In The News

For Eric Holmen, it’s all in the bag – or, in his case, the BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal).

Holmen is president of SmartReply, an Irvine, Calif.-based firm specializing in voice and mobile marketing.

SmartReply’s mobile advertising network delivers requested text messaging and advertising to the audiences of its network of 1,320 broadcasters (radio, cable, newspaper), and its mobile commerce solution helps retailers transact sales in their stores using customers’ mobile phones. The privately held company counts among its clients more than half of the top 100 U.S. specialty retailers.

Prior to SmartReply, Holmen served in leadership, strategy and M&A integration roles at Catalina Marketing, a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based provider of direct-to-consumer communication. He also spent time at Sears, where he was responsible for planning and managing the marketing strategy, direct marketing, credit marketing, Internet and commercial service marketing for its hardware division.

You advise a fair number of retailers, but have you ever worked a retail floor?
My first paying job outside of a paper route and mowing lawns was at Taco Bell, but I didn’t stay very long. I ended up managing a gourmet imported chocolates store in San Luis Obispo (Calif.) while I was still in high school. It was a fantastic job and I did that through college.

Did anything stay with you from that experience?
I really got a flavor for retail. I was 17 when I took that job and the owners were busy trying to open other stores – they didn’t even live locally. So they gave me about two month’s training on how to run a store and then sort of handed me the keys and said, “Keep it running profitably.”

But the big influencers were all the other small businesses in our little downtown. At the monthly association meetings you got to know people living and breathing retail day in and day out. I learned how micro and macro trends of economics could influence retail. You also learned why a clean floor really does matter and why every detail has to work in the store environment.

What’s the greatest challenge facing retailers today?
They face very many and one of them is the threat of disintermediation – of just getting squeezed out of the buying chain from the customer. There’s a real threat that retailers could become [merely] warehouses for manufacturers’ goods. The question is, what’s the value equation for retail in the future?

Thoughts on a dream client?
A large retailer that really, really loves its customers and wants to take that next step in finding a new way to connect with them, hopefully using mobile marketing.

What else is on your wish list?
Faster adoption of mobile marketing in retail. What’s game-changing about the mobile phone is that it will be wherever the customer is. Retail is about location, location, location, only now the customer can be within the walls of a competitor and you can still win that transaction.

You have a Facebook page and more than 500 LinkedIn contacts, what’s your take on social networking?
We all should be doing some level of networking, [even if it’s merely] trying to find the next great candidates for employment because we’re choosy about who works for us.

But we’re expanding into a couple of new markets and I can easily go out to my LinkedIn network and say, “This is where we’re headed and we don’t know much about this space. Can you share your thoughts or introduce me to people who have some expertise in this space?”

What other interests might you have pursued?
Journalism. I have an associate’s degree and probably would have concentrated on high-tech or business.

What do you do with downtime?
I have a little sailboat in San Diego harbor. I take the family out and we’ll sail to Catalina Island or around the California coast.

How do you stay motivated?
Learning is the thing that motivates me more than anything.

Person or persons you’d most like to meet?
Warren Buffett and the Dalai Lama.