Recellular- Hello Again
I recently read an article about a man named Chuck Newman and his company Recellular in the Jewish News. Chuck quickly turned into my new role model and I gained great respect for his company. ReCellular is the world’s foremost collector, reseller and recycler of used wireless phones and accessories. They are in charge of the collection of the phones and recycle them in a responsible way if they can’t resell them.About half of the rebuilt phones go to resellers in the U.S. and the other half are sold to developing countries in Asia, Africa, and
South America. The phones are then sold to people who otherwise might not have been able to afford cell phones. It’s a brilliant business concept and intrigues my level of interest immensely. After reading about his business I got very interested in the “Green” business industry in general and have been reading a lot about it. To be environmentally friendly, preserve our earth, and making a large chunk of change is a win-win-win for everyone.
Outside of work Chuck is extremely involved with the community, philanthropy events, and multiple charities. When I am a business owner I plan on being the exact same way. It’s nice to see someone so successful remain grounded to his core beliefs and not let all the money get to his head. For our leadership class, our assignment is to interview an Entrepreneur that we admire and that is in industry that we want to get involved in. I emailed Chuck a request (not knowing if I would even get a response considering I have never met him), and within 24 hours I got a phone call. Not only did he agree to meet with me, he welcomed me to his business with open arms. Recelluar is based out of Dexter Michigan employing 250 people. He also has offices in Hong King, Brazil, and
Texas. I look forward to meeting with him and seeing his operations.
Pangborn Design
Dominic Pangborn of Pangborn Design is an Entrepreneurial inspiration on many levels. Starting at the young age of ten, Pangborn has made decsisve decisions and has been successful ever since. At the age of ten Pangborn decided to leave Korea for a better life in
America. The tough part about this decision was that he had to leave his Mother behind. That was a pretty tough decision for a ten year old boy to make; nonetheless he made it with confidence.
One of the first things that Dominic said to us was “I’m not a traditionalist”. I liked that he said that because I agree that Entrepreneurs are not traditionalist. We take chances, we don’t take the traditional 9-5 workday, and we take chances. He said multiple times that his thought process when he would make a decision or risk was “what’s the worst that can happen?” In my opinion, the most impressive trait about Pangborn is his innate ability to continue to grow, and always find a better way.
Instead of looking at Detroit as a bad place to conduct business, he looks at it in a positive way that what he does mainly takes place in L.A. and
New York. He managed to capitalize in a market that his industry was pretty much non existent in the city. He loves what he does and in turn that makes him the best at it. Regarding his work habits he said to us “People call me a work-a-holic and that I am crazy for working eighteen hour days. In response I say to them that I can’t remember a day that I went to work”. That type of attitude and passion for work is something that I look forward to very much in my business. Dominic is the poster child of rags to riches and I would love to be as successful as him one day.
Guerrilla Marketing Basics- Entrepreneur Magazine
I got this article from Entrepreneur Magazine Online and thought I would share. It’s interesting.
First there’s marketing. Then you have direct marketing, consumer marketing, B2B marketing, buzz marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, online marketing . . . really, the list is endless. But one form often left out is guerrilla marketing. The term “guerrilla marketing” was first used by Jay Conrad Levinson in his popular 1984 book, Guerrilla Marketing. In it, he describes this method of marketing as nontraditional, low-cost or no-cost ways of marketing, promoting, advertising, publicizing, etc. Some have called it unconventional marketing; some have called it extreme marketing; still others have even used the term stealth marketing. And all of these apply in the sense that the tactics are nontraditional and low- or no-cost.
Guerrilla marketing has a major profit orientation and emphasis. Since guerrilla marketers don’t have unlimited funds, they must employ smarter rather than harder ways to work. This is done through the full use of time, energy, information, knowledge and, most of all, imagination. The guerrilla marketer must use all of his or her contacts to network, find creative publicity stories, angles and outlets, and generate ideas that’ll get noticed and talked about.
This type of marketing is primarily designed for small businesses and independent professionals. Other organizations such as nonprofits have also found it beneficial. It’s great for small business because it’s important for a guerrilla marketer to be flexible and agile to react to marketplace environments and influences– without layers of bureaucracy to go through, small businesses can change course as needed.
Here are some guerrilla marketing examples that you might have noticed, or maybe noticed but didn’t realize they were marketing of the guerrilla type:
- Chipotle’s offer of a free burrito to anyone dressed up like one of their football-size burritos on Halloween
- A business owner associating himself current event as an expert so he can get quoted in the media
- An entrepreneur nominating herself for an award and promoting her nomination and receipt of the award (if she gets it)
- Sonic DriveIn Restaurant’s magnetic cups that adhere to the trunk of a car as it drives off, making it appear as if the driver forgot to remove his drink from its temporary resting place. This marketing stunt really got talked about, and word-of-mouth marketing took over and helped spread the word about this restaurant.
Many of these guerrilla marketing ideas, principles and practices appear to be simply common sense. However, in reality, they’re not common practice. These examples are only a few of the many that businesses have used successfully. Your options are only limited by your imagination.
