Selling Time

Steve Mears recently opened his own business, StrategyOne, and spoke to ACC about how working in his house, with his family nearby, has helped him bring his life and goals into focus, and how he can help others do the same thing.

Mears' presentation was largely autobiographical, and amusing, with details about where he was born and raised and what he was doing before he decided to go it alone, which was working as a marketing communications manager at The Timken Company.

"When I realized that I could see solutions to the challenges I faced as a marketing communications professional, but I couldn't seem to do anything to better the situation given my position, I quit," he said. Mears sells time. "I am a headache remedy."

Relationships and trust are the key to success, Mears said. "What I saw was a way to give back some of the time people like me were spending on things that could and should get done, but I was too bogged down in my daily grind to really do them the right way," he said. "One of my biggest pet peeves was not getting what we'd spent all the time and money on to work for us. We'd make a great brochure and 50,000 of them would rot in the warehouse because there was no plan to get them into the hands of the people who could use them to sell."

Mears operates with a network of entrepreneurs. "The designers used to work with agencies, and the commercial print broker used to work at an agency. The print broker has a broad network of printers to find the best deal on a particular job. Nobody's worried about overhead, so we're under-cutting the conventional resources with agency-rate professionals," Mears said. "The creative is fresh, the service is excellent, the turn-around is fast and the cost is less, because I have no Picassos in my lobby. Not a one."

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