This week Lane and Fred spend time with Clayton Birney of Arista Home Care Solutions and in our second half Lori Mitchell Dixon of Great Lakes Marketing Research here in Toledo. Both talk about their journeys from working for other people to making the decision to own their own businesses.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to A Heart for Business. I'm Fred Lafever and
along with Lane Months, President CEO the Better Business Bureau
of Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan, we'll highlight a local
business weekly. You'll discover why these small local business owners
have a passion for what they do and why the
(00:26):
Better Business Bureau has a Heart for Business. Now here's
Lamee Months.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome, ladies, gentlemen, children of all ages, welcome to the program,
A Heart for Business Podcast. This is Lane Mons. I'm
here in Fred la Fever's castle, deep inside of WSPD,
right next door to the Toledo mud Hens Field and
with us today our a guest, Clayton Bernie from Arista
Home Care. Clayton, how are you today.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I'm doing good. Welcome, Thanks for having me here on
the show.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Thanks for coming in. We appreciate it. We're going to
talk a little bit about you and your origin story
and your company's origin story, and then you're going to
edumicate the listening audience on some things they should know
when they're looking at home health care. All right, so
you you know Fred by the way I tell I
do I do.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I've been in here with Fred a handful of times.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Well disclosure. They're one of my endorsed clients that I
talk about on a pretty regular basis on air in
the morning about the service they provide. And one of
the words that I use on a regular basis when
I'm doing it is professional and caring. That was that
was one of the things I learned about them when
they first came into the studio and talked about what
(01:35):
they do. And they and I always say, because I
never remember the years, they've been doing it for dozens
of years.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Eleven is that the goat? Is that the go to
That's my go to line one.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I don't you say eleven years?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Eleven years? Yeah? My wife Paul and I founded it
in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
From what what were you doing before you founded Aristo?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Okay? So I worked in corporate marketing, primarily not a
motive field Detroit area of companies in Toledo. But uh
so I bring kind of the business end of it
and the marketing.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
You're the professional side, but not the caring side.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, I mean, I like to I'm assuming the let's
put it this way, we're all caring. It's there's a
clinical side. That's where my wife excels. That's where Paula
comes from. She's got thirty years plus with all the
big names around town working in different doctors' offices, hospital setting,
(02:28):
or more and more so in medical care facilities. But yeah,
she's worked in a realm of different clinical care and
administrative roles, and so it was a natural fit for
her when we decided to go into home healthcare.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
It's a good partnership.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Sorry, Fred. So when you were working in the in
the automotive where you did you say you were doing marketing?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yeah, I worked for an agency that worked with a
lot of the automotive companies. I mean we we worked
with any you name it. We worked with them, companies
like Ford, Kia, Folkswagen, and I actually worked more specifically
with a lot of different Tier one tier two providers,
which are the companies that do that sell the parts.
(03:09):
Sure you know that are made to put the cars together.
But we did We did live marketing global globally, so
we would do live events all around the world.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
So why change away from corporate and you go and
take on the toils and trials and tribulations of owning
your own business.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Well, you heard me say, all around the world I
wanted to be home. I love travel, but I got
to a point where I want travel to be somewhere
I want to go because I choose to go there
with my family and friends, and otherwise I love being home.
I like being here in Toledo.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Almost everybody that has a job like that where there's
a lot of travel around the world get to a
point where they're like, boy, it's fun. It was fun.
I saw a lot of cool stuff, but I think
it's time, yeah, to come home.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I did that for twenty five years, and I just
felt when the company I worked for said we don't
want you here anymore. You know, we hear about that happening,
and you think, well, that would never happen to me,
but it did, and maybe they saw I was burned
out and I felt it right away. And I had
an offer. I had a job offer from another company
to go be the account manager for the Cadillac account
and I said, Nope, not doing it. I'm going to
(04:14):
do something different already.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
And everybody is expendable at some point. Everybody needs to
realize that everybody can be replaced. The tough part for
a lot of people, and we saw a lot of
this during COVID is finding that next thing that you
were going to be passionate about. And so obviously your
wife has been in this for a while. Did she
(04:35):
kind of say, hey, just come and join me, or
did you see what she was doing and saying, you
know what, let's try this.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Well, so excuse me. So I sat, I literally sat
at the kitchen table, and she went to work and
started researching. You know, got online. I just knew I
wanted to do something myself. You know, I had a
little nest egg of money, and I thought, we're going
to do something. And you start googling franch and opportunities,
and you know, you get subways and car washes, and
(05:05):
those are great businesses. I take my car to a
car wash, and I go eat a subway.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I worked my way through college as a subway manager.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
But I wanted true I wanted to find something that
and this is a reflection of my wife's conversations with me.
We wanted something that had a deeper purpose of meaning.
And that's what the business is. When you're taking care
of people, and in our case, primarily elders in our community.
Not always we work with people with disabilities, but they're
all disadvantaged classes of people that need extra attention and care.
(05:35):
And that's what we really have our passion.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
And that's a highly regulated business and that's it's also
it can be take an emotional toll.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I think, oh it can. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we
have clients we worked with that of course have passed away,
and you know, you feel it. It's a personal connection
and you feel like you're part of their family. And
I was talking to you about it the other day.
We want the families to feel like we're an extension
of their of what they can do to take care
(06:06):
of their loved ones.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, because a lot of time. And what we talk
about on there and we talk about this is it's
a lot of time. It's long term. It's not all
we're going to have a risk to come in and
you know, sit with Grandma for three days or a
week while she recovers from a hip operation. A lot
of times it's long care. Especially when it comes to
seniors and folks with developmental disabilities. You're there for months,
(06:29):
possibly even years.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
It's correct, absolutely, yeah, the developmental disability community. I mean,
anybody who's I think the age is twenty one and
above twenty two or something like that. They could be
in the system, so to speak for you know, twenty
thirty forty years who knows all. And the other thing
that happens in this We see this in the developmental
disability community. Their parents are often taking care of them
(06:51):
up to a certain age, and then my parents start
running into issues with the level of care. I've heard
them before. I have to have people like us come
in and help them.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, And I think I mentioned the first time you
run when I would go to church and I'd see
somebody with a child come in, not even a child.
You could tell the person was in their twenties already,
and mom and dad were in their sixties. And the
thing that I always thought was, Gosh, who's going to
take care of this person?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
When mom and dad pass away. And that's where you
guys step in, yep.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So how how much have you grown? Obviously you start
with that first patient. Do you still remember your first patient?
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I do, Indeed, it was you really oh boy. Yeah,
not going to state any names, you know, hippo reasons,
but it was an elderly woman. She lived in a
small apartment style community, you know, senior community in temperance.
I'm sorry, Lambertville, and we were so excited to have
an opportunity. We do what we call an assessment, and
my wife and I both jumped in the car and
(07:48):
we went together. That family was probably overwhelmed, like, boy,
these guys are all about us, you know. And I
guess that's good, and we still want families to feel
that way. But you know, we don't have the time
and re sources that we both go do everything together.
And we sat in that small living room for probably
two hours, built a wonderful relationship with the woman. Her
daughter and her granddad were there, and we took care
(08:10):
of her until she declined and had to move into it.
They had to put her in the facility, which is
what we often do. That's the role we want. I
kind of like it that way because we don't have
to deal with the final end. You know, we still
follow them and find out what their conditions are, but
we are a good middle step for people to say,
mom doesn't want to go into facility, she doesn't have
(08:31):
to right now. We can hire these people to help take.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Care of well.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
And that's really hard. My folks lasted well actually pretty
much on their own the whole time, you know, at
like senior apartment living and things like that, until my
mom moved in with my sister and so she provided
that healthcare she was able to. But not everybody has
that situation. I mean, you know, people have to work
(08:55):
and mom and dad are eighty years old and you're
still in the workforce. Don't have that time. That's where
people like you step in.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah, that's where we really feel like we benefit families
the most is we're not replacing the family. I mean,
in some cases they might be out of town. We've
taken care of people, you know, they got two or
three kids that live in other parts of the country
or whatever. But for the most part, you know, they're
most of the people we work with have a local
family member or a niece or somebody that's a connection
(09:23):
a POA and looking out for their financial and their
health care needs, and we were just an extension of that,
and we can make their lives a lot better because
I mean, I have a friend and this wasn't even
work related story. I have a friend whose parents moved
into facility in Perrysburg, and I said, how's your how
(09:45):
are your's his his wife's parents, They said, how are
your in laws doing? And he said, oh, he kind
of rolled his eyes. He said, they're doing good. They're
doing good, he said, but I get a phone call
about once a week to come and help help Jim
fix the remote because he can't make the remote. He
doesn't can't figure out how to make, so he's got
to drive from Westilly at all.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Actually my age, so I'm and I'm still independent, so
I know the remote is a tough one.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Well for any of us, it can be shi And.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
The independence part of this is what's especially important. You know,
at some point you got to take the keys away
from your dad. At some point Mom can't prepare her
meals anymore, or remember to take her meds or or
do the things that you know, My mom was a
clean nut. She wanted that apartment clean, no matter how
big or small it was. And so some of the
(10:36):
services that you guys are provide, besides that's the companionship,
are those kind of things, right, Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah, I mean we, I guess we like to think
that we can help families. A lot of times, the
person who needs to help, they, as I like to say,
they don't necessarily self prescribe. Right, The need. They have
to be guided in the right direction for their own safety.
And it's like you have to have that difficult talk.
You have to sit down. The family has to sit
(11:02):
down and say, listen, mom, if you don't accept the
idea having somebody come into your house and help with
these tasks that you're struggling with, you're gonna end up.
We're gonna have to put you in a facility.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And the alternatives worse. So do you help close I
hate to use the word close that deal, but do
you help the family sometimes get the ball into the
end zone on.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
That to move them to a facility?
Speaker 2 (11:21):
No, no, no, get the to get the parent or
the persons that they're trying to get the care for
to get there to accept it in their mind.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well we do, and and I'll tell you that's where Paula,
my wife, really excels because when she goes and meets
with the families, I mean this, she has to use
your term closed. And I worked in sales and project manages.
I don't know, I know the term, but I don't
want she she closes. In other words, she's successful in
helping families to make the decision to determine you know
the determination to get outside help. Ninety percent of the time.
(11:51):
If she gets in their living room, ninety percent of
the time, we're gonna do services to help that.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Family because they see.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
It's part of that having met her. Part of that
is the fact that you can tell, not that I
can't tell with you, but you have a deity Daddy
war books look to you, which your wife doesn't have.
She has a full head of hair, but she has
there's a presence about her that when she is talking
(12:18):
to you, that you understand that there really is in
her a caring for what she's going to do. If
you agree with what she has to offer you, there's
going to be somebody caring taking care of you. And
I think that comes true with her.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Oh absolutely, I mean that's a gift. It's obviously he's
highly intelligent. She's highly educated. She continues all the time
to go get more certifications. If I had the half
the energy she has, I probably have a lot more
of those extra letters behind my title. But she's a
certified dementia practitioner. She's got all sorts of different medical
(12:55):
type of training certifications in a couple of degrees. So yeah,
but more than anything, the passion that she feels about
what we do is equal. I feel in every sense
to what.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I have Clayton, Let's help the listeners. Right so, and
I'm going to speak from experience. So my parents passed
rather early, so I'm not faced with this decision, right
so I never had to go through it. Where would
where does someone start? Like I would not even know
what do people start with a blind internet search? Where
do people start to find home health care? And how
(13:27):
do they tell the difference between one they should consider
and one that they probably might want to steer clear of.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Well, I hope they listen to friends advice absolutely, But
aside from that, so yeah, I mean I think most
people do research the internet, And I mean that what
does anybody do in this day and age when they
want to get information, any research?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
And is there an organization they can.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Turn Well, so locally there's the area offs on Aging. Okay,
that's a wonderful resource. They tend to be more suited
to help people in lower income brackets, people who have,
you know, a lot more level of financial resource. The
system kind of expects those people to go out there
(14:10):
and do it, find a way to do it with
with their resources and doesn't necessarily.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
But they still be a good place to go.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
All centers are wonderful, yeah, I and we have a
lot of them in the community. My mom who's eighty five,
she lives and she doesn't live locally here, and she
lives in a town that's not quite as big as Toledo,
but pretty good size, not on the west coast, and
they have like one senior center in the entire region.
We have fifteen.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, and I don't maybe sor assisted living for I'm
talking about like you know, you go for the day
to the Margaret Hunt Senior Center and hang out with
other seniors and they get to talking.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Like Sylvania has a wonderful one, soana mommy fantastic.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
All Wood County has a network of senior centers with
Bowling Green, but also Perrysburg, Rosford and all the other
communities I think Pemberville and other place.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Will those organizations help a family winnow the list or
or a truly thus give more details, help the family
vet somebody.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, absolutely, that's a service they offer. They have social
workers that know what the resources are. They maintain resource guys,
as does the area offs on aging. I wanted to
add that that will always if nothing else, just give
families a list and say these are all companies that
we trust. I mean, we're They're not going to put
us or any other company on the list if they
don't have some level of trust.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
It's a vetting thing, it understand.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, how does the risk to get the word out?
How do you put yourself forward to the market, to
the public.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Well, I mean any any way you can think of.
First of all, we're involved in a lot of different
professional organizations around town. I am soon to be retired
from this position, but I for five years I've been
the president of a local organization called the Northwest Ohio
Gerontological Association NOGA, and uh, my term is finally up
(16:02):
this may, and I'll hand the keys over to somebody
else and hopefully they'll take it to the next level.
But organizations like that, like I said, Paul is a
certified dementia practitioner. She actually gives public presentations through the
Alzheimer's Association, another great organization that we should definitely mention
a great resource because you know, about seven If my
(16:23):
statistics are you know, even closest, I think it's about
seventy five percent of the people in the elder community
that need care have some.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Some form of dimension. A lot of people think it's
all Alzheimer's, but there's a ton of different dementias out there. Yeah,
and then they need to understand that because you have
to offer a certain level of care depending on what
you're dealing with.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Right right, Absolutely, yeah, I mean there's so many different
types of dementias. It's it's it's a dimension, is a
class of you know, Alzheimer's is a specific disease. And
with the.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Population, with the boomers aging, the population aging, it's going
to I think it's going to become this services that
you provide are only going to be more needed for
more people.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Absolutely, yeah, I mean that's that's what they say, you know,
ten thousand baby boomers a day hitting you know, sixty
five and or seventy or whatever age bracket you want
to go with. But definitely more of a need in
the community. Now. There's a lot of providers in the
community and that's a good thing. I guess the people
have that much opportunity for seeking out different their own
choice of who they want to work with. But the
(17:27):
but yeah, there's a large population of people.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Where are you based out of Clayton. Where's your home
office and what's your service area?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Well, serve our service area is really what matters when
I want to talk to people consumers about needing our care,
because we go anywhere in the greater Toledo area, you know,
even into the Bedford areas in Michigan, but all around
Toledo and the suburban communities as far down as like
Bowling Green. And our office is in Sylvania Townships. We're
(17:56):
just you know, Central Avenue out near King Road. But
we don't do we we don't have a brick and
mortar facility that cares for people. We we that's our
administrative We go to the care.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
You're going into the home.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
So what people call say, well, where are you located?
If you're in anywhere in Toledo, We're going to help
you in.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Anything. We got to As we wrap up the segment, Clayton,
is there anything you want to leave the listeners with
as far as advice or a last bit of wisdom
for dealing with your your industry, I.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Say, open the conversation. I mean, if they call us
or any qualified provider people, we're here to help. I mean,
we're here to help families, and we've talked to families
before and they've gone different directions. They said, well, okay,
good information, but we're going to go talk to somebody else.
And we're also actually I should mention it. We're part
of a network of people that Paula helped put this together. Uh,
(18:50):
Silver Services, and there's financial planners, there's there's an elder
law attorney. Uh, there's a home renovation expert. There's also
to different people and we can we refer to each
other quite regularly.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Would you say that if you're if you're a family
and you're at least thinking about it, it's probably that
that's probably means it's time to at least start having
conversations and learning.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
You made You just made a good point and I'm
glad you brought that.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
In your mind.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
If people wait, most people wait too long. Yeah, they
wait too long. They need to start earlier in the process,
even if you're just gathering information, get a better understanding
of what's out there and what your options are, so
that when you know you a crisis happens, which is
usually what the precipice was, it push it over the top. Yeah,
(19:35):
that that you're ready and you know what you need
to do rather than oh you're like a deer in
the headlights.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Clayton Bernie from Arista Home Care, thank you for being
on the program.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Thank you, Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. Thanks guys.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Do you know our area has over forty thousand businesses.
Some are old, some are new, but they all have
a story to tell about why they sell, how someone
took a chance once upon a time, someone with a
heart for business. I'm this is Laane Monts, the host
of the Better Business Bureaus Heart for Business podcast. We
know a thing or two about our area's companies. After all,
we've been keeping tabs on them since nineteen nineteen. Join
(20:10):
me in Toledo radio legend Fred la Fever every week
as our BBB superheroes tell their origin story and share
a few industry secrets along the way. Well, welcome back
to the program. If you're still with us, that means
you've flipped the record over and we are now on
the b side of episode fourteen and guest for the
second half is Lori Mitchell Dixon. Do I should I
say the PhD? Lori Luri Mitchell Dixon PhD.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Well, now that you've said it once, we're good to go.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
She earned that PhD.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
That's like Wiley Coyote super genius.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
So, Lurie, you are the owner and boss lady of
Great Lakes Marketing Research. Am I getting that correct?
Speaker 4 (20:49):
You sure are? You're two for two now, two for two.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
That's about as good as that's Graham over.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Thanks everyone, Everything else is going to be a mistake.
So is your Is your PhD in marketing or something else?
Speaker 4 (21:03):
It is in marketing and statistics?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (21:05):
And where's it from Kent State?
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Ah?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Excellent?
Speaker 4 (21:08):
All right, thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
So Laurie, you are a member of the Better Business Bureau,
of course, as all my guests have been, and I
thank you for being willing to participate. We're happy to
have you. And as I told you when we were
doing show prep, I'm a marketing major. Not sure I
ever formally used it because I went on to law school,
but I love it. And you're in the part of
marketing that no one talks about as much as they should,
(21:31):
and that's marketing research. Tell the listeners what that's all about.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Marketing research is the best part of marketing because Marketing
is all about making sure people like what you're selling,
and you can't possibly figure out if people are going
to like it if you don't ask and respect their opinion.
So what we do is we figure out what consumers
want or what businesses want from other businesses, and we
(21:57):
package that all up so that we can provide guidance
to organizations that are trying to meet the needs of
their marketplace.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I say, you're the smarts behind marketing. You may not
get all the glory, right, the salesperson who closes the
deal gets all the glory, but really there's a lot
more going on that leads up to that.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Absolutely, those salespeople are getting all the glory because they
are presenting something that is worth buying. So somebody somewhere
along the line created the information so that that's something
worth buying. Yes, was worth buying.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
And we talked on the phone. You are a proponent
of the what did you call it?
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Aim?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Shoot, you had a phrase for it. You're like most
people use their gut instinct and then wonder why their
marketing dollars didn't work out.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Yes, and I'm saying that your marketing dollars will work
out if you aim first, and you don't know what
to aim at if you haven't gotten the information and
you've created a nice little bullet chart for yourself.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
You said a lot of people fire in the n aim.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Yeah, they give it a whirl, it doesn't work, and
they're like, huh, what the heck went wrong? Now I
gotta go figure that out.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
So you're saying that those people that put those things
up from their buildings that wave in the wind because
there's hot air blow to them and they're just waving
their hands, that's not a good advertising gimmick.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
I didn't say that. I you know what, if we
learned that people were really impulsive and they'd only pull
in when they saw that wavy thing.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Or a giant gorilla on top of the car dealership.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
That's right. I'd say, Hey, if that works, because it's
impulse super But if that wavy thing communicates that you're
not professional or tells people that you are desperado, but
I'd say, don't do that anymore.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
So that's what that's why I love about this. So
let's talk. First of all, how did did you start
Great Lakes Marketing? How did you get involved? How did
you become the boss lady at Great Lakes Marketing.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
I came became the boss lady by starting it at
the very, very very bottom. I did not start the company.
It was founded in nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
So you know what was the very bottom?
Speaker 4 (24:11):
I'm curious it was the very bottom was. I started
as a secretary and I had a typewriter. Wow, a typewriter.
I had a phone that had the little buttons that
you know, you absolutely disconnected, and I had liquid white out,
you know. Yeah, And my senior year in high school,
I was the secretary receptionist, so I did the typing
(24:35):
of the questionnaires and the reports, and then I stayed.
I never left.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Start early while she was a high school student. I
thought that was I loaded that question up because I
love your story.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
I did. I started as a senior in high school
because I wanted to get money. I had no interest
necessarily in market research. But after a half a year
or so on the job, I couldn't believe how fascinating
it was to get all this information and actually be
able to help somebody do something better. And then I
(25:09):
started at the University of Toledo, and I kept saying, oh,
I'm going to work another year and then I'm going
to go transfer somewhere else. I loved working, I loved
my experience at the University of Toledo, so I stayed
for my undergrad I stayed for my master's and then
right about that time is when I bought Great Lakes.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
How old were you when you bought Great Lakes twenty four?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
What?
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Yeah, I know, but I had Seriously, I had a mentor.
The man who hired me when I was a senior
in high school was the operations manager, and we really clicked.
He's fifteen years older. He was a great mentor, taught
me as much as he could, and he was really
(25:51):
a proponent of more education. So I went on to
get my doctorate after I bought Great Lakes, because he said,
you go get it, and I will keep this boat
afloat while you're gone.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
So she bought the company in her low twenties, which,
by the way, makes me feel like crap about myself
and my whole career trajectory.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
It is pretty amazing that in six years you went
from you know, typing up the reports and correcting your
mistakes with white out, yeah, and to owning their company
at what point in that six years did you realize
or did you even realize that, Okay, I really like
this so much. I want to own this place and
(26:31):
run it.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Probably about sophomore ish year at UTA, I started taking
the marketing classes. I started getting more involved in the work.
And as I said, I had a great mentor, and
he brought me in. I met with the clients right away,
So I got that energy that you get sure and
when you're talking to somebody really wants to listen to
(26:56):
their customers, there's an energy in the room and you
can't get that any other way. And he brought me
along and I got to talk to the entrepreneurs or
you know, if you think about it, that's in the
early eighties. That's when Toledo had a lot of multinational corporations.
So we were working with Owens Illinois and oh It's
Corning and Dana and all of them with really smart
(27:19):
marketing people. So I learned a lot.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, when I was Chris got here in eighty we
had about five of the Fortune five hundred companies here. Yes,
so you were dealing with some big names.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
Yes, and it was very exciting and I learned a lot.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
How has that changed because we don't have those big
companies anymore. So how have you had to change what
your focus was from those gigantic firms, you know, with
thousands of employees all over the country, to much smaller
firms who maybe are just regional powerhouses.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Actually our company is national. So as they left, we
continue to work with all of those companies in whatever
shapes they took. Many of them became different names, different divisions,
different spinoffs. There are versions of Owens Illinois that we
still work with, other spinoffs, and we do a lot
of national work. So as we met people and as
(28:14):
they learned about what we do and they went off
to different jobs, they and I always say they took
me with them.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, it sounds.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Like, so you have something a council or some sort
of group of people that you use as a proving
ground for concepts or ideas or brand ideas. To tell
more about that, because I find that fascinating and I'm
not sure how common that is.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
It's very uncommon. We're the only ones in the Ohio
area that have this, but we have asked Toledo dot com.
So it's a consumer OpEd in panel. You join the
panel and you answer questionnaires and surveys, or you participate
in focus groups or individual interviews. You and absence are
(28:59):
given lots of different opportunities to share your opinions about
products and services, and then companies of course want that information.
So for us, this panel is mostly Ohioans and predominantly
Northwest Ohio, so organizations, small businesses or bigger businesses, or
somebody trying to pretest an idea or get in, you know,
(29:20):
like see if something's going to work. We can do
that research very effectively and very quickly with our ask
Toledo panel.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Do they log in through the internet to answer to
do the surveys? Is that how they respond? Do they
have like a log in?
Speaker 4 (29:36):
So the first step is that you join the panel.
So I'm going to plug this panel because it's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
So you should how many people, by the way, how
many people do?
Speaker 4 (29:43):
There are thousands in but we need thousands.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Yeah, statistical validity problem correct.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
And we're always doing different studies. So sometimes we might
do a study only with people who have children under
the age of four, and sometimes we might be a
study with somebody who's a caregiver of an adults. You
need lots of people.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
You grab that demographic information male, female, black, white kids,
no kids own rent. You grab all that when they join, right.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
And the only reason we ask those questions is so
that we can send you surveys that are relevant to you.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, but the first.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Step is you log in to ask toledo dot com.
You fill out some real basic information like you just said,
and then every time you are somebody that looks like
they would fit the profile of who we want a survey,
we send you an invitation through your email. You finish
the survey online. You go online, you finish the survey,
(30:38):
and you get money put into your account.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Great money.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
Of course, the big bucks man people want to get
paid for their opinion.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Okay, you know, I'm going to set a profile up
for every one of my many personalities that I have
at least ten or eleven, I can get paid ten
or eleven extra time.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
Yeah, the schizophrenics of the world do not cash and
double that does not work. But after you fill out
your profile and you do the surveys and you get
your money, you can either accumulate your money and get
gift cards. There's like seventeen or eighteen different organizations that
you can get gift cards, Amazon, Walmart, gas stations, whatever,
(31:17):
and you can do the surveys online. But sometimes we
do focus groups where you you know, participate in a
zoom phone call, or you come to our focus group facility,
or you come in and you eat snacks and tell
us if you like the taste, or you can.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Food and money, food and money.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So let me ask you. Because he's much younger than
i am. I'm turning seventy four this year, is there
stiff because we always hear the you know, twenty five
to fifty four, that's what radio people always talk about.
That's who we want our market to be. Blah blah
blah blah blah. But my audience is a little older
(32:00):
or a talk radio audience, and I know from running
into them out in public. Is there a use or
a need for people my age to tell you about products?
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Absolutely, you your age group and all of you people
listening right now have money in your wallet, and that
is different.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
That's how I'm always that's important.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
That's important. Yeah, yeah, you want to sell to people
to have the money to buy.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
But really what's fascinating right now is obviously what you
just said about the older demographic. But most communities are
aging right and people want to age in place, so
that means communities better figure out how to make their
communities livable for older adults. And we do a lot
of work with communities to do assessments of their older
(32:49):
populations to make sure that they have access to transportation
and social opportunities and sidewalks that accommodate walking assistance and
things like that.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Part of urban Are you assisting in urban planning? Now?
Speaker 4 (33:02):
A lot of our clients in the communities that we were,
I would not have guessed that, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
So I have a question. Tell us a story if
you can, about one of your favorite products that you
helped bring to market with your research. Not something boring,
but like something that would really be interesting or people
be surprised or maybe they would recognize if you're allowed
to do that.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
If you can, I can tell you one story because
because this is really cool.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Where's that PhDe? Where's that PhD?
Speaker 4 (33:37):
I know I should articulate better. So we did a
study for Energizer battery, and I can talk about it
because it's gotten global press. And what is fascinating is
that Northwest Ohio kids and parents helped develop this product
using our ask Toledo panel because our clients are national
(33:58):
and they want to get insights from general audiences, and
Toledo's a great place where a slice of life, I mean,
we represent everything.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
I've always heard that that fast food places will try
out some of those new foods here first.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Absolutely, it is a great market for this. So what
happens now is button batteries. You know, those little batteries
that go in the fobs and all of your little
electronics and your game counsel all of that. They look
like pennies or flat little discs. If a child swallows that,
it is harmful as can be. And there are deaths
(34:34):
every year because children swallow them and they burn their
esophagus and it's a terrible, terrible and I won't go
into the details. But if you're listening and you have
button batteries or sell batteries in your home, you've got
to keep them away from your children and your grandchildren.
To help facilitate keeping them in your home safely, there
(34:54):
are three things that Energizer has done. They first of all,
package the brand new battery in child resistant packaging, which
yes is the adult it's a little harder you probably
have to get your scissors out.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
But lane resistance packaging too.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
I'm laughing because I bought a watch battery just last
week and exactly what you're talking about. I had to
I couldn't open it without getting the scissors out, and
I thought that, why are they doing.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
This saving lives?
Speaker 4 (35:24):
I guess yes, it is saving lives. It's phenomenal. The
impact not only do you have to get your scissors out,
but the fact that it triggered in your mind, wait,
I have to get my scissors out. Why. You probably
looked at that package and saw the little insignia that
says child resistant. So that's a trigger to say, hey,
I got to keep these away from kids. Okay, So
(35:44):
that's step number one. Step number two is that energizers
smart enough to say there are sometimes if these batteries
end up on the floor, the device breaks. You there's
small little things and you might drop it and then thinks,
why do I care? It's I don't, it's used, it's
not you know, it doesn't work any I find it
(36:05):
when I find So if a kid would pick up
that battery and eat it, that's detrimental to their health.
So they have created a colorant, so that the battery,
if a kid puts it in their mouth and the
sala salava gets on it, it turns their mouth blue.
So mom or dad or grandma can quickly look at
(36:25):
that kid and say, oh, my gosh, and then they trigger, oh,
eat something, get them to the emergency room right away.
The third thing they do is they make it a
bitter taste, so that if you do put it in
your mouth and your kid, you want to spit it
out because it's bitter. So those three levels. So the
best part about this is best it was created. The
(36:46):
concepts were developed and created in Toledo. What we did
is invite parents to bring in their young children and
we put the bitterrent and the colorant on a little
disc that was what I call a placebo, but like
the candy ish kind of thing, so that the kid
would respond, so that energizer could figure out is the
(37:09):
colorant dark enough, is the bitter and strong enough and
on the right parts of the battery so that when
the kid puts it in their mouth, they spit it up.
So we tested hundreds of children in Toledo and we
watch their mouths turn blue. And we had parents who
were willing to say yes. It's twenty minutes later, I
(37:31):
still see blue on their face, and the blue is
the color that makes me say, that's not candy. So
it's fascinating. But Toledo, I thought all you.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Did was ask questions.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Oh no, no, here.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Now it's fascinating what businesses have to do to make
sure their products are effective.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Now do you have offices and branches around the country,
so you nationwide or does everything emanate from right here?
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Our office is here, but when we do research in
other cities, we either do it remotely or we do
the surveys online. But we will often go to those
cities and host meetings, and we will rent a facility
in another city, just like people rent our facility if
they want to talk to Toledo WANs.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
So why did you decide, since you're in charge, why
did you decide to stay here? You could go to
Chicago or LA or New York and you know, be
big time.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Well we are big time, yeah, So why did you
stay here? I love Toledo. I'm a born and raised
Toledo And as I said before, Toledo Wins are a
slice of life. They are a piece of Americana. We
have diversity in the jobs that are available. We have
(38:50):
cultural exposure diversity, we've got political diversity. It is a
great place to do market research. It's a great place
to to work and have our headquarters here because we
have excellent staffing between the universities and the businesses. We
have hired great people and my home is here.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
We have to figure something out too, because we have
almost six thousand businesses in the BBB and not all
of them would have the budget for marketing research, but
I think some of them would. I'm sure some of
them would and are not probably getting as much as
they need, and they could really spend their money more
wisely with a little intelligence here.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Sure, the key thing is that this Estlito panel in
Northwest Ohio. If you are advertising in Northwest Ohio, or
if you're putting together marketing programs or any other kinds
of events, we can evaluate so quickly the impact of
that message. Is the message working? Is it talking about
(39:55):
your product in a way that's unique. Are people remembering it,
a hearing it and associating it with you? I mean,
this Northwest Ohio panel that we have could make a
lot of sense for businesses who need to understand their marketplace.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
So, Laurie, as we wrap up here the second segment
of this episode, what would you like to leave the
listeners with? Some are going to be members of the
public and you probably want them to join your ass
toleto panel, but there are going to be many business members.
What would you like to leave as a lasting thought
in your wisdom in the business of marketing research? What's
(40:30):
the last nugget of wisdom here?
Speaker 4 (40:32):
We consider ourselves a decision science company. So if you're
a business owner and you're making a decision and you
don't feel one hundred percent confident that you have the
information to make that decision, give me a call and
let's talk to see if data collection of some kind
or listening to your customers are getting satisfaction reports from
(40:53):
your customers would help you make a more intelligent, better
resource alignment.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Phone number and website for those that might be interested.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
The phone number is four one nine five three four
four seven one zero. The website is really easy, it's
g LM dot com. But just go on ask Toledo
and again that's easy too because you got to ask. Yeah,
ask Toledo dot com or Great Lakes Marketing we're easy
(41:27):
to find.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
I'm doing us.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
I'm doing that tonight because I got a lot of opinions.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Sister, Oh Gay, you're he's gonna skew all your results.
He's a present outlier as an outliar. Thank you, Laurie
Mitchell Dixon, and we hope to talk to you again sometime.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Thanks for joining us again for this edition of the
Better Business Bureau A Heart for Business. If you're listening
to this episode, just know that you can also go
back into the archives and listen to the previous episodes.
This was number fourteen, so you've got a lot to
catch up on all local business people who have a
(42:05):
passion for what they do in northwest Ohio with a
little bit of help from the Better Business Bureau. You
can get us on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to
your podcasts.
Welcome to A Heart for Business. I'm Fred Lafever and
along with Lane Months, President CEO the Better Business Bureau
of Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan, we'll highlight a local
business weekly. You'll discover why these small local business owners
have a passion for what they do and why the
(00:26):
Better Business Bureau has a Heart for Business. Now here's
Lamee Months.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome, ladies, gentlemen, children of all ages, welcome to the program,
A Heart for Business Podcast. This is Lane Mons. I'm
here in Fred la Fever's castle, deep inside of WSPD,
right next door to the Toledo mud Hens Field and
with us today our a guest, Clayton Bernie from Arista
Home Care. Clayton, how are you today.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I'm doing good. Welcome, Thanks for having me here on
the show.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Thanks for coming in. We appreciate it. We're going to
talk a little bit about you and your origin story
and your company's origin story, and then you're going to
edumicate the listening audience on some things they should know
when they're looking at home health care. All right, so
you you know Fred by the way I tell I
do I do.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I've been in here with Fred a handful of times.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Well disclosure. They're one of my endorsed clients that I
talk about on a pretty regular basis on air in
the morning about the service they provide. And one of
the words that I use on a regular basis when
I'm doing it is professional and caring. That was that
was one of the things I learned about them when
they first came into the studio and talked about what
(01:35):
they do. And they and I always say, because I
never remember the years, they've been doing it for dozens
of years.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Eleven is that the goat? Is that the go to
That's my go to line one.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I don't you say eleven years?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Eleven years? Yeah? My wife Paul and I founded it
in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
From what what were you doing before you founded Aristo?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Okay? So I worked in corporate marketing, primarily not a
motive field Detroit area of companies in Toledo. But uh
so I bring kind of the business end of it
and the marketing.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
You're the professional side, but not the caring side.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, I mean, I like to I'm assuming the let's
put it this way, we're all caring. It's there's a
clinical side. That's where my wife excels. That's where Paula
comes from. She's got thirty years plus with all the
big names around town working in different doctors' offices, hospital setting,
(02:28):
or more and more so in medical care facilities. But yeah,
she's worked in a realm of different clinical care and
administrative roles, and so it was a natural fit for
her when we decided to go into home healthcare.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
It's a good partnership.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Sorry, Fred. So when you were working in the in
the automotive where you did you say you were doing marketing?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yeah, I worked for an agency that worked with a
lot of the automotive companies. I mean we we worked
with any you name it. We worked with them, companies
like Ford, Kia, Folkswagen, and I actually worked more specifically
with a lot of different Tier one tier two providers,
which are the companies that do that sell the parts.
(03:09):
Sure you know that are made to put the cars together.
But we did We did live marketing global globally, so
we would do live events all around the world.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
So why change away from corporate and you go and
take on the toils and trials and tribulations of owning
your own business.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Well, you heard me say, all around the world I
wanted to be home. I love travel, but I got
to a point where I want travel to be somewhere
I want to go because I choose to go there
with my family and friends, and otherwise I love being home.
I like being here in Toledo.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Almost everybody that has a job like that where there's
a lot of travel around the world get to a
point where they're like, boy, it's fun. It was fun.
I saw a lot of cool stuff, but I think
it's time, yeah, to come home.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I did that for twenty five years, and I just
felt when the company I worked for said we don't
want you here anymore. You know, we hear about that happening,
and you think, well, that would never happen to me,
but it did, and maybe they saw I was burned
out and I felt it right away. And I had
an offer. I had a job offer from another company
to go be the account manager for the Cadillac account
and I said, Nope, not doing it. I'm going to
(04:14):
do something different already.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
And everybody is expendable at some point. Everybody needs to
realize that everybody can be replaced. The tough part for
a lot of people, and we saw a lot of
this during COVID is finding that next thing that you
were going to be passionate about. And so obviously your
wife has been in this for a while. Did she
(04:35):
kind of say, hey, just come and join me, or
did you see what she was doing and saying, you
know what, let's try this.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Well, so excuse me. So I sat, I literally sat
at the kitchen table, and she went to work and
started researching. You know, got online. I just knew I
wanted to do something myself. You know, I had a
little nest egg of money, and I thought, we're going
to do something. And you start googling franch and opportunities,
and you know, you get subways and car washes, and
(05:05):
those are great businesses. I take my car to a
car wash, and I go eat a subway.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I worked my way through college as a subway manager.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
But I wanted true I wanted to find something that
and this is a reflection of my wife's conversations with me.
We wanted something that had a deeper purpose of meaning.
And that's what the business is. When you're taking care
of people, and in our case, primarily elders in our community.
Not always we work with people with disabilities, but they're
all disadvantaged classes of people that need extra attention and care.
(05:35):
And that's what we really have our passion.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
And that's a highly regulated business and that's it's also
it can be take an emotional toll.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I think, oh it can. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we
have clients we worked with that of course have passed away,
and you know, you feel it. It's a personal connection
and you feel like you're part of their family. And
I was talking to you about it the other day.
We want the families to feel like we're an extension
of their of what they can do to take care
(06:06):
of their loved ones.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, because a lot of time. And what we talk
about on there and we talk about this is it's
a lot of time. It's long term. It's not all
we're going to have a risk to come in and
you know, sit with Grandma for three days or a
week while she recovers from a hip operation. A lot
of times it's long care. Especially when it comes to
seniors and folks with developmental disabilities. You're there for months,
(06:29):
possibly even years.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
It's correct, absolutely, yeah, the developmental disability community. I mean,
anybody who's I think the age is twenty one and
above twenty two or something like that. They could be
in the system, so to speak for you know, twenty
thirty forty years who knows all. And the other thing
that happens in this We see this in the developmental
disability community. Their parents are often taking care of them
(06:51):
up to a certain age, and then my parents start
running into issues with the level of care. I've heard
them before. I have to have people like us come
in and help them.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, And I think I mentioned the first time you
run when I would go to church and I'd see
somebody with a child come in, not even a child.
You could tell the person was in their twenties already,
and mom and dad were in their sixties. And the
thing that I always thought was, Gosh, who's going to
take care of this person?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
When mom and dad pass away. And that's where you
guys step in, yep.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So how how much have you grown? Obviously you start
with that first patient. Do you still remember your first patient?
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I do, Indeed, it was you really oh boy. Yeah,
not going to state any names, you know, hippo reasons,
but it was an elderly woman. She lived in a
small apartment style community, you know, senior community in temperance.
I'm sorry, Lambertville, and we were so excited to have
an opportunity. We do what we call an assessment, and
my wife and I both jumped in the car and
(07:48):
we went together. That family was probably overwhelmed, like, boy,
these guys are all about us, you know. And I
guess that's good, and we still want families to feel
that way. But you know, we don't have the time
and re sources that we both go do everything together.
And we sat in that small living room for probably
two hours, built a wonderful relationship with the woman. Her
daughter and her granddad were there, and we took care
(08:10):
of her until she declined and had to move into it.
They had to put her in the facility, which is
what we often do. That's the role we want. I
kind of like it that way because we don't have
to deal with the final end. You know, we still
follow them and find out what their conditions are, but
we are a good middle step for people to say,
mom doesn't want to go into facility, she doesn't have
(08:31):
to right now. We can hire these people to help take.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Care of well.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
And that's really hard. My folks lasted well actually pretty
much on their own the whole time, you know, at
like senior apartment living and things like that, until my
mom moved in with my sister and so she provided
that healthcare she was able to. But not everybody has
that situation. I mean, you know, people have to work
(08:55):
and mom and dad are eighty years old and you're
still in the workforce. Don't have that time. That's where
people like you step in.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah, that's where we really feel like we benefit families
the most is we're not replacing the family. I mean,
in some cases they might be out of town. We've
taken care of people, you know, they got two or
three kids that live in other parts of the country
or whatever. But for the most part, you know, they're
most of the people we work with have a local
family member or a niece or somebody that's a connection
(09:23):
a POA and looking out for their financial and their
health care needs, and we were just an extension of that,
and we can make their lives a lot better because
I mean, I have a friend and this wasn't even
work related story. I have a friend whose parents moved
into facility in Perrysburg, and I said, how's your how
(09:45):
are your's his his wife's parents, They said, how are
your in laws doing? And he said, oh, he kind
of rolled his eyes. He said, they're doing good. They're
doing good, he said, but I get a phone call
about once a week to come and help help Jim
fix the remote because he can't make the remote. He
doesn't can't figure out how to make, so he's got
to drive from Westilly at all.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Actually my age, so I'm and I'm still independent, so
I know the remote is a tough one.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Well for any of us, it can be shi And.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
The independence part of this is what's especially important. You know,
at some point you got to take the keys away
from your dad. At some point Mom can't prepare her
meals anymore, or remember to take her meds or or
do the things that you know, My mom was a
clean nut. She wanted that apartment clean, no matter how
big or small it was. And so some of the
(10:36):
services that you guys are provide, besides that's the companionship,
are those kind of things, right, Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah, I mean we, I guess we like to think
that we can help families. A lot of times, the
person who needs to help, they, as I like to say,
they don't necessarily self prescribe. Right, The need. They have
to be guided in the right direction for their own safety.
And it's like you have to have that difficult talk.
You have to sit down. The family has to sit
(11:02):
down and say, listen, mom, if you don't accept the
idea having somebody come into your house and help with
these tasks that you're struggling with, you're gonna end up.
We're gonna have to put you in a facility.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And the alternatives worse. So do you help close I
hate to use the word close that deal, but do
you help the family sometimes get the ball into the
end zone on.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
That to move them to a facility?
Speaker 2 (11:21):
No, no, no, get the to get the parent or
the persons that they're trying to get the care for
to get there to accept it in their mind.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well we do, and and I'll tell you that's where Paula,
my wife, really excels because when she goes and meets
with the families, I mean this, she has to use
your term closed. And I worked in sales and project manages.
I don't know, I know the term, but I don't
want she she closes. In other words, she's successful in
helping families to make the decision to determine you know
the determination to get outside help. Ninety percent of the time.
(11:51):
If she gets in their living room, ninety percent of
the time, we're gonna do services to help that.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Family because they see.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
It's part of that having met her. Part of that
is the fact that you can tell, not that I
can't tell with you, but you have a deity Daddy
war books look to you, which your wife doesn't have.
She has a full head of hair, but she has
there's a presence about her that when she is talking
(12:18):
to you, that you understand that there really is in
her a caring for what she's going to do. If
you agree with what she has to offer you, there's
going to be somebody caring taking care of you. And
I think that comes true with her.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Oh absolutely, I mean that's a gift. It's obviously he's
highly intelligent. She's highly educated. She continues all the time
to go get more certifications. If I had the half
the energy she has, I probably have a lot more
of those extra letters behind my title. But she's a
certified dementia practitioner. She's got all sorts of different medical
(12:55):
type of training certifications in a couple of degrees. So yeah,
but more than anything, the passion that she feels about
what we do is equal. I feel in every sense
to what.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I have Clayton, Let's help the listeners. Right so, and
I'm going to speak from experience. So my parents passed
rather early, so I'm not faced with this decision, right
so I never had to go through it. Where would
where does someone start? Like I would not even know
what do people start with a blind internet search? Where
do people start to find home health care? And how
(13:27):
do they tell the difference between one they should consider
and one that they probably might want to steer clear of.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Well, I hope they listen to friends advice absolutely, But
aside from that, so yeah, I mean I think most
people do research the internet, And I mean that what
does anybody do in this day and age when they
want to get information, any research?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
And is there an organization they can.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Turn Well, so locally there's the area offs on Aging. Okay,
that's a wonderful resource. They tend to be more suited
to help people in lower income brackets, people who have,
you know, a lot more level of financial resource. The
system kind of expects those people to go out there
(14:10):
and do it, find a way to do it with
with their resources and doesn't necessarily.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
But they still be a good place to go.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
All centers are wonderful, yeah, I and we have a
lot of them in the community. My mom who's eighty five,
she lives and she doesn't live locally here, and she
lives in a town that's not quite as big as Toledo,
but pretty good size, not on the west coast, and
they have like one senior center in the entire region.
We have fifteen.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, and I don't maybe sor assisted living for I'm
talking about like you know, you go for the day
to the Margaret Hunt Senior Center and hang out with
other seniors and they get to talking.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Like Sylvania has a wonderful one, soana mommy fantastic.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
All Wood County has a network of senior centers with
Bowling Green, but also Perrysburg, Rosford and all the other
communities I think Pemberville and other place.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Will those organizations help a family winnow the list or
or a truly thus give more details, help the family
vet somebody.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, absolutely, that's a service they offer. They have social
workers that know what the resources are. They maintain resource guys,
as does the area offs on aging. I wanted to
add that that will always if nothing else, just give
families a list and say these are all companies that
we trust. I mean, we're They're not going to put
us or any other company on the list if they
don't have some level of trust.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
It's a vetting thing, it understand.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, how does the risk to get the word out?
How do you put yourself forward to the market, to
the public.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Well, I mean any any way you can think of.
First of all, we're involved in a lot of different
professional organizations around town. I am soon to be retired
from this position, but I for five years I've been
the president of a local organization called the Northwest Ohio
Gerontological Association NOGA, and uh, my term is finally up
(16:02):
this may, and I'll hand the keys over to somebody
else and hopefully they'll take it to the next level.
But organizations like that, like I said, Paul is a
certified dementia practitioner. She actually gives public presentations through the
Alzheimer's Association, another great organization that we should definitely mention
a great resource because you know, about seven If my
(16:23):
statistics are you know, even closest, I think it's about
seventy five percent of the people in the elder community
that need care have some.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Some form of dimension. A lot of people think it's
all Alzheimer's, but there's a ton of different dementias out there. Yeah,
and then they need to understand that because you have
to offer a certain level of care depending on what
you're dealing with.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Right right, Absolutely, yeah, I mean there's so many different
types of dementias. It's it's it's a dimension, is a
class of you know, Alzheimer's is a specific disease. And
with the.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Population, with the boomers aging, the population aging, it's going
to I think it's going to become this services that
you provide are only going to be more needed for
more people.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Absolutely, yeah, I mean that's that's what they say, you know,
ten thousand baby boomers a day hitting you know, sixty
five and or seventy or whatever age bracket you want
to go with. But definitely more of a need in
the community. Now. There's a lot of providers in the
community and that's a good thing. I guess the people
have that much opportunity for seeking out different their own
choice of who they want to work with. But the
(17:27):
but yeah, there's a large population of people.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Where are you based out of Clayton. Where's your home
office and what's your service area?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Well, serve our service area is really what matters when
I want to talk to people consumers about needing our care,
because we go anywhere in the greater Toledo area, you know,
even into the Bedford areas in Michigan, but all around
Toledo and the suburban communities as far down as like
Bowling Green. And our office is in Sylvania Townships. We're
(17:56):
just you know, Central Avenue out near King Road. But
we don't do we we don't have a brick and
mortar facility that cares for people. We we that's our
administrative We go to the care.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
You're going into the home.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
So what people call say, well, where are you located?
If you're in anywhere in Toledo, We're going to help
you in.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Anything. We got to As we wrap up the segment, Clayton,
is there anything you want to leave the listeners with
as far as advice or a last bit of wisdom
for dealing with your your industry, I.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Say, open the conversation. I mean, if they call us
or any qualified provider people, we're here to help. I mean,
we're here to help families, and we've talked to families
before and they've gone different directions. They said, well, okay,
good information, but we're going to go talk to somebody else.
And we're also actually I should mention it. We're part
of a network of people that Paula helped put this together. Uh,
(18:50):
Silver Services, and there's financial planners, there's there's an elder
law attorney. Uh, there's a home renovation expert. There's also
to different people and we can we refer to each
other quite regularly.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Would you say that if you're if you're a family
and you're at least thinking about it, it's probably that
that's probably means it's time to at least start having
conversations and learning.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
You made You just made a good point and I'm
glad you brought that.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
In your mind.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
If people wait, most people wait too long. Yeah, they
wait too long. They need to start earlier in the process,
even if you're just gathering information, get a better understanding
of what's out there and what your options are, so
that when you know you a crisis happens, which is
usually what the precipice was, it push it over the top. Yeah,
(19:35):
that that you're ready and you know what you need
to do rather than oh you're like a deer in
the headlights.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Clayton Bernie from Arista Home Care, thank you for being
on the program.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Thank you, Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. Thanks guys.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Do you know our area has over forty thousand businesses.
Some are old, some are new, but they all have
a story to tell about why they sell, how someone
took a chance once upon a time, someone with a
heart for business. I'm this is Laane Monts, the host
of the Better Business Bureaus Heart for Business podcast. We
know a thing or two about our area's companies. After all,
we've been keeping tabs on them since nineteen nineteen. Join
(20:10):
me in Toledo radio legend Fred la Fever every week
as our BBB superheroes tell their origin story and share
a few industry secrets along the way. Well, welcome back
to the program. If you're still with us, that means
you've flipped the record over and we are now on
the b side of episode fourteen and guest for the
second half is Lori Mitchell Dixon. Do I should I
say the PhD? Lori Luri Mitchell Dixon PhD.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Well, now that you've said it once, we're good to go.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
She earned that PhD.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
That's like Wiley Coyote super genius.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
So, Lurie, you are the owner and boss lady of
Great Lakes Marketing Research. Am I getting that correct?
Speaker 4 (20:49):
You sure are? You're two for two now, two for two.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
That's about as good as that's Graham over.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Thanks everyone, Everything else is going to be a mistake.
So is your Is your PhD in marketing or something else?
Speaker 4 (21:03):
It is in marketing and statistics?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (21:05):
And where's it from Kent State?
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Ah?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Excellent?
Speaker 4 (21:08):
All right, thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
So Laurie, you are a member of the Better Business Bureau,
of course, as all my guests have been, and I
thank you for being willing to participate. We're happy to
have you. And as I told you when we were
doing show prep, I'm a marketing major. Not sure I
ever formally used it because I went on to law school,
but I love it. And you're in the part of
marketing that no one talks about as much as they should,
(21:31):
and that's marketing research. Tell the listeners what that's all about.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Marketing research is the best part of marketing because Marketing
is all about making sure people like what you're selling,
and you can't possibly figure out if people are going
to like it if you don't ask and respect their opinion.
So what we do is we figure out what consumers
want or what businesses want from other businesses, and we
(21:57):
package that all up so that we can provide guidance
to organizations that are trying to meet the needs of
their marketplace.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I say, you're the smarts behind marketing. You may not
get all the glory, right, the salesperson who closes the
deal gets all the glory, but really there's a lot
more going on that leads up to that.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Absolutely, those salespeople are getting all the glory because they
are presenting something that is worth buying. So somebody somewhere
along the line created the information so that that's something
worth buying. Yes, was worth buying.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
And we talked on the phone. You are a proponent
of the what did you call it?
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Aim?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Shoot, you had a phrase for it. You're like most
people use their gut instinct and then wonder why their
marketing dollars didn't work out.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Yes, and I'm saying that your marketing dollars will work
out if you aim first, and you don't know what
to aim at if you haven't gotten the information and
you've created a nice little bullet chart for yourself.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
You said a lot of people fire in the n aim.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Yeah, they give it a whirl, it doesn't work, and
they're like, huh, what the heck went wrong? Now I
gotta go figure that out.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
So you're saying that those people that put those things
up from their buildings that wave in the wind because
there's hot air blow to them and they're just waving
their hands, that's not a good advertising gimmick.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
I didn't say that. I you know what, if we
learned that people were really impulsive and they'd only pull
in when they saw that wavy thing.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Or a giant gorilla on top of the car dealership.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
That's right. I'd say, Hey, if that works, because it's
impulse super But if that wavy thing communicates that you're
not professional or tells people that you are desperado, but
I'd say, don't do that anymore.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
So that's what that's why I love about this. So
let's talk. First of all, how did did you start
Great Lakes Marketing? How did you get involved? How did
you become the boss lady at Great Lakes Marketing.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
I came became the boss lady by starting it at
the very, very very bottom. I did not start the company.
It was founded in nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
So you know what was the very bottom?
Speaker 4 (24:11):
I'm curious it was the very bottom was. I started
as a secretary and I had a typewriter. Wow, a typewriter.
I had a phone that had the little buttons that
you know, you absolutely disconnected, and I had liquid white out,
you know. Yeah, And my senior year in high school,
I was the secretary receptionist, so I did the typing
(24:35):
of the questionnaires and the reports, and then I stayed.
I never left.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Start early while she was a high school student. I
thought that was I loaded that question up because I
love your story.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
I did. I started as a senior in high school
because I wanted to get money. I had no interest
necessarily in market research. But after a half a year
or so on the job, I couldn't believe how fascinating
it was to get all this information and actually be
able to help somebody do something better. And then I
(25:09):
started at the University of Toledo, and I kept saying, oh,
I'm going to work another year and then I'm going
to go transfer somewhere else. I loved working, I loved
my experience at the University of Toledo, so I stayed
for my undergrad I stayed for my master's and then
right about that time is when I bought Great Lakes.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
How old were you when you bought Great Lakes twenty four?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
What?
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Yeah, I know, but I had Seriously, I had a mentor.
The man who hired me when I was a senior
in high school was the operations manager, and we really clicked.
He's fifteen years older. He was a great mentor, taught
me as much as he could, and he was really
(25:51):
a proponent of more education. So I went on to
get my doctorate after I bought Great Lakes, because he said,
you go get it, and I will keep this boat
afloat while you're gone.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
So she bought the company in her low twenties, which,
by the way, makes me feel like crap about myself
and my whole career trajectory.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
It is pretty amazing that in six years you went
from you know, typing up the reports and correcting your
mistakes with white out, yeah, and to owning their company
at what point in that six years did you realize
or did you even realize that, Okay, I really like
this so much. I want to own this place and
(26:31):
run it.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Probably about sophomore ish year at UTA, I started taking
the marketing classes. I started getting more involved in the work.
And as I said, I had a great mentor, and
he brought me in. I met with the clients right away,
So I got that energy that you get sure and
when you're talking to somebody really wants to listen to
(26:56):
their customers, there's an energy in the room and you
can't get that any other way. And he brought me
along and I got to talk to the entrepreneurs or
you know, if you think about it, that's in the
early eighties. That's when Toledo had a lot of multinational corporations.
So we were working with Owens Illinois and oh It's
Corning and Dana and all of them with really smart
(27:19):
marketing people. So I learned a lot.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, when I was Chris got here in eighty we
had about five of the Fortune five hundred companies here. Yes,
so you were dealing with some big names.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
Yes, and it was very exciting and I learned a lot.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
How has that changed because we don't have those big
companies anymore. So how have you had to change what
your focus was from those gigantic firms, you know, with
thousands of employees all over the country, to much smaller
firms who maybe are just regional powerhouses.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Actually our company is national. So as they left, we
continue to work with all of those companies in whatever
shapes they took. Many of them became different names, different divisions,
different spinoffs. There are versions of Owens Illinois that we
still work with, other spinoffs, and we do a lot
of national work. So as we met people and as
(28:14):
they learned about what we do and they went off
to different jobs, they and I always say they took
me with them.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, it sounds.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Like, so you have something a council or some sort
of group of people that you use as a proving
ground for concepts or ideas or brand ideas. To tell
more about that, because I find that fascinating and I'm
not sure how common that is.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
It's very uncommon. We're the only ones in the Ohio
area that have this, but we have asked Toledo dot com.
So it's a consumer OpEd in panel. You join the
panel and you answer questionnaires and surveys, or you participate
in focus groups or individual interviews. You and absence are
(28:59):
given lots of different opportunities to share your opinions about
products and services, and then companies of course want that information.
So for us, this panel is mostly Ohioans and predominantly
Northwest Ohio, so organizations, small businesses or bigger businesses, or
somebody trying to pretest an idea or get in, you know,
(29:20):
like see if something's going to work. We can do
that research very effectively and very quickly with our ask
Toledo panel.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Do they log in through the internet to answer to
do the surveys? Is that how they respond? Do they
have like a log in?
Speaker 4 (29:36):
So the first step is that you join the panel.
So I'm going to plug this panel because it's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
So you should how many people, by the way, how
many people do?
Speaker 4 (29:43):
There are thousands in but we need thousands.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Yeah, statistical validity problem correct.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
And we're always doing different studies. So sometimes we might
do a study only with people who have children under
the age of four, and sometimes we might be a
study with somebody who's a caregiver of an adults. You
need lots of people.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
You grab that demographic information male, female, black, white kids,
no kids own rent. You grab all that when they join, right.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
And the only reason we ask those questions is so
that we can send you surveys that are relevant to you.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, but the first.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Step is you log in to ask toledo dot com.
You fill out some real basic information like you just said,
and then every time you are somebody that looks like
they would fit the profile of who we want a survey,
we send you an invitation through your email. You finish
the survey online. You go online, you finish the survey,
(30:38):
and you get money put into your account.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Great money.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
Of course, the big bucks man people want to get
paid for their opinion.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Okay, you know, I'm going to set a profile up
for every one of my many personalities that I have
at least ten or eleven, I can get paid ten
or eleven extra time.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
Yeah, the schizophrenics of the world do not cash and
double that does not work. But after you fill out
your profile and you do the surveys and you get
your money, you can either accumulate your money and get
gift cards. There's like seventeen or eighteen different organizations that
you can get gift cards, Amazon, Walmart, gas stations, whatever,
(31:17):
and you can do the surveys online. But sometimes we
do focus groups where you you know, participate in a
zoom phone call, or you come to our focus group facility,
or you come in and you eat snacks and tell
us if you like the taste, or you can.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Food and money, food and money.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So let me ask you. Because he's much younger than
i am. I'm turning seventy four this year, is there
stiff because we always hear the you know, twenty five
to fifty four, that's what radio people always talk about.
That's who we want our market to be. Blah blah
blah blah blah. But my audience is a little older
(32:00):
or a talk radio audience, and I know from running
into them out in public. Is there a use or
a need for people my age to tell you about products?
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Absolutely, you your age group and all of you people
listening right now have money in your wallet, and that
is different.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
That's how I'm always that's important.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
That's important. Yeah, yeah, you want to sell to people
to have the money to buy.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
But really what's fascinating right now is obviously what you
just said about the older demographic. But most communities are
aging right and people want to age in place, so
that means communities better figure out how to make their
communities livable for older adults. And we do a lot
of work with communities to do assessments of their older
(32:49):
populations to make sure that they have access to transportation
and social opportunities and sidewalks that accommodate walking assistance and
things like that.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Part of urban Are you assisting in urban planning? Now?
Speaker 4 (33:02):
A lot of our clients in the communities that we were,
I would not have guessed that, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
So I have a question. Tell us a story if
you can, about one of your favorite products that you
helped bring to market with your research. Not something boring,
but like something that would really be interesting or people
be surprised or maybe they would recognize if you're allowed
to do that.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
If you can, I can tell you one story because
because this is really cool.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Where's that PhDe? Where's that PhD?
Speaker 4 (33:37):
I know I should articulate better. So we did a
study for Energizer battery, and I can talk about it
because it's gotten global press. And what is fascinating is
that Northwest Ohio kids and parents helped develop this product
using our ask Toledo panel because our clients are national
(33:58):
and they want to get insights from general audiences, and
Toledo's a great place where a slice of life, I mean,
we represent everything.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
I've always heard that that fast food places will try
out some of those new foods here first.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Absolutely, it is a great market for this. So what
happens now is button batteries. You know, those little batteries
that go in the fobs and all of your little
electronics and your game counsel all of that. They look
like pennies or flat little discs. If a child swallows that,
it is harmful as can be. And there are deaths
(34:34):
every year because children swallow them and they burn their
esophagus and it's a terrible, terrible and I won't go
into the details. But if you're listening and you have
button batteries or sell batteries in your home, you've got
to keep them away from your children and your grandchildren.
To help facilitate keeping them in your home safely, there
(34:54):
are three things that Energizer has done. They first of all,
package the brand new battery in child resistant packaging, which
yes is the adult it's a little harder you probably
have to get your scissors out.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
But lane resistance packaging too.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
I'm laughing because I bought a watch battery just last
week and exactly what you're talking about. I had to
I couldn't open it without getting the scissors out, and
I thought that, why are they doing.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
This saving lives?
Speaker 4 (35:24):
I guess yes, it is saving lives. It's phenomenal. The
impact not only do you have to get your scissors out,
but the fact that it triggered in your mind, wait,
I have to get my scissors out. Why. You probably
looked at that package and saw the little insignia that
says child resistant. So that's a trigger to say, hey,
I got to keep these away from kids. Okay, So
(35:44):
that's step number one. Step number two is that energizers
smart enough to say there are sometimes if these batteries
end up on the floor, the device breaks. You there's
small little things and you might drop it and then thinks,
why do I care? It's I don't, it's used, it's
not you know, it doesn't work any I find it
(36:05):
when I find So if a kid would pick up
that battery and eat it, that's detrimental to their health.
So they have created a colorant, so that the battery,
if a kid puts it in their mouth and the
sala salava gets on it, it turns their mouth blue.
So mom or dad or grandma can quickly look at
(36:25):
that kid and say, oh, my gosh, and then they trigger, oh,
eat something, get them to the emergency room right away.
The third thing they do is they make it a
bitter taste, so that if you do put it in
your mouth and your kid, you want to spit it
out because it's bitter. So those three levels. So the
best part about this is best it was created. The
(36:46):
concepts were developed and created in Toledo. What we did
is invite parents to bring in their young children and
we put the bitterrent and the colorant on a little
disc that was what I call a placebo, but like
the candy ish kind of thing, so that the kid
would respond, so that energizer could figure out is the
(37:09):
colorant dark enough, is the bitter and strong enough and
on the right parts of the battery so that when
the kid puts it in their mouth, they spit it up.
So we tested hundreds of children in Toledo and we
watch their mouths turn blue. And we had parents who
were willing to say yes. It's twenty minutes later, I
(37:31):
still see blue on their face, and the blue is
the color that makes me say, that's not candy. So
it's fascinating. But Toledo, I thought all you.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Did was ask questions.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Oh no, no, here.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Now it's fascinating what businesses have to do to make
sure their products are effective.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Now do you have offices and branches around the country,
so you nationwide or does everything emanate from right here?
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Our office is here, but when we do research in
other cities, we either do it remotely or we do
the surveys online. But we will often go to those
cities and host meetings, and we will rent a facility
in another city, just like people rent our facility if
they want to talk to Toledo WANs.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
So why did you decide, since you're in charge, why
did you decide to stay here? You could go to
Chicago or LA or New York and you know, be
big time.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Well we are big time, yeah, So why did you
stay here? I love Toledo. I'm a born and raised
Toledo And as I said before, Toledo Wins are a
slice of life. They are a piece of Americana. We
have diversity in the jobs that are available. We have
(38:50):
cultural exposure diversity, we've got political diversity. It is a
great place to do market research. It's a great place
to to work and have our headquarters here because we
have excellent staffing between the universities and the businesses. We
have hired great people and my home is here.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
We have to figure something out too, because we have
almost six thousand businesses in the BBB and not all
of them would have the budget for marketing research, but
I think some of them would. I'm sure some of
them would and are not probably getting as much as
they need, and they could really spend their money more
wisely with a little intelligence here.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Sure, the key thing is that this Estlito panel in
Northwest Ohio. If you are advertising in Northwest Ohio, or
if you're putting together marketing programs or any other kinds
of events, we can evaluate so quickly the impact of
that message. Is the message working? Is it talking about
(39:55):
your product in a way that's unique. Are people remembering it,
a hearing it and associating it with you? I mean,
this Northwest Ohio panel that we have could make a
lot of sense for businesses who need to understand their marketplace.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
So, Laurie, as we wrap up here the second segment
of this episode, what would you like to leave the
listeners with? Some are going to be members of the
public and you probably want them to join your ass
toleto panel, but there are going to be many business members.
What would you like to leave as a lasting thought
in your wisdom in the business of marketing research? What's
(40:30):
the last nugget of wisdom here?
Speaker 4 (40:32):
We consider ourselves a decision science company. So if you're
a business owner and you're making a decision and you
don't feel one hundred percent confident that you have the
information to make that decision, give me a call and
let's talk to see if data collection of some kind
or listening to your customers are getting satisfaction reports from
(40:53):
your customers would help you make a more intelligent, better
resource alignment.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Phone number and website for those that might be interested.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
The phone number is four one nine five three four
four seven one zero. The website is really easy, it's
g LM dot com. But just go on ask Toledo
and again that's easy too because you got to ask. Yeah,
ask Toledo dot com or Great Lakes Marketing we're easy
(41:27):
to find.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
I'm doing us.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
I'm doing that tonight because I got a lot of opinions.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Sister, Oh Gay, you're he's gonna skew all your results.
He's a present outlier as an outliar. Thank you, Laurie
Mitchell Dixon, and we hope to talk to you again sometime.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Thanks for joining us again for this edition of the
Better Business Bureau A Heart for Business. If you're listening
to this episode, just know that you can also go
back into the archives and listen to the previous episodes.
This was number fourteen, so you've got a lot to
catch up on all local business people who have a
(42:05):
passion for what they do in northwest Ohio with a
little bit of help from the Better Business Bureau. You
can get us on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to
your podcasts.
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