Mitch Bettis is all about niche. He wears a bow tie. He wears red socks. Every day.
His wife, Meg, home-schools their three kids and did it before home-schooling was cool. Or necessary.
He even publishes in niches.
It’s the latter that now sets Bettis and his company — Arkansas Business Publishing Group — apart. In a publishing world turned upside down, ABPG has prospered by filling needs and niches. Explanations to come, but first the bow ties.
Look up Bettis on LinkedIn and there he is, bearded and bow-tied. The beard is recently gone, but the bow tie lives on.
At least one other sort-of employee has taken up the bow tie. He’s Rocko, a small, tan dog who often comes to work with his owner, Shannon Ponder. Rocko has two bow ties, wears one most every day, and can be seen gazing out the office window as life goes by on Second Street in downtown Little Rock.
“Rocko and I typically have a bow tie,” Bettis says. “To be different.”
Rocko isn’t the only dog around the office. Others come to work, too, Bettis says. Chewy. Baby. Thrall. Levon. “There’s lots of research on the calming and communal impact of animals.”
Dogs that are house-trained and well-behaved are welcome. Same for children. ABPG has a kids’ room, right next to Bettis’ office.
“If they can take care of themselves, they can stay there,” he says. He credits his predecessor as ABPG’s owner and publisher, Olivia Farrell, for the idea.
Moms also are important at Arkansas Business Publishing Group — there’s a lactation room as well.
All this welcoming is part of the five-legged stool, a shorthand description of Bettis’ philosophy of business.
THE PUBLISHER AND PROFESSOR
Mitch Bettis’ road to Little Rock had numerous stops along the way. On that road, he managed to achieve two goals he set for himself as a paperboy for Arkadelphia’s Daily Siftings-Herald and as a student at Ouachita Baptist University.
The first goal was to own and publish a newspaper like the late and lamented Siftings-Herald. The other goal was to teach at OBU.
Serendipity helped Bettis achieve that first goal. He was working for a publishing group in Aspen, Colo., when he had a conversation with the owner of the Rio Blanco Herald Times.
“You’re living my dream,” he told the newspaper’s owner. “Two weeks later he called and said have I got a deal for you.”
“I was in love with the idea of publishing a newspaper that would impact peoples’ lives,” Bettis says. Rio Blanco County provided “the essence of what we do in journalism, from the governor visiting to the school lunch menu. I’m very grateful for that.”
Bettis and his family spent 12 years in Rio Blanco County, before which he worked on the second goal by earning a master’s degree in media studies, and a doctorate in the same field, both at Oklahoma State University. Bettis is careful to note the latter is ABD — all but dissertation. Those degrees were earned from 1991 to 1993.
In 2008 and 2009, Bettis was an assistant professor of mass communication at OBU and had the pleasure of co-teaching a class with his “incredible mentor,” longtime OBU professor, author and skeptical journalist Bill Downs.
“I hear his words: Trust no one. Assume nothing. If your mother says she loves you, get a second source.”
Somebody out there loves Mitch Bettis. It appears to be Olivia Farrell, now mostly retired from Arkansas Business Publishing Group and a member of the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame.
“He’s one of the best human beings I’ve ever known,” she says. “He is such a good man it makes me mad — not really. He’s just got a heart of gold, a brilliant mind, and I love him.”
Bettis came to ABPG in 2013, after four years as a regional publisher for GateHouse Media properties in Arkansas and northern Louisiana. He describes Gatehouse, one of the nation’s largest media companies and based in New York, as a stool with only one leg.
“Gatehouse sends everything — revenues and resources — to New York.”
Farrell says an ABPG employee recommended Bettis to her.
“He was so savvy about publishing,” she says of Bettis. “He had so much expertise in publishing and leadership and was such a good person. To tell you the truth we had a 3-hour interview. It’s the only interview I’ve done where I cried. Because he was like a godsend, manna from heaven. I hired him, of course, on the spot and loaded him up with the highest compensation I could come up with.
“I wanted him to run the company and do the day-to-day operations of the company, and he was so vastly superior to me in his expertise and work history. It was like he had a doctorate in publishing.”
In February 2019, Bettis bought ABPG. His company is named Five Legged Stool LLC.
What is the five-legged stool?
It’s doing business with five stakeholders in mind, Bettis says, those being employees, readers, advertisers, vendors and stockholders. He is uncomfortable with the idea that a corporation’s sole purpose is to work for the benefit of its stockholders, he says.
“The best way to run the company is to take care of all the stakeholders, and it would be crippling to make decisions for the benefit of only the stockholders,” Farrell says. “That’s made our company thrive for so many years, and Mitch bought into that.”
“Not to get all Jesus-y, but look at Ephesians 5:21,” Bettis says, which calls on people to be subject to one another.
“We are called to be in service to one another,” Bettis says. “We do a 401(k), have a kids’ room, give raises and have fresh flowers, but the best benefit we can possibly have is to value our employees. We want people to be proud of where they work, and want to be here. It’s why I want Rocko here.
“We’ve talked about vendors, and we’ve pre-paid them so they can have cash flow to help them through a difficult time.”
Ed Choate, chief executive officer of Delta Dental of Arkansas, identifies.
“Mitch is a man of faith, and so am I,” Choate says. “We have had a number of conversations about balancing the duties and responsibilities of our businesses with the duties and responsibilities of our faith.
“And I love the way Mitch has established the culture at Arkansas Business and how he executes it on a daily basis.”
Choate sees Bettis as someone able to walk a fine line.
“As a community, we should appreciate him as a media leader who can tell great stories about companies and individuals who do great things for the people of our state. He also has a duty and obligation to report the stories that are negative, when people we all know have our worst day. That’s when we need a media executive who has heart and needs to be transparent and honest with readers and not be hurtful to the person.”
NICHE PUBLICATIONS
Arkansas Business Publishing Group has roughly 30 titles, published from weekly to annually. Its most prominent publication is Arkansas Business, the weekly publication started in 1984 whose focus is on business of all kinds in Arkansas and whose target audience, Bettis says, is decision-makers.
It also publishes Arkansas Bride, which seeks out as its audience women in their 20s and 30s. Also Little Rock Soiree, a monthly magazine which focuses on society events and nonprofits. Also Little Rock Family. Also Arkansas Next: A Guide to Life After High School. Also, and fresh off the press, Little Rock Guest Guide.
Also … also … also …
“If we do what everyone else does we have no value,” Bettis says. “Our team knows we have to bring something special every day. We want to tell impactful stories no one else is telling.”
ABPG also has a robust online presence, Bettis says. “Both work to give readers something they can’t get anywhere else.”
The plan must be working.
“We’ve had seven consecutive years of record revenue and profit,” Bettis says. “We have been very blessed as a company. I feel optimistic about the future. It’s a difficult time for a lot of people, and I’m not naive to the hurt, but I believe as a community, state and country we can turn the corner.”
People at ABPG have been helping Arkansas Foodbank turn the corner for years, says its chief executive officer, Rhonda Sanders.
ABPG “has always been helpful to us,” Sanders says. “They give us lots of free publicity, and they’re always willing to highlight us in many of their publications. The last couple of years they’ve done fundraisers for us with their employees, which is extremely helpful.
“He’s built that kind of a philanthropic culture in the organization that he leads. He gets the issue about food insecurity, which is why he leads his organization to learn so much about it.”
Food insecurity, Sanders says, “is when people aren’t sure how to feed their family or where their next meal is coming from. It’s hard for students to learn and hard for people to work when they’re worried about their next meal. That’s important to Mitch, and he’s shared that with his organization and that in turn means something to us.”
STILL WORKING FROM THE OFFICE
Meg Bettis home-schools the three Bettis kids: Jackson, 17, Addy, 11, and Elli, 9. Meg is certified to teach kindergarten through eighth grade and taught school for many years.
“She’s gifted in so many ways,” Bettis says about his wife. As a home-school teacher, “she can tailor their learning to their differences.”
It’s niche, so to speak.
ABPG has gone mainstream in one way. About 80% of its roughly 70 employees are working remotely right now.
“Routines have been upset,” Bettis says of working during the covid-19 pandemic. “A lot of parents are working and home-schooling. We haven’t laid anyone off, but spouses have been, so families are stressed.”
Bettis has managed to come to the office every day. In red socks.
“I wear red socks so I can focus my energy on decisions that are important,” Bettis says.
Also because he’s color blind, gets up early, gets to work early and doesn’t want to wake up Meg for a review of his socks.
Considerate husband — yet another niche.
SELF PORTRAIT
• DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: Oct. 16, 1967, at Clark County Memorial Hospital in Arkadelphia.
• I WOULD LOVE TO MEET: Abraham Lincoln; Steve Martin.
• MY ONE GUILTY PLEASURE IS: Playing the online game PUBG with my son and youngest daughter.
• I DRIVE: An Infinity Q50.
• MY WIFE DRIVES: A GMC Acadia.
• EVERY MORNING I MUST HAVE: A few minutes of time to meditate, pray and get ready for the day.
• MY DOG IS A: Jackahuahua (Jack Russell terrier and chihuahua mix).
• HER NAME IS: Hazel.
• WHAT I'M CURRENTLY READING: Only the Paranoid Survive by Andrew Grove.
• WHEN I GRILL, I LOVE TO GRILL: A ribeye from Edwards Food Giant.
• BEST ADVICE TO YOUNG PEOPLE WHO WANT TO WORK IN PUBLISHING: It's a great time to be in our business. Distinctive content and impactful marketing will always be in high demand, but you better have skills that can evolve. Your job today may not be the same next month or next year.
• I WEAR A BOW TIE BECAUSE: Most people don't. Be different.
• ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: Determined
High Profile on 05/03/2020