CEO Marketing Insight Interviews: Steve Robbins

After nearly 30 years in the business, Steve Robbins started Tiger Leasing in January 2000. With eight employees here in New York City, their volume of deals exceeds $30 million annually.

Tiger Leasing is an independent equipment leasing company headquartered in New York City, providing commercial equipment leasing programs.

Just to prove that networking pays, I met Steve through an association-networking event and over time a connection was made. Steve is one of the busiest people I know but somehow he always finds time to live life, meet people and stay connected. Knowing his hectic schedule, you can imagine how thrilled I was when he made himself available.

Mardy Sitzer: Are you using or planning on using marketing this year to grow your business?

Steve Robbins: We are marketing all the time. A few years ago I didn’t think that the internet was a lead source, but now we put a lot of effort into our internet marketing efforts.

MS: Why?

SR: We have to differentiate ourselves from a lot of competitors and establish ourselves as trustworthy in the eyes of the customers.

MS: What marketing efforts do you expect your sales growth to come from?

SR: We used to use a lot of direct mail and promotional pieces but now our emphasis is on our website and internet marketing.

We are continually tweaking our website and adding new content, employ a SEO firm to work with us to keep our site rankings up, we send out a regular email newsletter segmented to our different audiences. We are also blogging and have started using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn more.

We have found that people are searching more on the internet and we are getting broader exposure as a result of our efforts and this has brought us bigger accounts and even new equipment vendor accounts who use our service. We’ve even discovered that local searches have been helpful when companies or equipment suppliers want to work with a local leasing company to service their clients. Local businesses also would rather work with a local company than a distant firm.

MS: Would you like to offer a tip or lesson learned to other entrepreneurs?

SR: I would recommend that you be well capitalized when you set out.

Keep your overhead low, have a product or solution that separates you from your competitors, target your audience, be specialized and use the right tactics.

It is really important that you establish a relationship with a banker. Make sure you set up your business books and accounting system so that when it is time to borrow or establish a line of credit, everything is in order.