{"id":7018,"date":"2011-08-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/network.napco.com\/print-and-promo\/article\/flozio-s-john-gadd-discusses-print-industry-417911\/"},"modified":"2015-07-30T11:15:27","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T11:15:27","slug":"flozio-s-john-gadd-discusses-print-industry-417911","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/network.napco.com\/print-and-promo\/article\/flozio-s-john-gadd-discusses-print-industry-417911\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A summer job led John Gadd, CEO of Cleveland-based flozio<\/a>, to a life in the print industry.<\/p>\n

“I took a summer job doing lead generation for an equipment distributor in Cleveland,” Gadd said. “Soon after starting, the contacts I made were calling me back, and not their sales reps. Four months later, my boss fired the sales representative in the Northern Ohio territory and [he] told me, ‘go out and sell.'”<\/p>\n

The rest is sales history. Here, Gadd further \u2028discusses his thoughts on the industry.<\/p>\n

Print Professional (PP)<\/em><\/strong>:<\/strong> Tell us about your background. Where did you grow up, what school did you attend, your degree?<\/p>\n

John Gadd (JG):<\/strong> Well, some would say I haven’t exactly grown up yet. [. . .] I spent most of my childhood days in Chagrin Falls, Ohio—by far and away the most beautiful, peaceful and overpriced town in the United States. It’s a suburb of Cleveland. For me, I perceived college as a refuge from hasty judgment (quote credit due Robert Frost). I earned my master’s in Big Picture Thinking from Life University.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

PP<\/em><\/strong>:<\/strong> Describe your business style.<\/p>\n

JG:<\/strong> Ping-pong and 100-hour work weeks. I’m really a big believer in follow through, follow up and being genuinely interested in your customers, your people, your product and the greater good. People can smell insincerity a mile away. I like to inject fun in serious situations but ultimately don’t have much patience, and like to get to the point.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

PP<\/em><\/strong>:<\/strong> What is the secret to your success?<\/p>\n

JG:<\/strong> 5-hour ENERGY<\/a>. That, and an unwavering ability to never give up. In fact, I consider “never give up” my personal mission statement. It transcends everything I do and most certainly my business style. I was lucky to have a lot of strong, driven and disciplined people around me growing up.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

PP<\/em><\/strong>:<\/strong> What do you think is the most exciting, cutting-edge thing your company is doing right now? Why?<\/p>\n

JG:<\/strong> Our whole company is built on the cutting-edge. We’re a game-changing SaaS development firm, deploying a massively disruptive cloud-printing \u2028application. We are the future of print.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

PP<\/em><\/strong>:<\/strong> What do you think will be the printing industry’s biggest challenge in the next few years?<\/p>\n

JG:<\/strong> Too much iron. Overcapacity is plaguing the print industry. Yes, eventually enough printers will shutter, bringing us to a solid correction, but they will hurt industry margins and stability on their way out. Ancillary businesses in their vendor ecosystems will also be dramatically affected. I think we’ll see some big iron vendors merge\/close and many other offset related manufacturers phase out. The only thing you can count on is change and it’s happening. We embrace change at flozio and turn it into profits for our customers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

PP<\/em><\/strong>:<\/strong> What would people be surprised to learn about you—hobbies, special interests, etc.?<\/p>\n

JG:<\/strong> Certain laws prevent me from sharing the “exciting” things, but otherwise I’m a huge foodie (I love to eat—all the time—everything). I’m addicted to travel (there’s no rehab for travel addiction, or I’d check in right now). I went to military school [and] it taught me how to make my bed, which I still do everyday. I owned my first business at 10-years-old (Top Blade Landscaping funded my first computer purchase and, yes, you guessed it—I didn’t pay taxes), I’m an avid cyclist and backpacker (sometimes together), I love riding horses, art, museums, other cultures, promoting\/fostering entrepreneurship and culture, public speaking on various topics, I actually bought a ketchup popsicle while wearing white gloves once, I’m a news junkie, fall asleep in weird places (yet need little sleep,) was an award-winning pencil artist growing up, can’t remember song lyrics if you paid me, love Classical to Oldies to Indie, Rock, Reggae, R&B and Hip-Hop (no Country, sorry). But at the end of the day, I thrive most on the art of the deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A summer job led John Gadd, CEO of Cleveland-based flozio<\/a>, to a life in the print industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":7019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","coauthors":[29530],"class_list":["post-7018","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management","category-marketing-and-sales","category-web-to-print","tag-business","tag-business-style","tag-cleveland-based-flozio","tag-flozio","tag-personal-mission-statement","tag-print-industry","tag-printing-industry","tag-summer-job","person-john-gadd","person-melissa-busch","person-robert-frost","location-chagrin-falls-ohio","location-cleveland","location-northern-ohio-territory","location-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/network.napco.com\/print-and-promo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/7018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/network.napco.com\/print-and-promo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/network.napco.com\/print-and-promo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/network.napco.com\/print-and-promo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/network.napco.com\/print-and-promo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/network.napco.com\/print-and-promo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/network.napco.com\/print-and-promo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/network.napco.com\/print-and-promo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}