Page 12 - Decide by Gino Wickman

Decide! The One Common Denominator of All Great Leaders by Gino Wickman 9 As Paul Kesman, the integrator* of Identity Marketing, began to be especially affected by the economic downturn. says, “As our company grew over the years, the number of The early results have been positive.” clients we represented in the real estate industry continued to grow. By the end of 2007, the percentage of Identity While it might not seem focused for Identity Marketing clients related in some way to the industry was over 50 to have four industries in its target market, it’s actually percent. We realized that this was a risk. Having witnessed extremely focused, as it has more than thirty industries to how other local public relations frms that relied almost choose from. This narrowing helps it to excel in a handful exclusively on the automotive industry were subject to of industries and keep its client base relatively diversifed. its highs and lows, we decided to make a concerted effort This enables Identity Marketing to make better decisions to diversify our client base and target other industries, about marketing, selling, training, and hiring to attract and with the long-term goal that we would establish ourselves retain its ideal clients. nationally as a leading frm in those specifc industries, as we had done with real estate. “We made this decision in early 2008. At that time, our real estate practice was still strong and growing. That said, we focused our marketing efforts on three other industries that we felt offered potential for growing a national practice. We formulated a plan and began to roll it out in the summer. Mark Winter, my partner, who was managing that effort, took the lead. It remains his focus and it’s something we review and address together on a regular basis. As it *The term Integrator defnes the person who is accountable for running the company. He or she is the person who is in charge of harmoniously turned out, the timing was ideal, as the real estate industry integrating the major functions of the business. www.eosworldwide.com