$10M in annual revenue – Lee Richter, Richter Communication & Design Group

Lee Richter

Lee Richter is an award-winning, dynamic business innovator and a visionary recognised for the 7th consecutive year by the San Francisco Business Times as one of their Top 100 Women Business Leaders in 2019. For more than 25 years, she has launched a dozen successful businesses in the financial, education, and lifestyle sectors. Her unique vision and drive revolutionise the industry as her companies produce hundreds of jobs, educate tens of thousands of people and make millions in revenue.

What exits has Lee had previously? (4:42)

• The first exit that Lee had was working as a stockbroker at Merril Lynch in 1984-1998. 
• She stayed with them for around 14 years. She took a 1-year sabbatical after training many people and decided that she wanted to take a break. 
• She spent her year of sabbatical in Key West Florida. Goldie Hawn was filming a movie called Criss-Cross. 
• The film happened to be in the hotel that Lee was staying in at the time. 
• Lee had the opportunity to get to know the crew over that period. 
• Lee asked the hotel owner what he was planning to do with the restaurant after the movie, and he said he did not have any plans. 
• Lee bought the business and during her 1-year sabbatical ran the business in Key West because she thought it would be a fun thing to do. 
• She had the restaurant for a year before selling it to her chef who made a massive success of it.
• It had cost about $100,000 to buy the business, and Lee ended up walking away with seven figures. 

What were some of the things from a marketing perspective that Lee did to bring attention to her businesses? (22:30)

• Lee created a marketing team inside the organisation. 
• So within her PR and marketing company, she had a team specifically on the veterinary hospitals and in the veterinary industry. 
• A critical moment was in 2007-2009 when they had a market crash around them, especially in Silicon Valley. 
• Lee’s business was thriving more than others during that time.
• Their vendors go to many hospitals, drug wraps, cardiologists and radiologists, 
• Some of them would go up to 100 hospitals and mention how busy Lee’s business as compared to all the others. 
• This made Lee evaluate her business, and she realised she was consistently connecting with the community regularly. 
• Having started in 2001, she did marketing plans and figuring out what their non-profit was going to do next and how they would do it. 
• They started meeting with the community, and they would apply for awards. They wrote a book and published it. They had about 13 different tactics.
• They had 13 weeks for each quarter and decided to implement and try each strategy each week. 

Which business was most exciting to Lee and which one has the potential for the largest exit? (44:47)

• 50% of Lee’s enterprises are in her Husband’s wheelhouse. 
• This was because they were in the veterinary and pet industry.
• The other half is in her wheelhouse, which is PR marketing. 
• Even her veterinary hospitals and other business pay her PR marketing company as a vendor. 
• The PR Marketing business is legit. When she sold the veterinary hospital, there was a $250,000 line item just for the logo. 
• They created a package in the brand, for a $250,000 line item to the PR company just for the IP. 
• The pet concierges have products that they have launched. They just passed their 4th month launching a product that has done successfully so far and is considered valuable. 
• The product is called NutriaThrive, and they have sold 90,000 units in their 4th month of launching. 
• It is mostly about word of mouth and people are validating that the product works the way it says it’s supposed to. 
• They are planning four more products next year, so lee believes that they are headed for the 9 figure range with Pet Concierge. 
• They are adding a lot of value to the community as well by coming up with products that help pets. 

Richter Communications

Richter Communications and Design Group comprises industry-transforming companies and organisations ranging from Pet Health Care, Event Planning, Marketing Consulting, Business Scaling, and Personal Growth.

Resources

Connect with Lee: LinkedIn

Richter Communications: Website

Beyond 8 Figures: Website

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.