Archive for the ‘ business ’ tag

An Adaptable Lesson

Being a mom of two daughters, I’m constantly wondering how I can improve my mothering skills so as to achieve putting two strong, confident and kind women into the world. Always keeping an ear open for mothering tips, I heard one of the most poignant pieces of advice when I was listening to an interview with Maya Angelou.

She was talking about being a young mom who was always in a hurry giving her kids one piece of direction or another. She realized she was so concerned with what they were doing that she lost her focus on them. She came up with the idea of making sure every time one of her children entered the room—first thing in the morning or coming home from school or some other place—to stop what she was doing, look them in eye, smile, call them by their name and tell them she was happy to see them. Before, long she noticed this small change was having a profoundly positive affect on their self-esteem. Ms. Angelou came to the simple but very important realization that what everyone wants most is to be acknowledged.

So of course, I implemented this approach immediately and I do have to say it’s not only had a positive effect on my children’s overall behavior but in their reaction towards me. They too have started to tell me they’re happy to see me every time I enter the room for the first time—even my 2 yr old.  And they’ve started saying it their dad and grandma, the woman behind the deli counter, teachers, etc. And the response back to them has been extraordinarily positive. What a valuable lesson for them as future mothers, wives, business women, and just people in the world to readily and easily acknowledge another’s presence with an inferred worth.

I contemplated this lesson a little further to figure out if it applied beyond my approach to my children and personal relationships. I started to ask myself, what do my clients want most from their agency? They want to be acknowledged and valued. What do they want most for their product or service? They want it to be acknowledged for its uniqueness in the market and welcomed into the hands of their customer.

It hit me, that this is exactly why our small agency is growing so quickly. Collectively, we are very good at acknowledging the value and worth that our clients hold in their markets. We have never met or talked to a client who wasn’t excited about what they do. So we come back to our offices and talk and we get excited. We’ve acknowledged them and they know it. With that established, we understand our direction on every account with clarity. It’s amazing that we were doing this without realizing it but that’s what makes us a solid team. We’ve learned this lesson together and we execute it everyday.

Posted: February 9th, 2012
at 10:40am by Erin Canetta

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Categories: Identity, Office

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House Advantage Swings to Google

When we started The Arland Group six years ago, social media was not even on the list of services we provided. Facebook was for college students and Twitter wasn’t even an idea yet.

Today, social media is not only one of the most exciting segments of our business, it’s also the fastest growing. We now employ people just to develop mountains of content for our clients’ social networks.

To date, most of our efforts have focused on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. But there is a new player in town in the form of Google+. I’m a cynic when it comes to new social media networks, mainly because I think the big three are innovative and continually push for improvements on their platforms. It’s hard to be the new kid on the block when everyone loves hanging around with the older, cooler kid.

I have a Google+ account, but I don’t get it. I think the user interface is clumsy, the concept is contrived and not too many of my friends and colleagues have embraced it, so I feel pretty isolated when on the platform. Despite what I perceive to be its shortcomings though, Google+ has an immense house advantage: the algorithm.

The mysterious mathematical equation Google uses to determine the results of search engines is the holy grail of digital marketing. As an agency, we strive to make sure our clients are on that front page of search results when their clients look for them. Getting on the front page requires an immense amount of work, of which I won’t go into detail here (you can call me though!).

On a recent Google search of  “The Arland Group,” we were shocked to see our Google+ page was the third result posted! It was above our Facebook and Twitter pages, despite the fact that we only have five posts on Google+ and hundreds on Facebook and Twitter. Despite building a solid brand on Facebook and Twitter, Google played its house advantage and tilted the algorithm to Google+.

Kudos to them. If you have an advantage, you capitalize on it. They have singlehandedly forced our agency to start launching Google+ accounts for all of our clients. We’re not sure it’s the best way for them to promote their brand, but with a world of information driven by Google, it’s imperative that our customers are present and accounted for on Google+.

Posted: December 7th, 2011
at 3:13pm by Keith Seiz

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Categories: Content

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Sweet Success!

A couple months ago I wrote of a project I was taking on outside of work, a bit creative, a bit of project management and a possibly big challenge for a “capable baker”, but no Betty Crocker or Martha Stewart here. I had decided with some pro-active planning and attention to detail, that I just might be able to produce from scratch, not only a birthday cake (for a 4-yr old), but a Treasure Chest Birthday Cake that came not only with a recipe but a video!

It was served up last weekend . . . and people actually recognized it! It indeed was a Treasure Chest with jewels, gold coins, gold nuggets and a whole bunch of loot. The birthday boy stuck his finger in it (conservative approach) while the little brother stuck his whole face in it to get at the jewels (adventurous approach). I guess that spells success. Have to thank my wonderful job for allowing me to keep my saw sharpened and skills of planning, attention to detail and project management well-honed, they come in very handy in my personal life as well.

Posted: November 10th, 2011
at 1:31pm by Sharon Lynch

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When the DIY model does not work

I’ve always been proud to say I’ve started something. In my first career as the editor of a trade publication, I was most proud of the fact that I started a successful conference. In the last six years of many successes at The Arland Group, I am most proud of the fact that we took the chance in the first place. We started something. And we did it in a Do It Yourself (DIY) fashion.

The DIY model has paid huge dividends for our creative firm throughout its existence. In the beginning, doing it ourselves allowed us to streamline costs and develop our own models and processes for running an agency that were based on logic, not what other agencies were doing or alleged “best practices.”

Today, the DIY model brings us closer to clients. Despite our growth, we still insist on eliminating the gap between our creative team and our customers. How? By foregoing the traditional account executive model and insisting that all TAG Teamers are creative and versed in account management and sales. Taking this approach, we have built a great team of all-arounders in a DIY model.

But the DIY model is not always the best approach. We recently opened an office in St. Louis on Washington Ave. (recently named one of the top 10 streets in America!), and instead of moving into a space that was move-in ready, we leased a space that we could make our own. But instead of hiring professionals to transform the space into what we wanted, we decided to follow the DIY model.

Terrible decision. Balancing the daily workload of running a successful, growing agency is difficult enough, but combined with painting walls, installing new floors and buying furniture, it’s a burden I wish upon no one.

In the end, our office will be outstanding and it will be something I’m very proud of. But right now, as we slowly make our sparse accommodations a home away from home, I wish this once, I would have taken a different approach than the DIY model.

We’ll continue to post pics as the office becomes more complete and stay tuned for more info on our Open House!

Posted: October 13th, 2011
at 12:56pm by Keith Seiz

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Categories: Office

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Use Your Gut to Make the Best Decision

We have all experienced running into an image, concept, person, etc. and it seems to reoccur to the point where we ask ourselves, “what is this and why does it keep coming up in my life?” That has recently happened to me with the concept of intuition.  Intuition is defined as the act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes. In recent months, I have read a series of articles in various magazines, caught a speech by Steve Jobs and had conversations where intuition ends up being the center of attention. So I finally stopped and told myself that maybe it’s time I examine my intuition—and not so much in terms of what it will mean but what it has meant in my life so far. In doing so I came to the realization that I have made by best decisions when I’ve gone with “my gut” or intuition.  When my head has gotten involved too much I mess it up.

Here’s an example of time when my head got in the way: When it was time to pick a college, my gut told me to go to the one close by my house that was affordable and good enough. But my head told me to go to an expensive and prestigious university. Almost 15 years and countless student loan payments later, I wish I had trusted my intuition. I’ve since learned that what you mean to your clients in business is less about who you are and more about what you’ve made them mean to you. If you can adopt their business as your own and cherish it the way they do, you’re golden. Where you went to school isn’t even a moments’ thought.

One of my best business decisions was made almost completely on my intuition. When Keith Seiz called me to meet with him and Jason Wood for dinner to discuss the possibility of joining their new company—TAG—my head told me to wait. Coming from a big corporation to a new small business was just too risky for my brain to accept. But my intuition told me to take the leap of faith without the slightest moments pause. That coupled with an already well-earned trust I had in Keith, I allowed myself to take that leap and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I now work everyday with a group that is not based on ego or title but more based on building solid client relationships and we all win in that. I don’t even dread going to work Sunday evening. Actually, with a mischievous toddler in the house I often look forward to it.

My intuition has been right on many other occasions from deciding what house to buy, to when it was time to have a baby and then another baby, calling my dad the night before going away for a couple days just to say “hi” and when I had come back he had passed away, right down to stopping into a small grocery store nearby to check their prices and now it’s my main grocery store and I’m saving $300 a month. I’m finding that I’m forcing myself to stop thinking too much about a decision and allow my gut to guide me once in awhile. On those occasions, my answer is usually resolute and always the best choice.

Maybe this will be your second or third time of running into the concept of intuition in recent days or maybe it’s the first. If nothing else, maybe you can look back and examine when you went with your gut and what the outcome was. I hope it at least gives you the pause to “think” differently if only for a moment and ask your gut a question or two.

Posted: September 22nd, 2011
at 10:27am by Erin Canetta

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