I am Cassandra: I see the precipice (work related)

The BBQ Pit
1

The simple truth is that all publishing firms are constantly in a state of decay. It’s only innovation and product enhancement that keeps magazines afloat. That’s why the conventional wisdom is that all magazines have their look redesigned every few years. (The are exceptions…National Geographic, for example)

I am currently working for a small-to-medium boutique publisher in rural Ohio. For a myriad of reasons I moved my family out here to take the job. The setting is good for kid-rearing, cost-of-living is about 1/3 of the cost in Washington, quality-of-life (no more 1.5 hour commute) is better, etc.

But I’m not getting through to them.

All subscriber lists are decaying. If one has 100,000 subscribers some large number of them will not renew for another year and therefore one will have say, 70,000 subscribers the following year. Therefore, if one wishes to maintain ones subscription rolls at 100,000 one must acquire 30,000 new subscribers over the course of the year.

To acheive that goal one must spend money. Marketing costs money. There’s little we can do to get around that.

And here I am in rural Ohio working at a firm that doesn’t actually recognize that fact. The brother’s who own the firm are smart enough. They know their subject very well. What they apparently don’t know is publishing. They hired an accountant several years ago when they recognized a cash problem. Well and good.

But the thing they cut back most was marketing. For three long years they simply stopped any form of business development. The rationale was that the income didn’t support the expense of producing the magazine at those levels.

And the circulation dropped 45% since 2001. Forty-Five Percent.

This, of course, cuts our revenue quite a bit, both subscription and advertising (and ancillary because there’s a smaller market to see our other products).

Now, today, I get the same cant: We need to cut back on marketing. We can’t afford to keep the circulation where it is because revenues have declined. This, of course, comes from the accountant. It’s the same song she’s been singing for years.

But where does it end? I appear to be the only one who sees that cutting circulation (to save money) leads to lower revenues which leads to a need for further cutting. All the brothers think is that they don’t want the circulation to decline any further. Well and good. But when it comes to paying for it (which I believe we could do by rationalizing some things)(I’d fire an accountant out of spite, myself) they listen to our accountant and when she says we can’t I can’t say which way they’ll jump.

Dammit. Am I the only one to see the precipice?

Am I?

2

Sounds like it. I don’t envy your situation one bit.

3

Dust off your resume.

You have to spend money to make money. If they can’t see that, you need to explore your options.

4

I’ve got it!

Well, you see, profit is the difference between income and expenses.

…and the rest is just details. I’m an idea person.

5

Alternately, have you considered raising revenue while decreasing expenses?

[sub]Does it show that I read too much Dilbert?[/sub]

6

Perhaps they could hire an accountant that’s familiar with publishing?

7

Or one that knows something about business in general and not just accounting.

8

Well, I’m going to lay it out there at a meeting this afternoon with the owners and accountant in attendance. We’ll see how that goes.

Will they listen?

Will they just can me?

You make the call.

9

Does this mean you’ll move back to the DC area?

10

How? Even if we could afford a place it would be 100 miles outside of town again. And Lady Chance likes it here.

11

Reminds me of a Dilbert comic I saw recently where the POinty Haired Boss says:
“You know, theoretically if I can cut costs enough, we’ll be profitable without even having to sell anything…”

12

Sounds like the joys of dealing with a family-owned business.

I know I’m suffering through the rectum-searing, hair-pulling pleasure myself.

Example - nobody here in our eleven-person company has gotten a raise in a year and a half, but in the last year the boss has bought a fishing boat, a (used) Camry, a new Expedition, and next week takes delivery of a new F-250 (to pull the boat, of course).

Amazing for a company that’s ‘hurting for money’.

You think the accountant would say something. Oops, no, that’s his son.

Maybe the money man who first put up the cash for the company? Nope. he doesn’t care - he put up the money as a tax shelter. He doesn’t care beyond that.

-Joe, still putting out resumes

13

Oh boy. This reminds me of my time at Northern Virginia daily newspaper. The guy who owned it (basically his rich daddy gave it to him) knew nothing about publishing. Some days, we had like 3 ads in the newspaper. After the dumbass owner fired the head editor for personal reasons, who had been there for 20 years (she was an institution), shit got even worse. They had to become a free newspaper, and were handing them out at Metro stations just so they could say they had a decent circulation. Last I heard, they were on the verge of going out of business. The paper, which was the only local daily in the NVA area for 30 years, is now a complete joke. How sad.

It also reminds me of the company I am at now. We’re a small business, and we need to keep getting new clients in order to stay afloat. Which means we need to market. But we don’t. Zero, zip, nada. We just hope that people will find us on the net or through word of mouth. Recently, my boss decided she wanted to hand out free promotional mousepads at a conference. But she was too cheap to hire someone to design them. So I had to do it. It turned out really nice, but the point is, I am a legislative analyst, not a graphic designer. (Lucky for her, though, I do have the skills, and did it for fun). But still.

14

Well, I didn’t get canned last night. But it’s clear that the last three years are my fault somehow (regardless of my not being here at that time).

Argh.

15

Run, Johathan! Run! Off to some enterprise with more common sense! And do it before they collapse or it will reflect negatively on your CV.

By Og, marketing is like oxygen to magazines! Do they think they’ll get far by metaphorically holding their breath?

16

Well, heck. In that case, I’m sure my dad’s gout is your fault too.

And my receding hairline is your fault too. I’m not sure how yet, but it is.

17

So, did your boss walk around the office bragging about how the company is buying his toys or something?

In any case, it’s all probably Jonathan Chance’s fault somehow. :stuck_out_tongue:

18

:confused:

Oh, please, I need to hear the explanation for this. Expand, if you don’t mind.

19

Death, taxes, and dysfunctional companies. :rolleyes:

OK, have you whipped up various scenarios on Excel, showing them the ROI they would get from spending money to make money?

Have you also shown them how they can finance these expenses (i.e., using a loan or retained earnings to cover that expense until the new income is realized).

If you haven’t shown them such numbers, then the last three years have, in a way, been your fault. If you have shown them the scenarios and they agreed that they were right but still did nothing, then they are morons and you ought to start looking for something new.

But just reiterating to them the general principles isn’t enough. You’ve got to show them concrete numbers and sell them a detailed proposal for change. That’s my advice–good luck to you!

20

It’s not only small businesses that do that crap- the county I work for is tormenting us slags under the guise “Do more with less”, IOW, no raises for the next two years, we aren’t going to hire new people so if you quit all your coworkers are going to be fucked doing all your work, your caseload is going to rise to higher levels than ever before, but us commissioners are going to vote ourselves huge raises.

Yup. It’s a beautiful thing.

And next month, despite having more work than we can handle, we have to attend some stupid team building shit to learn about other areas in our division. I DON’T CARE, just let me get on with my casework, you morons!