When Bill LaPerch was coming of age in Yorktown Heights, he settled on West Point for his higher education, in large part because his mother told him it was the college closest to home.
“What she didn”™t tell me was that I”™d be away for nine years,” he says with a laugh.
That anecdote says a lot about LaPerch, CEO of AboveNet in White Plains ”“which provides flexible, high-speed communications infrastructure to investment houses, media corporations and other companies in 16 global markets. It tells you he”™s a human being ”“ an unpretentious homebody and family guy who”™s comfortable enough in his own skin to poke fun at himself.
And one thing more: It demonstrates that he knows how to tell a story, which is the key to marketing and branding, says Mark Stevens, CEO of MSCO, a national marketing firm in Rye Brook.
“A brand is more than your name or logo,” Stevens says. “It”™s your identity, your story, and you live your story.”
LaPerch”™s tale is partly David and Goliath. It begins with Metromedia Fiber Network, which crashed at the end of the dot.com bubble burst in 2002. During the company”™s restructuring period, the creditors approached LaPerch ”“ who had been with Verizon and MCI by way of the Army ”“ with taking over what was left of Metromedia.
And what was left was plenty: Metromedia had a fiber-optic network worth between $2 billion and $2.5 billion. LaPerch assembled what he calls “the right team,” changed the company”™s name to that of a Metromedia subsidiary and transformed its mission from being a wholesale provider to telecommunications companies and carriers to one that focused on corporations with big bandwidth and data needs.
“For (them), we wanted to be the go-to company in making communications faster and more efficient,” LaPerch said.
The next challenge was selling that message.
“We don”™t spend money on advertising in newspapers and on TV,” he said.
Instead, the way LaPerch marketed AboveNet was, in a sense, by selling himself ”“ the hands-on CEO who sought out his customers”™ needs and then personally guaranteed his company would fulfill them.
Part of this strategy was sheer necessity.
“When we got out of restructuring, I had to sit in meetings with customers and say what we were going to do for their companies. But you also go to your customers and listen.”
The buck-begins-and-stops-here mentality is also good business, LaPerch said.
“I”™d say there are very few customers who don”™t have my name and number. I brought a great number of people with me from MCI. If they know the customer has access to me to fix a problem, they”™ll fix it at their level before it ever reaches me.”
The personal approach is precisely the way to go, especially when you”™re heading a phoenix company trying to rise from the fiscal ashes, said Stevens, author of “Your Marketing Sucks.”
“People are always willing to give a company a second chance,” he said. “To get it, you have to tell people why you deserve it. ”¦You have to say, ”˜I”™m asking you to hold me responsible.”™ People are skeptical. They don”™t turn on a dime. You have to tell them what changed, and it has to be based on fact.”
Stevens says General Motors raised the bar for phoenix companies in its current TV spot, in which CEO Ed Whitacre walks through a GM plant and says, “A lot of Americans didn”™t agree with giving GM a second chance. Quite frankly, I can respect that.”
The culture of the personal is working for AboveNet as well: The company posted fourth-quarter earnings of $94.3 million, up 5 percent from the same time in 2008. With service in 16 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and London, AboveNet is looking to expand to Miami, Toronto, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
But for LaPerch, it”™s about more than profits.?“The way we advertise is to serve our customers,” he said.
Adds Stevens: “Branding is life.”
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What”™s in a (brand) name?
Plenty if you”™re Arnold K. Davis & Co. Inc., formerly AKD Insurance.
The Purchase-based broker ”“ which provides individuals and businesses with a wide range of insurance ”“ has gone back to the future, honoring its founder as it stays in the vanguard.
“We decided to do some internal restructuring and thought the name of Arnold K. Davis ”“ which has been known for 56 years ”“ was a better fit,” said son Robert A. Davis, now owner and president of the company.
Whatever you call a rose, customers, vendors and insurance providers apparently like what they scent: The company has a client retention rate of 94 percent. That steadiness translates into more than $10 million in premiums and an annual growth rate of 4 percent over the last five years.
But while Arnold K. Davis is emphasizing the seamless dependability that the public craves from the insurance industry, the company is also eager to identify hot trends and offer new products. Among these is cyber liability insurance for businesses and not-for-profits in the event that someone hacks into their computers.
With the digital world as a new frontier, Robert Davis says, “This is a great business to be in.”
