Meet Nicole Mertens and Carmine Iosue of Iosue Associates in Lake Forest

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicole Mertens and Carmine Iosue.

Nicole and Carmine, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Carmine: We started as a strategic consulting firm in 1990 primarily in the retail and telecommunications area. After one year of consulting, our Clients urged us to get into the execution area of retail. My daughter started summer interning at the company while she was at Valparaiso University in 1996 and joined fulltime in 2000.

Nicole: Growing up my father traveled a lot for work and would write me letters telling me about his business meetings and Clients. Occasionally I would get to tag along on his business trips and attend his meetings. This helped to spark my interest in the business. What I learned while interning was that I enjoyed project management and loved getting into the details of the business. I knew working for our family business was what I wanted to do. We have now been working together for over 17 years. My father and I make a great team; he excels at business development and creativity/business solutions while my strength is the details, execution and managing finance.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Nicole: Throughout the years we have faced different challenges and obstacles common with owning our own business. However, we’ve always been able to bring in new revenue streams and clients to broaden our services to our clients.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Iosue Associates – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Nicole: Iosue Associates is primarily a retail solutions company. We do in-store demonstrations, sampling, retail research, merchandising & installation on a national basis. We focus on high quality execution and measurable performance. Many of our competitors view their business as a commodity, we view our business as a results oriented marketing boutique. We employ a great team of professionals who strive for excellence and are known for being very responsive to our clients’ needs.

Carmine: We are most proud of the results we’ve achieved for our Clients in growing major brands and consistently returning ROI.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Carmine: We would like to continue to grow with our clients and offer our employees new opportunities to expand their skills.

Nicole: I feel fortunate to get to work side by side with my father each day and am proud that he and I have been able to expand the business together.

Contact Info:

• Website: iosue.co
• Phone: 847-295-8922
• Email: nicole@iosueassociates.com

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