Find Answers and Feel Good at our Leadership Summit

I decided not to shave during my early July vacation and now have a closely trimmed beard. I also was fitted with new glasses recently. I took advantage of the opportunity to really change up the style I usually wear. Finally, I have started a new nutritional program (I refuse to call it a diet) in which I am building improved eating habits and utilizing additional vitamins and supplements to build energy. To sum it up, I am really trying to come up with a new, fresh look.

Unfortunately, I still look like crap. Photo proof included. I feel better, though.

You may remember Billy Crystal's Fernando Lamas impression on Saturday Night Live some years back. "Remember, it's not how you feel but how you look," he would say in 'Nando-style, "and you loook mahvelous!" It was very funny, mainly because of Billy Crystal but also because of the absurdity of it all. At least it was absurd then, but today it may very well be closer to the truth and beliefs of many folks and companies we deal with. Good looks and outward appearances are a must for success it seems.

If you are a publisher or salesperson with a print publication you are constantly evaluated by the amount of content -- paid advertising and editorial -- that you deliver to readers. The "look" of your publication. Given the costs of producing and delivering a newspaper, shopping publication or magazine today it can get very expensive to include a higher imbalance of unpaid content to give your pub a look of success when you are struggling. But success breeds success; new advertisers are more likely to invest in a campaign in your product if you appear to have the ads (and confidence) of other businesses in the market. That's why so many digital-only publications have popped up; there is little overhead and including extra content is cheap. The problem -- and you know this already -- is the lack of value, investment, margin and profit that digital and online-only products typically produce. 

I don't have the answer but there is one out there.

Join us at the Genesee Grande Hotel in Syracuse, NY in October (5th and 6th) for FCPNY's Leadership Summit. We will be seeking answers to these challenges and more. We have put together a great group of print and digital experts (and the digital people all have print backgrounds!). Best yet, your peers from around the state will be there to share what they have tried, what they do and what they are thinking about doing. It is a very small investment with a tremendous opportunity at hand. 

Conferences are for our members but we welcome guests who meet our membership criteria to join us and see what Free Community Papers of New York is all about. 

Our conference brochure is HERE and you can reach me at 877-275-2726 or tcuskey@fcpny.com.

Thank you!