CASE STUDYRELIABLE CORPORATION

John S. Wagle JOHN S. WAGLE

Professor of Marketing
Debra L. Zahay Northern Illinois University

j DEBRA L. ZAHAY
Doctoral Student
University of Illinois

This case was prepared as part of

the DePaul University Direct
Marketing Case Writers’
Workshop. The Workshops are
Reliable Corporation President Rick Black stopped at Woodfield presented annually by DePaul’s
Mall on his way back to his office after a meeting with the Planning Direct Marketing Institute, Dr. J.
Steven Kelly, Director. To become
Committee of Boise Cascade Office Products. Reliable had been
involved, please call 312-362-5913
purchased by Boise Cascade Office Products (BCOP) several years or email:
previously and Rick was part of the Planning Committee. Wood- skelly@wppost.depaul.edu.
field, one of the largest shopping malls in the United States, was
The authors would like to thank
only a few blocks from Reliable’s office building and the stop
executives of Reliable and Boise
would allow Rick to review the outcome of the planning meeting Cascade Office Products: Rick
before returning to his office. Besides, the restaurants in Wood- Black, Carol Moerdyk, and Art
field were usually fast and Rick had a lot of work to do. Rick Hanover, J. Stephen Kelly, DePaul
looked out over the busy mall and thought about the planning University and the students of
meeting he had just attended. Marketing Management, Phase II
The result of the Planning Committee meeting with parent MBA, Spring 1996, Hewlett
Packard Campus of Northern
company BCOP was that Rick and Reliable were free to target
Illinois University, who first
the ‘‘middle market’’ for office products if Reliable could develop evaluated this case.
adequate information to indicate the venture would be successful Copyright q 1996, John S.
and profitable. Reliable’s primary customer to date had been Wagle, Debra L. Zahay
small businesses with 1–4 employees, many of them not in conve- This paper is distributed for
nient driving distance of an office superstore; Reliable had purposes of instructional use only.
reached this target customer through direct mail. This move into It may not be reproduced without
permission of the copyright
holders. Additional copies of this
paper are available from the
authors at 217-356-4810.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and

Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc.
CCC 1094-9968/98/020063-10
■

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the direct market would mean substantial
changes, both in Reliable’s methods and its tar-
get customers.
Using Reliable instead of BCOP to target the
middle market meant that direct marketing
tools, especially catalogs and inbound telemar-
keting, would play a major role in the marketing
strategy. Since the ‘‘middle market’’ repre-
sented more than 600,000 companies in the
United States, the Planning Committee decision
was a significant opportunity for Rick and for
Reliable. At the same time, Rick wanted to make
certain the strategy would be successful. A lot
of work was needed before a final marketing
plan could be completed or a final proposal
made to the Planning Committee. Rick won-
dered if the middle market could be broken up
into segments and how many of those segments
should be targeted? He suspected that ex-
panding his operations to larger-sized compa-
nies might require the addition of outbound
telemarketing as an expansion of the direct mar-
keting strategy. Rick also wondered if he could
obtain enough information to estimate a break-
even point for catalog and inbound telemarket-
ing efforts and if he could estimate the lifetime
value of a middle market target customer.
RELIABLE CORPORATION
The Reliable Corporation began business in
1917 as a stationery company selling office sup-
plies. In the 1930s it was acquired by the Zenner
family and marketed office supplies through-
out the Midwest, with Chicago as its largest mar-
ket. For many years Reliable used wholesaler
catalogs with the Reliable name printed on
them as its direct mail promotion device, a tech-
nique shared throughout the industry. With
continued growth, Reliable created its own cata-
log in 1973 and became large enough to deal
directly with the manufacturers, substantially re-
ducing its purchasing costs for products. In
1983, Reliable executives decided to concen-
trate all of their business acquisition efforts into
direct mail methods. Computerization, informa-
tion systems, and procedures were refined and
redefined and direct mailings were significantly
increased. Reliable grew at 30% a year until the
mid 1980s. Office superstores began to success-
fully compete with contract stationers in the
early 1990s and Reliable’s growth slowed sig-
nificantly.
Reliable management decided to move into
the retail store channel in 1993. Direct mail was
reduced as the number of retail stores ex-
panded to 18 by 1994. In late 1993 Boise Cas-
cade Office Products Division executives began
to talk with Reliable executives about a possible
buy out of the direct marketing part of the oper-
ation. It was agreed that the retail stores would
stay with the original owners and Reliable would

TABLE 1
Metromail Business Information File Selection Variables for Business to Business Targeting

Geography SIC Codes New Contacts Population Range

State 2 digit
MSA 4 digit
County 6 digit
SCF
ZIP Code
Area Code
Number of Employees Year Code Contact Name Ad Size

First year in (Yellow Pages)

Yellow Pages
Projected Sales Volume

Note: In agreement with American Business Information, Metromail and ABI offer access to ABI’s Business Information
file of over 9.2 million American and 1 million Canadian businesses. The ABI file, updated monthly, was initially a
compilation of every Yellow Pages listing in the country expanded by telephone surveys to every phone number listed.
The surveys provided the above information.

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 RELIABLE CORPORATION

keting companies such as Eddie Bauer and Fin-

TABLE 2
Boise Cascade Office Products: Strategy for Growth
• Expand through acquisitions
Goal: to more than double the number of major
metropolitan areas in the United States in which
BCOP has a significant local presence and to
expand its presence in existing locations.
• Increase national accounts business
Goal: to continue to grow the contract stationer
channel of large multisite national account
customers, capitalizing on the growing trend to
customers to consolidate purchases and use fewer
suppliers.
• Broaden the customer base
Goal: to serve medium and small businesses
through the 1994 acquisition of Reliable. There are
significant opportunities to increase sales through
the direct mail channel and to increase overall
profitability by exploiting the operating and
marketing synergies between the two different
selling methods used by BCOP’s businesses.
• Increase sales in existing product categories and
add new categories
Goal: to increase sales in product lines that are
highly profitable or which particularly support the
corporate mission. These include copier, fax paper,
and office furniture. New product categories may
include computer hardware, software, and
advertising specialties.
become part of Boise Cascade and concentrate
on direct marketing. In 1994 Boise Cascade
bought Reliable and brought in Rick Black, who
had considerable experience with direct mar-
gerhut, to head Reliable.
The original Reliable executives decided that
store retailing, facing the category killers of Of-
fice Max, Staples, and Office Depot, was the best
market strategy. In contrast, the BCOP execu-
tives felt that Reliable’s direct marketing capa-
bility was an excellent complement to their own
capabilities and corporate culture. Reliable’s
strength in direct marketing was also an answer
to Boise Cascade’s own competitors (contract
stationers) and an avenue of expansion to new
customer targets.
BCOP also liked Reliable’s direct marketing
capability because direct marketing was a cen-
tralized operation like the selling and distribu-
tion functions in BCOP. There were many more
opportunities for synergy between BCOP opera-
tions and direct marketing than there were with
store retailing. Also, direct marketing could tar-
get customers more easily than the retail chan-
nel. This targeting included factors such as the
customer’s buying patterns, products needed,
and industry classification. With the renewed fo-
cus on direct marketing techniques, Reliable be-
gan to grow substantial profitable orders. Reli-
able’s growth rate increased from 3% per year
to 25% per year in sales in the first year after
Rick’s management of the company. Reaching
out for larger customers in the middle market
might be one way to sustain this high growth
for several years.

TABLE 3
Distribution of Private Sector Employment by Firm Size and by Number of Establishments, 1993

Firm Size by Midpoint of Average Number Number of Share of Share of Total

Number of Employees Size Range of Office Workers Establishments Establishments Employees

1–4 3 1 3,716,982 58.1% 6.8%

5–9 7 3 1,176,563 18.4% 8.7%
10–19 15 7 724,605 11.3% 10.9%
20–49 35 17 481,391 7.5% 16.4%
50–99 75 37 164,634 2.6% 12.7%
100–249 175 86 93,445 1.5% 15.8%
250–499 375 184 23,675 0.4% 9.1%
500–999 750 368 9,129 0.1% 7.1%
ú1,000 3,000 1,474 5,178 0.1% 12.5%

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics and BPIA Estimates.

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TABLE 4
Financial Statements

Reliable Income Statement 1994 (EST). 1995 1994

Net sales 201,348 158,166

Cost of sales 130,118 102,213
Gross profit 71,230 55,953
Selling and warehouse expense 54,243 42,609
Corporate general and administrative expense
Goodwill amortization 0 0
Total operatng expense 0 0
Income from operations 71,230 55,953
Other income (expense), net 1,572 1,235
Income before income taxes 72,802 57,188
Income tax expense 27,665 21,732
Income before accounting changes 45,137 35,457
Net income 45,137 35,457

Boise Cascade Office Products 1995 1994 1993 1992

Net sales 1,316,000 909,000 682,000 626,000

Cost of sales 980,000 676,000 506,000 465,000
Gross profit 336,000 232,000 177,000 161,000
Selling and warehouse expense 239,000 172,000 133,000 133,000
Corporate general and administrative expense 25,000 15,000 13,000 12,000
Goodwill amortization 2,000 1,000 500 0
Total operating expense 266,000 188,000 146,500 145,000
Income from operations 70,000 44,000 30,500 13,600
Other income (expense), net 2,000 1,000 600 600
Income before income taxes 72,000 45,000 31,100 14,200
Income tax expense 28,000 17,000 11,000 6,000
Income before cumulative effect of accounting changes 44,000 28,000 20,100 8,200
Effect of accounting 02
Net income 8,198
Shares
Distribution centers 36 27 21 n/a
Inventory turns 9.7 8.7 7.6 n/a

Viking 1994 1993 1992 1991

Net sales 565,055 449,687 320,066 266,345

Cost of sales 365,159 292,489 205,984 145,627
Gross profit 199,896 157,201 114,082 80,718
Selling and warehouse expense
Corporate general and administrative expense 152,224 127,843 93,172 66,700
(continued on next page)

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 RELIABLE CORPORATION

TABLE 4
Continued

Viking 1994 1993 1992 1991

Goodwill amortization
Total operating expense
Income from operations 47,672 29,358 20,910 14,018
Other income (expense), net 4,412 2,771 1,514 0558
Income before income taxes 52,084 32,129 22,424 13,460
Income tax expense 20,304 14,972 9,599 5,684
Income before cumulative effect of accounting change 31,780 17,157 12,825 7,776
Net income
Outstanding shares 40,212 39,077 38,748 8,624

Staples 1995 1994 1993 1992

Net sales 2,000,149 1,308,634 1,041,636 611,281

Cost of sales 1,534,360 1,013,010 807,167 469,537
Gross profit 465,789 295,624 234,469 141,744
Selling and warehouse expense
Corporate general and administrative expense 383,306 250,339 197,012 124,800
Goodwill amortization
Total operating expense
Income from operations 82,483 45,285 37,457 16,944
Other income (expense), net 018,578 012,933 06,239 011,252
Income before income taxes 63,905 32,352 31,218 5,692
Income tax expense 23,965 12,900 12,900 5,000
Income before cumulative effect of accounting change 39,940 19,452 18,318 692
Outstanding shares 62,810 35,246 35,246 34,491

Quill (Privately held, estimated to be

2.5 times the size of Reliable)

Office Depot 1994 1993 1992 1991

Net sales 4,266,199 2,836,787 1,962,953 1,300,847

Cost of sales 3,283,498 2,185,145 1,512,304 1,001,484
Gross profit 982,701 651,642 450,649 299,363
Selling and warehouse expense
Corporate general and administrative expense 784,387 527,379 378,745 261,306
Goodwill amortization
Total operating expense
Income from operations 198,314 124,263 71,904 38,057
Other income (expense), net (19,384) (8,313) (1,314) (11,185)
Income before income taxes 178,930 115,950 70,590 26,872
Income tax expense 73,973 45,118 25,345 12,495
Income before cumulative effect of accounting change 104,957 70,832 45,245 14,377
(continued on next page)

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TABLE 4
Continued

Office Depot 1994 1993 1992 1991

Effect of accounting changes

Net income 1,396 614
46,641 14,991
Outstanding shares 149,373 146,951 35,246 34,491

Officemax, Inc. 1995 1994 1993 1992

Net sales 1,841,212 1,421,794 528,205 65,100

Cost of sales 1,422,400 1,108,992 441,429 51,200
Gross profit 418,812 312,802 116,776 13,900
Selling and warehouse expense
Corporate general and administrative expense 353,755 284,146 111,742 12,400
Goodwill amortization
Total operating expense
Income from operations 65,057 28,656 5,034 1,500
Other income (expense), net 8,725 08,734 03,874 0300
Income before income taxes 56,332 19,922 1,160 1,200
Income tax expense 25,975 9,073 1,881 300
Net income 30,357 10,849 0721 900
Outstanding shares 50,945 50,945 23,381 n/a

Note: All amounts in thousands, except shares and distribution centers

BCOP’s management knew that one basic
reason a direct marketing strategy can achieve
results of this magnitude is that direct market-
ing is an effective targeting mechanism, espe-
cially for those with smaller customer sets, such
as business-to business marketers. By buying
multivariable lists from list brokers, direct mar-
keters can target just those prospects who have
characteristics most likely to be associated with
needing (and therefore buying) a product (Ta-
ble 1). Through testing of lists and selection
criteria, those prospects least likely to need the
product are largely excluded.
A general industry guideline is that a direct
marketer using a list from a list broker may ex-
pect from 1%–3% of the list to buy the product
from a catalog in any given promotion. Out-
bound telemarketing cold calls must result in
higher cash sales to be cost justified. If out-
bound telemarketing is attempted after a cata-
log mailing to the prospect, industry figures in-
dicate the catalog/telemarketing combination
will result in a 6%–7% sales rate. The actual
percentage of buyers varies by industry, by sea-
son, by mailing, and by the offer. Still, an experi-
enced direct marketer can successfully project
sales, breakeven, fixed costs, variable costs,
profits, life-time customer value, and return on
investment for any specific mailing. This direct
analysis of return tied to promotional invest-
ment is also true for telemarketing or other di-
rect marketing devices. In fact, no other form
of promotion can associate or predict sales from
promotional effort as well as direct marketing.
Even personal selling, the next best predictive
promotional tool, suffers from the comparison
to direct marketing because of its much higher
per prospect contact cost and direct marketing’s
greater reach.
To BCOP management, another clear advan-
tage of direct marketing is its ready adaptability
to database marketing. Direct marketers accu-
mulate substantial amounts of information
about actual customers and store this as data in

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 RELIABLE CORPORATION
databases. Targeting a direct marketing effort
to known customers from a marketing database
will often result in a purchase response rate of
20%–25% of those prospects contacted. These
figures are extremely favorable when compared
to advertising, sales promotion or publicity/
public relations and are also favorable when
compared to personal selling, especially when
factoring in relative costs. A database that is con-
stantly updated, refined, and improved can be-
come the most important tool a company can
own. Not only is a database valuable for immedi-
ate sales, but it is also the most important feature
in developing a relationship marketing strategy.
These are the factors which, together with good
management, explain Reliable’s expanded
growth rate since its return to direct marketing
techniques.
It has been estimated that the average office
supplies direct mail customer purchases four or
five times a year with an average order size of
$85–$125. Direct mail buyers have an average
life of five years before shifting to a new sup-
plier. Noncontract order sizes would not be ex-
pected to increase in dollar size per order with
sales to the middle market. However, middle
market customers could be expected to pur-
chase twice as frequently or to produce more
orders per firm. Because of the competition in
the middle market segment, the average cus-
tomer is expected to remain three years. It is
not known if firms in the middle market allowed
each department to buy office supplies sepa-
rately or if each department was required to
order from preferred suppliers.
ORGANIZATION
In 1995 Boise Cascade decided that market and
financial considerations dictated that the pulp
and paper mill side of the company should be
organizationally separated from the rest of the
company. Boise Cascade Office Products was
created and most of the marketing, wholesaling
and sales organization went with it. Boise Cas-
cade retained an 80% interest in the office sup-
ply company. Reliable went with BCOP. Boise
Cascade Office Products is a contract stationer
that supplies large amounts of paper products
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(20% of sales), office supplies, computer sup-
plies, furniture and stationary to larger, Fortune
1000 firms, primarily through fixed, negotiated
contracts. Contract periods often last from one
to three to five years. Boise Cascade is the largest
contract stationer in the industry and sells more
than 11,000 separate products. It has more cen-
tralized control than its competitors and is very
well regarded by the financial reporting com-
munity. BCOP relies almost exclusively on a
highly professional sales force to develop its con-
tracts.
Boise Cascade Office Products continued to
grow within the industry by acquisition, partly
to develop its channels of distribution and partly
to acquire loyal customer bases. A recent acqui-
sition was Neat Ideas, Ltd., a direct marketer of
office supplies in the United Kingdom (1995).
Additional acquisitions included Sierra Vista Of-
fice Products, Inc., a contract stationer with
headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico
(1996); Grand & Toy, Ltd. (1996), a Canadian
contract stationer purchased for $140,000,000;
Office Essentials, a contract stationer and office
furniture dealer with headquarters in Milwau-
kee, Wisconsin (1996); and Loring, Short, &
Harmon, Inc., a contract stationer in Portland,
Maine (1996). These acquisitions, the direct
marketing strategy, and targeting sales growth
as a corporate goal are all part of the Boise
Cascade Office Products growth strategy (table
2). The acquisition strategy is consistent with
industry trends. In 1995 the ‘‘Big Six’’ contract
stationers acquired many smaller regional inde-
pendents whose total sales had together ex-
ceeded 2.5 billion. There are approximately
3,000 contract stationers selling more than a
million dollars each per year. Consistent with
price pressure and acquisition strategy, the total
number of companies in the industry has
dropped from 13,000 in 1987 to 6,800 in 1994.
Rapid industry consolidation is likely to con-
tinue.
MARKETS
Boise Cascade Office Products, except for spe-
cial customer needs, sold only Boise Cascade
manufactured paper products to approximately
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25,000 customers, targeting companies with 100 The retail side of the business generated be-
or more employees. Reliable, on the other tween 40–45 billion dollars each year. These
hand, sold many different office product brand retailers primarily served small companies up
names (while emphasizing Boise Cascade paper to medium sized customers. Office Max, Office
products). The Reliable target market had been Depot, and Staples were significant contenders.
defined as the small business, roughly those Direct mail suppliers accounted for 4–5 bil-
companies with 20 or fewer employees. At any lion dollars in sales per year. They served mostly
given time Reliable had more than 400,000 cus- small and medium sized customers and often
tomers on its mailing list. Boise Cascade Office targeted home offices. There were a number of
Products, on the other hand, targeted the For- these companies, but the largest included Vik-
tune 1000 companies with a full-fledged sales ing, Quill, and Reliable (Table 4).
force. These firms purchased goods over a spe-
cific contract period and engaged in lengthy
service and price negotiations, but once under TARGETING STRATEGY
contract were unlikely to deal with competitors. Every organization in the country uses office
In contrast, Reliable customers ordered out of supplies, paper products, office furniture and
catalogs or through inbound telemarketing and the other products Reliable sold. Rick Black,
their customers were not bound by contract so deep in constructing his proposal to the BCOP
that customer loyalty considerations were im- Board, was worried about the industry-wide ten-
portant for every order. Both companies made dency to use only one or two variables to identify
use of the Boise Cascade Office Products inven- market targets. While Reliable had significant
tory control system. This was possible because financial backing from BCOP it was still neces-
individual orders were about the same size for sary to define the targets so they could be mar-
a department within a large company as for a
small business. In other words, BCOP bulk
TABLE 5
breaks inventory down to small order size as one
Cost Estimates Small Catalog Telemarketing
of its primary marketing functions. The middle
market was defined as firms who had more than Catalog Costs Per Thousand
20 but less than 100 employees (Table 3).
This was the new market segment Reliable 50,000 100,000 300,000
needed to study in order to make its proposals Costs CPM CPM CPM
to Boise Cascade Office Products.
Printing Costs
Catalog $44 $34 $33
Order form 23 19 18
COMPETITION Return envelope 18 16 15
The office supply industry for contract statio- Total Printing 85 69 66
ners was, as of 1996, a 30 billion-dollar a year Mailing Costs
market. Although the largest in the industry, Letter shop 45 45 45
Boise Cascade Office Products only com- Computer
processing 24 24 24
manded a 4% market share. The major competi-
Postage 198 198 198
tors in the industry were the ‘‘big six’’ which Total Mailing 267 267 267
included: BCOP, Corporate Express, Office De- Total CPM 352 336 333
pot, BT Office Products International, US Of-
fice Products and Staples. Together they ac- Telemarketing Costs Per Prospect
counted for about 14% of the industry sales vol-
ume. While industry competitors, many of these Outbound Cost Per Hour ($) 26–40
firms were not direct competitors of Reliable; Number of Contacts 12–15
Inbound Cost Per Hour ($) 18–38
the typical Reliable customer is not within driv- Number of Contacts 0–18
ing distance of an office superstore.

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 RELIABLE CORPORATION

TABLE 6
Reliable Catalogs

Home Office Catalog

(For Catalog Covers See Exhibit)
Low, Low Year-end
Item Actual Item Catalog Catalog

Circulation 575,000 Circulation 301,248 319,071

Orders 25,763 Average Order $94.78 $65.02
% Response 4.48% Adj to Net 88.45% 94.65%
Average Order (Rounded) $38.11 Margin 32.93% 35.37%
Fulfillment/Order $14.08 $14.08
Gross Salesa $981,731 Net Selling Expense $389,059 ($62,249)
Net Sales (1) $925,772 Cost/M 1,291.49 (195.09)
Gross Margin (2) $357,811
Breakeven Summary
Fulfillment Premium (3) $362,743
Sales/M $9,049 ($1,641)
Gross Selling Expense (4) $168,751 Gross Demand Sales $2,725,850 ($523,753)
Less: Adv. Allowance $0 Total # of Orders 28,766 08,033
Net Selling Expense $168,751 % Response 9.55% 2.52%
Contribution $0 $0
Contribution $36,467 Cost/Sell 1.43% 11.90%
Contribution/order $1.42
Sales/M $1,707
(1) Net Sales 94.30%
(2) Gross Margin (b) 38.65%
(3) Fulfillment/Premium $14.08
(4) Catalog Cost/M $333

a
Net Sales and Gross Margin taken from Dec/Jan Sales Reports.
b
Based on net sales.

keted to as efficiently as possible. Within ‘‘the
middle market’’ were those organizations best
suited to Reliable’s business approach and those
most likely to become good customers. Rick
wondered which variables in addition to number
of employees suggest the most likely customers.
There seemed to be two factors of greatest im-
portance: 1) demand for the Reliable product
line, and 2) compatibility with the Reliable buy-
ing procedure. In the former case the Reliable
product line was very broad, but it could be
customized for the best prospects in the middle
market if these companies had needs specific to
themselves. Specific catalogs, promotional de-
vices, and special mailings could be used to tar-
get the best prospective customers. It would be
ironic if the middle market strategy failed be-
cause Reliable could not make use of the mar-
keting technique that direct marketing does
than all promotional devices: target the market.
In the case of compatibility, the greatest con-
cern was that large amounts of prospect promo-
tional effort not be wasted on organizations
whose buying procedures made it impossible or
very difficult to buy from new suppliers or from
catalogs or from telemarketers. It was essential
to direct the promotional effort away from these
firms and toward compatible ones.
Recent industry information about the costs
of producing catalogs versus telemarketing ex-
penses (Table 5) indicated the relative expense
of catalogs versus telemarketing. Several of Reli-
able’s recent catalogs to the small business/
home office Market (Table 6) had fared well
and Reliable knew the catalog business much
better than the telemarketing business.
Determining which variables predict the
best customers was a direct marketing spe-

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 JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
cialty. Direct marketers had a unique and pow-
erful database marketing tool called decile
analysis. Their customers were divided into
segments called deciles using statistical analy-
sis of actual past sales data. The factors that
separate the deciles were then identified. The
top decile of most frequent purchasers might
be in a particular industry or location in the
country. The analysis would continue until
each decile had been analyzed. Unique pro-
motion and separate mailings could be devel-
oped for each segment.
In reaching for the middle market, however,
Rick Black and the staff at Reliable had no histori-
cal database from which to identify target seg-
ments. Yet targeting within the middle market
was potentially of critical importance, especially
when attempting to market to a target for the
first time. Added to this lack of historical informa-
tion was the risk of using a new direct marketing
EXHIBIT 1
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method, outbound telemarketing. Rick knew that
he would have to make some assumptions about
the new market, its customer and other factors
in order to make the calculations necessary for
the estimates. He also knew that such estimated
quantitative figures were essential in order to
make an informed decision. Rick pondered
whether to enter the middle market and whether
Reliable’s traditional direct mail techniques
could be used to do so. As he weighed the pros
and cons of entering the middle market, Rick
pulled open a file drawer full of literature from
business to business list brokers. There were thou-
sands of companies to pursue, which hundreds
of database variables to choose for each company.
Perhaps there would be some guidance in the
kinds of variables the database companies have
used to construct their databases. Perhaps one of
the database marketers had already found, identi-
fied, and listed ‘‘the middle market.’’
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