There are more lessons where that came from! Here are a couple more.

Lesson 6: Don’t Worry, Be Happy 

This is one that recently I’ve also implemented. Happiness comes from the top and trickles down.

We’ve had employees come and go and over the years, and it’s interesting to see the impact they’ve made on me and the company too. However, one thing that I’m definitely more aware of is their attitude and how it affects literally everything. 

We’ve had super positive people and not so positive people and let me telllll you – once the not-so-positive people leave, there’s almost an uplifting feeling in the office that didn’t use to exist. 

I’ve also noticed that if I don’t come to work with a positive attitude or an optimistic look on the day, that reflects onto everyone else too. So, each day I try to start the day by being cheery, asking how everyone is and hopping into our daily tasks. 

Pro Tip: Do something fun out of the office like a team-building event quarterly or start a casual channel on Slack to share things that you’re doing personally throughout the week. 

Lesson 7: Fun Things Don’t Have To Be Just Outside Of Work

Recently I saw this Slack plugin called “Hey Taco.” The idea is that each week you give out 5 taco emojis and associate something good with the taco. Here’s an example: 

Shout out to @Kaitlyn – she helped me finish the remaining social posts for Company A 🌮

I loved the idea! But we have 5 people right now, so basically everyone would get a taco each.and.every.day. Not as impactful as once a week from one person. So I decided to come up with my own. 

We call them “Sweet Wins,” and we have a Slack channel dedicated to them. Instead of giving out 5 per week, each employee is required to send someone a lollipop 🍭 with a compliment, similar to the taco example above. Then, at the end of the week, the person with the most lollipop emojis gets a cool real-life giant lollipop as the winner of the week. 

This promotes team-building, compliments and everyone working together highlighting the wins – which I always think is essential. 

Lesson 8: Learning Didn’t Stop At College, Honey

I’m a HUGE advocate of learning. I recently met with an agency owner who said that she paid her employees to get certified in key programs. I asked her why she did this and she said, “At the end of the day it’s helping them with their growth but it’s also helping the company with its growth.” 

I thought this was so smart that I implemented it a week later. Now, my employees have the opportunity to get paid to get certified in programs such as Google Analytics, Google Adwords, Moz, LinkedIn Ads, Facebook BluePrint and more.

All they have to do is complete the certificate, send it to me the Friday before payroll and I’ll add it as a bonus to their paycheck. This has been a huge driver in helping people to grow and improve themselves and they love the extra bonus! 

Lesson 9: Videos Aren’t Just For Marketing

By now, you’ve probably used Zoom, GoToMeeting or a program similar to those. 

About 2 years ago now, I got a VOIP phone system called RingCentral. It allows us to answer work calls from an app on our cell phones. It also had Zoom by RingCentral that came with it. 

At first, I was doing a lot of in-person meetings and I didn’t really utilize the video meetings – until a client who was out of town wanted to do a screen share and I was scrambling to figure out how to do it. 

Enter video meetings. It was so seamless that I decided to try to look into doing meetings with clients over video as often as possible. Recently, I’ve migrated almost all of my in-person meetings over to video calls and the clients love it for two reasons: 

1. It saves time
2. It’s easy and we get straight to the point

I’ve seen that video meetings last for less time than an in-person meeting AND it saves me a ton of time in travel. I am more efficient and the clients love it too because if they came to us, they didn’t have to anymore – saving them a ton of time, as well. 

Pro Tip: Experiment with which programs work best with trials. Clients and customers will also be apprehensive at first but after walking them through the process, they come to love it. Also, know, you don’t have to turn on the video – I told some people that and they were completely relieved – not everyone wants to be on camera!

Wow- that was a lot of information here. And even if you take one or two things with you, keep the rest in the back of your mind and in your marketing toolbox. I know if someone would have told me to do these things, I would have had to look into them myself to see if they would work for me. 

I always test things to make sure it’s going to be a good fit before rolling them out and as long as you communicate effectively with people, most are open to change and most are excited for the ability to learn! 

PS: If you’re interested in working with us, I always offer a free 30-minute call to go over your marketing. Fill out the form below so we can get started!