing, manufacturing, and shipping.

Addressing Communication Challenges Communication throughout the purchasing and production process for Ox Box’s customers also typically occurs online—not through direct sales calls or face-to-face conversations. That can be a time- and money-saving process, but it can also create some challenges and the potential for miscommunication.

Ox Box has leveraged technology in its marketing communication efforts to help minimize miscommunication and ensure that customers understand what it is they’re ordering. For instance, there is a glossary of container styles on the website that provides descriptions—both written and visual—of the various types and styles of containers that customers might need.

But technology can’t solve all communication issues, so Ox Box has taken additional steps to minimize confusion and miscommunication between its staff members and the customers they serve— most notably, the disconnect that can

occur between customers who don’t speak the language of box manufacturing. “We use industry-speak, and our customers don’t,” says Ockerlund. Recognizing that, and the potential for service breakdowns and product miscommunication that could result in delivering something that doesn’t meet client needs, Ockerlund has taken steps to ensure that the staff speaking directly with customers speak the customers’ language. They convey information in terms that the customer can understand.

Effective communication is key to building relationships and business, says Ockerlund. Martha Haddon agrees.

Haddon is secretary and treasurer of Packaging-Atlanta Corp., a small, full-service sheet plant based in Canton, Ga. The company has been in business for 33 years, starting initially out of her house. Their website (www.pkgatl. com) is currently under construction—a process she expects to take three to six months. The onset of the digital world, she says, has really changed how they view marketing. “We’ve known for a good four years that we really need a good website,” she says. But, it’s a process that has required a lot of consideration about

exactly how to build it and who to turn to for assistance in the process. She’s spent a year and a half finding and reviewing various options and ultimately coming back to a firm she had talked to at the very beginning of her search.

The goal, Haddon says, is to make the website fun. “I think people think that packaging and purchasing are boring.”

She intends to change that. The vendor she selected is a full-service firm that will handle every aspect of the web design.

One key piece of this is writing copy that will be appealing not only to her potential customers,but also to search engines. “I pride myself on being able to write a good paper or a good letter, but it’s a different language, and I’m not ever going to claim to even want to do that.”

The site will also be designed to appeal to a new generation of customers—the millennial generation. But, she adds, she doesn’t know that they’re really that different from other generations when it comes to making the move from traditional to online interactions with companies they do business with. It may have taken some age groups a bit longer, but Haddon and others agree that doing business online is the dominant way of interacting these days. Still, Haddon believes that relationships are best developed face-to-face. “It’s all about trust,” she says. “We do a lot of email, but we really still try to get in front of a customer. If we have a sample, and it’s local, we’re definitely going to hand-carry it. We really try to pick up the phone and call people instead of emailing.”

Taking Digital to an Entirely New Level Greg Tucker is taking digital marketing to entirely new levels, leveraging new technology to make a big impact. Tucker

is chairman/CEO of Bay Cities in Pico Rivera, Calif. (www.bay-cities.com), an employee-owned company that designs and manufactures packaging and displays.

The company was founded 60 years ago, says Tucker. “We purchased the company from our founder Bill Hanan who began his career with National Container.”

At “the Bay,” they’re marketing in a completely different way. “Our marketing strategy is to educate folks on the power of mobile at retail and how augmented reality can help drive business back to the retailer and keep all of us employed designing and manufacturing industrial

packing, retail packaging, and point-ofpurchase packaging,” says Tucker.

Tucker has recognized the value of mobile marketing and the widespread use of mobile devices by consumers of all ages. “Our current marketing strategy is centered on augmented reality,” he says.

Why? “We’re putting much more effort there, as we believe as a company and as an industry, that driving consumers back to the retail environment to buy again and again is the most important thing we can do for all of our survival.”

The Bay Cities app has been used to launch a series of augmented reality

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“Our marketing strategy is to educate folks on the power of mobile at retail and how augmented reality can help drive business back to the retailer and keep all of us employed designing and manufacturing industrial packing, retail packaging, and point-ofpurchase packaging.”

— Greg Tucker, Bay Cities

(AR) tools. “We can launch cool new in real time. This is all done with the games through the app,” says Tucker. In mobile device.” addition, he notes, “We can post coupons, That’s just the tip of the iceberg. newsletters, and just about anything we “Something else we did for Christmas want. I call it the Trojan horse for brands.” was pretty wild,” he says. Every year, By now you’ve likely heard of “Pokémon Bay Cities designs a gift for clients, Go”—the wildly popular location-based prospective clients, friends, and families.

AR game that lets users track down and This year, Bay Cities designers created a capture Pokémon that appear on the treasure chest that included instructions screen as though they’re in the real world. on how to download the Bay Cities app.

The concept is certainly nothing new to “Once the app is downloaded, a person Tucker, who’s been using the same AR can point his or her mobile device at the gamification-based apps to engage his treasure chest, and an animated octopus market. For example, one app involved opens the chest and begins to place a leprechaun running through a retail ornaments on palm trees while jingle bells store while being chased by shopping play.” When the song is over, the octopus carts. The app, he says, demonstrated grabs everything and drags it back into “how we can create a map of a particular the chest and shuts it. A crab that didn’t retailer to help folks be directed toward quite make it back in time knocks on the cross-branded opportunities within the chest and is let back in by the octopus. store.” Once consumers reach the brand, “This is what we call a product demonstrahe says, “they get the opportunity of tion using AR,” says Tucker. powering up more energy to keep playing the game—and they’re introduced to Monitoring Results a brand offering at retail that can include The big question, of course, is: Does digia coupon redeemable at the cashier tal make a difference? Do these marketing

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efforts pay off? These manufacturers believe that they do.

Digital marketing makes tracking ROI relatively straightforward, says Ockerlund. “Every lead that comes in goes into our marketing database.” The leads are tracked down to the sales level and indicate the source of the leads.

At Bay Cities, says Tucker, they use “a whole boatload of analytics that allow us to know how many folks downloaded the app, who they were, where they were, and even if they are male or female.”

The analytics provide important details that can be used to continually improve marketing efforts. “We feel very strongly that using this type of mobile technology will obviously drive business for Bay Cities,” says Tucker.

Haddon is looking forward to the analytics that her new website will be able to provide. Part of the planning process, she says, is specifically focused on identifying what she wants to track so the web developers can make sure those numbers can be delivered.

It’s not like the days before August 6, 1991, when marketing often took place face-to-face and tracking involved spreadsheets, coupon codes, and asking customers, “How did you hear about us?”

Today, marketers—in any industry— need to put digital marketing near, or at, the top of their lists of marketing tactics to connect and compel consumers to action!

Lin Grensing-Pophal is a freelance writer based in Wisconsin. She is a frequent contributor to BoxScore.

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Marketing in the Box Business 72

BOXSCORE September/October 2016

GET NOTICED IN FOUR SIMPLE STEPS

BY KIM BROWN

I

’ve spent more than 25 years in sales— all of them in corrugated packaging.

I have never seen it more difficult to gain access to buyers than it is today.

Salespeople are struggling to secure meetings, and their value proposition is falling on deaf ears. The information the buyer seeks is only a click away, without phone calls or time-consuming meetings, and studies show the buying process to be more than 50 percent complete before buyers even meet with a salesperson.

This is the way business works now. It’s fast, it’s digital, it’s different, and it’s an enormous opportunity.

The changes in the buying process require an adoption of techniques not historically a large part of our industry’s selling process—marketing. In the sales reps’ pursuit of new business, the cold-calling, mailing of company brochures, and random drive-by, drop-off-a-card activities have all been examples of outbound marketing techniques; they just weren’t titled as such. The goal of these activities, as well as any other marketing effort, is to get the desired message in front of a target audience and make them pay attention to it. The volume of messages the average person encounters on a daily basis has created a dismissive reaction to all except the most relevant. Garnering the elusive and fleeting attention of the buyer caused a shift in the world of marketing. The once successful one-size-fits-all message sent to any manufacturer in our geographic reach has been traded in for a much more personalized message to a

Buyers today conduct their own online research to determine the company and the person they want to do business with. clearly defined audience. The shift is to “inbound marketing.”

Research the Audience It is impossible to be all things to all people in today’s business climate.

The concept of less is more has never been more true. Narrow the focus.

You have to know who you’re trying to reach to understand what will attract them to you. Begin by identifying and focusing on one industry that represents a dozen or more individual companies in your market. Do the research. Learn the challenges facing the industry, and understand the lingo. Learn about each unique company in that industry and in your area, and the individual buyers and other personnel within the organization.

Create the Message There are many avenues to reach the target audience, but without the right message, you still won’t connect or move them to take action. Take a cue from the world of journalism, and learn to write the lead— the one point that is the relevant and essential message to get in front of your audience. This point is not about you, and it’s not about your product or service.

It’s about helping customers be successful.

It’s about how you make their business and their life better, smarter, faster.

Find new links to benefit them in ways not previously considered, and use your expertise, background, and knowledge in a different way.

Position Yourself Properly Buyers today conduct their own online research to determine the company and the person they want to do business with. Step into their shoes, and research yourself and your company to see what you find. Is the information consistent with the message you want to send? Take the time to create the perfect alignment between what you want to say and what customers will find.

Introduce Yourself Memorably The method of introduction will set the tone for the balance of the relationship.

We associate objects, services, and people with a brand. Psychologists refer to this activity as “framing.” The mind doesn’t then easily replace or substitute this association. Once it occurs, altering someone’s perception of it, or us, cannot be achieved with slight adjustments to an elevator pitch.

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The once successful one-size-fits-all message sent to any manufacturer in our geographic reach has been traded in for a much more personalized message to a clearly defined audience.

This framing association can work for us or against us. Being unprepared as a result of a random drop-off-my-card call or being categorized as interchangeable with the competition work against us.

Keeping pulse of their industry, sharing relevant news, and giving potential clients the details they need to make educated

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Seeing the Process in Action Imagine you are responsible for purchasing ink within your operation. You already have an ink supplier. They’re doing a fine job and are not currently on your radar. As your supplier, there’s been nothing out of the ordinary, good or bad.

You receive inquiries today from two of their competitors seeking an appointment with you. Let’s compare their actions: Company A — You received a voicemail message from the salesperson business decisions frames you as a credible last week letting you know they’d be in and reliable resource. Both associations the area on Tuesday. It’s Monday, the are difficult to alter once in place; one phone rings, and this is what you hear: is worth striving for, as it creates a “Hello, Mr. Smith, how are you today? solid foundation upon which to build My name is Jim Black, and I’m calling long-term relationships. Take the time to to see if I can stop by tomorrow to share consider all aspects of the introduction some information with you on how we’ve and the frame you want the buyer to form. helped companies similar to yours save

money on their ink costs. How does 2 o’clock sound?”

Company B — B sent you a package last week introducing their company. It was a box, digitally printed with your name and company logo. Inside was a letter that read, in part, “New regulations associated with FSMA are requiring higher traceability standards. Research shows that the consumer is 72 percent more likely to purchase produce from a tray printed with the word ‘traceability’ than one without. Our research shows that number to increase another 8.5 percent when that word is printed in green ink over any other color. Growers, food manufacturers, and grocery chains are hungry for this information and are working to stay ahead of these trends, as this data allows them to sell more product,

and at a higher price point. There are similar statistics happening in market segments outside of food and beverage.

We are interested in exploring how we may assist you in conveying this data, securing additional portions of these markets, and growing your business.”

Also enclosed was an FAQ page of questions to consider when selecting an ink supplier, a flash drive with a video of an interview with the market­­ing director for a local grocery chain confirming the details in the letter, and several glowing testimonials. A quick profile search on LinkedIn solidifies the salesperson’s message through additional recommendations, articles she’s written, a description of her role within the company, as well as several mutual connections. At the end of the

letter she provided her contact information along with a note that they’d be in the area next Thursday and would call you on Monday to arrange an appointment time.

Considering both scenarios, from which company are you more likely to accept the appointment?

The goal of any marketing effort is to get the desired message in front of a target audience and make them pay attention to it. How will you be introduced?

Kim Brown is the founder of Corrugated Strategies.

She may be reached at 317-506-4465 or kbrown@corrugated strategies.com.

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The Importance of

Persistent Leadership Continued education and sharpening your skill set are pivotal to success

BY CAROLYN KIMMEL

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Q

uality leadership is in the news more than usual these days, thanks to the upcoming presidential election highlighting something successful industry leaders know: Stellar leadership stems from persistence of excellence in every area of an operation—from the Oval Office to the box industry.

As Mark Williams, chairman of AICC, the Independent Packaging Association, notes, leadership themes have been at the forefront of the association’s focus for years, and he continues the emphasis this year by highlighting the value of “persistent leadership.”

Persistence in continual improvement, Williams says, is crucial to a team being the best it can be—especially the team of multiple players needed to make the best box possible.

For many box manufacturers, championing leadership is an ongoing effort at every level of production and management to ship out the best product possible and harness the latest improvements available.

Within the last year, employees of MaxPak in Lakeland, Fla., participated in AICC’s Mastermind Group, a 12-week online program aimed at helping leaders create goals, sharpen business and personal skills, and increase work effectiveness and satisfaction.

Time management and the ability to delegate work were two key areas of growth for Dave Rodriguez, who attended the training sessions with the company’s sales manager and controller.

“As managers, we have to be able to put things in perspective and delegate things to other people,” he says. “That frees up my time and allows them to grow in their responsibility and leadership skills.”

Leading on the Floor Rodriguez, who got started in the box business more than 25 years ago as a baler operator, says his natural tendency is to focus on what’s happening on the floor.

“I cut my teeth on the floor before I moved into supervision, so if something is going on there, my focus is there,” he says.

“I like to do things a certain way, so I was always asking, ‘Why did you do things that way?’ The training helped me to see where my focus needs to be now and how to empower those on the floor to be more productive and take more responsibility.”

When one of his team members comes to him now with a problem, Rodriguez says, he intentionally doesn’t run in to fix it, but rather he acknowledges the problem and then challenges the team member to figure out the solution.

“This helps build trust in the supervisor on the floor when others see he doesn’t have to run to the boss every time there is a problem,” Rodriguez explains. “I don’t micromanage my people; I give them the freedom to do their job.”

Another mark of a persistent leader is the ability to listen. It’s a skill to talk with people, not at people, who work for you, he says.

When the tough conversations do need to be had, Rodriguez says he is intentional about remaining openminded, welcoming communication, and keeping everything said in his office 100 percent confidential.

Rodriguez says the results are paying off for his company, evident in production numbers that have almost doubled in the past five years.

Thanks to increased efforts by the sales team that have resulted in increased production, employees no longer have to worry about the plant shutting down for several weeks in the summer or being sent home early because of no work, he says.

Company leaders make it a point to share the company’s vision and its progress with employees and seek their input on what would make their jobs more efficient. Communication is a priority that trickles down from General Manager Steve Wasko.

“The morale has really improved here; people feel good about coming to work at

“As managers, we have to be able to put things in perspective and delegate things to other people. That frees up my time and allows them to grow in their responsibility and leadership skills.”

— Dave Rodriguez, MaxPak

“Sometimes I get so caught up in the fires of the day that I forget the importance of just listening and not spitting out answers before they talk,” Rodriguez admits. “I feel I have a great rapport with the people on the floor because they know I have an open-door policy and they can come talk to me about anything that’s going on at work or at home.”

MaxPak,” says Rodriguez, noting that it’s never a good time to rest on one’s laurels.

“We’re always looking for what’s new and what’s coming next. You’re never done.”

Leading in the Field Diane Parkinson shakes her head in disbelief when prospective buyers tell her that no sales representative has ever before

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Photo courtesy of Michcor Container

asked them what criteria they have to meet when completing a sale.

“I take the conversation away from selling to learning about their company,” says Parkinson, an account manager for Michcor Container, Inc., in Grand Rapids, Mich. “What is their annual usage? What’s the damage, if any? What’s the perception of their customers when they receive their boxes? I take discussion of a price quote completely out of the first 15 minutes of our meeting.

“It’s about building rapport and valuing the client more than selling your pitch. If people feel you have helped them in more ways than just money … you can’t put a price on that.”

After several years of training sessions on how to become a leader in sales, Parkinson says she’s a big believer in the impact training can have on performance if the participant is open and willing to learn.

“Training has absolutely paid off for me,” says Parkinson, who credits AICC trainings on strategic advantage, behavior modification, and time management with emboldening her to become the best sales representative she can be. “When I hear someone say, ‘Well, this is going to be boring,’ I think, no, learning makes you a more powerful salesperson. You can’t be old-school or complacent.”

“You learn a bit about yourself and what holds you back, whether you’re overselling or talking yourself out of a sale. You learn how you can set yourself apart from other box sales reps,” she says.

From attendance at AICC trainings, Parkinson says she learned to sharpen her time-management skills and hone in on her territory management.

“You have to become a very well-oiled machine,” she says. “You’re there to educate and offer quality over that old cheesy polyester suit salesman mentality.”

Diane Parkinson, an account manager for Michcor Container, Inc., in Grand Rapids, Mich., checks out a new production piece with company owner John Pettengill.

If harnessed correctly, technology is a great ally to help a sales rep know her prospective client. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest offer tidbits of information about a person’s interests, education, and role within a company that can help sales reps tailor their initial contact to be more effective in meeting that person’s needs or interests.

For a female in a male-dominated industry, learning how to build a relationship with prospective clients who are men is a crucial training topic, Parkinson says.

“I don’t ask a guy to go out to lunch or play a round of golf with me,” she says.

“These are married men, and I have to do things a little differently. I’ll offer to buy lunch for his employees instead and get to know him that way.”

Parkinson says one huge thing she’s learned from training is the value of transparency from the moment she walks through the door to make a contact.

“People want to trust their sales rep and build a relationship,” she says. “I don’t come in with a big briefcase and feeling pressured to make a sale. I come in with an ink pen and a couple of business cards in my hand and a genuine interest in learning whether we are a good fit— and I never oversell our ability to meet their needs.”

It may take several phone calls and more than one meeting, but nonoffensive persistence pays off in leading the way to new clients and keeping them.

“And if it doesn’t go well, I don’t let the negative clutter my closet, because that can sabotage you,” she says. “I listen to self-motivating talks in my car, and I stay positive. If something goes wrong with an order, I know I am responsible, even if six or seven hands touched it after I sold it. I defuse the situation and resolve the problem in a calm fashion, because that has a good effect.”

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Photo courtesy of AICC

Emerging Leaders For 32-year-old Andrew Akers, a management trainee at Akers Packaging Service Group in Middletown, Ohio, leadership training is a valuable way to connect with peers in the industry and learn the ropes from seasoned professionals.

Akers, who about a year ago came aboard the company founded by his grandfather in 1963, is enrolled in AICC’s Emerging Leaders program. He has two previous jobs in the sales industry and his MBA under his belt, but the connections he’s making through Emerging Leaders can’t be beat, he says.

“I am meeting people who will be my peers as I grow in this industry, and I’m getting great exposure to leaders of different departments—from the manufacturing process to the sales process to the customer service process—which is a good way to get my feet wet,” Akers says. “It allows me to take my previous experience and pepper it with experiences of others.”

The program is designed to offer special education and opportunities to rising stars in the paper packaging industry— typically those under age 35—so they can develop into the industry’s next generation of leaders. Participants meet regularly at AICC meetings, participate in industry training programs, and network with others across the industry.

Emerging Leaders paired Akers with mentor John Davis, CEO at the Great

Andrew Akers, second from left, participates in an Emerging Leaders field trip at WestRock in Richmond, Va., conducted by AICC Chairman Mark Williams in June.

Northern Corp., who welcomed him for a tour of the facility and shared the ups and downs of his own journey in a family business.

“More than likely, anything I encounter, John will have seen before,” Akers says.

“Knowing he will have a helpful answer rather than me banging my head against the wall is a great benefit. He is also paired with a peer mentor who is a fellow participant in Emerging Leaders as a further way to encourage mutual support.

Akers says he is impressed by the collaborative spirit within the AICC membership. “There is a ‘we’re all in this together’ mentality and a great willingness to help one another,” he says, noting that Emerging Leaders gives

“Becoming a leader takes hard work.

You digest as much as you can, and you keep your eyes open. It’s an everevolving thing.”

— Andrew Akers, Akers Packaging Service Inc.

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him exposure to AICC leaders that he otherwise might not have had.

“The chairman hosts a field trip each year,” he says. “Mark Williams hosted us at his facility, which was a great experience.”

Fostering good leadership qualities, whether in oneself or in others, does indeed take persistence, all those involved agree—which makes training opportunities all the more relevant.

“Becoming a leader takes hard work,” Akers says. “You digest as much as you can, and you keep your eyes open. It’s an ever-evolving thing.”

Parkinson agrees, “You’re always getting rid of old habits and getting ready for the new you. Training definitely helps you maximize your effectiveness—and who doesn’t want that?”

Carolyn Kimmel is a freelance writer based in Pennsylvania. This is her first contribution to BoxScore.

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THERE IS

No Such Thing AS A

Flawless Installation

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

BUT HERE ARE A FEW TIPS TO GET YOU ON YOUR WAY

BY DON BOGARDUS

A

fter 20 years of selling capital equipment to the corrugated industry, I have come to realize that I may have learned a thing or two and wish to pass some knowledge along.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, the first thing you need to know is this: There is no such thing as a flawless installation and startup. Although this is everyone’s goal, it rarely happens the way we plan. The objective here is to minimize the hiccups along the way.

The Boy Scouts of America have a motto: “Be Prepared.” As manufacturing personnel, you owe it to yourselves and your company to be prepared for every possibility. Do your due diligence. Talk to your vendors’ previous customers. Find out how their installation went and what unexpected events came into play. More importantly, find out how those issues were handled and solved. It will reveal how the company responds, adjusts, and completes the project, which is imperative.

Help From A to Z As we all know, the purchase of new equipment requires a lot of justification and is a lengthy process, with many issues to work through along the way.

Step by step, defining the hard and soft costs involves planning. There will be throughput studies, manpower studies, and special requirements—e.g., floor space, power requirements (air, electrical, and temperature), installation time

frames, downtime, training of operators, helpers, safety, etc. Sometimes the soft costs just slip through the cracks, only to become a surprise later, and can bite you in the shorts down the road. Here are a few questions, A–Z, that you may find a cause for thought and clarification.

A Always think before and during the installation: What is my all-in cost?

B Does the project require concrete work?

C What is expected at delivery, and is it Ex Works, FOB, arrangement?

D When do you take delivery, i.e., ownership?

E If an HMI (human machine interface) panel is part of the machine, is it available in additional languages?

F Will the new equipment require the installation of a T-1 line for communication, diagnostics, and problem-solving? (If so, make sure the IT department has addressed and created a path for the vendor to get through the firewall.)

G Do you understand the guarantee and warranty? (What does it cover, and when does it start and end?)

H Are there taxes, and if so, to whom and how much?

I Are there any state/federal aid, grants, or incentives that may help with the cost of the project?

J Are there any green savings, e.g., power/energy, air consumption, etc.?

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

85

K Does transportation/delivery OTR require police assistance and approval?

L What manpower is required for installation with or without the manufacturer’s staff (e.g., electrical, mechanical personnel)?

M Is training part of the agreement? If so, where is it given, at what cost, when, and what is the cost of extra training if needed?

N Are there any city permits or approvals that need to be addressed pre- and post-installation?

O If dealing with an international company, is everything in the quote the same currency?

P Has someone from the legal department reviewed the sales order/agreement?

Q What happens if there is a problem (e.g., if it arrives damaged, who handles the replacement)?

R Are there any new insurance wrinkles that need to be addressed?

S Is there a check or punch list?

T How about a service contract (quarterly, semi-annual, or annual)?

U How frequently is there a need to negotiate machine audits?

V Is there a cost for the necessary schematics and PM schedules for the maintenance department?

W What if the delivery date is pushed back? Is there a financial credit or compensation? What would be the backup plan until the new piece of equipment arrives?

X Did you create a slush fund for unexpected costs?

Y Is the power supply adequate for the machine at the installation site (does it require an additional transformer)?

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

As manufacturing personnel, you owe it to yourselves and your company to be prepared for every possibility. Do your due diligence.

Z If air and water are required, are they readily accessible at the site of install?

Who is responsible?

Don’t Forget the Spare Parts These are but a few of the things that have caused hiccups within a capital project installation.

Dot your i’s and cross your t’s by going over what is needed, what is required, and possible unexpected events. One of the most important items I have recommended over the years is the purchase of the company’s spare parts package. I cannot tell you how many times I have been told that we do not purchase that or believe that we will not use it. However, time after time a situation arises where this package would come in handy. For example, a sheet plant on the West Coast purchased a machine. The sale was consummated with the installation and completion of first-round training. It’s important to note that the plant purchased the machine from an East Coast OEM. The very next weekend, service received a call (third shift on Saturday) that the machine was down and a part was needed ASAP. Even with overnight weekend delivery, they were not able to get the part until Monday morning. Thus, they lost production for an entire day, plus two-thirds of Monday. The part in question was within the company’s spare parts package.

Most manufacturers will look to see if the part in need is locally sourced and provide distributor information, if available. In this instance and many others, the desired part is often not local. I am sure you can see the writing on the wall. Having that spare parts package would have saved the company the additional costs of overnighting (air freight), machine downtime, and the maintenance department’s man-hours locating the problem, spending time on the phone to zero in on the part and make arrangements to get the part as quickly as possible—as well as the headaches of finding additional work for the operator and helpers on this production line. Bottom line … Do not skimp on the spare parts package. You will avoid the scramble and will be glad you did. Also, the maintenance guys will appreciate you all the more.

As a side note, AICC and TAPPI are excellent sources of additional information, research, education, events, camaraderie, and so much more. Make sure you attend meetings locally or nationally.

Don Bogardus is vice president of corrugated sales at Can-Am Packaging Equipment Corp. He may be reached at 630-463-8320 or don@ canampackaging.com.

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The Associate Advantage

ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIP HAS REAL VALUE JEFF PALLINI FOSBER AMERICA VICE CHAIRMAN PALLINIJ@FOSBER.COM

KEITH R. UMLAUF THE HAIRE GROUP CHAIRMAN KUMLAUF@HAIREGROUP.COM

ED GARGIULO EQUIPMENT FINANCE CORP. SECRETARY EGARGIULO@EFC-FINANCE.COM

T

his is my fourth and final article for the BoxScore Associate Advantage column. I felt it important to express my sincere gratitude to AICC for the opportunity and support they provide to the Associate Members.

I have come to know Steve Young and his staff these past three years. They are first class and have the best interest of independents, suppliers, and our industry in mind.

I have also had the opportunity to experience the exceptional leadership of the executive board—made up of independent converters—who are passionate about their family businesses and this industry. As a more than 30-year veteran of the corrugated industry, I can attest to the strong commitment and positive impact AICC has on our industry.

So what’s in it for us, the Associate Members? The opportunity for our companies and us individually to interface with independent converters in a way we could not accomplish through traditional methods. Let me give you a few examples:

The regional network gives us access and information across North America.

The spring and fall meetings provide a national platform for us to present, network, and learn. Note: The locations where the meetings are held are not too shabby!

The technical webinars and schools provide us the opportunity to teach and to be taught.

The associate meetings and associate board positions give us a voice on issues that matter to us.

BoxScore (this magazine) provides invaluable information and a wide array of marketing opportunities.

This coming year on the Associate Members Committee I will be the acting chair. I follow in the footsteps of Brian and Keith, who have done great work. I am excited and honored to represent the Associate Members. If you have not done so, I would strongly encourage you to take a more active role in AICC. I hope to see you all at the SuperCorrExpo® in Orlando later this fall.

This article was written by Jeff Pallini.

DAVE BURGESS JB MACHINERY DIRECTOR DBURGESS@JBMACHINERY.COM

BRIAN KENTOPP BOBST NORTH AMERICA INC. IMMEDIATE PAST CHAIRMAN BRIAN.KENTOPP@BOBST.COM

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

So what’s in it for us, the Associate Members? The opportunity for our companies and us individually to interface with independent converters in a way we could not accomplish through traditional methods.

What new market opportunities could coated and laminated papers open for you?

Imagine what new markets you could serve knowing you can offer them cartons or boxes made with extruded polymers, aqueous coatings or special substrates—coatings and laminations that give your products a wide variety of functional and barrier properties. A growing number of folding carton manufacturers as well as corrugated producers and converters are rolling out new products that ™ feature innovative SurfSHIELD coatings and laminations: PET, metalized PET, poly coated boards and papers and much, much more.

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International Corrugated Packaging Foundation I N T E R N AT I O N A L

PACKAGING

CORRUGATED

F O U N D AT I O N

PROGRESS CONTAINER & DISPLAY BECOMES CORPORATE PARTNER

P

rogress Container & Display recently joined ICPF as a corporate partner by pledging $50,000 to support the foundation’s educational mission.

“Almost five years ago we recruited a new University of Florida packaging engineer graduate through ICPF, and Katherine continues to be a rising star,” said Jim Johnson Jr., president of Progress Container & Display, in making the pledge. “We plan to continue using ICPF’s successful career portal in the future and are pleased to become a

corporate partner in support of ICPF’s work with colleges and universities across the country. My wife and I additionally are looking forward to joining other ICPF supporters at ICPF’s Holiday Weekend in New York annual fundraiser this December.”

Founded during 1971 in Lilburn, Ga. Progress Container originally became an innovator in the industry by being one of the first companies to have an in-house structural design department.

Its new Winder, Ga. facility opened in 2000, offering state-of-the-art graphics

and design capabilities, the most modern equipment, and an expanded warehouse space. Though they take pride in their great facilities, the Progress Container & Display management believe it is their employees who really make the difference. “They have extensive experience in the industry and are devoted to the success and satisfaction of each customer. We are committed to having the right people providing the right products with outstanding service.” For more information, visit www.progresscontainer.com.

CLEMSON UNIVERSITY EXPANDS PACKAGING LAB

W

ith a grant provided by Clemson University, the Clemson Packaging Program began a systematic expansion of its packaging lab this summer that included both the update and expansion of the lab’s corrugated testing equipment.

Working with ICPF, Testing Machines Inc. provided an additional 10 percent off the educational discount already provided

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

to Clemson. This savings of thousands of dollars enabled additional purchases of corrugated testing equipment that had been on the lab’s wish list.

Over the past two decades, Clemson has received more than $2.3 million in equipment and equipment discounts from ICPF. Not only was ICPF provided equipment for the packaging lab—most recently a universal crush tester and

related equipment two years ago—Bobst North America and ICPF earlier donated a Bobst and a Martin press to the Clemson graphic communications program. In addition to introducing graphic design and packaging undergraduate students to corrugated press operations, the Bobst press has been made accessible to AICC for conducting its training series for members.

WESTROCK DONATES ADDITIONAL $50,000

L

ongtime ICPF supporter WestRock has donated an additional $50,000 to support the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation’s operations.

Jeff Chalovich, WestRock’s executive vice president corrugated containers and ICPF board of directors vice chairman, made the announcement of the expanded contribution. “WestRock is proud to contribute and provide ongoing support to ICPF. We believe ICPF’s successful work to promote careers in corrugated packaging and expand the development and recruitment of students from our college and university partners is a critical

component to the long-term future of our industry. Its exploration work with SkillsUSA to potentially create local resources for the training and recruitment of vocational students is additionally exciting for our future.”

WestRock has a long history of entrepreneurship, leadership, and innovation in papermaking, packaging design, and retail solutions. With operations around the world and expertise in every shopping category, WestRock indicates that it focuses on working with brands to develop solutions to help them win across the board by providing an unbeatable

portfolio of paper and packaging products. WestRock employs 39,000 people at more than 250 manufacturing facilities, design centers, research labs, and sales offices around the world. For more information, visit www.westrock.com.

Richard Flaherty is president of the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation.

From then to now... thank you Steve Young, for your leadership and dedication

Celebrating 60 years of service to the corrugated packaging industry, Jamestown Container Companies congratulates and thanks Steve Young for his dedication and support to the Paperboard Industry and to all Independents!

We’re proud to have known and worked with Steve for almost 40 years!

From then to now, thank you for your leadership and commitment to the Independent, and for being one of the key forces behind the growth and sustainability of the Association!

Congratulations on your induction into the AICC / RISI Hall of Fame! www.jamestowncontainer.com 1-855-234-4054

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

91

The Final Score

WHILE MERGERS GRAB HEADLINES, LONGTIME INDEPENDENTS KEEP WORKING

L

ike many of you, I have been reading the trade press reports of the number of acquisitions of independents going on in our industry. One report called it “a new gold rush in the North American containerboard market.”

I’ve written two or three articles in the past year about the acquisitions of independents. A recent Pulp & Paper Week article lists 31 such acquisitions from 2014 through July of 2016. Twenty-five of these were active AICC members—a number that causes some people to ask me if I’m worried about the future of the Association or the future of independents generally. My response is always the same: “No!” Why? First, acquisitions of independents have been happening as long as there have been independents. In fact, if you think about it, our industry was practically all “independent” before the vertical integration trends which began more than 60 years ago. I haven’t been around the industry that long, but in my short tenure of 33 years I can remember long-established independents like J & J, Tate Containers, O’Grady Containers, Target Container, Lux Packaging, Triangle Container, and United Container & Display being bought out. Every decade seems to bring another wave.

To me, this is a sign of a healthy industry as successful companies seek to grow by acquiring other well-run companies, or seek to add strategic capability to that which they already have.

Second, ownerships change because people age and retire, and these owners have the rightful desire to reap the benefits of their many years of work in building up a business.

“Cashing out” isn’t a bad thing.

Third—and this is the point of this article—for every acquisition we read about in the trade press headlines, there are those privately held companies still working and serving the industry over multiple generations. I was reminded of this last month as I toured just one part of AICC’s regional network—the Pacific Northwest. There, Commencement Bay Corrugated in Orting, Wash., has in its ownership structure the Nist family, now six generations in the box business in the Seattle-Tacoma market.

DeLine Box is a fourth-generation corrugator in Denver, now headed by David DeLine. We can point to many examples across the country: New England Wooden Ware in Gardner, Mass., six generations; Wunderlich Fibre Box in St. Louis, more than 150 years in business in the Wunderlich family. And Weber Packaging & Display, Philadelphia, soon to celebrate its 125th anniversary and the Doherty family’s 25th year of ownership of the company.

So, while we all focus on who’s being acquired, let’s not forget those still here who are still working as successful independent entities, serving their customers, their associates, and their communities for many generations and, we hope, many more to come.

Steve Young President, AICC

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BOXSCORE September/October 2016

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7

YEARS YOUNG