An Inter view with Dixon Schwabl
9
1/2
Questions:
An Interview with Dixon Schwabl
By Roland Salmi and Gabriella Hunt | Westminster Consulting
A
ccording to Lauren Dixon, the CEO of Dixon Schwabl,
a PR firm in Rochester, New York, business is all about
people. This simple axiom from her father, she claims,
was the best piece of advice she had ever received and is the core
belief for how she runs her business. Dixon and Schwabl has
been ranked No. 5 on the Advertising Age list of 40 Best Places to
Work in Advertising & Media, and No. 7 on the 2014 Best Small
Workplaces list (a prestigious list put together by the Great Places to
Work Institute and published by Fortune magazine). The company
was also ranked No. 1 in Rochester Business Journal’s most recent
list of marketing communications firms, and No. 62 on the 2014
Rochester Top 100 list of fastest-growing privately held firms.
Lauren credits Dixon Schwabl’s success on the company’s culture.
In this edition of 9 ½ questions, Lauren Dixon and Karen Simms,
Dixon Schwabl’s Vice President of People and Development, discuss
how Dixon Schwabl was founded, some of the benefits and perks
offered to employees, tips on how companies can begin to work
towards making their company a great place to work, and some
other interesting tidbits.
1. Thank you for having us in. Dixon Schwabl is such a unique
place to work, but as with any great company there was always
the startup. Could you tell us how you came to create the firm?
Lauren Dixon: I started this business on a whim and a prayer.
I don’t have a business background— I’ve never even taken a
business class. My degree is in broadcast journalism and I have
a minor in French, Spanish, German, and Italian. So it makes a
whole lot of sense that I’m running this business right? It probably
makes no sense at all. I was in television for a long time, 12 years
or so, both on the broadcast side and on the sales side. My father
is the one who encouraged me to start a business since he owned
a trucking business for around 40 years, and he too, didn’t have a
business background. …One of the things I thought about when
I started the company was what was going to be my company’s
differentiator. Back 28 years ago, there were a million advertising
agencies, so I called 30 CEOs that owned companies who hired
advertising agencies and asked them the three things they loved
about their advertising agency and the three things which really
bugged them. So I met with 30 people and the three things that
bugged them were all the same. They said it in different language,
but at the end of the day they were all the same. So I made those
three things my point of differentiation. I wrote a white paper and
my promise back to the participants for their time, was I would
share the results with them.
It was just so curious that the three things that bugged them were
all the same. The first thing was “my advertising agency really
doesn’t care about me.” I thought that was interesting. When I
probed further they were real specific about what their advertising
agency didn’t do: they didn’t thank them for their business, they
didn’t follow up after a campaign to find out how it was going,
and they didn’t follow up in the middle of the campaign to see if
it was tracking on target—three simple things. The second thing
was that production costs were too high. Then the third thing was
“the estimate I received never matches the bill”. My question was,
“So you paid it?” Everyone said yes! In the white paper I wrote
my findings, as I begin my business these three points were going
to be my points of differentiation. Of the thirty people, two people
called me and asked me if I would be their advertising agency. No,
it was not genius on my part, I had no idea what I was doing. The
first 48 hours I picked up two very significant pieces of business.
That week I met with the first one which was Hoselton’s and the
owner said to me, “Would you like an auto dealership in Buffalo,
one of our friends owns the largest dealership in Buffalo and I don’t
think he has an advertising agency.” I’m scratching my head like
really?! They dial the phone and to make a long story short, I had
an appointment with them at 10 o’clock the next day and won his
business. My revenues were $3.5 million dollars that first year and
that never ever, ever happens. So I went from me, myself, and I
that first week to hiring six people. But I started very conservative
and slow.
2. What was the best piece of business advice you have received?
LD: [My Father] gave me the best piece of advice I’ve ever gotten
which is: hire people smarter than you and motivate and excite
them into wanting to come into work every single day. And if you
can do those two things well your business will be successful.
www.conferomag.com | 19