I've been using LinkedIn to network with colleagues and friends for some time now.  Like all the social networks, sometimes you find the person you want, and sometimes you don't (if you know what I mean).  Recently, I connected with an old friend and colleague, Ben Perez.  Most people in the list business know Ben as President of Millard Group (unless you lived under a rock).  With all the changes to Millard Group these last couple of years, I'm not too sure what Ben's position is, but nontheless, he's a well respected veteran of the list business and a good person to know. 

As we all know, Millard Group isn't what we remember it to be.  Just ask the several employess that have been let go over the last couple of years since infoGroup purchased it.  It's just never been the same.  I do remember Ben ran an excellent company; one that I always respected and hoped I could emulate with my list business. 

Well things have changed.  For Millard and for the rest of the list industry.  I'm not putting all the blame on infoGroup; I think a little thing like the economy had something to do with it.  But does a company lose its backbone in hard times?  I mean, when things get tough, do we forget to do the little things that got us here in the first place?  What happened to the personal service that separated you from all the other companies.  These are the little things people used to remember about you.  It's why our industry used to be about relationships, and not just about undercutting commissions. 

Well, I wish Millard Group; Millard/Mokrynski; Millard Group; Direct Media/Millard all the best.  I'm not afraid of some friendly competition; particularly with good people like Ben Perez.  Hey Ben, do you remember how we used to play basketball with a bunch of colleagues at the DMA conferences?  I remember one time many years ago in Miami when we wouldn't throw Michael Miller the ball.  I think we made him cry.  

Now that we're repositioning the company, I thought it would be a good idea to update our web site a bit.  We built this site so many years ago that the architecture that was used is probably obsolete.  I have a friend, Dee Schmitz of Deezigns.com, who is helping me with all these changes.  I met Dee years ago playing squash.  Yes, I play squash but we'll leave that story for another day.  I'll just say this before I move on; I used to kick her butt all over that court. 

Anyway, we did what we could on the site to establish ourselves as the multichannel marketing expert to the direct marketing industry. What that means is that we are ready to help all the mailers in our industry to take the next step and add online services to their marketing mix.  No, we don't want them to walk away from list prospecting.  We want them to add this as a new channel of sales. 

What's best about Catalyst is that we're list guys; we understand what mailers are going through right now.  We're not some new vendor that you read about; and then you have to go through all that 'honeymoon period' and teach them your business model.  We can become extensions of their team and provide all the services and support they need on the run. 

Some of the services we offer now in addition to list management and brokerage are affinity marketing, blogs, paid search, SEO, SEM, webinars, social networking, and much more.

Let me know what you think of the new web site.  Well, it's not really new; just more up-to-date.  In case you got here from some other direction, the web site is www.catalystdm.com

Check back again and I'll tell you more about my squash game.  Boy do I have stories!!