Customer Service Marketing

Wendell Hall

Dallas, TX ***** 214-***-**** *******@*********.*** www.Wendell-Hall.com http://linkedin.com/in/wendellhall

Insights Driven Branding and Engagement Marketing Strategist

Career Profile

- A creative, results-focused CPG marketing professional with years of success in client support, branding, new product development and product & channel management that achieved business growth objectives 10 out of almost 13 years at ConAgra.

- Proven abilities in developing and executing strategic plans through the use of marketing research and category knowledge to deliver growth as demonstrated by 3 “Tomato-Rama” and “Hunt Club” awards for topline and profit margin growth at ConAgra.

- A collaborative team builder adept in fostering cross-functional cooperation to deliver, consumer insights driven, value-added new products as noted by the ABC (Above and Beyond the Call) Award for product development and innovation of 4 new products in one year.

- A change agent who altered the direction of the Ziploc "Alt-use" media strategy and media mix to access new users and usage occasions, which maintained double-digit growth in a flat category.

- Executive and strategist at Big Brothers Big Sisters who achieved improved customer engagement efficiency and application generation per capita of 43% in the second year, all while contending with slashed staffing headcount and severely reduced marketing spending.

Areas of Expertise

Agency Management

Staff Coaching and Leadership

P&L Management and Analysis

Digital Marketing Strategy

Social Media Strategy

Social Media Analytics

CRM Sales Support

Consumer & Shopper Insights

Media Mix Strategy (Digital and Traditional)

Customer Engagement-B2B

Consumer Engagement-B2C

Demand Generation (B2C2B)

User Experience

Customer Service

Product Development

Product Management

Branding

Brand Management

Strategic Messaging

Org. & Product Positioning

Channel Analytics

Forecasting

Budgeting

Annual & Long-Range Planning

Demonstrated Core Competencies

Product portfolio optimization for effective product life-cycle management, from launch to rationalization.

(Example: 1,000+ SKU Cookie and Cracker category culled down to 400 high performing SKUs.)

Full P&L accountability across a multi-product / multi-category portfolio.

(Example: $125MM portfolio covering 10 categories.)

Product development and product innovation projects, from concept, through research phases, to commercialization.

(Example: Over 30 new product development projects taken to “Business Case” Go/No-go decision points.)

Breakthrough creative and agency collaborations in advertising, promotion and PR using the following Media: broadcast, print, social media, e-marketing, direct campaigns, collateral, events, packaging and label design.

(Example: optimized $12-$40MM advertising & promotion (A&P) budgets.)

Mega-user of consumer / shopper insights, marketing research and syndicated data to position, strengthen or augment the product mix using impactful strategies and tactics.

(Example: Through successful data mining, created and positioned Sidewalk Café Gourmet Cocoa and Cappuccino, which added $4MM incremental profit to Swill Miss Cocoa with less than 5% cannibalization to Swiss Miss.)

Activated growth via consumer / customer knowledge and development of targeted marketing and/or specific solutions.

(Example: Launched the vending snack line at Quaker which improved SKU margin 15 pts. per SKU)

Relationship building with customers and clients (internal and external) through consultative problem-solving.

(Example: A super successful new product, Orville RTE Kettle Corn, designed for Costco, which did 22x lift on promo.)

General Management skills given day-to-day oversight of group activities, plans execution, marketing program development, product launches with forecasting.

Awards

“ABC Award” (Above and Beyond the Call) in 2002 – Received for developing 4 new products, in partnership with Sam’s and Costco, that added $11.5MM in incremental revenue and $3MM in incremental PBT

“Hunt Club” in 2000 for the best revenue and profit percent growth, vs. plan, across channels

3-Time “Tomato-Rama” contest winner for exceeding revenue and profit objectives relative to plan in 2000, ‘03, and ‘04

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

NATURAL KNOWLEDGE, LLC (Marketing and General Management Consultant) Re-launched, 2015 to Present

Managing Director / CMO / Consultant

A reboot of Natural Knowledge, LLC as a consultant working with clients on strategic branding / re-branding and marketing ops projects:

BWI, LLC – Consultant for their executive leadership team to formalize the process of writing their Strat-Plan, Ops-Plan and Marketing-Plan.

Sage Strategic Marketing (SageSM) – a re-stage team member to rebrand this full-service marketing services advertising agency for growth by re-defining their client solutions and by taking a strategic approach to how they plan, resource and promote their business. Work done with Sage covers the spectrum of: web content and customer experience strategy (UX/CX); customer website e-commerce, digital banner ads, Facebook/Instagram display ads; Google display ads, outbound email marketing, social media videos; print executions; digital and print FSIs; print ads; point-of-sale displays; tradeshow banners; bus wraps; product photography; product renderings; complete campaign build-outs, and branding architecture.

“Notable ” samples of Sage Strategic Marketing Agency Client Engagements (my principal client, SageSM):

CLIENT – Galderma USA (a Nestle subsidiary) – Working for SageSM, as a key member the Account Management Team, who became their integrated marketing agency supporting key dermatological business segments, including Cleansers, Moisturizers, Acne and Baby skin care lines of business.

CLIENT – Haggar Inc. – With SageSM conducted a strategic planning for their marketing teams to adjust go-to-market strategies to optimize equities and recapture declining fringe demographic segments of male apparel shoppers.

CLIENT -- Uplift Health and Fitness – With SageSM guided a start-up firm in launching a unique “Trainer Online” concept with a 3-tier digital marketing strategy. Redefined the original concept of linking cause marketing to the core service offering and created a pricing structure that appealed to a new price-sensitive user. The net was a broader overall appeal to multiple fitness segments.

CLIENT -- 3rdI Enterprises – With SageSM crafted a new brand architecture that would exist under a business umbrella that redefined three separate enterprises into a singular brand identity.

BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS LONE STAR (BBBSLS) May 2012 to Sept. 2015

VP, Corporate & Community Engagement and Customer Care (i.e. Marketing)

Reporting to the COO, directed the Account Management Marketing, Customer Service and Customer Relations teams in total consumer and client/customer partnership engagements. Drove overall customer engagement efforts within the BBBSLS agency’s major metro markets in DFW/North Texas and Greater Houston. This integrated Account Management and Marketing team were charged with agency growth related to brand awareness building and consumer customer and corporate partnership activation to help meet grant and growth goals. This was done through strategic messaging, outbound digital marketing using email strategies, inbound native web capture, CRM lead generation, mobile redirects, social media online strategies and traditional offline media tactics. Additionally, developed corporate and community partnership proposals to engage new volunteers.

Also charged with providing top quality customer care (both, the Customer Service and the Customer Relations Departments) for enrolling customers entering the BBBS mentoring process and to control the quality of the end-to-end enrollment user experience (UX).

Year-two payoffs resulted in a 43% year-over-year increase in the key recruitment metric of applications generated per team member. This lift in recruitment efficiencies per capita allowed a 40% reduced staff in headcount to generate almost the same total team output as the much larger team achieved the year before. This was realized despite dramatically reduced resources in marketing spending. To exacerbate the challenge further, it was achieved in a severely capacity constrained program operations environment. The Program department had not staffed up in anticipation of the growth from key partnership segments to accommodate the new influx.

Crafted branding strategies for the Marketing function, using in-house resources and ad agencies, for development of custom collateral, sell sheets, traditional and social media content, analytics, digital outbound / inbound strategies and e-messaging to drive consumer brand gross impressions to attain conversions and to activate new consumer / mentor enrollments.

Engineered tactics to expand agency share-of-voice using outbound e-marketing, digital / social campaigns, and native / mobile website capture to expand reach and engage new consumers / mentors…and secondarily to re-engage closed web inquiries.

Regularly engaged Fortune 500 companies such as AT&T, Chase, Comerica, Ernst & Young, Bell Helicopter, Lockheed Martin, BNSF, Texas Instruments, and many others, in the corporate rich Dallas / Fort Worth and Greater Houston markets.

The above account strategy also included large civic and municipal government office engagements (city, county, state and federal) to gain access to employees to execute BBBS style outreach to recruit new mentors such as: the EPA, Dallas Mayor’s office, the City of Fort Worth’s city manager’s office and many DFW and Houston area police depts., just to name a few.

Regularly engaged in public speaking to large audiences highlighting the mission of BBBS, the benefit of volunteerism in general and social responsibility for the purpose of mentoring and helping to change the lives of children for the better forever.

Crafted strategies to develop target markets and geographies to deliver on grant compliance goals.

Created a culture of “Account Management” and introduced traditional account management skill-sets consistent with a sales organization’s customary “hunter” and “farmer” roles, along with tracking team performance for accountability.

Instituted account management values associated with “Total Quality Customer Care” and “Relationship Management” principals in serving our corporate and community partners (i.e. accounts).

Integrated 3 functional areas of responsibility, Account Management (i.e. recruitment), Customer Service (i.e. intake) and Customer Relations (i.e. mentor vetting) to optimize for a positive and memorable user experience (UX/CX).

NATURAL KNOWLEDGE, LLC (Marketing and General Management Consultant) 2007 to 2012 (See NK, LLC re-launch above)

Managing Director / CMO / Consultant

Consultant using strategic expertise to fill client’s marketing and general management gaps. Representative client consulting engagements are: LHF Brands Inc. / Mrs. Fields Popcorn Co. / Emboss and others.

“Long-term” client contracted roles are shown below:

CLIENT -- OBA INC. (Outward Bound Adventures, Los Angeles Urban Center) (Contract) 2010 to 2011

Acting Deputy Executive Director / CMO and Full-time Consultant

- Redesigned org-structure for effectiveness around core competencies for Program, Business and Operations directors.

- Wrote new marketing/strategic messaging guidelines to add synergy and clarity to the message for stakeholders.

- Directed a graphic artist in the creation of a new, updated, relevant logo which had not been updated in decades.

- Wrote proposals to secure new “fee-for-service” partnerships to close a $600,000 gap in the annual budget.

CLIENT -- HEART OF A WARRIOR FOUNDATION, INC. (Contract) 2007 to 2009

Executive Director / CMO

- The agency’s CMO: wrote new business plans to create a unique, ownable position in the community service space.

- Reposition the organization and expanded programming to more effectively reach and service the underserved.

- Developed the agency’s online presence including CRM and e-marketing campaigns.

CONAGRA FOODS 1995 to 2007

Marketing Director

Progressively promoted at ConAgra, a mega-brand Consumer Package Goods (CPG) marketer, from Business Manager for Warehouse Clubs, to Marketing Manager and ultimately to Marketing Director, reporting to the VP of Special Markets. A unique responsibility of the Special Markets group was, in addition to management of an existing portfolio of brands’ and products topline and bottom-line performance, also keep an active pipeline of insights-driven new product concepts in development and testing phases, ready for quick-to-market execution.

Results-focused marketing programs and P&L management achieving annual objectives 10 times out of almost 13 years.

A proven track record in developing and executing strategic plans to deliver growth as demonstrated by 3 departmental “Tomato-Rama” awards and one “Hunt Club” award for +11% topline growth and +22 pt. profit margin achievement.

A collaborative team builder adept in fostering cross-functional cooperation to deliver value-added products, as demonstrated by the “ABC” award (Above and Beyond the Call) for product development and innovation from 4 new product launches in one year.

Designed annual category business plans for major brands in the Club Channel, including Wesson Oil, Swiss Miss Cocoa, Healthy Choice Soup, Orville Redenbacher Popcorn, and Snack Pack Pudding, to name a few, totaling over $125MM.

Drove creative initiatives and plans through cross-functional partnerships with R&D, operations, and sales to pioneer a completely new brand platform Sidewalk Café Gourmet Cocoa and Cappuccino mix, which was introduced within an aggressive four-month time frame, that secure the total cocoa business in warehouse clubs worth over $4MM gross margin annually.

THE QUAKER OATS COMPANY 1990 to 1995

Brand Manager / Product Manager / Channel Manager

Promoted through 3 assignments to drive growth of Quaker Convenience Foods’ Allied Beverages; Cookies, Crackers & Snacks business, and culminating with the last promotion by assuming the additional Vending Channel responsibility. This was added to the existing CCS portfolio.

Promoted to drive growth of Quaker Foodservice’s Cookies, Crackers and Snacks business. Introduced a family of convenience size, vendible snacks, capitalizing on high awareness brand equities such as Quaker Chewy Granola Bars, Quaker Rice Cakes, Cap’n Crunch Cookies, and Quaker Oatmeal Cookies, to provide a portfolio of consumer-recognized wholesome snacks. This initiative improved margins by an average of 15 pts. per snack unit sold.

Promoted to lead Quaker Foodservice’s Allied Beverage business (i.e. gourmet coffee, tea, cocoa and non-carb beverages). Notably, this included the restage of the Continental brand’s gourmet coffee line of specialty varietals and custom roasts sold through broadline distributors like Sysco, Gordon Food Service and Food Service of America. This resulted to 1MM incremental lbs. of high margin coffee.

Launched the Nehi/Diet Rite brands joint venture with the RC Cola Co. for non-carb beverage consumption, to strengthen Quaker’s on-premise beverage portfolio and to improve the department’s balance sheet through accelerated beverage equipment amortization.

Community and Professional Volunteerism

Big Brother and Mentor – Big Brothers Big Sisters: Mentor (2013 – Present)

Dallas CC-MarCom – Marketing and sales professional discussion group: Co-Moderator (2011 – 2012)

Heart of a Warrior Foundation – Youth experiential and supplemental ed.: Board Member (2007 – 2009)

Outward Bound Adventures – Outdoor & environmental ed.: Senior Course Leader and Guide (1997 – 2011)

– Outdoor & environmental ed.: Board Member (2005 – 2008)

Sierra Club, Angeles Chapter – Wilderness Travel Course (WTC): Instructor (1998 – 2006)

Education and Professional Development

Bachelor of Science in Business (Marketing Concentration), Indiana University, Kelley School of Business

“Continuing Education”: Non-degreed executive program - Brand Strategy, Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management

Contact this candidate