Leaders in the specialty imaging community convened in La Jolla, California last week for SGIA’s annual SPIRE meeting, to address the changing consumer marketplace, and how best to craft a sales culture to meet the challenges. Through its decades-long existence, SPIRE has continued to provide unmatched educational and networking opportunities, and the 2012 meeting proved no exception.

According to Andre Kriening, president of Canadian-based Sunwest Screen Graphics Ltd., the event was excellent. “I attend these SPIRE meetings to get the opportunity to meet people in my industry, and stay on top of what is going on.”

Todd Cohen, president and founder of Sales Leader LLC, kicked off the meeting by discussing how managing and motivating your sales team can lead to superior success.
Cohen will be joining SGIA again this year to deliver the Keynote Address during the 2012 SGIA Expo (Las Vegas, October 18–20).

Mark Coudray of Coudray Graphic Technologies also presented an informative session that revealed the full extent of the underlying changes to media and introduced strategies imagers can use to take advantage of the evolving marketplace.

“The information Mark presented, I could not have gotten [it] anywhere else, and I am actively seeking solutions to the observations he presented about the future of our industry,” said SPIRE member and Firehouse CEO, Terry Corman. “The time at SPIRE is some of the best I spend working on our business.”

SPIRE is a cohesive group of C-level graphics producers who meet annually to interact and exchange ideas beyond the educational sessions, around the dinner table and on the golf course.

SGIA thanks and recognizes the 2012 SPIRE sponsors without whom the educational program would not have been possible: Durst Image Technology, AGFA, EFI, FLEXcon and FUJIFILM.