Every operator eventually reaches the same fork in the road: stay agnostic to industry, or go deep in one space and become the person who speaks the language. Kasandra Murray chose depth. As the owner of Unlucky Umbrella Studios, she serves the printing industry as a fractional CMO and COO, and her perspective is a masterclass in what happens when operational skill meets true industry expertise. Even if printing is nowhere near your world, the through line will be. Retention, training, handoffs, and documentation show up in every business, and Kasandra shows you exactly how they play out on the shop floor.
Meet Kasandra
Kasandra is a Marketing and Operations Consultant who helps businesses align lead generation, sales processes, and customer experience to support sustainable growth. With over a decade of experience working with employees and leadership teams, she combines marketing creativity with operational strategy to improve efficiency, reduce workload, and strengthen internal systems. As the founder of Unlucky Umbrella Studio, Kasandra develops people-centered processes that help businesses create seamless customer experiences, improve team performance, and turn growth into long-term success.
The Operational Reality Nobody Sees Behind the Print Job
Most people never think about what happens behind a print job, but Kasandra opened with a fact that stopped me. The average person in the printing industry is in their fifties, which means a wave of retirements is coming with far too few people behind it. She also named a PR problem. Printing calls itself a trade, yet it does not always align with what people expect from a trade when it comes to pay, benefits, and training. That gap is the reality she walks into, and it is why so much of her work starts with people rather than machines.
Why Training Is the Retention Strategy Nobody Talks About
Here is the story that made me sit up. Kasandra’s former shop believed they had a retention problem because employees only stayed two to three years. When they mentioned it to an industry president, he laughed out loud. Six months is closer to normal. Their training program was the very reason people stayed. As she put it, people want to be good at what they do, and strong training is what gives them that confidence. I have always believed clear expectations drive engagement, and this proved it. Thorough, documented training is not a nice-to-have. It is your retention plan.
Fixing the Handoffs Inside Client Onboarding
Client onboarding is where Kasandra sees the printing industry struggle most. Estimators, customer service reps, and sales reps often work disconnected from what the client actually needs, and details get lost between them. Her fix starts with clear ownership, because when everybody is in charge of something, nobody is. From there she looks at tools, frequently moving a shop off email threads and spreadsheets into a CRM that allows clean handoffs from estimating to service to production. She also floated a model some shops find radical: one senior account manager owning the relationship, supported by junior reps.
A Messy Ops Moment Worth Stealing
One client carried a growing PTO liability because employees were not taking time off. Digging in revealed the truth. High performers were working forty hours in three days before a long weekend, so the time away never really counted. Telling high performers to stop performing was never going to work. Instead, Kasandra had employees tell customers their vacation started a day early and ended a day late, building an off-ramp and on-ramp for handoffs. Employees went from staying six hours late to leaving six hours early. Overtime costs dropped, the liability shrank, and morale climbed.
Where AI Helps, and Where It Absolutely Does Not
We could have talked about AI all day. Kasandra shared how a colleague is converting a tattered 3,500 page maintenance manual from the 1980s into a searchable digital tool, complete with links back to the original scans so humans can verify nothing was invented. That is AI at its best in the printing industry, enhancing people rather than replacing them. Her warning stuck with me: you cannot hold AI accountable the way you can a person. I am not anti-AI at all. I want it handling the repetitive work so we can spend our energy being creative, strategic, and human.
The Two Skills That Make Any Operator Invaluable
I asked Kasandra what she would tell someone curious about stepping into operations, in the printing industry or anywhere else. Her answer was refreshingly specific. Sharpen your project management skills first, then go all in on documentation. She credits a project management certification with helping her sharpen instincts she already had. On documentation, she is firm that it belongs in a centralized, searchable digital system rather than a printed manual or a key employee’s spiral notebook. Build those two muscles, and you become the person no business wants to operate without.
“People want to be good at what they do. The only way you can give them that confidence is through really strong training.” — Kasandra Murray
Weekly Ops Activity
If you could become known as the go-to operator for one specific industry, what would it be and why?
Connect with Kasandra
Website: https://www.unluckyumbrella.com
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