Ask Uncle Marty: January / February 2025 Edition of MBC Today

The January / February 2025 edition of MBC Today (Volume 27 Issue 1) just dropped. AMBC Members and AMBC Trusted Suppliers have access to the full version and the preview version is available to anyone to see at https://ambc4me.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/MBC-Today-Volume-27-Issue-1-Preview-Version.pdf

Thank you to all who contributed to this issue of the retail print, mailbox, packing, shipping, and business center industry's leading publication, keeping both independent and franchise stores across the country up to date, in the loop, and networked together. It's a privilege to produce and edit this publication, but it's because of your hard work that it has such rich content.

I'll share my Letter From the Editor below, as well as preview images of my Ask Uncle Marty™ column that follows later in the magazine, along with many other articles, on the locked members-only pages. Enjoy!

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Dear Readers,

As we put in the masthead of every issue of MBC Today (see the pretty gold box to the left?), this magazine is your magazine. It's put together by AMBC Members for AMBC Members and we really want to hear more diverse, fresh, and nuanced voices in it. Please reach out with article ideas, column suggestions, your stories, your advice, your tidbits, and more. We would love to hear from you and include you as a writer in this industry-leading publication! Your voices are so important in our #MembersHelpingMembers organization.

Thank you to those who have submitted content for this issue. It is, as always, a pleasure to compile and produce. You'll see a From the Archives column appearing in this magazine for the first time in a few years, in which we re-share Crysta's awesome hiring advice from 2022. Crysta has taught classes and lead seminars on hiring and retention for many years and has, at her now-three Pack & Mail stores in Minnesota, collected on her team one of the most outstanding group of humans our industry has ever known. Her hiring and team building advice is truly sage, timeless, and definitely worth re-reading again and again.

Also in this issue, we're honoring a true veteran of our industry and an honored veteran of our country's armed forces, Steve Merrick. It's been my sincere pleasure to be one of Steve's mentees, to have known him for decades, and to be his colleague now with AYM High Consultants; my fellow coaches and I there are grateful that he, despite retirement, has agreed to remain a coach emeritus so we can still call on him when needed. Though, we certainly will be making sure he has plenty of time to golf as much as he wants. To the tribute article shared on the following pages, I want to add my thanks, appreciation, and commendation to Steve, Erin, and their family for all of their love, care, and incredible mentorship over the years. What a blessing.

Finally, you'll see a push for AMBC's Pensacola event coming up really soon in February. Please attend if you're at all able. I have had the privilege of being part of this non-profit organization's events for many, many years and they always feed me great information, encourage me with wonderful peers, and expand my network with priceless contacts. They're important. Make the time to go, as it's not an expense but rather it's an investment that will certainly pay off if you put your heart into it. And take lots of notes!

Here's to an amazing 2025. May it allow us to move forward in fresh, joyful, healthy ways.

With gratitude and care,