I have never been one to pay much attention to work place design. Several months ago the Ninth Store team received a physical workplace transformation. The scattered physical team was relocated and consolidated into one room. The room quickly got labelled: The Idea Room by the new occupants. Currently there are four full time team […]
Topic: Blogs, Creative Work Space, Creativity, Marketing
In a world of multiple channels, cascading competing products and vendors, what really are you buying? Many items have become not much more than commodities. Yet there are products and retailers that stand out. Apple, Nordstrom, MEC (Mountain Equipment Coop). So why do these products and retailers stand out? The brands are not selling products, […]
Good companies often win awards but what about their customers? Shouldn’t they be recognized? Are they not part of the reason for the award? At Flaman Group of Companies this year we have won two awards:Consumer Choice AwardSABEX Marketing Award With both of these awards, it would be easy to position the employee efforts as […]
Leaders also listen. In my profession I lead sales and marketing teams, for recreation I lead teams in the mountains. Recently on an attempt of a shark finned unclimbed peak (Mt Saskatchewan; 11, 385 ft in the Centennial Range, Kluane National Park, Yukon) I faced my greatest leadership challenge. The team Prairie Vertical faced increasing consequence […]
All business is risky or so the saying goes. But do risks need to knock you down? Can you actually be prepared for the risks you undertake – especially the risks in marketing?By definition a risk is an uncertainty, and when it comes to risk there are three main types: 1)Known – Knowns: A known […]
Recently, we had a tradeshow for the Trailer Division, the Draggins Car Show. The hours were horrible for those working the booth: Good Friday from 10 am to 10 pm and Saturday 10 am to 10 pm, with move out 10 pm to 1 am that night. Goodbye weekend! For the most part, during those two 12 hour days, […]
Hold up! I am not writing about a diamond ring. Although a little diamond does go a long way. I am writing about user engagement in the digital space. By engagement I mean a user base that is active, not passive. Let’s pretend you have 50,000 visitors to your website per month. While they are […]
Topic: Blogs, Facebook, Likes, Non Profits, Social Media, User Engagement
What is the purpose of all the digital media you engage in for your brand? Why do you post, tweet, comment, blog, share, like? Create content in general? Is it to attract more visitors? Well yes, of course, and once you have those visitors you want them to be engaged, correct? Yes, of course you […]
Topic: Blogs
If you could look at a trend in the last few years, many pundits have been claiming the end of traditional marketing as we know it is upon us. The debate rages, but I believe this is not a zero sum game for most companies. I believe that a company needs to have a mix […]
Just today an exciting e-mail came from one of the managers that sit in on the ninth store meetings from time to time. It was simple and direct: “I would like to add the QR CODE to all the business cards so potential customers can scan the code and have direct access to our web […]