About

THE STORY OF HARDBALL MARKETING

I'm the founder, owner and Brand Strategist at Hardball Marketing. I have three decades of in-depth marketing and branding experience including senior leadership positions at both private and publicly-traded organizations. During this time, I have been an instrumental figure in helping companies achieve record-breaking business growth thanks in part to my strategic approach to branding initiatives and the powerful differentiation techniques I implement. Hardball Marketing is the result of a career spent honing and creatively applying cutting-edge fundamentals of branding, which are designed to deliver exceptional results.

Selected for the Big Time

In terms of my branding expertise, I began my journey over 25 years ago at a Fortune 500 company, where, as a freshly minted MBA, I was selected to be part of a six-person “stealth marketing team.” This elite team was handpicked to introduce a top-secret, innovative new product – a product that was so revolutionary it would go on to become one of the most successful launches in the company's history. The company was Philips, the Dutch multinational, which at the time was ranked in the top 20 largest companies in the world with more than 300,000 employees and $40 billion in revenue.

I worked in the Industrial Marketing Group at Philips Lighting, an $8.75 billion division. Because the new product was a sought-after technological breakthrough that leapfrogged the competition (General Electric and Osram), the launch development plans had to be conducted under wraps to prevent intel from leaking into the hands of competitors.

As an up-and-coming member of the stealth team of six top marketing specialists, I spent the next year in confidential, closed-door planning sessions. It was the best hands-on education any marketing professional could ask for, and it's where my passion for branding was born.

You might be wondering what this revolutionary all-new product was. It was the Philips Fluorescent featuring Alto Lamp Technology™, the lighting industry's first fluorescent to achieve a non-toxic, non-hazardous product designation from the U.S. government, thanks to the groundbreaking reduction of mercury within the lamp, all without any tradeoff in product performance. It sold like hotcakes.

After Alto racked up sales of billions of units as well as countless awards over the next decade, experts credited the overwhelming success in part to our marketing team's brilliant branding strategy. Our strategy included the master stroke of replacing standard silver end caps with bright green ones, which might sound underwhelming, but in fact, that small change made this first-of-its-kind product visibly different – which translated to greater brand recognition and recall.

Our extensive multi-pronged strategy, including brand differentiation, product positioning, brand building and sub-branding techniques, put Philips so far out in front that it took General Electric and Osram three years to catch up.

All-Star Teammates and Coaches

The Philips Alto experience changed the course of my career. Full immersion in brand marketing projects at a Fortune 500 company gave me the opportunity to work with and learn from top-ranked global consultants that included Boston Consulting Group, Ketchum Public Relations, and KPMG International.

Working side by side with renowned consultants along with my fellow Philips colleagues, who themselves were a deep bench of 130 marketing professionals, meant I was exposed to the best of the best in branding principles, strategies, and implementation. I gained firsthand experience in the fundamentals and execution of brand management, which included how brand assets can and should be leveraged as a value creation lever for any company, regardless of size. The experience was a game-changer for me. I took that knowledge and ran with it.

Breaking Records and Winning Awards

After working at Philips for more than 10 years, I went on to become Vice President of Marketing at Hirsch Corporation, a publicly traded $60 million distributor of industrial equipment, where I designed and launched numerous branding programs to establish Hirsch as a market leader in their industry.

Then, in 2015, as Vice President of Global Marketing for Ambrell Corporation, I took on a major company-wide re-branding initiative. The President of Ambrell sought my expertise in creating a comprehensive re-branding project, which was successfully implemented worldwide within the first six months I was on the job. One of the most significant contributions by the marketing team at Ambrell – a contribution that I'm particularly proud to have led – is that we elevated the corporate brand on a worldwide level with a fundamentally-sound differentiation strategy of positioning the company to focus on the customer experience. This gave Ambrell a new, fresh, and contemporary brand identity and truly set Ambrell apart from any competitor in the industry.

My team and I augmented that initiative with an Inbound Marketing infrastructure. To further advance the infrastructure, we created and leveraged differentiated brand assets at key customer touchpoints to strengthen our competitive advantage and help us earn and keep a top-of-mind position with the prospect in the buyer’s journey. This is what I call Inbound Branding.

The value that my team created with an Inbound Branding approach helped play a vital role in Ambrell's record-breaking success during my time there. And what I brought to the table all started with the years of branding expertise that I gained at Philips.

The results that my marketing team and I achieved were so impressive and compelling that Ambrell won the top prize in Digital Marketing, which included brand differentiation, from the National Association of Manufacturers, as well as a similar first-place award from the American Marketing Association. To win marketing awards of this magnitude — competing against some of the biggest marketing departments in corporate America and some of the biggest and renowned marketing agencies in the country — is a testament to Ambrell's marketing team, who, under my leadership, designed and implemented a comprehensive Inbound approach that was best in class! 

Hardball Marketing Enters the Game

In 2024, fulfilling a career goal to dedicate myself exclusively to branding solutions, I started Hardball Marketing, a brand management agency focused on small to mid-sized businesses. I recognized the need to fill a significant void for SMBs looking for Fortune 500-level experience in successful brand management but who don't want the high costs typical of a large agency. This criteria, which I learned was vital to SMBs, I meet across the board.

The solutions I provide at Hardball Marketing address a company's core brand, as well as the branding for products, services, and special offerings. I support these solutions with a brand promise as follows: I help clients hit a grand slam by creating and leveraging differentiated brand assets to achieve a distinct competitive advantage and a top-of-mind brand position. Hence, the tagline for Hardball Marketing ... Let's hit a brand slam.™

My focus and specialization is leading and managing a client's brand differentiation strategy. As a brand consultant, I have deep expertise in this area of the brand marketing function. If other specialists are required, such as graphic designers, I bring them in as needed. In terms of geographical coverage, I serve clients across the globe via virtual conferencing as well as on-site in the New York metro areas of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton and Albany and the metro areas of Cleveland, Ohio and Toronto, Canada. In addition, I work with companies who have already implemented an Inbound Marketing strategy but need to strengthen and augment their Inbound infrastructure with the powerful top-of-mind techniques of Inbound Branding.

My educational background includes earning a bachelor’s degree in management from St. Mary’s College of California (summa cum laude) and an MBA with a specialization in marketing from Penn State University (awarded with distinction). In addition, I am a lifelong learner, which includes completing a HubSpot certification program as well as studying the philosophies and completing branding workshops from world-renowned branding experts such as David Aaker, Jack Trout, Al Ries, and Marty Neumeier.

In November of 2024, my first book was published entitled, Inbound Branding: How to Unleash the Star Power of Your Brand and Win the Battle of the Buyer's Journey. The book was written for companies and Inbound Marketers as well as executives and other business professionals seeking to take their Inbound Marketing strategy to all-new heights – in order to beat the competition, win more customers and generate more revenue. I’m confident my Inbound Branding techniques outlined in this first-of-its-kind book will provide the steps needed for any company or marketing professional to outsmart, outflank, and outperform competitors in the game of Inbound Marketing.