Carlsbad business flies into new territory

By: BRADLEY J. FIKES - Staff Writer | Wednesday, February 20, 2008 10:01 PM PST ∞

CARLSBAD -- People go into business for themselves for many reasons. For Kristi Lilli, the reason was her 3-year-old son, Isaac.

Shortly after her husband John died of cancer last year, the sales executive's employer, Graham Webb International, moved from Carlsbad to Woodland Hills. Lilli said she didn't want to leave Carlsbad, where she has lived for 16 years. And she wanted to set her own hours to care for her son.

About three months ago, Lilli started her own promotional marketing company, Firefly Media, as a franchise of Neenah, Wisc.-based, Adventures in Advertising. Lilli said she chose the name to suggest energy and the ability to attract attention. Her headquarters is her home office.

One of her first clients was Full Swing Golf, a Rancho Bernardo company that makes golf simulators and exhibits in tournaments. Lilli said she saw a chance at those tournaments to get the company's name out more widely by focusing on their products -- an aspect that its company officials hadn't realized.

"They don't have anybody that can say, here's an opportunity for you," Lilli said. "It can be as easy as giving them (tournament participants) a packet of tees with their logo on it. And I'm a sports fan."

That's an example of one-to-one selling, which Lilli is trained at doing. But she's not trained in doing all the back-office paperwork that an independent business requires. That's taken care of by the franchise. Lilli paid an initial $30,000 and a sliding monthly fee starting at 8 percent and dropping as sales go up. Adventures in Advertising deducts its fee and sends her the balance.

In Lilli's case, she especially likes working with health care and sports clients. She gets a list of potential clients from Adventures in Advertising, which screens them according to her criteria.

"But then, you're always looking for clients," Lilli said. "Just when I'm driving, and I see a company name on a building, I'll jot it down and then go onto Google and figure out do they really match what I'm looking for."

Lilli said Firefly isn't yet bringing in enough money to support her. As of early February, she has received a total of $6,500. However, Adventures in Advertising waives its monthly fees for clients for the first three months as they build up their business, she said.

Lilli decided to open her business after getting coaching from Right Management, a company that provides training for laid-off workers. In her case, the training was part of a severance package she took after deciding not to relocate from Carlsbad to the Los Angeles area.

"I started figuring out what's my next step," Lilli said, ticking off the issues she had to resolve. "I'm in sales, I'm making X amount of money, most of the jobs are going to require me to travel, which doesn't work for me now.

"I needed something where I could still be creative and still be in sales, but I needed to be in charge of my schedule. Let's say I have five orders to enter. I can do that after my son goes to bed at night."

Firefly Media can be reached at (760) 632-1750 or http://ideasatfirefly.com.

-- Contact staff writer Bradley J. Fikes at (760) 739-6641 or bfikes@nctimes.com.

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