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The Voice of Business,
Industry & the Professions Since 1942
North Carolina's largest
business group proudly serves as the state chamber of commerce
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January 2005
Executive Profile
Reading the Market
Everyone says Sheila Ogle has the golden
touch, but her success comes from a sharp eye for opportunity
By Suzanne M. Wood |
“Dad told me it was OK to work for someone else, but you could never make
real money unless you worked for yourself. That nagged at me until the day
I took his advice.”
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After
spending years restoring a large historic Victorian home in downtown Cary
and painting it an attention-getting pink, Sheila Ogle was used to living
in the public eye. But nothing prepared her for the day when a woman
marched up the steps, rang the bell and asked Ogle if she had a vacancy.
When Ogle explained that her home was a private residence, not an inn, the
woman pointed to the plaque in front of the house and protested, “But it
says ‘Guest House!’” In fact, the marker reads “Guess Ogle Home,” after
the original and current owners of the home, but the woman would not be
convinced that she wasn’t in a bed and breakfast, and finally left in a
huff.
Unlike that woman who wanted a room, Sheila Ogle is good at reading signs.
A finely tuned ability to accurately perceive business trends and
opportunities helped her launch MRPP, a media planning and placement firm,
19 years ago. She grew it into one of the most successful woman-owned
companies in the Triangle.
More recently, that vision prompted the creation of two other businesses
that also are thriving: Integrated Clinical Trial Services, a patient
recruitment firm serving the pharmaceutical and medical industry; and the
Matthews House, an event facility. Ogle’s golden touch has not gone
unnoticed. She received at least 12 business-related awards, including the
Cary Chamber’s Business Leader of the Year and Office Depot’s
Businesswoman of the Year, both in 2004, and Triangle Business Journal’s
Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.
You could say small business success runs through her veins. Ogle’s
father, Carl Thorne, owned a hardware store in downtown Raleigh that for
years sold more hunting and fishing licenses than any other outlet in
North Carolina. As a young teen, Sheila stayed busy behind the counter,
writing out those hunting and fishing licenses and absorbing her father’s
easy way with customers and his disciplined work ethic. Thorne’s did so
well that when Ogle was 13 her father sold the business and moved the
family to Cary—then practically the hinterlands—where he bought property
and enjoyed retirement.
While a man with Ogle’s upbringing might have started his own business or
gone on to college after graduating from high school, Ogle’s early
adulthood was typical of most women of her generation. At 18, she married
David Hale, and later attended a private business college, King’s, where
she earned an associate’s degree. One of her first jobs was at WRAL-TV,
assisting former Sen. Jesse Helms in the editorial department. Although
Ogle says she didn’t always agree with his positions, Helms taught her how
to think for herself and was “the epitome of the Southern gentleman.” Over
the next 25 years, marriage, motherhood and a series of promotions at a
leading Raleigh ad agency consumed Ogle’s time and attention. It wasn’t
until she was 47, her three children grown and her marriage over, that she
was able to act on advice from her father.
“Dad told me it was OK to work for someone else, but you could never make
real money unless you worked for yourself,” says Ogle. “That nagged at me
until the day I took his advice.”
When Ogle quit her job as media supervisor at Howard, Merrell and
Associates (formerly J.T. Howard Advertising), MRPP was only a vague
concept in her mind. She’d noticed that many companies that needed to
advertise couldn’t afford to pay full-service agency fees. They either did
not advertise or attempted to make their own media buys, wasting time and
money in the process. She also knew that media placement accounts for a
whopping 70 percent of a company’s advertising budget. So Ogle created a
niche for herself as a consultant working with small ad agencies that
didn’t have a media-buying department.
Her first big client was Sprint Cellular, which was just entering the
North Carolina market and, despite having legions of staff and agency
folks devoted to the creative side of advertising, needed someone local to
buy ads in media outlets. Ogle’s one-woman firm fit the bill. Soon she was
so busy she was forced to make a decision that was scary at the time but
would prove critical to her success.
“The biggest step any small business owner takes is hiring that first
employee,” Ogle notes. “It’s a heavy responsibility because you actually
have to pay that person!” To lessen the impact on her cash flow, Ogle
found her assistant through a temporary agency. The Sprint account and the
addition of her temporary assistant proved to be Ogle’s big break, and
today that assistant, Becky Barnes, is still with the company. Ogle’s
second employee, Sue Toth, was a solo “competitor” of Ogle’s who first
came on board as a subcontractor. Today, Toth is president of MRPP,
responsible for the company’s day-to-day operations, allowing Ogle to take
more of a strategic role. Ogle credits the loyalty of employees like Toth,
plus the firm’s focus on doing one thing well, with MRPP’s success. With
20 employees and annual revenue of around $20 million, the company has
more staff solely focused on media than any local agency and more than
many regional and national advertising agencies.
Ogle has come a long way since her first job in advertising, where one of
her duties included fluffing the couch pillows for J.T. Howard, the
company’s president—and making his coffee, of course. “That was expected,”
Ogle says. She’s also built her companies without benefit of a four-year
degree, something she used to be self-conscious about. “But now I figure
all my experience adds up to many college degrees,” Ogle says.
Ogle is a big believer in hiring the best and brightest people she can and
treating them well. That means flexible policies such as telecommuting or
reduced schedules to accommodate her all-female staff, several of whom are
mothers of young children—or soon will be. (At this writing, three of
MRPP’s 20 employees were pregnant, and all planned to return after
maternity leave.) In fact, women’s work/life balance issues have been a
top priority for Ogle since she started her company, because, as she says,
“This particular field attracts more women than men. In fact, we’ve only
had one male employee since we began.”
That lone guy, by the way, stayed for several years and left with a deeper
understanding of women than most men achieve in a lifetime. Good sport
that he was, he even had a T-shirt printed up that read “MR. PP,” a play
on the company’s name and his gender. “The staff couldn’t stop laughing
the day he wore it,” Ogle recalls with characteristic good humor.
True to form, Ogle is active in organizations and causes related to women
in business, including the North Carolina chapter of the National
Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), the Women’s Forum of North
Carolina and the Carolinas Women’s Business Enterprise Council, which she
helped create. In 2003, she received both the local and national Business
Owner of the Year awards from NAWBO.
“She just keeps getting more energetic,” says Jennifer Tolle Whiteside,
executive director of Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina, which counts
Ogle as a board member. “Sheila’s just an incredible role model for women.
And she continues to give back to the community in a way that is tangible,
not just by donating money. When we have an event, she not only comes but
also helps us set up.”
She also is passionate about children, and not just her own five
grandchildren. In addition to Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina, Ogle is
active in the 4H movement, serving on the board of the N.C. 4-H
Development Fund and mentoring young 4-Hers, notes Sharon Runion Rowland,
executive director of the fund. “Sheila is the epitome of volunteerism,”
says Rowland. “When she commits to do something, she does it with passion
and with every detail done in an excellent manner. Because she can bring
others to the table who are also well-connected in the Triangle and state,
she is truly a leader.”
These days, with the daily details of MRPP in Toth’s capable hands, Ogle
has more time to spend on civic duties. She also revels in early-morning
walks with her second husband, real estate developer Carroll Ogle, who is
her biggest champion, “and a very secure man, because you have to be a
secure man to live in a pink house,” she says. Ogle also has time to spare
for her new business ventures. Integrated Clinical Trial Services, or ICTS,
which is housed in MRPP’s offices, is testament to Ogle’s ability to
capitalize on opportunities. She and four partners founded it after
realizing that MRPP’s success in placing ads for drug companies and health
agencies conducting clinical trials suggested a niche that needed
filling—especially given Cary’s proximity to major medical centers and
dozens of pharmaceutical companies. ICTS is a full-service firm, providing
clients with complete patient recruitment packages—including design, print
and broadcast production as well as placement of ads and commercials.
Ogle says that MRPP was one of the first media placement agencies to do
patient recruitment media buys, and the experience the staff gained is now
shared with ICTS. “Patient recruitment advertisement is totally different
from other kinds of advertising—it’s not about building relationships,”
says Ogle. “With patient recruitment, you’re in and out of a market
quickly. Sometimes with a trial you have to cancel recruitment ads in the
middle of a campaign, so the media outlet has to be responsive.” Research
is also key to finding the kinds of newspapers and magazines read by the
specific disease-sufferers that drug companies are looking for, Ogle
notes. “But sometimes radio and TV is more effective because you can build
your impressions faster, which is crucial when you have to reach the newly
diagnosed, such as flu sufferers, for instance, who have to come in within
a couple of days of getting sick to test a new treatment.”
For the first time since becoming an entrepreneur, Ogle has business
partners; she’s a 20 percent owner of ICTS as well as its CEO. “It’s been
a great learning experience,” she says. “With MRPP, ultimately it’s my
decision. But with ICTS, there are four other people. It’s nice to have
someone to talk things over with who has a vested interest.”
Finally, there’s the Matthews House, which Ogle calls her “fun” business.
And this enterprise, too, started with an observation and an idea. Having
become an expert at renovating a historic property, Ogle appreciated the
timeworn but stately mansion she often passed on Cary’s West Chatham
Street. At one point she even considered moving MRPP’s offices there, but
the facilities weren’t a good fit for the company’s needs. The house
continued to sit there, empty, until Ogle was struck by how appropriate
the house would be for weddings, corporate retreats and special events.
She had the resources—financial, yes, but human ones, too — in the form of
her husband, who has a general contractor’s license, and her friend Nina
Davis, who had wedding and meeting planning experience. So they lovingly
restored the 90-year-old home in the Greek Renaissance Revival style, and
five years later the Matthews House is one of the most popular venues for
weddings, corporate events, holiday functions and special ceremonies in
Cary. While she’s in the hospitality business to make a profit, Ogle also
uses the Matthews House to help the community. She provides local
organizations and favorite charities free meeting space there for planning
retreats or board meetings.
Neither Ogle’s Matthews House venture nor her policy of donating space to
help good causes surprises her friends and acquaintances. Whether it’s
communities, companies, or houses, “She loves to be involved, and loves to
build,” says Mary DePeuw Kamm, chair of Cary Visual Arts, on whose board
Ogle currently sits. Kamm notes, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say,
‘It can’t be done.’”
Ogle is especially devoted to causes involving children, families, women
business owners, small business advocacy and community development. That
adds up to a lot of organizations and a lot of projects, even for someone
as focused and organized as Ogle. “If there’s something going on in Cary
that’s going to benefit the town, then Sheila’s going to be in the core
group,” says Mike Carlton, president of Crescent State Bank, another
organization that counts Ogle as a board member. “And if Sheila’s going to
be involved in a project, she’s going to give it 100 percent of her time
and effort, or else she won’t get involved at all.”
One of her latest projects is an effort to create a park in Cary that pays
tribute to war veterans and educates the public about their heroism and
service. Tentatively called Veterans Freedom Park, it will be built on 11
acres on Harrison Avenue that SAS Institute president Jim Goodnight and
his wife, Ann, donated to the effort, which was spearheaded by Dick Ladd.
Ladd asked Ogle to serve on the public relations committee, and she in
turn has tapped her own network, including the owner of the firm that
handles MRPP’s public relations, and others to help raise money and
awareness for the park project. “It will be an incredible teaching and
learning facility,” says Ogle. “These men who are giving their lives for
us deserve to be recognized.”
Although Ogle’s involvement in the veterans’ park was supposed to be
minimal and short-term, it has morphed into something bigger. And now that
she’s excited about it, she will give it her characteristic all. But
because she’s been steeped in work-life balance themes for many years,
Sheila Ogle will always find time for her family. In fact, her life
revolves around her husband and children, all of whom live and work in the
Triangle, and their children. Daughter Elizabeth Stephenson, an attorney
with a solo practice, actually works in the same downtown Cary building as
her mother. Ogle’s other daughter, Kelly Brown, is a pharmacist with
GlaxoSmithKline in Research Triangle Park, and her son, Cliff Hale, works
for Poseidon Enterprises and lives with his family in nearby Johnston
County. Ogle’s sister, Donna Godwin, helps run the Matthews House for her.
“We’re all together, and that’s what’s important,” she says.
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