Marketing Services

Support Services: Richard Scheiner, The AfterMarket Co.

1 Oct, 2002 By: Thomas Haire Response

---

Richard Scheiner, a long-time direct marketing player, joined The AfterMarket Co. (AMC) in March. He is charged with new business development outside of the television arena. Recently, Response had a chance to talk with Scheiner about his experiences and his new opportunity.

Richard Scheiner

 

Response: What companies have you served leading up to this new position at AfterMarket?

Scheiner: It started when Time-Life took me out of its financial department in 1982, and put me on the then floundering Time-Life Records business. By the time I left in 1988, we went from a $15 million operation to a $100 million business. Now, of course, it's much more. We took Time-Life into the rock-and-roll era and created the single largest music continuity plan of all time. We were the first to put something like that on TV and first to sell via credit cards than on a free-trial basis.

 

Since then, I've spent time working for a DRTV media agency in Buffalo, N.Y., handling clients like National Geographic and Hanna Barbera, and also did some work for Walt Disney Records. Disney, at the time (early 1990s) was way ahead of itself and wasn't familiar with the margins for direct marketing or direct response. I also served as regional marketing director of New York State for Cellular One and did some consulting on the entertainment side before getting back to the DRTV industry.

 

Response: That was when you went to King World Direct. You've worked for both King World Direct and Guthy-Renker?

Scheiner: With King World, I was involved with selling videos via DRTV as well as retail hybrid marketing for Sears. Burl Hechtman, president of King World had a major influence on my career. Then, when I was at Guthy-Renker from 1997 to 2000, I served as CFO/COO for their short-form group. We did video, music and retail hybrid work. Our biggest launch was the "Dean Martin Celebrity Roast." It really established an active video business for Guthy-Renker.

 

 

Response: What brought you to AfterMarket?

Scheiner: I'd been a client of AfterMarket and had learned lessons from them about the importance of telesales operations in starting and building a direct business for major brands. Steve Pittendrigh has a fantastic reputation, as does John Stones, and they saw the potential to do work not only in direct response television but in other areas as well. That's what I am here for - to develop those non-TV aspects.

 

 

Response: What are your plans for your new opportunity at AMC?

Scheiner: My focus has always been on the back end. Today, you can't just sell the product advertised on TV. We need to look at the lifetime value of each customer, and telemarketers can cement a relationship at initial contact. Cross-sells and upsells are important. We need to work with companies to provide upsell tips, to get their clients into continuity. We're also looking at expanding the outbound telemarketing service, which is now just 60 seats. We must focus on businesses that value lifetime customer relationships. Companies in our industry don't survive just with DRTV. We must broaden the base for the future.

 

Bookmark it: digg del.icio.us technorati yahoo facebook twitter