High employment
When Web designer Mozes Cleveland & Co. merged with Quest4Mation, an electronic commerce company, last March to form DigitalDay, it employed a mere 44 employees. Today, DigitalDay employs 77 at its new Fairlawn headquarters.
And that number is growing almost daily, says Chairman Howard Cleveland, who admits he’s challenged to learn the names of the three or four new faces he sees come into his office weekly. Surprisingly, though, Cleveland, who expects to employ 100 by the end of next month, says he hasn’t had a difficult time finding qualified IT workers.
He says now that the Y2K scare is over, there’s an influx of IT people looking for secure positions.
Plus, Cleveland says, “we have all the good projects here — if you want to stay in the ‘Silicon Tundra’ of Northeast Ohio.”
Breaking away
One of Akron’s most successful tips groups, LeTip of the Summit (see SBN April 2000) has broken from its national affiliation to go out on its own. Members of the Akron chapter of LeTip International decided to do away with their national affiliation (and membership dues) to form TEEM (Together Everyone Earns More).
The acting president of the new group is Jim McKee, who owns Special Touch Carpet Cleaners in Akron. McKee says that by breaking away, members will be able to keep their dues in the local community, rather than supporting the activities of LeTip’s international headquarters in San Diego and its 400 local chapters.
Since the group’s formation three months ago, TEEM members have traded business leads amounting to about $1.7 million in sales, McKee says. As members of Le Tip, the year-to-date total in January 2000 was about $1.5 million, he adds. It pays to be entrepreneurial.
Easy learning
When Akron public relations agency Hitchcock Fleming & Associates wanted to publicize its 60th year in business last month, it threw a birthday bash for clients and media in true marketing fashion.
The agency invited 350 Akron business executives to tour its Wolf Ledges Parkway offices, which had been transformed to display the company’s successes throughout each of its six decades in business. Attendees toured each area, which had been creatively decorated with company nostalgia from the ’40s through the ’90s. But the history lesson was an easy pill to swallow, as the room was also furnished with martini bars and tables of food catered by Moe’s Restaurant of Cuyahoga Falls.
The lesson we learned was not a history lesson, though. How do you force-feed your clients marketing material? You’ll certainly get their attention if your throw in a couple cosmopolitans and a steel drum band.
