How Authentic Connections Elevate Your Brand
In the virtual Lemonade Stand, we highlight the success, potential, and impact of marrying your brand with an authentic connection. No matter your cause or passion, an intentional effort can transform your brand's voice, vision, and impact!
0:08 - Next Level Brand Through Community Support
12:16 - Creative Marketing Strategies for Community Engagement
23:42 - Effective Brand Marketing Strategies
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We’ll see you next time, Lemon Heads!
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Speaker 2: 0:08
What's up, lemonheads? Welcome back to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I'm Emily and I'm Crystal, and this week we're going to do our second installment of taking your brand to the next level, and one of the ways to do that is through community support.
Speaker 1: 0:21
Yeah, community support. I think a lot of people get scared of that Sounds like money. It's a change of change, but really what community support? It goes a lot deeper than just sponsorships and things like that. So let's dig in and let's sip some lemonade. Let's do it.
Speaker 2: 0:38
Alrighty. So, like you kind of alluded to, there are multiple facets to community support. It doesn't have to be just a sponsorship or just throwing money at something. There's lots of different elements that we need to be kind of thinking about if we want to take our brand to the next level.
Speaker 1: 0:53
Well, and your brand to the next level means more people engaging with your brand in a more relationship style environment. So what you don't want to do is just like force your brand down people's throats. I mean, I kind of do like you know, through billboards and stuff, but I kind of want them to be like gosh, I'm sick of you, you can't help but notice me, yeah, but the community support side, and that's just a term that we've coined for getting involved in your community, so whatever that looks like. But I've seen a lot of contractors, they all sponsor this little baseball team. They will, you know, put a little banner up at the local park and things like that my little ad in the high school yearbook.
Speaker 2: 1:27
Yeah and all of it's good.
Speaker 1: 1:28
So I'm not here to hate on you. First of all, I know what a lot of you are thinking. I think it should be a half a percent of what your total revenue is. So I think if you took your total revenue and gave yourself half of a percent those of you that are at any sort of larger, substantial amount of revenue that's a pretty decent start for you, you know.
Speaker 2: 1:47
allocate money wise to spend and community support.
Speaker 1: 1:50
Yeah, like sponsoring this and that and if anything, remember you're the boss, so most of you are the boss. So if that's not enough and you want to donate more, donate more. But I feel like if you start off with some guidelines like number one, some of you kind of stingy, so some of you might be like, dang, I didn't even spend anything towards that half a percent, and some of you are like I spent half a percent in the first three months of the year. That would be me. I mean, I sent a financial meeting this morning and I'm like, listen, I know I'm the crook at this table that y'all think crystal is like stealing our money, because I tend to recommend lots of things that involve not only a personal commitment but a financial commitment as well. But so what? My thought, the thought behind community support and how to take your brand to the next level, is really being intentional about the community support. So identifying one of the first things I'll tell everybody is identify a cause that you can really connect to. So if your brand is around a dog or a cat or something like that, then I would support animal shelters, I would support adoption foundations, animal, all animal driven things, just as my like what I call my anchor support piece, and that support piece gives me vision, it gives me clarity on where to, so that my messaging is the same, so that my, you know, just make the connection for the consumer as well, like, oh yeah, they have this really sweet animal and they're donating dog food. It all makes sense to them, sure. So I've got military, some sort of military tie, you know, supporting veteran causes. Yes, Reads across America as a program. A lot of people have BFW If you have a story. So I will say this I love the breast cancer awareness idea. I think that's an easy one to connect to, mainly because there's already so much national publicity around that. But I would really say to connect to that if you have a personal connection. So is there someone that you literally have a connection with that maybe you either battle breast cancer or you lost a breast cancer? That just solidifies the connection for the consumer to really be able to. Oh my gosh, they have a really good story here. Same thing with, like childhood cancers. I mean, there's, there's a ton of ways you can go here.
Speaker 2: 3:53
Yeah, you can kind of align maybe what your core brand color is with a cause. So, like you know, if your predominant color is pink, like the breast cancer is an easy one, or if childhood cancer was one that related to your story, like, how can you own the color yellow? Or let yellow play into your brand, because that's what childhood cancer is known for?
Speaker 1: 4:11
Yeah, and I just want to say, like you're not trying to commercialize, like these are, these are people's lives, these are these are a lot of times tragic and emotional things. I always try to look at it as trying to bring positive out of such a sad situation, but also like don't, don't throw it around like it's confetti, right. So don't be like oh yeah, we went pink for breast cancer and then when people say, oh, you have a breast cancer story, no, we were just pinking, it matched. So that's what I'm saying. Like you need to be intentional about where you're going to put your focus on and have a, a connection to that. So don't just randomly pick one. At least have some sort of connection that you can bridge the connection for, because I'll be honest. Oh, I was. I was exactly what I was about to say. You do better when you're more passionate about those causes, and so that was the first one I thought is because when you make that connection, so you know, let's, one of our clients is in Houston, his wife battles, uh, huntington Huntington's disease, and that color is blue. So it started. The Emily's team did the rebrand for him. It's start as actual brand creation. It started off with him just saying you know, I'm really uh, I don't have a lot of extra time, I'm really helping my wife battle through hunting Huntington's disease, and you know, then they're like, oh, it led into their brand, sure, so that was a nice connection there. And then he's personally Connected to that cause, of course, and so that just brings the passion back up.
Speaker 2: 5:35
Well, and then he also like, incorporates that. So, like his branding is blue, because that's the color of it, they call their team the blue crew. But then with every maintenance club program that they sell, they donate five dollars to a Huntington's disease Research organization and stuff. So again it's tying back that support and that cause in numerous ways and touch points in your brand Beyond, just like a fundraiser event.
Speaker 1: 5:57
Yes. So when you get that core support, so like our main, one of our top things to tell you today was Define that core support of that core initiative that you really want to um, align yourself with, and then start making relationships that are associated with that. So let's use animals. It's a little simpler. So you know, in this first one, when you let's say you want to work with the local animal shelter, so you immediately start like you know what? What if I featured hey, every month I can't guarantee you what time, but every month I'm going to reach out and ask you to send me five pictures Of the dogs that have been here the longest and I'm going to feature them on my social media and I'm going to call it you know whatever? For you know, cause for pause, which is one of one of our clients out of forney uses Cause for pause super cute idea. And then if you have a digital billboard, then you feature those dogs in the rotation. I mean, you really own it, but what you're really doing is building a relationship with that nonprofit. Who then will turn around guys and promote?
Speaker 2: 6:51
you themselves? Oh, absolutely. You are their biggest hero. Now, you know, because you put a picture of their dog on your billboard. You take the time to promote it on their social media. Um, it means so much to all of those board members and so like, yeah, they all then, assetting, become advocates for your company.
Speaker 1: 7:06
Yes, and it's. It's imperative too that you understand like this is not just like oh yeah, I align over there with the humane society, when you, if you're gonna align, you need to own it. All of this is about being intentional. Do not throw your money into the community and like haphazardly attack it because you won't win.
Speaker 2: 7:22
Well, when you do align yourself with something particular, I also like that, like it can give you an out on other things, because you know like people think you're a business owner. You make millions and millions of dollars. It grows on trees inside of your office right over there, you know Um and so people understand why you can't give me $3,000. Yeah for. Oh, I'll just say you're a the new Silver's foundation? Yeah, but so sometimes it can give you a reason to say no, like hey, thank you so much for approaching us with this, but respectfully, we're going to decline because we align ourselves with only Veteran-based causes or children based or elderly based or veterans.
Speaker 1: 7:55
By I mean, there's a ton of ways to do that, so it's a good thought to say no to the high school yearbook.
Speaker 2: 7:59
Absolutely, that's a great thought the baseball team.
Speaker 1: 8:01
Yes, that's a great thought. So, okay, the second thing that I think people can align themselves with on the community support side is Plugging into your community resources. So what that could be is, like your chambers of commerce, your Relators association, your builders association, your if you have that core support, joining their foundational teams. All of those are opportunities to plug into your community and that is how. So let me, that is how you win. I'm gonna say that. So you know, mcwilliams, I kind of gone on a tangent about this before you know, one of our biggest what we say claims to fame's like one of the ways that we felt like we grew our brands as quickly and as Solid as we think we did was through this position called a community marketer, and we just made that up. That's what we call it. But for our community markers is a full-time position dedicated to any brick-and-mortar location that we have, because most of the time, brick-and-mortar Locations are located in a market that is independent of itself I get operates as one entity. So if we had a brick-and-mortar, most of the time within a year or so of that brick-and-mortar being Set, we were hiring a community marketer and their sole job was to do a couple of things. Number one is plug into the community. Yeah, just start being everywhere there was to be, be seen, be seen, be out there being. They drove a wrapped vehicle, they had business cards, they had name tags, they had shirts, they had all kinds of goodies. And then we gave them some leeway like Support things, do things, get involved. And then we said, hey, you've got to be involved in some sort of Non-profit board, sure, or our action committee or something, because we knew the importance of grassroots style marketing when you're just building relationships in the long-term Playout of that but like that community marketer is going to be at every single chamber ribbon cutting.
Speaker 2: 9:50
They're going to be at the business after fives, like People will know who they are and they will know who they represent and this come this you need.
Speaker 1: 9:58
You know what you really need a nosy kind of busy body, who knows everybody. Person who knows everybody, because what happens is they. They just start figuring it out, right, and if you say your job is in and listen, here's the whole deal. They're literally a talking tactic of your marketing. They can't be. They can't be an introvert. Yeah, and a lot of people say, like the other day I was talking to this button, they were like, hey, well, I use my, my limenseed fees. I put that under payroll Because it's like having a whole person for me on payroll managing my marketing, so don't take it out of my marketing budget. And some people are like super surprised when I say, well, where do you want to allocate the funds for limenseed to manage your things? Or this community marketer? And they're like I think I'm gonna charge it to marketing and I'm like that's fine, but most we are an accessory. You know I'm so, but plugging into your community a community marketer, even a part-time community marketer, is very impactful. I think it takes 18 months for you to see the true fruition of that position, because people don't know what to do with you. For Three months. People are like Overthinking it for another three months and then by then your person's figured it out and they really started making some room and before you know it, you're seeing some traction.
Speaker 2: 11:05
Sure, there it's like that train that it's very slow to get up and going, but then it's got momentum and then it's hard to stop, especially those of you that have a commercial side.
Speaker 1: 11:11
Mm-hmm, commercial side. It is very hard to have B to C business to consumer marketing. It does have some out, some splash that I that reaches, that reaches commercial work. But commercial work is all relationship driven, 99% relationship driven. So you know that community marketer is really there to do that. And then what I want you to do is look at your community, take a step back and start looking at the movers and shakers and what do they do? So if you're like, oh, if, probably right now, if you had to think who is somebody that's really like I see them everywhere all the time, that everybody knows them, yeah, then you start looking at their circle of friends and start figuring out who else is there. And then what are they going to? Is the cool? So, like here where we live, like junior league is a very popular thing. There is lots of boards habitat for humanity, junior achievement, the family crisis center all of those are really good boards to be on and in play places to be active. Emily and I have both both served on a couple of those boards and but those things have a group of people that are movers and shakers. So not only do you get involved with those people, but those people know people. So you become who they know. And it's not a secret. This is just good relational marketing, like.
Speaker 2: 12:21
I got a guy yeah.
Speaker 1: 12:22
Yeah, you know what I know this girl, she's on the board with me. Let me call her and I let me say you don't want me fixing your Pipe, your plipes, or? Okay, I cannot talk your plumbing or your hVAC system? Okay, I like that.
Speaker 2: 12:33
Like yeah, I can't fix your plipes.
Speaker 1: 12:35
That's the first problem. It's calling it apply. But yeah, so when you get involved in the community, I think what it just does? It just elevates your exposure To a broader range of people.
Speaker 2: 12:44
again, it's about finding the right person to be in that role, but getting active there Well sure, and I think for the community marketer to be successful, like at least the leadership team has to have clear expectations of what that role really looks like, because you're gonna look up and be like this girl. She's always gone to some type of lunch, going to all these parties, if you know, for these ribbon cuttings or after things like what does she do?
Speaker 1: 13:06
Yeah, I want your job.
Speaker 2: 13:07
Yeah, no, you just float around town, but like you don't realize how hard it actually is. But it also gives some intentionality for that person to be that's their sole job, or like at least their full, part-time job. Because we all know, as the owner or as the sales manager or whatever, like you aren't going to the ribbon cutting. Like you might have good intentions too, but like that's the first thing that's going to get dropped. The second something else comes up or gets hairy in the on you.
Speaker 1: 13:27
Most of you need to stop working so deeply in your business and start working on your business, and so a lot of this is just a you know. To me this is a $50,000 employee or here or there give give or take $10,000. Being on where you live, that just does does. There is a lot of fun there. You do get to go out and and have a lot of fun. You're not behind a desk every day, but you're also attending all the fundraising events and all the chamber banquets and all of those things, because your company needs a present.
Speaker 2: 13:51
So but let them be someone that you trust, that can be your advocate. That's not the right narrative. Yeah, they're not gonna have a little trashy side to them. You know that's for that. They're really an extension of your brand but can be super Like, super helpful to help catapult your brand to the next level.
Speaker 1: 14:07
Yes, for sure. And then number three, I put let's go further. Then then then just what was presented, so let me it takes me a minute to give you this, but so when everybody's coming, I know we're sponsorship money. So this is a lemon seed like signature thing, because I just can't help myself now. But basically, when Non-profits or organizations or whatever, when they come at you and say, look at all of our opportunities, I'll look at those opportunities as a starting point, okay, and then how can I make this so obviously for lemon seed things that are applicable to us or anything that we can put zesty or squeeze or yellow or Juice or anything like that. So a lot of times I have to take their idea and make it better and then pitch it back to them and try to get a little discount for being creative, you know. So this is the same thing here. So when the baseball team comes to you and says, hey, my little group of ten year olds is going to the All Stars, you know, in Houston, texas, you know they're going to the All Star tournament. Will you be on the back of our shirts? It's $50. The answer is yes. Most of you would probably just pull your own wallet out and give them $50 for sake of having it tracked, like Emily and I were talking about today. But really what you need to do is say, hey, what if I bought all of the shirts and I paid you $500. Y'all come, take a picture with Sailor Mac, my mascot, or Rufus, my armadillo, or Johnny on the spot, my ladybug. Take a picture with them. Let me post y'all on social media and I'll send you guys away with 250 bucks. So you're gonna buy their shirts. So that's 10 shirts, that's 200 bucks. Give or take Some of y'all. Some of y'all's baseball teams be doing the very most. I'm not buying you a major league baseball jersey, but I'll buy you a t-shirt, little gilded t-shirt, but I mean. So buy their shirts, put your name all over the back. Have them come to your office, give them Gatorade Powerade in their team's colors. Take a picture posted on your social media. That alone wins you way more than that $50 on the back of the shirt. One thousand percent. And the kids needed it anyway.
Speaker 2: 16:01
The kids will then like again you become the hero to every single parent on that team. Yes, they were so supportive.
Speaker 1: 16:07
Yes, so there's that. And then if someone comes to you and says, hey, you know the chamber, you know we're doing our banquet, that's fine, but I want things like the photo booth. Why do we want?
Speaker 2: 16:16
the photo booth because people are gonna reshare their photos and it's gonna have our template with our logo on there. It's gonna stick and last a lot longer than the banner on the side of the wall that nobody's taking a picture of yes, I mean they get that.
Speaker 1: 16:28
Listen, they get mad. Okay, cuz you're gonna be like I don't. This is all like non Lasting things. So I want you to look at it and be like you know what my Um. So here's an example I had. We had a heating air conditioning company. Somebody put on a stock market challenge. Junior achievement put on a stock market challenge. What? There was a sponsorship around tips. So every so often tips are released like stock tips. Well, I was like dang, these could be hot tips from heating and air conditioning company. So I just went back and said I'll take this sponsorship, but I want you to call it the hot tip sponsorship brought to you by McWilliams Coley. And they were like whatever, we don't care.
Speaker 2: 17:03
A lot of times like the organization is not going to care. But if you can get a little bit creative to spin it for yourselves, it can go a lot further and be like oh, that's so clever, oh, yes.
Speaker 1: 17:12
And then people like then it's like the buzz at the event. Sure, People are like how did y'all do this? Like well, this is what we do for a living. Sure, you know, and then you post it on social media and then they're going to share it. We're so glad they supported us, but it's all about this organic.
Speaker 2: 17:24
Sure, well, and like, every single town or community has some type of race, you know, a 5k, a half marathon or something so like. Why aren't the plumbers being the water station sponsors and they're giving out the water? They have a water heater sitting out right there. Or an HVAC company is the sponsor of the comfort station, so like the cool down station or the warm up station the cooling rags. Yes, Um, a comfort tent give massages out, Okay, Like whatever people relate to comfort, but like hey, they recognize comfort and they associate with me. You know, I'm going to tell you if I was a plumber.
Speaker 1: 17:54
if we had this we don't have this where I live. We could have had it this week with the weather but the polar plunge. If I was a dang plumber, I would be owning every plunge that everyone was taking. I'd sponsor the whole plunge event because it is so direction to what, the what, and people would be like this is hilarious, like that y'all are, and so I'd have toilets. Give them a golden plunger at the end.
Speaker 2: 18:15
Like you did it. Like you did it, you won, you know. But people love stupid things like that. Like you know, when we're at the junior achievement, the dodge ball event, we had golden wrenches, because it's like you know the dodge ball, maybe it's like you dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. So, like we had golden wrenches, that was like the signature event to everyone that they look forward to.
Speaker 1: 18:32
That stupid wrench, yes, and then we spray painted dodge balls and made our own awards, because it wasn't about the actual award, correct? It wasn't a 25 years with our company legacy, crystal black, not going to pass TSA award. Right, it was. It's, it's meant to be fun and quirky. So just, I want you to think further in your communities than just some of the things. So another thing that we've done before is you know, so you know, people are like we're doing plates.
Speaker 2: 19:00
Well, y'all buying new plates, barbecue plate fish plate sandwiches, whatever you group trying to raise money for you, yeah.
Speaker 1: 19:05
So I won't do the plates but I will sponsor. So I, we had all these stickers made and we put them on the outside. So I went to Sam's and bought all the to go boxes and I bought a big roll of stickers. So the sticker was large. I don't know what size that would be like. It was a square, like a four by four. Yeah, what size is that? Posted note, three by three. So, yeah, at least a four by four, five, five, five something. It's perfectly square sticker. So my team, I was like I just we put all these stickers on the top of those to go boxes. So every box that church by Christ Jesus youth group sold, you know, had our sticker on top of it, sure, and it just said not held reliable, not held liable. I mean, get over yourself about some of that, but like the thing is too, like one of the reasons that we did it is one of our team members at the company went to church there, sure, so not only was it a good employee engagement piece, but for less than 500 bucks I had given them something that they needed. Sure, they didn't want to have to go buy those boxes, correct, put our stickers on it. And then I bought a few plates when I left. Now listen, if the food ain't good, throw in the trash. You're missing the point. Yeah Right, you're not going to get a gourmet meal off the side of 59 in the O'Reilly's parking lot. Okay, if you might.
Speaker 2: 20:07
I mean you might just make up that analogy.
Speaker 1: 20:08
Okay, this is a real life of it happening in East Texas, so I mean literally like everybody's over here at the O'Reilly's at the corner selling barbecue plates and listen, it's a 50, 50 shot. It's Texas, so odds are the barbecue is going to be good, right, but sometimes like, if it isn't like, get past yourself and realize what the support is, but don't forget to snap that picture of them holding those things and say, listen, this is how you do it. Now listen to me, some of y'all get real hung up and bragging on yourself.
Speaker 2: 20:35
The.
Speaker 1: 20:35
Lord said to give with a grateful heart. He did, but the Lord also wants you to make some money. Sure, okay. So that you can continue to have a business and a really good people and for some of y'all give back to the church, okay, but what I'm telling you here is you take a picture and you say we were proud to support these boys and girls out here raising money. Here's how you can come support the boys and girls out here raising money, sure, right. So come on now let's think a little deeper than that, right?
Speaker 2: 20:59
Yeah, that's. Another thing is like a lot of you guys are already doing community support. You're already spending money in some ways. You maybe just aren't maximizing any showing or telling people about it. Um, it's okay to. I don't want to say brag on yourself, because that has a negative connotation, but just like you said, like spend it in a way of like how can you also continue to help this organization? Yes, I call it like lightly bragging on yourself. So just a little bit, but you encourage the participation, but in like, if there ever is an event that you do have to just donate money to or that's a part of how you're supporting them, like, have a giant check with your logo and present a check presentation, have balloons, make it a big deal, okay, confetti poppers are on Amazon for $10.
Speaker 1: 21:39
Okay, yes, okay, my fourth and final one, unless you had one that you thought of, since we've been talking and this is going to hurt y'all's feelings. So, if you're driving or running or something to be prepared, some of y'all are just so cheap that I need you to stop being cheap, right? So I don't care if you're frugal but you can't be cheap. But here's the difference. I understand that you can't just always be buying things to give away it for all random reasons, but what I want you to do is be on the understand the value of a hat in your market. Understand that by you giving away four hats over the year, that is not why your company did not perform in 2023. Was those four hats Okay? So what you have to get your mind wrapped around is, if I go buy 24 hats with my logo on it especially those of you that are younger businesses, meaning like your smaller revenue right now, go buy with the first time you wear your own hat and someone says, man, that's a nice looking hat, can I have one? You know what your answer is yes. Well, much of you are. You're going to pay $17, $20. Let's say, let's say, some of y'all really want a bougie hat $20 for a hat. Um, if you order 48 of them, right, or something along, something, I'm close, right, you order those. And then you're looking for leads. Okay, do you know how much a new customer lead is right now for HVAC? $300 something, dollars. That $20 sounds real good. All of a sudden, that $20. And then if it looks good, right, if you're kind of smart about how you do it and you give it out to the people that I mean, let's kind of, you can be a little picky Give it out to the people that hang around, people you want to do business with. So, like I want to tell you now the guy that's washing your windshields and trying to sell you gold necklaces out of his trunk at the gas station, not probably going to get my hat, but my buddy that sees me like he going to get my hat because he probably hangs around. Okay, so, and I'm sorry if that, if you enjoyed giving mother thing that guy that sold you the gold chain, he needs $10, not a hat, okay.
Speaker 2: 23:25
It sounds stupid and just giving this a hat, but again it just makes people more environmentally aware, like they just see you everywhere. Oh, I just happened to glance and saw a McWilliams and some hat Okay, in and out they didn't make any money directly related to that, but like overall, people just feel like they know you because they see you.
Speaker 1: 23:42
Yes, I went to um. I'm on the board for women at HVACR and I went to our event and this lady was like, oh my gosh, can I have one of y'all straws? And I was like, which straw Cause? We like to change it up around here, like, do we bring straws? This?
Speaker 2: 23:55
time.
Speaker 1: 23:55
And I'm like, do I have a straw right now? Um, but what it was is we decided at one of our shows for a couple of shows, we wanted to give up those big um like smoothie straws and they were bendy and everybody loved them. They were a hit Um. And you know, like those straws were not 30 cents, I mean, they were two bucks probably, or so I don't know, I don't think they were that they were not that much, not that bad, but they were. they were unique and they were different, and so and you know why we bought straws, Cause.
Speaker 2: 24:20
how do we open up this episode? We said let's sip some lemonade, yeah. So again it's tying it back to our brand. That's how we're going to sip it through this silicone straw.
Speaker 1: 24:27
Yes.
Speaker 2: 24:28
And people love it and they're like can I get some for my kids? Yes, Okay.
Speaker 1: 24:30
Yeah, the other thing that we did that people go stupid over is an air freshener. Oh yeah, and they will ask us they will because we stink at sour marketing. I cannot take credit for that. That was 1000%, emily. But it is like, literally, when people come to our, they will come and they'll say, oh my gosh, all our favorite booth and it's because we have crazy stuff over there, right? We're always going to make the connection Like it's clever, it's memorable and so it sticks with people.
Speaker 2: 24:55
And we'll open up those dang air freshener so that in the whole trade show room smells like lemonade.
Speaker 1: 24:58
Yes, and our suitcases. But what you have to remember here is that hat that you bought, that you give out. That is a real, that's, that's just grassroots marketing, and so when you're out, you're out, you don't have to buy anymore. Remember, you own your company. So, hey, you know what? I'm going to buy 12 hats right now. I'm going to kind of give them out here and there and then I'm going to wait a little bit, order me 12 more hats and then, before you know it, you're going to look around and be like dang, people really like my hats, and that's just one example. But you know, and I'm just pushing you a little bit to not be cheap in the sense of you know, don't be scared to kind of go out on a little limb every once in a while. Emily and I have done some things for our booth that we thought were going to be very big hits, and then we're like, oh, that didn't work. We ordered these water cups. I'll start again. So Emily and I ordered these water cups that had like a juicer at the bottom and we were like these are so cute and they were, but people were like it really didn't move the needle with them. Stupid things like the air freshener and lips. We can't keep chapstick at our booth.
Speaker 2: 26:00
And we have little bitty like their yellow folding chairs. Yes, that's this little cell phone holder, but the dumb, stupid little plastic.
Speaker 1: 26:07
Because we stabilize your marketing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: 26:09
And people go nuts for it.
Speaker 1: 26:10
Like until the chair's a little walkie and janky and it falls they all. I mean it's super cheap.
Speaker 2: 26:15
Ok, yeah, but it was. It was quirky, so no and it was a hit.
Speaker 1: 26:19
So the whole point of this was just to remind you that be fun. Number one ease up. Be fun If you sponsor. You know what? Sponsor sending the snow cone truck to the hospital for a few days to the workers, send it to the school sponsored it's your kids field day. But do not not put your brand on there and say we've been keeping you cool since 1979. We've been. You know, we're the cool kids on the block. We might. We're not just the new kids, we're the cool kids like you. All kinds of cool stuff. The hot chocolate station. When it's cold, give out ice scrapers. I wish we had the need for ice scrapers because I just want to give one out.
Speaker 2: 26:53
But you want to shovel snow in your, in your driveway.
Speaker 1: 26:55
No, no I mean I want to give them away. I was no, don't make me shovel, you don't want to. It snowed here one time I was like this terrible Thank God for Texas, right, but so anyway. So we were here to tell you how to take your brand to the next level. So those of you that are ready for this and, trust me, not all of you are ready to go this this hard in the paint, as I say. So driving to the basket there for your best basketball references Basically, community support. The first thing we said was initiate that core support. I'm sorry, your initiatives here. So your core initiatives of what you're going to support, define either types of organization or specific organization that you're going to go for and really plug in with them and really invest the majority of your content and your dollars towards those organizations.
Speaker 2: 27:44
Yeah, Get intentional about plugging into your community so does. Is that a designated person, a community marketer? Is that a full time, part time? But you got to have some intentionality to it or to be so hit and miss. It's not going to make any trouble and when you, you'll get over it.
Speaker 1: 27:58
Yeah, real fast. So plug in chambers of commerce as PTAs, real estate associations, all of those things. Number three was go further on opportunities. Think past what's just in front of you and see if there's a deeper way to make a connection for the brand, for the brand, the way your brand, the editorial style of your brand, like the way you write things, the way you say things, and see if there's not a way for your brand to stand out, because you will be the squeaky wheel right. Go back and ask for a little bit more, a little bit more ingenuity there, like be a little bit more creative, yeah.
Speaker 2: 28:29
And then, lastly, don't overthink it, be fun, don't be so cheap. Ok, it's just money and Jesus paid it all. Oh, I mean, I mean, so it's gonna be OK.
Speaker 1: 28:38
Absolutely Well, guys, thank you so much for listening to the second. We have one more coming up in the next couple of weeks, but the second of our how to take your brand to the next level. We are super excited that you guys have listened. We love knowing that you hear us and see us, and so leave us a review. We could really use your reviews. That's the best way to show us your appreciation. We love that, so go write us anywhere you see us, listen to us I'm sorry on podcast or on our social media channels.
Speaker 2: 29:04
And if you see us at a show, just look for yellow. We'd love to see you give you a hug, take a picture, yeah. So thank you for listening to another episode. See you next time. Bye.
