Bill Notarangelo: Clear Marketing Solutions

Queen City Review: Let's start with you - Are you from this local area? 

Bill Notarangelo: [00:01:14] I'm not originally from Charlotte. I actually grew up in New York City and moved here to Charlotte. It was about the same time I got married, which was thirty three years ago. And we've been very fortunate and blessed. We've loved living here in the Queen City over the years. 

Queen City Review:  Why did you choose this line of business? 

Bill Notarangelo: [00:01:57] Well, pretty much all my career has been in the area of marketing. For a good time, it was in the apparel industry and now most recently taking those marketing skills and applying them to commercial print and direct mail media. I guess it was really a matter of choosing something that I really enjoy doing and also the fact that it gives me the opportunity to help people in various capacities and in being able to support their goals and their business needs. I find that personally very satisfying. 

Queen City Review: What made you decide to start your own business versus working for somebody else? And when did when did you begin your business? 

Bill Notarangelo: [00:02:57] Over the years, I've worked for various corporations, but at the same time, I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I owned a retail store for about nine years with my wife here in Charlotte. And then we eventually sold that business. And I continue to work in apparel and in the sales and marketing area. Things were getting to the point where I saw that the business climate was changing, the apparel industry was changing, I was looking for new and rewarding opportunity so I was fortunate enough that I was able to meet and build a relationship with my two business partners who each have 30 plus years of experience. We got together and decided that there could be a great opportunity for all of us to create this new company, Clear Marketing Solutions. 

Queen City Review: So it doesn't sound like this is your first rodeo... What inspired you to keep going as you were getting your business off the ground?

Bill Notarangelo: [00:05:17] You know, I've always been driven to look at and explore new opportunities. I always like to be challenged and to be moving forward. I'm not the type of person that can sit still for very long. I guess I'm kind of like a shark. I have to keep moving. It's always been trying to find things if it's in my career or in other areas of my life that you truly enjoy doing, right? And then to try to take that love or that passion for whatever it is and to sort of take it to the next level. And as I said, we were kind of at that point that I really wanted to try to launch another business, and I felt like this was an opportune time to do it. 

Queen City Review: When would you say that your business went from concept to actually being functional?
 
Bill Notarangelo: [00:06:31] In our case, I would say that it was probably in fourth quarter of 19' that the idea and the concept was being vetted and discussed pretty seriously with my two partners after doing our initial due diligence, and we felt like this concept could really turn into something, we actually decided to to launch the project in February of 2020. It took us several months because there were a lot of details based on the model for our business that we needed to make sure that we had addressed and ironed out to make sure that when we hit the ground running that we were we were going to be able to manage ourselves and present ourselves to our clients in a in a very professional manner. We needed to have all of the pieces in place as far as our internal structure is concerned to be able to move forward full speed without stumbling from the beginning. So it took several months. We launched the business and hit the ground running. I would say it was in August of 2020, which, you know, a lot of people may think that's odd... we decided in the middle of a pandemic that we were going to launch our business. But with that, there's challenges in all levels of business in all industries now. Things have to move forward. We're at the point where we're starting from the beginning. We're developing those new relationships. It's a perfect time because people are going to be looking for help and assistance, especially as they get into 2021 in terms of either strengthening their existing business or trying to recover some of the previous business that they had. So taking those things into consideration, we did feel like that was the right time to do it. 

Queen City Review: You mentioned challenges - looking back, what would you say is the most difficult challenge that you've endured? 

Bill Notarangelo: [00:09:36] I think that with most new businesses, one of the challenges is establishing credibility and trust with your clients. That just takes some time. That's not something that you're going to just hit a switch and all of a sudden you'll have instant credibility. It's done on several levels: actions is one, and another is getting to know the individual that you're working with to really understand their earnest in what they're doing. Then of course there’s the virtual aspect of what we do right now, which is the way that we've kind of all learned to survive at the moment. But I think one of the biggest challenges is that we don't have that personal one on one contact, that you're sitting there with people and really getting a chance to enjoy their company and get to know more about them. But again, we have to adapt and evolve as we move forward, even when we get into situations like this. So we make the best of it. 

Queen City Review: You mentioned you've been in Charlotte for around 30 years now. What do you enjoy most about the communities that your business takes care of?

Bill Notarangelo: [00:12:16] The personal interaction within those communities - The people we deal with, have a true passion and high level of energy in whatever business that they're pursuing. I mentioned earlier that I feel I have a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and I think that the community here in Charlotte in general is a young, vibrant community and there is an entrepreneurial spirit, both here in the community and then even within the individual clients that I'm working with. So it's sort of like there's a shared mutual understanding in terms of what we're all trying to do. That makes it a very rewarding experience doing business here in Charlotte. 

Queen City Review: If a prospective client had to choose between you and 3 other agencies, what makes Clear Marketing Solutions the obvious choice vs the others? 

Bill Notarangelo: [00:13:49] The main pieces to the foundation of the business we developed was that we all agreed that our passion truly was to provide a concierge level of service to our clients. In doing that, we can provide a service that is going to be able to be there to support them. We're not just here to fulfill an order or an immediate need. We want to be able to take it to that next step of helping them through understanding whatever it is or every project that they're trying to put in place and determining if it's going to be the most effective project - Is it really going to help them in moving forward? And then looking ahead, what's going to be the next step? So it's a thorough process that we're here to counsel and guide our clients. And I think that that is what makes us stand apart from some of our competition in the field.

Queen City Review: Where do you see your business going forward in 2021 and beyond? 

Bill Notarangelo: [00:15:25] Well, one of the things that we specialize in right now is in the commercial print and and the direct mail component - as we move into 2021 the business is going to expand in terms of building upon the print marketing concepts and adding other channels of marketing to our our clients campaigns. So we're going to start to build with, in addition to the print campaigns, building emails or SMS text campaigns, assisting our customers with micro-sites so that there'll be a balance of both the print and digital media being used within their total outreach to their potential clients. That's going to be probably a key area for us. We have a couple of platforms that we're developing that can specifically be of service to the the legal field in terms of being able to assist law firms with collecting data that they need from clients, especially if they're working in class action suits, that we have a platform that can help in obtaining that information, collecting and compiling, analyzing and providing it back to them to be able to move forward with any particular project or suit that they may be managing. So those are key things that I see right now where we'll head as far as we get through 2021.

Queen City Review: Thinking back to day one, can you think of anything that you may have done differently to overcome the challenges that you faced to meet your business goals in a more efficient amount of time? 

Bill Notarangelo: [00:17:33] If I am thinking back to day one in terms of the development of Clear Marketing Solutions… there were certain components when we first hit the ground running that we assumed we're going to be a slightly easier and smoother process, and it ended up taking just a little bit more time and fine tuning and redirecting our efforts to be able to get it to the point that we were happy with. So I would say if I would have had the sort of the foresight to have been able to identify some of those things ahead of time and to apply our time and efforts into that, because once you once you start moving forward and any person who owns their own business knows this, right, that your your time and your energies get spread in a lot of different directions. And prior to that, before you launched the business, you can focus and take all of the time and focus to apply to addressing whatever all the key components that you need to have in place. And when we launched, we were fine. It's just that, as in most cases, there's always something that needs to be to have a little bit more. You have to make an adjustment or tweak it a little bit in some way. It would have been nice if I would have had the foresight to realize it ahead of time. That doesn't always happen, though. And then you take on whatever the challenges and you keep moving on. 

Queen City Review: Bill, that’s just about all I got. What else would you want people to know about Bill Notarangelo and Clear Marketing Solutions. 

Bill Notarangelo: [00:20:00] I think the one thing that I would love to just be able to emphasize to people, and this is coming from the heart of both myself and my partners, we just have a very deep rooted passion to fulfill the needs of our clients, and the people that we meet in this world. It's not always just on a business level, but more importantly on a personal and charitable level as well. I find that one of the most fulfilling things that you can do in life is to be able to help others. And that's the way that we operate every day.

If you or your business has a commercial print or direct mail need, drop Bill a line!

Cell: 704-560-0574
Website: clearmarketingsolutionsllc.com
Email: bnotarangelo@clearmarketingsolutionsllc.com
Facebook: @Officialcmsllc
LinkedIn: Clear Marketing Solutions, LLC
Instagram: @ClearMarketingSolutionsLLC
Twitter: @Officialcmsllc