Adworksop & Inphorm Team
By Gordie Little
Adworkshop & Inphorm, based in Lake Placid, is touted as “the North Country’s largest, full-service market communications company.” Adele and Tom Connors formed Adworkshop in 1977, starting out in a tiny office with a gigantic dream.
Thirty-two years later, they are one of the largest advertising and public relations firms between Albany and the Canadian border. And to celebrate National Employee Ownership Month in October, they announced the formation of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) that the company and its 30 professional employees insist has created a win/win situation.
Those involved say the ESOP is a wise financial move for the company and bodes well for its future in the region.
General Manager Darcy Norfolk explained, “This ‘small’ business has grown to become a pretty sizable employer in the North Country.” One of the reasons Adele and Tom decided to transition to an ESOP was to ensure that the business remains in the community. If the business were to be sold or liquidated, the jobs might be at risk. Tom and Adele decided on the ESOP as a succession plan. They continue to remain principals and 66 percent owners in the company. They’re not retiring and do not plan to do so for some time.” With the ESOP, the employees now own 33 percent of the company.
They have purchased shares of stock as part of their retirement in the program, which is almost unique in this region. The plan was established in July of 2007; however the stock was finally purchased at the end of April this year.
Norfolk says one of the greatest benefits of an ESOP is, “It allows employees to participate and share in the agency’s growth and success. This will assist us in attracting and retaining the best marketing professionals in the area.”
She says another important benefit is that “it sets up a succession plan for the agency. In instances when businesses are purchased in upstate New York, they are often closed, and staff relocated out of the area. Tom and Adele wanted to avoid that possibility and help secure a future for the Adworkshop and its employees.”
Norfolk pointed out that another plus of the ESOP is the tax benefit. She describes it as “an incentive” and added, “…if it were eliminated, that might jeopardize the viability and success of Adworkshop as an ESOP.” She says there are some negative vibes on Capitol Hill as pertains to this benefit and they are urging Congress to “stand against any proposals negative to ESOPs.”
Founder Tom Connors says he is thrilled with what the ESOP is doing for Adworkshop. He said, “Employees now have even more incentive to excel in their jobs because they are working to provide for their own financial security.”
Adele added, “Among our proudest accomplishments is the acquisition of clients throughout the northeast and the creation of jobs in the North Country. We would like to see the company continue to grow for years to come.”
The Adworkshop’s mission statement is as follows: “Adworkshop and Inphorm provides integrated, results-oriented marketing expertise to the travel and hospitality, active outdoors, healthcare, education and financial sectors in Upstate New York. Layered with talent from different backgrounds, brought together by a choice to live the Adirondacks lifestyle, Adworkshop channels that energy, wrapped with passion and experience for marketing, to build successful brands.”
Norfolk said, “Each employee has a unique story of what brought them to the area and Adworkshop. My husband and I are both originally from Watertown. We moved to the Adirondacks by choice six years ago from Long Island. We escaped the rat race for a better quality of life and haven’t looked back. We work just as hard, yet now we don’t have to sit in traffic and experience a long commute.”
She shows facts and figures, “constituting overwhelming data that ESOP companies consistently outperform non-ESOP companies.” She says that bodes well for her company far into the future.
A news release for the ESOP creation explains, “Adworkshop is an employeeowned tragidital (yes, it’s a real word) marketing communications agency headquartered in Lake Placid, New York. Since 1977, the agency has been effectively producing creative ideas and delivering custom marketing communications strategies and tactics for its clients. Services include brand strategy, development and execution, web site design, development and content management systems, online newsrooms, search engine marketing, e-newsletters and interactive tools, social media marketing, public relations, creative production of print, outdoor, radio, video, and TV, as well as media planning and placement. The agency’s integrated marketing capabilities allow it to stand out among larger agencies, while its intimate size allows for a true market partnership.”
It further explains that Inphorm, the public relations division of the agency, “specializes in media campaigns and monitoring, search engine optimized content, multi-media online newsrooms and digital relations.” It started in 2002.
The agency’s theme has always been “Quality of Life Equals Quality of Work.” Further, the company line indicates, “Every member of the Adworkshop team could live and work anywhere. All of us choose to live in the Lake Placid area. While we are layered with diverse talents and we come from different backgrounds, we are brought together by our passion for marketing and our choice to live an active Adirondack lifestyle. We channel this unique energy and passion for marketing to build successful brands for our clients.”
Another line that catches the eye is, “Marketing is our nature.” The word passion appears often in print to describe the motivation of Adworkshop employees. For example, one agency statement says, “Our process is distilled from our passion. The way we communicate is based on simple human truths. You will see us begin every meeting with something that is irrefutable. Just let us prove it.” How’s that for an upfront challenge? For this article, we spoke with principals Adele and Tom Connors, General Manager Darcy Norfolk, Finance Director and ESOP Trustee Sandra Gagnon along with Marketing Strategist/Media Director and ESOP Trustee Jon Bouman.
Chuckling about their humble beginnings in 1977 just before the Olympics, Tom Connors said, “The two of us worked for a year and a half before we had our first employee— Kathy Ford—who is still with us.”
Adele added, “We didn’t envision Adworkshop as it is today. Our biggest passion was to live in the Adirondacks. We were going to do whatever it took. We started out slow and grew over time.”
The group agrees that agencies their size cost them considerable business during the recent economic downturn; but Tom said, “We’ve managed to hold our own. Other agencies have lost quite a few clients and thus have needed to release employees.”
He pointed out that search engine marketing has become a sizable part of what they do these days. Connors described it as “adjusting web sites to be more search engine friendly to ensure better results for people who do specific searches. For many of our tourism clients that compete with other destinations or other resorts, we help them get better search engine results and better ranking. That’s become a primary focus for a lot of companies nowadays. We kind of jumped on this early.”
Adele said, “Our services are tremendously diverse, because the business has changed tremendously. We’ve been keeping up with that since the day we started. With the dawn of the Internet, we started really early and we’re very thankful that we did so.”
Her husband added, “Web site development is huge for us—application development and web site development. There is a strategy behind it to make sure it’s effective once it’s developed.”
Sandra Gagnon explained that the new ESOP plan, in basic terms, is a “qualified retirement plan wherein there is a trust. At this time, one third of the company’s stock is owned by the trust. Each participant of the ESOP has an allocation of stock within the trust. Each year the company makes a retirement plan contribution.”
She added, “ESOP motivates the employees now that they have a stake in the company. We hope that they will take pride in it and will work for the betterment of the company and the benefit of themselves.”
Norfolk said, “We’ll be doing some fun things for our employees, such as an employee of the quarter and a box where they can ask questions and get educated. As part of the education process, employees will now see our financials so they can obtain a better grasp of the company. It’s making a difference. One of our public relations managers, Rebecca, asked one day how much a long distance call to Belgium would cost. She was just thinking proactively to learn how she could save us money if she called during a certain time of the day. Employees are now interested in things like our electric bill. We are using energy efficient bulbs, shutting off lights, printers, monitors and the like more often. We even post the bill for everyone to see year to year.”
Jon Bouman used UPS as an example, saying, “That company has been employeeowned for some time. You always see them running in and out of the trucks. I think part of that is because they have a stake in the company themselves.”
Tom Connors said Stewarts and Kinney Drugs in the North Country are also ESOPs and he believes that is a big part of their success here.
Bouman added, “Every year the business is valuated. The employees get their annual statements around the holidays and that’s a good indicator for everyone as to the state of the agency. The value of the company determines the value of their stock, so that’s a real tangible asset at the end of the year.”
Adworkshop is a member of the National ESOP Association as well as of the Vermont Employee Ownership Center.
Will ESOP make for a better company? There is a universal “YES” from the group we interviewed and they say their answer reflects total acceptance from all their employees at the time ESOP was instituted. They insist that it will make theagency stronger, better and more effective in the long run so they will be able to even better serve their clients. Toward that end, they say, they are fine-tuning all their processes and building in better systems for great efficiency.
Adworkshop works closely with Fort Drum Regional Liaison organization (FDRLO) as well as businesses in the Watertown region. They are presently working on a project to re-brand Fort Drum. Four years ago, they assisted the FDRLO with a communications strategy to “keep Fort Drum off the BRAC closure list,” according to Adele Connors.
She said they are also producing DVDs to be distributed nationwide to attract soldiers and their families who want to come to Fort Drum. She added, “It will be for all incoming soldiers so they can see what it’s like in Drum Country. A lot of them only know that it’s really cold and snowy up here. Our objective is to show them how supportive and beautiful the Drum County is.”
Tom Connors says he is proud of the work the agency does with tourism organizations in the Adirondack Region, Thousand Islands, Cooperstown/Otsego County, Franklin and Hamilton Counties and others. He added that the company also handles healthcare and banking accounts as part of their diverse offerings. He explained, “We’re about 50 percent destination marketing, 25 percent healthcare, ten percent finance and ten percent education.”
Account executives and members of the team regularly travel three or four hours to meet face-to-face with their clients across the North Country whenever possible. They work with businesses and municipalities and many other groups.
Tom says they actually work far outside this area through their Internet business. They currently are designing and marketing web sites for clients in several other states.
The group agreed their vision is to build their reputation nationwide and they firmly believe they can achieve that end with their diverse skills, particularly in tourism.
Adele said, “We’re only as good as our biggest idea, so I think creativity is what we hang our hat on at the end of the day, although we’re not really image-based. We’re much more return-on-investment-based in our strategy style.”
They have full departments in eachmedium, according to Tom. When asked what kind of employees they look for, he said, “We look for people who want to live in the Adirondacks. We want them to come here and become in tune with the area. That’s how they become creative. People want to get out of the city and move here. They want to get out of the long commute with its related hassles. So, we get highpowered talent in spite of the fact that we can’t quite match the city pay. But they love our quality of life.”
Adele further explained the continued growth of the company over the years, “We adapt to new technology and new marketing areas such as the social media space with Facebook and Twitter. We’re successful because of our totally integrated approach.
Clients can get it all here under one roof.” Adworkshop & Inphorm in Lake Placid–yet another of the North Country’s great success stories. You can take that to the bank.
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