Converge Conference Keynotes to Impart Sales and Marketing Leadership Skills

Pittsburgh, PA, July 16, 2009 -- Mark Stevens, CEO of management consulting and marketing firm MSCO and also a popular journalist and media commentator, will be one of two keynote speakers at the Printing Industries of America's upcoming Converge Conference. Stevens will share tactics to help graphic communications firms become marketing resources for their clients, especially as those clients are often lacking good marketing know-how. 

The Converge Confernce takes place November 7-10, 2009, at the Hilton Bonnet Creek in Orlando, Florida.

Stevens is the author of many books, including Your Marketing Sucks, which challenges marketers' conventional wisdom in favor of new tactics and a step-by-step approach to analyzing a company's marketing efforts.Other books include Your Management Sucks, The Big Eight, King Icahn, and Sudden Death: The Rise and Fall of EF Hutton.  His blog, "Unconventional Thinking," was recently named in the Top 10 of all marketing-related blogs.
 
Communication expert and author Sue Hershkowitz-Coore will keynote the first day of the conference with practical advice on how to perfect the sales conversation regarding new marketing support ideas,  especially in the face of skepticism from customers stuck in old paradigms.  She is the author of two top-selling books on selling, the latest being How to Say It to Sell It: Key Words, Phrases, and Strategies to Build Relationships, Boost Revenue, and Beat the Competition!

A New Converge Conference
The Converge Conference - The Next Generation of Print and Communication Services - is designed for the new breed of company that is integrating the components of conventional and digital print, web technology, automated workflow, personalized and cross-media campaigns, mailing services, and more.
 
 The conference web pages (www.printing.org/converge) feature a variety of innovative features indicative of the cross-media skills graphic communications firms can offer clients. Visitors and conference registrants have the ability to interact with the site, receive personalized treatment, connect to social media pages, and watch videos. The videos record the thoughts of five print executives on their companies' transitions to becoming marketing support partners to their customers.

The Direct Marketing Association will also be offering a one-day version of its well-known Direct Marketing Institute at the conference for print professionals who need a broad-based understanding of direct marketing. The course will cover key principles, offers, creative, list/database and targeting, and research/testing, with an emphasis on mail and the Internet.  
 
The conference is presented in partnership with IPA, the Association of Graphic Solutions Providers, Digital Printing Council, Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and Printing Impressions magazine.
 
The Converge Conference is the successor to Printing Industries of America's former Variable Data and Personalization and Workflow Conferences. For more information about the 2009 Converge Conference, contact Jeanette Tuttle-Hamer at 412-259-1712 or jtuttle-hamer@printing.org.