Summary of Experience

The essence of marketing is to better engage with your customers. This then creates a fertile condition for selling.

I first became interested in magazine publishing in 1975. I was working as a chef in a restaurant in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Our most frequent customers were the staff of a fledgling magazine called Byte. I was intrigued with the content (computer technology) and also became very interested in the idea of collecting and redistributing information. . Sometime later the magazine’s founding editor, Carl Helmers, left to start another company. He hired me for a very loosely defined position that gave me a broad background in the various components of publishing. When I had learned enough to be dangerous I left to work as a circulation manager for an audio magazine.

Twelve years ago I started selling advertising for Miller Freeman (now CMP Technology). This led to being a strategic accounts manager, during which time I also edited and published Developer Market News, a monthly print newsletter to our advertisers, and also became very involved in our expansion into online advertising. Most recently, as client services manager, I have applied a customer-centric approach to both internal and client-facing communications and project management.

My interests for the future include working for media companies, and/or working with clients who need to increase the effectiveness of their sales and marketing through improved assessment and implementation of integrated media programs. 

How I approach my work:

• First impressions are critical. This often occurs with an
  e-mail or voicemail, and the standards for those communications should be part of the marketing program.
   
• You don’t sell things to people; you create a relationship and an environment where they want to buy things from you.
   
• The amount of time spent planning a project has a direct relationship to its likelihood of success. That said, part of planning is to know when to stop planning so that the project can move forward.
   
• Know in advance what metrics you will use to measure the success of a project, both internally, and for your clients. Understand how your clients are planning to measure success as well.
   

Professional Services

• Writing for print and online.
   
• Content creation
• Newsletters
• White papers
• Web pages
• Scripts for streaming audio/video.
  Transcribe research into sales collateral/presentations.
• Strong sales-focused language
• Conveys your story
   
• Developing Strategy
• Assess your goals
• Assess your customer’s goals
• Where they meet becomes the project.
• Determine all components of the project, and examine how they interact with each other.
• Establish metrics
• Participation in implementation and follow-up as needed.
• Project Management
• Internal
• Client interface
   

Many years ago I had a freelance job writing the monthly promotional letter to the advertisers/prospects for a magazine. I was brought in because the editors would not engage with the advertising folks. I would spend some time talking with the advertising director about what he wanted to accomplish with the forthcoming issue. Then I would visit with the editors for a while to find out what they were going to be including in the next issue. Once I had enough to go on, I wrote a simple one-page letter, which was mailed out (this was before fax machines or e-mail).

I actually enjoyed that job, but it should not have been necessary. It is important for the stake holders of any given project to be able to talk and work with each other.  I now make this an underlying goal of any project that I am involved with, and have been successful at identifying and overcoming obstacles which are simply a result of inadequate communications.