John Hoeft
May 1991
BSEE: Power, Control, and Communications UW-Platteville, 1991
MBA, International Business: UW-Whitewater, 1998
Job Title: Principal/OwnerEmployer: Advanced Marketing Insights, LLC.
Job Description:
As principal of a full-service marketing communications and consulting firm, my responsibilities include maintaining the profit and loss balance sheet, managing clients by meeting their expectations, and delegating projects to our subject expert consultants. Our firm specializes in serving Fortune 500 firms involved in power generation, electrical systems, and electronic components. The company also assists clients by conducting market research, handling public relations, developing advertisements, branding and image development, and implementing product launches.
The challenge of this career is to keep finding ways for the firm to convey our clients' value propositions to their potential customers using a combination of ways or "marketing mix" that includes activities that pertain to the product, price, promotion, and placement. The success of our firm would not be possible without my broad electrical engineering background that I gained at UW-Platteville.
UWP Experience:
When deciding which university to attend, I placed a high value on certain characteristics of the institutions that I interviewed with. The two significant points that swayed my decision were the issues regarding "teaching assistants" and the concept of "community." While attending UWP, I had one TA for a chemistry lab. The quality of life in Platteville, a small community, enhanced my ability to focus on the demands of the rigorous studying necessary for success in the electrical engineer curriculum. The best educational values were the terrific one-on-one relationships I enjoyed with my professors. In some of the more difficult classes, these were imperative to my success because I needed to spend more time together to better understand the subject. Today, I still value the extra effort my professors dedicated to me and I am very thankful to them.
TYPICAL WORK DAY:
The peculiar thing about my "typical work day" is that, as in most businesses, we do not necessarily enjoy a typical day. The consulting business is always changing in that we have to keep meeting the ever-evolving needs of our clients in order for them (and us) to be successful. Previously I traveled up to 70% of some months on two-to-three-week international trips. However, today my travel schedule is more manageable, typically three-to-four overnight trips each month.
My day usually includes sending and receiving a number of e-mails, administering several projects, meetings, and coordinating other work relating to the demands of our clients.