Elusive Marketing

Marketing. You say the word and most people’s eyes glaze over. It is a mysterious concept with an unlimited number of strategies and venues. What might be even more mysterious, though, is how to know if something works or not and what constitutes success in a marketing campaign.

Having had a marketing firm for more than 20 years, one of my favorite strategies is often hard to track, not usually expensive and falls under the umbrella of “guerrilla marketing,” a term that was made famous by Jay Conrad Levinson and Seth Godin.

This tactic, as told in one of their Guerrilla Marketing books, involved a stockbroker in New York City. Every morning, as he pulled up to pay his toll to cross the bridge, he would look in his rearview mirror to see the make of the car behind him. If it was a Mercedes, Lexus or other luxury vehicle, he would pay the toll for two and leave his business card with the gatekeeper who then passed it on to the driver of the Mercedes, Lexus or other such car. (I guess the proliferation of E-ZPass transponders is rendering this tactic obsolete.)

This past weekend, I happened upon another very creative and, I suspect, very successful guerrilla marketing tactic. On Saturday, I had to run to the bank and decided to take the dog for a ride. We pulled into the drive-thru, and I took care of my banking business. In the carrier returned from the cashier I found, not only my cash, but also a small baggie with three dog treats and a business card for a local dog care business.

My dog was delighted with the treats, and I will definitely keep the business card for the next time my dog needs grooming. It was a very ingenious marketing effort, and it cost very little money. It was a win for the bank and a win for the dog care company.

Maryland Entrepreneur Awards Now Open

We are now accepting nominations and applications for the 2012 Maryland Entrepreneur Awards, sponsored by Maryland Entrepreneur Quarterly and the Maryland Center for Entrepreneurship, an initiative of the Howard County Economic Development Authority.

To apply, simply go to our web site, bizmonthly.com, scroll to the bottom and click on Maryland Entrepreneur Awards for the forms and information.

If you have any questions, please e-mail me at news@bizmonthly.com. We hope you will nominate someone (even yourself). The awards will be held in November at a special breakfast during Global Entrepreneur Week. We are anxious to hear from you.

Becky Mangus, Publisher

KISS (Who’s Stupid?)

One of the things that really struck me about many of the companies we featured in this issue who are experiencing significant early success is how simple their concept is. For instance, the 2012 Cupid’s Cup business competition winner Reed Street Productions is in its second year of operation and is approaching the $10 million revenue mark. Its co-founder is a University of Maryland undergraduate on an ROTC scholarship, and its concept is simple: Run and be chased by zombies. People are paying $77 a ticket for the privilege.

The business that won the Cup a year earlier, MyFridgeRental.com, rented dorm-sized refrigerators to college students.

Other examples of simple concept companies in this issue include an energy drink producer who previously sold bulldog collars (talk about a niche business), an electric vehicle charging station provider and a bakery that avoids food additives. And we can add to the list Under Armour founder Kevin Plank’s early entrepreneurial effort, Cupid’s Valentine (for which the Cupid’s Cup award is named), a Valentine’s Day rose sale business, as well.

All of these entrepreneurs are taking very simple concepts and parlaying them into big bucks. It goes to prove that the next big idea doesn’t have to be, say, a teleportation device or nanovacuums that suck all the excess bad cholesterol out of your body (although those both would be really nice to have). But these fledgling entrepreneurs are Keeping It Simple — and Smart.

With a Little Bit of Help

Many, possibly the majority, of the entrepreneurial endeavors that experience rapid success have a little bit of help. Business and technology incubators, entrepreneurial competitions such as the University of Maryland’s Cupid’s Cup, angel investors and supportive bodies such as the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) and the Chesapeake Bay Seed Capital Fund that provide seed funding all give a boost to the next great idea — provided that idea is well-researched and backed up with facts and figures and the would-be entrepreneur is persuasive and confidence-inspiring.

And there, my friends, is the real reason for the early success of these companies, or any company, for that matter. Investors, partners, landlords and customers all need to be convinced to take a risk on the entrepreneur in the belief that that risk ultimately will pay off. As contributing writer Tony Salazar tells us about Christopher Columbus’s quest for funding for his voyage, Columbus had to sharpen his proposal and impress his potential investors. When it comes right down to the dollars and cents — and sense — of it all, the explorer or the entrepreneur needs to have all his or her ducks, and ships, in a row.

Joan Waclawski, Editor

Mark Dent is a man held together by two magnetic poles: one that is determined to preserve the best of yesteryear and the other determined to anticipate the technical needs of the world faster than his competition.

The recent relocation of his $8 million company, Chesapeake Systems, reflects his attraction to the old and the new. Tucked into a residential area of the Hampden community in Baltimore, Dent’s business — which specializes in Macintosh solutions and troubleshooting for clients large and small — now resides in the old Mount Vernon United Methodist Church.

Facing vetoes from the city’s planning commission but then supported by the city council and, most enthusiastically, by the residents who now surround his company, Dent virtually brought the church back from the dead. After being struck by lightning in August 2008, the 1870s-era church was a hollowed-out, charred mess falling deeper into a chasm of disrepair every month it languished empty.

Now it’s a buzzing 9,000-square-foot headquarters for Dent’s 23 engineers and trainers, who work on installing and troubleshooting the next era of computer workflow solutions, all while gazing up at a 1900s-era pipe organ and original stained glass windows preserved from a bygone era. Dent collects and displays antique items such as a Tron arcade machine, a phone booth and a GE refrigerator from the early days of refrigeration.

Chesapeake Systems is landing an increasing number of larger clients across the nation, but the company is still very much a part of the Hampden community. “The residents here, they have pretty much supported us unanimously,” he said.

Split Personality, Divided Business

If Dent has a split personality, so does his business, which has become one of the fastest-growing companies of its kind in the region. The company’s slogan is “Creative IT for the Creative Professional and Consumer.”

Dent experienced a profound moment as an entrepreneur when he divided Chesapeake Systems into two sections, Professional Services and Home and Office.

“I had an epiphany in December 2009, and that was when I divided the company into divisions that serve two different markets,” he said.

Engineers in the first division, Professional Services, concentrate on installing and supporting enterprise-level digital workflow, asset management and storage solutions for large-scale clients in industries as diverse as broadcast, defense and education.

In addition to deep technical expertise, Chesapeake’s scope of service includes longstanding relationships with many different software vendors — including Apple, Adobe and Avid — and a working knowledge of their products and capabilities.

The second division, Home and Office, provides sales, service, training and consulting on Mac workstations, servers, software, shared storage and backup systems. At the online ChesaStore, customers also can browse and purchase new and pre-owned Macs, iPads, peripherals, supplies and software.

Dent is a fifty-fifty owner of Chesapeake Systems with his partner, George Brecht, whom he met when he repaired Brecht’s computer. One day, Brecht asked Dent if he knew of anybody who wanted a job with a new and growing company. “The next day, Mark handed me a folder — and it was him. He was willing to take a risk,” recalled Brecht.

Now Dent and Brecht have been business partners in one way or another for more than 17 years.

“George Brecht saw something in me,” said Dent. “He had a lot of faith in me.”

Keeping the Faith, Letting Go

Brecht said he has built his career by being a “serial entrepreneur.” For him, that meant being on the lookout for new business opportunities while still operating current businesses. These endeavors haven’t always been high tech, either.

In 1994, Brecht founded a food distribution company that delivered tomato paste to industrial customers in the mid-Atlantic who required short-notice delivery. Building on that foundation, the company grew to become a major provider of just-in-time distribution for products that included not only tomato paste, but specialty sugars and other foods.

“I sold that business three years ago, and now it’s a multi-million-dollar business,” he said. “I always thought it was best to put a bunch of balls in the air.”

Now in his 70s, Brecht said he is ready to start entrusting more and more of the daily operations of Chesapeake Systems to Dent, who’s 40, and the other capable staff. “It’s time to let it go,” he said.

Decades of Service

If Mark Dent caught Brecht’s eye because of his computer repair skills, Dent has caught the eye of hundreds of loyal customers, many of whom are Baltimore neighbors.

When Kelly Baumgartner, co-owner of the Baltimore-based Greg Pease Photography, bought the studio’s first computer in the 1980s, she turned to Dent. “From our very first computer, he was the person we worked with,” she said. “Now they do everything for us. We purchase all of our equipment and software from them, and we don’t work with any other companies.”

“When it comes to my Mac, I am very protective about who is allowed to work on it,” said Maryland Entrepreneur Quarterly publisher Becky Mangus. “I was one of Mark’s first clients, and his company is still the only one I am comfortable in calling.”

When Greg Pease made the transition to digital photography, Chesapeake Systems helped design a digital processing system that helped the studio grow to employ two full-time digital artists.

“Chesapeake Systems also does our troubleshooting. They put in all our network systems. And they figure out problems,” explained Baumgartner.

As Chesapeake Systems has grown, its customers say that they’ve never felt left behind in the process. “They’ve never ignored us as they’ve grown,” said Baumgartner. “And they’re fast. They test everything to make sure it’s working. They don’t waste their time — or mine.”

‘It Was New Ground’

Al Maddox, owner of Time Printers in Baltimore, was one of the first printing companies in the city to adopt the Mac computer. “In those days and times, we were looking for someone who could talk that talk,” he recalled. “It was new ground. We, as a commercial print operation, were going into some unknown land.”

Dent was the man for the job, said Maddox. “Being the visionary person he was, he guided us into that process. He let us know what he could provide to enhance and improve our operation. Over the years, they’ve been there every step of the way. And we’re still here. We’re vibrant and active in the printing industry.”

National Growth

Chesapeake Systems now reaches customers throughout the eastern U.S., with a particularly strong presence in New York City. The company’s clients range from National Geographic to Disney to government agencies.

For his largest clients, Chesapeake Systems designs what Dent refers to as soup-to-nuts solutions, “from concept to implementation to support to maintenance.”

But he also helps small businesses that use Macs but can’t justify a full-time information technology staff, and individuals who have tricky problems with their Mac setups in their homes or home offices.

Dent has the same customer-service philosophy whether he’s dealing with a million-dollar client or an individual who desperately needs her data retrieved from a broken computer. Dent said his grandfather, John Ketzner, taught him a lot about work ethics. Starting as a delivery person for the railroad at the beginning of his career, Ketzner retired in 1984 as a vice president in charge of purchasing for all of Chessie Systems.

Dent believes his grandfather was able to advance so far because he did his job without engaging in workplace politics.

“I learned my customer-service philosophy from him,” he said. “It’s ‘do the right thing, be ethical, and stay in the game long enough.’”

As a business counselor for the Anne Arundel County Small Business Development Center, Hollis Minor has noticed some commonalities among young businesses that have managed to attain stable growth.

The entrepreneurs who make it past the startup phase are those who not only keep careful track of “the numbers” — whether that means dollar figures or inventory tallies — but also intuitively understand what those numbers are telling them, said Minor.

“They don’t necessarily need to know accounting per se, but they need to be able to read their accounting reports and know what they are telling them,” she said. “They are packed with intelligence to guide decision-making and next steps.”

Too many entrepreneurs focus on getting a service or product perfected, and many entrepreneurs serve customers well, she added. But they don’t know if their pricing and business model are sustainable, let alone stable enough for growth.

Another key to getting a company from infancy to youth is to research exhaustively, she suggested. “Successful businesses need to become experts in their fields and industries and know everything there is to know about their competitors. Today there are hundreds of competitors in every imaginable space out there.”

Shift With Customers’ Needs

For information technology (IT) companies, trends and potential markets move so quickly that entrepreneurs in this sector often find themselves with young companies that are already obsolete.

Fred Brechbiel, a self-titled “serial entrepreneur,” has taken several IT companies from early stages into stable early years, then proceeded to “morph” the same company into another, sometimes altogether different, product.

Most recently the founder of Envidient, based in Dunkirk, Brechbiel incorporated his latest company in August 2010. Envidient designs QR codes, a barcode read by smartphones, and mobile web sites for clients across the globe. “I started my career as a computer scientist at NASA, then I traveled around doing software training for the Department of Defense.”

Then the Internet came into maturity as a widely-used tool, and Brechbiel’s life changed.

He launched a company known as Chesapeake.net, an Internet service provider that is now a $2.5 million business. Still president and CEO of Chesapeake.net, Brechbiel formed Envidient as an offshoot of that company.

Within a few years, Brechbiel branched out to start a web site hosting company that served many online news clients. But then newspapers began to die, he said, and it was time to move on to the next idea.

“Around that time, we heard about QR codes.” Brechbiel and his partner did their research, and noticed that QR codes were popular in Japan, then Europe, then Australia. They predicted — correctly — that they would soon storm the United States.

“We now have more than 875 subscribers worldwide, on every continent except Antarctica,” he said.

Competition – Or Good Company?

In central Maryland’s Howard County, the majority of young companies are in the IT sector. “I believe this is because of the proximity to government agencies,” observed Tim Harwood, new business development manager for the Howard County Economic Development Authority.

Harwood said that, as more young IT companies settle in Howard County, they attract their own competition — which from an economic development perspective turns out to be a positive trend. “Like attracts like in terms of companies,” he said.

But entrepreneurs don’t have to be in Howard County or in the IT sector to appreciate the value of competition. In Calvert County, Cindy Selby, owner of Blondie’s Bakery, prides herself on baking from scratch and avoiding food chemicals. Now nearly 2 years old, the bakery has been seeing an average of 25% monthly growth — and sometimes up to a 90% monthly growth.

Selby said she actually would welcome the addition of more bakeries like her own. “The more bakeries like ours, the more people will be educated about food chemicals,” she said.

From Bulldogs to Bully Bling

The key for entrepreneurs who want to make themselves stand out from the crowd of competitors is defining a competitive differential, or, said Hollis Minor, “why someone should buy from them over all the other firms doing the same thing.”

For entrepreneur Vic Guido, this meant making a drastic move from selling bulldog collars and accessories to selling an energy drink called “Bully Bling.”

Guido, a serial entrepreneur, said that “Bully Bling” is not yet the most successful venture in which he’s been involved, but he anticipates it being the most successful one day. He cites strong regional support and effective business partners as the factors that most feed into a successful young business.

Guido was making a profit selling bulldog collars, which are thicker than regular dog collars because of the strength of a bulldog’s neck, but it was not enough to make a living, he said. Now the only aspect of that previous business he retained is the name — Bully Bling — and a bulldog logo. The drink’s energy factors come from a dose of B vitamins and caffeine.

“We manufactured and received our first delivery in December 2010,” he said. Starting with a single regional convenience store — Burchmart — Bully Bling now sells not only in Maryland but in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Boston and New York, as well. “We have goals of being in 20 states by 2013.”

Whether entrepreneurs are marketing IT, cookies or energy drinks, establishing a clear identity is vital to edging out the competition, concluded Minor. “It must be a core part of their positioning and messaging.”

The next big thing is out there, waiting to be found. And chances are good it can be found at the crossroads — that is to say, that divine intersection of a good idea; a fertile, receptive market; a persistent, confident entrepreneur; and more sleepless, work-filled nights than anyone in their right mind could ever be comfortable with.

A brief survey of technology incubators throughout Maryland revealed one universal truth: All incubator tenants tend to fit that description; otherwise they wouldn’t be there.

But some, it must be said, are definitely hitting their stride and preparing to make a name for themselves in a big way. The following list provides a sampling of these companies throughout the state, recommended by the incubator directors themselves.

Social Growth Technologies

Social Growth Technologies, a tenant of Columbia’s NeoTech Incubator, has created Social Ingot, an in-game advertising platform that allows users to engage with brands through gaming.

Founded in 2009 by Paul Capriolo, the company has figured out how to offer players in-game rewards for interacting with a brand. That could involve earning playing credits or virtual currency used in games just by watching a commercial, “liking” the brand on Facebook or making a purchase at a retail store, to name just a few examples.

“We saw new revenue models popping up, but current solutions weren’t meeting the needs of game developers,” Capriolo said. “We wanted to create something more technical and flexible that would monetize better and provide a better user experience.”

Response has been overwhelming, he said. “We can now reach more than 250 million unique users every month delivering billions of impressions. We work with some of the largest advertisers and brands in the world — and it’s only getting started.”

Social gaming has emerged as a hot opportunity for a number of reasons.

“It’s a young industry, it’s the fastest growing sector of the Web, and it’s changing every year, so companies that are adaptive and responsive will win,” Capriolo said. “What was missing was a solution that could meet the needs of every type of game on every type of platform and device. We wanted to provide the foundation for game developers and platforms to monetize in a way that made sense to their users.”

The Social Growth Technologies team understands both advertising and social gaming.

“Because we’re plugged into the community, we see what’s happening or guess where it’s headed,” Capriolo said. “We are ready to not just adapt, but influence the evolution.”

Next steps: international expansion while educating large brands and demonstrating how valuable and massive the new advertising channel can be for them.

SemaConnect

Annapolis-based SemaConnect has been a tenant of the Chesapeake Innovation Center for 18 months, during which time founder Mahi Reddy has concentrated on bringing the ChargePro Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Station to market.

“At first it was an uphill climb,” Reddy observed, primarily because of the rarity of electric vehicles and a lack of consumer knowledge about them.

But after deploying more than 500 charging stations nationwide, with 1,500 more scheduled this year, interest has picked up on both the consumer and business side.

The charging industry is set to become a multi-billion-dollar industry, as all automakers have plans for introducing EVs, he said.

For now, ChargePro stations are aimed primarily at commercial locations, with hundreds installed at prominent Walgreens locations throughout the United States.

Locally, they can be found at BWI Airport and at the Knighton public parking garage on West Street in Annapolis.

A confluence of factors — decreasing EV production costs, global warming concerns, a waning appetite for foreign oil dependence — is driving the EV market, Reddy said, which bodes well for the success of EV charging stations in general.

SemaConnect went national in 2012, deploying a national sales team in major gateway cities that include New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta.

The plan: develop and produce a complete line of charging stations, including solar stations completely off the grid, while expanding software-based tools that station owners and EV drivers can take advantage of.

“SemaConnect is set to become the top EV charging station company in the U.S.,” Reddy said. “We’re ready, we’re excited, and we’re happy to be moving our transportation sector into a cleaner, greener future.”

Tox Path Specialists LLC

A recent graduate of the Technical Innovation Center at Hagerstown Community College, Tox Path Specialists specializes in nervous system disorders, a niche area important for new drug development targeting maladies such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, strokes and potentially autism.

“What we do requires a level of professional and technical expertise not readily available in other companies, even in the largest pharmaceutical firms,” said founder Dr. Mark Butt. “As the nature of drug development gets more difficult and the targets for therapeutic intervention get more complex, the intellectual property of our company becomes increasingly more in demand.”

Tox Path Specialists has grown from a core of three individuals offering essentially strictly consulting services to a group of around 15 people providing a wider range of services.

These include advanced technical services (processing specimens to determine the safety and efficacy of particular therapies); professional services (scientific interpretation of tissue specimens); and morphometry (investigating the number and/or size of structures of interest, including neurons in the brain).

Post-graduation, the company plans to continue offering support services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms all over the world.

“As the population ages, a growing proportion of people will be experiencing neurodegenerative disease, so there will continue to be a push for therapies to improve the quality of life of affected individuals,” Butt said. “Presently, we have moved to larger facilities to better accommodate our scientific and technical needs.”

Grodo Inc.

Scott Stouffer didn’t set out to reinvent the wheel, just the cash-back process. Located at the Shady Grove Innovation Center in Rockville, his company, Grodo Inc., developed a cash-back rewards program that can be attached to existing credit and debit cards.

The idea, Stouffer said, was to create a savings vehicle that offers an incentive to increase spending at participating brand retailers. The software system securely and automatically tracks transactions, provides cash-back rewards earned for shopping at retail partners, and allows customers to review spending habits on a secure online dashboard.

“It doesn’t replace club cards or discount cards, but complements them,” Stouffer explained. “It’s designed to appeal to people who aren’t necessarily loyal shoppers, those who are spending money in a lot of different stores but could easily consolidate their purchases in one place.”

There are no points to redeem and no expiration dates, just a periodic check mailed to the consumer.

Grodo’s pilot program launched in November 2011 and targets roughly 50 stores in one central Pennsylvania region, with plans to expand to 1,000 stores by next year.

“We’re trying to prove that market value, and the initial data are extremely compelling,” Stouffer said.

Participating retailers at the moment include Weis Markets, Rite Aid drug stores and Sunoco gasoline stations.

“We will be building out our retailer alliance during the second half of this year and early next year, and hope to expand to a national footprint in about two-and-a-half years,” Stouffer said.

The initial market is driven largely by grocery retailers, where the largest portion of consumer spending lies. However, there’s potential for the concept to be picked up by other retail sectors.

“We’re also able to make ad hoc offers,” Stouffer noted, which could be used by clothing retailers or other stores to more easily offer percentage savings on targeted purchase levels during set periods such as the Christmas shopping season or back-to-school time.

“It feels pretty powerful,” Stouffer said. “Entrepreneurs are always optimistic, but we feel this really could be game-changing in the retail and consumer arena.”

Who’d have thought being chased by zombies would stoke such a spark among the living — and wallet-carrying — consumer?

When he came up with the idea of staging an adventure race that involves zombies chasing humans, Ryan Hogan, co-owner of Reed Street Productions, wasn’t exactly sure the idea would come to life. In fact, the whole reason he woke up the living dead to begin with was to boost promotions for his second company, War Wear, which sold athletic apparel.

“I didn’t realize off the bat that this would take off,” Hogan said, “but we started using social media, and we designed a logo.”

Before Hogan started formally marketing, he sold the first ticket to “Run for Your Lives,” a 5K race in which participants make their way through obstacles while being chased by role-playing zombies.

In less than a year, Hogan expanded the first Run for Your Lives to more than a dozen cities nationwide, all because hundreds of thousands of runners were willing to pay $77 per ticket to race a 5K while avoiding actors in zombie makeup. The zombies try to grab flags from the belts of runners that represent the runners’ health.

There’s nothing weird about the results: The company, now in its second year, is notching toward the $10 million revenue mark.

At this point, Reed Street Productions, like a zombie, has a life of its own — a good thing since Hogan, as soon as he earns his degree from the University of Maryland through an ROTC scholarship, will be leaving for military flight school.

Reed Street Productions will be in the hands of his business partner Derrick Smith — a childhood friend who grew up with Hogan on, where else, Reed Street — while War Wear has been liquidated.

Cupid’s Cup Winner

Hogan’s idea and, even more, his business acumen, caught the eye of the judges in University of Maryland’s annual business competition.

Reed Street Productions captured first place in the 2012 Cupid’s Cup, earning a $17,500 prize.

Each year the contest attracts nearly 50 applicants, said Elana Fine, associate director of the university’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship. Applicants must be either current University of Maryland students or alumni who have graduated within the past five years.

Cupid’s Cup began in 2006, founded and supported by University of Maryland graduate Kevin Plank, founder and CEO of the athletic apparel company Under Armour.

The competition got its name from one of Plank’s early entrepreneurial ventures, a Valentine’s Day rose sale business called Cupid’s Valentine that he started while he was an undergraduate. The small business earned Plank more than $20,000 during his four years at the university.

“What is so compelling about Reed Street Productions is how quickly they were able to pull off very popular events — and build a lot of revenue around these events,” said Fine.

Social Media Among the Living

The marketing strategy for Run for Your Lives relied heavily on social media, with its Facebook page earning first place in the Baltimore Business Journal’s “Biz Buzz” awards for social media.

“I do think that social media is one of our greatest assets in building popularity for our event,” said Matt Hodges, a graphic designer who manages some of Reed Street’s social media outlets. “We have a very strong team behind our Facebook page, constantly updating, promoting and answering questions.”

The page, which helped draw 10,000 participants to the inaugural Run for Your Lives event in Darlington, was developed by Owings Mills ad agency MGH. The page allowed race managers to interact with prospective runners, pass along pertinent race data and engage fans of the edgy zombie genre.

Fans, Friends and Phones

The phone at Reed Street Productions is generally ringing constantly. At least some of those calls are people who now want to work for “those zombie race people.” The once obscure small business now has a sea of résumés for each job opening.

“It’s constant, and it’s amazing how excited and enthusiastic the job candidates are,” said Michele Boeri, Reed Street’s human resources director.

As for the Cupid’s Cup, entrepreneurs are already looking at 2013. Reed Street Productions beat out 10G Systems, a web-based transportation software provider; Route One Apparel, an e-commerce platform for creative apparel designed by students; Visisonics, provider of realistic 3-D audio for music, movies and gaming in standard headphones; and runner-up Food Safety Administration, a provider of online courses for food service professionals required to earn food and alcohol safety certifications (winner of the $7,500 second prize).

Tina Corner is accustomed to change and flexibility, having held senior executive leadership positions in every size company from startups to multi-billion-dollar global organizations.

In 2005 she founded Maryland’s first The Alternative Board (TAB) franchise, an organization that provides peer advisory boards and coaching services for business owners, CEOs and presidents. For good measure, she developed it into the fastest growing TAB franchise in the country. Her Annapolis-based E-Exchange consulting firm is also focused on providing peer advisory and business coaching services to privately held companies.

Corner serves on the board of the Howard County Chamber of Commerce. Her accolades include being named one of Maryland’s Top 100 women by The Daily Record, a Smart CEO Brava! Award and the 2011 CBED Distinguished Business Award.

Since July 2011, Corner has served as president of a new entity called Intellectual Innovations LLC, which she formed in partnership with Larry Linne of Windsor, Colo. She recently discussed her entrepreneurial life with Maryland Entrepreneur Quarterly.

What are the highlights of your entrepreneurial career?

I started two new Profit and Loss divisions in a global telecom company, and was later part of an Internet startup that sold and later went public. I started a new franchise — The Alternative Board — in 2005, and I’m now involved in a new company called Intellectual Innovations.

What did you learn as an entrepreneur, and how did entrepreneurship affect your personal growth?

I’ve learned to concentrate less on risk and more on opportunity. It has affected me by always having a Plan B and Plan C when Plan A might not work out. When building something, you don’t have a lot of resources, time or money initially, and being sure your initiatives have a return on investment is important when things don’t always go how you envisioned them.

Where do you find your motivation to persevere or to pursue the next idea?

From the customer. If you listen to the customers, they give you the ideas and then the expectation for you to fulfill them. That drives perseverance.

How does someone know when he or she is ready for entrepreneurship? Is anyone actually ever “ready” to be an entrepreneur?

I don’t think you “get ready” to be an entrepreneur. I believe you have a dream, a vision, and you just set out to make it happen. Risk can’t be something that you fret over; you just figure out how to make it happen. Failure is not an option.

Tell us about your Intellectual Innovations partnership.

Larry Linne and I formed a partnership in July of 2011 to offer the Noise Reduction System program developed from the book he authored: Make the Noise Go Away. We sell to licensed facilitators nationally and internationally. The program teaches key executives who report to the CEO how to remove or reduce the “noise” from the owner’s head. We teach 25 tools over a 10-month, two-hour-a-month program.

The results are amazing, and classes are not just open to companies, but are now being offered in higher education institutions like [Louisiana State University] as well. This is a great tool for entrepreneurs who don’t like or have time to develop their direct reports to deal with execution of their ideas and putting key processes in place for developing the foundation of the business, so the entrepreneur can concentrate on doing what they do best.

How do you recommend going about forming partnerships and finding the right partner?

I am a big advocate for partnerships, as they can exponentially expand your capabilities and growth. You cannot do it alone, and the right partnership provides positive leverage and a win-win for all involved.

How you find a good partnership is: Keep your eyes and ears open to those individuals who have similar values and business ethics, and where your businesses can create 1 + 1 = 3 [synergies]. How they are formed depends on how formal an arrangement needs to be. That depends on how integral your partnership is to each other and the risk or expectations required for success. The more formal means the need for greater expectations from each other.

Are you working with any young entrepreneurs at The Alternative Board who are showing great promise early on? How do you recognize when someone has what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur?

There are many exciting young entrepreneurs here in our backyard. They are easy to spot: They attract talent, have high energy, absorb all the knowledge they can garner from other CEOs; they have a can-do attitude, have capacity to personally grow and are not afraid.

What is your philosophy when it comes to entrepreneurship?

Entrepreneurship is like the debate about leadership: Are you born or are you made? My philosophy is you are born with certain characteristics that lend themselves to being a great leader or entrepreneur and they are developed. You will either like being an entrepreneur or you won’t. It isn’t taught. But of course, that’s my perspective only.

What aspect of entrepreneurship doesn’t get enough coverage or recognition? Why do you think this gets overlooked?

How lonely of a journey it is for an entrepreneur. It is anything but glamorous, with a lot of risk and required internal conviction that your vision can become real even though others may not see it yet. It gets overlooked because most entrepreneurs are optimists and have to be. If you think about the lonesome journey aspect, it can scare the heck out of you. So you don’t talk about it.

It’s been a busy quarter in the online marketing industry, with a crowd of want-to-be, used-to-be, already-are companies vying for a seat at the front of the technology bus.

But perhaps the most surprising turn of events is the emergence of organic SEO (search engine optimization) as the second-place finisher in the online marketing field. E-mail marketing still occupies the No. 1 position, used by 87% of online marketers participating in a recent study by Social Media Marketer. Organic SEO is second with an impressive 65% usage.

Online ads, which included Google AdWords, the expensive but undisputed darling of the pay per click industry, has dropped to the No. 6 position with only 38% usage.

Studies show that Internet searchers are more apt to click on an organic listing first than a sponsored link (pay per click ad). Consumers today are much smarter and understand the difference between a carefully crafted message from an online marketer and the “organic” or pure results from Google or Bing’s search engine algorithm. Studies also show that people are also willing to go hunting for the diamonds on pages 2 and 3 of the search engine results instead of just quickly browsing the first page.

In today’s economy, it comes as no surprise that folks are willing to spend the extra time it takes to find the right product or service to meet their needs.

Customer Retention Preached But Not Practiced

With the emergence of social marketing as a viable online marketing tool, using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to build your brand and customer loyalty has become dogma in online marketing. However, when it comes to customer retention and brand loyalty building, it seems that most modern marketers are not practicing what they preach.

A recent survey of marketing executives by Acxiom/Loyalty 360 showed that 84.5% of business-to-business and bus-

iness-to-consumer companies use customer retention programs. However, less than half of these same companies believe their retention strategies are actually working. In fact, 11.6 % don’t believe their retention programs are working at all.

With the average business losing anywhere from 20% to 40% of its customers or clients each year, retaining even a few more customers can be a big boost to the bottom line. If used properly, social marketing could become a powerful customer loyalty and retention tool. Unfortunately, the jury is still out on what constitutes best practices in the social marketing arena. It’s time to cut through the “fuzzy-wuzzy” speak about what works and doesn’t work in social marketing and deliver some easy-to-understand how-tos backed by actual research.

Tech Facts & Trends

• Publishers march to mobile. Major publishers are jumping on the mobile bandwagon, upgrading their advertising options on the tablet versions of their publications. With tablet and smartphone usage going through the roof and recent research showing that 71% of tablet users want to read their publications on their tablet, this looks like a brilliant move by the publishing industry.

• Tablet wars to heat up. As Samsung and Amazon refine the technology of their tablet products to compete with Apple, Google prepares to launch its own tablet product. The good news is that as long as Apple stays in its high-price/high quality niche, there is plenty of room for everyone at the tablet table. For quality seekers, however, there is still only one choice: the iPad.

• Pinterest becomes No. 3 social network. According to an Experian trends report just released, web traffic to online bulletin board Pinterest has increased 50%, catapulting it ahead of the other socials to occupy the coveted No. 3 position behind Facebook and Google. Users create a virtual bulletin board of their favorite products and services, sharing the information with their friends. According to the Experian study, Pinterest users are 60% female, aged 25 to 44, spanning everything from shopaholics and do-it-yourselfers to business owners.

• Google transforms SciFi into reality with Project Glass. It isn’t enough for Google to download every piece of information in the universe and place it at our fingertips. With Project Glass, it is putting this information right before our eyes as we walk through our daily routine. These augmented reality glasses are Google’s first venture into wearable computing. It is pretty amazing stuff. And yes, they look a lot like the visor worn by Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” For a peek at the product, just view the YouTube video called “Project Glass: One Day….”

Ken Mays is president & creative director of Mays & Associates (www.ad-mays.com), a web site development, online marketing and graphic design company located in Columbia. Mays specializes in responsive web site designs that automatically adapt to mobile devices, SEO, online advertising, e-mail and social network marketing. An award-winning writer and designer, he can be reached at 410-964-9701 or at ken@ad-mays.com. Send him a Facebook friend request or follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/mays_associates.

Entrepreneurs, especially those just starting out, usually are on a pretty tight budget. Below is a listing of things and services you can get for free to help stretch those precious dollars.

Business Cards & Car Door Sign

VistaPrint (vistaprint.com) is an online printing company that offers 250 free, good-quality business cards, as well as other free products, such as a car door magnetic sign. You will need to pay processing and shipping, but the costs don’t seem outrageous.

Computer Help & Software

Submit your computer question to protonic.com and an answer will be e-mailed to you from a volunteer expert. Response time is generally fairly quick. The site also offers a collection of free downloads that have been recommended by the site’s users and technicians, although the disclaimer is that they are “as is” and are not supported by protonic (the site does state that “as far as we are able to determine these files are VIRUS FREE”).

Business Classes

The Small Business Administration (sba.gov) offers free online courses; they take about 30 minutes each to complete and are self-paced. Free in-person classes are also offered at SBA district offices.

Mentoring

SCORE (formerly known as the Service Corps of Retired Executives) provides free mentoring services to both newly-minted and experienced entrepreneurs. Sign up on its web site, www.score.org, to be matched with either an e-mail mentor whom you can select according to mentoring skills and industry experience, or a local entrepreneur who will meet with you in person.

Credit Report

Everyone is entitled to one credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus each year, free of charge. Visit annualcreditreport.com for directions. If you’re considering seeking financing for your business, this is a must-do.

Wi-Fi Hot Spots

Who needs an office, or even an Internet service? Get a directory of restaurants and coffee shops that offer free wireless Internet access at wififreespot.com.

Gently Used Furniture and Other Stuff

Check out freecycle.org and the “Free Stuff” section of your local craigslist.org for all kinds of free items. You do need to join your local Freecycle group, but it’s … free.

Business Partner

Co-Founders Lab (www.cofounderslab.com) offers a free Match.com-type service for entrepreneurs, connecting individuals with others who offer complementary services and skills, and sometimes even a cash investment. You can sort candidates by city or industry.

Photo Organizer

Picasa (picasa.google.com) is a free software download from Google that helps you locate and organize all the photos on your computer. It allows you to edit and add effects, share photos with others through e-mail, print them or upload them to the web.

Directory Assistance

Dial 800-FREE-411, then follow the prompts to get your desired number — either a residential or a business listing (in the U.S.) — by phone or text message. You will need to listen to a 10-second advertisement, however.

Language Lessons

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) offers classes in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Mandarin Chinese and more. Sign up at bbc.co.uk/languages for a step-by-step interactive course and learning tips.

This issue of Maryland Entrepreneur Quarterly (MEQ) celebrates businesses that have been able to survive for a couple of years and are, apparently, on the road to long-term success. At a minimum, the mere existence of these businesses is noteworthy.

Research has shown that more than half of small businesses fail within 10 years of their establishment. Other studies indicate that nine out of 10 small businesses fail within three years of startup. Numerous reasons are cited for this high failure rate, but the commonality among all the reasons has to do with the performance of people, particularly the lack of performance among leadership.

There is understandable euphoria associated with starting a business. The gleam in the eye of the entrepreneur is reflective of the hope and passion that is required to make the transition from an idea to an opportunity, and finally, to a viable business. Yet, to objective outsiders, that gleam, while appreciated, can be concurrently disconcerting.

I have watched entrepreneurs, their spouses and other family members excitedly sign loan papers with little thought of the potential negative impact on their finances and their personal lives if the business fails. Many of these individuals are committed to their businesses, and display the requisite passion for their perceived opportunities, but are often undone by a lack of critical business skills and an unwillingness to effectively address those shortcomings.

Leadership vs. Management

Over the last several decades, academia and industry have made distinctions between leadership and management. I have found that an effective shorthand version of that distinction is that leadership is about people and management concerns process.

Unfortunately, so much of the literature attempts to make the case that, in terms of business success, leadership is superior to management. However, Peter Drucker, perhaps the most renowned and celebrated expert on business and business theory, notes that the best leaders are effective managers, and that those who lead but don’t manage run the risk of becoming irrelevant and even dangerous.

Leadership is critical, but it cannot, nor should it, be detached from management.

My favorite description of leadership is attributed to former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, who said, “Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.” When one deconstructs that statement, it is clear that while there is a difference between leadership and management, the two concepts are inextricably linked, and undeniably necessary for business success.

Five Types of Failure

Returning to the issue of the high failure rate of small businesses, research cites the performance of management as the most common factor in that failure.

Academician Jaroslaw Ropega of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Industrial Policy at the University of Lodz in Poland cites five types of failure in small- and medium-sized businesses. The first is referred to as an unsuccessful startup, which is a business that has no chance of survival due to management errors made in the establishment of the business. These errors lead to inadequate control procedures and inefficient operations that cause a business to fail shortly after it has been established.

The second category of failure is the dazzled growth company. In this case, management is overly excited about the initial success of the business and becomes too optimistic regarding its future prospects, which can lead to loss of control and either a lack of understanding of potential problems or a tendency to ignore the potential for problems. Ultimately, the business fails due to these problems and to the financial hardship that can result. The businesses celebrated in this issue of MEQ are at risk of the dazzled growth company syndrome.

The third category is the apathetic established company, which is, as the name implies, a company that has been successful historically and relies on past strategies, ignoring changes in the marketplace. These companies lose strategic advantages and respond too late to reverse their prospects.

The fourth category is the ambitious growth company. Management of these companies seeks to be industry leaders and tends to have a high-risk profile and suffer from excessive optimism. Its lack of planning leads to a consistent misreading of the market, and facilitates business failure.

The final category is the excessive internal consumption company, in which management uses company cash to finance an excessive lifestyle rather than reinvesting in the business. Management often engages in creative accounting similar to Enron, which is a recipe for financial disaster.

‘Higher Sights’

Consistent with the aforementioned information, Glenn Valdiserri of the University of Phoenix and John Wilson of Nova Southeastern University cite studies that blame the failure of small businesses on management incompetence as leaders. Valdiserri and Wilson note further that leadership style is a major influence on the profitability and success of the business.

A description of effective leadership styles is beyond the scope of this article. However, it must be noted that, while management and leadership are linked, they are different concepts that rely on distinct skills.

Entrepreneurs seeking to build successful enterprises in terms of growth and profitability must become leaders with the ability to establish a vision for the organization, empower people to perform, hold those people accountable with a system of rewards and punishments and embrace change. Good managers establish strong processes and procedures for the purpose of control and operations, and that is a foundation requirement for a sustainable business.

But business success is about the performance of people, and people will respond to leaders that exhibit vision, trust and credibility, modeling the behavior they seek in their employees.

So, as we celebrate the businesses identified in this magazine, let’s hope that they continue to focus on the necessities for future success, and understand that people, including management, must grow before the business can proceed to the next level of market share, growth and profitability.

Peter Drucker best captures this concept: “Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. Nothing better prepares the ground for such leadership than a spirit of management that confirms in the day-to-day practices of the organization strict principles of conduct and responsibility, high standards of performance, and respect for individuals and their work.”

Michael A. Mobley is managing partner of Obsidian Management LLC in Ellicott City. He also teaches a course on entrepreneurship at Howard Community College. He may be reached at 410-418-4453 or obsidianmgmt@aol.com.