Business Q&A with Marketing Guru Jeannine Morber

Jeannine Morber arrived in in 2001 after her husband retired from the US Navy. Morber calls herself a "born and bred New Englander" who has found success in Maryland in both her education and career.

Morber said she has 25 years of sales and marketing experience, a degree in Computer Science and she is on schedule to earn an MBA next spring.

When not running her business, Morber Marketing Group, she is teaching technology marketing, public relations and WordPress classes at and Frederick Community Colleges.

Morber said that opening her business was "the smartest decision I ever made." She also said that gas prices are killing her and access to high speed internet remains a challenge for small businesses in Carroll County. Want to hear what else this small business entrepreneur has to say? Read on. 

P: Summarize in a sentence or two what your current business is/does.

Morber: I help companies integrate many of the new technologies into their current marketing, PR, sales and customer relationship management strategies. I customize the training, the processes, the evaluation metrics and the tools.
 

P: Why do you feel that your services are necessary/helpful to people (businesses?) in the Carroll County community?

Morber: There are new technology tools and social platforms being developed and unveiled almost daily. Most companies I meet with are not suffering from a lack of information about these new tools but they are suffering from an abundance of misinformation. 

Too often companies are led to believe that someone who knows how to upload an image to Facebook or send a few auto-tweets is an 'expert' in social media and online marketing. Nothing could be further from the truth.  To properly develop, implement and evaluate an online marketing campaign, it is essential to consult with someone who has an in depth understanding of basic marketing and PR principles, and significant experience working with a variety of industries, and not simply someone who knows where to click on a Facebook page.

P: What are some of the issues that impact your business?

Morber: The biggest impact so far comes from the launching of new social sharing, evaluation and monitoring tools at an extraordinary rate. I am beta testing at least 3 new services at any given time and it is very time consuming, especially when they don't function as intended. My clients count on me to provide them with solid recommendations based on firsthand experience so it can be quite a daunting task to evaluate them all.

Gas prices are killing! I travel a lot and drive extensively within the Mid Atlantic area. Although web conferencing is rapidly replacing in-person meetings, many companies still want staff training conducted on site. I'm not often in the same place for very long anymore and am finding that flying is often cheaper than driving.

P: What are some of the challenges you face in operating a small business in Carroll County?

Morber: The number one challenge for me, and for many of my clients in Carroll County, is access to high speed internet. There are still many areas of the county with poor quality and unreliable internet service or no service at all. Both my husband and I occasionally work from home, and in order to do so, we have two internet air cards from two different service providers in order to have a spare in case we cannot connect with one.

The cost of all of this equipment, to build it and to maintain it is rather significant making it prohibitive for many Carroll County residents. High speed internet is no longer a luxury - it is required to perform many functions necessary for business such as using cloud services, video conferencing, or off site data backups.

P: What do you like/not like about doing business in Carroll County?

Morber: What I like about doing business is Carroll County is that residents are very supportive of each other - we will do business with each other before looking for services or products elsewhere. 

What I don't like is the internet situation above.

Morber is a member of the , the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce and the Women's Business Network of Frederick. She is also involved with many nonprofit events and organizations in the community.

To learn more about Jeannine, visit her website at www.morbermarketing.com.