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Indiana Companies to Watch
52
BizVoice
/Indiana Chamber –
September/October 2012
Facebook or from LinkedIn or from
Twitter … seemingly every marketing
person we talk to, that’s all they
want to talk about. And I say,
‘Absolutely not.’ And we learned the
hard way, after failing with a couple
of attempts on some other stuff,” he
indicates. “It’s expensive and what
it comes down to is relationship
marketing, and that falls right on me.”
Developing those relationships
is what gets Nolan’s company traction.
Hiring military veterans – the company has
started to promote that in the past fewmonths –
is also something that piques interest from
potential clients. His staff is 30% to 40%
veterans, along with about 50% of the
management team.
The same is true for Conner – building
relationships through community service
and a proven track record of business
success is most worthwhile for him.
“I live in a world where everybody needs energy. We live
and die by energy. And that just happens to be what I’m in. So
when you’re coaching somebody’s kid and they see you’re a
real true genuine person or you’re just a really nice guy, who
else are they going to ask to do their electrical work for them
or to sell them a new phone system? We’ve gotten so many
businesses like that,” he acknowledges.
ATEC has a web site, Conner discloses, because a friend built
one – but the company has no marketing dollars in the budget.
“I’ve just been blessed; it’s all been word of mouth. All
people want is a good job at
a fair price and they will call
you back and they will tell
your name to 20 other
people,” he affirms.
Catheter Research has
also been a word-of-mouth
organization, until recently.
A formal sales and marketing
campaign, headed by Cook,
is now in place.
“Sales and marketing is
very tricky, it’s very expensive
and it can be paralyzing to
your organization. If you don’t
do anything, it’s fatal, so we have hired experts, and sometimes
it just hasn’t worked out,” she asserts. “It’s interesting for me as
the general manager for the organization now to be strictly
only sales and marketing and trying to develop what it needs
ATLANTA CHICAGO DELAWARE INDIANA LOs ANGELEs MICHIGAN MINNEApOLIs OHIO WAsHINGTON, D.C.
Awe inspired.
btlaw.com
We know you don’t get here overnight.
It takes hard work and dedication.
We congratulate the 2012 Companies
to Watch winners. We believe in their
efforts. And we’re proud to support
them.
“We are in control of
our own destiny. We
are not owned by some
bigger company that could just shut us
down some day and move it to Mexico.
(Employees) have accountability to
do their job very well and they see
every year what that does to their
stock value.”
Christine Cook
Catheter Research, Inc.
