Strategies
Breaking through
Memphis Business Journal - by Michael Sheffield Staff writer
Many things happen over a game of pool, but an innocent game of pool eventually became The RedRover Co., a marketing and communications firm started by Lori Turner and Julie Lunn.
Turner and Lunn worked together at First Horizon National Corp. and kicked around the idea of starting their own company until Lunn left First Horizon for another job. The two friends got together for dinner, retired to Turner's house to rack up a game and two hours later, they had the idea for RedRover, which serves small to mid-size businesses' marketing departments.
Armed with $15,000 to start the company, Turner and Lunn have had success in the 2 1/2 years RedRover has been in business, with 2007 revenue reaching $350,000. The company is projected to gross $500,000 in 2008.
"It was a gut feeling that we thought could be marketable, but we didn't have a business plan other than some ideas we wrote on a white board," Turner says. "It's a lot easier to jump out with someone than jumping out on your own."
That same white board was used to develop the company's name. RedRover came from the partners' shared love of dogs and as a reference to the childhood game.
"The object of the childhood game was to break through the arms of the other team with both teams becoming one at the end," Turner says. "A lot of times, you've got different teams within your company that aren't gelled together. Our objective is to bring those two together."
Bringing companies together is RedRover's purpose, but the company itself is divided into two separate offices in Memphis and Nashville. Six months after they founded the company, Lunn and her husband moved to Nashville and Turner stayed in Memphis. The company serves clients in both cities, including The Regional Medical Center at Memphis and The Med Foundation, Express Grips out of St. Louis, Harbor of Health, Parasol Awnings, Extracon Science, Colliers Wilkinson & Snowden, and Pickering, Inc.
Turner says when RedRover started, she and Lunn believed they would do traditional marketing for their clients, because that was their background, but more clients started asking for help with sales development, and soon that became nearly 70% of the business. That side of the business includes coordinating sales workshops and streamlining the sales processes to ensure the primary focus of a sales forces is to actually sell.
"We learned early on that we needed to adapt to what our clients wanted, but we had to also stay with what we're good at," Turner says. "We're serving as a sales driver for companies that don't have people in the sales role."
Steele Ford, director of Harbor of Health, says RedRover has become the first contact for a number of needs the company has, from Web design to promotions.
"They run the gamut of stuff we need done," Ford says. "We were both start-ups at the same time and we were kindred spirits. They've become more business partners than just a marketing firm for us. We can call them for anything and get good information, not only from the marketing perspective, but also on business."
Turner says RedRover's plan is for controlled growth. She wants to add one seasoned marketing executive every three to six months for the next year to further enhance the three employees the company has in Memphis. But, she says, creative work will continue to be freelanced.
"When you hire creative people, the work tends to look very similar from one client to the next, but I like to have a different group depending on the project and what the client needs," Turner says. "We want to grow rapidly, but not to the detriment of our clients and how we serve them."
The RedRover Co.
Marketing and communications firm
Managing partner: Lori
Turner
Address: 516 Tennessee St., Suite 124
Phone: (901)
266-2662
Web site: http://www.redrovercompany.com/
msheffield@bizjournals.com | 259-1722
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