New Mexico Business Weekly - June 30, 2006
Small Business Strategies
by Megan Kamerick
Actress Marsha Mason had been growing acres of organic herbs and flowers for years at her farm in Abiquiu when Carolyn Parrs first walked into her business.At the time, Mason’s company Resting in the River had just two products made from the herbs — tinctures and a salve — and company staff was trying to figure out how to grow to the next level.
“We knew the efficacy of herbs,” says Albert Granados, business manager for Resting in the River. But things like tinctures tend to be very specialized, he says, only for the die-hard organic types who like their medicine natural and not necessarily flavorful.
Within a year and a half, Parrs and her husband and business partner, Irv Weinberg, as Mason’s chief consultants, had reconfigured the company, creating an entire line of products, building distribution channels and sales networks and putting Mason’s face in stores across the country and in Japan. Tinctures became tastier wellness sprays and the therapeutic herbs are now in a whole line of skin and bath products.
Parrs and Weinberg moved to Santa Fe three years ago and launched Mind Over Markets after highly successful careers in advertising and marketing in New York. Along the way, they also created a company called Poochi Canine Couture Inc. selling upscale clothing and accessories for dogs at a time when no one thought about putting antlers on their canines for Christmas (an item they introduced to the marketplace). They launched that firm in 1987, built it to millions in sales and sold it four and half years later to ConAgra Foods Inc.
The experience planted a seed that they sought to nurture with their move to Santa Fe: Offer start-up companies not only marketing and branding guidance, but also business development, with the experience of having been down the same road themselves as entrepreneurs.
“It gave us a great niche,” Parrs says. They also have enough experience in things green and sustainable to find a willing audience with Santa Fe companies. Indeed, the focus of the firm is moving rapidly toward the green, sustainable and socially responsible sectors. The organic market is the fastest growing niche in the world, Parrs says, so they see great potential.
“Over the years, many clients have asked, ‘What would you do if this were your own money?’” Weinberg says. “We are one of the few companies that can answer that question.”
It may seem obvious, but the firm’s strategy is to sit down and figure out what a company really needs. That could be rewriting a business plan or even changing the firm’s name.
“A lot of entrepreneurs know what their product is, but they’re not sure what their business is,” Weinberg says.
The firm worked with a company called the Center for Regulatory Compliance, which makes software to help companies comply with various regulations and laws.
“It sounded like a government agency,” Parrs says. They helped the Center distill its mission down to one basic idea: It was in the business of simplicity.
Thus was born the new name of Simpliance, based in Ohio, and the slogan “We’ve got simplicity down to a science.” The campaign included the song “Don’t worry, be happy” and marketing materials in bright, cheerful colors.
Finding that simple idea then teaches salespeople how to talk, Parrs says, and retailers how to sell the product.
“Marketing is your stationery, your business card, the way people answer the phone,” Weinberg adds.
Gifford Keen, a founding partner who is no longer with Simpliance, says he had previously worked for a number of software companies and dealt with many marketing firms, from New Mexico and elsewhere.
“I thought they were useless. I thought I could do better myself, and that’s not saying much,” he says. But Parrs and Weinberg were “head and shoulders” above the crowd, he adds. “They were very quick, very creative and helped us re-write our business plan to give it more zip.”
For start-ups seeking investors, business plans are key marketing pieces. Unfortunately, many times they aren’t very exciting, Weinberg says. So he has become adept at giving them some zing. The firm is currently working with a start-up biodiesel station in Oregon.
“I had chemistry classes that were more interesting than this,” Weinberg says of the original business plan. “You have to paint a picture. Let the investor or funder know you’re going to get this off the page.”
Keen says it worked for Simpliance, which did secure investors after the business plan was reworked.
“The best work was on the first two or three pages in the introduction,” he says. “They just cast it differently so it was a much better and more compelling read.”
When Parrs and Weinberg visited Mason’s farm, they quickly realized that it was the biggest selling point. All the products and the marketing materials feature photos of the farm as well as Mason’s face.
“Green” consumers are savvy and more careful about their choices than most, Weinberg says. If you offer a less-then-authentic product or experience, they don’t forgive easily. So putting a celebrity front and center wasn’t necessarily the best way to sell a product. But, he points out, Mason is more than that. She is chairwoman of the New Mexico Organic Commodity Commission.
They also attended trade shows to get a feel for the Resting in the River products. These offered many revelations, Weinberg says.
“You really get a feel for the clients. We learned the farm is what people were turned onto,” he says. “If I was running a big [ad] agency today, I’d make folks go to trade shows.”
Granados with Resting in the River says he had a good feeling about the team as soon as Parrs walked in the door. “Philosophically, they saw the true meaning behind the farm. Marsha wants to be a steward of the land. They got that.”
Weinberg and Parrs also have donated time to a nonprofit in Santa Fe called Earthcare International, which works with teenagers to educate them about sustainability and social justice, says Taylor Shelby, executive director. One of its projects is a fair trade coffee house staffed by teenagers.
Mind Over Markets came up with a new slogan and logo for the group: Teens creating tomorrow today, with cupped hands holding dirt and a plant growing from it.
Earthcare’s experiences are helping Parrs and Weinberg with BioShield, an environmentally minded paint company in Santa Fe with which they recently began working. They have developed green distribution channels and figured out cross marketing techniques they can apply to expanding BioShield’s business, Weinberg says, which they see as a lifestyle company, not a paint company. They plan to look at retail opportunities in kids’ stores and health food retailers like Whole Foods.
“Forget the hardware store,” he says.
Mind Over Markets is also planning to use Podcasting for its clients and is putting together plans for an environmentally themed show where they will interview green companies and authors.
“There are a lot of new ways of reaching people and we want to be on the forefront,” Weinberg says.
Podcasts offer much more effective targeted marketing because the audiences really dictate the content and the demographics are much more specialized, says the company’s tech guru, John Biethan. “We can create a vehicle for a company trying to reach an elusive demographic,” he says.
The firm is working with a Boulder, Colo. publishing company to create Podcasts of author Noam Chomsky 12 weeks before his new book comes out.
Parrs has some experience in this field already. She was the creator, producer and host of a television talk show on the East Coast called “Inner Journey” that focused on personal growth and health. She also has a private holistic health therapy practice.
The firm finds clients through organic trade associations, speaking engagements and working with Technology Ventures Corp., a nonprofit in Albuquerque that connects investors, inventors and entrepreneurs. But the firm won’t work with a company if the partners don’t believe in what it does.
“We think we have great skills to get things out and we don’t want to use those skills unless it’s something we believe is a good thing for people,” he says. It also lends more success to their efforts, he says. “When you are passionate about something, you are more effective.”
The entrepreneurial bug hasn’t left Parrs and Weinberg. They are already planning a new venture: An organic restaurant concept they plan to launch as a multi-market chain.
