Careers at CROSSMARK
Mission
Crossmark’s mission is to build connections for growth
History
It’s a North Texas-based company, with over 34,000 employees, that you’ve likely never heard of. The owners of Crossmark would prefer it to stay that way. Their job is to act as the invisible hand that connects consumers to retailers by getting the products that they want to the store shelves where products can be found.
Crossmark’s long and storied history involves a 107-year transformation from a provision store to a marketing and sales giant. The company was originally founded in 1905 as a provisions supplier in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The store acted as the last stop for travellers before they entered the wild Oklahoma Territory.
The company evolved during the first 50 years of its history into a marketing firm that connected manufacturers with retailers. The company’s current president, Joe Crafton, joined in 1988 after spending some time at Proctor & Gamble. The core business of Crossmark remained the same until 1997, when the company acquired a competitor and moved its headquarters from Memphis, Tennessee to Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The company, which was known as Salesmark until then also changed its name to Crossmark in 1997.
Through acquisitions and customer growth, Crossmark became one of the giants in the sales and marketing field. The company has its hands in an array of areas, from data analysis of consumer data to stocking shelves at retailers to setting up product samples for customers. In 2012, the company was estimated to have brought in $700 million in revenue.
It tracks sales data on over 100,000 consumer products in stores worldwide. It would be the 60th biggest company in the United States were it to be publicly-held. Crossmark is currently owned by four equal partners, including Crafton, Don Martin, Ben Fischer and John Thompson. It has offices in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand.