Don Peppers

Peppers graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1972 with a B.S. degree in astronautical engineering, and earned a master's degree in public affairs with a concentration in foreign policy from Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs in 1974.[1]

Peppers's career in advertising began at Saatchi and Saatchi in 1982 as an account executive. Two years later, he moved to Levine, Huntley, Schmidt & Beaver, where he was new business director and gained a reputation as a rainmaker. In 1988, he moved to Lintas as an executive vice president and in 1990 to Chiat/Day/Mojo as worldwide head of new business development.[2]

In finding new business, Peppers gained a reputation for his self-promotion and outrageous tactics, such as sending flowers to prospective clients and putting life-sized cardboard cutouts of himself outside their homes, according to The New York Times.[2] In 1995, he drew on these experiences in a book on sales techniques, Life's a Pitch...Then You Buy.[3][4]

With co-author and business partner Martha Rogers, Peppers wrote a series of business books beginning with The One to One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time published in 1993, which helped popularize customer relationship management as a marketing strategy.[5]

Rogers and Peppers founded the consulting business Peppers & Rogers Group together in 1992. Bob Dorf joined the firm in 1993 and became its president.[6] The company was headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut before moving to Norwalk, Connecticut in 2000. At that time it had 178 employees in Connecticut and 218 worldwide.[7] TeleTech Holdings, Inc. purchased an eighty percent stake in the company in 2010.[8]

Peppers was named to the first "Forty Under Forty" list published by Crain's New York Business. Peppers was inducted into the Data & Marketing Association (formerly Direct Marketing Association) Hall of Fame, along with Seth Godin and Martha Rogers.[9][10][11][12]

• The One to One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time (1993) with Martha Rogers[5]
• Life's a Pitch...Then You Die (1995)[4]
• Enterprise One to On: Tools for competing in the Interactive Age (Doubleday, 1997) with Martha Rogers (professor)[13]
• The One to One Fieldbook: The Complete Toolkit for Implementing a 1 to 1 Marketing Program (Doubleday, 1999) with Martha Rogers and Bob Dorf
• The One to One Manager: Real-World Lessons in Customer Relationship Management (Doubleday, 1999), with Martha Rogers
• Peppers, Don; Rogers, Martha (2001). One to One B2B: Customer Development Strategies for the Business-to-business World. Capstone. ISBN 978-1-84112-312-7.
• Customer Experience: What, How, and Why Now (BookBaby, 2016).
• Peppers, Don; Rogers, Martha (2022). Managing Customer Experience and Relationships: A Strategic Framework. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-119-81533-4.
• Peppers, Don; Rogers, Martha (2012). Extreme Trust: Honesty as a Competitive Advantage. Portfolio/Penguin. ISBN 978-1-59184-467-9.
• Peppers, Don; Rogers, Martha (2008). Rules to Break and Laws to Follow: How Your Business Can Beat the Crisis of Short-Termism. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-470-22754-1.
• Peppers, Don; Rogers, Martha (2005). Return on Customer: Creating Maximum Value from Your Scarcest Resource. Doubleday/Currency. ISBN 978-0-385-51030-1.