Listen as I share my story with the world. As a full-time PRACTICING Chief Marketing Officer, you’ll be taught powerful direct marketing principles and strategies. I’ll also share with you what I am currently working on so you can stay on top of the latest trends and ideas and maybe even implement some of them into your business, too.
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TRANSCRIPT:
If you’re listening to this episode, it’s because you’re interested in my story and how I got started. So let me just jump right into it. I was born and raised on Long Island in a middle class family in the middle class neighborhood. Really? Nothing, you know, troublesome or fancy going on just pretty standard for the time.
My father owned a plumbing company. My mom stayed home to take care of my sisters, and I so we had a pretty good childhood. I played baseball. I got into roller hockey. That was one of the kids that were just always outside playing with friends in what I would call the good old days to show my age there.
Then I went. Then in high school, I was given an opportunity by my cousin, actually, who had this business that his attorney started that he took with him when he went to after he graduated and went to go work on Wall Street. He just didn’t have time for and I was struggling. He’s barely making a $1,000 on it.
So he called me up and said, hey, I can’t do this on time for it’s. Not making money. Do you want to do it and maybe make a little bit? I said, sure. Now what the business actually was a a transportation service that transported students from James Madison University to the Northeast.
So basically, anybody who lived in the Northeast, like New Jersey, now up into New England, there was a large percentage of that population that attended the school in Virginia, James Madison University, and basically James Madison had a rule for freshman and sophomore that they had to live on campus but couldn’t have cars on campus. So that create a problem where the parents of the students who are going there had to drop off their kids and bring them back, which is fine in the beginning of each school year for the initial drop off, an initial pickup and the last pick up, it’s fine.
But at minimum, it’s a seven hour drive and much, much longer if you’re up in New England. So when it came time for Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, it created a problem because you’re talking about a lot of driving with a quick turn around. So the fraternity started. They sold tickets to students to get home for the holidays, basically and poorly run. Obviously, if you can imagine an attorney that was running a business, it was poorly run. Parents hated it. The there was a lot of other problems which I’ll get into here soon.
So when I got it at 16, I knew nothing. But my sister was also going to James Madison University. I think she was a senior when I when I got it and she took the bus. My cousin was running at the time. And so I went to my mom as a man said, you know who’s paying for this? Is it you or Dana and she’s like me. I’m like alright. So once I figure out the parents are paying for it, I basically didn’t want 80 on it.
My cousin was basically focusing on the student as the prospect, as the client is buyer. And because it’s a student, they don’t have much money. So therefore the price of the ticket needs to be really, really low. And because the price of the ticket is really, really low, he had to hire bus companies that were inexpensive, which resulted in poor quality buses. Which one year that completely broke down. One year the heating stopped working winter months. One year the bus was a stick shift, so it was a very uncomfortable ride.
So it was just a poor experience, low price, low value experience, basically. So what I did was I went completely opposite. Since I knew the parents were paying for it. I budgeted essentially. So I knew they could pay a lot more for it. So I tripled the price of the ticket. I went out and found the newest and best buses I could get at the time. So every time we ran the bus as maybe a year or two old Max very good company.
And I marketed to the parents, not to the students, asked students to sign up as the parents to sign up because when you think about it that’s ultimately whose problem we’re solving. It’s a parents problem, not a kids problem like so it was successful in the first year. Obviously the margins were higher.
When you have a higher value price point and you could charge more, you’re going to make more gross profit on it. And because it was such a great experience for the parents, it became talked about. And I would visit Jam. You had freshman picnics. And so in the summer months I would go visit some of the freshman picnics. And basically in the beginning, promote the service because the new parents had may not be aware of it. And so we did that.
And then after a couple of years, all of a sudden it changed. Even the freshman. The parents of the freshmen were coming to me and saying, what about the bus? I heard about the bus. What about the bus like that’s? How much of a pain that they had in the problem that we were solving. So that’s what I did and the way I sold it was.
And this is where I really got started in direct marketing. I really just didn’t know at the time. The way I sold it was through sales letter. I had a two page sales letter so nothing lengthy. It was pretty straight forward. It basically said who I am and what my credibility is. So basically my story to give credibility. It explained the service. I explained why it’s a problem and explained how they benefit and explained what the problem creates so agitated the problems basically problem agitate solve format.
I just didn’t know that’s what it was a time to me, it was just common sense. And what was really neat was I convinced the school to give me a list of I said, hey, I need every freshman sophomore that lives in these States, and I need their home address. And so in the beginning of August, I think it was usually beginning in the middle of August. I would do a Mailer every year. The letter didn’t change except for the dates and details of the trips.
And I would time it so that the the letter would arrive in their home to their home address while they’re away dropping off their kids. So the problem is fresh on their mind. They just did the drive. It sucked. And then when you start talking about how much it sucks and then you’re going to have to do a quick turn around. It just was an easy sale from my perspective, but everything was aligned there. Which there’s a story here also, I’m going to cover in a future episode. But basically, that’s what we did. And then it kept growing and it kept expanding. And it had multiple routes. And I had multiple buses on each route, and it was great.
And I was doing this. I started as a 16 year old in high school. So what was really cool is coming off the bus, the school bus opening up my mailbox and having a stack of envelopes with checks in there because there I sold tickets. You know, I went to the Bank, I signed everything and deposit all. It was really cool. And then I did that through most of College because what happened was my mom gave it back to my cousin, and that may sound silly because it’s mine now, but it was family. It was weird at the time.
I wasn’t a confident person back then. I think I was 20 years old when that happened, maybe 21 or 22. But I wasn’t a confident person. I was actually really shy. I didn’t really speak to a lot of people. A mirror. I’m like 180 of myself right now. I really talk to people. It was. It was something I didn’t fight, but it really put a chip on my shoulder because even if, even if I couldn’t expand it because I did a bunch of research try to expand other schools determine that it’s a very unique situation.
So it’s still an extra chunk of money even now, even as I’m working now, I’d love to have that extra chunk of money, but it wasn’t in anymore. So I spent my senior year in high school trying to figure out what to do with my life. And I always major in business, but I didn’t really know where in business I wanted to be.
And it wasn’t until I have my introduction to marketing class that I figured out marketing was my calling when I was doing that, when I was writing the sales letter, and I was doing that business I didn’t really put two and two together that I was doing direct marketing. And that was a sales letter.
It was just common sense to me. It’s like, well, I got to get people sign up. So I’ll send them the information with an attachment order form and they send it back and and buy a ticket. It was just obvious. And so now fast forward another 20 years, I’m able to talk about it more intelligently at the time. It was just common sense. I actually went to the office of that professor and talk to him more about marketing careers, marketing degrees and database marketing really stood out to me.
And of course, now what I find out, database marketing is a big part of of direct marketing. So I did that. I went on the marketing track. I took all the courses, and I actually landed my first job as a marketing manager before I even graduated. I actually started the job a week before I graduated. So I had a week of work. And then I went to my College graduation ceremony.
And so when I started that job, we had a conversation with my boss, and I forgot how it came up. But basically he said something like it was between you and somebody else and that somebody else had an MBA. And I said, oh, I said, Well, why did you pick me like and he’s like, because of your story and your entrepreneurial spirit, I want somebody with an entrepreneurial spirit in that position. And I said, oh, that’s good. So it was maybe a two minute exchange. But that particular moment in my life really did two big things for me.
One, it gave me the confidence to do what I know how to do and take that entrepreneurial approach to my work and any organization I work for. And two, it really shifted my mind around the value of an MBA. Like, this is somebody who just spent at least two years, probably maybe more, but at least two years of their life getting their MBA. It it was a good school private school here in Orlando, and I’m going to assume it was at least 60 grand at the time.
And I still want. And so it’s like, well, what is the ROI of an MBA? I got. It really made my mind that I made the right choice of getting this job instead of continuing to graduate school because I was about to go into a statistics program for data mining, which is now big data. Today, the time is called data mining. And anyway, along in my career, I gained a mentor. His name was Richard Cross. He was a big time direct marketer for Consumers Union, which was the publisher of Consumer Reports, which the time was always mailed out.
Sure, you could remember your parents getting the consumer report in the mail. And if you recall, there is a survey that that he did every year, which basically created the data for the Consumer Reports. And Richard, the reason he was so impactful for me and really a big inspiration for why I’m even doing this podcast in the first place is because he didn’t teach me just the tactics of marketing. Direct marketing. He taught me the principles, like why it works because and this is the heart of why I’m starting this podcast because tactics change, like what we do today, tactically is going to be different in your own today, even a year from now, probably six months from now.
But if you don’t understand why the tactic works in the time, then you’re not going to know what the next thing to do is. And so what I benefit from personally is understanding all the principles of direct marketing stuff that not many books are talking about. And if these principles allow me to move from industry industry with ease as I progressed along my career, I mean, I worked with hotel owners, I’ve worked with commercial construction contractors, I’ve worked with car dealers, I’ve worked with law firm owners. Now in my position.
Now I work for a wide array of entrepreneurs and business owners and professionals. I mean, it really doesn’t matter once you understand the principles of direct marketing and your business that is not named Coca Cola or Ford or anything like that, then you need direct marketing because that’s how you grow and sell your company. And there’s a whole other story around here, too, in lesson that I’m going to share upcoming episode that basically explains the difference between marketing, advertising and branding, three unique, different things.
And there’s a lot in there, so that will be I don’t know when, but I’m going to do an episode on that. So basically why I’m here today and why you should listen to me not only now but in future episodes is because if you’re a business owner, if you’re an entrepreneur or a professional, like a financial adviser or anything like that, I’m going to teach you all the principles I’ve learned over 25 years of practicing direct marketing.
Okay, this is stuff that may sound familiar and with a different perspective may make some of the tactics you’re learning from all these gurus about what’s working, what they’re doing tactically, it may make you help you understand why it works. And then because when you understand why it works, then you can basically solve any challenge and you could adapt and grow in your marketing your business.
Over time, you’re not living or dying by luck because you decided to find a shiny object that worked for a couple of months. We’re here. And then once that shiny object stop working. Now you’re stuck and you got a problem I’ll be sharing. Also, I’ll be sharing current events and marketing, which is based on the work I do. So strategy and principles are important to understand. But I’m also going to actually share with you what I’m working on.
Like, if you ever wanted to be able to tap into a head of a CMO and see what they’re currently thinking, what they’re working on, where they see things going, what’s working, what’s not working, anything like that test, they’re running anything like that. This podcast is your opportunity to do so with me. So basically, you’re not going to get theory, okay? You’re not going to get a guru where they teach you is all they know how to do is teach like I do first, I do like I have a full time chief marketing officer for job with the largest personal branding agency in the world.
It’s something I’m very proud of, and especially after that loss of basically having that small business taken away from me, which I try to happen right now, but I’m really proud of that. And I I reached a point in my career where I want to share. I’ve taken so much from so many different people over the last 20 years to help me develop my skills and knowledge and my marketing ability that it’s time to get back. I definitely share it with the members of my team, but I want to do more than that.
I want to have a bigger impact than that. So hence the podcast. So bottom line, you’re going to get real knowledge and real insights from a practicing CMO.
No, I still don’t have my MBA. I probably never will until someone can show me the ROI. I was just talking to Northwestern. I think it was hear about their program and I’m like, look, you’re asking me to spend 100 grand. I said, Fine, what’s it going to do for me after I graduate and they had nothing, nothing. So it’s going be 100 grand down the toilet. It’s not going to I’m not going to make 100 grand or I probably won’t get a raise at all because of the piece of paper. I’ve read enough books and done enough that I think I have the majority of an MBA covered instead of being in a learning environment is actually a practical environment.
So I probably won’t ever do that. My cousin still has that business, but I am the chief marketing officer of the largest personal renting agency in the country. So I hope you enjoy my podcast and if you want to gain access to my premium content for free, you could register for that at theCMOminute.com/bonus. That’s theCMOminute.com/bonus. There I’ll be sharing deeper marketing insights, more practical how to I’m going to do full length interviews with other experts, so you get the perspectives and insights from other people, not just me.
And I’m going to offer free training and workshops from time to time as well. So I hope you enjoy it. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you sign up for the bonus at theCMOminute.com/bonus, and I’ll talk to you soon.
