4 Vets Start One-Stop Consultancy

VENTURA, CALIF. — Four electronics industry consultants with different areas of expertise have banded together to form Cebiz (Cebiz.net), a one-stop marketing development and consulting group for manufacturers, reps, and dealers.

"No agency specializes in consumer electronics advertising, public relations, collateral, sales and marketing, training, and brand building," said John Caldwell, one of the founders. Many of these functions — such as advertising, public relations, and collateral — are often handled by different agencies, making it difficult to coordinate projects, said another founder, Richard Frank.

The two other principals are Kevin Leja and Chris Esse.

Together, the four partners have CE backgrounds in retail, sales and marketing management, editorial, public relations, advertising, and Web-based products and services.

One of their services is web-based distance learning, intended to supplement hands-on training, said Caldwell. It's especially attractive for mid- and small-size companies for which training takes a disproportionate amount of their budgets, he said.

The service features a streaming audio interview of a trainer by a professional moderator, supplemented with an on-screen slide presentation. The interview is webcast live, but archived versions can be accessed any time of the day. The live webcast will feature a chat room to take live questions. The trainer doesn't have to be in the studio to answer moderator questions live.

The company can be reached at (805) 647-3779.