20 Years of B2B Marketing

Happy 2014! Today, as I prepared to write this Frantz Group 20 year anniversary post, it occurred to me that a walk through our building would help me get started, and it did.

As I walked through our data center, offices, library and training facilities, phone system, calling cubicles, lunch room and entry way, what has been happening here for the past twenty years and what is happening here now filled my head.

At the end of my walk, I emerged most conscious of what is happening now, change.

It is said, without change there can be no breakthroughs. Without breakthroughs, there can be no future.

At Frantz, we get that, and we are all over it.

To comprehend the scale of change at hand, take a look at the Gartner map of our digital marketing world today. Does anybody still think all you need to market is a phone book, a phone and a caller? I don’t think so.

And what make things more challenging, is our customers today are both in some fashion involved in making a channel/partner setting work while typically under in marketing headcount. As a result, those leading these marketing efforts find this graphic and this digital world intimidating and overwhelming. With this many moving parts, that have to be performed by correctly skilled people and monitored, all the time, it is difficult for them to make real progress. Most of our clients are sure they cannot do all this by themselves. We understand this perspective.

At Frantz, our response to this circumstance is, “it takes a village.” so we have built one.

Actually, to be precise, we believe , “It takes a fractional village.” A fractional village of strategy, planning and execution support resources that our clients can selectively use to help them reliably get their vast job done. (Also see reference at the end of this document to the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.”, which is what inspired us.)

What we have built here is a team of marketing skilled employees and partners that can take you to the moon if that’s where you want to go. And get you there with a rational timeline and budget.

In spite of all this high velocity change, for me, I have never loved what I am doing more than now, never loved what Frantz can do for its customers more than now. The game is still growing top line revenue and company valuation, and that endlessly gets me out of bed with a smile every day.

If you are interested in what has stayed the same over the past 20 years, I would say:

  • Many of our customers… like IBM, who wrote The Frantz Group its first check back on September 15th, 1993. (A copy of that check hangs in my office.)
  • Our Values, including , respect for the individual, equal opportunity, excellence, merit pay, honesty.
  • Our employees… many of which have served the Frantz Group for over a decade.
  • Our passion for achieving our client’s goals.
  • Our passion for educating and growing our employees and promoting from within when possible.
  • Our passion for adapting to the new world we are presented with each day.

What do I think the next 20 years holds in store for Frantz? Lots, I would say.

We have the opportunity to apply our creativity and industry to driving client revenue, and in our small way, the economy in general.

And in that process, to meet new business leaders, and help them along their way.

I know it is a cliché , but, I really can’t wait for each new day.

All My Best,
John

(African proverb: “It takes a village to raise a child.” The saying and its attribution as an “African” proverb were in circulation before it was adopted by Clinton as the source for the title of her book. It originated from the Nigerian Igbo culture and proverb “Ora na azu nwa” whch means it takes the community/village to raise a child. The Igbo’s also name their children “Nwa ora” which means child of the community. It has been in existence in Africa for centuries. Indeed, the saying previously provided the source for the title of a children’s book entitled It Takes a Village by Jane Cowen-Fletcher, published in 1994.

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It means that a child does not just grow up within a home, where there may be a single parent or a combination of parents, but a child will grow up in a community, a village, and that a child will not grow up just in a home but in a social world with input and understanding from the village. Regardless of the child’s upbringing, the child belongs to and is shaped by the community.)