Orkin Marketing Consultants

Laid off by a major advertising agency during downsizing in 2002, Steven Orkin has found a unique place in the music industry working with top jazz musicians.

A trumpeter from third grade through high school, Orkin always had his eyes on the drums. With his father's big band collection filling his home with music, Orkin was drawn to great drummers/percussionists like Louie Bellson, Buddy Rich, Max Roach and Lionel Hampton. But it wasn't until an Oscar Peterson show at Cleveland's Severance Hall that Orkin decided to start drumming.

He drummed his way through college at the University of Cincinnati while majoring in English and minoring in journalism. Orkin sensed that musical performance would not be the focus of his career. But he hoped that music, in some form, would one day have a place in it.

Orkin started his working career in 1993 behind the news desk of television stations in Cincinnati and Cleveland. He wrote and co-produced hundreds of stories for broadcast news programs and coordinated an original news project called the “Channel 3 News Neighbors.” The project’s purpose was to gather and report more positive stories about Cleveland’s urban neighborhoods.

After nearly two years in television, Orkin accepted a marketing position at MBNA Corporation, the world's largest independent issuer of credit cards. It was at MBNA where Orkin learned the art of direct response and customer relationship marketing. Orkin helped grow many of MBNA’s affinity credit card programs through direct mail, telemarketing, direct promotions and advertising.

After four years with MBNA, Orkin wanted to expand his knowledge of marketing and accepted an account management position at Wyse Advertising, in Cleveland. Clients included two major electric and gas utilities, two B2B publishing companies, a retail jewelry chain and a food bank in the city. Dealing with such a wide range of clients in a large advertising agency, Orkin gained invaluable strategic marketing experience.

After three years with Wyse, Orkin was invited to join a small business-to-business marketing communications firm. The firm was eventually bought by a larger agency and Orkin, along with most of the employees who came over from the smaller firm, was laid off.

Just a week before losing his job, Orkin had won a new account for the agency. Upon hearing of the layoffs, the company expressed an interest in staying with Orkin. Starting with this one client, Orkin decided to begin consulting rather than looking for another agency position.

While prospecting for new business, Orkin came across the web site of Dave Weckl (Chick Corea, Mike Stern, the Dave Weckl Band), a legendary drummer he had admired throughout the 1990s. Weckl's site mentioned that some of his instructional products were available at retailers across the nation, but Orkin hadn't remembered seeing them, and inquired by e-mail.

The next thing he knew, Orkin was working with Weckl and his colleague, Jay Oliver, an incredibly gifted pianist, composer and producer (Sheryl Crow, Glenn Frey, Jimmy Buffett, Celine Dion, Bonnie Raitt etc.) Many more music clients have followed and music has, indeed, found a place in Orkin's career.

His background and continuing relationships with corporate clients has helped Orkin build solid marketing strategies for world-class musicians. But it is a two-way street, because the musical sensibility; creative, expressive and vulnerable, has greatly influenced Orkin’s perspective on understanding companies.

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