Hey, it’s Nate Disarro and welcome to titans of industry, the podcast where I talk to industry leaders and innovators who are at the top of their game and leading the pack in their fields uncovering some of the best stories in today’s business landscape. In this episode, I sit down with Mitch betters owner and CEO of Arkansas business Publishing Group based in Little Rock, Arkansas. Mitch talks about how to double down to capitalize on a niche market the importance of focusing on your mission and purpose to create the most impact and why in business, only the Paranoid survive. Now as a quick side note, this episode was recorded on March 16 of 2020, which was essentially day one of the economic shutdown due to COVID-19. And although we didn’t dive too far into that topic, this conversation represents a very transitional point in the world as we’ve known it. Now, let’s Get to the episode. But before we do, it’s important to know that whether you’re a small business owner or the face of a multibillion dollar industry, your organization has a great story to tell, and content Titan wants to help you tell it. We are a digital content creation powerhouse built for the 21st century, providing all in creative strategic production post production and distribution services for at 360 degree 24 seven world. In our world Titans are passionate, creative doers. They have the experience to take your project from start to finish, minimizing your involvement so you can focus on what matters most running your business. So if you’re ready to take your content, strategy and production to the next level, our Titans are ready to help.

Now here’s my conversation with Mitch Bettis.

Mitch Barris really appreciate you taking the time. I know you’re a busy man. Let’s jump right into it though. So give me just a little bit of an intro. Tell the people that know I don’t know anything about you. Who are you? What do you do? Born and raised

in Arkansas. First of all, maybe that’s most important. I’ve spent a lot of wayward years in media companies and managing properties across the US. Came back here about a decade ago with a with a media company and then joined Arkansas business about goodness, that’s now I’m in my eighth year. And guess when we do the math on that. It is it is I’ve spent a lifetime in this industry, started as a paper boy from my hometown newspaper and fell in love with everything that media does, and we can talk about that at some point. But otherwise, I’m a husband and a father and and very much proud to be back in Arkansas and hope this is hope this is the last stop point for me hit.

Well, we’ll get into that a little bit too, because I think you made quite a commitment not too long ago for that to be the little bit. Yes, but so you’ve always loved me to you. How did you get into What did the early days look like? And how did you ultimately end up coming back to Arkansas? So this is gonna go a ways back so

bear with me.

I had a journalism class in ninth grade, where we produce a little newspaper and a yearbook. Doris Wells was my teacher at Ellen goza junior high in arkadelphia, Arkansas. And it just resonated with me. And before that, I had been the paper boy when I was in middle school, and it just that I took that job because it’s a job that a middle school kid could do. This is still that idyllic time where you’re on your bicycle and you’re throwing newspapers in a in somebody’s neighborhood. And I loved it. I loved everything about being a paper boy, because you’re an independent business owner, if you really understand how that works. You buy at wholesale and and and sell it retail, and you make the spread. You run collections, you knock on doors for new business. Everything you do Are you you’re an independent contractor. So you’re buying supplies like when, you know, gasoline and rubber bands and whatever you need to do to make your business work. I loved every bit of it. And that led to exploring that in high school and junior high fell in love deeper and, and I was I was often running started as a reporter for my hometown newspaper when I was in high school. And that just the different roles in this business began to come available and I had a chance to really sample a lot of different roles. I’ve basically done everything in this industry or my side of the business except for on a press they never let me touch heavy machinery there was afraid I was going to kill somebody probably. But everything else from photography, to layout to design, to sales, to management, to writing to editing, I’ve had the really pleasure to do and loved and still love its role in our community the way we have a chance to Tell other people’s stories and change the arc of their lives and give them something meaningful. I think our world is full of purpose, we get to help small business owners be successful. We get to help readers be successful. We provide an enormous value, and in terms of what our community needs, so it’s fit every stroke for me. And I feel really blessed that in seventh grade, fell in love with something and then could be able to take classes and look at look for experiences and find people who could help me in this industry, learn and grow and be better. And so it was a real blessing to find that so early. So

I look back. So now here we find ourselves. It’s the year 2020. And the state of the industry. Where is your industry? What’s going on with it? How has it changed over the last several years? Yeah,

well, it’s been massive changes, which I actually I know there’s some doom and gloom in our industry in general. I think there’s no more exciting time to be there than now. And I know it’s hard. I know many newspapers are struggling and we have some in our communities are facing unique challenges. The television audience has splintered more today than it ever has and audiences being lost from terrestrial TV and to other streaming services were watching or listening that radio is having the same challenges with streaming services. And really the traditional audiences are really very different. But this is an incredibly exciting time for us. And I’ve watched it and lived through it. We go back, really in the 80s. We watched the advent of an internet that nobody knew what to do with and that’s where our world began to change. Typically, media companies are running fairly amazing. Even egregiously high profit margins and audiences are really centralized and it but that really changed with two things, the advent of the Internet, and really this kind of dispersal of information, how we consume content, and really then the corporatization of media when you have those Very large profit margins. It doesn’t take long for private equity to begin coming in and seeing the 2030 40% EBIT, does and thinking that’s a great investment. Both of those dramatically changed our industry. And so where we are today, those who have adapted well under that model, under that new reality have are doing well. And there are an amazing number of success stories across the country, we we have been one of those we just had our seventh consecutive year of record revenue or profit or for print advertising is at an all time high was an all time high and 18. It was at again at 19. Our print subscribers at an all time high, but our business has really evolved and I think that’s really the measure of change is that there’s a lot of adaptation to what the current market bears we may be thought of as a print media company here and I get what people think that I might stay Arkansas business and the state’s business magazine and you think Print or you might pick up a little rock for a and think of print or Arkansas bride, the state’s bridal magazine or green head, the duck hunting magazine. And we have about 30 Print Titles here. So a lot of people think of us as print. But at this point, even with those record print numbers, I think we’ll do 53% of our company revenue this year is print 25% is digital and digital marketing. And another 25% is what we refer to as other which of which, which is a big bucket always good to have. For us, we have three full time event directors and we produce a variety of large scale events for this state, and that falls into other. We do a variety of custom services. We produce magazines for companies that you would never know that we produce. They hire us to do that we were the in house agency for a variety of banks and law firms and we provide marketing and consulting and design services. So we’re able to use the variety of experts we have in this building to help a business be successful in a variety of ways. But I think that’s been the big change is that That the disruption that happened 20 years ago, we as industry, many have struggled to still adapt to that. And you’re seeing a lot of fallout from that. And but what’s exciting is that if you really can make a pivot, and you have the customers interest in mind, we can tap into a lot of skills here that really create diverse revenue streams for us, but really provide a more complete marketing solution for other folks. And so it’s pretty exciting.

It’s very exciting. I think it’s it’s impressive to see all the titles like you mentioned around the state that you guys are a part of, and I’m curious when you when you look at it from a niche perspective, how do you guys determine we’re ready to pivot into this niche or is it a necessity? Is it a market demand? How do you look at that?

So we’re a niche publishing company, even our marketing services is niche and our events, our niche, we do not try to be all things to all people. We’re not a mass media company like newspapers. I’ve tried to be in radio as try to be in TV as tried to be. And I think they’re feeling the pain of trying to be all things to all people. I spent 30 years in the newspaper business, I love the newspaper business. And I’ve tried to be all things to all people, and that we cover the governor when he comes to town, and we cover what’s on the lunch menu at the elementary school ride and everything in between. Here at our Publishing Group, we’re a niche company. And we focus on very specifically affluent, educated decision maker audiences, we know who we’re after, and we know who we’re not. And I believe that has been a core piece of this company success for the last 40 years. The owners at the time when they launched this company, purposely chose to be something other than mass. At the time, that was crazy. ludicrous, in fact, but today that is really borne out as an incredibly wise strategic move, and we’re watching a lot of these other mass companies developed niches and niche products as a way to To move into this particular philosophy, but we are in growth mode. And so to your point, how do we make these decisions? We launched three new print magazines last year, most people wouldn’t imagine that in this culture. We have two, if not three that are going to launch this year. Most people would find that amazing because everything you hear is print and traditional media are in contraction. That is not our experience here. So how do we get there? We look for underserved markets. And that can evolve into a lot of ways. For instance, a couple of years ago and partnership with the state of Arkansas and Arkansas Chamber of Commerce and a variety of industry, we launched a workforce development magazine, it’s distributed to every eighth 11th and 12th grader in the state of Arkansas. And its goal is to say, college may be great for you, but if it isn’t, there’s some amazing careers that could happen, well paid, careers that can happen, and then we need in the trades. And so that really went along with a conversation. The state was having it was a niche, other people weren’t being able to feel on a level that we are. Now we’re also producing the similar magazine for the state of Mississippi. And we’re in talks with three, if not four other states at this moment about helping them carry that same workforce development message to high school students, to give them hope that if college isn’t their desire, if that’s not for them, there’s an amazing life and career you can have in the trades. And we just need to get you a little training or apprenticeship programs do that. So part of that was seeing an opportunity. Part of that was understanding that we can fill and talk to that niche. And we have the skills to be able to do that on a high level. And we were able to rally the right partners to be able to have a successful launch. So that’s just one example. But typically, we look for underserved, fluent, because we we tend to cater to a more educated, fluent audience and with all of the niches that we do, and you might think students in high school aren’t flowing but we know the industry Who need to recruit these students to be part of their team and to carry business forward do have a high need for finding the right worker to keep the lines open to keep the forklifts moving to keep the welding going to keep the plumbing going. And so there’s real value there for the business so that we can partner with them in a way to bring the right employee to their doorstep. So high on mission high on purpose and how an impact all those really fit a lot of our needs. So

you mentioned the industry as a whole has kind of seen its challenges over the last say two decades. And you guys have adapted well to that. Well, if we look current events wise we as of this recording are right in the heart of our fun little Coronavirus situation. And so as you look at current event based challenges that both you guys face and your clients ultimately based your advert to advertisers that stories you have to tell how do you weather those storms on a short term basis and ultimately come because I know this is probably happened in some capacity before but Again, you guys have grown for, would you say seven years? Yeah.

Yeah. So I think let me answer that on. I think there’s one answer philosophically, how to approach this. And then a couple of practical things that we’ve really tried to educate our staff on. And it goes everything down to how we hire here. But philosophically, I just finished reading a book recently that sums this up for me in the title, it’s a little bit of an older book, but at the title of the book really resonates that only the Paranoid survive, was written by the former CEO of Intel, about the massive changes in the computer chip industry, really in the 80s. And the premise is this is that we philosophically must evolve. We can’t become stagnant. We can’t recognize that the way we do business today is always going to be how we do things. And how that resonates to a media company is I believe, there is going to be an eternal demand for quality content. That can impact people and change their lives. Now, how we deliver that content is the evolution sometimes it’s about podcast as we are here, or V cast. Sometimes it is by a letter. Sometimes it is by print sometimes is by audio. Sometimes it’s by text tomorrow maybe by something we can’t even conceive of. And so that’s part of the evolution. And so philosophically, I try to challenge our team, to stay paranoid, and to question and to look for opportunity there and frankly, just not be complacent. I talked about complacency being one of the great destructors of business and all things and they, we don’t need to change for change sake, but the idea to be open to and embrace those new opportunity is really something that I think is been meaningful for us. When I got here since I was talking about numbers earlier when I got here. We were 75% print. Okay, and healthy company. But I mentioned earlier, we’ve had record print years, but our total now is 53%. Print, right? So you can just see all those other things we’ve had to staff embrace, grow, evolve in order to really diversify and meet client needs. And so, so I think philosophically adopting a concern or even a hatred about complacency and the philosophy of only the Paranoid survive, I think can serve us well there on the practical. There have been a lot of business interruptions over my 30 years in the media business, some, you know, profound like what we saw in the 80s. We’ve seen

global gas shortages in the 70s. We’ve seen pandemics before that we’ve had global interruptions. We know these things happen. Our business has to run like any other business. On the practical side. We’ve got to manage cash on hand. You know, we have this conversation with our leadership all the time of how much cash needs to be in the bank to Make sure that we can weather all manner of things. And part of the media business. We’re really unique. I don’t know of another business that has this challenge. So think about this. And we write about the same people who do business with us, right? So if we write a story about a particular bank or law firm, or accounting firm, or hospital, that might have some shady things going on. I know tomorrow, I’m going to get a call about them pulling 100 or $200,000 worth of advertising, right? That probably doesn’t happen at Starbucks. They’re not purposefully agitating if you will, or even unintentionally agitating clientele. So we have to build a business model that can weather clients coming and going and powerful ways and as well as events that are out of our hands. And then the other side of this practicality alludes to What I started with philosophically, I’ve been asked this question a lot over the last four from different folks a lot over the last three to four weeks. Who do we look for when we’re hiring, and there, we need folks with certain skills. We want people with a particular attitude that fits our culture. But the third thing is I need people who will evolve because the job we hire them for today will not be their complete job. Six months from now, two years from now, there is evolution. And so those who can help me problem solve and evolve with whatever is about to look for is really a practical thing that we have tried to look for. So philosophically, we really try to embrace change and look for opportunity and not be stuck in the way we do things. Practically, we have to run a business that can adjust and be stable in times of crises like today and whatever is going to hit us in six to 12 months. And we have to have people who can evolve with me and take on new roles and be challenged by new opportunity be trained for new experiences. And that’s I think, really helped us grow the better part of the last decade,

all incredibly valuable information for myself. And I’m hopeful that it’s valuable for many other people as well. One of the other things that I think you mentioned briefly, but that y’all have long since been known for is the culture around here. I know a lot of effort goes into that. But talk a little bit about the culture and how you continue to create and evolve that culture with modern trends of bringing dogs to work. Right.

So we are doing a bit of a reputation for quality place to work. It is something that predates me. It’s the thing that attracted me to come here eight years ago. I couldn’t believe there was a place like this and it’s founded. So what people see of this culture, there are a lot of cool things here. We have a beautiful office space. It’s very contemporary, and our ownership has spent a lot of money making this happen. We want a great place to work with a place that feels creative. But yes, we’re a dog friendly office. We have a kid’s room here complete with treehouse and video games that parents can have their kids come up after school or in spring break or in between doctor’s appointments or when global pandemics hit. And they’re not in daycares clothes, you know, we have an opportunity to take care of our families that way. We have a very aggressive 401k matching program, we match at least 10% but we guarantee we guarantee 10% but we typically are 20 to 40%. Last year was a 20% 26% match. We have a committee of employees hand them a budget and their whole responsibilities throw a party for us once a month. So maybe that’s hiring the ice cream truck to show up out front we get free ice cream or we’re catering a potluck or we’re closing down early going to Dave and Busters. So people see those things and talk about culture. We have a fairly low turnover rate here. People who do leave, we have a high degree of folks who Boomerang as we say we have a lot of boomers. In the building who thought the grass was greener somewhere else, but came back. But what color so people see all that and think of it as culture but what we call culture really is the philosophy that anchors all that at the 30,000 foot level. And here it is. we affectionately refer to it as the five legged stool. Nate, you are sitting on a four legged stool here a chair, that imagine a five legged stool, all right, and it’s really the key stakeholders that make the world go round for us, our employees, our advertisers, our readers, our vendors, and our stockholders. Now, I think you asked any business, they would say some version of that their stakeholders are important and they would say their employees are important. And all those folks are important. But for us, if we really believe employees are important, we’re going to aggressively take care of them at every turn. We’re going to give a 26% 401k reimbursement we’re going to find a way to take care of their families. We pay for a counseling service. In our building, when things get stressed, there’s 567, free counseling services. Anyone can use it with a therapist. I mean, how do we take care of that, and all that takes money, right? So we have to make sure the dollars are there to do that. We want our advertisers to have this amazingly effective and powerful experience to transform their life, but it takes talent and skills and process and, and resources to do that. We want our readers to have something they couldn’t get anywhere else. That’s part of the distinction that makes us great. So we have to go find people who can deliver this unique content and they’re not cheap. We don’t hire the first college student off the turnip truck who will work for 25 grand a year. I think one of the last employees we hired on our content team for Arkansas business had spent the last 15 years as an editor at the New York Times. So we want skilled people who can deliver original and impactful content, online offline at event in print, it doesn’t matter. We’re looking for real Rose, we want our vendors taken care of. You’ve done a lot of videos for our company, we want you taken care of we want to treat you well. We don’t try to take you down to the lowest possible nickel. We want to pay you on time we try to pay every vendor here between 15 and 30 days. If somebody hadn’t paid a bill here in 30 days, there’s just some other problem it got lost or there was confusion. But we want our vendors taken care of we’re not trying to take them 30 6090 120 days alone. That’s not partnership, right? And then our stockholders they deserve a return on their investment. Right? So it’s okay. They’ve had enormous risk. We deserve to pay those stockholders so we, we value all of those folks. So the way the philosophy works is that we could send every nickel to the stockholders, right? We don’t have to have a party for us once a month that takes thousands of dollars over the course of a year. We don’t have to do a 26% match. We could send that stockholders I don’t have to invest in all these layers of service to take care of readers and advertisers. We could squeeze that for the stockholders, I could take a 6090 days to pay a vendor, we could do that like a lot of businesses do, and take that cash and move it out to somebody else. But that creates a one legged stool. If everything is going to the stockholder, we can’t take care of everybody else. And at the heart, I believe we’re in this together. And I anchor that for me with a handful of Bible verses. In Ephesians. 520 says be subject to one another. I really care about Nate and his company. And I really care about the employees who are walking by us as we speak now and if I really care about our readers, I am going to work to take care of them and they should work to take care of me We are in this together Philippians two, two and three. Take care of one another. Galatians tells us put others first that all that premise really anchors the five legged stool, and if we are subject to one another, we’re not going to send every nickel to the stockholders and in the same respect I can’t go give my employees $30,000 a year raises, right we’ve got vendors to take care of and readers to take care of and stuff. So there really is balance. And it’s the culture starts at the top with us, as leaders, indoctrinating everybody that there’s balance and fairness, and everybody’s important, and then executing of strategy for each of those five legs on the stool. And therein lies one culture I think is great here. We don’t have a one legged stool and because we believe we are subject one another here to take care of each other and do well by each other.

That’s probably the most eloquently I’ve ever heard that answer be put, as well as I can’t imagine a business that wouldn’t thrive and survive with that mentality. So it’s no wonder you guys are continuing this growth path and weathering the storms. Talk about team structure and how you from a you know, president of the company Organize your leadership team and then how they ultimately dispersed that into the troops on the ground.

So, so for better or worse, we have a pretty flat leadership structure here. And sometimes that’s great. And sometimes that’s worse. So I can see the there is a short line between a very frontline worker and me and, and that is purposeful, because it ultimately goes to building trust and clarity and conversation and understanding between what their issues are. So I understand and they understand what my issues are, it really works. But on a practical side, that’s often a challenge. So we are structured here in what we would call macro teams. When you look at our employee, group, we are broken into smaller teams and I have leaders of specific divisions. We have a leader in our business division, we have a leader in our web development, digital marketing division. We have a leader in our little box for a division we have a leader in what we call our Consumer publications and a leader in what we call our business publications. And so those are kind of our top two, your core group of four or five folks that are kind of key exec team, we have about 11. I have about 11 direct reports total. All of those are the the managers who then manager who manage specific teams within that global structure. But the truth is, at the end of the day between the person who answers the phone, the person who writes that story, the person who is handling AR and accounts payable, there is not a lot of layers between getting to their manager or getting to me. Now the good news is a lot of communication. One of the challenges for our company, though, is this is that we’re not a company that has, you know, a VP, a senior VP, a global VP, there aren’t a lot of obvious ways to move up a corporate ladder that you might at a large publicly traded organization. So that’s a trade off for some folks. That’s because a lot of folks want opportunities to grow the They want to change their LinkedIn status or they want a new business card. They want to feel like they’re progressing in their professional life. So that has created a whole other set of opportunities for us to really meet that need is that how do we help people grow and feel like growth and take on new opportunities, because of our culture and how we take care of people. We our leadership team doesn’t turn over that often. So again, that’s great. That’s allowed for a lot of continuity. We have a lot of momentum. We’ve talked about that. But I think for a new employee coming in, they also see that that this leader has been there 10 years this leader has been there 15 issue leader has been there 27 years. And so is there room for them to move up. So we’ve had to get really creative about how we give people opportunities, how we carve out new roles, and how does that look like and so,

when you look at your business as a whole, it makes a big impact on the communities that serves the state of Arkansas, the niches that that you tell stories Talk a little bit about that impact and how it’s shaping culture in a sense, and how these stories when they get out, they really kind of impact the way people do business, the way families interact. Yeah.

So let me give you two kind of examples with two different products that we produce. And some people might put these on opposite ends of a continuum, but it really is a similar story. I hear this day in and day out for Arkansas business, which is a state’s business magazine, that it is the first thing they read, it is their go to source. And it helps them bring clarity of what business trends are, and often with some of the what some people might call a negative story, who to do business with and who not to do business with and that is very much part of our role. We’ve had people tell us that because we did a story on this kind of shady operation over here. They did not do business with them, and it perhaps too save their company. Those are powerful moments when we really get down to it to help people make educated business decisions. And we watched that on a whole lot of levels of the of the industries we cover on the business side be that healthcare law, real estate, tourism. How do we help these business owners small and large, navigate these tricky waters. And so but those kind of practical moments when somebody walks up and says, I did business with this person, because I felt really competent, and then after the way you all have covered them, or I did not do business with them because of this, and it really saved my business. Now, in hindsight, that is, those are powerful moments. The other side of that continuum may be Arkansas bride, which is a state’s bridal magazine. It’s a tremendous franchise for us. I think it’s powerful, that we’re able to help a family a new family. craft a day, a moment, that is going to be one of the most memorable experiences of their lives. So our console bride might seem fluffy on one side where we’re talking about trends and dresses or veils or tuxes, or venues or music or tablescapes, or honeymoon locations, you some people might think that’s a bit silly on one end, but to help a bride and a family, craft a special moment like that, I find fantastic and love being a part of it. And lastly, I mentioned the Workforce Development pub a minute ago, but we have a publication that goes to every eighth 11th and 12th grader in the state of Arkansas, one of which talks to them about it’s a fantastic thing to go to college. And here’s what opportunities are about going to a four year or two University of Arkansas and we have another publication that goes to that same audience that says collagen for you. There’s an amazing set of opportunities in the trades. Just get a little training or an apprenticeship and they have a whole host of opportunities. Within that workforce pub, we have talked to students whose they suddenly feel like they have a purpose. Like maybe college wasn’t for them. And I had a tremendous college experience. So I’m for four year education. But to have some of those students tell us I felt like that wasn’t for me. And I didn’t know what else I could do. But they can look at this magazine and see one of their peers in the state, being an apprenticeship electrician or a plumber making 4050 $60,000 a year and living in rural Arkansas, they can do that they can go to work for one of our manufacturing companies and have this amazingly effective life and, and be trained in technology and have a chance to do some of the unique things. There’s a great company in Northwest Arkansas that makes parts for Harley Davidson and Ford Mustang and for students to be able to go Wait I can go do cool stuff like that and be a part of this innovative manufacturing company. So to hear those stories of young people have their lives changed. In the their eyes open, and they can see hope. And they can see acceptance. And they don’t have to think that a trade job is lesser than because they didn’t go to college because that’s not the case. They can see that touch it and feel it. Those are feel good moments for me to know that you’re changing generations in that case, right? I mean, if we can get a kid to get excited about a manufacturing job, and they can their family that his or her future family can have a really stable life and a healthy income and a savings and their kids can have healthy lives. It’s really powerful stuff. I think so

yeah, you’re exactly right. And that’s one of the reasons I do what I do is to be able to tell these stories of people doing amazing things and how it influences and shapes culture and changes the way other people can absolutely get there. And I think there’s so much value in that. And I think sometimes people look at the storytelling culture, which is what you do, what do I do, as something that maybe isn’t as important as other industries. And in some regards, okay, maybe I’ll take you up on that. But the way that it can shape people’s lives, there’s no question that without these stories without these publications without these distribution channels, you can’t impact the world the way that that you’re able to do that.

There is within the digital world we live in, there is something powerful about seeing yourself in these stories, right. And we have done a series on African American businessmen and women in our community who’ve run successful businesses for years as a way to kind of elevate their profile. And then through a partnership with Arkansas Baptist College and a bank. We find them and put them at Arkansas Baptist College, which is primarily a poor African American student population, but we want them to see there are successful men and women. I want them to be able to visually Connect. That person looks like me had an experience like me talks like me walks, live made dresses or whatever. It is, and that that person had an amazing impact, I can do it too. And I think the stories you tell visually, I think, the way we try to do things and others in our media who really focus on those things, I think being able to show that to a person and they can visually see that this can be different. And I see somebody doing it is inspiring for people. And it really gives them the confidence to try new things.

What’s something people should know about where the industry is headed? If you had to foreshadow and kind of you mentioned earlier, you know, being adaptable and sort of that paranoid feeling of what if what we’re doing today isn’t around tomorrow, what what might some of those things be?

Well, so right before this discussion, I consulted my magic eight ball, and it had perfect clarity. Well, first of all, I don’t know the full answer, let as you would expect, we used to and probably anybody listening to this, if you’re you know old geezer like me, or if you’re probably not even that old we used to have, we used to have 10 year plans, you know, we would write down on paper, a 10 year plan. And today, I have a five year idea. I have a three year sketch and I have a one to two year plan. It is that alone has really evolved. So So what does that mean? If whatsoever you I think you’re asking me what is my basically three year sketch a five year idea? Because that’s the best I can give you at the moment. What I see for our industry is continuing to adapt to both readers and advertisers to meet their unique needs now, no, that’s a high level answers. Let me get down from 30,000 feet. What we have been doing, I think, is the current path, which is really a pretty aggressive diversification strategy, either through acquisition or hiring, pulling in industries that can help are businesses other businesses be successful. So for instance, our business has a suite of people who basically do a suite of agency services. So we try not to compete with other ad agencies in town. But we offer a level of consulting and service work and design work and the strategic work and PR work that allows us to really cater to the needs of a business community and we can do it with our culture and our exacting standards and our level of professionalism and our relationships that really is meaningful in early strategic situations. So I see our company and this is what I’ve told our staff is that I see a big future for print. I don’t see massive contraction and I know that runs counter to what we might see with newspapers and some other media, but we feel optimistic about where the role of print in the world but as a percent of our business, it is moved from 75% seven eight years ago to 53% this We’re within a couple years, it will not even be 50% of our business. That doesn’t mean we still don’t need great people. And it’s not amazingly effective. But our ability in the in the digital marketing side, the work we’re doing with customers locally and across the country, from large companies like sprint T Mobile to local companies that do pest control, we’re able to, we have Marshal the team of experts that really have a unique approach that allows for a lot of effective work in the digital space, we see that growing a lot. We just hired the third full time event director. So our events has grown from basically a part time person at years ago to a full time, a second full time and now third time, and we’re now producing events for other people. So there are people who appreciate the way we do events, and have asked us basically hired us to produce events for them. So we see that as an opportunity to meet a need in a unique way. And so We are exploring avenues like that that might be some might call non traditional, but it really goes to how do we meet a full need of a partner like a client? And how do we help them do that at a high level. And there could be acquisition that we pull people in, we could continue to look for much of our growth has been organic, we find strategic people skilled in certain areas, and we pull them in and kind of build a business model around that. That could happen as well. I’m certain of this, the print role still looks very good for us. And all indications are that’s still the road in front of us. But as a mix of our business, and I think what success is for MCs, a lot of media businesses is their non core expertise really provides a lot of strength in the marketplace, and also provides a lot of business stability at the end of the day as we diversify different revenue streams, some

A lot of the future in my eyes is experiencial based what’s creating a better experience? And I think you hit the nail on the head, it’s it’s finding where are people looking for those experiences? How do we cater to those in the print case? Often a niche publication is something you want to get an experience in acting, you know, in the newspaper industry, we’re not necessarily looking for experiences there. We’re just looking for information. And I think you provide both good information and good nurses. I hope we

hope that’s the case. We take all that seriously. We’re in the middle of redesigning a couple of our publications, not because we need to, but because we want to rethink what experience is we’ve so interesting to use that word because that is a word that’s important to us. How do we with words craft and experience how do we with visual storytelling craft and experience how do we do that online? How do we do that offline? How do we do that with an event? How do we do that orally Like we’re doing today, how do we do that and all these different manners, it really is like an important and effective tool.

And especially now I think with the digital integration that our lives have become, we’ve finally I think, as a society have figured out, we are figuring out how to both live on in a digital world and back into a physical world. And so when from the event standpoint, we want to interact with stories online, that we can then go and have actual real life experiences regurgitating these stories and talking to people and, and creating those moments in live events. And I think we’re seeing an uptick in people wanting to get back out from behind the screen again. I think that’s