Meet the Broker: Heidi Thibodeau
Today we meet Heidi Thibodeau, vice president of brokerage at Millard Group Inc,. This 15-year industry vet counsels mailers not to give up on prospecting lest they be at a disadvantage when the economy recovers.
“There are some mailers who are not doing anything but reactivating their house files,” she says. “There’s falloff every year and if you don’t bring in new buyers it’s gonna hurt you in the long run.”
At Millard, she specializes in brokering catalog and online lists. Her clients include L.L. Bean, Plow and Hearth, the Vermont Country store and similar companies.
She came to the company from the Paralyzed Veterans of America, which she admits was quite a different environment.
“I was very young back when I worked at PVA so I was just getting into the business then as mailer,” she says. “So coming over to this side of the world was a little bit of a shift. I don’t get to call the shots–I can just present ideas but mailers have to make the ultimate choice.”
So how has brokering evolved during her time in the industry?
“It’s actually morphing as we speak,” she says. “The Internet has thrown a whole loop into things so it’s not anything like it was when I first started.”
More specifically:
“We definitely had to educate ourselves on the Internet,” she continues. “I think for many years brokers were hoping they could ignore the Internet and keep doing what they had been doing with lists but more and more mailers are shifting with their orders coming over the Internet.”
One problem this created was figuring out exactly what channels buyers come from.
She notes that every company has a different philosophy and business model that they work with and there’s no cookie-cutter best methodology.
“I firmly believe that every touchpoint has a value, but we find a lot of clients will say the last place the person came from gets the credit for the sale,” she says.
How is the recession affecting business now and what‘s the outlook?
“We have a lot of clients that are pulling back,” she says. “If you’re losing money you have to stop the bleeding somewhere but at the same time if you don’t grow and get new names when things turn around you’re gonna be in a kind of hole. So we try and talk to our clients about continuing to prospect–obviously smartly– but don’t give up on that completely.”
When not on the job, Temple, NH-based Thibodeau engages in sports like volleyball and softball and is currently training for a sprint triathlon.
