Freeman+Leonard is one of AMA Houston’s newest Corporate Sponsors. Because of their support, we’ve been able to continue our popular luncheon series of high-profile speakers and topics, and most recently, a Mobile Marketing event hosted by our Interactive Marketing SIG.
We wanted to take a few minutes and get to know them a little better…
If you had to describe your company in three words, what would those be? On-demand marketing talent.
What makes your company different? Our management team has run major account teams at big agencies so we have first-hand experience in assembling and managing talent teams to meet clients marketing solutions.
What’s one marketing tip you’d like to share with us? Sharpen your digital media and marketing knowledge and skills. Traditional media, even in the business to business environment, is losing power and the world is becoming increasingly more digital, social and mobile. Marketers who can’t keep up and bring thought leadership will find their value in the organization increasingly diminished.
Tell us a little about Freeman+Leonard: Freeman+Leonard has been in business for over 15 years, doing business under the ArtSquad name. Our core business has always been providing area company’s and agencies with primarily creative talent on demand. Last year, after researching the needs of corporate clients and seeing the dramatic changes taking place in both mass and digital media and the challenges clients and agencies were having keeping up with the pace of change, we decided to rebrand as Freeman+Leonard, expanding our on demand talent solutions beyond the creative area to encompass senior level marketing and communications talent as well.
Freeman+Leonard now offers a complete suite of on demand, top-level marketing, communications and creative talent…everything from strategy and planning through the executional functions like copywriting, art direction and design and project management. Our footprint in Houston, Dallas and Austin and beyond have allowed us to build a pool of thousands of registered associates that have worked for literally every company in the U.S., for every major agency in every area of marketing, communication and creative. We very literally have the resources to do it all for a client or agency.
We’re responding to clients asking for complete team solutions, such as outsourcing entire departments or functions like marketing process and systems assessment and implementation, external communications plan development and execution, advertising, experiential, digital content and social media planning and management…even the outsourcing an entire marketing department.
Our approach provides clients with the personnel bandwidth to get marketing, communications and creative work done without adding headcount, staying under their cost containment targets.
How long have you been an AMA Houston member? One year
Why do you feel it’s important to be a sponsor for AMA Houston? We know that corporate decision makers attend AMA events and although we have a concerted outbound marketing effort, we know the importance of building a brand and keeping top-of-mind awareness so that clients of think of us first when they have a need.
Take a look at your current issue of Marketing News (dated January 20, 2010) – a few of our AMA Houston Board Members are shown on the back page. This was taken at last year’s AMA Leadership Summit – an annual event where AMA leaders from all over the U.S. get together to share ideas that we can take back to our respective chapters.
We’re smiling because despite there being actual work involved at the Summit, there’s lots of fun too.
And as further proof that your AMA Houston Board Members are hard at work, here we are again a couple of weeks ago at the AMA Regional Retreat hosted by the San Antonio chapter.
About 50 Board Members from the Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth and Kansas City Chapters convened for great discussions on how we can continue to build a better AMA member experience.
I can honesty say that all of the “behind the scenes” sharing with other AMA chapters helps me tremendously and makes being a Board Member really enjoyable. Not only do I get a lot of ideas that help me for my specific Board role, I also meet a lot of great marketers in other cities this way (and they’ve all been very nice).
At the January luncheon, we said thanks to the following volunteers:
Board Member of the Month: Ana Mena Rodarte, Gelb Consulting Group
Anyone who’s been to our lunches know that they are well organized and fun to attend. That kind of great experience only happens, though, when you have great people behind the scenes. Ana is one of them – she handles all of the registration details for the lunches which is a massive task (that she handles calmly and with a smile)
Volunteers of the Month:
C’Ella Clayton, who does National Marketing at Transwestern. C’Ella has gone above and beyond with her help on the AMA Houston Professional Development SIG. She’s invaluable to our SIG programming. Steven Leeper, Freeman Leonard, has not only been helping with our events, but has also signed up new sponsors for the events as well. He’s doing the work of two people now. This is always a big help since it’s the backing of the sponsors that make the events possible.
Thanks to all of you for your help. We truly have the best volunteers!
I am so glad 2009 is over. As I talk with fellow marketers in the Houston community (and beyond), they are too. We may not be completely out of the woods yet, but if we are actively working still, or even actively working to find a new job, hopefully we’ve all learned some things in the process.
As president of the American Marketing Association Houston chapter, I have seen both those who are job searching and those struggling to market on a shoestring budget transition in their professional development needs. As a result, our programs transitioned, too. Here are highlights of what we learned last year, and a sneak peak at what is to come.
Tips for Job Search Success
As Raegan Hill, lead recruiter at Brookwoods Group, told a member-only audience at a recent event, effective job searching requires putting together a personal marketing plan, as follows.
Conduct market research and a personal job inventory. You have the opportunity to target the types of companies you really want to work for. First, determine what qualities you want in a job. Do you want to be a big fish in a little pond, or do you prefer a larger company? Is geography/commute time important? Then, list companies, or company types, that are on your short list. Are you targeting specific industries? Public? Private?
Create a means for tracking your progress. A spreadsheet works well, where you can track all job leads and their status. Trust me, when you spend five hours a night on the computer, you will not remember all of your applications and online networking activities unless you write them down.
Set up job search tools. LinkedIn is a great source for finding contacts and job postings. Also use www.indeed.com, which has a job aggregator tool that will search the Internet for new job postings based on your specified criteria and email them to you.
Network. It’s a proven fact that most people get jobs because of who they know. If you spend every day behind your computer applying to jobs online, frustration will quickly set in. For any job you DO apply for, use every resource possible to get a foot in the door – your online and offline contacts, cold calling the company, attending events where company employees may be, and anything else you can come up with to stand out from the crowd. But spend most of your time networking – in person, not online – by meeting with contacts, attending events where decision makers are present, or creating a “personal advisory board” of people who can provide advice and contacts to help you in your search
Follow up, follow up, follow up. Tracking your progress with a spreadsheet helps tremendously. But don’t give up with one phone call or email. Be assertive, positive, and offer something of value in exchange. Your perseverance will pay off.
Tips for Marketing Success
For marketers these days, it’s survival of the fittest. But there are two types of survivors. Those who survive by cutting every cost possible, and those who prove that marketing provides indispensible value and impact on the bottom line, particularly in a down market. In other words, if you’re surviving by cutting costs, then you’re not proving your value.
So how, do you ask, is that done? It’s not an easy or simple task. Vikas Mittal, a marketing professor at the Rice Jones School of Business, gave an incredible executive presentation to our CMO forum and will present to a larger audience at the January AMA luncheon. He says marketers have to get back to marketing – in other words, impacting customer preferences and decisions and not just taking orders for brochures and rewriting web content. They also have to understand and implement marketing research in the programs, to understand customer behavior and how to impact it. And then they have to be able to quantify things, in a language the CFO and CEO can relate to. This topic continues at the AMA Energy SIG in February.
Developing your personal brand for career success
And, whether job searching or trying to grow in your career, it’s all about your personal brand. It’s what distinguishes you from other people both professionally and personally. It is your unique value articulated in a compelling, genuine, consistent and visible way. Held in the minds of others, your personal brand is the single most powerful tool in attaining career success. You must distinguish yourself from others; use your appearance, body language, conversation, and attitude to create an exemplary first impression; and build business etiquette skills that leave a positive lasting impression. Finally, communicate your personal brand through the strategic use of social media such as personal websites, online profiles and social networks. One great event you can attend to learn how to do this is the AMA Young Professionals SIG event – more information is available at www.regonline.com/brandYOU.
On behalf of the entire AMA Houston board, I wish all of you success in this New Year. We look forward to seeing you at an upcoming event or welcoming you as a member.
No, this isn’t a top ten list of trends for the coming year, but rather a fun video of Sugar Land’s 2009 New Year’s celebration (watch full-screen for best effect). How cool is Sugar Land for doing this?
A special “wow” to AMA Houston luncheon sponsors LD Systems for the projection equipment/expertise on this. Stop by to say hi to them at our lunches each month at the Junior League.
