A lot of people have seen Dan
Rolfes in his underwear.
After all, “The Red Tag Man”
is best known for wearing his
red long underwear on TV commercials for Holiday Homes, the
manufactured housing company
he formed in 1969.
But when Rolfes became a
stakeholder in some not-soundergarment-friendly financial
companies, he realized that his
image couldn’t easily cross
industries.
“You can’t change the brand,”
Rolfes says. “What you can do is make it a part of a bigger
thing that stands for something
else.”
So he founded Meridian Mark
Management as a holding company and a collective “green”
brand over about 30 companies
he owns or owns stake in,
ranging from commercial development to insurance brokerage
to floor cleaning. In 2007, revenue of those companies
totaled $92 million.
The branding transition is
never complete for the CEO,
who is still driving the vision
through 120 employees and
even more customers.
Smart Business spoke with
Rolfes about how to get everyone to buy in to your brand.
Brand and repeat.
The key to
branding is repetition. You
can’t be bouncing from idea to
idea. You’ve got to stay and
run the course. When we started with energy efficiency, for
instance, the public didn’t really care.
If you believe you’re on the
right course and you have
been able to sell your employees on it … you’ve got to stay
with it. You’re making a statement: ‘I believe this. This is
where we’re going. It’s OK if
you don’t believe it, Mr.
Customer, right now. You’re
getting it anyway because it’s
the only way we’re going to do
business.’
If you just keep doing your
part, sooner or later, people
will understand that that’s the
answer.
Test the perception of your brand.
We believe strongly in
research and going back out
into the market (to) find out
what the customer thinks of
us. We have changed a couple of companies a couple of
times because it didn’t play
out the way we put it on
paper. We had one plan, but
the customer picked it up
another way.
When we went into the site-build market, I wanted to take
the name Holiday Homes. My
marketing people kept saying,
‘No. At least let’s do focus
groups.’ Then you’re on the
other side of the mirror
watching them.
We showed them the houses,
the drawings, the price points.
Then we start saying, ‘Now,
who do you think might have
built these?’ We named all the
biggest builders in Cincinnati.
As soon as we said the name
Holiday Homes, they said, ‘Oh
my God, I know what that is.
That’s a trailer, and I don’t
want it.’ So then we understood branding.
The hard part is listening to
what it says, whether you like
it or not. I always think I can
change somebody’s mind. Only
you can’t go to everybody in
the city individually and
change their mind. It really is
sitting back and listening to
what the information coming
back to you is and being willing to accept it, and if it is not
working, being able to say,
‘Well, that didn’t work,’ and try
another method.
