Aglow Marketing's Blog

Take care of your employees and you take care of your business. A lesson from John Mackey.

This morning I was reading my newsletter from the Harvard Business Review and a new interview title caught my eye, "What Is It That Only I Can Do?".  I took the bait and clicked.  The article highlights the co-founder and co-CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey.  I watched the short video (included above) and really resonated with what Mackey has to say about management's job at Whole Foods.  Even if you're a solo business owner, this still applies to you!  Mackey says it's to:

- Hire Good People

- Make sure they are Well-Trained inTheir Work

- So That They Flourish in the Workplace and Give Great Customer Service

Seems like common sense. right?  I thought so until I recalled the traditional jobs I've had (working for someone else) where every time it was "sink or swim".  As in, you figure it out and see if you can make it work here.  Also, that it's up to you to determine what makes this place unique and better than our competitors.  Both of those, in hindsight, were a big no-no. 

One of our favorite tasks at Aglow is doing a strategy session for this very reason.  It gives us a chance to help businesses (of any size) really see who they are in the marketplace and what they plan to accomplish while there (and yes, you need to be specific).  Then we really encourage our clients to share and implement these ideas with their team.  When your team can better speak to what you do (and it should be the same message no matter who tells it) and know what you're looking for (rockin' clients that can't wait to use you), they can spend more time building your business rather than trying to figure out exactly what it is you do.

We'll Do Good One Way Or Another...

After 2 months of your amazing voting support, the race for the Pepsi grant has come to an end. While we didn't finish in the top 10, the Do Good for Indiana story is far from over.  We are more dedicated than ever to bring the program to life in 2011.  

We are in the process of working with  CanINE Express, Indy Reads, Jameson Camp and Seeds of Hope to formulate a new plan to launch this program next year.  It might not be as big as we'd initially hoped for, but it will still be meaningful and have great impact.   In time, we also plan to reach out to corporate sponsors to help us in expanding the program.

Again, many, many thanks for your votes and emotional support during these last 2 months.  To get a sense of the impact we've made…we’ve had:

• 944 Visits to the Do Good for Indiana Web Site
• 358 Unique Visitors to the Web Site
• More than 160 subscribers to our daily voting reminder
• 70 views of our Do Good for Indiana You Tube Video
• 61 Daily Voting Reminders, which is given new exposure to our great non-profit groups
• Who knows how many votes on refresheverything.com!

Even if you did not get a chance to vote or if Do Good for Indiana is new to you, we hope you'll come along with us in 2011 as we tell the stories of these non-profits.  If you have any suggestions, resources, ideas or would like to help, please don't hesitate to contact us.  We'd love to hear from you.

Have you heard the good news in Indy?

When I went to bed last night, it was with the joy of another Halloween behind us and too many pieces of candy in us.  Yet, I knew today the more than the sugar rush would be over.  Our chances of winning a $50,000 Pepsi grant for 4 Indianapolis non-profits would be gone along with the bags of Halloween candy given out last night. 

But imagine my surprise this morning when there were a couple more treats to collect on behalf of Do Good For Indiana.  Through all the amazing supporters last month we cleared the top 100 and landed in another round of voting through November.  Plus we made a big leap forward to #75!

So, if you voted for us last month, thank you.  A huge and sincere THANK YOU! because we wouldn't even have this second chance without you.  If you'd like to keep helping us this month, here's all the details you'll need:

1. Sign up for a daily voting reminder (short & sweet every day!)
2. Vote online on Pepsi's Refresh Everything site
   
3. Send text to: 73774 with text message of 103035. (You send the text, they send a confirmation text back.)
4. Vote via Facebook by installing the Pepsi Voting App

We look forward to seeing how November plays out - hopefully with a big win for CanINE Express, Indy Reads, Jameson Camp and Seeds of Hope!

5 Hints to Make Your Marketing Message More Compelling

I recently attended the Master of Business Online Conference, and thoroughly enjoyed the variety of presentations ranging from InBound Marketing to Mobile Marketing.  However, my favorite session of the day was a bold talk on “How to Make Your Story Not Suck” by Don Schindler.  Don’s engaging talk really pulled me in, just like any great story can do, which ironically was the entire point of the discussion. 

 The session was a great reminder of how quickly we can forget how important the story is behind our marketing.  It can be all too easy to jump into a tactic without slowing down and making sure the messaging is interesting and touches our audience.  All great strategies are a loss if the story is wrong.

 Here are 5 quick takeaways that will help your copy read less like an ad and more like a best seller:

1) Ask Questions – Don previewed the Notre Dame “What would you fight for?”  ad campaign and brought up the brilliant point that people simply cannot stop themselves from answering question. Incorporate questions into your marketing to get your audience engaged immediately.

2) Pull from well known story genres – People love reading mysteries, comedies, and romance novels.  They don’t get as excited about reading lists of features and benefits.  Stop boring your audience with the dull bullet points of your business and wow them with the emotional pull of your company told in a completely different way. 

3) Make Your Company the Hero – What problem is your product or service helping to solve?  You are a superhero in someone’s eyes, so think through what evil you are helping to rid the world of and go with it.

4) Use Storytelling Techniques - Write your content following the techniques of every great storyteller:  Set the scene quickly, hook them with the conflict & rising action leading up to the climax, and then recount the resolution to the problem. Don highly recommends reading The Story Factor for even more insight into this inspiring way of writing.

5) Write Differently – When you consider how you are writing about your product or service, break away from how you have described it before.  Rip away all of the marketing fluff.  Think about new and interesting ways to position yourself that are not only interesting to the reader, but also make you stand apart from the competition. 

Here's to great storytelling and more effective marketing!

Do Good for Indiana: Making an Idea Come to Life

It's been an amazing few months as team Aglow & team Creative Roots have been working hand in with the great folks at CanINE Express, Indy Reads, Jameson Camp & Seeds of Hope, to transform an idea into a (near) reality.

Earlier this year, we set around a coffee shop table and dreamt about how we could use our love for marketing to help out worthwhile causes in our community.  With a healthy dose of brainstorming, we came up with the concept of Do Good for Indiana - a marketing education/implementation workshop for Indiana non profits and community organizaitons.  

The program's vision is to provide training & oversight to help non profits find their voice - through effectively communicating a uniform message, building a loyal patron base, executing a fundraising event and recruiting & training future marketing volunteers.  The pilot program will focus on our four great organizations, but our dream is create a sustainable program that many local non profits can benefit from for years to come.

To fund the initial pilot program, we are currently in the running for a Pepsi Refresh grant through the month of October and we need votes - lots of them.  We started at #218 and moved up to #115 in a few days but we need to get into the top 10 to receive the funding. We have 26 days left of voting left - and you can vote every day! Here's a few quick ways to get involved:

1. We're all pretty busy - so sign up for a daily voting reminder and we'll jog your memory once daily:
2. Vote online  - You will need to do a short registration, nothing too painful!
3. Send text to: 73774 with text message of 103035. You do not  have to register to text, but standard text messaging rates may apply.  When you send the text, they will send a confirmation text in return.

Thanks in advance for your help as we Do Good for Indiana!

Best way to handle a potential issue? Shed some light on it.

When Laura and I picked out a promotional item for our business we knew we wanted a particular kind of candle.  It needed to look great, smell great and be environmentally friendly.  After extensive searching we settled on a personable small soy candle business based out of California, SoyCandles.org.

Recently we ran out of our custom candles and I contacted Claudia Davenport for a re-order.  What I love about Claudia is she is so thorough and makes me feel like each order is the only one she is dealing with.  She promptly got our canisters and scents together and shipped us our order.  Each scent even had a test candle, which is something I never would have considered.  Even though it's more product for her, it gives me peace of mind and allows me to enjoy the product, too.

Then Claudia sent me an e-mail alerting me to an issue with one of our scents.  She was right in that I didn't feel comfortable in the way the scent was burning off.  She asked how I'd like to handle the concern and promptly suggested a similar scent, re-made the candles and sent them to us.  I just got them and they are fantastic.

More often than not, there seems to be a tendency to hide when there might be an issue with your product or service.  Most employ the tactic, "If they don't bring it up, then don't mention it."  However, I tend to feel better when a trusted vendor alerts me to an issue beforehand rather than waiting for me to figure it out.  Building a relationship of trust with your clients is key.  By being open & honest with them, it will go a long way in building customer loyalty.  Thank you Claudia at SoyCandles.org for this great reminder!

Who's Managing Your Customer Experience?

I'll be honest - I've never noticed the details on my pizza box before. I typically just dive right on end.  But, for some reason this little detail caught my eye today.  I squinted closely to read the fine print on the Papa John's box which said that "My pizza experience was managed by Anthony."  Why thanks Anthony - I had no idea!

Now I highly doubt Anthony is a member of the marketing team...but yet he is charge of my customer experience and thefore my impression of the Papa John's brand. Depending upon how I was treated and ultimately the deliciousness of the pizza I received, my viewpoint of the restauant can be swayed one way or another.

When you consider who your end customer interacts with - keep in mind that that person is representing your brand.  Depending upon your business, that initial contact point may be a receptionist, a sales clerk, or a delivery person.  Are they representing your brand promise? Are they even aware of what your brand stands for?  If you hope to be known for being friendly & approachable, make sure your first line of defense brings on the charm and isn't harsh or abrasive. 

Zappos.com is a great example of how a brand promise is exemplified through it's customer service.  If you've ever ordered from this great online store, you know exactly what I'm talking about.   Not only do they offer fast/free shipping, their customer service team lives and breathes their brand promise of providing no-hassle, no-questions-asked, easy to deal with returns and exchanges.  You can tell that Zappos' brand promise is a part of their culture. 

So as a small business owner, consider who your customers interact with the most and (perhaps mostly importantly) first.  Are they aware of your core values and goals as a brand?  If not, arm them with this information so the very essence of what you want to be known for shines through each and every interaction.

Solving vs. Selling - Which one are you doing?

Here's the thing about selling. Nobody wants to be sold to. What people do want are solutions. Need a new car? The problem is that you've outgrown your old one or worse yet, it's just gotten too expensive to maintain. Did the world change when you weren't looking? You might need help navigating that change, but you don't need to buy a bunch of stuff from a menu—you do need people, skills, talents, tools and the right relationships to help. But help really means "help me solve this"—and that means doing it together. So when you're "selling" what you're really doing is showing how well you can work together to solve the problem.

via darmano.typepad.com

Benefit of being an entrepreneur: Loving the people you work with!

Yesterday I was on my way to pick up a camera lens rental from Roberts Imaging downtown and thought it would be a good time to listen to a new podcast. I had downloaded a series titled Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders from Stanford University which I thought sounded intriguing.  I scrolled through the titles and settled on 5 Must-Haves of an Entrepreneurial Career featuring eHarmony CEO Greg Waldorf.

Waldorf was a good speaker and easily engaged me along my ride back and forth.  Even more, his very first point in the lecture really hit home with me.  It was along the lines of loving the people you work with and that the rest would figure itself out.  I couldn't agree more.  Working with Laura is both challenging and a joy.  We push each other to be better and lean on each when we need to.  We know that together our possibilites are endless.

Our latest possibility involves starting a marketing education program for non-profits called Do Good For Indiana. It's a project we dreamed up togther with Alan & Anna from Creative Roots Design Group - more people it's a joy to work with!  We hope to start our pilot program supporting the following four organizations that positively impact our community: CanINE Express, Indy Reads, Jameson Camp and Seeds of Hope.  The full Do Good For Indiana website launches September 30th.  In the meantime follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on all the latest happenings!

Why Setting Goals Matter - Professionally & Personally

Over the past month or so, I've been serving as the President of the Indianapolis Chapter of the American Marketing Association.  As I began my term, I was excited to jump into one of my favorite tasks - strategic planning!  Sure - call me a weirdo - but I love nothing more than a solid plan that you can work from and measure success.  I blame the fact that I have way too many balls in the air at all times at home & work at all times.  If I don't have a checklist or to-do list handy I go mad.  Typical Type A Personality.

To kickoff our strategic planning, we re-visited & refreshed our Chapter's Mission & Vision.  After we were in agreement on these big picture ideas, we set our high level goals, our tactics to reach these goals and a scorecard to track our success monthly.  We took it a step further and drafted individual committee monthly checklists so we can make sure the details don't get missed a few months down the line.  I won't lie - this was a TASK!  But, now we have guide map to get us where we want to be at the end of our term, which makes me sleep a little better at night!

So in the midst of all this strategic planning, I got to thinking about my role as a mom and how I should apply the concept of setting goals here at home.  The last year has been crazy around the Sweeney house -- with Aglow kicking into high gear and my AMA responsibilities ramping up. I'm sure every working mom struggles with the balance of work & family time - and for those of us who work from home that battle can be even tougher at times.  I took a long hard look at myself as a mom and knew some things needed to change - the way I was acting was not in line with the vision of the type of mom I wanted to be.

I want my kids to have great memories of a mom who isn't a workaholic, who isn't rushing from one thing to the next, who can pry herself away from e-mail and work and make time for playing.

• My vision -  to be a peaceful, relaxed, and playful mom.
• My goal - to make every day special and fun.
• Tactics - oh they range from the occasional day trip to the zoo to a simple game of baseball in the backyard. 
• Scorecard - are my boys smiling at the end of the day and can they tell me something fun or special about their day...and do they grow up embracing these qualities in themselves someday as a dad. 

This doesn't mean the entire day here is a party - much to the boy's dismay - but it does mean that each day I am much more focused on injecting the right amount of fun into it.  It also means I've adjusted when I work to make sure when I am with the boys I am focusing my attention just on them.

Recently Lily sent me a quote that I felt was worth sharing...think of this as you set your goals for your business, organization or for yourself.  Life is way too short to not have a plan to make it exactly the way you want it to be.

"Begin doing what you want to do now.  We are not living in eternity.  We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake." - Marie Benon Ray