Retiring CCO Reflects on Nearly 40 Years at DCG ONE

Ahead of her retirement, DCG ONE chief commercial officer Tammy Peniston joins host Greg Oberst on this episode of The Whole Idea podcast by DCG ONE. Listen and learn about the history of DCG ONE (Tammy was there from the start) and hear some of Tammy’s professional practices and personal principles that helped propel her stellar 40-year career.  

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Transcript

Greg: 

Her career spanned nearly four decades at DCG ONE. And her exit from what she helped build into a national marketing powerhouse would not be complete without documenting a few last words. Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of The Whole Idea podcast by DCG ONE. I'm Greg Oberst on the show with me today is Tammy Piston, outgoing Chief commercial Officer at DCG ONE. Welcome, Tammy.  

Tammy:  

Thank you, Greg.  

Greg:  

First, congratulations on a stellar career and retirement.  

Tammy:  

Thank you. We're very excited and I wasn't sure I was going to get here.  

Greg:  

Well, you made it now to follow your career is to follow really the history of DCG ONE. Let's pick it up at the time that you stepped off the campus at Texas Christian University. Fill in that gap between then and your first day at…well, it wasn't DCG ONE then. 

Tammy:  

Yeah, I'd be happy to. I graduated from TCU Texas Christian University, and I studied advertising and public relations, and you know, amazingly enough started my first job out of college was at an advertising agency. It was a fairly large agency in Dallas, Texas and as on the account services side, and I was an account manager for one of the largest tract home builders in the United States called US Homes. It's my first job out of college, and it was great.  

And actually I've learned, I still to this day credit the woman that I work for Brenda Sandos, who was our account supervisor with many, many lessons. And she was quite a mentor, and I learned a lot in that position.  

I was only there a year and a half. Anyway, I started my career there, learned everything from building relationships with clients to you know, all the kinds of business ins and outs of, you know, the agency business. However, what I ended up becoming kind of the, I guess the niche thing at the time because this was 1981 was getting involved in the direct marketing side of the agency. We were tapped with generating a lot of traffic into these traced home model homes and sales centers throughout the whole Southwest.  

And so we would put together these direct, you know, a lot of direct mail programs, you know, and back then it wasn't very sophisticated, it was a two or three or 10- or 15-mile radius around a particular, you know, community data was pretty limited back then, very limited. It was basically, you know, “spray and pray” mode that, you know, he used to say, you know, So that's how I started my career and ended up,, enjoying and really loving, you know, the whole getting to know direct mail.  

I ended up deciding that I, my entire family had moved to the northwest, and I was the oldest of five kids and they moved when I was in college. So I stayed but decided to relocate in the Seattle area.  

And so I left the agency and came to Seattle and really didn't have any contacts in the advertising area in Seattle and neither did anybody I knew or the family. So I, I literally decided I didn't have a lot of money, but I thought, OK, the best way to put pressure on myself is to book a hotel room at the Seattle Sheraton and I sat at the desk, I'll never forget in the hotel room with the Yellow Pages and decided that I wasn't going to leave the hotel until I found a job. And I literally just started dialing and I called every, probably every ad agency in Seattle and just did, you know, informational interviews and kind of got to know who the players were.  

Greg:  

It was like cold calling for a job.  

Tammy:  

Yeah, it took me three days and I ended up going to work for a company called The Monthly. It was actually a publication called The Monthly and it was a media rag. It was a little bit like a local Ad Week if you will. And so it was a lot of articles about campaigns and companies and, you know, agencies of record and that kind of thing. And I took a job selling advertising and I figured, well, what better way, at least to get to know the advertising community than to do that. And that's where I met the owner of the company that I went to work for called Mail Handlers and it was a direct mail company… 

Greg: 

…And one of the founding companies of DCG ONE, right?  

Tammy:  

Yeah. And I was trying to sell her advertising in the monthly and she was trying to sell me to come and work for the company. And so I did and that changed my whole career trajectory. I came in and worked for her and then eventually bought the business from her. We grew that business quite a bit when I first went to work for that company. They were basically three major clients and at the time there was a, a vacation kind of a camping vacation company is very popular called Thousand Trails. And they did a lot of direct marketing, a lot of direct mail.  

The other big contract that they had was, and I think this one's kind of fun was we did, we mailed to every graduating senior in the United States on behalf of the US Army.  

It was Uncle Sam. Wants you…trying to get, you know, people recruited to join the military. What we decided to do and what was quite risky for the business was there was really no diversification and, you know, there were three major accounts and one of them was then another really large agency that did direct response agency.  

So we, we brought in sales teams and, and did a little bit of diversification and,, kind of, you know, looked to grow in the industry… 

Greg: And this is still under the name... 

Tammy:  

Mail Handlers. I mean, the way the company has evolved was so Mail Handlers was a separate direct mail company and primarily only did direct mail and eventually then went into fulfillment. And of course, the database work and the data mining around Mail Handlers in the early late eighties, early nineties, I started working with a company called McCallum Print Group and it just seemed we always used to say our clients really brought us together. So at the time, print buyers were buying from individual companies.  

So they would buy the print from McCallum Print Group, then they would direct McCallum or the print to be delivered to Mail Handlers. And so these buyers were spending a lot of time coordinating a lot of different vendors. They had list brokers they were working with to buy the mailing list, they had envelopes, you know, buying the envelopes from somebody else, the printing and so on and so forth.  

And so what we found, you know, when I, I started noticing that we were getting most of our print from McCallum Print Grip.  

So at the time, the sales manager and I started talking about, wouldn't it be nice if we could make things just a little bit easier for these clients and try to coordinate more of these services together? What that eventually turned into was a strategic partnership. We would go and really joint sell all of the capabilities together. We could see that would basically, it gave our clients what we like to say, one throat to choke, you know, instead of having to manage so many people and a lot of finger pointing was going on with, oh, we didn't get this in time or, you know, the mailings late because the envelopes weren't here. What have you. We just took away those headaches and so fast forward to the late nineties, early two thousands. So we did a lot of just strategic selling together what we called a strategic partnership.  

But in 2001, we decided that that's when digital was really taking hold, and the internet was now a thing, and a lot of online purchasing was happening. You know, the company portals were starting to happen. And so we saw the need for more technology within our business. We wanted to expand. We knew that we had had to continue to add more value to the printed page.  

And so we decided to combine our, essentially, we had combined our companies by starting a third company and that was, that company was DCG. And in that company is where we started adding more of what we used to say, you know, kind of all the value-added services.  

So when we hired developers or any kind of technology play, when we looked at adding marketing services, which eventually was the start of our agency. All of that we did through DCG, we still had these two separate production companies, McCallum Print Group and mail handlers because so many people were used to working directly with those companies and those brands were known in the market.  

So we hesitated for, for, you know, really about 14 years before we ever truly combined all the companies under one under one name. So we, at the time, we called it Direct Connect Group. But when we brought all the companies together as one, that's when we changed the name to DCG ONE because it was the, you know, the coming together as one. And over the course of time we purchased other companies. There were we didn't, we bought the company that is now our web facility right around 2009.  

Right around then is when we really started in earnest agency services, and we brought Ben Allen on and tasked him with starting agency services. A lot of the things that we made, the decision to do in around the 2008, 2009-time frame was around the great recession. That was a huge turning point for DCG ONE. At the time, we had a great majority of our business were through local large agencies.  

DDB was one of our largest accounts. And in the course of a few months DDB basically left Seattle and Washington Mutual was probably our number one account. Washington Mutual gone overnight. It was a tough year for us. We smile now and say, wow, we, you know, we always had managed the company very conservatively and continued to always keep any of our profits in the business. And it really paid off then because that's what enabled us to really look at how we needed to pivot the business.  

When, all of a sudden our major customers were gone, the transition from selling to agencies who then had the direct relationship with the customers, we then needed to be in a position to be able to work directly with these customers.  

And so that was the decision why we decided to get in the agency business because there the agencies here that were serving, particularly on the direct marketing side, direct response side were gone. And so we thought, ok, we still have these clients, they're still mailing with us, they're still doing direct response marketing. But they have less resources. So let's add that to our repertoire and see what we can do to add more value to the relationship.  

Greg:  

Well, there was the other challenge in those early two thousands of consolidating now, technology, creative and strategy as well. So you really had to from a business standpoint, think through the model, I would imagine. 

Tammy:  

I think the two, the two most important things we did at that time was exactly that really looking at how we could diversify the business and add more to the to the value of of the relationship with DCG ONE. By adding those different disciplines. We also realized that a lot of our business was heavily on the marketing and promotional side. And so we definitely decided to focus on a little bit more of the operational side of our business and focus on the health care industry where a lot of their communications were highly regulated.  

There was a lot of compliance and data security required. And so we focused on becoming technologically savvy highly capable of handling sensitive information and putting the infrastructure in place to make us a highly secure organization to do that as well as adding strategy, marketing, you know, marketing services and other disciplines that support our clients.  

Greg:  

Thinking about those years where you're consolidating, you know, technologies and creative and strategy and also unifying different companies coming together. What are, what are some of the things that you think back in those days that stand out as, as highlights or proudest moments.  

Tammy:  

I'll start with just saying, you know, I think the proudest moment was keeping the lights on in 2008 and 2009. It really, you know, we saw a lot of shrinkage in our industry, a lot of companies went out of business, and we laugh now and say, well, we made, I think we made $1800 that year. So we didn't go, we didn't go in the red. But we had also, like I said, retained the company's profits for years and kept that in the business. And that allowed us to continue to, you know, we had a, we had basically been hoarding cash for, you know, for many years prior to that and we were able to keep most of our employees working for us.  

And, I think getting through that, the great recession and making the decision to pivot and reinvest in the business when really all of our competitors were not, those were the years where we decided to combine the businesses. When we, we, that year, we went out and bought some companies. We made the decision to build this building to do a, build a suit and build a custom building. And, they were all hard and risky and bold decisions. But, as we've been able to see what the growth of the business and what we've been able to do for our clients, they were all the right decisions. And I think that is probably the proudest moment is that we, we were able to save a lot of jobs and make some decisions that were, that was really the basis of the trajectory of the company moving forward.  

Greg: 

So, Tammy, aside from hoarding cash, is there a lesson learned from all those years? Something that stands out to you as a compelling learning moment that you carried forward in your everyday professional life>  

Tammy:  

Yeah, I think what's important to remember is that change is inevitable and embracing change instead of being afraid of change is by far and away, the best approach. And we have found that if we continually change, then we're keeping up with our clients and their needs, we're able to provide relevant strategy and tactics in their planning and in our own company planning. And I think as it relates to combining companies that trying to relay that to all the teams coming together and to not be afraid of change to, but to embrace change is I think a very important thing to always be mindful of.  

I feel like with the age of all the new technology and the digital things that we're doing that essentially what we're doing now is all direct response marketing, it just everything is so direct. Now, I mean, when you look at social media and all of the, the ways to connect are so much easier.  

Greg:  

It just occurred to me that there's a, there's a loop there. You started in direct response in the print, of course, traditional marketing, but now you're still continuing in a form of direct marketing kind of digital based.  

Tammy:  

I really do think it's a full circle moment for me to start have started my career and direct in direct marketing and really see that what I believe with all the technology and the offerings that are available to us that we are living in a direct response marketing environment.  

Greg:  

Now everything is direct looking back. What do you think you will miss most about working here?  

Tammy:  

Well, I'm definitely going to miss, and I know it sounds cliche, but I'm definitely going to miss all of the team. The team, my greatest joy is coming in every day and working with people. That's also why I've been such a huge proponent of in person working because of the collaboration of the, you know, the hallway chats, what I like to call the drive bys when you are in a space that's very collaborative when you are in a company that's collaborative. There isn't a day that I don't come in the office that I don't learn something new and that's what I'm going to miss the most. So the challenge for me is going to be to try to find ways to connect with people and learn something new every day.  

Greg:  

So, in, you're nearly 40 years now, you've collected a lot of hats and you've worn each one very well. How will you pass these hats around now? What's this transition look like?  

Tammy:  

Well, it's been, it's been going on now for, I'd say the better part of this year we've been doing planning, we had been doing some succession planning and so I have been parceling out different parts of my world. My role was very eclectic and that comes from growing up, coming out of a small business and being the owner of a small business, you're wearing a lot of different hats. And so I was responsible for the services side of our business, everything from the agency all the way through our internal services like hr and legal and compliance and security and risk management and, and marketing fell under that as well.  

And the commercial offerings of the business, essentially, what we've done is we've hired some new people. We have new leadership on the executive team and Lauren Comitale is coming on as chief of staff. And so she's taking on a lot of the legal and the contractual things that I worked on negotiating our contracts and working with clients on those types of areas. She's also in the chief of staff role, working to help advise Brad with organizational issues and people issues and, and working with the teams in accountability and prioritization. So I think she's going to be a great addition to the executive team.  

I'm eternally grateful to Chris Geiser, who has stepped in as our, our privacy officer and is taking over all of the, the risk management and security and compliance and it's not easy to find people who love that kind of thing. And he has taken it over with great enthusiasm and is, it's you know, over the last year, I've been sleeping much better at night and delighted that he's really stepped in there and owning that, Andy Leick is taking over the oversight on the services side, the whole customer experience and the enterprise services side.  

So, I managed the entire enterprise team that for all of our programmatic accounts that managed the accounts, you know, our big accounts where we touch so many disciplines, multiple disciplines, usually there's a technology play. So that's any of our, what we called solution support or strategic services, as well as all the account services. And then of course, the agency fell under that and a lot of that had to do with our commercial offerings. And so Andy Lueck is taking that over as chief commercial officer and has joined the leadership team as well.  

And then, you know, HR and some of the other pieces in the interim are going to fall to Brad, but I think that the intent is for some of these things, the legal and HR to eventually roll up to our new CFO Nate Sartell who's joined the leadership team as well.  

So we have, you know, a lot of new talent on the leadership team that I'm really impressed with and very excited about you know, launching 2025 and, and everybody, you know, stepping in in those areas that is a lot of hats.  

Greg:  

Ok, so let's round up some of your career long wisdom and channel some of that advice, forward, self-guided advice you use every day that might help some of the rest of us still in the work.  

Tammy:  

Well, I always say these things at the risk of sounding, you know, like a old fogey. But I do find that with some of the younger generation that I'm working with, there's a huge reliance on email and slack and text and so on and so forth. And I just, I always say, you know, let's don't underestimate the power of a phone of a real conversation. You know, if you're going back and forth on email two or three times and, and maybe the, the,, the intent isn't coming through or the tone that you'd like, it's always better just to step up from your desk if it's internal and just have a conversation with somebody face to face.  

I like that and with people who are remote or whatever a phone conversation is always, you know, things can get misunderstood and, and relationships are still the foundation of our business, I believe with the way we work with our clients. And so what better way to develop a relationship than to talk to each other.  

I also believe that one of our core values has always been telling it straight and,, there's kind ways of telling it straight and that's the way I believe, you know, we want to be. But to be honest in all of our, you know, all of our dealings, you know, communication, communications, the way we deal with each other internally and externally is so important. And nobody ever wants to have to try to weed through what the real true intent or meaning is of what somebody's trying to convey.  

And I think it's best to just tell it straight and be honest and you know, no hidden agendas is, you know, I think it will serve us all. Well, this is another one that, you know, kind of speaks to work ethic or whatever, going above and beyond. I used to always say that now from my days when I was in Texas, I used to say if a client asked for a cup of coffee, give them a doughnut too. But I've changed that to give them a scone too now here in the Northwest. But essentially, that's my way of saying, you know, you go above and beyond and also be more strategic. Try to, you know, if somebody says, they think they, if a client says or internally we think we know what needs to be done or we think we know the answer, try to think a little bit more about it and beyond the ask because, and I think we do that here every day and II, I love seeing it because it's nice to bring ideas that maybe, you know, our clients haven't asked for, they haven't thought of.  

And I think kindness is always a good choice. I think in every aspect of life, but also in business as well.  

You know, I think sometimes we are pressured, we have tight deadlines. It's easy to be brash or what, what have you trying to just get the work done that needs to get done. But I think we just use a little kindness every day. We make somebody's day a little bit better. That's always a great way to walk out the door.  

Greg:  

There's a lot of power in that.  

Tammy:  

Yeah, I would agree. And then I just feel like also, I think that particularly in our organization, we have such an open-door policy, and I think we're, you know, the executive leadership team in particular are very open to new ideas. And I think it's important for everybody to really make their voice heard. And we try to ask for it in different ways. And some of them are more traditional with, you know, the suggestions or what have you.  

But just, you know, in that hallway, conversation or walking down the hall, if the door is open, make those suggestions and, and if you feel strongly about something or if we're heading in a direction that maybe you don't agree with, we want to know.  

Greg:  

Well, you've done a nice job of creating a culture where people feel like they can do that. Ok. So over the years, you've been active in business and community organizations as well. I want to touch on that—there’s the Bellevue Art Museum board there for a while, past president of the Seattle Direct Marketing Association. And as a member of the Women's Presidents’ Organization, can you tell me more about your time with the WPO?  

Tammy:  

Yeah, I started at the, with the WPO or became a member in 2000. So, jeez, I mean, almost 25 years ago and it really is a, it's, there are different chapters and they're all over the world and it's a way for women CEO s or owners of businesses of a certain size to really be peer advisors with other women, other women CEO S and presidents of their companies. And it's been a wonderful place to share ideas and to also get support. And it's nice for women to support other women in the business community. I've made a lot of great friends. It's how I met Rebecca Rebecca Lyman who was one of the principals of the Garrigan Lyman group who became a DCG ONE company. And we've been friends and colleagues, and I have with many other business, you know, CEOs and they're still friends today and we'll be lifelong friends.  

Greg:  

Tammy. Let's call this next segment --this is a surprise segment—The Whole Idea Lightning round. I'm going to say a word or words and get you to respond to each and in doing so, we'll learn maybe a little bit more about you. Ok?  

Tammy:  

I love it.  

Greg: 

Sourdough bread.  

Tammy: 

My husband.  

Greg:  

Ok. So he makes the sourdough bread?  

Tammy:  

He's a big sourdough bread baker. That's the first thing that came to my mind.  

Greg:  

Richardson, Texas.  

Tammy:  

Where I went to high school and grew up. 

Greg: 

Near Dallas?  

Tammy:  

Yeah, it's a suburb of Dallas. I actually lived in Dallas, but Richardson was the school district.  

Greg:  

Frito Lays.  

Tammy:  

I lived next door to the CEO of Frida Lays and I interestingly enough when you were a kid when I was a kid, and he was the inventor of the Doritos. And we used to go over there and get to try all the products before they came to market.  

Dallas was a great test market for, for different new products coming out.  

And I was one of the original tasters of Funyuns.  

Greg:  

Alright. Well, there's a, there's a good neighbor to have. Kim and Sue.  

Tammy:  

Kim and Sue are my lifelong girlfriends. They're like sisters.  

To me, I've been Sue, lived next to, lived, there was one house in between her house and my house, and we've been friends since we were eight years old.  

We met Kim in junior high.  

and to this day, even though I haven't lived in Dallas since 1985 we still get together three times a year.  

And so it tells you how important the friendship is, but they are the dearest friends to me.  

Greg:  

Stevie Wonder.  

Tammy:  

Well, I love Motown and Stevie Wonder's song for the longest time our tagline when we were at mail handlers was signed, sealed delivered.  

We used that as our tagline.  

Yeah.  

Greg:  

And then one last one: Lucca.  

Tammy:  

Well, my husband and I have been traveling to Italy for the last 25 years and have fallen in love with this little town of Lucca, which is in Tuscany just a little northeast of Pisa. And we are moving there on January 6th of 2025. We're going to, we have an apartment inside the walls, the old walls. It's a walled, old medieval walled city and a big life change for us.  

Greg:  

My thanks to your son and DCG ONE experience technologist David Peniston for his help with those keywords. I want to do one last thing, someone else, you know, very well stopped by the studio the other day. He wanted to get in a few words in this podcast, Tammy, here's what DCG ONE, CEO Brad Clarke had to say about you: 

Brad:  

Two words, great friend, Tammy's both in business and in personal life. She's able to support her friends and her colleagues and her customers in an exceptional way. Tammy and I go back almost 30 years at this point. In fact, I remember the first time I met Tammy, she still had an ashtray on her desk if that'll put the time frame in context at all. But, you know, Tammy is such a good businessperson. I think that comes to mind first, she's the way she approaches business, the way she approaches opportunities and customers and employees.  

I've learned a lot from her over those years. There's no one who I would say, I've ever met who in those contexts, we think almost exactly like there's times we, we don't see eye to eye immediately, but we're always, we always come to a place in the middle where I think the best decisions are made and we'll certainly miss her being here every day to have that support and, and likewise, you know, her perspective and her viewpoint and Tammy is got this, you know, southern charm and she's also, you know, a very, very serious person.  

She definitely is very interested in people and, and loves to tell a good story and, and loves to get to know everyone personally. And then behind all of that, she's a very, very good, serious businessperson. It's, it's really great dynamic and when hard decisions are made, she, she can take a very, very serious and hard approach to things, which is, which is great. It's a great mix in a person to this day in, in part of our industry which can be very male centric.  

You know, to this day we'll be in industry meetings where there's 30 or 40 men and Tammy and she commands respect, and she's earned it. She's got such a strong viewpoint on how a woman can succeed against real challenges.  

And she takes a real interest in mentoring other women in business. And if you really think back, I mean, she's really a trendsetter in a lot of ways or a, you know, a wall breaker. She's, she's just walked through any of those challenges or obstacles. And I'm sure at times they felt daunting because of some of those bias, but she's fearless. She'll, she walks right through them, and this is going to be a really important transition for the business where you can't replace Tammy. We've got a great team, and we've got a very good plan for, you know, how to hand off all of the daily functions of what Tammy does. But we're all going to have to elevate to replace some of those things that are less tangible that Tammy does every day.  

 We're going to miss her. And I'm going to miss her. It's a, it's a big change for me, for sure.  

Tammy:  

Wow. Yeah, that's I feel emotional when I hear that, and I also feel very proud, and I feel the same way. I mean, it has, I've been thinking about, reflecting a lot on the things I want to say to people as I leave. And I would say the same thing about Brad, I've learned so much. He's a very smart business operator, but more importantly, he's been a great friend and it's been a tremendous privilege to work with him and to learn from him. And we've had a ton of fun. But we've also, you know, we have overcome a lot of challenges together.  

And I'm very touched by the things he said and it, you know, it's, it's bittersweet to be leaving this great organization and all the great people that I've worked with because it's, I mean, it's been my life. it's been incredibly rewarding and it's moving to see how everybody has grown. I mean, when Brad, I, I love, when he says, you know, there was an ashtray on my desk because there was, that was, you know, those were the times Brad is a visionary. He was the catalyst for the bold moves that we've taken.  

If it wasn't for Brad, we would not be the company that we are today. We would not have grown the way we have grown. We have not, we would not be the face of who we are because it took having the courage to take those risks. So, you know, in many ways, I have Brad to thank for being in a position to be able to retire. I'm going to be staying on the board of directors, so I'll be able to watch everybody. And all the great things they're going to be doing in the upcoming years and see this, the whole team really thrive. 

Greg:  

Tammy, it's been fun chatting with you if you have any last thoughts, now's the time the mic is yours.  

Tammy:  

Well, I do want to say I it has been such a pleasure and a privilege to lead many of the team members in this company. And I really want to thank everybody for all of the hard work and devotion that they have shown the company and continue to show the company and the kindness they've shown me I have had and the pleasure of working with some of the most dynamic and interesting and delightful people. And I'm going to miss every single one of them and I'd want to name every single one of them if I could. But it's just been really the joy of my career. And I just want to thank everybody for how they've taught me and mentored me and for all the great work that they've put out for the company.  

Greg:  

Well, if I may say on behalf of DCG ONE and our many partners nationwide too, who, you know, very well and have worked closely with you over the years. Thank you for your many years of leadership and service. Congratulations again on a stellar career and now a well-earned retirement. Thank you, Tammy.  

Tammy:  

Thank you, Greg.  

Greg:  

My thanks and best wishes again to Tammy Piston DCG ONE's retiring chief commercial officer. If you'd like to offer your best wishes to Tammy, feel free to write us today at podcast at DCG ONE.com. Thank you very much for listening. Whole ideal podcast producers are Mandy De Caesar and Kelsey Brewer. I'm Greg Oberst, watch this channel for our next podcast and more expertise, insight and inspiration for whole ideal marketing.  

Take care.