Professor Markovitz has more than 40 years of experience as a marketing, sales, and business development professional. Before founding his own company, HBM Associates Inc. as a management advisory service in 1981, he directed strategic planning, marketing, sales, administrative and financial activities within various departments of JCPenney and CBS, Inc. He was also the President of a major media barter company, Broadcast Marketing Inc. He created innovative product, marketing, and financial strategies that resulted in increased profitable sales in both domestic and international markets. He primarily serves the needs of privately owned businesses as well as the C suite of public companies. He provides a myriad of marketing, sales, and strategic planning consulting services. His corporate career at JCPenney’s, CBS Inc., and Broadcast Marketing Inc. gave him eclectic experiences in retail merchandising, product development, catalog marketing, financial planning, sales team leadership, media planning and buying, barter trade, business development, and organizational efficiency. His primary area of consulting now is in Direct and Interactive Marketing as well as developing Professional Selling skills.
Award-winning Professor Markovitz’s impact on students studying Direct Marketing can be measured by the more than 150 students who, since 2002, have won individual awards for excellence in Interactive Integrated Direct Marketing Strategy Planning in the DMEF- Marketing Edge International Collegiate ECHO competition. In 2012, He was awarded the Silver Apple award by the Direct Marketing Club of New York for 25 years of demonstrated leadership within the direct marketing industry. Professor Markovitz was awarded the 2005 DMG Award for Outstanding Service to Direct and Interactive Marketing Education presented by Direct Marketers Gateway, Inc. Since 2002, he has been an annual winner of the DMEF-Marketing Edge Collegiate ECHO leadership award. Markovitz earned a Master of Science Degree (with distinction) in Direct and Interactive Marketing from New York University in 1999. He is a specialist in profit improvement through organization development and restructuring, marketing and media planning, financial and administrative processes as well as sales and management training.
Administrative Assignments
Founding Director, Lubin Sales Team.
Lubin is selling, and companies across the country are buying. Professor Harvey Markovitz and students Mariama Diallo and Eduardo Flo sat down with Opportunitas to discuss the considerable accomplishments of the Lubin Sales Team, one of 91Ƶ’s newest and most exciting extracurricular endeavors.
(Reprinted from Opportunitas)
“Think about selling a car, it’s so much more in that,” said Mariama Diallo ’20. “First, you have to believe in your product or solution. Then you have to be motivated.”
“I consider myself a bullfighter,” said Eduardo Flo ’21.
Such are the mantras of the newly-formed, yet already considerably accomplished Lubin Sales Team. Founded in fall 2018, this interscholastic team, led by Lubin Clinical Professor Harvey Markovitz, has been racking up awards at numerous collegiate sales competitions throughout the country—including recognition at Kennesaw State University, Temple University, Duquesne University, The College of New Jersey, and more.
Through these compelling and practically-minded competitions, 91Ƶ students have been taking advantage of what’s proven to be quite a unique opportunity; the competitions enable students to simultaneously hone their professional sales skills, win prize money, and even secure job and internship offers.
Markovitz, who notes that 91Ƶ is the only college in Manhattan teaching professional sales, decided to form a sales team at Lubin after learning about the burgeoning sales competition network that continues to grow across the country.
“I go to various conferences with other professors teaching sales, I learned there’s this whole process amongst universities to develop students to become professional salespeople in a formal manner, to the extent that they can go to competitions and compete with one another,” said Markovitz. “It becomes a huge interscholastic competition network. There are about 120 schools involved.”
From there, Markovitz pitched the idea of forming a sales team to some of his students. The pitch, unsurprisingly, turned out to be quite successful.
“I was in his sales management class, he talked about his sales team, I was happy to see that I would have so many opportunities job-wise, and meet other people that would share the same passion,” said Diallo. “Professor Markovitz gave me the right sales pitch.”
As an international student, Diallo realized that the sales team could potentially open invaluable doors to companies and opportunities—some of which she has already taken advantage of.
“With the sales team, there are a lot of opportunities—winning money, being able to get a job,” said Diallo. “As an international student, it’s really hard to stay here because we need sponsorship. Through this competition, I was able to find companies willing to sponsor me in the future, and I had a wonderful internship this summer with Granite Telecommunications.”
At Granite, Diallo even went on to win an intra-company sales competition amongst interns, first winning the competition amongst the interns in New York, then traveling to Boston to win the company’s national competition.
“I was able to win $1,000 in scholarship money,” said Diallo. “That was a great experience.”
Granite Telecommunications, alongside Guardian Life Insurance, State Farm Insurance, Tom James Co., and View, are the generous external sponsors who help fund the sales team. And while their generosity has been considerable, the companies view their sponsorship as a win-win proposition. By helping fund the team, they gain access to some of the best and brightest salespeople of tomorrow.
“Because we have these sponsors who are very generous, we are able to travel,” says Markovitz. ”What’s in it for the sponsors? They have the opportunity to take our best, hire them, make them job offers. They know these kids are trained to be professional sales-people day one out of school. They’re job-ready.”
After a successful season, the team is looking to continue to spread its wings with competitions across the country, including the national competition at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. Given that last year’s graduating team members secured jobs at UPS and FDM Group, Markovitz is confident that this year’s outgoing batch will continue this new, yet exciting 91Ƶ tradition.
As for the future? Markovitz, Diallo, and Flo all believe the sky’s the limit—both for the continued growth of the team and their own personal trajectories.
“It’s the most exciting thing that’s happening at Lubin right now,” said Markovitz.
DIRECTOR, LUBIN SCHOOL INTERACTIVE/INTEGRATED DIRECT MARKETING (IDM) LAB
FOUNDER AND Direct the activities of the Lubin School's Interactive and Direct Marketing (IDM) Lab. both on the NYC campus and on the Pleasantville campus. This is a student-run marketing agency. The job involves recruiting and training managers, training student interns in how to handle Lab client consulting activities, recruiting clients for the lab, raising external funding for the lab activities (not financially supported by the University).also involves supervising associate director who is an assistant professor. (September 3, 2007 - Present).
Program and Curriculum Development
2020-21: introduced a practicum in his Sales Classes were students work with real clients learning how to open new business for them.
2017: introduced certification in Search Engine Marketing. Allows students to get certified in the professional use of Search Engines and Keyword advertising.
2017: An introduced program to get students certified in the use of "Salesforce.com". world's most popular customer relationship management tool.
Consulting
2017: DealBuiders, Inc., Consulting with the client and functioning as a marketing agency to launch direct marketing campaigns for its targeted marketing and follow up with direct sales activities. Integrated media and marketing strategies to generate qualified leads and conversions to sales. , Massapequa, NY 11758.
2016: Port Sailing School, Consultation on how best to target customers in the NYC metro market using direct and interactive marketing strategies. 403 Main Street Port Washington, NY 11050.
2016: B Squared Printing, 2016- B Squared Printing. Consulting on direct marketing strategy development, writing advertising & direct mail copy, list development and prepared direct marketing mailing; recruited and trained sales team. West 28th Street, NYC.
2015: Oz Moving and Storage Company, Business Planning. Review of financial data, restructured data, the defined value of the company. New York, NY.
2015: BMI Fulfillment Services, 2015-BMI Group Inc. consulting on direct marketing strategy development, writing advertising & direct mail copy, list development, and prepared direct marketing mailing and website consulting. NYC. 51-53 Kenosia Ave., Danbury, CT 06810.
2014: Boca Lago Country Club, Boca Lago Golf Club marketing plan, market research, direct mail copywriting, and plan execution of integrated direct marketing strategy. Boca Raton, FL. Boca Raton, Florida.
October 2015 - Present: Conference Attendance, "Direct Marketing Association Annual Conference", Direct Marketing Association, Gathering of suppliers and industry experts in the field of Direct Marketing.
attended seminars by topical experts, New York, NY, USA, International.
October 2015 - Present: Conference Attendance, "Marketing Edge Conference (Direct Marketing Education Conference)", Marketing Edge, Gathering of Direct Marketing Higher Education instructors as well as presentation of research studies. Presented papers as well.
In November 2018 Professor Markovitz founded the Lubin Sales Team for the purpose of giving students practical selling experience in role-play situations and competing in regional and national collegiate sales competitions.
Markovitz, H., Roman driven cu, E. (2010). The Marketing Continuum. In Ernan Roman (author of book and editor) (Ed.), Voice of the Customer Marketing. (pp. 1). New York: McGraw Hill.
Markovitz, H., Spiller, L.D., Marold, D.W. (2010). Creating Winners for Life: How to Prepare Your Students to Become IDM Professionals by Using the DMEF's Collegiate ECHO Challenge as a Teaching Aid. Journal of Advertising Education. 14(1), 7.
Spiller, L., Marold, D., Markovitz, H., Sandler, D. (2011). 50 Ways To Enhance Student Career Success: In and Out of the Advertising and Marketing Classrooms. Journal of Advertising Education.
Markovitz, H., Long, M., Sandler, D., Fain, D. (2018). The Challenge of Sales and Marketing Silos in University Curricula: A Teaching Perspective. International Journal of Marketing and Sales Education. 1(1), 31-48.
Sandler, D., Markovitz, H., Long, M., Fain, D. (2014). The Intersection of Professional Selling and Direct/Interactive Marketing: Developing Transferable Skill Sets for Students Direct Marketing Association. Conference Proceeding.
Markovitz, H. (2018). Pedagogy and Cold Calling…Teaching students how to make “Gold Calls”. Dayton, Ohio 45420: Sales Educators Foundation.
Lubin is selling, and companies across the country are buying. Professor Harvey Markovitz and students Mariama Diallo and Eduardo Flo discuss the considerable accomplishments of the Lubin Sales Team, one of 91Ƶ’s newest and most exciting extracurricular endeavors.