Marketing Athleticism©

What it is and why it’s important to you in your candidate selection

Steve Eckels

What is Marketing Athleticism©?

• It is the combination of a versatile skill set, diverse marketing experience and intrinsic creativity that provides employers with a valuable team player, one who can perform any and many marketing functions with creativity, competence, and commitment.

Why It’s ImportantSearching for a new employee is a lot like drafting a player for a sports franchise: you want someone who has experience and can

play the position well.

But drafting an athlete with experience limited to a particular position often limits the value of the draftee: good at that position,

but not athletic enough to play a more diversified role for the team.

That’s why many teams select the best athlete, one whose athletic skills can be adapted to play a variety of positions.

The same approach could produce similar benefits to an employer. By hiring someone with “marketing athleticism”

intrinsic with adaptability and learnability, the value of the asset and the potential ROI are greatly enhanced.

I believe I have “marketing athleticism”. I hope you’ll agree with my assessment and feel confident enough to make me your

number one draft pick.

MyMarketing

Athleticism©

skills

Presenting

WritingThinking

Managing

Leading

ThinkingIntelligently to:Set Objectives

Develop Strategy Create conceptsPlan execution

Develop budget

WritingCreatively:

Ideas, Ideas, IdeasPresentations

CopyProject Plans

Business Plans

PresentingIn 15 countries to:Product ManagersExecutive Boards

Industry Audiences Agency

Management

DetroitNew York

San FranciscoSydney

Adelaide Melbourne

LondonParisRomeMilanZurichBrugesHelsinki

StockholmOslo

FrankfurtViennaLisbonMadrid

ManagingWith interpersonal acumen:

AccountsClient Services

Creative Groups Internal & External Agencies

International AgencyNetworkBudgets

LeadingIn key roles as :

Account Supervisor

Vice PresidentSenior V.P.

Executive V.P President

The Teams I’ve Played On• Visual Services, Inc. (1972-1982, 1993-1997)

• A marketing communications company specializing in the automotive industry. At its peak it employed over 1000 communications professionals who delivered a variety of marketing support programs, including administering the first-ever automotive cash rebate program, providing auto showroom materials for dealers, establishing satellite learning for dealerships and producing numerous direct mail and promotional campaigns.

• In my first tour of duty I was a proofreader, copywriter and new business proposal writer. As V.P of the Ford Motor Company business I managed the Account group, directed the creative and generated the invoices for the multi-million dollar billings. We met or exceed our billing objective every year of my V.P. tenure.

• As Executive V.P of Integrated marketing and Customer Support in my second tenure, I dichotomized the legacy Information Systems group, creating an Imagination Systems group which focused on and developed the company’s entry into client-server architecture to support our tele-marketing group. I conceived , wrote and successfully presented the new system to Nissan Motors and won a significant lease-end customer relationship management program. I also wrote and presented “Virtual Relationship Management” to Lexus a presentation on a future communications model which proved to be well ahead of its time.

The Teams I’ve Played On

• Wunderman Worldwide (1982-1993)

• An international Direct Marketing agency and subsidiary of Young and Rubicam Advertising, it was the leading agency in billings and locations. Hired in 1982 to open an office in Detroit to serve Ford Motor Company, I grew the office from 5 to 52 with year-on-year billing increases. I led the development of our database marketing efforts with Ford and sold the first “Curriculum Marketing” campaign to Lincoln which produced excellent sales results.

• My success earned a promotion and transfer to London, England in 1988, initially as Ford European Account Director, subsequently as President of the Wunderman European Network of seventeen agencies in thirteen countries. Notable accomplishments included the implementation of a pan-European Customer Loyalty program for Ford which included the procurement of database and printing facilities to support the U.K. and German programs respectively.

The Teams I’ve Played On• Charles Schwab and Company (1997-2007)

• A major Financial Services company providing brokerage and banking products to over five million customers, this San Francisco-based company revolutionized the investing business with its focus on the individual investor, low commissions and the use of the internet to facilitate customer transactions. I was hired as As Senior Vice President of Customer Communications which included responsibility for the internal advertising agency, all lithographic print production and all transactional communication output. As problems with aging print and mailing technology mounted, I shifted my focus and adapted my skills from marketing communications to high-speed print production. My most notable achievement was the development, composition, presentation and successful procurement for funding of a $35,000,000 state-of-the-art- printing and mailing facility in Coppell , Texas. The new system reduced reporting errors from circa 200 per million to less than 2 per million.

• The facility was purpose-built from scratch and fully operational in less than ten months and it’s opening allowed the company to eliminate the problems of managing a cadre of seven print vendors. Subsequently, I consolidated our warehousing facilities in the new plant, closed four support facilities and reduced the company run-rate by over $8,000,000 annually.

• A testament to my leadership, team-building, management and mentoring skills was written by a company-wide employee survey in which my employees had the highest satisfaction and retention scores in the Company at a time of difficult financial and market conditions.

...if your looking for

someone with this kind of “Marketing

Athleticism©” -- then we

should talk.

Presenting

WritingThinking

Managing

Leading

I’m a free agent (not quite free!)looking for my next great team...

Steve Eckels

2114 Wedgewood WaySanta Rosa, CA 95404707-575-6906 (H)415-730-6256 (M)

ewstephen60@sbcglobal.net

seckels@mac.com

Referrals Available on LinkedIn profile. Writing examples @ “This I Believe”, @ “Newsvine“ click on ewstephen. Fiction on request.