Robin: Hello and welcome to this edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies. I’m here today with Thao Costis, CEO of SEARCH Homeless Services. So Thao welcome to Brandonomics.

Thao: Thanks for having me.

Robin: Now it’s really exciting for you guys, SEARCH Homeless is about to move building into a new facility and I want you to talk a little bit about why that move might be important for the organization; what are you gaining?

Thao: What are we gaining? Well we’re gaining a lot of efficiency for one thing and an environment that is more conducive to our strategic focus right now. So our building that we’ve been in for 20 years is more than what we need, it has housing and now our model is to bring the services to our clients rather than have them have to come to us.

Robin: It’s good that you brought that up because the mission for SEARCH Homeless is to actually end homelessness in Houston and that doesn’t always happen through the use of a physical structure.

Thao: Right, right, so in the early years we had a day shelter because there wasn’t one; there wasn’t a place for people to go. So now though, we have evolved so much into ending homelessness – which means housing – so we have people living in apartments so our services are there mostly.

Robin: So this is a really exciting move, not only for the employees but for the constituents that you’re helping, how are you communicating to the employees and the staff so that they can share this message themselves? Because it’s not just you out there spreading the word, you have to help them spread the word too.

Thao: Right, right, so yes, it’s always sharing the strategic message or the story in a very simple way which for us is to have people into permanent housing, get back to work and achieve independence. And so with that long term goal our services are all geared towards that now. And so our movement into the new building is supporting those efforts.

Robin: And it sounds like you’ve done a great job then succinctly communicating that so everyone remembers those 3 key points.

Thao: yes, we are all pretty clear on the long term outcome for our clients and not just meeting and managing crisis.

Robin: Well great, thank you so much for recapping all that and good luck with the move.

Thao: Thank you.

Robin: This has been another edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies.