High-tech gurus at Technology Marketing's magazines

The modest one-story brick building at One Technology Plaza in Norwalk could easily be mistaken for a light-assembly plant or a big dry-cleaner.

Passers-by might never suspect that the occupant, Technology Marketing Corp., publishes well-read magazines with a worldwide circulation of 187,000, or that its Web site registers 18 million page views a month, or that it organizes trade shows that attract thousands of people from around the globe.

The company, which is also known as TMC, is about to celebrate a milestone, the 25th year in publication for Customer Interaction Solutions, a 62,000-circulation magazine for the telemarketing industry.

TMC and its information services have chronicled the evolution of several technologies, including one people love to hate: telemarketing, the original name of Customer Interactive Solutions magazine.

But telemarketing today isn't just the intrusive offer of new vinyl siding that always seems to come while you're eating dinner and has developed a stigma.

Rich Tehrani, 40, TMC's president and group editor-in-chief, said the industry has evolved beyond cold-calling of potential customers.

Call centers today answer people's inquiries as to how to order a product and other customer service issues, Tehrani said.

"Contact centers," as they are known, employ sales representatives who make contact with potential customers by e-mail, chat rooms and instant messaging, he said.

For example, a sales representative can post a Web address link in an instant message, sending the receiver to where they can purchase a product, he said. It's a winning technology among the computer-savvy young.

"This younger generation is comfortable with chatting," Tehrani said. "They can chat with 12 friends at once."

Don't dis the phone

His father, however, said the telephone is still important, as a customer contact tool and a force in the American economy.

"If you take the telephone out of any company, they will be out of business in less than 24 hours," said Nadji Tehrani, 71, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Technology Marketing. He estimated that 3 percent of the U.S. work force is employed in telemarketing and related operations.

That calculation is accurate, said Tim Searcy, CEO of the Indianapolis-based American Teleservices Association trade group.

Searcy said call centers employ 5.3 million people nationwide and another 350,000 work in related services.

To serve those groups, Customer Interaction Solutions publishes articles on such topics as where to buy the best telephone headset and on industry trends such as increased automation.

Subscriptions are free to those in the industry. Companies that include Microsoft, which makes speech servers for call center telephony equipment, and Plantronics, which makes telephone headsets, pay the freight by buying ad space in the monthly.

Other advertisers include outsourcing companies such as Aegis Communications, and foreign and domestic economic development agencies, Rich Tehrani said.

The readers of Customer Interaction Solutions are mainly "decision-makers in the contact centers," Tehrani said. "They are people trying to improve their sales and customer relation management."

Evolving technology

Keeping up with advances in telephone and related technologies, TMC also publishes Internet Telephony, SIP and IMS magazines. SIP stands for session initiation protocol, and IMS stands for IP multimedia system.

Internet Telephony, which has 55,000 subscribers, features stories about voice communication via computer. TMC started the monthly magazine in 1998. A recent issue had stories on Internet phone providers Skype and Vonage, and various high-tech cellular phones.

Also founded in 1998, SIP publishes stories about sophisticated wireless and land-line phone systems. SIP systems provide advanced messaging and video capabilities. It has 35,000 subscribers.

IMS, which has a circulation of 35,000, contains stories about complex telephone technology.

An IMS story might include such technology tidbits as someone watching movie trailers on a cell phone, Tehrani said. The person watching the clip can contact friends through a conference call, ask whether they want to see the movie and call the theater to buy tickets with a high-tech handset, he said.

Bringing techies together

To get buyers and sellers of telephony equipment and other people together, TMC organizes the Internet Telephony Conference & Expo, scheduled to take place Oct. 10 to 13 at the San Diego Convention Center.

The event, which draws 9,000 people, takes about a year to plan, said Rich Tehrani, a resident of Stamford.

"Last year, people came from about 120 countries," he said. "We do all the promotions and operations. We rent out the facility, bring in the audience, make the signage and manage the speaking and food events."

TMC organizes the Internet Telephony Conference & Expo East, which is slated for Jan. 23 to 26 at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Meetings within the main events, such as Call Center 2.0 and IMS Expo, also are run by TMC.

The Communications Developer Conference from May 15 to 17 in Santa Clara, Calif., is another TMC-run event. It will feature more than 100 high-tech seminars and education sessions, said Mike Genaro, TMC's vice president of marketing.

TMC's revenues from the trade shows come from fees exhibitors pay for booth space, fees from show conferences, and from payments from companies that sponsor luncheons and special events, he said.

Trade shows make up a third of TMC's revenues and are a swiftly growing segment of its business. Revenues from trade shows are 102 percent higher so far this year than in the same period of 2004, Rich Tehrani said.

This year's print revenues are 28 percent higher than 2004 levels, he said. Print magazine ads and online magazine subscriptions comprise 33 percent of TMC's total revenues, his father said.

Online goes wild

The final one-third comes from online ads. TMC publishes online versions of Customer Interaction Solutions, Internet Telephony, SIP and IMS magazines. It also has more than a dozen online products that pertain to alternative energy, WiFi technology, anti-terrorism measures and other topics.

Its TMCnet.com Web site receives 18 million page views and 900,000 visits per month, Nadji Tehrani said.

TMC said its online revenues increased 609 percent this year compared with the 2004 period.

"A lot of people are putting a lot of money into online advertising these days," he said.

Online revenues could go higher as TMC places more content online, Genaro said.

Rich Tehrani said total revenues at TMC are 95 percent higher than they were two years ago. The privately owned company does not disclose actual revenue or profits numbers.

'The first call I make . . .'

One expert said TMC is a leader in providing communications and information for the telemarketing and Internet telephony industries.

"Part of TMC's success is that they have provided the industry with valuable resources," said Steve Brubaker, senior vice president of corporate affairs for Akron, Ohio-based InfoCision Management Corp., which provides telemarketing and other call services to Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit groups.

"If I am looking for information on a variety if topics or looking for job candidates, one of the first calls I make is to Nadji Tehrani," said Brubaker, a former president of the American Teleservices Association.

"They are clearly the experts and have a way of bringing people together in the industry. They provide a conduit for business to get done."

TMC's competitors include Manhasset, N.Y.-based CMP Media, publisher of Call Center magazine; and Phone+ magazine, which Virgo Publications publishes, said Max Schroeder, a board member of the Washington, D.C.-based Enterprise Communications Association, composed of communications technology companies.

CMP Media organizes a trade show, Schroeder said.

Schroeder said Technology Marketing offers a wider variety of products than CMP.

"TMC has really stepped to the forefront," Schroeder said. "They are performing a responsible role in their efforts to help grow this industry. They definitely have some momentum."

CMP's magazines are for call center professionals and operations personnel, while Customer Interaction Solutions aims for executives and information technology professionals, said Searcy, head of the American Teleservices Association.

"In many ways, Nadji has put a tent around the industry," Searcy said. "He called it telemarketing and he still has a copyright on the word. He is the most innovative and by most peoples' standards, he is the largest."

A basement business

Like most businesses, TMC started small.

Nadji Tehrani founded the company in the basement of his Stamford home in 1972. Tehrani, a Jewish native of Iran, was a chemist working at the former Stauffer Chemical Co. in Westport at the time.

He has an undergraduate degree in chemistry and had worked for E.I. DuPont and Phillip Morris.

Technology Marketing began by publishing trade magazines for the chemical coatings industry.

Nadji Tehrani said the painting and coating industries at the time needed more energy-efficient technology because an Arab oil boycott raised crude oil prices. Tehrani recalled that using light instead of heat to dry paint saved energy in the '70s.

In that decade, Nadji Tehrani was selling advertising space in his magazines over the phone. He found that phone sales outpaced in-person sales by 300 percent.

Hoping to learn more about phone sales, Tehrani said he went to newsstands and libraries looking for a magazine that pertained to the industry.

He found none, so he started Telemarketing magazine in 1982. The company had been on Park Street in Norwalk before it moved to a short, dead-end road off West Cedar Street, in 1986. TMC got the city to rename the street Technology Plaza, Rich Tehrani said.

Innovation and growth

Technology Marketing provides quality technology jobs for the city, said Brian Griffin, vice president of the Greater Norwalk Chamber of Commerce. "It is a very niche technology company," Griffin said. "We hope we can get more technology companies into Norwalk. Usually, those technology jobs are filled by young people and Connecticut is always looking for ways to get young people to stay in the state."

TMC employs 50 to 60 people at its company-owned building on Technology Plaza, which contains a laboratory that tests communications equipment. Technology Marketing also employs free-lance writers.

Turnover is low among its full-time staff.

"We always try to hire the best local talent," Nadji Tehrani said. "Longevity is the name of the game in this company.

"Our accounting manager has been here for 18 years. The circulation director has been with us 19 years. The head of our labs has worked here since the mid-1990s."

"We like to have a company where people can come and retire," his son said.

The Tehranis said TMC will continue to provide growth and employment security.

"As long as we continue to launch innovative products and stay on top of the industries and stay ahead of the markets, our prospects for growth should be good," Rich Tehrani said.