President Interviews Chris Slocumb of Clarity Quest Marketing

As part of our new website we will be interviewing members of the Ann Arbor Ad Club! Please enjoy the interview below to get the story and background of one of our current members.

Chris Slocumb, President/CEO of Clarity Quest Marketing
Clarity Quest Marketing

Q. Hello Christine, tell me a bit about yourself and your company?

I started out my career as an electrical engineer at Motorola and found myself liking customer engagements more than writing technical papers. After completing my MBA, I started Clarity Quest Marketing in 2001. Clarity Quest’s primary offering is an outsource marketing department for technology companies which do not have in-house marketing. However, we also offer project-based services in everything from search engine optimization to advertising to event management.

So it was a plan not an evolution?

It was very much a plan for Clarity Quest to focus on technology companies. I had worked in a large company (Motorola) and startup firms and found one common theme. It was really hard to find marketing and advertising agencies that could understand complex technology products and services. So we coined our tagline “Marketing Experts Who Speak Fluent Technology” and off we went.

Fantastic! But what do you tell your mom that you do?

Well my Mom is really not tech-savvy – she just learned to use a cell phone a few years ago. She hates computers. It’s really ironic. I tell her my company does marketing for medical and engineering companies.

What part of your job do you enjoy the most?

The flexibility of my schedule and the people. I work a crazy amount of hours some weeks but they are all under my control. There’s not a boss sitting over my shoulder asking why I wasn’t in at 8:30am. And the folks on our team and our clients are interesting, fascinating and creative people. We work with a lot of startups and lifelong entrepreneurs so there’s always a real creative, optimistic spark to catch.

Who are some of your mentors?

Some of our longest standing clients have become my best mentors. For the most part, we’re all entrepreneurs so there’s great info to learn from each other. As far as famous folks go, I really admire Seth Godin’s marketing philosophies.

What’s the one book that’s been most influential on your business?

Tom Peters’ The Pursuit of Wow! I love the line “Being average has never had much appeal. Better fail with flair in pursuit of something neat.”

Why do you Blog?

I must admit I started blogging because I wanted to build back links to our website. However, now I love the idea exchange and the challenge each week of trying to create a post that’s useful to others and succinct.

As an entrepreneur, what keeps you up at night?

I worry most about keeping our quality and focus as the business grows. The company is spending a lot more time on process lately.

Do you have any advice for the Ad Club to help us become the best we can be?

I’d love to see more interaction with the other Ann Arbor-based business clubs outside of advertising. How about a mixer with MichBIO?

Great Idea! As a matter of fact Christine, next season we are instituting “A2AC on the Road”. We will designate an outside event or meeting each month and invite Ad Club members to go. I think it will be a great way for us to reach out to new arenas. And when you go there will be other Ad Club members there too- just a little extra support!

PREVIOUS: AAF National Conference 2008 | NEXT: AAF District 6 Conference Schedule