This week, I spent a little bit of time at the office where we mine and print our direct mail and equity letters.
For those not familiar with the automotive business, this is a highly detailed form of marketing that is most often done through direct mail and email. It is also a company that we had used as a vendor for a long time but had the option at the end of 2017 to purchase and operate as our own business.
In the very beginning, it felt like you were jumping into a time warp just based on the executions and equipment that were in this company, as the previous owners had not paid it much attention, nor would they ever spend any money and invest in their people and their infrastructure.
This week, though, I walked in as we are on the tail end of an office renovation and have a couple of new team members in the organization who are breathing new signs of life into the place. It felt very good to see what has transpired in the short 15 months since taking it over, where the normal monthly work used to average around 70,000 pieces of mail to a total last month of over 350,000 pieces of mail. The speed and energy of the place has been jolted and felt vibrant as I spent a couple of days there. While it is far from perfect and still in very humble beginnings, it is a place that has a ton of momentum behind it and is starting to really develop a set of legs all on its own.
It’s really quite refreshing. I stood back in a makeshift loading garage where we are currently running all the printers while we complete the last stages of the renovation, and I looked at it in awe of all that had been accomplished.
I smiled for a minute when I thought about all of the people (even some of our own employees from the agency who had seen this operation before I bought it) who told me how it was “never going to work” and “was not a good investment.” Not that I am a person who feels they have to be right all the time, but do think of myself as an optimist who has a keen sense of seeing opportunity.
Sometimes the brightest and shiniest of all objects are best when they come from humble beginnings.