Strategic Introductions is a unique service providing direct access to key executives for critical first meeting opportunities. By connecting clients to their targets and collapsing the timelines of traditional sales processes, we reduce the risk of missed opportunities.
Our clients are typically CEOs of growing companies that require a more consistent flow of qualified opportunities leading to a higher percentage of closed business.
Managing relationships is an Art that we practice passionately, consistently giving more than we ask to make sure that the required doors are always open. The results of our practice are connections and relationships that add value to individuals, businesses and the community.
The sales efforts of our typical client, often staffed with young salespeople with limited executive networks, are met with indifference or resistance. Practicing our art on your behalf breaks down the resistance through strategic planning and thoughtful execution.
Our fee-based clients represent only about 30% of our overall effort to improve lives and businesses through connections to relationships and resources.
Our answer is always, “Trusted relationships built over many years of making deposits into the lives of people, companies and non-profits and then becoming a bridge to your prospective client through a transference of that trust. And...continuously practicing our art.”
Does this sound familiar?
Who gets in to see you? Probably no one unless it’s someone you know personally, someone referred by a trusted colleague or someone connected with a well-known national brand. The reason is the effectiveness of gatekeepers that are protecting your time and attention and the time and attention of your prospects. A Strategic Introduction brings the gatekeeper into the process by respecting their role, as they quickly become advocates.
Our goal is to get to the critical first meetings you need through a Strategic Introduction, made by someone that is well connected and that has built levels of trust through years of making deposits in the lives and businesses of key individuals across a broad range of industries and geographies. The solution to filling your quota of great opportunities is a person that can secure the kind of meetings that you believe you need in order to make your case, increase your sales and grow your business.
We begin by forming a strategic approach that answers the questions: Where do you need to go? Who do you need to see? How quickly do you need to get there?
As a company policy, the name of the client, the introductions made and the result of the introduction are generally not made public.
Sometimes timing and positioning are absolutely everything. Both involve strategy and serendipity or randomness. Securing a seat at a dinner where the CEO of the largest convenience store chain in the world was going to speak was the easy part and a part of the overall plan.
Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business in Dallas sponsors a number of wonderful events all throughout the year. One of these was an intimate lunch for about 1000 people featuring the CEO of a $16B convenience store company.
A coupon-marketing agency had a single client that required more services than they normally extended. Those services grew through the years into a fifty-five million dollar a year full-service agency account for their retail customer.
Keeping 30,000 perfectly good bicycles from being taken to landfills and then getting them into the hands of deserving girls and boys across America.
Being in “position” is everything when making Strategic Introductions. Buying a ticket to a monthly dinner where the CEO of the largest convenience store chain in the world was going to speak was strategic. Knowing who would be in attendance was a part of our preparation. A conversation with a key individual set in motion one of the most important group of introductions we have ever made.
Over the next three weeks we pulled together, from different states, a meeting between the CEO of the largest bicycle manufacturer in the country, the CEO of a $1.5B non-profit that could provide the infrastructure to make it happen and the representative from a $16B wholesale giant that had the problem in the first place. All the players necessary to make something happen were in place. That’s what we do.
Finding opportunities and securing the meetings that it takes to achieve successful conclusions is the responsibility and business of Strategic Introductions. That is why we never play out of position. What happens as a result of those meetings is up to you.
From the conversations initiated at that meeting, when implemented, the program would save over thirty-thousand slightly used and then returned from being land-filled bicycles and would get them into the hands of deserving boys and girls across America. This is a prime example of the positioning and thinking that is at the heart and soul of Strategic Introductions. Everyone wins.
A convenience store chain was throwing away perfectly good fresh food at midnight that could not be sold any longer as “fresh” although it was still good and edible for several days to come. There was no on-line system for donation of that food to the local food banks and others in need, and the CEO was frustrated.
Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business in Dallas sponsors a number of wonderful events all throughout the year. One of these was an intimate lunch for about 1000 people featuring the CEO of a the $16B convenience store chain. I called SMU and asked if they had any room for me at their table. Since I work with the School of Business as a part of their MBA Associate Board, they invited me to join them. This was not a random request to fill a hole in my lunch schedule. I knew who was speaking, what he was going to speak about and exactly what I wanted to ask him after the lunch. I had prepared for the meeting by attending a previous event the week before and meeting someone that I knew had just given this particular CEO a prestigious award. That enabled me to learn more about the speaker as a person outside of his business credentials.
After the lunch and his presentation, I stood in line with some of the students and then introduced myself and brought him greetings from the person that gave him the award a week earlier. Then I asked him a quick question regarding the food issue. I knew that they had a problem that my client could solve and was prepared with a solution that could be explained in twenty seconds. His response was genuine and polite, as are all of his interactions. He took out a business card, wrote down the name of his Executive Assistant and asked me to give her a call.
The meeting took place within three weeks. The solution proposed by my client would bring tremendous benefit to the company and help solve a problem that could put hundreds of thousands of dollars on the bottom line of the company, get good fresh food to those in need and provide a marquee partner for my client. That is a win for everyone involved. That’s what we do.
A very successful coupon-marketing agency had one particular client that required more services than they extended to other clients. Those services grew through the years into a fifty-five million dollar a year full-service agency account for their retail customer. They supplied everything from huge media buys and commercials down to designing the Employee Of The Month Certificates. They engaged Strategic Introductions on retainer with this requirement:
First, to meet with twenty-five Chief Marketing Officers of large national retailers and restaurant chains to determine if they would be well-received as a full-service agency and secondly, to capture business from those meetings.
To leverage relationships in the retail and restaurant industries and secure the desired meetings we jointly assembled the target list and began making the necessary calls. Due to the extensive preparation required for each presentation the client wanted only four meetings per month. Since this was a national pursuit, Strategic Introductions worked on a retained basis and spent the majority of our time on this account. We attended local and national retail meetings and conventions with the client and worked in their behalf to meet with the targeted executives.
The methodology and strategy was different for securing each meeting but the final result was a 60-90 minute meeting with a presentation dedicated to that particular brand. Some meetings came quickly and some took more time. All parties considered this a successful engagement. That is always our goal.
As far back as I can remember my passion has been to help people that cross my path, find ways to improve their lives and, at the same time, benefit the greater good. My approach is to create positive situations and connections through a platform of trust. My goal is to help people and companies grow and thrive, creating successful outcomes that might not have happened if those people had never met or those companies had never talked.
Read my extended biography
After returning from a tour of duty in the war zone in Southeast Asia, I started a commercial photography business in Dallas that operated as a freelance studio until I founded BENCHMARK in 1982 to represent major equipment manufacturers, software developers and outsourced services in the semiconductor and contract electronics assembly industry.
BENCHMARK consistently won sales awards from the companies represented and held contracts with several of those companies for over 15 years. My personal involvement from 1992-1997 involved forging strategic partnerships between the principals we represented and our major clients (Texas Instruments, Motorola, Compaq Computer). The result was the development industry-changing processes and equipment through joint development relationships. The company was sold in late 1997 to pursue other interests.
1972 – Present: Speaker, teacher & facilitator for groups from 50 to 1500 people 1000+ times over 35 years
Education: Texas Tech University Bachelors Of Advertising Art & Design, Minors: Zoology, English Literature, Psychology
Community Involvements: Past Development Board Member Dallas Habitat For Humanity
Currently serving as Chairman of the Governor’s Advisory Board for the Aidmatrix Foundation
Currently Director at Catapult Partners
Current SMU COX School of Business MBA Mentoring Board member 1998-Present
United States Navy - Vietnam Service - Combat Zone & Member of Navy League, Santa Barbara Chapter.
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