Before I skip to modern day, I guess I ought to fill in a few blanks of the 40 years that passed since the ‘60s.
I am proud to tell people that I am a CPA. They somehow mistake that for Certified Public Accountant but I immediately explain that CPA stands for Certified Peddlers of America. Nothing happens in this country until something gets sold and it is my lot in life to guide marketing and sales program down the path of triumph.
Being of sound mind in those days, I immediately moved due south from Chicago until I reached South Florida, where I have happily resided ever since. Chicago is still my favorite city on earth and I visit it at least 10 days a year……but never in the winter.
When I moved to Florida in 1959, I opened a Dad’s Root Beer plant with my brother and after 2 years realized that I loved the soda but disliked the life of a bottler. My love was advertising, marketing and “peddling” so I went to work at a radio station selling advertising time. You can imagine how long ago that was. Larry King was one of the local radio personalities and a member of our weekly card club.
After a few years of on the job training I took a position with a small NY advertising agency that wanted to open a branch in Miami. It was my first education into the world of “real advertising” and it was very exciting for a young, would be executive. But after a few years, my entrepreneurial spirit again rose like a Phoenix and I got the notion that I would, and could, open my own little advertising agency. I soon found out that I knew a lot about advertising and marketing but little about business. Luckily, my largest client, a large real estate developer and builder loved the job I had done for him and he asked me to roll my agency into his company and become vice-president of sales. That’s when I really received my active combat training in the world of business.
After doing my time in that industry I again had the urge to branch out on my own and into marketing consulting. Consulting was an easy business to enter if you had a briefcase and an important looking business card. So I became an independent contractor and offered my sage advice to companies involved in a variety of fields ranging from real estate to water conservation programs for rental properties, to network marketing companies, to small corporate America...and then some.
About 7years ago I was introduced to cyberspace and the world of the internet. It was (and is) the most interesting industry that I have ever been involved in. It made me excited just to get up and run to the office (I can not tell a lie, I actually drove). I started consulting and then made the decision to become corporately involved. I founded a web based company that built small (actually miniature) portals for companies who wanted to build traffic and pretend to the world that they were larger than they were. As I pointed out to them, on the web…perception is reality.
During all of that time I never lost the mental link back to the 60s and the loyalty stamp business. I fell into the natural progression of researching the state of the rewards industry and related internet based programs. So about 4 years ago we commenced our quest. We researched, studied, and dissected that which was and was not being addressed in the marketplace. We approached the task from 4 directions- (1) Consumer, (2) Merchant, (3) Membership Organizations and (4) Debit/Credit Card issuers. There were a multitude of companies in the space but no one that fulfilled all of the needs and desires of the 4 participating groups we felt would most guide the market.
We envisioned and built a proprietary platform that included the basics we saw in others, but then added a bevy of additional features and functions that others had not. We tested, tweaked, changed, tested and tweaked again over a period of 2 years. After 2 years we had developed a unique and more robust platform than any other we viewed. Additionally, we could private brand and administer the platform for a fraction of the cost of other companies in the industry. BSP Rewards was thusly born and launched in stealth mode. It was important to stay under the radar until we were in a position not only to complete, but to win the competition.
But again, that is a story for another day...
