Dan Crawford
It all started on a blistering December evening. There was a chill to the air...hold up a minute. I think I've gone back just a little too far. Hmm, let's see how exactly did this all start. Oh, yeah...sorry I got it now. As graduation loomed in the near future I knew I had to choose a career path. But what, what if I chose the wrong one and hated my career. No one wants to be stuck in a dead end job with no light at the end of the tunnel. Think...think...think! Such an important decision. Why did I wait so long? Almost like the flip of a switch a light bulb came on, brightly illuminating my path. I love art and I love computers. Why not combine the two? Perfect, I have a path!
Later that year I started studying Graphic Communications. Learning to not only properly tell a story, but visually tell a story, my story, your story. I was hooked. The more I learned the more I wanted to learn. Why stop with the visual story telling? What drives people to make the purchases they make? How do these brands become powerhouses? As good as our visual story telling is. It most certainly can't be the only reason people make purchases.
Out of no where I'm off to learn about triggers, psychology, leadership and so much more about story telling. Marketing...what an amazing world this is. How complex and exciting! Hooked again, I knew at that moment they had me. Retail marketing, strategic planning, interactive marketing, creative development, media planning & buying, direct marketing, marketing analytics, budget planning, business partner development, strategic contract negotiation, visual merchandising, sales promotions, public relation. What an exciting career! Constantly evolving, changing moving dsjfalkjsdflkdfsaklj...
What the...this dumb computer now I have to wait for IT. How can I ever get this done if I'm constantly waiting on someone else to finish my work? Hmm...let's look a few things up. See if we can resolve this ourselves. PERFECT! I got it. That wasn't so bad. I immediately started studying Information Technology to fix the machines I so depended on. Negating the need to wait for IT has saved me some very valuable time. After all, everyone knows "Time is MONEY!". A short time later I also learned "Knowledge is MONEY!" The more you know the more valuable you become. There's always something new to learn or something new to help us grow. Grow as an individual. Grow as a professional and most importantly grow the companies we work with.
When I started at my current employer one of the first things the owner said was he was content with their current size and market share. He needed someone to just maintain the current marketing with the current agency. As most of you reading this knows. The job of any good marketing personnel is to grow a company. Nine years later, two new locations, no advertising agency and lead market share in a competition saturated market shows just a small piece of what we can do when we put our minds to it. For the last few years we have been one of the three main sponsors at Watkins Glen International during NASCAR weekend(WGI). Thanks to some GREAT structured partnerships led by me. We have partnered with great company's like WGI, Dirt, Zippo, SU Athletics, and more. In conjunction with WGI our brand has even graced the gaming world in one of the Microsoft Fora titles. All this for a family owned RV Dealership that only wanted to maintain its status quo.
Like I said on my homepage...