Omni Live Media Founder - Louis Wing - Executive Biography

This is an "Informal" type of self-written Biography, designed to highlight my professional experiences that led me to where I am today, a marketing and promotions expert, media consultant, and sales leader with over 10 years of experience. I put all of my experiences to work for my clients, so that they are able to capitalize on my best advice, to grow their businesses without making the mistakes that plague many of the companies that have tried and failed. Put my experience to work for you today.
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Louis Wing started Omni Live Media in June of 2006 after exiting an email marketing company that he took from a local Miami, FL startup company to a nationally-recognized brand name in the industry. I had made a decision... that It was time to move on, to experience new things and work with new people. After achieving the "Director of Marketing" title and position, I hit a glass ceiling and saw that the owners had offered me no more room to advance, there was simply nowhere up to go. I had reached the pinnacle of where that company could go, and I needed the opportunity to go beyond that career mile marker.

In looking for a new challenge and opportunity, I created a brand name and company called Omni Live Media.

The slogan "Your Message Live - Your Message Everywhere" was much more than a subtitle to be listed below a nice logo, it was a clear and simple objective. It was a concept that struck me as being the purpose of my new venture.
I wanted to create relationships with great companies (vendors) that would give me the ability to provide my clients with a diverse line of services that met the wide range of their real marketing and promotions needs. The purpose of Omni Live Media was to work with new and exciting companies, and be able to place the client's messages all over the media map. The "Live" part of the company name embodies the notion that a marketing message needed to be alive, and be seen in motion. Today's media is multimedia, and it needs to be seen in order to have impact. Media in motion is also relevant.

Thoughts About Doing Good Business...

After having a series of relationships with different style company owners and managers that I worked for (some good, and some really bad), one of my primary goals was to "do good business with good people."

I wanted to show my clients that there was a real company with more than just a sense of integrity, that there was a company out there that could and would do everything that they said. Not just make a quick sales pitch to get an account, but to deliver the sold goods! Omni Live Media was born out of this concept, and it has flourished to this day.

Many people ask me... How did I get here? What did I do before this? Where did I get my experience and industry knowledge from? Great Questions! I hope the following information covers all that & more.

Professional Experience: A Technical Background, With A Solid Footprint In Entertainment Marketing and Promotions

I started my professional sales career when I moved to Miami in late 1996, after studying political science at the University of Maryland. I started selling computer LAN/WAN networks, systems integration, and network storage systems, and billable consulting hours for a VAR solutions provider focused on Miami's downtown and Brickell Avenue business community. VML Enterprises was a great stepping stone and it helped my initial landing in Miami. Part of my duties also included sporadic deliveries, so I got intimately familiar with the streets and highways of South Florida. After doing this type of sale for almost 2 years, I had learned a lot about the technical world and I felt as if my head was going to explode; too many computer details and a lot of techno speak! Beep!

Next up, I became a consultant-contractor for Visa International - The Latin American Division. Yes, this is the same company that puts the plastic in your wallet. I worked with their team to develop their platinum card's reward points system. My primary focus there was to do research for travel in and around Latin America, to points all over the world. This travel research was coupled with some financial wizardry (not mine) to determine the viability of a rewards program, and cross-referenced with redemption studies and feasibility for member banks. My duties included working with new members (Banco de Bogota, etc) to bring them onboard and get their systems online with Visa's internal point reward programs. This was challenging because I didn't then (and still don't) speak the language, so I had many conference calls with the aid of a translator. Although it was said in another language, I was consistently complimented by executives on a job well done, and that being patient had rewards too.

It was here that I learned about international business and working in a large, corporate environment. I learned what a CYA policy was, and why people often didn't stick their neck out if they weren't really "behind" an idea or concept. I saw heads roll when bad news came down from above, and that nobody in the corporate world has true job security; that you have to constantly prove yourself and make yourself irreplaceable to be gainfully employed. I think the biggest lesson here was... you need to come through on the things you mention in meetings, that there is an expectation by those who count on you to perform. Your team is counting on you, come through!

Following that, I headed down Brickell Avenue a bit, where I worked for The Society of Equity Management, a firm that promoted stocks for up-and-coming companies with new and exciting services. I think the good seed was planted here, as most of my days were filled with calling people who wanted to invest in the latest technology that was being released into mainstream markets and traditional media outlets. This was more of a brief stint, but I was mentored by a top-notch salesman who taught me some valuable lessons. He told me that there was a market for people who wanted premium services and products, and that I just needed to seek them using the right materials and the right methods. I learned that you can succeed at anything if you put your mind to it. These lessons resonate within my efforts at every step.

After S.E.M. I was approached by an internet startup group, (which will remain nameless) at the height of the Dot-com Boom. They had an entertainment website that was poised to do great things, but needed the right sales to bring it to the national level. While being skeptical about a Dot-com company, I took the challenge and grew the company into a nationally-known internet destination site where users could find out what was happening locally. I grew a network of 100's of affiliate websites from the ground up, later to include the ISP Earthlink-Mindspring, where we were featured as their exclusive entertainment channel.

At the time, this was a HUGE accomplishment! I was learning about the workings of large-scale deals, about business development, and the importance of "getting it in writing." As soon as the glow of affiliate success sank in, the business model's bottom dropped out, the Dot-Com Bust flew into town, and within a week, over 180+ of our entertainment "data providers" went under... everyone screaming about how their millions of investment capital was gone! Too much money spent on banner ads for their .com branding and leather chairs, not enough emphasis on monetizing from a user base. Also, management failed to really get an understanding of how to really use technology, and was constantly ripped off by the ISP that they were paired with. I offered management some real insight, but the ownership group was really short-sighted and never took some truly practical advice. This company and website folded quickly.

Post Dot-Com, myself and 2 other great salesman sat in a dimly-lit sales office, and had a three-way brainstorming session that concluded... that we could sell a service where people could build up an email list of their customers, and market directly to them. We took this concept, refined it, and brought it to management, which was faced with proposition of heading home and facing Dot-Com failure to their investors, or make something good with the high-dollar servers we owned. What was then EnMail (short for Entertainment Mail), became EnFlyer.

This is where the story gets more interesting... Although my two good friends moved on to start their own successful companies, I stuck with it and championed this new service and became an innovator, and an educator to a client base that had never heard of email marketing. I was a pioneer in this industry, exploring a new method of direct marketing. I spent countless days on the phone explaining the benefits of this avenue and why it was important in building value for a business and how to properly engage their customer base with a new form of media.

I also spent many nights "making the rounds" in various entertainment circles, focusing on the club and nightlife market, helping club owners and promoters understand that an email list of their patrons had immense value. Their lists would then become the fastest real-time connection to bring people to their velvet ropes. I went nationwide with this approach, and within a year or two, I was working with the top clubs and entertainment groups across the United States. First Miami, then New York, L.A., Chicago, Boston, and everywhere in between. I created solid relationships with highly influential icons of entertainment, promoters, club owners, recording artists, and many more.

Along the way, I also made a key move and purchased a website domain that would later become a high-traffic entertainment portal - www.MiamiClubs.com.

EnFlyer grew and grew and I achieved success that included financial prosperity and a heap of perks from the people I met through this channel. I made contacts that are still strong, even today. I sat back one day and realized I created a client base of over 1500 clients, mostly in hospitality, and I saw that my persistance paid off. I had created not only a large client base, but I had used my own sales materials, and I had created a sales system which was based on strong follow ups to clients. Today, this is known as "relationship sales management," and it is the basis of my sales and consultant skill set. I recently had a contact manager created based on this style and technique, check out www.TaskOnDeck.com when you get a chance. While still in a BETA stage or status, this encapsulates what is the foundation of my sales system.

Making Moves
Ultimately, I realized the the enflyer ownership group and management team of EnFlyer was more than incompetent and couldn't see the full value of what I brought to the company, but I was still proud of my achievements. I left when the company took a major nose-dive with a total infrastructure failure, causing an outage of the service and loss of client data. This was a direct result of lack of investment in technical resources and proper data backup systems (I lost most of my client base within a few weeks); all because management cheaped out on spending some dollars on a fully redundant backup system... I wonder... what would that $35K backup system be worth today? I can only imagine. You live and you learn, at least I did. (Not sure if the owner would admit that even to today), but.. I digress. This gave me motivation to move on.

Fast Forward to today, the year 2008... Omni Live Media. Looking back at the past year plus - I've created a monster of a company, with a loyal client base comprised of local and national companies (mostly hospitality groups). These companies depend on me to provide them the best solutions for their advertising needs. I'm happy to announce that I've created a "boutique-style ad agency," that is focused on maintaining a high-level of commitment to providing key services for my clients. I'm proud to say to everyone that I have brought integrity to a world filled with promises not kept.

If I say I'm going to do something for a client, I will do it for them. I do both the talking and the walking...
So it’s important to me for anyone to know that if I start a media project with you, I will push hard to bring it to completion. I employ forward-thinking methods to ensure that even the most challenging situations can be resolved, and that most everyone will come out a winner. I work to create solutions for my clients, to get them the most exposure for the budget allotted to me. At a very core level, I bring the most bang for the buck.

Louis Wing is Omni Live Media: Your Message Live - Your Message Everywhere! If you've read anything here that compels you to want to work with a winning marketing and promotions team, and you're serious about what you want to do... contact me and get your media "Live" and in motion today.

Learn More About Omni Live Media Services

Regards,

Louis Wing
Louis@OmniLiveMedia.com
786-228-9035 Phone
305-675-7784 Fax