. I really enjoyed reading your biography, as you are a true Renaissance Man. Tell us about your early introduction and interest in the worlds of art.
Art has been around me for as long as I remember. As a child, my mother was constantly painting ... canvas or bas relief works were on her easel as my sister and I drew pictures and surrounded her station. We were strongly encouraged to have drawing books and my mother, Martha Slaymaker, would tutor us on drawing and painting techniques as young children.
Once as a young boy, I drank a quart of turpentine when my mother wasn't looking, and I ended up in the hospital having my stomach pumped. This episode might explain my unusual behavior even today.
During my late mother's life, she had 150 one-person shows, and sold 40,000 works. It seemed that she was always preparing for an exhibit, so art was a consistent activity that dominated much of our collective lives. Her art is in the permanent collections of many museums worldwide. As we became older, my mother showed us how to use her intaglio collagraph press for relief prints and etchings. At some point, my sister and I would help her in the process, although, at the time, I was much more interested in athletics and other things young boys in Indiana found amusing, besides art.
I did have to deal with my sister because she was allowed only to draw girls, and I was allowed to draw boys. However, my sister, Jill, betrayed me at 12 years old because she also started drawing boys. This was my first art deal gone bad, and it forced me to become suspicious of the art business.
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Q. Tell us about your world travels and how that has affected your outlook on business?
When I began selling art, I couldn't believe that I was getting paid for traveling. The excitement of going to new cities and countries seemed too good to be true.
Over the past 27 years, I have worked every state in the Union, South Africa, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Ireland, England, Jamaica, all of Europe, Hong Kong, Tibet, New Zealand, P.R. of China, Japan and probably a few countries I have forgotten about.
Selling in non-Western countries is quite different than selling in the west. Negotiations and haggling are important parts of making the sale. Trying to "cut through the chase" will only make one's customer feel that they haven't honed into the best deal possible, so it is necessary to play the game.
Business manners range dramatically from nation to nation as well. One's best preparation is to present oneself in a traditional manner. Never discuss politics, religion and sex, even when people try to drag you into the discussions. Always be respectful of their customs. It is important to be polite and not to offend. It is also important to remember that the overseas accounts are usually making a great effort to use your art, and the value of their currency usually makes this more difficult than dealing with an account from the United States.
Q. You have a very talented wife, parents and family ... and why do you call yourselves "The Indiana Jones Family?"
When we were small children growing up in Indiana, our parents would pull us out of school early and bring us back late as we all journeyed by vehicle to central Mexico and Central America. My parents were passionate about archaeology and we would travel around excavating various Mayan, Toltec, Aztec and Incan excavation sites. We were a part of many famous digs. To this day, I have unusual artifacts acquired from that time. Some of the Mayan artifacts still have the original paint on them.
Towards the end of my life, I may donate them back to the governments from where they came. There is an entirely different political view today on our activity than there was in the 1950s and early 1960s, which I partially subscribe to.
Q. You have a friend who is in the Guinness Book of World Records. What was his qualifications?
In 1977, I was a foreign exchange student from Indiana University and attended La Universidad de Ibero Americana in Mexico City. As I was a piano major studying composition, I was placed in the home of Senor Jacobo Puentis, who had made a living writing Mexican commercial music and jingles.
When I met him, he had no legs and was on a respirator with emphysema, but he could speak well when it was removed. He is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having been legally declared dead 17 times. He had been declared dead eight times before he was 12 years old. He not only shared music and composition with me, but his philosophical outlook was amazing.
Religious leaders from around the world came to see him occasionally to gather his experiences of death before he came back to life. He said that his will to live was just so strong that he kept "bouncing back." He was a fascinating person, and I learned a tremendous amount of philosophy from him.
Fame and fortune: Klegg Electronics owner links with celebrity to compete with industry giants
When Paula Abdul handed out Klegg Minis to audience members on The TonyDanza Show in February, she did more than put the smallest color-display MP3 player into the hands of eager recipients. The American Idol diva put the spotlight on a product developed by a black-owned firm.
The brainchild of Dennis Gentles, the Klegg Mini has appeared on CBS and NBC, on VHI's The Fabulous Life (on which Abdul performed while holding the MP3 player) and at the Virgin
Megastore in Times Square (where it was the focus of a three-day promotional event).
So what's the buzz about, you ask? Well, it's all over a 1.8-by-l.6-inch MP3 player that holds up to 250 songs and 10,000 images. It sells for $49.99 to $99.99, depending on memory size, via the company's Website (www.klegg.com) and at select retailers. The product was developed and manufactured by Las Vegas-based Klegg Electronics Inc., which Gentles, 32, launched in 2003 with $70,000 of his own money. In addition to MP3 players, the company's consumer products line offers slim-line televisions and high-end home theater systems.
Klegg's current product lineup includes the M6 501 surround-sound home theater system, the KP line of plasma televisions, the R6150 and R6110 LCD remote controls, and the C7 and I9 in-wall/ceiling speakers. Using technology and aesthetics as a foundation, the firm's engineers have designed a home theater system with speakers that are only slightly larger than a credit card yet powerful enough to provide "thunderous but precise base resolution," explains Gentles.
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The 13-employee company got its start as a distributor for a European-based consumer electronics brand, which Gentles later purchased and brought to the United States. Having previously run a computer consulting firm for 10 years, Gentles says his dream was to build a business that could bring consumer electronics products together in a seamless fashion through home networks and similar systems.
Working with a third-party marketing firm, Gentles set out to find a musically-oriented spokesperson who could spread the word about the Klegg Mini. Abdul's association with American Idol made her the perfect choice. Gentles offered her a combination of company stock and cash in exchange for touting the product in the national media, on the company's Website, and in other venues.
Currently, 24 dealers distribute Klegg's products nationally. In addition to high-end dealers such as Sound City, new retailers include Speaker City in Burbank, California, and Audio Vision in San Francisco; HomeTronics Lifestyles in North Haven, Connecticut; Summit Sound in Bangor, Maine; and TV Specialist Inc. in Salt Lake City. Gentles hopes to increase the number of dealers to 65 by the end of the year, and Klegg has just closed on a deal to sell the Minis at Tower Records.
Company sales have grown from $240,000 in 2005 to an expected $1.5 million this year, and several new products-engineered around marketplace needs and an aesthetically-pleasing design--are in the cards, including media server products. Gentles also plans to open retail stores that would focus on custom home installations for consumers.
Knowing the potential of the MP3 market alone, Sean Wargo, director of industry an@is for the Arlington, Virginia-based Consumer Electronics Association, sees potential for small firms that can rise above the noise generated by Apple's iPod. Sales of portable MP3 players more than doubled in 2004 to nearly 7 million units, accounting for $1.2 billion in revenues, according to the CEA. "Those brands that harness the opportunity and offer targeted products to a specific consumer group will definitely find opportunity in this growing market," Wargo says.
The brainchild of Dennis Gentles, the Klegg Mini has appeared on CBS and NBC, on VHI's The Fabulous Life (on which Abdul performed while holding the MP3 player) and at the Virgin
Megastore in Times Square (where it was the focus of a three-day promotional event).
So what's the buzz about, you ask? Well, it's all over a 1.8-by-l.6-inch MP3 player that holds up to 250 songs and 10,000 images. It sells for $49.99 to $99.99, depending on memory size, via the company's Website (www.klegg.com) and at select retailers. The product was developed and manufactured by Las Vegas-based Klegg Electronics Inc., which Gentles, 32, launched in 2003 with $70,000 of his own money. In addition to MP3 players, the company's consumer products line offers slim-line televisions and high-end home theater systems.
Klegg's current product lineup includes the M6 501 surround-sound home theater system, the KP line of plasma televisions, the R6150 and R6110 LCD remote controls, and the C7 and I9 in-wall/ceiling speakers. Using technology and aesthetics as a foundation, the firm's engineers have designed a home theater system with speakers that are only slightly larger than a credit card yet powerful enough to provide "thunderous but precise base resolution," explains Gentles.
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The 13-employee company got its start as a distributor for a European-based consumer electronics brand, which Gentles later purchased and brought to the United States. Having previously run a computer consulting firm for 10 years, Gentles says his dream was to build a business that could bring consumer electronics products together in a seamless fashion through home networks and similar systems.
Working with a third-party marketing firm, Gentles set out to find a musically-oriented spokesperson who could spread the word about the Klegg Mini. Abdul's association with American Idol made her the perfect choice. Gentles offered her a combination of company stock and cash in exchange for touting the product in the national media, on the company's Website, and in other venues.
Currently, 24 dealers distribute Klegg's products nationally. In addition to high-end dealers such as Sound City, new retailers include Speaker City in Burbank, California, and Audio Vision in San Francisco; HomeTronics Lifestyles in North Haven, Connecticut; Summit Sound in Bangor, Maine; and TV Specialist Inc. in Salt Lake City. Gentles hopes to increase the number of dealers to 65 by the end of the year, and Klegg has just closed on a deal to sell the Minis at Tower Records.
Company sales have grown from $240,000 in 2005 to an expected $1.5 million this year, and several new products-engineered around marketplace needs and an aesthetically-pleasing design--are in the cards, including media server products. Gentles also plans to open retail stores that would focus on custom home installations for consumers.
Knowing the potential of the MP3 market alone, Sean Wargo, director of industry an@is for the Arlington, Virginia-based Consumer Electronics Association, sees potential for small firms that can rise above the noise generated by Apple's iPod. Sales of portable MP3 players more than doubled in 2004 to nearly 7 million units, accounting for $1.2 billion in revenues, according to the CEA. "Those brands that harness the opportunity and offer targeted products to a specific consumer group will definitely find opportunity in this growing market," Wargo says.
Do You Have A Sales Prevention Department In Your Company?
Back in the February 1994 issue of Telemarketing magazine (the parent publication of this magazine), I wrote an editorial with the above title. Since then, I have received several inquiries about this very important topic. In fact, as recently as last week, we had yet another request for a copy of this editorial.
Based on the extreme importance of this topic, I decided to revisit this matter and expand upon it with greater detail.
Most Companies Have One, But They Don't Know They Do
As I have indicated in my editorial in 1994, many companies actually have a sales prevention department, but they are completely unaware of this fact. When I say "sales prevention department," I don't mean that these companies literally have a separate department with that tide. However, the regular violations of certain important rules that I have indicated in this editorial actually constitute a cancerous problem within many companies.
As you may know, I have been a student of marketing for the last 25 years; in fact, we do have a marketing test at TMC that 99 percent of the marketing managers who have taken it have failed. In my view, the test is a simple one and contains the basic knowledge that every true marketing manager must possess. There is no point in hiring a marketing manager who cannot even define marketing. In many of my previous editorials, I have elaborated on this topic, as you may know.
In many companies, the sales department is regarded as die most important department in die company. Of course, here at TMC, we do not subscribe to this thinking because we feel that every department is equally important. Having said that, my frequent associations with many CEOs within our industry and elsewhere have led me to believe that most companies, in fact, consider the sales department one of the most the important, IF NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT DEPARTMENT.
In my way of thinking, this is not true. I feel that if you are going to rank the departments, marketing should come ahead of the sales department. Here is why:
All Sales Begin With A Sales Lead
As I have indicated in several of my past editorials, one of the paramount responsibilities of the marketing department is to create awareness about the company, articulate the benefits of dealing with the company and highlight the company's differentiation from its competitors. The cumulative results of the above mentioned marketing functions eventually lead to the all-important lead generation which is vital to any company's growth and prosperity. In other words, the sales department will be crippled if the marketing department does not generate a stream of continuous, qualified sales leads for the sales department.
Sales Prevention Diagnostics
Having stated the above importance of the sales and marketing departments, there are many details that need to be addressed if sales prevention is to be avoided. In this editorial, I will try to refer to as many of these problems as possible, and I ask our valued readers to address whichever factors that are most appropriate for their situations. Here are the areas that are most likely to contribute to sales prevention:
1. Ignore The Golden Rule Of Integrated Marketing And, Most Important, Ignore The Golden Triangle. When a company ignores the rules of integrated marketing and the golden triangle, which includes print, online and event marketing, the company has, in fact, prevented maximum lead generation for the sales department.
2. Ignore Marketing Completely. Believe it or not, many companies give lip service to marketing and, as far as I have been able to study, such companies either go under or, if they exist at all, they really don't get anywhere.
I recall a pair of companies that started out in the Chicago area at the same time. Company A was a master marketer and Company B did not care about marketing at all. To make a very long story short, the owner of Company A is a billionaire today while Company B is still struggling and has gotten nowhere in the same period of time!
3. Waste Sales Leads. Many companies spend a tremendous amount of money every year to attend trade shows or advertise in print and online and generate a considerable amount of leads. However, research indicates that as many as 70 to 80 percent of sales leads generated are either ignored completely or followed up too late to be of any use. Indeed, this is one of the leading causes of sales prevention.
4. Ignore Your Customers' Needs And, Most Important, Ignore Your Customers' Customers' Needs. In this highly competitive business environment, the companies that go beyond the call of duty are those that will survive. Once again, as mentioned in many previous editorials, to succeed in business, you need to understand your customers' needs as well as your customers' customers' needs. Let us remember that customer care is the only sustainable competitive advantage.
5. Ignore Sales Training. Many companies, particularly the entrepreneurial small and medium-sized companies, have a tendency to ignore sales training. This is practically unthinkable. How can anyone expect a sales person to sell anything without knowing the benefits and features of the products or service they are expected to sell? Believe it or not, this problem continues to exist.
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