Tenacity | Client Retention Consultants

John Gamble

Founder, Principal and Managing Director

John Gamble founded Tenacity^® in 1986 shortly after serving as Vice President of Marketing for the Healthcare Nutrition Services division of Aramark Corporation, Philadelphia, PA

While at Aramark, John was confronted with a lack of available third party consulting expertise in helping service companies stem client attrition and improve their relationships with their existing client base. He founded Tenacity^® and developed the Clients for Life^® client retention process to fill this specific need. Today, he is widely regarded as one of the nation’s leading authorities on client retention overseeing Tenacity^®’s training and consulting services to companies throughout the world.

John published his first book "What Your Clients Won’t Tell You ... And Your Managers Don’t Know" in 1995. His second book, "Why Good Clients Fire Great Companies", was published in 2001. His third book, “Vendors sell hot dogs, not management services” will be published in 2009. He continues to devote himself to research into client retention and to lending his expertise to Tenacity’s clients.

John is an outstanding speaker and has delivered key note addresses and workshops to thousands of management service company employees at corporate and association meetings around the world.

He holds an undergraduate degree from Robert Morris College and did his graduate work at the State University of New York

John has three daughters and lives in Roswell, Georgia.

Steve Wurzbacher

Principal & Chief Operating Officer

Steve joined Tenacity^® in 1994 after 20 years of successful senior sales management, marketing and business development experience at Aramark and Procter & Gamble. Along with direct client engagements for Tenacity^®, he serves as the firm’s COO and manages key planning and brand development functions.

The focus of Steve’s speaking is relationship management and client loyalty. While retaining and renewing clients seems obvious, Steve demonstrates why;

• Few companies quantify and analyze the astounding financial leverage of improving retention and renewal of existing contracts.
• Fewer still have a formal retention process that can stand up to highly skilled competitive sales forces that are motivated to take their business away from them.
• Nearly all companies over-invest in new business acquisition and under-invest in client retention and loyalty, when viewed in a true ROI context.

Steve explains, in detail, how the Clients for Life^® client retention process formalizes the understanding and management of client expectations, the cultivation of professional relationships and the pro–active delivery of technical performance.

The Clients for Life^® client retention process helps create and then documents value. Value, in tandem with professional relationship management, creates powerful and sustainable loyalty and profitability. It’s a profound message that can benefit all businesses.

Bill Edmunson

Principal

Bill became Tenacity^®’s fourth Principal in 2002 after retiring as President and CEO of The Wood Company based in Allentown, PA. Bill’s entire career has been spent in the management services industry including executive, general management and operating positions with Aramark, and Greyhound Services. Bill manages direct client engagements in the healthcare, information services and corporate services markets. Additionally, he leads the firm’s extension into MIS support for the Clients for Life^®client retention process.

Bill is a graduate of Purdue University and is a resident of Chicago, Illinois.

He is married with two children and a growing number of grandchildren.

Marty Zobel

Principal

Marty joined Tenacity^® as a Principal and shareholder in 2002. In private industry, Marty has been a Tenacity^® client twice, most recently as Regional Vice President for Randstad, North America, based in Atlanta.

Marty has exceptional experience in the staffing and temporary services industries, where in the position of CEO, he founded, and later sold, two successful companies. He also served as a Division President for two leading International staffing organizations. Along with his client retention work, Marty is leading Tenacity^®’s expansion by adapting the technology of the Clients for Life^® client retention process to the retention of high talent executives.

Marty has a BS in business from Florida State University and an MBA from the University of Alabama.

Marty is married with two sons and lives in Roswell, GA.

John Douglas

Principal, Tenacity International

In 2002, John joined Tenacity^® as the firm’s first Principal in Tenacity^® International based in Toronto, Canada. In this capacity, John manages direct client engagements and provides consulting services to leading service management firms in Canada.

Prior to Tenacity^®, John was Senior Vice President for the Canadian operations of Sodexo, North America and a client of Tenacity^®. Earlier in his career, John was an operating executive with Marriott and acquired wide ranging experience in the corporate, education and healthcare markets..

John holds an undergraduate degree from Concordia University and an MBA from Queens University.

John is married with a daughter, two sons and two grandsons. He lives in Burlington Ontario.