National Clothesline

Bill Bishop, owner of Mak Marketing in Wheaton, IL, is the first to admit that the name of his business might not be instantly recognizable, but it certainly is symbolic. When he started the company two years ago, he labeled it in unorthodox fashion after his dog.

“Mak’s a black lab,” he said. “Basically, he’s honest. He’s patient and just. He’s a friend. He’s faithful. He’s constantly there, a companion. Who’s crazy enough to name their company after their dog? Me. He’s the embodiment of what I want to be for other people.”

Even if people don’t always understand the company name, many drycleaners are well aware of Bill

and his formidable marketing acumen. In addition to being a columnist for National Clothesline, he was a partner in the Golomb Group for over 14 years.

“From the day he opens the door, the average cleaner gives little consideration to marketing his business,” he explained. “Many never promote until the business is on life support, and by then it’s too late because they can’t afford to. Over the years, I’ve visited many cleaners, who, surprisingly, do absolutely nothing to promote their business, yet still expect it to thrive. Nothing will happen until you make it happen.”

It’s easy to tell people they need to make things happen, but Bill knows this to be true from first-hand experience. Throughout his life, he has always aggressively pursued opportunities, even when mired by hardships and circumstance. Bill’s formative years were unique, to say the least.

His parents were missionaries stationed in the sub-Saharan country of Niger. They lived in an old fort once used by the French Foreign Legion on the outskirts of the Sahara desert.

“On many occasions, desert travelers would stay with us because they would always be welcome and we loved to listen to their stories long into the night,” he recalled.

“It was a different life,” he added.

“It’s hard to explain. We didn’t know we were poor. We didn’t know we did not have stuff because there was nothing to compare it with. We grew up with very little, and we were very happy. I wouldn’t trade my life at all.”

As a young boy, Bill played with African kids and learned the native customs. In fact, when he was ready to begin his schooling, he spoke African languages better than English.

“I was sent to boarding school at the age of five,” he noted. “Our mission had a fleet of small aircraft (Cessnas and Pipers) and we were flown to boarding school over 1,000 miles away to the south in central Nigeria. We were separated from our parents for nine months of the year... every year we were in school.”

Only seeing your parents about one-fourth of the time seemed harsh, but Bill admits that there was a silver lining to his odd schooling schedule.

“When you grow up in a boarding situation and you don’t have your parents to look after you, and you’re in a situation where 350 other kids have it the same, you just learn to live together and get along. A lot of what my life is is learning to do things on my own.”

During his high school years, life became even more chaotic when the Biafran war broke out in the region. The civil war was between the Hausas in the north and the Ibos in the south. Bill was caught in the middle.

“That war claimed the lives of nearly three million people,” he noted. “I stepped over bodies going to school. When the war first broke out, there were literally bodies all over town.”

Despite such insanity, Bill still graduated from high school in Nigeria and then moved to the Chicago area in the U.S. to attend college.

During his sophomore year, however, he needed a break so he tried out for the Sports Ambassadors goodwill basketball team. He made the cut and got to travel abroad for the next year playing hoops and trying to improve America’s image in the process. Often, the players lodged with families who were willing to put all of their food on the table, even when it was scarce.

“I literally stayed in a different bed every night,” he recalled. “We played more than 700 games in a dozen countries from Japan to the Philippines. We were told, before we left, that some of us might not make it back because of political unrest in other countries. To make a long story short, none of us lost our lives. Everybody came back with a really good perspective on life.”

Some of the experiences were quite amazing. Not only did Bill get to compete against roundball legends such as Korea’s Shin Dong Pah, but he also attended a dinner at Malacanang Palace with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda.

Upon returning to the states, Bill had more desire to study. By 1976 he graduated with degrees in philosophy and theology. Perhaps nobody was looking for a “corporate philosopher,” but he managed to procure employment with the Ponderosa Steakhouse restaurant chain anyway.

Within two years, he found himself managing seven locations with over 300 employees. Around that time, he was offered a job to immediately take over the reins of Reichardt Cleaners, a 23-store operation.

Of course, Bill had no experience in drycleaning whatsoever, but he was confident that he could succeed.

“It was my idea to learn at night, on my own, with nobody watching,” he recalled. “I would start at a plant near my home at 3 a.m. and work until 7 or 8 a.m. cleaning, spotting and pressing until I could produce between 30 and 40 pieces an hour. My job, however, was not to clean and press, but to hire, train, motivate managers and to build sales and extract profit. I helped to open nine new locations.”

Overall, Bill worked with Reichardt Cleaners for eight years. By that time, he had married his wife, Milli, and the couple had two young children, Jeff and Kevin. The demanding hours of his job were preventing him from being with his family.

“I didn’t need to spend so much time at work,” he recalled. “It was flip-flopped. My priorities were all wrong. I had two young boys and I was missing the best years of their lives, so I left.”

In 1987, Bill worked in equipment sales, installation, start-up and training for a local cleaning business. In his free time, he developed the first speedrail coverings known as “Super Glide” for the industry.

Seven years later, he introduced “Zip-Strip” rail covering. The product has shipped to more than 30,000 cleaners worldwide.

Bill was on the road in Vegas at a trade show promoting Super Glide when he ran into Stan Golomb, who offered him a partnership with the Golomb Group.

“Working with Stan changed my life,” Bill said. “The most immediate change was the pace of my life. There was no longer any hurry. I never saw Stan rush. Ever. For years, we would take frequent and long walks together around his community. He lived on a lake and we would spend hours just walking and talking. It was the Socratic method being applied. He was Socrates and I was his pupil.”

The Golomb Group was also a big proponent of learning through seminars. In fact, Bill signed up for an important session only a month after he joined.

“It was a copy writing seminar and it cost us $10,000 for the five-day event,” he explained. “That seminar laid the groundwork for my next 14 years with the company. We got back the investment quickly and I became immediately aware of how powerful knowledge can be.”

Over the years, Bill attended numerous marketing seminars by Jay Abraham, Gary Halbert, Bob Serling, and even Uri Geller, the spoon-bending paranormalist.

“One thing I advocate is to look outside the industry for ideas,” he said. “It’s about business. What you do is look at businesses that are really successful. You try to get to the bottom of what makes such a business tick.”

With Mak Marketing, Bill works with many industries, but he has found that some concepts are universal, like direct mail.

“It applies to every industry,” he said. “I think more and more — cost effectively — it meets the criteria of how you can spend your money wisely. You don’t have to go overboard.”

Lately, Bill has modified his direct mail marketing methods to be even more effective for cleaners.

“One of the things I’ve started doing is direct mail, but without the postage. So, it’s a door hanger,” he said. “It’s very simple. It’s so obvious. You know exactly where and when these things are going. If you walk up to a house and they’ve got a car up on blocks outside, then you’re not going to leave one there.

“You’re going to go some place where it looks like they can afford your service and they are going to need your service,” he added.

One problem Bill faces with cleaners is that many are under the impression that they can’t benefit from investing in a marketing program. However, the alternative — doing nothing — can be even more costly.

“As a means of saving money on marketing, many cleaners rely on word-of-mouth advertising to build sales,” he noted. “They say it’s all the advertising they need. Assuming you run a good business, there is only one thing wrong with word of mouth... it’s passive. You can’t make people talk. In fact, what if nobody talked?”

Instead, cleaners have to be willing to make things happen themselves.

“A small budget, wisely spent at regular intervals, will yield steady growth over time,” he said. “You don’t need to spend a fortune. That’s where so many cleaners get it wrong.”