Mark Sunshine

Those Who Don't Learn from History...

Dear Mr. iThinkBig:

You have an interesting marketing challenge. I have a friend who is in a sort of similar business where they help companies work down their cost of banking services (not loans but things like wire transfers, transaction processing, merchant fees (not for credit but processing), returned check fees, etc.).

They only get paid if they save the client money and get the service done well. And, they have the same problem as you do in getting their clients to be honest and open up (and let my friend save them money and improve quality). There are marketing techniques that my friend employed with only limited success. It is a tough marketing model and mostly because the buyers of the service often have a conflict of interest (if they hire you and you do a great job it may adversly impact their job security by making it look like they weren't doing a good job before - so doing the right thing for the company often isn't the right thing for the individual).

I think that your move to integrating by buying brands is smart and intuitive.

Thanks for reading.

Mark Sunshine