Benny Traub has made three significant contributions to the advertising industry. First, he developed a direct-response fax advertising platform that enabled SMB's (small/medium size businesses) to reach out to local businesses with little or no advertising cost. During its active life-cycle, hundreds of millions of dollars of goods were sold via fax marketing with near-zero advertising cost. Traub was a forerunner of this movement and his technology platform was duplicated across North America and thousands of SMB's were able to launch new products and compete in verticals that traditional advertising costs would have otherwise made impossible. Secondly, Traub was a pioneer in the CRM field. Traub's 'Cyclone' software, which he developed in the early 90's, automated many CRM functions commonly found today in enterprise level CRM software, but were then unheard of. Finally, Traub was an early promoter of the concept of integrating direct marketing principles into traditional advertising in order to build greater accountability into ad budgets. Benny Traub's two educational programs 'Million Dollar Marketing Plan' and 'Promotional Power' were responsible for shaping the thinking of the many senior executives who saw him live back in his lecturing years, or who obtained the series on video or 'tape' (yes, back in the cassete and VHS days).
Credit to R. Theim who compiled many of the bio and references below while employed by Traub.
Benny Traub
DOB: Sept 16, 1963
Birthplace: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Nationality: Canadian
Occupation: Serial entrepreneur, pioneer in new technologies for the marketing industry, and direct-response marketing expert, author and speaker.
Benny Traub, a Canadian entrepreneur and marketing industry technology pioneer, has more than 20 years of executive-level marketing and technology experience. He has provided marketing and consultancy services to offices of Shell Oil, General Motors, United Way and Century 21.1
Traub has founded or controlled seven ventures in advertising, direct response marketing and high-tech companies in Canada, the United States and Australia. At the peak of the 1999-2001 tech boom, he ran an incubation firm that took two entities public.2 His companies were traded on the OTCBB in North America and the Frankfurt stock exchanges.3 Before the 2001 global technology market meltdown, Traub’s net worth was in the hundreds of millions of dollars and he was on the cusp of becoming a significant player in the high-tech business incubator space.4
In addition to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Traub has been an advertising consultant, software developer and university lecturer on the topic of using technology to build greater accountability into advertising budgets.
Early Career
Traub began his career in 1980, selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door. He distinguished himself quickly and was promoted to management. A year later, he was named “Sales Manager of the Year” for first-year managers within the Northern Pacific Marketing Network for MacLean-Hunter, one of Canada’s leading communications companies before its 1994 acquisition by Rogers Communications.5
In 1983, Traub became sales manager for Consumers United, a consumer advocacy group in British Columbia. Three years later, he was named marketing director for the organization’s publishing division, overseeing business development for the group’s monthly magazine and weekly publications. In 1987, Traub became marketing director for the Town Centre of Prince George, British Columbia, the economic and transportation center of northern British Columbia.6 In this role, he had responsibility for creative and strategic direction of corporate advertising campaigns representing more than 700 businesses in the region. A year later, at the age of 25, Traub became the organization’s youngest ever President, an elected post, representing the group of businesses before regional and provincial governments.7
Technology, Consulting and Educational Career
Traub founded his first company in 1989, SRM Full Service Marketing, a market research firm that developed and launched the Index of Public Opinion, (IPO) a quarterly omni-bus market research system for high-ticket retail and personal-service product lines.8 The service was based in Prince George BC. In 1990, Traub sold IPO to a local agency, Muntner Advertising, moved to Vancouver, BC, and met his soon-to-be wife, Carmen. Together they founded the advertising agency, ImageNation Media Corp., (eventually incorporated in 1992), which grew to become one of western Canada's largest direct response marketing agencies.9 Also around this time, Traub developed a personalized, mass faxing, direct response advertising platform. This technology was the first of its kind in Canada.10
In 1993, Traub became an early pioneer in the automation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), when he developed “Cyclone,” a hardware/software-based technology platform that automated critical CRM11 functions found today in many enterprise-level CRM products, but which were unheard of at that time.12
In 1992, Traub began writing and lecturing on the topic of relationship marketing and greater return on investment accountability in advertising. From 1994 to 1997, he lectured frequently at Canada’s Simon Fraser University13 in cooperation with the Business Development Bank14, owned by the Federal Government of Canada. Traub developed a university-level lecture series titled, “How to Build a Million Dollar Marketing Plan,”15 which promoted his call for greater advertising accountability, and established him as an ardent promoter of “call-tracking”16 and performance-based marketing. In 1995, he created a recorded educational series, “Promotional Power,” which focused on the-then unique integration of direct marketing strategies within traditional image-and-awareness-based advertising campaigns, facilitating a greater measure of accountability within ad budgets.17
Public Markets Career
In 1997, Traub founded his third and fourth companies, Cyclone Financing Group, Inc., and Wealthy Investor Network, Inc., respectively, which were holding companies for his growing equity assets. Cyclone Financing Group morphed into a business incubator, seeking high-potential technologies nearing commercial viability, with the intention of taking those companies public through reverse-merger.18 On October 27, 1999 Traub purchased majority control of a publicly traded shell company, Phoenix Resources Technologies, Inc. (PRTI) for $300,000, payable to the company, and an additional undisclosed sum to other private share sellers19. Traub then served as its first chairman and CEO.20 While at the helm of PRTI, he restructured the stock, acquired the rights to a software company, installed a management team, raised start-up capital in excess of $2.5 million and took the company’s stock price from an average of less than $0.05 per share in 1999 to a high of more than $21 in 2000, in the process creating fortunes in the tens of millions for early shareholders.21
In February 2000, PRTI exercised its option to purchase 50% of San Diego, Calif.-based HHPN Development Corporation, for $2.5 million, with a further option to acquire the remaining 50% of the company within two years.22 HHPN had developed a state-of-the-art software application with the code name “DBPanacea” that enabled faster and lower-cost development and deployment of database-driven Web sites and Web-based business applications,23 which at the time were leading-edge technologies.
Traub successfully obtained stock analyst support for PRTI24 which undoubtedly fueled PRTI’s meteoric stock performance. He recruited a corporate management team that included several heavy hitters from the technology industry, then resigned from PRTI25 to continue his work with other start-up business ventures.
In August of 2000, Traub’s Cyclone Financing Group purchased control of publicly traded North American Resorts, Inc.26, another shell company. He subsequently changed its name to Immulabs27 and transformed it into a development-stage biotechnology company with the goal of commercializing discoveries that cured or treated immune disorders and other diseases28. In November 2000, PennyStockProfits.com wrote of Immulabs, “Many people say how they wish they could have bought Microsoft, Dell, or AOL in their infancy, a mere thousand dollars invested would now be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well, IMLB may not be the next Microsoft, but its situation is definitely similar and very intriguing. Immulabs Corporation is merely a couple months old, and it has already shown strong signs of promise. They are currently being managed by the respectable Cyclone Financing Group, Inc. CFGi has set out a very detailed and aggressive business plan for Immulabs and has followed it to a "T" so far.”29 On the weight of this and similar analyst reports, the price of Immulabs’ stock soared from less than 10 cents to $13 a share, generating market capitalization in excess of $100 million.30 In late November 2000, Traub sold a significant majority ownership to Aggressive American Capital Partners, Inc.31 and resigned his positions with the company.32
Traub’s exit from management of these two companies was prescient. Although both were performing well when he decided to move on to other business interests, they became casualties of the 2000-01 tech market implosion, and eventually failed along with countless other more established companies in the tech space. The portion of Traub’s personal fortune that continued to be tied to those companies was greatly reduced.
Recent Business Activities
Benny Traub also holds real estate investments and has continued to promote various technology ventures. In 2003, he acquired the rights to purchase a mining technology purported to be able to extract gold and other precious metals from mining waste. His option was contingent upon third-party validation of the technology, which turned out to be uneconomic with most waste-ores, and Traub chose not to acquire the technology.33
In early 2009, Benny's company, Monetelize Inc,34 developed a technology platform designed to automate the deployment dot-tel domains local-search directories, similar to internet yellow pages. Traub’s technology platform, “telgooey,” is an application suite leveraged by Monetelize to manage more than 1000 mobile-compatible directories.35
In the spring of 2009, Traub purchased the domain name paypercall.org36, intending to enter the pay per call advertising space. His Company, AdverCalls Inc., is an online advertising37 company which provides performance-based, interactive advertising system for businesses across the United States. Recent promotions include national campaigns for Sears, Lennox and Paychex.
Personal Life
Benny Traub currently lives between Los Angeles, CA and his home in the ski resort of Whistler, Canada.37
References