Making Something Out of Nothing

Making Something Out of Nothing

by | Apr 11, 2018 | Case Studies, Free Lunch Blog

Cedarburg Dawgs

Every agency has it’s stories about pro bono work — some good, some bad.  The key in making it work is to have the right expectations, and managing them for the benefit of your business and that of the recipient of your largesse.  Recently, we’ve become linked with a start-up youth football program for 5th- 8th grade kids called the Dawgs.

Why?

Football has been a passion of my own for most of my life.  My dad is a Wisconsin Hall of Fame football coach, and I played the game well enough to actually sign a pro contract with the Packers, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Since that time, I’ve been a volunteer high school coach and instructor to hundreds of kids along the way.  I’ve also been a guest speaker to dozens of programs to assist in garnering a better sports culture to give kids, coaches and parents a better experience.

So when my own home town saw it’s youth football participation drop dramatically, something had to be done.  So a new entity was born to replace the flaws of the old.  Marketing something new can always be done, but if the culture hasn’t changed, you’ve traded one uniform for another, but the problems remain.  This is as true of small business as it is a children’s non-profit sports organization.

So how do you attract 100 kids (and their parents) to participate in a new program when another already exists?

Frankly, a lot of hard work by a few dedicated people who all share in the same philosophy and mission.  Getting on board with a clear message and a fervor to see something good flourish is a powerful motivator.  Coalescing and harnessing that energy is something that becomes larger than yourself and gratifying to experience.  I’m pleased to say that with our involvement with the Cedarburg Dawgs, we went from true zero participants as of January 1st of this year, to over 100 kids in the program in just three months.

How do you make something out of nothing from a marketing stand point?

When there is no track record, no uniforms, no logo, no imagery of any sort to work with, one might think that the game is lost before it’s begun.  Not so, but you better get creative fast… and hone up your Photoshop skills!

The Cedarburg Dawgs is building a strong youth football program built on the mutual trust between parents, kids and the coaches of the organization — where kids can learn to play the game of football in a fun, safe and life-affirming atmosphere.  

MacCleaner anyone?

by | Mar 26, 2018 | D-School, Free Lunch Blog

Are your removable hard drives no longer visible to your Mac?

Fear not.  I have an answer.

But first, the day started like any other.  I had too many projects for too little time and a nice ball of stress bundled up in my belly as I raced to work through each one based on who might yell the loudest for their deadline.  And that’s when it hit me, JUST THE TIME when I can least afford it — my computer was getting slower and slower until the “gay ball of death” had taken over my life.

I cried, “UNCLE!” and closed everything up and restarted.  You know, the last resort of the truly deparate?  Only instead of making my troubles better, they only got worse by 10x.  Both of my removable hard drives had failed to mount… and a mysterious pop up appeared on the starboard side of my screen alerting me that “MacCleaner” was there to the rescue me. I’ve seen this POS before — a phony fix for Macs that installs malware only to get you to buy their “remedy” which simply means they have you for life.  Of course, I don’t bite and get straight to work within disc utility, finder mounting settings and my applications folder to look for any crap that shouldn’t be there.

I remove all that I can find.

I restart again, and one of the drives mounts! Alas, it is now READ ONLY and no longer formatted for Mac OS.  Funny, I could swear I didn’t touch anything. I have a Mac Laptop, I try each drive in it.  They mount!  However, they are now both READ ONLY and unusable.  With over 3 TB of stored files for each one of my clients within them, it’s safe to say that I didn’t really want to take the first Internet advice, which was to “simply reformat the drives to work with both Macs and PCs.”

Reformatting = Erasing.  Not happening.

The Solution:
Finally, I seek out the source, Seagate, the maker of my storage drives.  Buried in their support network is a little program that you can download for free that, once installed, performs it’s magic and your drives — and your work life — are made whole again.

Paragon Driver for macOS

You can find what I used here.  You plug in your devices, then get the download, then run the program and then re-start your computer.  With any luck, you’ll be back in business.  From start to finish, I spent two hours filled with dread and just a touch of panic.  Had I done this last bit, 10 minutes — no sweat — inner peace.

Here’s hoping this helped you get your Mac life back.

The Internet’s Dirty Dozen

The Internet’s Dirty Dozen

by | May 22, 2017 | D-School, Free Lunch Blog

 

I just gave a keynote address to the Wisconsin Self Storage Association using this title.  

Intrigued?

Hopefully so.

The point of the talk was simply to provide some small businesses with knowledge and access of some free tools that exist on the Internet.  I’ve attached the handout cheatsheet that I gave to the good folks of the WSSA.  You may find them just as helpful, although you won’t get my witty banter to back up why they’re on the list.

If you want greater information, just send me a note.  I’d be happy to chat.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the rope climbing scene from the Dirty Dozen, well, it just goes to show that with the right motivation, you can do damn near anything!

DOWNLOAD CHEATSHEET > WSSA-DirtyDozen

p.s. > Thank you, Dawn Lambrecht of the WSSA for the invite!

Instant gravitas

Instant gravitas

by | Apr 29, 2017 | Case Studies, Free Lunch Blog

Ally 360 Marketing

In the world of non-profits — museums, associations, higher education institutions and the like — it can take a very long time to become a trusted resource.  Lead times are often at a slower, more conservative pace — yet the needs and diversity of work is as pressing as any agency.

So how do you break through if you’re new in the market?

Initially launched as Membership Avenue (an interestingly unique name), the sales team found it hard to break through to the folks that could hire them, despite having a great portfolio and years of experience.  The name seemed to suggest something other than the services their target non-profits were searching for.

JSH&P was hired to assist in re-launching everything… from naming, initial brand development, logo design, web design and collateral and promotional creation.  We set out to craft a complete A-list brand from scratch.  We realized that in a referral world, sometimes all you get is the first 4 seconds of a website look to make an impression …from a memorable domain name.

The result was Ally 360, two naming forms combined to instantly convey a sense of trustworthiness and full service capabilities dedicated to non-profit marketing concerns.

Ally360 is one a leader in non-profit marketing, having worked with such distinguished institutions like the Chicago History Museum, Wolf Trap, the Milwaukee Public Museum and the Florentine Opera.