McBride opens local BBB branch office
Adrian McBride, a former MU and NFL wide receiver and career counselor for student athletes, signed up his first new member, Floyd Hansett, without making a cold call or getting in his car to visit a business owner.
Hansett, owner of Hearing Solutions, walked down the hall of the second floor of Buttonwood Business Center to McBride’s just-opened office and asked to join.
“He was a BBB member years ago,” McBride said. Hansett let his accreditation expire but decided to rejoin after hearing about the local branch, which opened July 29 and serves a nine-county area of mid-Missouri.
However, McBride has an ambitious goal that will require an aggressive sales strategy: increase the number of BBB-accredited businesses in mid-Missouri, now about 250, “several times over.”
The Better Business Bureau is funded by annual membership dues that are based on the number of employees and range from $395 to $820. There is a regional office in St. Louis that serves businesses located in 92 counties of southern Illinois and the eastern half of Missouri.
Chris Thetford, director of communications for the St. Louis office, said the BBB determined that it was difficult to convince business operators that the nonprofit organization provided a valuable resource when its regional office was hours away.
But the BBB is better known for taking complaints about businesses and warning consumers about questionable operations, which the BBB did last year in the case of a Columbia-based office supply company.
The BBB issued an “alert” about “misleading and unethical” telephone sales tactics and overcharging by SVT Inc. The BBB sent out a news release eight months later saying the company appeared “to be continuing to deceive businesses across the nation.” The BBB logged 17 complaints about SVT in one month.
SVT owner Michael O’Keefe initially told the BBB that the complaints represented only a tiny fraction of SVT’s customers, but the organization gave the company an “F” grade, the lowest possible.
Last summer, the BBB said complaints about lengthy shipping delays and poor customer service were sprouting up around a family-owned seed and garden supply business near New Bloomfield. The owners of Heirloom Acres Seeds said the company was overwhelmed with orders and planned to correct the problems. The BBB news release included consumer tips for dealing with time-sensitive orders such as those for seeds and plants.
The BBB also monitors charities and other nonprofit organizations and last month issued a warning about the Missouri Deputy Sheriff’s Association based in Jefferson City. The BBB release said the association representing more than 1,100 law enforcement officers recently contracted with two fundraising companies accused of breaking laws in Missouri and other states.
The BBB also depends on the support of its accredited businesses while monitoring the marketplace. The organization’s mission, Thetford said, is to help provide a business climate that is self-regulating “so the government doesn’t have to be involved in regulating business.”
The members of the local BBB advisory board, which met for the first time on July 29 in the Buttonwood conference room, were chosen from the pool of BBB-accredited businesses in the region. They are:
• Patrick Davidson, terminal manager for Fry-Wagner Moving & Storage in Columbia;
• David Duffy, owner of Loveall’s RV Center in Columbia;
• Ken Ewers of Ewers Tires in Columbia and Jefferson City;
• Bruce Gibbs, president of GFI Digital Inc. in Columbia and Jefferson City;
• Larry Grossman, president of Grossmann Group Ltd. in Columbia;
• Tony Mayfield, president of UMB Bank in central Missouri; and
• Scott Russom of Pella Windows & Doors in Maryland Heights.
McBride and Michelle Corey, BBB’s St. Louis-based regional president, are also on the board.
“We tried to put together people from a wide variety of businesses,” Thetford said. “We hope to expand the board a bit as time progresses.”
To get accredited by the BBB, a business must have been operating for at least 12 months, have the proper competency licenses and be “free from a pattern of complaints,” Thetford said.
McBride will be responsible for media relations and qualifying businesses for BBB accreditation.
McBride, 47, played for MU between 1982 and 1985. He was a parks and recreation major but didn’t get his degree before joining the NFL for two seasons, one with the Cleveland Browns and one with the St. Louis Cardinals.
He and now ex-wife, Julie Dorn, co-founded a nonprofit organization called Life After Sports that helped student athletes prepare for a career and find jobs after graduation. McBride used his experience to help MU athletes avoid the mistakes he made in not preparing for the job market. Thetford called it a compelling story that ended in success.
“It was a phenomenal learning experience, and we tried to teach those lessons to others,” McBride said. They taught student athletes to take the skills they learned while playing team sports “into the real world,” he said.
Now, McBride will be translating the interpersonal skills he’s picked up during the years and use his reputation and contacts with the university community to promote the local BBB.
“My goal is to be a part of the community,” he said, “and try to raise awareness about what the BBB is and what it does, about the workshops and seminars, to work with media and to recruit and retain accredited businesses.”