Company:
Riddell Advertising
Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Business:
Full-Service Advertising Agency

Staff:
17

System:
Clients & Profits Pro

Macintosh
AppleShare

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ontrary to what those in the ad business might believe, it is not essential to be located in New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles to be successful. Take Riddell Advertising, for example. Considered a "hot" shop among contemporaries, Riddell Advertising is situated at the base of the craggy and starkly beautiful Grand Tetons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Started in 1976 by owner Ed Riddell, this busy full-service agency has done such outstanding (and award-winning) work they've managed to lure some of the best creative minds from New York to Jackson Hole. And, in the process, add some prestigious names to their client list.

Ed Riddell, who is a San Francisco bay area native and graduate of Stanford University, remembers when he decided to get Clients & Profits. "We're a Mac-based company. When we started looking around for a program to replace Peachtree, our old system, most of the software on the market was designed for IBM's." Then, a direct mail piece from Clients & Profits, Inc. crossed his desk. "I remember that day clearly," Ed laughs, "and about the same time I saw an ad for Clients & Profits Plus in Communication Arts magazine.

Clients & Profits Plus seemed to offer exactly what we were looking for, and we didn't have to replace our Mac's with IBM's to use it." Immediately, Riddell liked the idea of a multi-user program. He was intrigued with the idea of integrating production and accounting into the same system. "Clients & Profits puts everything together nicely," he says.

My life is so much more organized

Riddell upgraded to Clients & Profits Pro as soon as it became available, and found the new software even more valuable. "Since Clients & Profits, my business life is so much more organized. It helps me guarantee that dollars don't slip through the cracks."

Jenny Ryan, Riddell's accountant and business manager, is also enthusiastic about Clients & Profits Pro.

Jenny especially likes the business relationship she has forged with Mark Robillard, who developed Clients & Profits, and the staff at Clients & Profits, Inc. "I've attended the training classes at Working Computer (now called Clients & Profits), which have been great. I like the fact that if we have a problem or a question, we can call Mark and he's on top of the situation immediately. There aren't many places that still offer such one-on-one personalized service anymore, especially from the president of a company. That means a lot in a busy, impersonal world.

Nothing hooked together

Before Clients & Profits, when they were still using Peachtree, nothing was integrated. "Nothing hooked together," Jenny says. "We had to pull information from here and there, which was not only time consuming but often--very often--frustrating." With Clients & Profits, all of the information she needs is right there on the computer screen. "I don't have to jump up and run to a file cabinet to hunt for some small piece of information. And, everyone in the company has the same information. What a time-saver!"

A Wyoming native, Jenny has been with Riddell Advertising for six years. The shops does about twenty-five to thirty estimates per week, which are created and printed from Clients & Profits. They use Clients & Profits for time-keeping, both daily time cards and weekly time sheets, as well as for purchase orders, media insertion orders, check writing, billing and financial accounting. "Clients & Profits has proven invaluable to us everywhere," Jenny states emphatically.

"I like having the ability to enter time and job costs on a daily basis," Jenny says. "That's one of the more effective parts of Clients & Profits Pro." Another valuable aspect is being able to track all expenses, including new business and unbillable client costs. "Clients & Profits began to pay for itself right away, too. You wouldn't believe the amount of information we amassed in less than a year."

There was some resistance at first, Jenny explains. "But once our people saw how effective it was for them, what information they could have at their fingertips, they were very excited about Clients & Profits Pro."

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