by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer
Long time readers of the Westchester Publishing Services blog will know that prior to the pandemic, traveling into the market to meet with our clients and prospective partners was a key means of getting to know clients and their work, better understanding competitive gaps we needed to address, and also exploring new services that the market needed to help solve it workflow challenges. This blog was often filled with post-conference updates from the likes of the London Book Fair, BEA, Frankfurt, ASU+GSV, and more.
Over the course of the past year and a half, Westchester’s sales and marketing efforts have pivoted to better engage with our clients and partners via Zoom meetings with individual clients, webinars that were focused on meaningful content instead of commercials about our capabilities, and segmented email marketing messages to share updates on our efforts to continue expanding services to address the market’s rapidly evolving needs. Those needs pivoted during the lockdown and then further changed due to the ongoing pandemic’s impact on our industry’s staff, products, and supply chain.
Westchester still has all of its over 400 global staff working remotely, and at this point we have no plans to reopen our US-based offices in a “hybrid working model” capacity anytime before the beginning of 2022. We’ve successfully served our clients and grown our business quite a bit using a distributed working model, and can continue to do so as long as the situation requires.
But, on a recent warm, sunny New York City afternoon, I found myself sitting in Bryant Park, sipping a cup of coffee prior to my first in-person dinner meeting in over 18 months. A number of US-based members of London’s Stationers’ Company gathered for dinner to catch up and talk about the impacts of the supply chain and other factors on our industry. PW will be co-hosting a webinar on this subject with us in just a few days. [Updated 10/18 – You can now view the webinar on our YouTube Channel.]
Since that dinner, I’ve had the great fortune to head out into the field with Bill Foley, our longstanding Key Accounts Manager, and Deb Taylor, who recently joined us in the newly formed role of Director of Business Development and Marketing. Bill, Deb, and I have started scheduling more field-based lunches and dinners to meet with publishers to learn more about what has changed in their organizations since the pandemic began, and how Westchester can best address their workflow needs. Topics like expanding our publishing technology solutions, providing standalone copyediting and permissions services, and more have been discussed already.
And we’re keen to pick up those lines of dialogue with you, whether it’s in person or via a Zoom or phone call. What things are impacting your publishing program? How can vendors like Westchester best help you navigate your editorial and production processes, taking as much burden off your team’s shoulders while they’re navigating all the manufacturing and supply chain factors that are taking up a lot of attention right now? In other words, how can Westchester help you? Contact us to schedule a meeting or call to explore things further.
