Sunrise Communications adds marketing division to services

The owners of Sunrise Communications have now added marketing to the services they offer.

"We're doing lead generation, appointment setting and performing sales activities for other companies," said Eric Rowden, one of the company's two owners.

Rowden and his business partner, John Porteous, opened the marketing division at 4249 S. Glenstone Jan. 8.

Sunrise Marketing employs eight people. Rowden said they hope to expand that number to 32.

Rowden and Porteous also own Sunrise Communications' two locations: 1938 S. Glenstone and 3209 S. Campbell. The Glenstone store opened for business in July 1998. The Campbell location has been open since June 1999. Both locations offer cell phones and AT&T Wireless service.

The cost of cell phones at Sunrise ranges from $49 to $200, with most phones coming with some type of a rebate.

"A $200 phone tends to have all the bells and whistles," Rowden said. "That can mean a phone with video games, text messaging and up to 40 ring tones."

Rowden said Sunrise provides low rates for both the person who doesn't use his cell phone that often as well as the high-end user.

"There are no roaming or long distance charges with our company," Porteous said. "The majority of the country can use their cell phone anywhere without incurring long distance or roaming charges."

Rowden and Porteous said their strategy for staying ahead of their competition is to be aggressive, to take care of their customers and to advertise.

Porteous said they advertise a lot, but that a lot of their business comes from referrals. "Our best salespeople are our customers."

Rowden said there's been more competition in the cellular phone business over the last three or four months, but the competition hasn't kept them from increasing the number of phones they're selling.

"When we first opened, we were selling 50 to 60 phones a month," he said. "Now, we're selling 250 to 300 phones a month. People still think cell phones are expensive, but the rates have dropped dramatically."

Sunrise Communications has a staff of nine: three outside sales representatives and six inside retail salespeople.

Rowden and Porteous said their main goal is customer satisfaction.

"We try to satisfy our customers by being the perfect middleman between them and AT&T," Rowden said.

And they must be doing something right. The company has been the No. 1 AT&T Wireless dealer in Missouri for the last two years, Rowden said.