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 MCbiz : Enterpriser Zone : Success Stories
Success Stories
Topete/Stonefield, Inc. One of the many challenges small businesses face is evolving as the surrounding economic scenery changes. That’s part of the secret to the success of Topete/Stonefield, Inc., an international multicultural marketing, advertising and public relations agency that helps organizations communicate and win their audiences.  Founder Liz Topete-Stonefield has always been an entrepreneur at heart. While she has been the public relations director of a major adult education research and publishing agency and general manager of an employment agency, she also has owned and operated a ballet school in Mexico at the age of 19, and served as a freelance marketing consultant.
So when she moved to Phoenix with her husband DuWayne, she looked to find a position that would combine her expertise in marketing with the growing Hispanic market in Arizona. Instead, those in the industry told her politely there was no future for the Hispanic market – or for a young foreign woman in the field. Undaunted, Liz did what she does best – she created her own business. Topete/Stonefield, Inc. opened its doors in 1985, primarily as a transcreation agency. Immediately successful, she brought DuWayne into the company to handle administrative needs. That gave Liz the ability to diversify, and Topete/Stonefield’s role expanded to include advertising and marketing. Despite the early naysayers, Liz now owns the oldest Hispanic advertising agency in Arizona. While growing her business, Liz became active in the community, as well, serving as the first Hispanic on the Executive Board of the Phoenix Art Museum and the Arizona Community Foundation. She is a founding board member of the National Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies and the Orpheum Theatre Foundation, and in 1993 was the first Hispanic woman to receive the Ad Person of the Year Award in Phoenix. In addition to running her business, she writes the Spanish weekly column “Living American Style” published by Prensa Hispana newspaper. The path to success wouldn’t always be easy, though. When recession hit in the early 90s, the advertising side of the business almost disappeared, but the translations division helped the young company succeed while other larger organizations went bankrupt. Then, DuWayne’s health forced him to retire, and Liz found herself with a growing company to run, without the administrative skills necessary. She was also spending many hours caring for her husband, and found a flaw in her business plan – despite an excellent staff, the company was still primarily dependent on her for its success. She learned quickly that type of dependence would limit her company’s growth. Her answer to the challenge was two-fold: - Gain the additional training needed. Liz reached out to a number of innovative programs for assistance, taking advantage of opportunities including the City of Phoenix Management Training Assistance Program, the APS Academy for the Advancement of Minority- and Woman-Owned Enterprises, and more recently, the Light Rail Management Training Assistance Program. The company is now also certified as:
- Federal 8a Certified Organization
- Minority- & Woman-Owned Business Enterprise
- Disadvantaged Business Enterprise
- Small Business Enterprise
- Affirmative Action Employer
- Broaden the expertise in the company, without adversely affecting the bottom line. Liz needed the best talent in the business, but not the full-time payroll to go with it. Instead, she developed an innovative structure based on partnerships with the premier contract talent in the Valley. She creates a new team for each project, hand-selecting the individuals who best meet the challenges of the client. She keeps her full-time crew to a handful of people who excel in project management and support; and partners with independent consultants and other small firms to create a specialized team for the client. This allows her the depth of a large firm, with the flexible and response time of a boutique agency. Her consortium of associates numbers more than 30, and continues to grow.
There have been many companies who have used that expertise to their advantage, including: - Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona – Who reached their target audience so well on the rollout of their ABC program of care for AHCCCS patients, that one marketing campaign was all that was necessary.
- Fry’s Food Stores – Used Topete/Stonefield for the design and introduction of Fry’s Mercado, a groundbreaking store targeting the Hispanic market that now has been earmarked as the prototype for stores across the country.
- US West – Whose goal was to increase calls by 6 percent; and in a single six-week campaign watched their call volume grow by 40 percent.
Topete/Stonefield has also been instrumental in a number of successful programs with Maricopa County. Two of the most recent involve high-visibility campaigns, including: - HIV Care 24-hour help line – TSI Team designed and developed the partnership to make the help line reality for the Ryan White Title 1 program, as well as the creation of a striking advertising campaign to promote the phone line.
- Voter ID? I do! Do you? – An attention-getting series of television, radio and print ads featuring County personnel, from County Recorder Helen Purcell to a glittery Elvis tribute artist.
Today, Topete/Stonefield has a satellite office in Mexico City, which serves marketing clients as well as those interested in building business relationships across the border. Conversely, the company provides immediate entry to US companies that want to enter the Mexican market. The company has earned a national reputation as bilingual specialists, both in cross-cultural communications as well as in translation and interpretation. Clients no longer need to hire two separate marketing firms to reach Anglo and Hispanic audiences – it can all be done under one roof. It hasn’t been an easy journey, but it has been rewarding. “We’ve come a long way from the day they told me there was no Hispanic market in Phoenix,” Liz says. “Now, it’s the fastest growing audience segment, not just here, but throughout the country.” Maricopa County appreciates the sustainable product Liz Topete-Stonefield and the TSI Team provide, and we are honored to showcase her talented and multi-faceted firm. Yes, Liz is a visionary with a mission, and we envision her capturing audience after audience – it’s a win-win for not only international communities, but for the community-at-large in Maricopa County. With her vision becoming reality, it makes sense to keep an eye on what Liz might do next. Liz Topete-Stonefield President & CEO Topete/Stonefield, Inc 2200 N. Central Avenue, Suite 201 Phoenix, AZ 85004 O: 602-254-8780 F: 602-258-7586 http://www.topete-stonefield.com 
MCbiz is honored to showcase a small business in Maricopa County. Complete Print Shop, Inc. has provided commercial printing services to the valley since 1979, and its owner, Mr. Lum Q. Bui and his associates help Maricopa County with some of its printing needs.  “Every day is a bonus, and I am living the American Dream,” declares Mr. Bui. He recalled fleeing Vietnam on a boat in 1975 headed to the United States – a trip that would truly change Mr. Bui’s life. He stated he “was alive and willing to work hard.” His work ethic led him to sweeping floors, scraping gum, and cleaning toilets at a carwash. Later he progressed to working with Greyhound and Addressograph Multigraph, and ultimately, Lum, as Mr. Bui likes to be called, started his own business with $600, a one-person team, and a couple of small printing presses. “Owning a business is very hard work and everybody makes mistakes, but one should always try to do their best the first time,” says Lum.
Lum professes that “life means building relationships one-by-one,” and he has certainly practiced what he believes. Lum speaks with his employees daily, asking them “how they are doing.” Lum provided advice, advocating that an employer should “show them you care.” Several of his employees have been working alongside him for decades. Along with his employee relations practices, Lum focuses on quality and customer service, and now his shop encompasses 26,000 square feet with very large printing presses. He is very happy to see his son working alongside him, helping him run the business. While faithfully watching over his business and family, Lum’s American Dream includes helping the local community. His efforts have resulted in a Phoenix-based Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in 2001. Lum also promotes entrepreneurship through his volunteerism at a local refugee center, and he was recently awarded a Medal of Valor from the Navajo Nation. Complete Print Shop Contact Information 3433 W. Earll Dr. Phoenix, AZ 85017 voice: 602-437-0207 fax: 602-437-8132 On behalf of Maricopa County, MCbiz applauds Lum Q. Bui for his tenacity in creating a very successful small business--Complete Print Shop--while embracing the American Dream. If “every day is a bonus” for Lum, that certainly has to be the case for the community he and his business supports and serves.
Maricopa County’s small business firms mean BIG business. They drive the state’s economy, making up approximately 97.2 percent of all Arizona employers. One of these firms is designated as a Small Business Enterprise under MCbiz, which is Maricopa County’s new Small Business Enterprise Program.  JE Fuller/Hydrology & Geomorphology, Inc., a certified small business enterprise, has provided specialized consulting services to public and private clients throughout the Southwest since January 1995. Jon Fuller founded JE Fuller/Hydrology & Geomorphology, Inc. in the midst of crisis.
During the economic recession, Jon’s previous business with two partners had recently dissolved over philosophical and ethical issues. In addition, Jon’s wife Kate had just been diagnosed with stage 2 thyroid cancer, and there were three pre-school children at home. As a result, another local small business owner, Steven Voss of LVA Urban Design Studio, encouraged Jon to venture out on his own and provided a small drainage engineering project as a starting point. Jon also found a willing client in a former employer, CH2M HILL, one of the largest consulting engineering firms in the world. JE Fuller, Inc. has continued to serve both small and large clients over the past twelve years. Several trips to the SBA Small Business Development Center at Gateway Community College and an adult education basic business accounting class later, JE Fuller/Hydrology & Geomorphology, Inc. was born.  One of the first challenges was naming the firm. Because Jon had promised himself that he’d never hire employees, it made sense to name the firm after himself, with the rest of the name describing the kind of work he intended to do. While the name has worked well in professional circles, bankers, salesmen, and the in-laws have struggled a bit to digest the long name.
A more serious challenge was finding clients. Jon leveraged relationships built through active participation in professional associations and contacted former employers, past clients and co-workers as well as made connections through friends and classmates. While these contacts were useful, he found that the best marketing was successfully completing his existing contracts. Repeat clients and word of mouth referrals have been a foundation of his success. Deciding to grow his small business and not turn away good business clients with interesting projects, Jon called on a trusted long-time friend and former co-worker, Brian Iserman, to help him expand his business. In essence, Jon overcame his fear of hiring employees by tabbing Brian as employee number 2. Brian is still with the firm today. A third employee, John Wallace, joined the next year and started the Tucson office. Since then, growth has been steady, cautious and deliberate. By 2000, there were seven full-time employees. Today there are twenty one full-time employees spread between offices in Tempe, Tucson, and Flagstaff. A critical turning point for the business came in 1997 when the firm was awarded an on-call contract to perform a study on Tatum Wash for the Flood Control District of Maricopa County. Jon’s team performed well on the project, and completed the assignment ahead of schedule and under budget. The Flood Control District is now the firm’s largest single client, accounting for about a third of the top line in some years. Other major clients include the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Arizona State Land Department, and Pima, Yavapai, Pinal, Santa Cruz, and Navajo Counties. On-call contracts continue to provide a constant base load of work with a variety of public and private clients. Over the past twelve years, JE Fuller/Hydrology & Geomorphology, Inc. has developed some rules for business success: - Treat clients and employees the way you would like to be treated.
- Listen to your clients, give them exactly what they need, and make them look good.
- Do only the kind of work you do best and love to do.
- Only hire the best people. Never hire someone you “hope” works out. Work finds good people.
- Never stand in the way of your employees’ success. Give them the opportunities, responsibilities and rewards they desire. Find ways to make them happy.
- Never rest on your laurels. Always strive to do better and learn more.
Jon provided further reflection: “JE Fuller/Hydrology & Geomorphology, Inc. is proud to be one of many certified small businesses in Maricopa County. Local small businesses are highly motivated to provide exceptional services because your purchases are funded by our own local taxes. Local small businesses provide unparalleled accountability, flexibility, and service. In addition, there is a return on your investment as new jobs are created in our community expanding the tax base and generating economic strength.”  JE Fuller and Company serve the community in more ways than one. For example, their employees donate their time and energy by volunteering in community and church activities. In addition, as referenced earlier, Jon used to have toddlers running around the house. Now, he has three teenagers running around the country, following his spirit of giving. During the 2007 summer break from high school, two are participating in Katrina clean-up missions while another is working with autistic children. Jon’s spouse gets a reprieve for the summer, and some great news for the entire family and community: His wife’s cancer is in REMISSION after ten years of struggling – “IT’S GONE!”said Jon.
Jon and his business are looking forward to serving our community for many years to come. Maricopa County commends Jon, his company, and his family for their continued contributions to the community-at-large. Jon’s story is a testament to the challenges that many small business owners face and overcome. MCbiz looks forward to working with the small business community, initiating opportunities and promoting growth.
Maricopa County
has many businesses that achieve relative success,
and many times relatives play a part in a business owner’s success. One such example,
and a very good one, is Loretta Love Huff’s Success Story, which credits and honors
her relatives for her successful entrepreneurial journey.
MCbiz
is honored to present:
The Birth & Life of Emerald Harvest Consulting
 From an early age, Loretta Love Huff was
exposed to the entrepreneurial spirit.
Her father, Andrew Earl Love, was a successful business owner.
He owned and ran a drug store and pharmacy during her elementary school days
and a coin-operated laundromat and dry cleaners during her high school and early
college careers.
Andrew died the summer after Loretta’s freshman year
in college (on the night that John Glenn landed on the moon).
She and her mother discovered just how successful Andrew had been with the
realization that, in addition to providing well for the family during his lifetime,
he had also managed to pay off the bulk of the mortgage of the six-flat apartment
building they lived in and owned.
Andrew took the secrets of his success to his grave.
However, it inspired Loretta to change her major from psychology to business. As
a testament to the knowledge she gained by observation and osmosis, she wrote an
excellent paper on running a successful small business for a Business Management
class at
Howard
University
in
Washington, D.C.
Loretta wanted to pursue a double major in psychology
and business, but the two disciplines were taught in different schools at the university.
Majoring in both study programs was not possible. After a year of studying business,
Loretta returned to her initial passion--learning about people and their motivations.
Although Loretta knew that career progress in this
field would require a master’s or doctorate degree, she earned a bachelor’s degree
in psychology and used it as a starting point. Loretta returned to
Chicago
in search of that elusive job.
Two weeks into her first summer at home, after graduating,
Loretta settled for a clerical position at the headquarters of Sears Roebuck and
Co. She believed this job to be a temporary
one, especially when she realized that there were a number of women with college
degrees in similar positions, who had been with the company for a number of years.
She was offered the opportunity to enter the company’s computer training program
and became an assembler language programmer working on the organization’s large
catalog order processing system. She
hated it! The training and programming
work had been a wonderful learning experience, but not enough to her liking.
Loretta requested a transfer into Human Resources (or
Personnel as it was called back then) and this was the beginning of her corporate
career in human resources.
At various points during her work life, Loretta immersed
herself in other fields including consumer research and commercial/business banking.
She was fortunate to be able to work for such well known organizations as Kraft
Foods and Continental Illinois National Bank (now Bank of America) in
Chicago
.
While at the bank, she completed an MBA in Finance
from the
University of Chicago
. She then pursued another dream, moving
to the Silicon Valley in
Northern California
, where she worked for Apple Computer and Sega of America.
Loretta’s stellar education and discipline-rich background provided her with
invaluable lessons and perspectives on how businesses are run.
However, perhaps intuitively, she knew she was destined to work in a field
that focused on the more human elements of business.
With the ‘boom’ of high tech, Loretta watched with
envy the contractors that were hired by the firms that employed her.
They would work for six months at relatively high pay then take six months
off to travel the world or do nothing at all.
She envied their lifestyle, but didn’t have the courage to break away from
the security of her good-paying career.
Years later she married and divorced an entrepreneur
with whom she started a company that helped small businesses get funding for their
enterprises. Loretta had another epiphany
and realized she hated this role as much as she hated being a programmer and banker.
Around that time she was invited to a weekend workshop
on the “new” vocation of coaching and fell in love with the profession.
Loretta undertook a rigorous year-long program which provided her not only
with coaching and practice management expertise, but also credentialing in a profession
where the barriers to entry were relatively low.
Loretta began diverting her business efforts from financing
to human resources consulting and training.
She partnered with a fellow coach in
Oregon
to design and conduct workshops for women to help them make informed career choices. They named their new venture Emerald
Heart.
Her business partner eventually opted to pursue a different
path. At this point, Loretta decided to tap into the local high-tech market. She changed the name of her company
to Emerald Harvest Consulting, which also meant a new mission and focus.
Newly-launched Emerald set out to help
Silicon Valley
companies improve workplace productivity while helping them to cultivate great leadership
with engaged, valued employees. Loretta
was working in a local-area start-up as its vice-president of Human Resources and
Employee Services while Emerald was quietly getting a foothold.
Several years later, Loretta emerged with a renewed
commitment to entrepreneurship and the confidence that she could make it on her
own. She provided human resources consulting
services to a number of organizations in Northern California before moving to
Phoenix
in 2003 to marry her college sweetheart.
Since arriving in
Phoenix
, Loretta has provided training and consulting to a number of organizations including
various
Maricopa County
departments. She has delivered speeches
and workshops for ASU, Fresh Start Women’s Foundation,
Scottsdale Community College
and JPMorgan Chase as well as other associations and businesses across the country. She has also provided executive coaching
to top leaders at KPMG, Schwab, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Visa.
While she loves working with large organizations, Loretta
is equally passionate about ensuring the success of small businesses.
She distills and transforms her big company expertise to help smaller business
owners raise the level of their management effectiveness, sales and profitability. For example, she has helped the owner
of a successful
staffing
company refine his ideal hiring profile to assess and better select employees, resulting
in improved retention and higher productivity for his firm.
She has also helped a State Farm insurance agent restructure
her business and improve her profits. Loretta has worked with a number of organizations
to assess team performance and successfully launch new initiatives saving time,
money and emotional duress. She is
currently assisting a number of new east coast Merrill Lynch financial advisors
meet their aggressive sales hurdles.
Loretta is also quite active in the community. She
serves as the Board Chair of Gabriel’s Angels, an organization that provides healing
pet therapy to abused children to end the cycle of violence.
She was recently appointed to the Board of Directors for NAWBO (National
Association of Women Business Owners) and serves as Program Chair.
As Membership Chair, she is actively involved on the Board for the Phoenix
Chapter of the National Speakers Association.
A few months ago she joined the board for the
Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center
with the Parkinson Network of Arizona.
Through Emerald Harvest Consulting, Loretta has been
able to successfully marry her passion for people with her commitment to business
success. Loretta’s vision is that all
people recognize their unique gifts and fulfill their personal destiny while organizations
honor those gifts in pursuit of their business goals.
It is this vision that inspires the work she does--speaking, training, coaching
and consulting with her clients to be a catalyst and advocate for their success.
On behalf of
Maricopa County
, MCbiz applauds Loretta for her community service, her work with various County
agencies, and for sharing such an encouraging story and honorable vision. Some quotes
regarding Loretta’s presentations for
Maricopa County
include:
Loretta’s approach
kept things fresh and she did a great job of keeping us on task. From my perspective,
she is one of the best leaders we’ve had for such meetings in my four and a half
years here.
Roger Ball, Dept of Transportation
Loretta's workshop
was very hands-on and interactive. She showed great enthusiasm for the topic
covered.
Michele Gumenik
Maricopa
County Air
Quality
Loretta is the author of a book titled 6 Keys for
Dissolving Disputes: When ‘Off with their Heads!’ Won’t Work.
She speaks on a variety of issues centered on effective communication including
leadership, conflict resolution and marketing. She can be reached at
loretta@emeraldharvest.com or 602.454.7787.
Visit www.emeraldharvest.com
to get your free reports: “Are YOU a transformational leader?” and “Top 5 Marketing
Mistakes Made by Service Professionals”.
 Personal challenges confront us all, and many
small business owners have to face up to both business and personal complications,
simultaneously, at times. Small business owners in
Maricopa County
experience such tests, and they overcome such barriers along their journeys to success.
One such small business owner runs Diamondback Promotions, LLC.
Diamondback Promotions, LLC, which has existed since
1995 is a One-Stop Source for custom
– imprinted Promotional Products. The small business owner, Linda Martin/CAS, has
been selling Promotional Products since 1988. She spent 2 years on the supplier
side in the importing and selling of sports caps.
Linda’s recent divorce increased the challenges that
small owners normally face on a day-to-day basis. She overcame these obstacles through
much prayer, hard work, and her creativity. Because Linda focuses on solutions rather
than problems, she began strategizing and implementing new plans. Since 1990, she
has diversified her client base, and she began bidding on various governmental solicitations.
One specific solicitation that Linda bid on was
Maricopa County
’s Promotional Items Contract. Her firm was selected as one of several, and she
proceeded to work with several County departments over the last 5 years.
Linda recalled and stated that, “In the first years
of the contract, I think I expected the bids to just arrive. I decided to change
my strategy – in fact, I initiated a marketing campaign to further introduce my
firm to County agencies. Subsequently, in the last 2 years I have received more
opportunities to bid, receiving referrals from various agencies.”
As a promotional product distributor, she believes
that working with the county is a great way to grow her business. She is excited
about the upcoming contract & the opportunities
that will be available if Diamondback Promotions is
re-selected as one of several firms in the County’s Promotional Items Contract.
 The experienced entrepreneur provides the following
advice, “Having a website that has a large product selection, which provides clients
the opportunity to view most of the products with their Logo or message virtually
imprinted, is a big plus.” The convenience factor expands with her clients having
the opportunity to request quotes and place orders via the firm’s website 24/7.
Linda further expresses her thoughts about doing business
with
Maricopa County
saying, “I have been impressed with the timeliness of the payments from the County.”
Although much competition exists, Linda’s many years of experience and diligence
lends to her practice of providing excellent customer service to current and prospective
clients. She has advised many small business owners that doing business with the
County translates into a win-win, business relationship.
She is a current member of the Arizona Promotional
Products Association, and she has served on its board for two terms. In addition,
Linda gives to the community via her membership in the Promotional Products Association
International, Advertising Specialty Institute, and The Greater Phoenix Chamber
of Commerce.
On behalf of
Maricopa County
, MCbiz is pleased to showcase Linda Martin and her small business. Her dedication
to helping the Promotional Items Industry and her personal perseverance are commendable.
We look forward to interacting with many other small business owners that prevail
despite adversities encountered along their personal journeys to success.
Linda Martin, CAS
Diamondback Promotions, LLC
602-454-2727
Fax 602-454-2828
dpromotions@cox.net
http://www.diamondbackpromotions.com
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General
Admin Hours
Mon-Fri: 8am-5pm
except holidays
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320 W. Lincoln
Phoenix, AZ 85003
Ph: 602-506-8707
Fax: 602-258-1573
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