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Overcoming Challenges with a Never-Fail Mentality
Overcoming Challenges with a Never-Fail Mentality
The Caliber Group has weathered many storms over the past 25 years. From 9/11 to COVID-19 and a real estate market crash in between, Caliber has had to pivot through extraordinary circumstances for both the firm and its clients.
Partners Linda Welter and Kerry Stratford recently shared their experiences in overcoming these and other challenges. After working together for more than two decades, the veteran brand marketing, public relations and digital entrepreneurs have helped some of the region’s leading brands through uncertainty and change.
When the real estate market crashed, your client base was heavily dependent on that market. Talk about the impact that had on your business.
Linda: We treated ourselves as a client and deployed all the best business, marketing and public relations strategies to reposition our agency and grow in new industries.
Kerry: Fortunately, we had already built a solid brand reputation over the prior decade, so recouping our client losses happened pretty quickly.
Take us through what experiencing COVID was like as business owners.
Linda: The impact of COVID started as a slow creep then caught up to us when we learned that many of our clients planned to reduce orders for new marketing and PR services until they were more certain about their future. We knew then that we had to pivot, reduce expenses, and increase marketing to avoid a future cliff that was looming.
Kerry: We decided to keep our employees on the payroll to make sure they had health insurance during the pandemic, as well as a strong, capable team to help clients navigate the pandemic.
As you think about the challenges you’ve encountered, how do you feel they’ve made you better consultants for your clients?
Linda: All these experiences have sharpened our critical thinking skills in all business units: operations, finance, sales, staffing and recruiting—which has enabled us to help our clients manage uncertainty and change.
Kerry: These extraordinary circumstances have really helped us hone how we use our creative problem-solving skills to help clients pivot and reimagine how they do business during uncertain times.
What are some of the characteristics that have helped develop your business success?
1. Possess an Entrepreneurial Spirit
Both women credit their upbringing for having the resilience to weather the challenges. Both were raised in family-owned businesses with Midwestern values of hard work and resilience to not give up when times get tough.
2. Surround Yourself with Excellent Team Members
Linda: Our team has a shared passion to meet our clients’ goals through strategic programs that succeed. We deliver results and never lose sight of our clients’ bottom line. This is how we’ve garnered strong, loyal and valued relationships with our clients and partners over the past two decades.
Kerry: During the pandemic, our team demonstrated the ability to work remotely, learn new skills, and redeploy where the firm needed to right-size the organization. We would meet for daily meetings and provide the support everyone needed to be successful.
3. Have Faith and Believe in Yourself
Linda: Our ‘failure is not an option’ mantra has enabled us to consistently survive the peaks and valleys in the economy over the years. Sooner or later every business will experience tough times, so it’s important to work with a partner like Caliber that can bounce back quickly and help its clients do the same.
Kerry: There have been times when we felt like we were standing on the edge of cliff and unsure if we were going to get pushed. We simply refused to fall over the edge. You can’t school yourself for how to deal with some of these things. You just have to go through them.
4. Be Consistent
Linda: Our values drive our decision-making, period. They have guided us through good times and bad.
5. Trust is Key
Linda: We build trust with our clients through good communication, meeting deadlines, delivering high-quality work outcomes, and addressing client requests immediately.
Kerry: We work with our clients to develop solid plans with strategies that we effectively execute to bring about desired outcomes. This record of success drives the trust and confidence our clients experience when working with us.
ABOUT
Caliber is a brand marketing, public relations and digital firm based in Arizona representing clients who engage with audiences across the state, U.S. and internationally. The firm serves as a strategic business partner for organizations with an opportunity or challenge that requires breakthrough thinking to achieve successful outcomes.
Our Values & Guiding Principals
- Excellence – We are unwavering in our pursuit of excellence and innovation
- Accountable/Reliable – We deliver on our promises
- Ethical – We are honest, genuine, and fair
- Creative – We solve problems through innovative thinking
- Dedicated – We are loyal advocates to our company and clients
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