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RON HAYES, VICE PRESIDENT BIO
How I found it, fell in love with it, and became a part of it.
Management/Marketing
Even before I began my undergraduate work, I was consistently being asked to move into supervisory/management positions. I had learned early that good leaders become so by truly leading – not bossing. A leader doesn’t walk behind shouting out orders or driving others; a leader steps out in front and leads by example.
I received my undergraduate degree in Finance from Brigham Young University. This helped me develop my analytical skills and understand better the concepts related to return on investment (ROI). I learned how to justify projects and budgets based on ROI analysis. I also learned how to delve deeper into problems and situations to find better solutions.
After graduation, the market for financial degrees was fairly dry and I found myself accepting a marketing and sales job with a young company just hitting a growth spurt. It was there that I discovered how much I liked marketing and had a creative knack for touching people’s hot buttons. I was able to help the company almost double in revenues by the time I left.
While working for that company, I determined to get an MBA. So off I went to school again, this time at the University of Redlands, listed in the top five of regional business schools by US News & World Report. This decision proved very beneficial. I improved not only my analytical skills but my leadership skills as well. I was able to mesh my ideas with others from a variety of backgrounds and professional pursuits. By the time graduation had rolled around, my peers unanimously voted me as the outstanding leader among the group.
With MBA in hand, I decided it was time to sharpen my marketing skills in a larger company. I soon found a job as a marketing manager for a company that was just on the verge of discovering what true marketing can do for a company. The thing that stuck out the most was a lack of branding. There were multiple messages and images being used, including a variety of logos for the same product. I went on a crusade to help remedy this situation.
As part of the crusade, I devoured every article and book I could find about branding. This was an extremely educational time for me and I have continued to read, study and apply these principles. One of the most important aspects of this process is the importance of getting everyone in the company – from the president to customer service to administrative staff to production – on board. All need to live and breathe the brand while at work to ensure the success of a branding message. All of this ties into the concept of internal marketing strategies. Yet, it wasn’t until I met Daniel that I learned how my thoughts and ideas fit so neatly in with Daniel’s fundamental principles of internal marketing strategies.
The more I talked with Daniel, the more I saw how closely aligned our visions were and decided to partner with him in introducing this revolutionary method of marketing from the inside out. While I have seen most of these concepts applied separately (so I know they work) in different companies, I have never seen them utilized to the extent they should be. That’s why combining these known principles all together into internal marketing strategies works so well. The inside needs to be running smoothly before the outside can be effective. If we compare a company to a car that is all shiny and new on the outside but has an engine that is misfiring on a couple of cylinders, what good does it really do you? Sure it looks great, but it won’t run great until you fix the inside. Once the engine runs smoothly, then the car is complete. Get your internal strategies working right and then the rest will fall into place and customers will be falling into your lap.
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