Our history
John Lenser, a multi-talented entrepreneur who founded The San Francisco Music Box Company and has served as CEO of several well-known catalogs, started LENSER in 1994. With corporate offices located in San Rafael, California just north of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge, LENSER became well-known for their expertise in performing cutting edge catalog circulation management, especially relating to the use of cooperative database such as Abacus.
With his reputation spreading, in 1997, John began adding highly experienced circulation managers to his staff to address the needs of a growing number of catalog companies retaining LENSER to perform general consulting and complete their day-to-circulation tasks. In the course of preparing our customers’ circulation plans, we at LENSER became increasingly frustrated with the inconsistent service and expertise provided by a variety list brokers with whom clients had prior relationships. As a result, we launched our list services department to provide the exceptional and customized service we expect.
With both retained and project consulting assignments growing, Bill Nicolai, a well-respected catalog consultant and industry leader, joined LENSER as a partner in 2001. Bill was the founder, owner and co-founder respectively of three catalogs, Early Winters, Orchids Only, and Good Catalog all of which he grew and successfully sold. As a consultant he had helped numerous catalog companies grow including Smith & Hawken, State Line Tack and J. Peterman.
With continued growth in all areas of multi channel marketing, LENSER brought in Geoff Wolf, Al Bessin, Michelle Farabaugh, Mitch Siegler and Carol Worthington-Levy, all of whom had extensive industry experience and all who are well-known in the industry. This consulting team has allowed LENSER to take on major consulting projects for some of America’s largest direct marketing and retail companies.
Together, you work with a team of partners that are industry professionals with more than 100 years of combined experience as the CEOs and CMOs of numerous multichannel direct marketing companies. The phenomenal success of LENSER is based on the firm’s ability to sell for their clients through various business strategies such as circulation, merchandising, marketing, operations, financial planning and diverse special studies. LENSER continues to expand its capabilities to consult and provide a wide spectrum of services.
With these services, LENSER can fully develop catalogs from A to Z and to help brick-and-mortar retailers and Internet pure plays exploit their databases with direct mail marketing. LENSER can develop e-commerce or fine tune existing programs for catalog and retail companies. We work with numerous companies and private equity firms to develop company valuations, strategic business plans and budgets appropriate for both effective business management and the sale or acquisition of companies.
By 2007, LENSER has become the premier multichannel firm. LENSER will provide quality service and value to you that will result in reduced risk, rational growth, improved performance and a better bottom line. We fully recognize that your success is our success. You name the project and LENSER will have the right experience to push you to the next level of growth.