“Jan knows what makes a brand authentic. How to create assets that generate relationships…and sales numbers.”
Dan Swift, founder and CEO, Numentum, former SVP Sales, Sprinklr
“Jan transformed and unified our brand….We realized significant increases in revenue and share price.”
Bill Kelly, Investor, former SVP Sales, GlobeOp
"Jan made Grapeshot stand out, positioned us to succeed and made shareholders happy."
Kevin McElroy, CRO, Illuma Technology, former SVP Sales, Grapeshot
Channeling Meyer's Grocery
After his morning orange juice, hard-boiled egg and pushups performed quietly on a small space of floor, my grandfather walked from his family’s apartment down the narrow, winding staircase that barely contained his broad shoulders. He pushed open the copper-framed door, flipped on the incandescent lights, and swept the sawdust at his eponymous enterprise on this corner of northwest Washington, D.C. Where his wife, Dora, and their son, Herbert, would soon awake and join him, ready for another day of greeting neighbors by their first names, knowing what they needed without having to ask.
Meyer knew what it meant to have a voice and the threat of having it silenced. He saw and heard his customers, connected with them and earned their business, and love. As did his son, Herbert, who went on to build his own company, a furniture store in Maryland, where I first worked in the warehouse and on repair calls, and then on “the floor” helping customers. Herbert said sales is about listening and helping, not “selling.”
At the other end of the century, after graduating from Brown, I backpacked through Europe, ran the bulls in Pamplona and, with my grandfather’s inheritance, attended Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. Traveling west to my first writing job in Los Angeles, I would meet an MG-roadster-driving Jersey girl and her Shepherd-Husky, Adonis. We loved California, but obeyed a pull of gravity to family back East where I attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City and started a career in marketing.
Working for small and large ad agencies before starting my own shop in the downtown village of Tribeca in New York, I created campaigns for Business Week, I Love New York, BMW Motorcycles, Time Hotel, and other brands.Today, Jersey Girl and I love our top-down roadster country-road drives, as much as we do the pace and grace of New York, where a lot of my work has me channeling Meyer and Herbert to help brands find their voice. And to be their best human selves.
janzlotnick@gmail.com or call/text +1 973-454-8536