A Journey from Fledgling to Fabulous
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The Start of a Journey
The story of Mikel Marketing’s success has an auspicious beginning, filled with adventure, danger and desire. Mimi Dinh, owner and president of Mikel Marketing, was only a little girl when she and her family left their comfortable lifestyle in Vietnam and took the global jaunt to America after the fall of Saigon in 1975. The family, like so many others, was escaping for their lives and little Mimi learned all too early about risks, challenges and the will to survive; traits that would eventually set the tone for Mimi’s professional future as she took many lessons learned from that traumatic experience and applied them over the years to her journey towards entrepreneurship.
Itinerary
Although she is reluctant to call herself a rebel, Mimi set her personal agenda early on and often struggled against the Vietnamese culture’s strict codes of behavior and expectations. As she grew older, she felt pressured by her parents to pursue what they considered “safer” or more “traditional” careers. However, Mimi stayed true to her firm belief that one’s career should be born out of one’s passion and skill. Therefore, she combined her business savvy and her creativity in her formal education in Marketing at the University of Houston and Fashion Merchandising at the Fashion Institute. After a stint as Marketing Director for a telecommunications firm, and many years working as Promotional & Public Relations Director for two top local agencies in Houston, Mimi began to realize the potential for fulfilling other long-awaited needs in her professional life including: fully utilizing skills in all her areas of expertise, choosing projects that she strongly believed in, and expressing her own creative vision. This yearning for professional growth coincided with Mimi’s desire to spend more time with her young daughter, Kellie (the name Mikel is a combination of both mother and daughter’s names), was the deciding factor and impetus for Mimi’s bold move to strike out on her own. Voila! Mikel Marketing was born!
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Survival Kit
How is it that on the eve of their 5 year anniversary, Mikel Marketing is considered one of the hottest public relations firms in Houston? Mimi will acknowledge a number of indispensable items that fill up her personal business “survival kit”. Passion, malleability, and the ability to take risks are all musts to Mimi. She also draws on the advantages gleaned from her east-meets-west upbringing. “I consider myself fortunate that I left Vietnam when I was young enough to absorb new teachings while at the same time being influenced by our culture and traditions,” says Mimi, “In the business world, I embrace the Western values of respecting one’s individuality, freedom and directness; and I enhance these qualities by applying my homeland traditions of hard work, integrity and self-pride.”
While Mimi’s characteristics, determination, and tireless entrepreneurial spirit have played an important role, it has been her ability to quickly recognize and establish a niche within the industry that has been the ultimate key to her fledgling company’s success. Mimi is passionate about being able to be involved creatively in a project and focuses on bringing in clients of a similar mindset.Mikel Marketing fills a niche in the industry offering a valuable service to high-end clients who place a heightened value on image, creativity, and concrete results. By having a group of upscale clients who share the same target market, Mikel Marketing is able to allow clients to cross-promote, piggy-back on each other’s promotions, or participate in co-branding opportunities – a brilliant strategy, according to her clients. “We also understand that no matter how good we are, not everyone is going to be taken by our work,” Mimi further explains. “It’s important for us to define our target market carefully and go after those clients with whom we truly want to build a long-term relationship, instead of trying to be all things to all people,” Mimi concludes. It is through understanding this niche so well that Mikel Marketing is able to satisfy their clients who demand nothing less than the best.
Mimi also credits her competent staff as one of the key elements to her success. “We receive scores of resumes all the time. It’s not hard to find people with the right skills; the difficulty is in finding people who share a similar mindset and who are dedicated to looking out for the best interest of the company,” Mimi explains. Of course a staff is only as good as its leader, and Mimi strives to demonstrate leadership based on integrity, fairness, and professionalism.
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Detours / Road Blocks
Mikel Marketing’s path to success was certainly not all paved with gold. Although Mimi’s family was one of the initial inspirations for her fledgling company, she still had to contend with ubiquitous dilemma of balancing her professional and family lives. Mikel Marketing faced perhaps its biggest challenge in 2000 when Mimi’s husband Tri Dinh, now a Gyn-Oncologist for Methodist Hospital, announced that he had been offered a fellowship position at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Mimi recalls, “It was a bittersweet moment for us. I was extremely proud of his professional accomplishment, but it also meant that we had to give up a lot of things -our friends and families here, our comfortable lifestyle, and the possibility of losing momentum in my fledgling business that had just begun to take off.” Because the Dinhs hoped to live in Houston after Tri completed his 3-year fellowship, in the end, they decided that Mimi would commute between Houston and Boston each month, bringing 4-year-old Kellie along on each trip. Depending on support from a network of professional contract workers, Mimi was able to successfully run the company from her two “home offices” in Houston and Boston for 3 years. It was a hectic time but one that proved Mikel Marketing could weather the storm of adversity and continued to thrive. In fact, her unusual and innovative march towards entrepreneurship during this period inspired many to reject preconceived notions of what was and was not possible in the business world and to redefine opportunity and possibility on their own terms. As a result, Mimi was selected among the top 10 Woman Business Owner of the Year in 2001, by the prestigious National Association of Women Business Owners, recognizing her as a new breed of entrepreneur who is creating a professional life customized to her personal life, erasing old boundaries and exploring new alternatives.
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Icing on the Cake
“Even though our foremost satisfaction comes from doing a good job for our clients, to be recognized by respected leaders is like icing on the cake,” explains Mimi, President of Mikel Marketing. “Winning awards means much more to me than an ego boost. It increases our confidence, raises morale, motivates us, validates our work, creates new business opportunities, and even inspires others,” concludes Mimi.
Mikel Marketing is proud to have achieved the following recognitions:
* Communicator Awards 2008 (Award of Distinction) – for Green by Adeline Grand Opening Party Invitation – Category: Print
* HERMES Awards 2008 (Platinum) – for Design It Yourself Catalog – Category: Catalog
* Houston Woman magazine’s Second Annual Nominate HER Awards 2008 – Mimi Dinh
* Summit Creative Awards 2007 (Silver) – for Sake Lounge Re-Launch Party Invitation – Category: Invitation
*Summit Marketing Effective Award 2007 – for Chrysalis Skin Rejuvenation Center & Day Spa – Category: Consumer Service Campaign
* Cambridge Who’s Who of Professionals 2007 – Mimi Dinh
* W3 Awards 2006 (Silver) – for Mikel Marketing website – Category: Web Design
* Summit Marketing Effectiveness Award 2006 – for Zake Japanese Cuisine’s Marketing Plan – Category: Communication
* International Davey Awards 2006 (Silver) – for 713 Restaurant’s one-year anniversary party invitation – Category: Invitation/Mailer
* H Texas magazine’s Professional Fast Track 2006
* MarCom Creative Awards 2005 (Gold) – for Toyin Lumanesse Corporate Identity Package – Category: Corporate ID
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* MarCom Creative Awards 2005 (Honorable Mention) – for Specialist Salon & Spa Invitation – Category: Invitation
* International Davey Awards 2005 (Gold) – for Glo club brochure – Category: Brochure
* International Special Events Society (ISES) 2005 – for Mercedes-Benz M class invitation – Category: Invitation
* International Special Events Society (ISES) 2005 – for Tribeca Lounge invitation – Category: Invitation
* American Design Award 2005 – for Mikel Marketing press kit – Category: Postcard/Mailer Design
* American Advertising Federation (ADDY Awards) 2005 – for Mikel Marketing press kit – Category: Self Promotion Package
* American Advertising Federation (ADDY Awards) 2005 – for Mikel Marketing Corporate Identity Package – Category: Collateral Material
* H Texas magazine’s Professional Fast Track 2005
* H Texas magazine’s “Best of Houston 2004″ for Most Creative Event Coordinator
* Top 10 National Association of Women Business Owners 2001 – Mimi Dinh
* Who’s Who of Professionals 1998 – Mimi Dinh
TraVelocity
While Mimi wants her business to grow, growing “steadily” is more important than skyrocketing to success. “Being a small operation has its own strengths, and ours lies in the fact that we offer personalized service,” Mimi says. As a leader for each of their projects, Mimi’s role is to be both a visionary and a problem solver – providing the big picture, yet focusing on the most minute detail at the same time. “Our clients get the same quality of services as with a big PR firm but they deal with the same few individuals during the entire project, instead of getting passed around to a string of people,” Mimi explains.
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Mikel Marketing is gaining some serious momentum. With a Flash animated website, a monthly electronic newsletter which has recently jumped from a subscriber base of 20,000 to over 100,000 subscribers (Houston professionals from a wide variety of industries), a custom-designed press kit, a comprehensive portfolio, a promotional music CD, and cool promotional gift items, her seemingly “small” company has snagged upscale clients and projects which much bigger PR firms would gladly love to have.
Destination – Upward and Forward
As an entrepreneur, Mimi believes strongly that “in order to do well, you’ve got to do good”. Every year, she chooses a fund-raising project to donate her company’s time, as well as give discounted rates for charity related projects. Mimi has always been supportive of her community and fellow businesses, and has demonstrated it through her monthly e-newsletter, offering exposure to not only clients, but also many non-client businesses and even competitors for years. “I don’t really see other PR firms as competition; there is enough work to go around. We just concentrate in what we do best,” Mimi explains. This attitude alone has earned Mimi and her company enormous respect among her colleagues in one of the most competitive industries around. In addition, Mimi is on the board of several charities and institutions to advance causes that she believes passionately in. She currently serves on the board of Escape Family Resource Center, Fashion Group International – Houston, Houston Community College Fashion Department, Westwood College Advisory Board, and The Women’s Fund. She is also a member of the Asian Chamber of Commerce, French-American Chamber of Commerce – Houston, National Association for Female Executives (NAFE), the Federation of Houston Professional Women, APAHA (American Pacific Asian Heritage Association), International Special Events Society (ISES), and the Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau.
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A New Beginning
Backed by her crew of carefully selected cohorts, the visionary Mimi was clearly taking 2004 by storm with the celebration of the company’s 5-year anniversary and the expansion of company’s new locale situated in the heart of Houston’s latest bastion of buzz -Midtown. With their new modern, stylish, and functional home poised to play host to Houston’s hippest events, Mikel Marketing began to take their game to a whole new level. Since then, the Mikel Marketing building has been known to have held some of the most high profile events in town.
Despite her upward trajectory, however, Mimi makes it clear that her current achievements are not a final destination but, rather, a new beginning. And with each new beginning, she renews the desire that she acquired in her youth: the desire to do more, to test the boundaries that keep us static, and to push the limits that draw us into complacency.
Update
On November 21, Mikel Marketing commemorated its ten year milestone with a fancy-schmancy soirée in “Perfect 10” style. Bo Derek’s 80s cult movie “10” played soundlessly in the background, setting both tone and theme for the 80s theme.
Staying true to her mantra, “in order to do well, you’ve got do good,” Mimi Dinh, president of Mikel Marketing, chose to incorporate the party with a fundraiser for her favorite charity, ESCAPE Family Resource Center. Dinh has been actively involved with the Center for five years, including service on its board.
Dinh opted to use the occasion to commemorate the pioneering efforts of ten local “innovators.” Each innovator represents the inspiring and sometimes breath-taking achievement of the American Dream by demonstrating that innovation starts with humble ideas and solutions whose successful realization can literally change lives. As Master of ceremony Bob Boudreaux introduced each innovator, and city officials were on hand to present each with a congratulatory certificate from Mayor White.
Innovators included: Chloe Dao, Lisa Godfrey, Dr. Michael Metzker, Ron Merrill, Steve Latham, Farouk Shami, RD Yoder, Elisea Frishberg, Oliver Luck and Michael Holthouse. By showcasing these motivating examples, Dinh hopes to inspire more and more people to become innovators in their own right. Only through invention and continual improvement can Houston and the larger community surmount current challenges in the economy and marketplace.