Going It on Your Own

It was 1992. Lois Geller was working at a big general agency as president of the direct marketing division. In that role she was spending 80% of her time on new client pitches. At every meeting the DM campaign ideas were presented last. She would have to fast-talk her suggestions in the final two to three minutes.

After one particularly annoying last-minute opportunity to pitch, she went to a fast-food place to drown her frustration in a big cheeseburger and french fries.

An older man was sitting at the next table. He mentioned that he often saw her there and she seemed particularly upset that day. She spilled out her story, intermingling her passion and love for what she did with her slowly dawning notion that she was in the wrong place.

He said to her, “Why don’t you quit and start your own agency?” This never had occurred to her before.

They sat and talked for a long time, he encouraging her to go and do what she loved and she more and more thinking this was a good solution. In fact, she took a deep breath, knew that she had come to a final conclusion and went up to her boss’s office and resigned.

Lois Geller started Lois K. Geller & Co. immediately in her apartment. She depended on her lifelong belief that there was nothing she couldn’t handle, hired the best professionals in every category, gave them the best tools she could and kept encouraging them. It only took a few calls to her colleagues and friends and she had more than enough business to get started. Channel 13 hired Geller & Co. during the latter’s first week in business. She thought, “I should have done this years ago.” By 1997, she merged it with Mason & Madison Advertising to form Mason & Geller Direct Marketing.

A passion for one’s work is a key quality shared by each DM entrepreneur we spoke to for this column.

Vision

Entrepreneurs have vision. Matt Blumberg was general manager of MovieFone Inc.’s Internet division from inception to the company’s $600 million sale to AOL. His idea for an e-mail change-of-address system was originally conceived as a consumer service. In 1999 he launched Return Path, an NCOA for e-mail marketers. As a first-time CEO, Matt’s greatest strength is his ability to communicate a vision for the company and translate it into individual jobs so everyone understands how they contribute to the company’s success.

Preparation

Great achievement also needs preparation. Lee Epstein met Rose Lansman when they were evening undergraduates at City College of New York in 1944. She was working in the accounting department at Time Inc. while Lee was at O.E. McIntyre, a mailing operation. During World War II, Lee put on shows in Manhattan with the biggest stars, supported by the War Finance Committee.

Rose called one day to get tickets for some of her staff and Lee sent her 200 of them. It made her a hero at Time and him a hero with Rose.

“Naturally,” according to Lee, “we got married.”

Lee set out to join every business club in the city and took volunteer positions. He became well-known in the industry and his natural ability as an innovator paid off. In 1977 he created a company, direct mailing house Mailmen Inc., where every employee assumed areas of responsibility and there was a family environment. Lee’s clients included Publishers Clearing House, Time, Reader’s Digest, Doubleday and McGraw-Hill.

Rose’s title at the end of her 46-year career at Time was director of administration.

Courage

Achievement requires risk-taking and courage. David Moore always knew he wanted to go out on his own. He saw the opportunity to make that happen when the parent company he was working for didn’t see his division as a priority.

With his optimistic belief in direct marketing as the mainstay of any new business undertaking, he put together a management buyout. He started Petry Interactive in 1995 and applied his vision over the years to grow the company, which merged in 1998 to form interactive ad agency 24/7 Media, to 14 offices in nine countries.

‘Too Dumb to Worry’

When Donn Rappaport was 28 years old, he was managing the direct marketing division at Marstellar. When Bill Marstellar announced that he’d sold the agency to Young & Rubicam, instead of to an interested group of company managers, Donn immediately decided to leave that day and form his own company.

He made three phone calls to companies that decided to go with this fearless kid who was “too dumb to worry,” according to Donn. By November 1980 he’d moved into a farmhouse in Princeton, NJ with about a dozen employees. Today there are 250 employees at American List Counsel Inc.’s seven offices around the country.

Keeping a company successful over the long haul has taken perseverance. While the data marketing business had been lucrative for awhile, in the past few years it’s become tougher to make money. When the Internet was developing, “we got bit by the bug, and put a lot at risk unnecessarily. It was a painful and dangerous situation but we are better for it,” Donn confides. ALC revamped procedures, revised compensation plans, developed new systems and new profit centers. Today it continues to grow.

From the Inside

High achievers in corporations have similar characteristics: passion for the business, vision, preparation, risk-taking and perseverance.

Ed Bjorncrantz was an innovator during his nearly 35-year corporate marketing and management career. For 20 years at Sears he enjoyed the freedom to try new things and improve how business was conducted.

Ed was an early proponent of specialty catalogs. He was involved in every aspect of catalog planning, circulation and marketing. He amassed an expert’s knowledge of databases, scoring models, segmentation and circulation planning. He became involved in leading-edge design, print and fulfillment technology. He was one of the first to test electronic page production, selective binding, and ink-jet messaging.

While his corporate career continued at a variety of organizations for the next 15 years, his ability to act with a degree of autonomy continued.

“To a great extent, the drive and fire to maintain a high level of commitment depended on the relationship, trust and mutual respect between the CEO/owner and me,” Ed says.

Senior marketing executive positions require total commitment and emotional involvement. When there was a change in management at Ed’s latest company, the style of the new CEO was not one that allowed for a high degree of independence. After having that leeway under previous CEOs, Ed wasn’t suited to being micromanaged. Once he experienced it, other issues — process, consistency, human resources management — that would otherwise be insignificant were added to his list of reasons to try something new.

As he sums up the essence of what he enjoyed throughout his career, he knew that having the freedom to act, innovate and lead was of great value to him. So he decided to seek the ultimate freedom and step out in the marketplace as a consultant, bundling all his considerable experience into focusing on catalog/Internet marketing, strategic planning and change management.

And right then, another direct marketing entrepreneur was born.

CONNIE LaMOTTA is president of Workplace Strategies Associates, a business coaching consultancy in Upper Nyack, NY.