At that time Alex had just left his corporate career of more than 20 years, mainly in the insurance business. He was a pioneer in the direct marketing of insurance using direct mail, telemarketing and broad media advertising....working mainly with inhouse and customer lists from banks, credit card companies and departmental stores all over Asia.

Whilst he was pretty secretive about his past activities saying it was not ethical for him to reveal any confidential data, advertising agencies and media people in Asia that I met, knew him well and estimated that he was in charge of a marketing promotion budget of at least US$10million a year!.

I always enjoyed talking to him as he has creative ideas and solutions to every business issue....and strong and insightful opinions about the social issues of the world.  

He is also well connected. In his career Alex was active in initiating partnerships between banks, insurance companies and departmental stores in China, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, enabling them to implement direct marketing campaigns involving professional data mining and large scale telemarketing for acquiring and building profitable relationships with retail customers.

In 1997 he left his corporate career to become an entrepreneur with two aspirations.....  to learn about digital marketing, e-commerce which was then coming to fore and to share with Asian SMBs his experience in direct marketing.

This was to lead him to into what he says is  "most tumultuous but exciting and learningful period" his life.

Since 2001, he became totally dedicated in his current mission of performance management... helping clients improve their business processes and value chain management;  reduce waste and becoming lean; forging partnerships and alliances; enhancing their IT to align themselves with the Information and Mobile age.

ON IMPROVING CAMPAIGN RESULTS...

"Improving Campaigns results is actually easy...What is hard to acheive is affinity and relationships. You can offer anything to group with high affinity...they will buy!"  He often says 

"My boss Bob Davis use to tell me  "The computer is to Direct Marketing"  what the Jet is to Transportation. The jets gone so fast in the supersonic internet age that many of us has lost sight of where it is.

Fortunately a new group of young pilots have emerged in intenet marketing...and we have to learn from them.  These folks are as dedicated towards results and not just eyeballs as we were in traditional direct marketing...and that's what makes them succeed...even though most of them sound like they are selling snake oil"

Alex talks in his seminars about the "Tombstone Approach" traditional direct marketers used to adopt.. a stilted and standard copy and layout style that they believed always work best. However it soon became identifed as the language of junk mail just as the internet marketers "sure win" copy approaches have become identified as SPAM.

"...should flow naturally from communicating sincerely"  ...."In today's digital age, we like to use the words, "contacts", "networks", "relationship", "partners", etc .... these often refers to a name, email address, and maybe some transaction, demographic and psychographic data, but lack the warmth of care, concern, sharing, fellowship and support that business people need to achieve success in this wild, wild world"

He often laments that though the tools for personal, team and group communications have improved supersonically, especially with Web2.0... people have lost the art to dialogue.  

"So we talk at cross-purposes"..... "Look at the social networks, Facebook, My space... people just want to say their own thing, express their own opinions, show their trinklets and what not...they are not there to communicate, dialogue or make real friends"

Through his website ONE1-DM, he hopes that people in the direct marketing business, direct mailers,  telemarketers, list owners and builders, internet marketers and supporting vendors can come together to share a fellowship, learn and make money through direct response techniques.

Since mid 2007, Alex has reduced his public contacts and appearances at seminars and conferences significantly to take care of his aged father. He promises to increase his activity on his website and related blogs with the hope to build a community of direct marketers and internet marketers that will share, learn and prosper together.

Do visit ONE1-DM  to get the glimpse of this interesting gentlemen, an accomplish direct marketing professional....read what he has to say, keep a lookout for his infrequent public seminars and workshops, and join him in his mission to created and prosperous, learning and sharing direct and internet marketing community.

Other Information Sources at About Har

   Past Colleagues and Business Contacts