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SANFORD -An aged soda bottling building may seem an unlikely home for an image-savvy marketing company. Further consider that the building is tucked off the Triangle's beaten track in downtown Sanford - population 23,200 at last count - and the site seems even more incongruent.
Location, though, provided advantages - low overhead and community connections - that helped Kelly MarCom ride out its startup years. The seemingly obscure address has even helped to land the marketing and advertising company some business, including the account of neighbor Pentair Pool Products, a manufacturer that employs about 500 workers in Sanford.
Shelley and Jamie Kelly ran the marketing firm out of their Raleigh home for about a year after launching the business in 1996. She wanted to leverage her experience from other marketing agencies. He, a former auditor with the North Carolina Department of Revenue, managed the finances.
The husband-and-wife team relocated the business and their family to Sanford a year later. Jamie Kelly had grown up in the Lee County town. "It was...