In sales, it’s always best to be yourself, as opposed to being stiff and formal. It’s also best to find memorable ways to connect. Buyers appreciate that you make an effort, and of course, it strengthens a relationship. Riding up to a call on a motorcycle is certainly one such way to connect. And so, here we offer the story of the time Marlys arrived at a meeting of the Primedia Motorcycle Group—on her motorcycle.
Paul Sammon, currently co-founder and president of the research firm All In One Insights, was there. Here’s his recollection of a “REALLY fun moment!”
“I recall it to be in 2005,” Paul said. “I was working at DJG Marketing, which was handling the media research and ad-sales development support for a variety of the Primedia Enthusiast Media divisions—Automotive, motorcycle, action sports, history and home entertainment.
Each of the individual titles were on the smaller side—under 100,000 circulation. So they had developed the idea of creating clusters of each of the brands and packaging them for ad sales to create some more noteworthy scale. Some of the groups ended up around 750,000 or larger. The goal was to pursue non-endemic advertising, specifically products that targeted men. Their own internal teams lacked any real non-endemic sales experience, especially working with ad agencies and their RFP processes. So we had reached out to Marlys and asked if she would be interested in a conversation with the folks at the Primedia Motorcycle Group—not knowing that she might have a card up her sleeve on this one. LOL.
Three of their management team came to Chicago for the meetings. After a couple of exploratory sessions with ad agencies they were really sure they needed help. The Fox meeting was at a restaurant. It was near the river and not too far from the Fox offices on West Kinzie. I was waiting with the Primedia team. One was the head of their Domestic Motorcycle Group. Another was the ad director of their Harley magazine. Moments later, with a loud roar, up rolls a beautiful Harley in front of the restaurant and off comes the helmet. And here’s Marlys!
Marlys on her Harley.
Aside from it being super on its own, the single biggest image I recall of that meeting was the utter and complete slack jawed look on the two tough-guy Primedia Motorcycle Group fellows. Clearly they’d never seen anything quite like it! A classic Marlys Entrance!”