ARTICLE
Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Tietbohl. Mark, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today? Growth Strategy Advisors is the culmination of my career to this point. It combines what I learned in retail and customer behavior, direct marketing and testing, working with clients on growth strategies (both organically and through acquisition) and building new programs for a Fortune 50 Company. Early on, I realized that I was good with being on my own, so after finishing my MBA, I left the corporate world, and starting consulting to small businesses that needed help with planning. This eventually led to myself and a partner founding a printing and direct mail company that specialized in conducting tests for clients. I have gone back to the corporate world (Lowe’s Companies, Inc.) for 9 plus years, but our team largely functioned as “intrapreneurs” building new programs and go-to-market options. We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you? No, there are always struggles and trials when you are an entrepreneur. There were the usual issues with non-payment by clients, making payroll, expanding too fast with too little capital and learning how to adjust. This has been true in all my times as an entrepreneur, but direct mail had the additional complications of fast deadlines and little to no room for error. This has also been true of many of the clients I have worked with. They struggle, they have too much to do, and there are often too many (conflicting) decisions to be made. I like to think that I help them with part of that. Trusting what people relay to you can also lead to complications. (I tend to be a very trusting person, even today). But trusting in the past has cost me a business, put me into a bankruptcy, cost me some clients and led to situations where I really could have done better. But on the flipside, trusting people has also led to some great results in both my personal and professional lives. The rewards were often emotional and psychological, and that has made the journey worthwhile. So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Growth Strategy Advisors story. Tell us more about the business. Here in Florida, I have gone back to my pre-Lowe’s roots. We sometimes work with other teams and sometimes bring qualified people onto our teams on a project-by-project basis. Our clients are mainly in technology, but we also work with clients in manufacturing, services and retailing. Essentially, we help companies uncover and pursue additional opportunities that are not always obvious ones. To that extent, we will do market discovery and trending, both with primary and secondary research. We will interview a company’s customers (short and long term), their prospects, industry thought leaders, competitors. We are very good at mining the web for information, as this is something we have been doing since the ‘90’s. The end result is to find a way for the client company to gain additional profitable revenue. At times, our work is also used to attract financing to allow this to happen. But our work does not end at issuing a report. We will continue to work with a client (if they choose) and act as a sounding board as they move through their upcoming journey. While we have not had any “unicorns” we have had some very successful clients that have enhanced the success of the business. This is an expectation that I personally go into every engagement hoping to achieve. We want successful clients…even if we cannot really talk about them! Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business? There have been a number of times where I have had good luck and had bad luck. Let me relate a story in one case of how we won a battle but ultimately still lost the war. When I was acting as a consultant, I was brought into a consumer products company as an acting CMO. The company was small, but had a definite brand image and also had retail distribution. The Private Equity Group had purchased the company expecting big things. The issue was that nobody knew how quickly that Chinese competition would destroy this market, especially the market segment and distribution chain that the company primarily serviced. They were the high-quality option in an environment where most competitors were lower quality. The Chinese entry threw that whole market into disarray. In a year, we recognized this, built ways to remain semi-viable in the market they existed in, and added new markets better suited to our product. Results were highly encouraging, but it would take time. Unfortunately, the PE group wanted the original market and sold the company, and the newly established brands to a competitor that wanted access to the markets we had opened. Contact Info: Address: Boynton Beach, FL Website: http://growthstrategy.consulting Phone: 704-942-1823 Email: mark@growthstrategy.consulting Twitter: https://twitter.com/mtietbohl Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/growthstrategyadvisors/
Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Tietbohl.
Mark, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Growth Strategy Advisors is the culmination of my career to this point. It combines what I learned in retail and customer behavior, direct marketing and testing, working with clients on growth strategies (both organically and through acquisition) and building new programs for a Fortune 50 Company.
Early on, I realized that I was good with being on my own, so after finishing my MBA, I left the corporate world, and starting consulting to small businesses that needed help with planning. This eventually led to myself and a partner founding a printing and direct mail company that specialized in conducting tests for clients.
I have gone back to the corporate world (Lowe’s Companies, Inc.) for 9 plus years, but our team largely functioned as “intrapreneurs” building new programs and go-to-market options.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
No, there are always struggles and trials when you are an entrepreneur. There were the usual issues with non-payment by clients, making payroll, expanding too fast with too little capital and learning how to adjust.
This has been true in all my times as an entrepreneur, but direct mail had the additional complications of fast deadlines and little to no room for error. This has also been true of many of the clients I have worked with. They struggle, they have too much to do, and there are often too many (conflicting) decisions to be made. I like to think that I help them with part of that.
Trusting what people relay to you can also lead to complications. (I tend to be a very trusting person, even today). But trusting in the past has cost me a business, put me into a bankruptcy, cost me some clients and led to situations where I really could have done better.
But on the flipside, trusting people has also led to some great results in both my personal and professional lives. The rewards were often emotional and psychological, and that has made the journey worthwhile.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Growth Strategy Advisors story. Tell us more about the business.
Here in Florida, I have gone back to my pre-Lowe’s roots. We sometimes work with other teams and sometimes bring qualified people onto our teams on a project-by-project basis. Our clients are mainly in technology, but we also work with clients in manufacturing, services and retailing.
Essentially, we help companies uncover and pursue additional opportunities that are not always obvious ones. To that extent, we will do market discovery and trending, both with primary and secondary research. We will interview a company’s customers (short and long term), their prospects, industry thought leaders, competitors. We are very good at mining the web for information, as this is something we have been doing since the ‘90’s.
The end result is to find a way for the client company to gain additional profitable revenue. At times, our work is also used to attract financing to allow this to happen. But our work does not end at issuing a report. We will continue to work with a client (if they choose) and act as a sounding board as they move through their upcoming journey.
While we have not had any “unicorns” we have had some very successful clients that have enhanced the success of the business. This is an expectation that I personally go into every engagement hoping to achieve. We want successful clients…even if we cannot really talk about them!
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
There have been a number of times where I have had good luck and had bad luck. Let me relate a story in one case of how we won a battle but ultimately still lost the war.
When I was acting as a consultant, I was brought into a consumer products company as an acting CMO. The company was small, but had a definite brand image and also had retail distribution. The Private Equity Group had purchased the company expecting big things. The issue was that nobody knew how quickly that Chinese competition would destroy this market, especially the market segment and distribution chain that the company primarily serviced. They were the high-quality option in an environment where most competitors were lower quality.
The Chinese entry threw that whole market into disarray. In a year, we recognized this, built ways to remain semi-viable in the market they existed in, and added new markets better suited to our product. Results were highly encouraging, but it would take time. Unfortunately, the PE group wanted the original market and sold the company, and the newly established brands to a competitor that wanted access to the markets we had opened.
Contact Info:
Address: Boynton Beach, FL
Website: http://growthstrategy.consulting
Phone: 704-942-1823
Email: mark@growthstrategy.consulting
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mtietbohl
Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/growthstrategyadvisors/