Our clients benefit by saving time, reducing costs, and becoming more competitive in today’s business climate.
We are highly focused on helping organizations achieve four primary goals:
Attract and Retain TOP Performers
EQUIP Leaders to Lead High Performance Teams
UNLOCK Outcomes for Greater Innovation
Have "RAVING FAN" Customers
About us
We have helped hundreds of businesses for 30+ years with leadership development, strategic planning, teamwork training, and talent management through award winning, easy-to-administer tools. We believe in a “work with” not “do to” philosophy of engaging leadership teams and organizations. Our best work comes from collaboration rather than command and conflict. We work with our clients to understand their organization, their people, their current processes, and their culture. Using best practices in utilizing technology, team building, and leadership development tools, we help our clients work as a team and empower them to achieve their desired outcomes with a people-first approach.
Our Story
The Vantage Group is a company founded with the passionate belief that leading and working in an organization shouldn’t be a day-to-day struggle filled with frustrations, but rather an opportunity to live into your purpose, better yourself, your employees, and your community. Over the past 30 years, we’ve perfected the art of empowering people-first organizations with a deep understanding of leadership and team development and celebrating the uniqueness of individuals. This goes a long way toward employees achieving superior performance and overall satisfaction and a desire to grow. We know it’s the talent inside your doors that moves the needle and makes a direct impact on everything you do.
Our Evolution
As a small business with strong business acumen and generalist capabilities, we had grown accustomed to pivoting regularly to be all things to anyone that wanted our help. In 2021, we recognized it was time for us to refocus our energy to better communicate our areas of expertise and do more of what we love and are great at. We knew that our need to focus was just as important as staying nimble for our clients and has been critical to our continued growth and success. The result of our refocused efforts allows us to offer effective solutions to our clients in Talent Management + Optimization, Equipping Leaders through development programs, training workshops and 1:1 coaching and Unlocking Outcomes through strategic planning and growth frameworks. This refocus of our time and energy has allowed us to better communicate and represent the work we do through an update to our logo and tagline in addition to several visual representations of our work.
Our values
Do what we love every day
If we don’t love it…then why are we doing it?
Do “with” not “to”
Collaborate, listen and learn together both internally and externally.
Integrity:
Do the right thing every time!
Honesty:
Speak the truth in love and sometimes with a 2×4.
Continuous Improvement:
We are dedicated to look for opportunities to help as many people as possible become a better versions of themselves (200 Lives).
Level up the value we provide through our own personal development and services provided to our clients.
MEET OUR TEAM
Missy Jackson, THDC, TEQC
President, Managing Partner
Missy is a solution-focused strategic architect who is passionate about supporting people in their personal and professional growth. She has more than 20 years of experience in developing clients and partners, from multi-million-dollar businesses to coffee growers in Central America. She is a certified analyst for Behaviors, Driving Forces, Acumen and Emotional Quotient assessments applying the DISC. She also holds a master certification in The Prioritized Leadership development program as well as being a certified Growth Curve Specialist. Missy also specializes in improving business processes and applying a lean approach to solving problems. This combination of skills allows her to connect with all stakeholders in a multidimensional, strategic manner leading to the successful achievement of desired outcomes.
Prior to joining The Vantage Group, Missy worked as the Lead of Sales Enablement and Strategic Selling Programs as well as the pioneer Sales Performance Systems Manager for Herman Miller’s lean process expansion into Sales. She created leadership and development processes and training systems, led cross-functional teams on continuous improvement journeys and collaborated with senior leadership on formulating incentive and growth strategies. She also served as board chair of Health and Well-Being for the Herman Miller Cares Foundation. Prior to Herman Miller, Missy spent 8 years working in the commercial and residential construction industry serving in multiple capacities including sales and project management.
Missy’s passion for people is evident when looking at her history within non-profit and small business sectors. Shortly after graduating from Calvin College, Missy co-founded and managed a direct trade specialty coffee business sourcing from small-scale farmers in Central America. Currently she is serving as President for A.Y.A. Youth Collective board of directors and is an active member of several other community groups.
Connie Sattler, Ed.D.
Change Management Consultant
Darrell Crawford, THDC, TEQC
Founder, Managing Partner
Darrell has more than thirty years of experience consulting entrepreneurial startups, global corporations and family-owned businesses. He is a certified personal Formula for Success coach, a certified Myers-Briggs® Type Indicator Practitioner, and a Personality Behavior, Motivators and Acumen Index analyst applying the DISC assessment tool. He and his team currently have worked with over 150 businesses helping them make better hiring decisions, retain employees, coach leaders, and strengthen executive teams.
Prior to founding Vantage, Darrell was a certified coach and board facilitator for The Alternative Board and founded the first TAB Boards in Michigan. He gained advertising and marketing experience with various firms as an account executive and advertising agency president, working on national automotive, retail and packaging accounts. Darrell helped develop the groundwork for two West Michigan advertising agencies and was responsible for directing the acquisition and management of several key accounts. His expertise in developing sales teams for the agencies translated into millions of dollars in sales throughout the more than 15 years he led these organizations.
He has also served as a guest lecturer at Michigan State University and as a conference speaker on subjects relating to marketing and sales, hiring, and developing next generation leaders in family-owned businesses. He currently conducts workshops for marketing, sales, Dynamic Communication and Strategic Planning throughout the United States.
Yvette Emelander
Senior Customer Experience Consultant
Yvette is a well-rounded corporate executive with more than 25 years of leadership experience that spans Finance, Operations, Sales, and Service. Throughout her career, her passion for customer experiences, outcomes, and retention has unfolded. Yvette’s experience and business acumen lends itself well to creating strategy, vision and promoting cross-functional teams and programs with focus on the customer journey. She is often recognized, both internally and externally, as being a leader in creative problem solving and solutions resulting in long-term customer retention.
Prior to joining The Vantage Group, Yvette worked as Vice-President of Business Growth for a startup furniture company which catered to a diverse group of customers across Consumer, Retail, and Contract markets. Prior to that, she was the longtime Executive Leader for several service departments within Miller Knoll (previously known as Herman Miller during her tenure).
Yvette also has a passion for serving others and specifically for nonprofit organizations. She currently serves as a Volunteer Board Member for an organization that seeks to help end poverty and homelessness within her community.
Randy Kimbler
Vice President, Senior Sales Management Consultant & Sales Coach
Randy is a senior sales consultant and sales management practice leader in the Multi-Channel Customer Engagement area with more than 25 years of experience in Sales, Sales Management and Sales Training. He is experienced working with clients in numerous industries, including health care, technical services, and food supply. He is recognized for developing multiple sales teams through coaching, management, and national sales training programs. Along with his significant experience in developing sales teams, he has broad knowledge and experience developing sales tracking programs, online software tools and helping organizations implement CRM programs. He has presented at industry conferences, workshops and seminars, and has led the design, development and delivery of multi-dimensional cross-functional solutions to clients, bringing together Strategy, Sales Process Design, Sales Team Development, and improving Sales Team Hiring practices.
Prior to joining Vantage, Randy worked with many of the State Sales Operations for Aflac and helped bring some of their largest sales teams from mediocre performance to being top performing teams for the company. He has also developed two online software programs to evaluate sales team performance and a CRM phone application. He has broad technical and statistical experience in developing sales dashboards to aid in better sales management.
Kristen Nitz
Kristen Nitz, Engagement and Operations Strategy Consultant; Emerging Leader Specialist
Kristen has over 20 years of experience in healthcare leadership. She is passionate about inspiring and coaching individuals to become the best versions of themselves, and helping leaders to be impactful in their own leadership roles. Kristen believes in the power of influencing the culture around us to drive results, and building healthy and productive teams.
Kristen’s extensive experience has fueled her drive to develop and coach new and upcoming leaders. She is particularly passionate about mentoring individuals who are new to leadership and its concepts, helping them to create a vision for their leadership, establish a foundation for their own leadership values and style, and provide them with tools and concepts to lead more confidently and effectively. Kristen has diverse experience in result-oriented and solution-based operations strategy. She has worked with start-up non-profits, creating organizational structures and foundational elements. She has also led businesses through acquisitions and coached other leaders through change. As a coach, Kristen helped leaders develop and implement winning strategies that consider the goals of the business and the people
involved.
Kristen has held leadership positions at various levels, including front-line leadership, regional directorship, and VP of Operations, prior to joining Vantage. She is particularly passionate about dementia education and care and is a Certified Dementia and Alzheimer’s Practitioner Trainer. Kristen has worked to equip and educate clinicians and family members about dementia to enable them to provide compassionate and effective care confidently. She has also led in different healthcare environments, including home care, senior living, hospice, community health, and hospitals. Her varied experiences have equipped her to understand and meet leaders wherever they are on their leadership journey.
While working with The Vantage Group over the past five years, my company has grown an additional $2.5MM, we’ve established a national client base, and our net margin as a percent of revenue doubled. Their advice, sympathetic ear, external perspective, and occasional kick-in-the-pants has been a critical part of our success.
OUR MISSION
Our mission is to engage leaders in creating an environment for their people to flourish and therefore own and deliver their part in the strategy of the organization.
The result is a unified team that has high morale, clarity of purpose and focused goal execution and an organization that attracts top talent as well as “raving fan” customers.
Vantage has been instrumental in helping us with our succession planning. We now have a clear roadmap for development and leadership preparation for future generations of our family.