Today we’d like to introduce you to Danette Gossett.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Danette. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I always knew I’d be an entrepreneur. I come from a family of entrepreneurs and my parents had 4 businesses between them when they retired at 70. I started in marketing/advertising with New York Ad agencies and ultimately answered an ad in the NYTimes and became the National Ad Director for Avis Rent a Car. A few years later, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line stole me from Avis and moved me to Miami to be Director of Marketing Services. Unfortunately a few years later they merged with another cruise line and their director had been with them more than 20 years so I was downsized. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I started putting my energy into growing a business for myself instead of someone else. Royal Caribbean became a client two years after I started my business in 1992 and they are still a client today.
We are very fortunate that many of our clients have been with us for a very long time. Most have been with us for more than 10 years (we still have our first client from 25 years ago). I think one of the reasons is that we are honest with our clients. We don’t promise them something we can’t deliver. And we treat all our clients as if their business is our business. We feel very invested in their success so we are always looking for ways to help.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I don’t think any business that has been around for a long time can say the road was always smooth. Like most any business we’ve had our ups and downs. One of our first major challenges was 9/11/2001. At that time our client base was heavily into travel and tourism (a natural due to my background) and with 9/11 we lost 80% of our business overnight. I laid off a few people immediately, but I had a core group that I kept on. It was a big personal financial mistake for me. I was paying them and not me. The old adage about paying yourself first is true.
Plus, it took a lot longer for business to come back after that. I realized I had become comfortable and hadn’t been working hard enough to bring in different industries into our client mix. So, we are now constantly re-evaluating our client diversification.
I’ve also had struggles with personnel. I had a part-time bookkeeper arrested in my office. She had been embezzling from several of her clients and the police came to me. Luckily I keep a close eye on our books and while she made a mess of them she never got a chance to take money from us. It was another good lesson for having processes and checks and balances in place.
Please tell us about Gossett Marketing.
We are a strategic promotional marketing partner. We offer a broad array of printing (collateral materials, direct mail, trade show materials), packaging, online corporate stores, promotional products, corporate and promotional apparel, incentive programs, loyalty programs, employee recognition, motivation and safety programs as well as related graphics solutions to our clients. We strive to be innovative, empowering and customer-centric. We are an extension of our client’s team to help them exceed goals. We are a single solution provider and expert marketing and creative resource.
We are most proud of the commitment our team has to deliver an exceptional customer experience every time. We are proud of our creativity and the custom designed products we have delivered for many of our clients over the years. Our flying teacup promotion to announce Virgin Atlantic’s new routes was especially well received. A direct mail piece for Norwegian Cruise Line’s introduction of Norwegian Pearl not only exceeded expectations on the response, it got its own article written about it in the Boston Globe!
Our combination of creativity, customer attention, and breadth of experience is truly what sets us apart. No matter the size of the client or project everyone works as if that one project is the most important.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Camping with my family at the Montreal World’s Fair in 1967. It was a great trip. It showed me there was so much outside of my world of Richmond Virginia.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.GossettMktg.com
- Phone: 305-443-1332
- Email: [email protected]
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/marketngtidbits; http://twitter.com/GossettMktg
- Other: salespromotions.org; interestingmarketingtidbits.com
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