Interview with
Sean Bisceglia, CEO of CPRI
BRADLEY: Tell us a little about you?
Bisceglia: I’m the proud majority owner and CEO of Chicago–based
CPRi, the largest national firm to deliver interim marketing and
specialized insourcing to Fortune 500 companies.
I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit, ever since I was a
little kid. The entrepreneurial itch carried through to high school
and college where I ran my own catering company. It was during this
time, creating and growing my catering businesses, that I developed
a fondness for marketing. I realized how important marketing was
in growing a business.
So, after college, I closed down my catering company and went to
work for one of the largest advertising agencies in the world, Grey
Advertising, to get my real training in marketing. After a few years
at Grey, the entrepreneurial itch struck me again and I bought a
small marketing company in the suburbs of Chicago. Catching the
technology wave right at the swell, I created TFA, a successful
technology advertising agency I later sold to Leo Burnett.
Over the years, I have followed my gut and good market research
in anticipating upcoming trends and have started my companies right
before the market would take off. That was the case with TFA and
it’s now the case with CPRi.
BRADLEY: What is your worst mistake?
Bisceglia: I made my worst mistake when Leo Burnett bought my company,
TFA. I resisted integration. I kept the company separate from Leo
Burnett by keeping the company’s own location, employees,
culture, brand and independent identity. Also, I did not integrate
or leverage best practices from the other divisions of Leo Burnett.
BRADLEY: Why did you make this mistake?
Bisceglia: Clearly it was my ego, traditional entrepreneurial pride,
and not seeing the big picture. I wasn’t forward thinking
when it came to seeing the long-term benefits of integration with
such a world class company and all it had to offer – the resumes,
the talent and the capabilities.
BRADLEY: What happened because of this mistake?
Bisceglia: By not integrating with Leo Burnett we had cultural
clashes and basically competed with our parent company rather then
worked together with them. It would have been more advantageous
for us to have leveraged Leo Burnett’s talent and company
infrastructure.
BRADLEY: How did you fix this mistake?
Bisceglia: We didn’t. And when the technology bubble burst,
we ended up like many of the technology marketing companies. If
we would have been more integrated with Leo Burnett we would have
had a softer landing.
BRADLEY: What would you do differently now that you know
better?
Bisceglia: Now being the CEO and majority owner of CPRi, I make
sure that when we acquire a new company, we fully integrate with
them. So far we have acquired two companies within the past twelve
months. In each case, we have worked together to fully integrate
our services and culture. We leverage best practices and ensure
that our brand and identity is the same across the board. We work
closely with the new management and associates to help them adapt
to our company culture and structure.
BRADLEY: What was your biggest successful gamble?
Bisceglia: Even though marketing is my specialty, I would have
to say investing more - a lot more - in marketing initiatives for
CPRi, was my biggest successful gamble. We went from spending $2,000
a month on marketing when I first bought the company to $35,000
a month. I believe it has really paid off. Since we started our
big marketing push we have more than doubled the number of associates
deployed and tripled the number of clients. We increased our revenue
by 225% and become the largest marketing staffing and insourcing
firm in the country.
BRADLEY: What advice would you give to others about growing
their businesses?
Bisceglia: Take a risk and stay focused. When I purchased CPRi
the company was not profitable, but I knew it had great potential.
The company had branched out to providing services that were not
part of its core strengths. My first initiative was to bring the
company back to its core strengths and stay focused. Once we did,
we started growing faster than I ever expected and still continue
to do so. Today, CPRi works with over 55% of the Fortune 100 companies’
corporate marketing departments, with a remarkable 92 percent engagement
rate.
Ben Bradley is the founder of GrowingCo, Inc -- (see www.growingco.com
or see the Darwin article), a provider and facilitator of peer-driven
intelligence, interactions and insight. He can be reached at ben@growingco.com.
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