William
McKinney
Founder
Bill's
first real job was selling face to face, calling on store
owners and managers for Bankers Trust Company. His early
experience in field sales and one-to-one marketing has been
an essential ingredient in all of his marketing programs.
Building
on this personal selling experience, Bill established a
direct marketing boutique in New York promoting a broad
range of consumer and business-to-business products, serving
such clients as ABC Television, IBM, CitiBank, Beechcraft,
AAA, New York Times Magazines, and Hearst Publications.
In
1993 the dramatic appearance of Mosaic changed everything.
Soon to become Netscape, the first web browser, Mosaic marked
a turning point for business. It was the breakthrough that
would enable the non-technical businessperson to take advantage
of the Web for lightning fast communications.
From
that time forward Bill's efforts have been on sales and
marketing communications via the web. He has designed and
built websites for direct marketers, catalog companies,
and engineering design firms.
Bill
founded Customer Marketing Group in 1997 to create a sales
communications tool for Tropicana, called PromoWareTM.
In
1998 Bill's company began the design of a web based sales
communications tool for Novartis. The OTC Information
STORE -- Sales Tools (for) Organizing Retail Effectiveness
-- was the result, installed in 1999. IBM, when asked to
evaluate the software in use, said it was the most embraced
sales communications system they had seen.
In
2000 Bill began to work with Gerber Baby Food on
a sales communications tool, the Gerber Information STORE.
In 2001 Bill's firm began working with Gerber to design,
program and run Retail Marketing Program (RMP), a web based
promotion planning tool, which is their current system.
In
2003 Boots International, which owns Clearasil, began
working with us for web based sales communications.
Bill
plays tennis and is a graduate of Harvard College, B.A.
and Northwestern University, M.A. and resides in Weston,
Connecticut.
Stuart
H. May
Lead Consultant
Stuart
began his career with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture)
in the mid 1980's and has been providing information-based
solutions to the Consumer Packaged Goods industry ever since.
Through
a series of consulting positions, Stuart has helped CPG
companies such as Quaker Oats, Dannon and Tetley design
and develop custom Trade Marketing systems to better monitor
and manage their trade promotion expenditures. In addition,
he has worked with leading companies such as Beiersdorf
and McCormick to analyze their current promotional programs
and to develop field-based promotional best practice guidelines
to drive greater effectiveness and efficiency from these
funds.
In
the early 1990's, he worked with Glendinning Associates,
the earliest of all promotion consulting companies, to develop
a trade promotion management and analytical system utilizing
a graphical interface, relational database and 3-tier client
server architecture - a system well ahead of its time.
Stuart
also held the position of Manager of Trade Marketing and
Category Management for almost 5 years at Tetley Tea and
is, therefore, intimately familiar with the challenges a
small-to-medium sized manufacturing company faces in today's
hyper-competitive retail environment.
Stuart
earned his B.S.E. in Engineering Management and Systems
from Princeton University.
John
J. Zivica
Director of Sales
John's
business career spans 35 years of corporate and consulting
experience. His corporate experience at General Foods Corporation
consisted of twenty years in numerous sales, marketing and
sales planning and management capacities. His work over
that period spanned all GF key divisions.
Upon
leaving GF in 1986, John was Vice-President of Senior Marketing
Partners, a consulting firm specializing in sales training,
sales strategy, organization development and promotion planning.
John
is currently President of Creative Tactics, a unique and
innovative sales and marketing consulting firm that specialize
in developing creative problem-solving approaches for its
clients. John's broad base of assignments in numerous other
companies provides a wide range of experience and knowledge
in diverse sales organizations and industries.
Zivica
managed the sales effort for Market Metrics, a company that
formerly marketed a geo-demographic decision support system
sold to leading packaged goods companies. He also assisted
these companies in using store-specific information to improve
distribution, merchandising results, shelving performance,
and new item acceptance through localized targeting efforts.
John
also managed sales activities for AIM and the Synectics
Group, two software companies that integrate all elements
of the trade promotion process, including planning, tracking,
evaluating, budgeting, and processing of customer payments
and deductions.
Zivica
was Director of Business Development for Interactive Edge,
a developer of presentation software that provides a wide
range of sales, marketing, and analytical solutions for
use by CPG companies.
John
graduated from Iona College in New Rochelle, New York, where
he earned both a BBA and MBA with emphasis on marketing
and organizational development.
