Passing the Baton: Planning for Growth and Survival
Passing the Baton features a series of “letters” sent from Terry Corman, outgoing CEO of Firehouse Image Center (Indianapolis, Indiana) to his son, Ted Corman, who will be leading the business into its future. This series of communiques offers thoughtful views of a business undergoing generational transition, glimpses of the company’s history, and strong views of the realities of leadership.
As your mother and I depart the business, I know you want to create your own vision for the future with big goals. We applaud your vision.
Keep in mind, however, that creating a large company just for the sake of being large is not a worthy goal. While some clients and markets in the printing industry require large-scale printers to handle their volume, positioning a business solely for sales growth is the wrong strategy.
The reason I say this is that all great products and ‘go to market’ strategies have a life span. They grow, mature, and then decline.
Over the last 35 years, I have witnessed larger competitors, whom I envied for their size and offerings, fail because they were too large to be nimble when the decline came.
Our business survived the loss of film, processing, photo printing, scanning, CD-ROM production, and film output for slides and pre-press.
They were all hot, and then they were not.
I have had large accounts go out of business without any warning.
Keep your growth goals grounded in this reality. Plan for change and survival while you grow the business. I offer this old German proverb that will serve as a reminder that growth does not go on forever: Trees Don’t Grow to the Sky."
