Marketing guru wants to pump you up Dean Mercado helps coach a community to commercial accomplishment
By Aaron Glickman
May 25, 2007 | 11:46 AM For Dean Mercado, vice president of the Greater Middle Country Chamber of Commerce and the founder and president of Online Marketing Muscle, the seeds of entrepreneurship were sown during his time at Suffolk County Community College. "I decided that a computer-based degree would probably be a good thing, it was an up-and-coming field," he explained. "I was very math- and science-oriented as a young kid, so I figured, let's check it out and see what's going on there." The real turning point, Mercado says, was meeting Professor Frank Cappuccio, himself an entrepreneur. Mercado recalls having been impressed by Cappuccio's lifestyle, "the cars he drove, the way he dressed," but also by "the way he carried himself, the way he spoke." At the time, Mercado thought, "I want to be him, that's what I want." After Suffolk Community College Mercado went to Dowling College to study computer science. He later earned an MBA in total quality management from Dowling as well. Following grad school Mercado spent several years working for a variety of companies before deciding it was time to strike out on his own. That was when Mercado teamed up with Michael Anderson to create Starnet Technologies. Anderson is currently the president of the Middle Country Chamber of Commerce. Though the two of them have since split their business into separate companies, it was a positive experience for both, Mercado said: "We worked together for a few years and we had a blast doing it." Online Marketing Muscle, Mercado's latest enterprise, grew out of a desire to help businesses market themselves and become successful. "I was really dismayed by seeing how many small businesses were failing every day," he explained. The number of failures is "astronomical," according to Mercado. "I wanted to change that somehow, some way, at least in my own community," he said. One of the roles of Online Marketing Muscle is to educate, Mercado said. He organizes public seminars, publishes a newsletter, writes a blog and holds teleseminars. Mercado also helps businesses that want, as he puts it, to "take it up a notch" by working with them as a marketing coach. In this way he can offer assistance in a variety of fields. Whether it's creating a marketing plan, designing an ad campaign or building an internet presence for a company that either wants a website or is unhappy with the results of its current website, that's when Mercado can step in, he says, and guide the business owners or managers along the way to what they really want or what they should be doing. Mercado has been an integral part of the Chamber of Commerce since the early days of its existence, and has helped build it into the organization that it is today. "We started some meetings where there were three, four, five people in the room and that was back in 2002. Through lots of marketing and lots of getting out there and shaking hands and doing our thing, we grew it ... to probably about 160 businesses in the area right now," Mercado said. He sees the chamber as another way, besides his own company, to help the community improve and grow in ways that range from the efforts to improve area roads to being a part of the impetus for the creation of The Times of Middle Country newspaper. "What we realized was that a paper tends to bring a community together. We reached out to [publisher] Leah [Dunaief], expressed what we wanted and helped pull it together," Mercado said. Though proud of his accomplishments as an entrepreneur and business owner, Mercado knows that there is always room for growth and improvement: "Even though I coach people, I have coaches coaching me as well. I think everyone needs to be coached. As smart as you think you are, somebody can always help coach you and keep you on track — and keep things moving forward."