Healthy, Enforced Boundaries

Dear Uncle Marty,

I wonder if you could help me. I've been in business for a few years now and still see myself in the establishment / relationship-building phase and am excited that I'm finally seeing results of that time investment. But, the more I grow and the more relationships I build, the more it's driving up my stress levels. I have a hard time trying to meet everyone's demands on my time and work is invading my personal space, my home life, and, despite positively growing business relationships, my personal relationships are suffering. I wish I could clone myself so that I could be everywhere I need to be at once, giving proper time to all those who either demand or deserve it. What do I do?

Sincerely,

Feeling Torn in Two in Tacoma

Dear Torn in Two,

I feel you and I hear you. What you need are healthy boundaries, plain and simple.

Setting boundaries allows you to compartmentalize your work and personal lives appropriately; boundaries allow you to focus on what you need to do when you're in the physical space, head space, and appropriate place to do so.

Years ago, my dear friends and colleagues Seema, Fahim, and I went to a summit in Toronto. This is a place we'd been before—a meeting of the minds with influencers, coaches, motivators, and thought leaders from all over the world coming together to share inspiration and motivation. At this one particular summit, Todd Herman spoke. He's the author of The Alter Ego Effect, a book I highly recommend you purchasing and devouring.

I remember Todd giving the example of a pair of glasses he purchased, not because he needed glasses, but because he needed an identifier to help his brain know what role he was in at what time. He'd put the glasses on when he was at work, telling himself that he's now in his work role and that's where his mind and focus should be. Then, he had a bracelet that his child had made for him and, when he was headed home, he'd take off his glasses and put on his bracelet, signifying that now he's on family time and his mind and focus absolutely needed to be there, 100 percent.

I've thought about that lesson a lot. It's helped me put up proper boundaries in my own life. After selling my store, Uncle Marty's Shipping Office, in New York in 2023 and now being semi-retired, coaching with AYM High Consultants and working with my writing and editing clients part time (and, deep secret, also working on my first book) while I enjoy my new digs in Delaware near family, life is indeed easier to manage because I'm free of the retail hours demand on my time and the responsibility of managing a team and a busy shipping, storage, and printing facility. But boundaries are still very much needed to keep me sane.

Boundaries I've set for myself include the removal of all email, social media, and messaging notifications from my phone, other than text messages. I now check emails and socials when I can on my own time, but I don't let them wake me up or distract me from what I need to be focusing on at any given moment. I've also kept my cell number very private, and my coaching clients know that if they need to get a hold of me, they must reach out to the AYM High phone or email and then the team will bring me in as needed, when I'm free. It's a total game-changer! I'm so much more focused, productive, and frankly free to enjoy my new life, nearby beaches, travel, and be with family without the constant interruptions, but yet carve out the appropriate time each day, as needed, to handle what I need to for my clients.

I've had the privilege and pleasure of knowing you for a long time, and I know what a dedicated, diligent, and devout person you are to both your business and your family. You're doing great! But I also know the pressures that come with everything on your plate. I've been there. We're not exactly the same, as you have kids that need you and I never had any children, but you also have a spouse that helps in your business as a partner, and I never had that. So, while I understand on many levels, I admit that those key differences do make our situations a bit separate; the solution though remains the same: healthy, enforced boundaries.

Boundaries also encompass knowing your limits. You can't be everything, everywhere, all at once. You're kind of superhuman in a way, if you allow me to say so, and I admire that about you a whole lot, but don't forget the last part of that: you're still human. You're building a team now and that's wonderful—essential to your business growth and scaling. But how much trust and empowerment are you putting in that team?

You know Clark, my five-year team member and former Store Manager at Uncle Marty's who ended up buying the business from me with his wife, Codey Noel. It was he and his siblings, Aleah and Callum, and his mom, Julie, all of whom worked with me, along with many other of their friends, family, and others, who taught me the value of trust. 

When Clark became Store Manager, he took so much off my plate...and for that I'll be forever grateful. He allowed me to build an office in the back of the store (out of cardboard, because that's how we do in our industry) and therefore transferring the face of the business—the person / team everyone always saw when they entered—from me to him and his crew. That basic step was very hard for me, as my desk traditionally was always in view of everyone. In the business-building phase, that was important, as I had to establish myself as the owner, shopkeeper, and go-to community liaison for the business, but once it got to the point where the team took over as the visual, I was free to really focus and get so much more done in my little back-of-store cardboard cubby.

Clark and team soon also started taking over as the business face at events and networking groups. Eventually, people stopped coming in and always asking if Marty was available, and instead they asked for Clark, Julie, Aleah, Callum, Ryan, Carter, Elijah, or any of the other crew with whom they'd become familiar working with and trusting. I remember the first time I came up to the front of the store after a while of this and met a client who had become a regular for the first time. She looked at me and said, "You mean there's a real Uncle Marty!?" She thought that was just a mascot or a McDonald's-style business name. That interaction made me so, so happy. That was my goal: to turn the Uncle Marty's brand away from being associated with Uncle Marty himself and into a name associated with local shipping, storage, and printing solutions. In fact, that brand built up so much value that when Clark and Codey took over as owners, the name is what had the most value to them; in fact, they plan to open a couple more locations and build that brand into a true local chain very quickly.

All of this required me letting go of having to read and check over every email, approve and price and display every new product, attend every networking event, personally show up at every sponsored event, and more. It eventually led to the brand taking off at a new pace and the team being so interested in it that I was able to sell to Clark and Codey and semi-retire in my mid-40s. It took a whole lot of trust in my team, some hard boundary setting on my part, and faith that there was a bigger picture and plan at play. I am so, so grateful.

At AYM High Consultants, the coaching enterprise my colleagues and I launched last year that has totally exploded with amazing results and feedback since, we often advise our clients—AYM High Soarers—on setting appropriate boundaries. So often, we see people trying to please everyone, staying up late to answer their guests' and clients' emails, giving out their personal cell numbers to anyone, any time, so that the same can bother them day or night, and generally not respecting themselves enough to tell people, "I'm available during business hours and will be glad to assist you as best I can then." We constantly help AYM High Soarers not only find the right people to allow boundaries to be enforced (and therefore effective), but also help them trust the amazing teams they build to let themselves let go of what they don't need to be spending their precious time, focus, and energy on, as only then can a business truly go from good to great—to soar!

If you need more help, my team and I would love to help. Check out this video (https://youtu.be/ZHb8ISQGU0A) on the importance of having a mentor and coach, and reach out any time—just know that, even though I care about you tremendously and will do all I can to help you, I won't reply to you outside of the times I've allowed myself to do so. #Boundaries

With care,

Uncle Marty

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Marty Johnson is the Communication and Vision Coach at AYM High Consultants, a columnist, and an editor, producing the mail and business center industry's leading magazine, MBC Today. In 2023, he sold his popular and growing brand, Uncle Marty’s Shipping Office, and retired from shopkeeper life to focus on writing and coaching. Subscribe to his Ask Uncle Marty™ newsletter and read more at askunclemarty.com; follow him on socials @askunclemarty. #AskUncleMarty

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The is Ask Uncle Marty™ letter was also published on aymhigh.com on April 28, 2025, and is slated to be published in the regular Ask Uncle Marty™ column in MBC Today Volume 27 Issue 3 (May / June 2025) on May 2, 2025.

Quality, Service, and...Low Price?

The following is an article I wrote for my coaching group, AYM High Consultants, published on aymhigh.com on March 18, 2025:

You can’t have it all, friends.

We’ve created the above Venn diagram to help illustrate a concept that we discuss with our AYM High Soarers (clients) day in and day out. You see, one thing our amazing Soarers often struggle with, just as we have all struggled with in our own businesses, is charging enough to allow themselves to provide the highest quality and service possible.

We all want to do our best by our guests and clients. That’s the mark of a good human—doing your best and giving of your best to others. And, because we are selective with who we bring on as Soarers, the people we choose and those who choose us generally have this mindset. They know that givers gain.

But to provide top-notch quality and top-notch service, you absolutely need to have top-notch prices. The Venn diagram does not overlap on all three, so you need to pick two. You can have quality and low price, but then you sacrifice service. Or, you can have service and low price, but then sacrifice quality. The best option? By far, it’s having quality and service, then having prices that reflect that.

Do you want to be known as the budget business? The cheap place? The discount store? No! You want the image of being the best, having the best quality, having the best service, and creating an experience for your guests and clients that is not only unmatched, but it leaves an impression on them that, as one of our dear friends and mentors Sarah often says, doesn’t just leave them satisfied, but creates in them loyal advocates who want to tell all of their friends and family about the exceptional quality and service they received.

Will you lose some clients if you ditch your cheap prices? You bet! And that’s good. They’re likely more transactional people who don’t value your quality and service like they should. Your core clientele are people whose most precious commodities are time and respect. They want to save time, trust experts to ease their own burdens, be respected, and do business with a respectable establishment. To your core clientele, price isn’t as important as you might think. As one of our dear friends often says, you need to shop with your core clientele’s wallet, not your own. And as AYM High Coach Steve often says, if you’re not losing a couple of guests per week because your prices are too high, then that means your prices are too low.

It's important to keep this in mind when choosing team members too. If your team member is constantly apologizing for your rates, then they need to go…or be seriously retrained and have their minds reframed. Your team needs to understand the value of quality and service that you provide and that your rates need to reflect that.

Does Louis Vuitton offer discounts? Does the Ritz compete with the Holiday Inn? Nope! They know they’re the best and they understand that their image depends on their rates and prices reflecting that quality.

At AYM High, we build superstar businesses. We don’t build budget businesses. We want you to soar, not coast, and so understanding the key concept of respecting yourself, respecting your quality, respecting your level of service, respecting the outstanding team you’ve built, respecting the well-appointed storefront you’ve created, respecting your overhead costs, respecting the fact that you pay your people higher-than-average salaries because you want the best and want them to thrive in their lives as well as in your store, and respecting the fact that you’re building an investment and not a just-get-by business, with your nest egg, your family’s needs and future, and your exit strategy depending on building the highest quality business possible.

What will you choose? Quality and low price? Service and low price? Or quality and service?

March / April 2025 Edition of MBC Today

 

The March / April 2025 edition of MBC Today (Volume 27 Issue 2) 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/2025/03/MBC-Today-Volume-27-Issue-2-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. Enjoy!

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Dear Readers,

Welcome to the March / April 2025 edition of MBC Today! I'm very excited about this issue and the extraordinary content we have for you to devour.

The most recent AMBC event in Pensacola, Diversify to Fly in 2025, was a huge success. It was one of the very few AMBC events I've missed in my long career in this industry and, let me tell you, the FOMO is real! I was so engaged reading Crysta's wrap-up article that's featured in this issue and am looking forward to seeing my AMBC friends and family again soon at future events, including what looks to be a great Mile High Marketing Summit hosted by AMBC in September in Colorado.

Tommy's article, Let's Talk Numbers, is very informative. Thank you to all of the stores who willingly shared data so that an important industry study could be done and individuals can see where they compare in sales, pricing, margins, and even store size.

I'm thrilled that AMBC is featuring Sydni and Wil in the AMBC Members Spotlight in this issue. It's been my sincere pleasure to get to know them on monthly coaching calls this past year and they are truly killing it at their business. Their ambition, clarity of direction, ultra professionalism in communication, and extremely sharp marketing prowess in utilizing both analog and digital means to reach their clientele through relationship building is so inspiring. I continue to learn from them and consider them to be amazing mentors. They consistently give back in the AMBC Members Facebook Group and have even hosted a free marketing webinar, open to all AMBC Members and AYM High Soarers. I hope you can get to know this power couple better through their feature in this issue.

The article on lithium batteries has been a while in the making, and I must express deep gratitude to all of our friends and colleagues who helped with the research. The advice in it is intended to be conservative and on the safe side, as when it comes to anything hazardous or classified as dangerous goods, it's imperative that shipping stores do not take risks that aren't worth taking. We hope the infographic that's available to download will be a useful guide for AMBC Members and MBC Today readers.

Finally, thank you to Norman for his excellent article and to all of the other contributors who have made this another great edition of MBC Today. This magazine is for AMBC Members and by AMBC Members, so we hope to hear from each and every one of you when you have an idea to share.

With gratitude and care,

Marty Johnson (he/him)

Columnist | Ask Uncle Marty™
Editor & Producer | MBC Today
Founder | Uncle Marty's Shipping Office
Communication & Vision Coach | AYM High Consultants
Co-Host | To-Be-Announced Podcast Launching Soon(ish)
askunclemarty.com · @askunclemarty · #AskUncleMarty

Hunger and Hustle

 

We’re officially 15 months into our coaching enterprise, AYM High Consultants. It’s been quite a ride so far! Our client list continues to grow, and with it our advocates, five-star reviews, recommendations, and interest. We’ve far exceeded our initial goals and expected timeline and have worked with clients from coast to coast and many places in-between on Zoom coaching calls, at training weekends at our headquarters and training facility, and on a number of onsite visits at clients’ businesses across the country. We’ve presented and tabled at many conferences, summits, and expos and even hosted a sold-out event of our own. Indeed, our first 15 months of this venture have been very full…and we are so very grateful.

One thing that has stood out to us among our many outstanding, superstar clients is the absolute need of two things: hunger and hustle. You need at least one of those to really be successful in business, and to make your investment in working with a coach have an incredible return. Without one or both of these things, no amount of coaching or just plain luck will be able to sustain a business very long.

Hunger is a need. It’s a driving force that moves you to do whatever you need to do because you simply must make it work. Hunger is having a personal investment in your business, a family that is depending on you to be successful, and/or something to prove. Hunger can’t be taught; it can’t be given or bought. Hunger is one of those things that either you have or you don’t.

Most of our clients are hungry. It’s a very common trait among entrepreneurs. And when we started our own businesses, we were hungry too. We had to do it. We were driven to do it because of our hunger.

Most of our clients are hustlers. They don’t just work hard, but they work smart. They know where to spend their energy, acknowledge the things they don’t know and need help with, and understand that they can’t do it all themselves and must build a team around them using our colleague Steve’s “Who’s on Your Bus?” philosophy of finding the right people for the right positions.

What is detrimental to a business is the lack of either hunger or hustle. We’ve had a handful of clients in this spot, and unfortunately without those drivers they’re just not going to soar as high as those who possess those qualities. Some are just doing it because they felt obligated by family, were put in a position of business ownership because of an inheritance, or are just going through the motions because they don’t know what else to do.

Without hunger or hustle in the fuel tank, many people just coast. They sometimes make enough to cover expenses, but aren’t pushing harder to build a nest egg or build a business that will be attractive to sell one day. They don’t go the extra mile. They don’t close up shop and then go out and seek new clients. They don’t attend networking events. They don’t look for bigger contracts or dream about what could be possible if they just put in a little more energy. Instead, they simply exist. They survive, sometimes, but often don’t make it in the long run. No amount of coaching, teaching, training, or encouragement seems to get them to put in that extra oomph that separates the good from the great.

We’re so grateful that the majority of our clients are hustlers and many too are hungry. They have an inner drive and something to prove that they work their tails off…smartly. They don’t spin their wheels on things that don’t matter, but they find the right people and put them in the right positions so that they can spend their time working on the business instead of working in the business. They know the value of having a coach and they take that coaching seriously, understanding it's an investment that can have incredible return…if they do the work.

We’ve learned, as coaches, to seek those types of clients. Because demand has been so great for our services, we’re now much more careful of the clients we take on. We screen them just as much as they screen us to make sure we’re a good match and that they’re the types of hungry, hustling people who are indeed coachable and ready to dig in and really soar.

We’ve worked with many types of clients these last 15 months, and in many years of coaching pro bono before we officially launched AYM High, and we’re so grateful for the majority who have made us so proud with their hunger and hustle and the abundance that that creates in return.

#AYMHigh #LetsSoar

 

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Fahim Mojawalla is the Motivation and Mission Lead at AYM High Consultants. He loves what he does and would love to show you how to make 21st century sales and marketing easy, simply by being authentic, appreciative, respectful, responsive, empathetic, collaborative, and all-around awesome. Along with his wife Seema, he is an effervescent co-owner of Island Ship Center, the Spa of Shipping. #FahimFix

 

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Marty Johnson is the Communication and Vision Coach at AYM High Consultants, a columnist, and an editor, producing the mail and business center industry's leading magazine, MBC Today. In 2023, he sold his popular and growing brand, Uncle Marty’s Shipping Office, and retired from shopkeeper life to focus on writing and coaching. Subscribe to his Ask Uncle Marty™ newsletter and read more at askunclemarty.com; follow him on socials @askunclemarty. #AskUncleMarty

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Article co-published on aymhigh.com and askunclemarty.com on March 6, 2025.

Dizzelbizzel

 

There’s a very common term that I find myself using by default, but frankly think it’s just gross and distasteful. You know the phrase. It’ “d----bag” and refers to those people who are generally d--chy, obnoxious, and out of touch—posers and hosers who think they’re all that, but generally have little self-awareness and don't understand how creepy and gross they really come across.

Need an example? Think Patrick Schwarzenegger's character in the latest (third) season of White Lotus. As of the day of this posting, only the first episode has dropped so far, but my goodness if he doesn't play epitome, spot-on model of the d--chiest d----bag ever.

I used “d--chy” the other day in a conversation with colleagues and immediately regretted it. Our team tries to be very careful in professional conversations to avoid any curse words or anything distasteful, and while “d--chy” isn’t necessarily a swear word, it’s certainly vulgar and quite distasteful and it doesn’t make me happy to say it. To my credit, I used the phrase appropriately (in my opinion) as an adjective to describe a social media influencer whom my colleagues love but I find to be quite the tool.

For years, I’ve wanted a less gross phrase to replace “d----bag” and “d--chy.” I’ve googled alternatives and none that come up seem to fit as well as the original term. So, I’ve decided to Snoopify the terms and coin substitute phrases and want to share them with y’all in case maybe someone else may find them useful.

Instead of “d----bag,” the term used to describe the individual, I’m going to start saying “dizzelbizzel.” Instead of “d--chy,” the term to describe a dizzelbizzel’s behavior, I’m going to start saying “dizzely.” And instead of “d----baggery,” the term to describe all things dizzely in general, I’m going to start saying “dizzelbizzelgery.”

We all need to swear less. Nothing is more of a turnoff in a colleague, friend, coach, or mentor than constant pottymouthery. It’s just dizzely and people who swear too often are total dizzelbizzels, in my opinion. There’s no need for it.

Don’t get me wrong, an expletive perfectly placed for point punctuation on rare occasions can have a dramatic, impactful effect and I’m not opposed to that—if done very sparingly. But, more often than not, it’s simply dizzely. Choosing less dizzely behavior and language will put you in a position of much more respect and trust, and give your advice or commentary much more weight. 

I can't begin to count how many fellow business coaches and influencers I've been around who drop too many obscenities in their speaking and how many have totally ruined any good advice they may have because of their classless language. Some keep it high-brow in public, but then when you have alone time with them or are in a smaller group together, they let all of the f-bombs and more fly. It really taints things.

I know this sounds prudish, and those who know me well know I have can have a very dark and sometimes filthy sense of humor, which frankly I very much enjoy and for which there is a time and a place, but when in a professional environment it's just not appropriate.

So, don’t be a dizzelbizzel, spouting dizzely phrases and doing dizzely things in all of your dizzelbizzelgery, but rather choose to be a little bit classier. It works. And I’m going to try harder at being less of a dizzelbizzel myself.

Authenticity and Leadership

 

My colleague, mentor, and BFAM (brother from another mother) Fahim sent me a podcast to listen to the other day, as he and I often do to encourage each other and share information, inspiration, and ideas to continue our individual growth, as well as the growth of our independent and collaborative business ventures. It’s episode 69 of Conversations with Loulou, in which host Loulou Khazen interviews Steven Bartlett at the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival on February 4, 2024.

The podcast description describes Steven as follows: “Steven is a celebrity in the world of podcasts, his podcast the Diary of a CEO gets 50 million monthly downloads and is the number one podcast in Europe. Steven is a successful entrepreneur, investor and author. Steven is remarkably humble, his passion is grounded in pragmatism and his story truly inspiring, a self-made, self-taught immigrant from Botswana to the U.K. who made the best out of his privileges and continues to build and be at the helm of successful ventures.”

I’ve listened to Diary of a CEO quite a few times. The episodes are longer than most podcasts (often over two hours each), so are an investment of time for sure. But, they’re always worth it in the value that bring. This episode of Conversations with Loulou is only 50 minutes long, and I highly recommend that everyone invest that time in listening to it—especially any entrepreneurs or those who are building teams, businesses, and products.

The full conversation can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHamDLiiZxs

Here are my notes from this episode and conversation: Conversations with Loulou Podcast #69: A conversation with Steven Bartlett on Fame, Authenticity, And Leadership

• Steven Bartlett is an investor on Dragon's Den (The U.K.'s Shark Tank), author (Diary of a CEO and Happy Sexy Millionaire), podcaster (Diary of a CEO), and entrepreneur in venture funding, tech, publishing, and more.
• Any leader or public figure has to find their own way to encourage calm among the chaos. You can't get too carried away with the highs, therefore you won't get too carried away with the lows. If you open yourself up to the applause, you also open yourself up to the boos.
• It's hard to do anything in life without getting both sides of the feedback ("You're the worst person that ever lived." or "You're the best person that ever lived.") Both of those are not useful. If you want to be healthy, you need to find systems and ways to keep calm in the chaos. It's not natural for millions of people to have access to you and message you on a Sunday morning, so we need to remember to pull it back to our tribe like in prehistoric times and just focus on the messages from them.
• The bridge to connection is vulnerability. It's not a repellant, but rather it's a magnet. Set down the walls of ego and pride and form bonds. It's not just a great tactic for connection, but it's healthy for the individuals doing it too. In content, be careful about too many margaritas on beaches in Hawaii, but rather show your real self as well. Be authentic and vulnerable.
• In moments of tremendous difficulty, you need to empathize with how your team is feeling.
• Happy Sexy Millionaire: Unexpected Truths about Fulfilment, Love and Success is the title of Steven's most recent book, which is a "mousetrap" to get people to open it up because it sounds aspirational, but inside it's not an aspiration to be him, but an encouragement to be yourself. You can't become anyone you admire, as you don't have their trauma, their family, their history, etcetera, but rather the only person you can become is the best version of yourself. No one can replicate your curiosity.
• None of us have the core components of being Steve Jobs, but we can all learn lessons from Steve Jobs. And that's how we have to look at and think about and learn from anyone to whom we aspire to be like.
• People buy from people.
• According to physicist Richard Feynman, "If you want to accelerate your learning, you have to create an obligation to teach others."
• Take the thing you've learned and reduce it down and simplify it to the level of a 10-year-old. If people understand what you said, then that means that you understand it yourself.
• If we're happy alone, we'll be happy together. Relationships and partnerships don't work the other way.
• More introspection will accelerate the amount of intellect that you go up way more than others who don't have much introspection.
• There are five buckets to life, which must be kept in the right order for the world to become your oyster. They must be done in the right order, because if you try to cheat the system, life will bring you back down to the level of your knowledge and skill.
• Bucket 1: your knowledge
• Bucket 2: the application of your knowledge, which are your skills
• Bucket 3: your resources, which is what you obtain when you have advanced knowledge and skills
• Bucket 4: your network, which is who you know
• Bucket 5: your reputation, or what the world thinks of you
• The first two buckets are yours and now one can take them away, but the last three the world can take away from you at any point in time.
• The mistakes our parents make are part of our fundamental privilege.
• For Steven, a huge amount of independence and a huge amount of shame caused a huge amount of experimentation, which built knowledge, and knowledge is power.
• Where we end up in life isn't as much a product of our level of hard work and our good ideas, as is the thought of many, but rather it's a product of hiring the right people, providing them with a culture of value, setting in front of them a valuable mission, and to believe that one plus one equals three. The people you put around you are everything. Any leader needs to be involved heavily in the recruitment and hiring process, as that is any business's best asset. Exceptional people then hire exceptional people.
• Be willing to pay someone two times what you pay someone else if they bring 50 times the value.
• As a leader, your job isn't to be right, but your job is to be successful. Put people around you who challenge you, spar with you, and question you so you can become better, wiser, and more successful.
• A bad hire may help you this week, but may cost you 18 months on average: six months to find them initially, six months realizing they're bad and putting them on probation and going through the let-go process, and then six months to find a new candidate. It's better to take seven months to hire someone than to waste 18 months with a bad hire.
• When the data says that someone is wrong and that a process isn't working, then character and humility come in. Someone who isn't able to admit that they're wrong or change is a bad hire.
• Steven has learned over the years on Dragon's Den that it's much better to invest in people than in ideas, which is a concept he shares with peer Barbara Corcoran. People who have been through trauma or faced adversity in their lives are able to create a plan and pivot when needed much easier than those who haven't.
• Things that make a great guest on a podcast: expertise, a story, and if the host is curious about the person, their ideas, and their story.
• Your audience is people who are curious about the same things as you. Understand your audience, as no one going to be is for everyone.
• If someone gives you the power of their time to listen to you speak or read your writing, you must pause and consider and honor that. Remember to be grateful and happy about that.

 

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This article was written for and published simultaneously for the Ask Uncle Marty™ column at askunclemarty.com and the AYM High blog at aymhigh.com on January 7, 2025.

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Marty Johnson is the Communication and Vision Coach at AYM High Consultants, a columnist, and an editor, producing the mail and business center industry's leading magazine, MBC Today. In 2023, he sold his popular and growing brand, Uncle Marty’s Shipping Office, and retired from shopkeeper life to focus on writing and consulting.  

Subscribe to his free Ask Uncle Marty™ newsletter and read more at askunclemarty.com; follow him on socials @askunclemarty. 

#AskUncleMarty

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,

Marty Johnson (he/him)

Columnist | Ask Uncle Marty™
Editor & Producer | MBC Today
Founder | Uncle Marty's Shipping Office
Communication & Vision Coach | AYM High Consultants
Co-Host | To-Be-Announced Podcast Launching Soon(ish)
askunclemarty.com · @askunclemarty · #AskUncleMarty