Women in Print Alliance would like to congratulate all the women CEO’s recently listed in the 40th-anniversary edition of the 2023 Printing Impressions 300 ranking. This list is significant as it highlights the largest printing companies in the United States and Canada and features comprehensive insights into the industry’s key players. Below we are spotlighting Joy Gendusa, CEO & Founder of PostcardMania who was recently ranked in the top 100 largest printing companies, along with four other extraordinary female leaders in print: Stephanie Mains, CEO of MCL Solutions, Sandy Ford, CEO of Arandell Corp., Karla Fichter, CEO and Owner of Diamond Packaging, and Juli Cordill, Owner and COO of Portland, Oregon-based Premier Press.

Joy Gendusa is an entrepreneur, business owner, author, keynote speaker and philanthropist. With only a phone, a computer, and postcards (no funding of any kind), Joy grew her company—PostcardMania from a small startup into an industry leader that generated over $100 million in 2023, currently employs over 365 people and spans a 75,000 sq ft custom-built facility in sunny Clearwater, FL. Since the pandemic, Joy has tripled PostcardMania’s growth rate with annual revenues growing an average of 15% year over year following a decade of averaging 5% growth.

How and when did you enter or become associated with the printing industry? What was your “Aha!” moment when you knew print was the right field for you?

I actually don’t consider myself a printer and never have — I’m a marketer at heart and by trade, and proven, results-based marketing is what PostcardMania does best. I never set out to be a printer but have always believed deeply in direct mail’s ability to change the trajectory of a business. I started out brokering printing in the ‘90s, and even after founding PostcardMania in 1998, we still outsourced printing for years.

Ultimately, the decision to bring printing in-house at PostcardMania came down to costs — and the printer we were outsourcing to tried really hard to convince us that I was making some huge mistake by getting into printing. I went through with it anyway and our first commercial press was a secondhand offset Komori press. Even with the debt I incurred to put a plant in place, I was spending way less doing my own printing and I could control our timelines and quality. The numbers don’t lie! And today we have two offset commercial presses and four digital inkjet presses.

What would you say are the top 3 qualities it takes to be a leader in today’s world?

First, it’s imperative that you grant autonomy to your juniors so that they feel like they can truly own their role — and that means giving them room to learn, fail, and even outgrow you. A big part of being a good leader is getting amazing people to work hard for the dream, and they can’t do that if they don’t feel ownership over their part of the dream. So, you have to find the right people and empower them to care for their work.

Next, I think you have to be persistent in seeking quality when it really matters. You have to be willing to step in and say we’re not settling. When others say, “We tried — it’s not working!” Say, “Let’s see how we can fix it and win.”

Last — and this might be the hardest one to do, and the most important — is to be positive even if you have to force that mindset. This is something I rarely see in others, yet it has gotten me through some of the worst of times. What helps me is to meaningfully and causatively change any negative outlook if it creeps in. I have literally gotten in front of a mirror and told myself: “Today is the best day ever and you will figure it out today!” As a rule, I look at all the good things — all the wins — and I concentrate on THOSE, not the failures. Only the wins.

What recommendations would you give to other women aspiring for leadership positions in the industry?

My advice is don’t be afraid to voice your opinion, stand out or try new things and don’t listen to the naysayers. I was going through something similar until recently as we were trying to launch a PostcardMania API on the Salesforce App Exchange — it took a lot more effort than we thought, and I KNOW for a fact we will do really well with it and all the hassle will be worth it. I think sticking to your guns and being confident — while on the opposite end of the spectrum being totally willing to be wrong and give credit where credit is due — is an excellent trait to cultivate if you’re aspiring to lead.

What do you love most about being the CEO of your own company, PostcardMania?

It’s really two-fold: I love providing a drama-free workplace for amazing people, where they can be a part of something larger than themselves — and that larger picture is how we are able to impact the economy in our small way by helping small and medium sized businesses grow through effective marketing that brings them more leads, more business, and more revenue. And to deal with that expansion, they have to hire more people. Once they add that extra job, that’s extra income for someone in our local communities that they may not have had before. That business owner also pays themselves more and spends that money out in the community.

I’m not making this stuff up. It’s not a fairytale idea I invented. I get incredible feedback from our clients telling me all about it — we host them twice a year during our own internal client growth summit. I also experienced it firsthand in 2010, when I went and visited some of our clients (all over the country) to get video case studies of their campaigns to share on our website — today we have 139 of these video case studies (and counting!) — and it was so validating hearing everyone’s individual story of growth and success, and being able to share that success with their local communities.

Thank you, Joy, for sharing your background and insight with the Women in Print Alliance community! If you’d like to get in touch with Joy or learn more about PostcardMania, you can visit postcardmania.com.

Want to learn more about the top women in print CEOs leading the way in our industry? Over 25 are named in the 2023 Printing Impressions 300 rankings. Download the full list here.