Axis Advertising is readying for a busy year! We are going into 2012 with a ton of momentum! Here is our latest press release.
Search Results Category: News & Events
January 5, 2012
September 6, 2011
New Test market launched
AXIS is showing no signs of slowing, as they continue to launch new test markets out of their Phoenix office.
AXIS is benefiting from a weak economy and is experiencing one of its biggest quarters on record. In 2010 we unveiled our retail incentive program. This gave us a major presence in some of the country’s largest chain retailers.
“We are obviously very excited about what the future has ‘in store’ for us,” Craig Hinshaw, Director of Operations, says with a smile. The pun was intended as last year AXIS partnered with two of the U.S.’s largest retailers. “This year, we expect to continue to increase our clients’ business by at least 30% of our current production under this new event model,” proclaims Mr. Hinshaw.
When asked why he thinks AXIS has been able to continue to grow despite the current events in the economy, Hinshaw explained.
“The reason for our growth is simple. We are a company focused on results. We have a ‘whatever it takes’ mentality when it comes to satisfying our clients. This goes not only for our clients’ needs, but also for the growth of the individuals in our company. Traditional advertising methods have high costs and low return rates, but with our cost-effective face to face approach, we can maximize profits for our clients and allow them to do what they do best. The future of business and the marketing world is simple–give people incentives and they will strive to reach their goals. Give employees goals and rewards and nothing will stop them. That’s how we built our business years ago and that’s what we will continue to do in years to come.”
After talking to Craig, there’s no doubt that no matter which direction the
economy goes, there’s only one place AXIS is going, and that is UP.
AXIS announces new test market in retail lead generation
AXIS announces new test market in retail lead generation
The Phoenix based marketing firm AXIS Inc. has recently announced plans for client expansion. AXIS specializes in retail marketing programs and has recently announced plans to enter the world of “lead generation.”
In 2006, companies in the home improvement industry spent over 2 billion dollars on lead generation. In 1998, 89.6% of all leads were generated through telemarketing. Due to the “Do Not Call” List, which went into effect in 2005, though, now only 54% of all leads are generated over the phone.
“We felt like there was a lot of money on the table for the right company to take if they could tap into that market,” says Hinshaw.
“A lot of money” is right. Last year alone the home improvement business grew 11.9%. Their ability to be proactive in finding new customers is what separates them from other more passive companies.
AXIS currently has companies participating in this program in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Queens NY, Denver, and Cleveland………and many more planned for expansion!
“We are very excited that, once again, we are able to provide another outlet for our team members to advance and grow within the company. If things continue at this pace, we will expand this division into at least 8 new geographic markets in 2011,” says Hinshaw.
Recent news regarding “Tough Competition”
The job market is even worse than the 9.1 percent unemployment rate suggests.
America’s 14 million unemployed aren’t competing just with each other. They must also contend with 8.8 million other people not counted as unemployed — part-timers who want full-time work.
When consumer demand picks up, companies will likely boost the hours of their part-timers before they add jobs, economists say. It means they have room to expand without hiring.
And the unemployed will face another source of competition once the economy improves: Roughly 2.6 million people who aren’t counted as unemployed because they’ve stopped looking for work. Once they start looking again, they’ll be classified as unemployed. And the unemployment rate could rise.
Intensified competition for jobs means unemployment could exceed its historic norm of 5 percent to 6 percent for several more years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects the rate to exceed 8 percent until 2014. The White House predicts it will average 9 percent next year, when President Barack Obama runs for re-election.
The jobs crisis has led Obama to schedule a major speech Thursday night to propose steps to stimulate hiring. Republican presidential candidates will likely confront the issue in a debate the night before.
The back-to-back events will come days after the government said employers added zero net jobs in August. The monthly jobs report, arriving three days before Labor Day, was the weakest since September 2010.
Combined, the 14 million officially unemployed; the part-timers who want full-time work; and people who have stopped looking make up 16.2 percent of working-age Americans. Collectively, they’re the “underemployed.”
Not the whole story
The Labor Department compiles the figure to assess how many people want full-time work and can’t find it — a number the unemployment rate alone doesn’t capture.
In a healthy economy, the underemployment rate stays below 10 percent. Since the Great Recession officially ended more than two years ago, the rate has been 15 percent or more.
The proportion of the work force made up of the frustrated part-timers has risen faster than unemployment has since the recession began in December 2007.
That’s because many companies slashed workers’ hours after the recession hit. If they restored all those lost hours to their existing staff, they’d add enough hours to equal about 950,000 full-time jobs, according to calculations by Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
That’s without having to hire a single employee.
No one expects every company to delay hiring until every part-timer is working full time. But economists expect job growth to stay weak for two or three more years in part because of how many frustrated part-timers want to work full time.
And because employers are still reluctant to increase hours for part-timers, “hiring is really a long way off,” says Christine Riordan, a policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project. In August, employees of private companies worked fewer hours than in July.
Some groups are disproportionately represented among the underemployed. More than 26 percent of African Americans, for example, and nearly 22 percent of Hispanics are underemployed. The figure for whites is less than 15 percent. Women are more likely than men to be underemployed.
Among the Americans frustrated with part-time work is Ryan McGrath, 26. In October, he returned from managing a hotel project in Uruguay. He’s been unable to find full-time work. So he’s been free-lancing as a website designer for small businesses in the Chicago area.
Some weeks he’s busy and making money. Other times he struggles. He’s living at home, and sometimes he has to borrow $50 from his father to pay bills. He’s applied for “a million jobs.”
“You go to all these interviews for entry-level positions, and you lose out every time,” he says.
Nationally, 4.5 unemployed people, on average, are competing for each job opening. In a healthy economy, the average is about two per opening.
Facing rejection, millions give up and stop looking for jobs.
Norman Spaulding, 54, quit his job as a truck driver two years ago because he needed work that would let him care for his disabled 13-year-old daughter.
But after repeated rejections, Spaulding concluded a few weeks ago that the cost of driving to visit potential employers wasn’t worth the expense. He suspended his job hunt.
The costs of job-hunting
He and his family are getting by on his daughter’s disability check from SocialSecurity. They’re living in a trailer park on Texas’ Gulf Coast.
“It costs more to look than we have to spend,” he says.
Eventually, lots of Americans like Spaulding will start looking for jobs again. If those work-force dropouts had been counted as unemployed, August’s unemployment rate would have been 10.6 percent instead of 9.1 percent.
Emma Draper, 23, lost her public relations job this summer. To pay the rent on her Washington apartment, she’s working part time at the retailer South Moon Under. She’s selling $120 Ralph Lauren swimsuits and other trendy clothes.
Her search for full-time work has been discouraging. Employers don’t call back for months, if ever.
“You’re basically on their timeline,” Draper says. “It’s really hard to find a job unless you know somebody who can give you an inside edge.”
Retailers, in particular, favor part-timers. They value the flexibility of being able to tap extra workers during peak sales times without being overstaffed during lulls. Some use software to precisely match their staffing levels with customer traffic. It holds down their expenses.
“They know up to the minute how many people they need,” says Carrie Gleason of the Retail Action Project, which advocates better working conditions for retail workers. “It’s almost created a contingent work force.”
Draper appreciates her part-time retail job, and not just because it helps pay the bills. It takes her mind off the frustration of searching for full-time work.
“Right now, finding a job is my job,” she says. “If that was the only thing I had to do, I’d be going insane. There is only so much time you can sit at your computer, sending out resumes.”
September 2, 2011
Axis Advertising avoids this trend!
August jobs report: Hiring grinds to a halt
By Annalyn Censky @CNNMoney September 2, 2011: 2:24 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — So much for getting Labor Day weekend off to a good start.
The economy added no jobs in August, the Labor Department said Friday.
Zero, zilch, nada.Meanwhile, the unemployment rate remained at 9.1%.
“We expected a weak report, and what we got was even weaker,” said Patrick O’Keefe, director of economic research at J.H. Cohn.
The report was partially helped by 22,000 state workers in Minnesota returning to work after a temporary government shutdown in July, but was also hurt by 45,000 Verizon workers on strike in August.
Adjusting for those events, the economy probably added more like 23,000 jobs in August — still dismal compared with monthly gains of about 200,000 earlier this year.
Focusing on the one-time blips is like giving a skunk a dinner mint, O’Keefe said. “It’s still a skunk and it still stinks.”
Economists typically estimate the nation needs to add about 150,000 jobs each month to keep up with population growth alone. It needs even stronger growth to recover the 8.8 million jobs lost during the financial crisis.
Surprising six-figure salaries
Weak hiring in August was hardly a surprise. The month started with Congress haggling about the debt ceiling, Standard & Poor’s downgrading the United States credit rating and the stock market zigzagging.
Consumer confidence plunged to its lowest level since the recession, and fears of an even weaker economy likely kept employers on the sidelines, instead of hiring.
Temporary factors: The Verizon strike temporarily deflated the job figures because union workers walked off the job during the week that the Labor Department collected payroll data from companies.
Even though they have since returned to work, they still won’t be included in the official national tally until the government releases its September numbers on Oct. 7.
0:00 / 2:16 Grandpa still works, kids can’t find jobs
Similarly, Minnesota workers who had been out of work temporarily during a government shutdown in July, showed up again in the August report, clouding the overall reading even further.
Expecting those distortions, a CNNMoney survey of 21 economists had predicted the economy would add 75,000 jobs in August.
They also expect job growth to remain weak for the rest of the year, with the economy adding an average of 110,000 jobs each month and the unemployment rate barely ticking down to 8.9%.
The White House said yesterday that it predicts the unemployment rate will remain stubbornly high, not falling below 6% until 2017.
Check the unemployment rate in your state
Who is unemployed? About 14 million Americans remain unemployed and 42.9% of them have been out of work more than six months.
Blacks have it the worst, with an unemployment rate at 16.7% — its highest level since 1984. The unemployment rate for Latinos was unchanged at 11.3% and the unemployment rate for whites fell slightly to 8%.
Another 2.6 million people were considered “marginally attached” to the workforce in August. They wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the last year, but were not counted in the unemployment figures because they weren’t actively searching for a job in August.
Overall, the so-called underemployment rate, which includes those people, as well as people who want to work full-time but are forced to work part-time, rose to 16.2%.
The last time the government reported exactly zero jobs added in a month was in February 1945.
August 29, 2011
Retail marketing with a twist
Retail marketing traditionally is done in the indirect avenues. The brick and mortar business approach of the mass media approach via TV, Print, Internet are extremely successful for the brand recognition. We take retail marketing to a whole new level where we make the marketing personalized because we represent the client inside there own retail facility. We can make these personalized because our approach is live and interactive. We have the brands everyone is very aware of and desires but when you add a live, personal and interactive person to share the messages the results go UP. The brand awareness and recognition is what allows our personalized approach to be successful in either new customer acquisitions or maximizing the existing customers our clients already have been able to maintain.
The professional in store marketing for our clients has allowed us to double in size with projected expansion in the 4th Quarter of 2011. All we do is represent clients inside of retail stores which allows us to have instant credibility as well as customer awareness. When is the last time you walked into a major retail store….. and had the customer shopping experience maximized with a professional and helpful customer driven person there to assist you with each and every question? This is where we credit much of success to is because the customer is the reason we are able to be in business. We take an indifferent and yet extremely helpful approach to assisting the customer in many faucets of there shopping experience. Our goal is to make sure each customer inside the retailer has a positive shopping experience. We value and understand the importance of each customer and realize with out them then our unique marketing is worthless. So that is why we assist the customer and if possible we will also share with them what unique offers the retailer has available once we have assisted them first!
4th Quarter Expansion is planned
We are excited to announce expansion plans for the 4th Quarter. It is sad to hear how some company’s are downsizing, laying off, or out sourcing but hear at Axis we are the total opposite. We are looking forward to expanded locally here in West Phoenix and also into South Carolina, Kansas and Oregon. This expansion is a 2 part expansion for the following reasons. The goal from the start has always been to promote loyal hard working people into management and leadership while maintaining compliance for our clients!
We are proud to represent the largest clients in the Home Improvement Industry and Home Entertainment. The continued support they provide to us on a daily basis via the continued training has allowed us to excel in there representation. We have been able to hire people to work for our company at the fastest rate in recent history because of the brands we represent combined with our proven marketing system. This is what has contributed to future expansion plans locally and nationally.
May 19, 2011
Graduating College Is An Exciting Time-Starting A New Career Is Even Better!
May is a great month for Axis, as we begin to interview the many new graduates in our area. This year has been especially exciting for us as we have hired 5 new account reps already. “It is an awesome opportunity for a guy or girl coming right out of college. We offer the training, coaching, and most of all give them the EXPERIENCE they need” says Hinshaw, Axis Advertising owner. With the new programs and expansion that Axis has planned for this summer, we are looking to train the right individuals immediately. We encourage graduates to apply on our website for immediate consideration.
May 11, 2011
Axis Advertising Group Tempe Az
We are proud to announce we have scheduled another conference in Dallas, Texas. This weekend is planned for Early June so make sure you mark your calendars. We are planning to hand pick 12-16 of our top people from within the Tempe branch. We will fly them to Dallas, Texas for the weekend with an all expenses paid trip. We will put them up at the Hilton DFW conference center. We also would like to be able to catch a professional baseball game during this same weekend with the team. We believe that a fun environment not only drives the teams moral but also makes the work atmosphere a family atmosphere. We all enjoy to work hard, and play hard while enjoying our time off.
We are so proud to be able to represent the top clients in every industry we are currently involved within. It is our great privilege to have the opportunity to work inside the best retail environments representing the best clients any industry has to offer. The clients and the opportunity to promote our people from within our company is the driving force for expansion in this depressed economy. We have been hiring and expanding over the past 24 months at the fastest rate our company has ever experienced in the 18 year history. The driving force is also accompanied by our marketing strategy of doing face to face live interactive commercials representing the clients inside there own retail environments. We also believe that our competitive salary plus commission is an industry leader where as similar companies only offer commission. We also enjoy the inside sales, marketing and customer service approach VS outside sales, telemarketing or door to door.
We have the #1 Home Improvement retail giant that we are proudly able to represent and work inside there retail setting. We take pride in our abilities to provide professional representation of there services and impact there customers shopping experiences with our professional and helpful attitudes. We are able to provide the customers not only a helping hand but at the same time an educational shopping experience if they are interested in any home improvement projects. We enjoy being a brand ambassador with the capabilities of assisting and helping customers either with general product knowledge or respond to any questions or concerns they may have on the spot!
Can you think of a larger national satellite provider? Well we can’t! We are able to take this innovative approach and be the personal face and voice for this company in the largest electronic retail settings not only in Arizona but also on a national level! We are very excited as they are about to allow us to help them expand new programming, new equipment, and new services. We in return will thank them by providing an educational customer acquisition. In todays economy and business world every company loves a happy and paying customer. We are able to deliver not only satisfied but also qualified customers which in turn assists in driving the bottom line.
May 3, 2011
AXIS GROUP LAUNCHES BRAND NEW RETAIL MARKETING PROGRAM
AXIS GROUP kicked off 2011 branching out into the RETAIL MARKETING INDUSTRY. Over the past 3 months our business has more than tripled in size, with 3 new cities ready for expansion! Axis Group continues to support local businesses in the PHOENIX area through targeted outreach programs that drive sales and increase client exposure.
AXIS GROUP’S unique market model harnesses the power of direct marketing which helps to connect local consumers to businesses in the PHOENIX area. “Originally we targeted our consumers directly through events and local businesses. Over the past year we have found that turning our approach toward the retail industry has provided our clients with more results. “Since we have moved our company 100% into the retail industry we have experienced unforeseen growth. Our expansion has put us in a position to offer starting salary with increased commissions. It’s a simple concept…on a daily basis, most of our targeted market shops local retailers…we target those retailers and educate the local consumers and overnight our clients name is spread,” says Craig Hinshaw, Axis Group Owner and Operator. This marketing model provides results because it allows retail venue-based businesses to help consumers save money on products and services.
AXIS GROUP announced the decision to expand their client base into the satellite television industry over a year ago and our growth has sky-rocketed since then! “We felt like there was a lot of money on the table for the right company to take it if they could tap into that market,” says Hinshaw. “We are very excited, that once again, we are able to provide another outlet for our team members to advance and grow within the company. If things continue at this pace, we will expand this division into at least 10 new markets in 2011, “says Hinshaw.
