A Chat With November’s Profile, Mark Desrochers, co-founder/marketing director, Classic Designs by Matthew Burak (Text & Audio)

CS: Being in this rural area, how does Classic Design attract and retain high-level employee talent?
MD: We outstrip the supply chain’s ability to deliver legs to us reliably. So we were forced to, reluctantly, go into manufacturing ourselves. And wood turning is a craft that’s not prevalent in our area, our region. And so we had to commit to a very strong training program to develop our production staff in a very strong program of cross-training to fill out our work force. And that’s worked very well. In direct marketing, it’s really much the same. We’ve taken what we’ve learned from the various conventions and trade shows and conferences, and had to develop staff with that small bit of expertise that we’ve seen. We’ve brought it back home and developed it. We’ve worked with consultants quite a bit over the years, as well, developing our skills in direct marketing, circulation, creative.