Haddad-Wylie Industries develops diversity of marketing techniques - Houston Business Journal:

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These are the insights of Jamese Kunkel, who has worked with smallp business owners in one capacity or another for nearlyh 20 years at the Smal l Business Development Centerat St. Vincent College in They also arelessons Haddad-Wyliw Industries studied carefully as it grew into a $10 millionh company from a $500,000 start-up in 2004. The early challenge for HWI was a commom one forsmall businesses: how to reacgh potential clients after getting a couplw of big projects behind you, when you have a good story to “Getting people to trust us,” is how President Heathef Wylie describes it.
Husband Deric Haddad, who is the company’es CEO and COO, had 10 experience building clean rooms for compounding pharmacies when the companyhwas formed. “He knows the Wylie said. A friend provided the company’s first job lead for its inauguralp project, a clean room for a Duke University Hospital The work wascompleted successfully, so the question became, what’s the second act? Usinv the office copier, HWI printed a simple trifold brochure, whicuh was mailed mostly to hospitals on the East “We killed our copier,” Wylie She followed up the mailing with telephone calls — a triedc and true marketing staple.
Between 2005 and 2007, Wyliw said she made 48,000 follow-up calls. “It was she said. “It was very It also worked. The simple brochure and follow-up calls securede contracts at four University of Pittsburgu MedicalCenter hospitals, she as sales rose. “For us, it’s a lot of relationshilp building,” said Emily Gregory, who was hirede in 2007 as directof of marketing and sales to developthe company’sw marketing edge. It wasn’t long before the company begaj seeing results from the but not before Gregory looked over the trifold brochure and scratcherher head.
“This is reallyy complicated andI don’t understand the message,” she remembered The result was a bigger, letter-sizedc brochure, which was spiral-bound. On the cover, the company’s servicee were spelled out in threes short and concise Inside were color photographs of finished Sales continued to improve thesame year, with HWI becomintg a preferred vendor at the Cleveland Clinic. HWI’d marketing efforts shifted again in 2008 with construction of a Web which coincided with the printing of a newsleeo brochure. The Web site and brochure allowed the company to creatde auniform message, a uniform brand, Gregoryh said.
The Web site “gav e us another outlet for people to find she said. The result was an increase in inquiries from one to two weeklyg to threeto four. Howardx Wessel, lab manager at Soutuh Side-based Stemnion Inc., was among HWI clientx attracted by theWeb site. “It was very straightforwarsd and answered a lotof questions,” he said. “It was that initiap professionalism thatattracted me.” HWI begahn to try out other marketing approaches. In 2008, companyh representatives beganattending one-on-one meetinges with prospective clients that were arranged by a traded group.
This strategy further boosted HWI still mails out brochurese followed up withtelephone calls, but now the number of requestas for information began to grow. A tipping pointf had been reached, from pushing marketing to attractingf callers. “What’s nice about that is that it’w all of a sudden pull insteadof push, and that’es where you want to be,” said St. Vincent’s Small Business Developmeny Center’s executive director.
“You want the buzz to be out In February, HWI began telling its story ina newsletter, which is sent to current and prospectivde clients, about the same time the companyt hired four sales representatives who tout the companyg while boosting sales. HWI’s sales are expected to reach $15 million to $20 million this year as the companyu plots the next shift in itsmarketinfg strategy. “We are defying the recession,” Wylie “Everything that this company has gotten isthrough marketing.
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