Former Coffee Salesman Perked Up Construction Marketing Standards

A St. Louis pioneer in applying professional business marketing techniques to construction services retired on Aug. 6, the day before his 65th birthday. George Biderman, a Chicago native, originally came to St. Louis to sell Folgers coffee.

After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1968, Biderman served two tours in Vietnam as a Naval weapons, He began his sales and marketing career in 1971 with Procter & Gamble selling Folgers Coffee and was transferred to St. Louis in 1973 where he subsequently met and married Mary, his wife of 35 years. They have two sons, Geoff, 25, and Brad, 28. Brad is an estimator/project manager at XL Contracting and Geoff is completing his MBA at Webster University.

A headhunter placed George at Tarlton Corporation in 1983, at a time when contractors were just beginning to market their services. Using his P&G training that stressed, "Differentiate everything that you do and then flaunt that that difference is better," George began to differentiate Tarlton with clever and unique signage, advertising, and marketing materials. The cartoon signage, for example, that he created in 1985 is still being used by Tarlton.

Tarlton's marketing efforts drew a lot of attention and George became a frequent speaker at the regional and national levels for industry organizations such as the Associated General Contractors and the Society for Marketing Professional Services. He has been named a Fellow in SMPS

George started Biderman Consulting Group in 1993 to help contractors, subcontractors and suppliers better market their services. In 1997, Dan Frisbee, a former Tarlton VP, talked George into coming to work for him at Fru-Con Construction Corporationg to help grow a new building division that Dan started.

In 2002, he was recruited to open a St. Louis office for Raider Precast Concrete, headquartered in West Burlington, IA. He joined McGraw-Hill Construction after Raider was bought out and the St. Louis office was closed after a competitor opened a brand new plant just 40 miles west of St. Louis.

Biderman said he wants to stay in touch with his friends in the industry, and that he will stay active by working a couple of days a week as a sales/marketing consultant. "I have to get out of the house some days: My wife reminds me that she married me for better or for worse, but not for lunch every day!"

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