Gráfica rápida: How to Safeguard Your Print Career
If you have been thinking about your print career, you are not alone. Economic uncertainty and technology disruption will continue to affect many printing companies. Safeguarding your position and preparing for unexpected career off-ramps and opportunities in the coming year is worth thinking about, now.
Q1: HOW YOUR PRINT CAREER MAY BE AFFECTED
I predict that as we enter the first quarter of the new year, economic and technology disruptors (tariffs, supply chain, M&A, AI) will distract printing company owners — and they’ll need to steer hard to keep their businesses on the road.
At the same time, company leaders and stakeholders will be pushing to solidify earnings and boost cash flow. Companies may have to renegotiate lines of credit. They may need to make financial guarantees to suppliers.
The fact is, cutting jobs is a quick way to boost cash flow. Salaries and benefits usually account for well over 50% of a printing company’s expenses.
Not to worry, though. Here’s what to do from the employee side to safeguard your print career.
YOUR TO-DO LIST: MAKE IT, CHECK IT, AND DO IT
Update your resume, and drill deep into the ROI you bring to your job. Analyze the next step in your print career and what makes sense. If that opportunity opens up, you want to be ready.
As you go through the exercise of updating your resume and analyzing your value, make notes and put dates on your calendar to remind you when to make regular and *visible* financial and performance impacts in your company.
As a practical matter, you should always have an updated resume, right? Oh, and print it out and keep it where you can grab it quickly. I speak from experience.
Practice with AI and Agentic AI. You don’t have to be a programmer to understand how to write good prompts and build personal assistants and work bots. Talk to peers and participate in groups where folks with your job are using AI to streamline work and improve output.
Build your network with smart, good-hearted, and well-connected people. Join and serve in useful organizations. Build bridges to people who do what you do in other companies. Maintain relationships.
Learn, learn, learn. We’ve all been in a bubble since companies stopped providing regular on-the-job training. You’re on your own, bub, so pick reputable classes, advance your skills, and earn certificates if you can.
Make yourself indispensable by learning one or all of these: Coding, project management, IT, financial reporting and analysis, quality control, sales, customer service, prepress file fixing and color matching, website design, and logistics.
SCENARIO PLANNING: BE RELENTLESS
When print career opportunities arise, either internally or outside the company, it’s hugely helpful to have already considered what you’d do in any situation.
This is called scenario planning, and you must do it for your print career.
For example, would you change jobs or take a lesser job if the money were significantly better? Would you accept a management job? Would you take less money for fewer hours? Would you work more hours with overtime with no end date in sight?
Think through these scenarios so that, if your employer proposes something, you’ve weighed the pros and cons and can make a print career decision confidently without delay or burning bridges.
CONSIDER THE LATTICE: IT MAY BE YOUR BEST OPTION
If you’ve attended my Girls Who Print presentations, you’ve heard me and Deborah Corn discuss the concept of a lattice instead of a career ladder. Sometimes you have to move laterally or backwards to move ahead.
As you visualize your career path, look at unconventional ways to get where you want to go.
Talk to your mentor about how to map a plan that gives you more places to strategically go off course without endangering your progress.
FINALLY, IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY: TAKE CONTROL
The coming year will be a challenge for most printing company owners. You must safeguard your own print career – there’s no two ways about it. No one else will do it for you.
Sit down and start planning today. You are the true guardian of your print career.
Read more from Sandy here.
Check out last month’s post: How Printers Can Get Better Marketing Results
Sandy Hubbard is an independent consultant to owner-led companies looking to kick-start growth.
She brings clients well-reasoned insight, tactical clarity, and a modern approach to building businesses from the inside. She prepares leaders for business success in an ever-changing communications landscape.
A fourth-generation printer and publisher, Sandy specializes in Print, Media, and B2B Tech industries. She is a Certified Scrum Master, Google Developer and Innovator, and a beta tester of agentic AI technology through Grammarly (now called Superhuman).
She is the host of #PrintChat, a weekly global gathering of the industry’s most influential thinkers and leaders. A proud member of Girls Who Print, Sandy is the 2022 recipient of the coveted Girlie Award.
Connect with Sandy on LinkedIn.
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