How a Mail Order Mishap Shaped a Path in Leadership Consulting for Global Giants

Some people say I bleed postal glue.

Having mailed over two billion pieces of mail for the biggest brands in the nation, I can’t understand why. ??

One story stands out in particular: As a young marketing account executive fresh out of UCLA, the first project I worked on was a mailer for Kubota tractors. It was a lead generation piece, beautifully done - a glossy self-mailer.

We mailed it out to the audience of farmers and then the client called me and said, "Russell, I'm getting these replies but nobody could write their name on it. They're having to scratch their name on the form."?

I realized the art director made the mailer so shiny (he put gloss varnish all over the reply card) no one could write their name legibly.

That was my initial introduction to the world of direct response marketing and creative agency work.

A Journey 45 Years in the Making

From starting with learning all about direct mail, to scaling my own CRM creative agency (Kern) to 400+ employees and working with the biggest brands on the planet, from developing comprehensive brands to demand marketing programs, I’ve spent decades watching our industry evolve and evolving our agency services and the leadership required accordingly.

Today, my focus at Kern and Partners is helping Fortune 500 marketers and large agency leaders improve their senior leadership team and managers by providing customized, industry relevant leadership & team development consulting and training services.

After 45 years working with the world’s leading brands and seeing firsthand the best (and worst!) marketing and agency leaders in action, I realized? there is an immense need for leadership development + customized learning for teams in both spaces that can be transformative to both organizations.

That’s why I’m so excited about bringing the Kern & Partners team experience to you.

Based on our experience working with clients like American Express, Canon, Lionsgate, Microsoft, AT&T, Hippo Digital, Emplifi and many others, I’m going to spend these articles sharing how you can elevate and lead your teams towards more creativity, innovation, collaboration and self-accountability. Sometimes in as little as 90 days!

What To Expect

The goal of this newsletter is to help you tackle the most important organizational behaviors that are impacting results, such as:

• Underperforming teams
• Employee turnover
• Poor communication across teams
• Lack of engagement
• Narrow solution creation?
• New skill gaps required within large marketing, advertising or any creativity oriented organization.?

Each week, I’ll share insights, ideas and observations earned from my tens of thousands of hours spent inside the walls of Fortune 500 clients and my own large creative agency - which was sold to Omnicom in 2008.

In addition, I’ll be sharing knowledge and research findings from the world’s best experts in human behavior, leadership and organizational development.

Mail Magic

Now, when it comes to direct mail, I’m not kidding about bleeding postal glue.?

From non-glossy submission forms to far more paper cuts than I care to remember, I learned invaluable lessons, from creating over 50,000 test campaigns for both B2C and B2B marketers. As well as?seeing the results from mailing literally billions of pieces of direct mail.?

What I love about direct response marketing (and its sister, direct mail) is you know instantly what works and what doesn’t. You learn how to move people to immediate action, through pictures and words. And there is no hiding. You are either a hero or a zero!?

The same human behavior dynamics and learnings also come from my observation of some of the most brilliant CMO’s, as well as the lessons learned from growing my agency team to be of service to Fortune 500 marketers.

The science behind motivating people, inspiring them to greatness and teaching managers and leaders how to be great coaches of teams, is a timeless need.

It’s one that is even more important today in our post pandemic, hybrid work world than ever before.

I look forward to sharing my most valuable insights, ideas and observations with you in the articles to come!

Ready To Talk?

Visit us online at the Kern & Partners website or connect with me here on LinkedIn to learn more about how we can help you lead and elevate your team!