All of you children of the 70’s sing with me now:

“Who are the people in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood!”

I’ve spent the last two weeks with my head down, nose to the grindstone, trying to get a house not only on the market but also ready for an open house!  Between packing, cleaning and syncing schedules with a painter, my whole world has been consumed with this one goal.  My neighborhood, let alone the rest of the world, could have washed away and I never would have noticed – I was that focused!  Unfortunately, those of us who run small business can often fall into this same mind set.

As a small business owner we have goals and benchmarks at the forefront of our minds.  We have a path to follow and a determination to get there.  We put our heads down and get to work.  And therein lies the problem – we put our heads down.  We are so focused on our goals that the rest of the world ceases to exist.  We miss out on numerous ideas, opportunities and collaborations!

I finally came up for air this past weekend and started looking around.  Now if I was Elmo, I’d have seen that my neighborhood has a grocer, postman, doctor, teacher and librarian.  The beauty and simplicity of Elmo is that he is three and learning.  He hasn’t reached an age where he’s so busy he tries to shut the world out.  He learns, creates and interacts with each of these neighbors. He is an active, social member of his neighborhood.

My neighborhood isn’t the same as Elmo’s, it’s a little more complex.  It’s multi-feathered so to speak.  It consists of artists, etsy, photographers, marketers, online forums and quality service providers.  Through being an aware and active member of my neighborhood I’ve seen creative works that sparked marketing ideas for my business, collaborated with others to create content and learned new processes that I plan to integrate into my own systems of operation.  I don’t necessarily have to actively interact with all my neighbors.  Just by being aware of them and their work sparks new creative ideas as well as spotting consumer trends.  It also teaches me the best way to approach each individual neighbor when I see someplace I can help.  Not everyone likes to be approached the same way.  Some are write out the proposal formal, while others are lets grab coffee social – it depends on the neighbor.

While it’s true the saying “Birds of a feather flock together.”  You’ll notice I said my neighborhood was multi-feathered.  Pay attention – this is important!  When we refuse to let new and different people into our neighborhood our information and learning get stale.  We can no longer grow and progress past where we currently are.  We’ve all seen businesses or people like this.  They’ve been so busy diligently working with their heads down, that when they do finally look up, they have no idea what road they are on let alone neighborhood!  Their whole world washed away when they weren’t looking.  Pick your head up and take a look around.  Who are the people in your neighborhood?

A quick visit to their website and you will find the words – goals, outgoing, upbeat, energetic and fun – permeate the site.  Here’s the really cool thing – had I only ever gone to their Facebook fan page, blog or Twitter feed I still would have received that message.

I want to revisit that thought.  Think of one of your favorite brands.  What words come to mind?  Do these words come from the root of who they are?  To more clearly demonstrate what I mean, I took three brands (Apple, Harley Davidson and Richard Branson’s Virgin) and matched them up to their core words – many of them taken directly off of their own websites.  Here’s what I found:

Apple – creative, fun, user friendly, cool, revolutionary

Harley Davidson – rebel, American, tough, distinct, power, bold

Richard Branson’s Virgin – rule breaker, innovative, quality, fun

Now step back and think about it.  These companies use the words that define them to clearly send out their message.  They stay true to their definitions and use them as a guide to help them see what paths to take.  The definitions of themselves are their core and everything else radiates from that point.  Those words are the foundation for everything that follows.  Defining yourself is a fabulous thing!  It helps you narrow down the choices when making decisions.  The choice is either part of who you are or it isn’t.

Now take a look at your own business.  What words define you?  Are you being true to that definition?  Do you keep that definition in the forefront of your mind when you make new business decisions?  I think you’ll find that if you have a clear definition and stay true to that definition, the decisions that follow will be much easier to make.  Now go grab pen and paper and start defining!

There is an old saying in business – “You can’t sell it if you don’t show it.”  Let’s look at this in relation to the photography business.  A majority of photographers will find that their clients gravitate to the 8×10 and smaller print sizes.  It’s what they grew up with – in their head they carry a picture of what that looks like.  Now say you really, really want to sell 20×24 and larger wall prints.  They are featured in your pricing brochure yet no one seems to buy.  To make those sales happen somewhere in your studio you have to display that size print in a way that your client can envision it in their home.

A few weeks ago this was brought back home to me when I was reading a post called Show, Don’t Tell on Jonathan Fields’ blog – Awake at the Wheel.  He was commenting on how the ipad that is being released by Apple won’t have flash.  I had registered that the new ipad wouldn’t have flash but I hadn’t really pictured what that would mean.  In his post Jonathan posted an image from The Flash Blog that showed me quite clearly what that meant.  Before it was words and talk that I heard but didn’t connect.  With this one visual I finally got it.

Where does Mabel’s Labels fit in all this?  Not long after I read Jonathan’s post the crew at Mabel’s Labels posted this fun video.  One of the benefits they tout is that their – “labels are designed to stick – no matter what!”  To prove this they started creating fun videos challenging that statement.  They attach their labels to something and run it through its paces.  One such challenge is to run the labels over with a car, another to drop them off a roof, but my favorite by far is when they attach them to a hockey puck and have kids use the puck in practice.  Love it!!  The Mabel’s Label crew completely understands the show it to sell it theory and put it into action in a fun creative way.

*Disclaimer – I know I’ve mentioned Mabel’s Labels in the past.  However I have no connection to them.  Well.. my sister does buy them for her kids, which is how I found out about them in the first place.  Or maybe it’s just that I have a thing for Canadian companies.  Looking at my twitter followers – I’m HUGE in Canada.  Possibly it’s all my connections to North Sydney, Nova Scotia… Nahh really don’t think so. *

With this statement, a million different questions popped in to my head; who is their best client, who do they want to serve etc… Basic marketing questions. With each question she didn’t have a clear answer but she could tell me what she wasn’t – what she didn’t like about the current branding. As dinner conversations go, we moved on to a different topic and didn’t get to delve in as deep as I would have liked.

If you read my previous post – Your Story is Your Brand – you would know that I work off the basis that every company has a story, a vision to help lead them. In a recent blog post Bernadette Doyle stated it beautifully.

Vision is a powerful thing.

It’s one of the most important tools you have to move you from where your business currently is, to where you want it to be. If you have a picture in your mind of what you want your business to look like, you’ll find that it’s much easier to bring this vision into being.

If you don’t know where you want to go, how will you know what to do? You don’t jump into your car and start driving, with no destination in mind. Before you start the engine, you have in your mind where you want to go so you know whether to turn left or right at the bottom of the driveway. The same principle applies to your business.

I believe, whenever someone goes into business, they have a vision whether they are conscious of it or not.  It’s actually very common for people to not know how to put their vision into words, but I can bet you they know exactly what they’re not.  I would love to sit down with the above couple and have them list everything they know they’re not.  Doing this doing this exercise will help them narrow down and focus on who they and their company are, giving them a more direct route to where they want to go.  Sometimes listing what your not brings a clearer more focused vision of what you are.

A brand is the well crafted story of your business.  Let me explain.  When reading a really great book the writer takes you on a journey – giving you the details and pieces along the way to move the story forward.  All the details of the story are devised to support the main theme and give a more complete telling.  In a business the details of the story are the touch points.  Literally the things that touch a ‘reader’ – be it physically or emotionally – how you answer the phone, the colors you use, websites, office decor, packaging and yes logos. In the process of telling your story you give clues to your ‘reader’ on how to interact with you, what they can expect from you and what is expected of them.  However, if the book your reading has no central theme or there is a complete disconnect in the details (those times when your reading something and you have absolutely no idea why it pertains to the story) you never invest in it.  More often than not you’ll find the whole thing to confusing or hard to read, put the book down and never come back.

What is the story you or your business is trying to tell?  Does it engage your ‘reader’, bringing them in closer and giving them a better understanding of who you are and what’s expected of them?  Does it invite them to take the journey with you or does it confuse them and leave them shaking their head in bemusement?

Under Armour, whether they know it or not, already have a grass roots connection to rowing. Go into any boathouse and I promise you over half of the athletes, from juniors to masters, will be wearing at least one piece of Under Armour apparel. Better yet, right in their own home town is the Baltimore Rowing Club. They can take a morning (a very early morning) and do a little field research for themselves.

Let’s take that thought a little further. Baltimore Rowing holds The Great Baltimore Burn every year. This year it will be held on Feb 6^th. It is an indoor erg race. These indoor races were originally set up to break up the monotony of winter training – painful, painful event I might add. Baltimore Rowing Club bills theirs as being named after the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 and the deep pain you feel in your legs during and after a 2k sprint – yeah barrels of fun! But my point is this is a local event. Under Armour can do some small test marketing here and see how they best connect with the rowing community. From there they can take what they’ve learned and bring it to the Crash B’s (the World Indoor Rowing Championship) and also forge a connection with Concept 2 (the makers of the erg).

Under Armour has a well planned marketing strategy of working with top high school and college teams and there is no reason this wouldn’t work in the rowing community as well. However, I’d also like them to consider a different tactic. The fastest growing segment in the sport of rowing is in the Masters Division – age 21+. Within that division it is women who are leading the way. Find away to connect with these women!

Finally I’ll end with a dream product that if Under Armour could find a way to produce I will fall at their feet!! Get a rower to talk about the shoes attached to the foot stretcher in the boat and you will hear a never ending litany of complaints – they’re to small/large, can’t keep them closed – ties/velcro are worn out, they’re just plain nasty and the list goes on and on. If Under Armour could come up with a quick release type shoe system – maybe something similar to how a bike shoe clips onto a pedal – and each rower could invest in having their own shoes in the boat – you would have rowing gold!

I would love to see Under Armour strengthen their already unofficial ties to rowing. As always I’d be thrilled to discuss any of my ideas with Under Armour in person. And for all you rowers reading this – Stay Long, Row Hard!!

I was first introduced to Under Armour roughly six years ago. I was sitting in a rowing shell – moving up and down to the rhythm set by the stroke – my eye was drawn time and time again to an imprint showing through the compression shorts in front of me. While trying to stay in time with the stroke I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what the imprint was, what did it mean, etc… Over the next couple of days I realized that EVERY woman I sat behind had that imprint showing through their rowing clothes. Now I really had to figure it out. Finally after much sleuth work I realized I was seeing the impression of Under Armour’s logo time and again. I had seen it before but hadn’t connected that almost everyone in the boathouse wore at least one piece of Under Armour clothing.

Flash back to the future. Researching my move to Baltimore I stumbled upon Under Armour’s career page where I saw they had an opening in Brand Management for a Women’s Marketing Manager. I applied for the position becaue 1) I’m moving to Baltimore and 2) how cool would working for Under Armour be?? Totally speaks to my Inner Girl Athlete! I haven’t heard back but it set my brain in motion – how to better connect women and Under Armour.

The very first thing that jumped out at me was pants. Talk to any women and they will tell you they have a horrible time finding good pants. Once they find that magical pair they will buy not 1 but 3-4 pairs of that pants (usually 2 in black and 1 or 2 in another color). They finally found IT and want to make sure they always have a pair available. I love my Under Armour Tech pants but they are long – way to long for my 5’3” frame. I actually have to wear clogs with a 2” heel when I wear them or I’ll trip all over the bottoms. I did a little digging and found in the reviews over and over again that this was one of the most often cited complaint women have with Under Armour pants. They’re just to dang long. I – and I think just about any women out there – would love to see Under Armour sell their pants in short, regular and long lengths. Give us a good fitting pant and you own us – seriously!

To carry the fit theme a little further. When I registered with Under Armour I was asked which areas of sports I was most interested in. I would love it if I could also enter my measurements when I register. Under Armour could then take that information and suggest which pieces of clothing would best fit me. Then when new lines were released I could be updated not only by sport but fit as well. It would make my shopping experience quicker and easier – especially when some of the research work has already been done for me. As a busy woman I want to be able to hone in on the most useful information to me as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Back to my UA Tech pant (I currently own 2 pair) – I can never remember the proper name of these pants – in my head they are yoga pants. I have to search and search until I find them again on Under Armour’s site. How happy would I be if I could have my own personal favorite / wish list!! I’d love it to work similar to Amazon’s wish list – it would so simplify the buying process for me and when family are asking me what I want for my birthday or Christmas I could direct them to my list. We’d both end up happy.

Women are social but because of time constraints we don’t go shopping in groups or out to lunch like days past. The majority of our social activities now take place in mobile media or online. Under Armour has a general Facebook Page as well as one for running and baseball. I really believe that Under Armour needs to have a fan page dedicated to women. Make the page appeal to her Inner Girl Athlete. Every women involved in sports has an Inner Girl Athlete – the part of her that feels powerful and sexy. Create a place where she can connect and tap into the feeling – she wants to feel like she can conquer the world.

Along with connecting to a women’s Inner Girl Athlete reward her for being a fan. There are applications now where you can set up a boutique inside a fan page. Release new or special items to your fans first. Give fans a two week window where only they can access the new apparel. Women love exclusivity and being the first to have something new!

I have many other ideas but I’ll close with this one because I feel it’s important. I am Title Nine baby – without all the women who came before me I would not have had the opportunities to grow into the athlete I am. March is women’s history month. Under Armour can spotlight women in sports who paved the way and in their honor donate a percentage of every sale for the month of March to a female sports initiative. The 40th anniversary of Title Nine is June 23, 2012 – if Under Armour starts the planning process now they can have a major celebration of women in sports in June 2012 – culminating in creating their own sports initiative for women. I would love to see that happen!

I’m excited to see what direction Under Armour is going to take their women’s line. I admit my brain is currently locked into exploring the many different ways they can better connect with women. I’ve also have some fabulous ideas on how to make better ties to the rowing community. If anyone from Under Armour should come a calling – I’d love to share what’s kicking around in my head!

Look up my profile on Twitter (@jenniesjursen) and you will find I predominately tweet about marketing and business. However if you were to follow the original website link in that profile you would have landed on a photographer’s cute child and family portrait site. What gives?

I have been a photographer and business owner since the late 1990’s. First, with the not so successful, Jennie Sjursen Photography and now with Lil Blu Dragonfly and Strawberry Road.

I struggled and struggled with Jennie Sjursen Photography. In an effort to make changes I read books, took countless notes, attended seminars etc and then burnt out. I took a year away from photography – all photography. I put my marketing and design skills to use for a startup company – that didn’t stay started (poor financial plan). I had a decision to make – what am I going to do with all of these skills I picked up along the way?

I decided to go back to photography but Jennie Sjursen Photography was going to stay on the scrap heap. In a very deliberate move Lil Blu Dragonfly and Strawberry Road were created. Visit both sites and you will see there are similarities but other than a link back to each other very little cross over. Each brand was set up to have it’s own feel and identity. Along this very winding road I totally and completely fell in love with the marketing/branding side of the business.

I’m fascinated with small businesses and how they do or don’t use marketing – especially the new communication avenues that are opening up everyday. I want to share what I’ve learned along the way – hopefully make the learning process shorter and less painful for others. So periodically I’ll update this section of my site sharing not only my successes but some failures too. I’ll answer any question as openly and honestly as I can. Hope you join me for the ride and learn something along the way!