customer service

by Nathan Greenberg, CEO

This may have been one of the hardest lessons for me to learn in my career. I spent my early professional years focusing on mastering my craft, expanding my opportunities, and gaining prominence within the industry. But I was more than a decade in before I began learning the complexity and necessity of a fundamental truth: no matter how much I knew or how much money I made, I was and always would be in “the people business”.

Hopefully, a few of you thinking something akin to, “how did you miss that?”. If so, that means you already understand this lesson – or you are aware of its importance even if you are still learning it yourself. My fundamental belief rested upon the notion that my intellect and insight would carry me. It was hard to understand why someone wouldn’t want to work with me if I had the right answers. Call it hubris. Call it ignorance. Call it whatever you want, but it should be synonymous with mistake.

And it took time for me to correct the mistake. I would pick up hints from friends, colleagues, and managers. The pieces came together over time. But eventually I understood something critical to success. Relationships are the basis for business. There is a difference between what people buy and why people buy it. People fundamentally buy things from companies they don’t object to. People do business with people. If the customer likes the salesperson, they might overlook some of the objectionable actions of the manufacturer. Customers may choose to do business with a friend who charges more than the stranger with a discount. This is what I didn’t understand. It wasn’t about what I sold, but rather how I sold it. Was there a relationship with my customer?

Then I had to learn the key principles of the relationship. I said earlier, “People fundamentally buy things from companies they don’t object to.” You may have heard that phrased differently: “People buy from people they like” or something like that. Unfortunately, I no longer believe that is most accurate. In today’s economy of polarization, moral alignment, and behavioral transparency, there can always be something that a customer doesn’t like about a company. And yet you will still find atheists who eat at Chick-fil-A. You will find Republicans who voted for Joe Biden. The information firehose being blasted into our consciousness about companies and employees every second of the day has exceeded its value proposition. Consumers now choose from the options they dislike least.

Years of research shows that customers do business with those they “know, like, and trust”. Sometimes those quantities need not be very high, but they must be higher than the competition. Sales managers have been giving the “sell the benefits, not the features” speech for a long time. It now applies to more than the product. It applies to the relationship.

In recent years, the definition of “benefits” has changed. Customers now include ethics and personal satisfaction in their purchasing decision. This changes the relationship. Customers want to know the people and organizations from which they buy. They want to feel good about doing business with them. At first I viewed these adjustments as a minefield that made sales more difficult. But I later learned that these were opportunities. I had all new ways to connect with customers than ever before based on their personal interests. My slowness to grasp relationship value suddenly shot forward by understanding how I could foster them. This is why no matter what you sell, you are in the people business. The necessity now to demonstrate ethical behavior, get to know the customer, and be a resource for them is more important than ever. They aren’t buying what you’re selling. They’re buying their personal pleasure of being able to tell someone, “I bought from that company because they’re a good company.” Ethical street cred is a vital component to today’s consumer shopping – and every consumer is a person. You’re in the people business.

(Originally published in IE Business Edge magazine, March 2022)

by Nathan Greenberg, CEO

Today is our 10 year anniversary. We are official made of tin. The decade milestone has been achieved and I am very proud to be here. The pride is anchored in humility and many hard lessons learned, yet here I stand along with my team as we celebrate success. The success is not ours alone – not even most of it. In all likelihood, we are here because of you.

Where Arkside Began

When I look back at the beginning, I remember a very challenging and exciting time. Arkside’s origin was far from auspicious. It was December 2009 and January 2010 when I had discovered the ad agency I was with was going to collapse. The owners were mismanaging and co-mingling funds, vendors weren’t being paid, employee tax payments were missing, paychecks were bouncing, and they were gripped in a very nasty divorce. I had joined this agency three years prior as part of a buyout – largely because of my accounts. Now it was my job to protect those accounts.

My two largest accounts had ongoing media spends, creative work, and long relationships with me. I wanted to ensure they’re operations were not interrupted by this disaster. But how? I wasn’t comfortable with other agencies in the area and I took the success and protection of my clients very personally.

Ultimately, it left my serial entrepreneur attitude with one choice: start an agency.

So I did. With supportive family, friends, media partners, clients that came with me, and a couple of investors, Arkside Marketing was born.

Challenges Through the Years

Arkside is not my first business but it was my largest at the time. Different challenges have come through every business: Personnel, client goals, budgets, market changes, and certainly outside influences in personal life.

But Arkside has taught me more than any other. For example, despite my initial investors and extreme fiscal conservatism, Arkside was underfunded. This limited our options and capabilities in the beginning. I initially built a completely remote-work company. Everyone worked from home! That didn’t offer the structure needed by some and I lost good employees. I failed to invest enough time and money into marketing (cue the cobbler’s shoe story) so it took us longer to grow than I expected. HR issues within the company, clients who wanted to take our success in-house, unpaid invoices requiring me to file lawsuits, opening and expanding offices, changes in traditional and digital media landscapes, and a dozen other factors have taught me valuable lessons.

All of them have made me a better person, a better entrepreneur, and a better manager. Still far from perfect, but I appreciate every lesson learned. More will undoubtedly be coming!

How to Succeed

Success is much harder than failure. I admit that Arkside is not where I thought it would be today. We’ve missed some goals and even had to realign our mission. But none of that is failure. They are educational days and Arkside is a success because of them. We have grown and continue to succeed.

We have made incredible achievements in the last decade:

• Generated millions of dollars in revenue for our clients
• Enabled clients to reach or exceed their long-term goals
• Created award-winning artwork, layouts, and concepts
• Originated the 2 Rules of marketing
• Super-served clients in some of the most regulated industries on Earth
• Crafted sales, loyalty, and education campaigns that benefit consumer education
• Donated time and money to a wide variety of local and national charities
• Helped employees grow their knowledge, careers, and networks
• Provided opportunities to interns from many colleges and universities
• Educated thousands of event attendees on marketing, psychology, sales, and technology
• Witnessed the amazing dedication, passion, care, customer service, and pride of our clients

Every item on that list is something that we look forward to continuing and expanding in the years to come. We have been able to make these achievements because of generous support from many clients, friends, family members, colleagues, partners, and vendors. I hope I have been generous with my gratitude over the years.

So what happens now?

The Future of Arkside

This 10 year anniversary has given me pause. After the failures and successes that continue to teach me, I’m excited about the future. It has already begun…

I am already making new investments in technology, partnerships, and capabilities. There are new hires I look forward to announcing in 2020 to continue growing the company and provide new levels of service to our clients. All of us here at Arkside are working on new processes that can streamline our work and make things even easier for our clients. (This is one way we live up to Rule #2.) We will be hosting private client events beginning this year that will offer exclusive opportunities and give us a chance to show appreciation for their business.

For me, the future is about living up to the goals I’ve set for myself and many of the expectations you have set for me. Perfection isn’t possible but I will be working toward greatness.

Gratitude for You

For those that have hired Arkside to work with you, sent referrals to our doorstep, written a review, given advice when it was needed, provided excellent service to us or our clients, donated with us to charity, offered constructive criticism, Liked a social media post, or been a positive part of the Arkside team:

THANK YOU.

You have my gratitude.

May the next decade and more to come open opportunities for us all to make a difference.

Few things are as important to your business as your brand identity. The branding of your company is about your logo, your appearance, your service, your products, and your reputation. It is how the world perceives you. Your ad agency should understand and appreciate the importance of brand development.

“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” –Jeff Bezos

Your Logo Is Part of Your Brand

The development and protection of a brand is critical. A critical element of that brand representation is your logo. It is the most commonly seen visual representation of your company. Hundreds of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars go into the promotion of a logo.  When we come across instances like the ones below, we wonder if the agency truly understands the value of their client’s brand:

These examples were taken from the home page rotator of a US regional Chevrolet dealer association website. They represent 57% of the images in that rotator. That makes such errors difficult to excuse as isolated incidents or something not reviewed by multiple employees (graphic designer, project manager, account executive) and the client.

Client and Agency Share Brand Integrity Responsibility

We are the first to admit that we aren’t perfect. No agency or person is perfect. But errors like this speak to a larger problem of disregarding the fundamentals of brand integrity. Imagine the IBM logo being printed backwards on a company brochure. Or Google having a typo and showing up “Gogle”. It wouldn’t make it off the printing press.

Protect your logo.
Protect your reputation.

Demand an agency that does the same.

Arkside Marketing is a full-service ad agency, specializing in regulated enterprises such as law firms, car dealerships, hospitals, and financial institutions. If you would like a complimentary analysis of your current marketing efforts or brand identity, please contact us today to schedule an appointment. We can come to your office or conduct the analysis online via Skype, Google Hangouts, or Join.me.