SeaFood Business

APR 2014

SeaFood Business is the global trusted authority for seafood buyers and sellers. We are the seafood industry's leading trade magazine with more than 30 years of experience. Our coverage is based on the "business" of buying and selling seafood.

Issue link: https://seafoodbusiness.epubxp.com/i/287874

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 12 of 62

Point of View A father's fnal lesson "Remember who you are." — Mike Voisin you are and remembering it at every crossroads. A reporter for the Wash- ington Post once told me that in his Rolodex under "seafood" he had only one card: "Mike Voisin." Tis wasn't because my father knew everything, but be- cause he knew people who did and was willing to share what he knew openly and freely. Te more informa- tion he gave away, the more fowed back to him, until he became the hub of an entire industry. He saw beyond the rising-tide-raises-all-ships cliché and realized there was in fact only one ship, and the industry manned it together. As companies grapple to understand the value of social media and industry collaboration, they could learn a lot from my father. Sharing vital and valuable information freely doesn't make you weaker — it makes you matter. "You've always thought you could run the show. I fnally agree with you — now run at this and don't look back." Tese are the last words my father ever said to me and they carry a power- ful message to me personally and about managing life and business in general. Go all in and "Fish Like Mike." Kevin Voisin is CEO of Ignite Marketing, www.ignitedelivers. com, in Houma, La. BY KEVIN VOISIN N one of us escapes this life alive. None of us can hope to survive, but we can live." Tese two simple phrases have been the greatest advice to me in deal- ing with the loss of my father, Mike Voisin, a captain of the oyster industry. Amazingly, these were his own words of consolation after the death of his own father, Ernie Voisin. My grandfather was a master plant designer, inventor and pioneer of commercial high- pressure processing. I always knew my father was remark- able, but in the year since his death I have a clearer under- standing of what made him uniquely capable of rallying an industry and inspiring so many people — this inspira- tion is something I now share with others as how to "Fish Like Mike." My father grew up surfng on the shores of California. Tis gave him an under- standing that, in life, you can't hold back the waves, but you can leverage their power and energy for the ride of your life. Te pioneer- ing of high-pressure process- ing and the founding of and participation in so many in- fuential and important sea- food institutions was my fa- ther's way of riding the waves of an ever-changing market and regulatory environment. Every problem was a chal- lenge for my father. "Fishing Like Mike" is rising to chal- lenges — not complaining about problems. Few people know that my father's earliest major accomplishment in oyster fshing was to sink Moti- vatit Seafoods' only boat. He spoke vividly about the shock of pulling up to the dock to see only part of the wheelhouse peeking up above the water line. It was in that moment he realized that he had failed to set the pumps correctly — or at all. Te processing plant was born, in large part, as a so- lution to his being less than gifted on the water. Without his failures at the harvest level he may never have had the success he did in pro- cessing. Tis early disaster and failure led to much suc- cess, but it tempered my fa- ther with the strength and perseverance that later al- lowed him to manage the fallout from a host of regu- latory nightmares, foods, hurricanes and the BP oil spill. "Fishing Like Mike" is seeing the opportunity in disaster and having the strength and faith to seize it. "Remember who you are." I heard these words every time I left for a date, every time I left the plant for a trade show, before major sales calls and at the crossroads of most major happenings in business and in life. Dad had a way of looking you in the eye and saying it so the words tran- scended your ears, shud- dered through your heart and almost recoded your DNA. Tose words told you that you were great and that you needed to live up to that greatness at the same time. Fishing sustainably, giving a fair measure and high stan- dards of quality and ethics were never in question for dad — it's who he was. In my marketing career I have often thought that great branding could be boiled down to these four powerful words. We get so focused on what we need to do that we often forget all about wheth- er or not we should be doing it in the frst place. "Fishing Like Mike" is knowing who 8 SeaFood Business April 2014 Visit us online at www.seafoodbusiness.com Do you have a Point of View on an industry topic that needs to be shared with attentive SeaFood Business readers? Email Fiona Robinson at frobinson@divcom.com for submission details. " 08_PointOfView.indd 8 3/24/14 3:31 PM

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of SeaFood Business - APR 2014