Like most businesses, we are excited when we grow. We've been doing it in leaps and bounds this year and are excited for both our newest specialty category (clean technology) and the website we have been building for our Web of Allies. It's a daunting process as most business owners will tell you and to celebrate our upcoming announcement, we are providing a 25% discount on services ordered by Friday October 31, 2014 and a 20% discount if you miss Friday but mention this post.I've been in marketing, PR and advertising for eighteen years now. If you've read about how I got my start, it was in small market radio in Utah. Though it sounds minimal, it's actually quite competitive and you really have to make a name for yourself and for your clients if you want to survive. Survival came first and thriving came second - I had truly found my calling. Marketing is a great place for a creative entrepreneur and I love how I'm able to use both my communication abilities and raw talent for finding opportunity in markets, business structures and non traditional resources. Building a business is a science and an art form. It requires a broad base of knowledge and an ability to be a chameleon. For example...
In my first days of radio, the management was looking for an opportunity to grow their billing through an event. Our markets were pop music, Utah's only hip hop and a small, terrible rock station where the DJ's pulled random and unfulfilling stunts like blending their cell phones or attempting (unsuccessfully) to fight in MMA bouts. To be honest, it was at times embarrassing but I was dedicated to succeeding and put myself out there with an idea for my new colleagues.
In my first sales meeting, there were ideas to do a talent show at a bar, a fashion show at a mall and then there was my idea. "Let's do a home show for starter homes," I said. The chuckles from my co-workers and the raised eyebrows of my managers told me what they thought, but I didn't care. I listened to our stations and at nineteen, I had a house built for me. It was a great home built by Liberty Homes. A nice porch, a quarter acre, garden tub and all the custom upgrades I had dreamed of when walking through the model home were included. I was new, but driven and I had seen the success of the Parade of Homes from a consumer standpoint but also knew that those homes weren't an option for the many young families that I'd grown up with.
"If it's not a success," I was told, "we'll just say your the new girl." Not exactly a vote of confidence, but I had a tentative thumbs up. With the help of Donny Cox (who is still a favorite of mine) and sheer gusto, I hit the streets and pitched every home builder who would listen. I signed two on, Holmes Homes and Alpine Homes, who let me promote a new development they were working on. I was ecstatic. I got RC Willey to let me put the pamphlets Donny had made up onto their counters, XMission promoted wireless Internet and there were a few other small companies that signed on. I was elated when I started to drive to the site where the event was to be held but by the time I got to the location at the base of Herriman, I was more than a little nervous. This was one of those locations that was way, way, way out there. One of those places where you are sure you are lost about fifteen times before you saw the signs. This coupled with the fact that it was to be on a holiday weekend.
Dang it, I had my work cut out for me. I called it the First Time Home Fest and geared it to the young families of Utah. We invented promotions for the participating businesses and made real estate signs to post along Bangerter Highway. To ensure potential visitors didn't turn around, we rented signs typically reserved for road construction and programmed them to let people know that no, they were not lost, just keep going. In the middle of nowhere, there were rows of model homes and lots. No stores, gas stations or other commercial structures were there at the time. On site, I had a bounce house brought in to replace the never fun beads and coloring books typically offered to impatient children while their parents were making buying decisions and had my mom's catering company, Good Day Catering, show up with hot dogs, drinks and snacks. 
It was an overwhelming success. We sold seven homes in four hours through excited real estate agents, one of which took six months off after the event. It was in this initial experience that I finally got to use a skill that prior was more of a deficit of my personality. I was "consistently inconsistent" as my dad would say but it worked. I went from a radio sales rep to a marketer, from an employee to a non traditional marketing lead at Millcreek and was hired away by Holmes Homes and became their marketing director while working on a new wireless Internet company to cater to the homes on the outskirts of town that only had landline Internet available. Less than a year later, I was working in the US Virgin Islands on a government contract and from there, the rest is an exciting history of new business, new markets, global travel and personal growth. In marketing, you can't stay static for long and you can't have just one specialty. Currently I have the opportunity to mentor new businesses in the clean tech field, to work with innovators in bio technology and to continue to provide great services to long term clients like Wisdom Teeth Only and other Utah dentists, contractor companies, and other services throughout the United States.
With a growing client list and continued support from what I call my Web of Allies, I've been able to provide work to great people, to teach new marketers and to present to organizations as varied as the United Mosquito Abatement Association and StartUp Weekend. I truly love what I have the opportunity to do in this world and am excited for the next chapter of growth. We will be opening a new office and adding a fulfillment and sales team while expanding beyond our countries shores to bring quality business and solutions to those who need it. If you have a business local or International that needs to add a website, strategic marketing or if you just need some basics covered to promote your offering, join in our celebration of growth with a discount. Contact us by October 31st, 2014 for a twenty-five percent discount or mention this post anytime for twenty percent off your first order. We appreciate your business and welcome to the Web of Allies.
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