One of my favorite Woody Hayes quotes (as you know, Woody is a Denison alumnus) is, “You win with people” — and for me the quality, standards and performance of any organization begins and ends with the quality of its people. It is here that I find one of the differentiators between RHB and its competition. Simply put: You hire well. I suspect that seems a rather simplistic comment, but my experience has been that not everyone in the not-for-profit consulting business has the ability or talent to do that well. You do.

We have always found your people to be exceptional — not just in terms of their professional expertise but more importantly their personal qualities. Lots of firms pitch personal approach — you guys live it!

You are well aware of what has happened at Denison over the twenty years that we’ve been a client. Clearly there are many reasons for that positive evolution, but undoubtedly how the College has been portrayed to our external audiences over these many years has been an important part of our success story, and RHB has certainly been a major player in that regard.

When we put out for bid our new family of publications — 8 years ago — I suppose it would have been reasonable to expect your firm to feel it had the inside track — it probably did. But you and your colleagues never treated the process that way. We felt from start to finish you were as hungry for our business then as some who were bidding on us for the first time. To me that goes to ambition — a quality that one does not always observe in such a longstanding business relationship. I think it is easy to get stale. You and your colleagues have been anything but complacent. It seems you guys are energized by creativity.

We have been most pleased with our family of publications — the design elements of our pieces have a consistent look and reflect the high quality that we desire when folks think of Denison. Through the Circles of Influence research exercise, your writers were able to capture the essence of Denison in ways that we had been unable to, up until that point. You were able to meld quantitative and qualitative research into usable and living text.

In the end, our viewbook has been recognized by CASE, and our business card publication (the outcomes piece) has received similar accolades. But in the larger sense, we have been impressed with the “brand look” RHB has provided. I know we don’t make you rich, given how long we retain our publication designs, but perhaps you should consider that confirmation of exceptional work that sustains even the passage of time and generations of students!

I am hopeful that this letter may serve a wee-bit to confirm our real pleasure with your team. We at Denison have enjoyed over two decades of a professional and personal relationship with you. I feel privileged to have had such a talented group of professionals working in collaborative ways with our team over these many years.

Perry Robinson
Vice President and Director of Admissions
Denison University