PowerHouse Sound opened in 1987 as a music recording studio. In 1989, the company entered the then-new On Hold Messaging industry, changing its name to PowerHouse Productions. With a continued focus on growth, the name was changed once again in 1998 to better reflect the nature of the company’s services. The name was BusinessVoice.
President Jerry Brown founded the agency after spending more than a decade in telecommunication sales. First, as a Major Account Executive with Norstan Communications, and now in the same role with BusinessVoice, Brown subscribes to Ken Blanchard's "Fortunate 500" concept of building win-win relationships. It was this underlying philosophy that served as the basis for the agency’s success and rise to prominence in the OHM industry.
In 1998, BusinessVoice created its own Web Design and Development arm. The department's flagship service, Web Audio Messaging, applies the human voice to websites as a navigation and marketing tool.
In the fall of 2000, BusinessVoice purchased new headquarters, a four-story building in the heart of Toledo’s uptown district.
We joined the fledgling On Hold Messaging Association in 2002, a year after it was formed. BusinessVoice President Jerry Brown served as OHMA Vice-Chair in 2003 and 2004, OHMA Chairman in 2005, and as the Marketing Committee Chairman from 2003 to 2006. He continues to be one of the organization’s guiding forces.
In 2003, BusinessVoice began stressing the importance of building customer share - rather than always focusing on growing market share - by “meeting” clients and prospects at the entry points to a business, whether with information, guidance, marketing messages or an improved experience. We coined the term Point-Of-Entry Marketing to describe this concept.
In the fall of 2004, we joined with the former Apogee Marketing Group to form our own in-house website company, WebArt. With a strong commitment to creating long-term online success, the WebArt team designs and builds websites, and then makes sure they continue to meet our clients' online marketing goals by providing ongoing Search Engine Optimization and Website Marketing. WebArt also provides many other web-related services.
In recent years, we've added several services that are consistent with our approach to building customer share. They include Aroma Marketing and LobbyVision In-Store Video. We also provide "headlines on hold" via the BusinessVoice News Network, as well as BE-Mail Email Marketing.
Today, BusinessVoice serves 6,000 client locations worldwide in a number of industries, including:
