Helping a 125-Year-Old Brand Build the Sales Leadership System for Its Next Chapter

Jostens: A Case Study in Leader-Led Culture™

Best known for yearbooks, class rings, graduation products, school photography, and championship rings, Jostens operates in a business where tradition matters — but so does adaptation. In recent years, the company has navigated ownership change, digital transformation, changing customer expectations, and the disruption of school-based traditions during the pandemic.

For Jostens, the opportunity was not simply to preserve a legacy. It was to equip its people to keep growing, selling, connecting and leading in a changing market.

Challenge

Jostens is a heritage brand with a deeply human business model. Its work depends on relationships — with schools, families, students, alumni, teams and communities. But even the most established brands need modern systems to help people perform consistently.

As Jostens continued evolving, its sales and revenue leaders needed ways to support performance at scale: a shared language for understanding people, a stronger approach to customer-focused selling, and leadership development experiences that could help teams connect their daily activity to business results.

The challenge was not a lack of talent or commitment. It was the need to systematize the behaviors that help people lead, sell and perform — so strong individual effort could become consistent organizational capability.

Solution

ADVISA partnered with Jostens to support a series of development experiences designed to strengthen sales performance, leadership capability and team alignment.

The work included Predictive Index, Customer-Focused Selling, and Leadership Academy experiences — tools and programs Mark Bussell, Director of Revenue Management at Jostens, described as foundational to helping the organization achieve stronger results.

As Bussell shared in the testimonial, “They’re not just a company to me. They’re a partner. They’re a partner to our organization at Jostens. They help and guide us through so many different things.”

“Activate” driver

Build commitment from the top.

Jostens’ leadership team engaged ADVISA as a long-term partner in performance, not a one-time training vendor. That commitment created the foundation for a broader leadership and sales development system — one that could support leaders as they worked to help their teams reach the next level of performance.

“Target” driver

Establish desired future state.

The work centered on helping Jostens’ teams focus on the behaviors that drive performance: stronger customer conversations, better coaching, and clearer alignment around what successful selling and leadership look like in practice.

Rather than treating development as a stand-alone event, the partnership helped connect learning to the results Jostens was working to achieve.

“Lead” driver

Develop confidence and capability.

Through ADVISA Leadership Academy and related development experiences, Jostens leaders gained practical tools to better understand, support and guide their teams. The goal was to help leaders build the confidence and capability to coach performance, strengthen connection and create more consistent follow-through.

“Apply” driver

Improve performance with people data.

Predictive Index gave Jostens a shared language for understanding people — how they are wired, how they communicate, and what they need to do their best work. Combined with sales and leadership development, this helped leaders move from general observations to more actionable conversations about performance.

“Scale” driver

Enable behavior change.

Because the partnership extended across multiple programs and years, the work became more than training. It became part of a broader system for reinforcing the leadership and sales behaviors Jostens wanted to see more consistently across the organization.

That continuity helped ADVISA serve as what Bussell described as an extension of the team — a partner invested in Jostens’ ongoing growth.

Results

“We’ve had some of the best years in Jostens history within the last two years.”

Mark Bussell, Director of Revenue Management

According to Mark Bussell, Director of Revenue Management at Jostens, the partnership with ADVISA has contributed to a meaningful period of performance and growth.

“We’ve had some of the best years in Jostens history within the last two years,” Bussell shared. “That’s results-wise. And if you look at the commonality or the foundation of that, it’s only possible with Predictive Index, Customer-Focused Selling, and Leadership Academy that we’ve gone through.”

For Jostens, the impact was not tied to a single program or moment. It came from a series of development experiences that helped teams connect, relate and focus their activity on the behaviors that lead to results.

As Bussell put it, “Those things have given us this ability to connect and relate and to drive the activity that leads to those results.”

The outcome is a relationship Bussell describes not as vendor-client, but as true partnership: “I look at them as part of our family. I look at them as part of our organization.”

Jostens’ own evolution underscores the importance of that kind of leadership system. Since 2018, the company has changed ownership, expanded digital experiences, supported schools through pandemic-era disruption, and continued investing in products that help people preserve and celebrate meaningful moments.

In 2024, Jostens also announced a nearly $640 million recapitalization connected to a $450 million strategic equity investment from an affiliate of Koch Equity Development, signaling another major chapter in the company’s continued growth story.

Jostens has been recognized as one of the Top 50 Most Engaged Workplaces.

---

Discover the advantage of Leader-Led Culture™

To learn how ADVISA can help transform YOUR organization, request a free consultation today.