On January 1, 2015, the Carryout Bag Ordinance went into effect in Dallas ~ hello baby step on the road to sustainability in our great city. The ordinance mandates that retailers charge consumers five cents for every single-use plastic bag they are given. This legislation may have dealt Dallas shoppers a jolt, but it’s nothing new.

Some Canadian cities have been adhering to these regulations since 2007, and Dallas is joining an ever-growing list of American cities who have been on board including San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, Austin and all the islands in Hawaii.

The reason for doing this is simple: WE HAVE TO.

Consider this:

• More than trillion plastic bags are used every year worldwide.
• Only somewhere between .5% to 3% of all bags is recycled.
• A single plastic bag can take up to 1,000 years to degrade.
• Plastic bags remain toxic even after they break down. When plastics break down, they don’t biodegrade; they photodegrade. This means the materials break down to smaller fragments which readily soak up toxins. They then contaminate soil, waterways and animals upon digestion.
• Ten percent of the plastic produced every year worldwide winds up in the ocean, 70% of which finds its way to the ocean floor, where it will likely never degrade.

As consumers, the decision is easy. Plastic bags are superfluous and avoidable, so take reusable bags shopping with you. Throw them in your car and use them. End of story.

But as a business-owner, there is a bigger issue at play – sustainability.

The most widely agreed upon definition of sustainability requires we meet the needs of today without negatively impacting future generations. All companies have the opportunity to formulate and then execute a strategy that will take into account all aspects of sustainability but that is useful enough to be implemented today.

True sustainability has four coequal components:

1. Social (act as if other people matter)
2. Economic (operate profitably)
3. Environmental (protect and restore the ecosystem)
4. Cultural (protect and value cultural diversity)

Now, more than ever before, consumers, employees and investors share a common purpose and a passion for companies that do well by doing good. So any strategy without sustainability at its core is just plain irresponsible – bad for business, bad for shareholders, bad for the environment.

Side note: It was our fine city’s birthday yesterday! Happy 159th Dallas! We built this city on rock and roll baby!

While the Super Bowl game is fun to watch for many reasons – the match-up between two great teams, the excited fans, the half-time entertainment – we all know that what everybody really wants to see are the Super Bowl commercials.

Every day this week my morning news show has unveiled a different commercial and I have yet to be disappointed. I can’t wait to watch the game and see them all run live. I also love the after-the-game-successful-commercial debate.

Since airing a 30-second Super Bowl spot reportedly costs a staggering $4.5 million, to many, Super Bowl commercials seem frivolous. But as we all know, brands who get their Super Bowl ad campaign right are big marketing winners.  If there were not a reward, leading brands wouldn’t spend the dollars year after year on Super Bowl ads.  It is interesting to watch these same brands make the most of their spots by pairing them with digital and social campaigns.

In the end, not only is there a winning football team, there is a winning advertising campaign.  What it takes to win a Super Bowl campaign is the same as it is for any really good marketing plan:

1. Have a strategy.
2. Be relevant.
3. Provide meaningful content.
4. Strike an emotional chord and deliver a compelling message that will have people talking for days.

I definitely have my favorite spots already, but I will wait to choose a winner until I see all the ads in all their glory on Sunday evening!  Happy watching!

Donny Osmond and Sara Karens

A sweet perk of this job is the opportunity to witness first hand marketing and branding strategies executed across different business and distribution channels as well as networking and learning from other folks on what has or has not worked.

As no man is an island, these conversations are incredibly useful.

Enter Dallas Market Center’s Sneak Peek. The day was an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at home and gift products and trends while networking with fellow bloggers during January Market.

It was a full day of trend discussion and design direction, beginning with breakfast with Donny Osmond. He and his wife, Debbie, are a perfect example of synergy across a brand. The tagline for his new line of home products, Donny Osmond Home, is “Making Home and Family Number One.” It’s hard to imagine a better brand ambassador for home and family. As personable as he is in the media, he is equally humble and engaging live. He and Debbie spent the better part of an hour joking around and telling stories to our little band of insiders.

Jeff Lewis of Bravo’s Flipping Out was the second keynote presentation for the day. His was followed with a Q & A session moderated by Shay Geyer of IBB. He is another terrific example of an authentic brand voice. His design philosophy is to find the true integrity of the house during renovation and breathe life back into the space in a way that will appeal to buyers.

It was a full day of touring showrooms, lunching with Dwell with Dignity and organic juices from The GEM (compliments of Peacock Alley). At the end of the day, we all went away understanding that authentic style is always in style, modern, clean lines will never be out of style and Pantone’s color of the year, Marsala, was really nobody’s favorite. 

Debbie and Donny Osmond and the bloggers of Sneak Peek

My 13-year-old daughter is my hero.

At a time in her life when conformance equals survival and fitting in is everything (yes, we are talking about the angst of middle school), she has steadfastly, unapologetically and intentionally made choices that are true to her character, her spirit and her style.

In a sea full of long-haired girls, she chopped hers off and donated it to Locks of Love. When the group texts become more mean-spirited than meaningful, she turns her phone off and sits at the piano to play and sing. And although “being cool” is the going currency, she hangs onto her goofy, silly side. She tells me all the time, “I’m just doing me, Mom.”

She is her authentic self.

I admire this about her tremendously, and the truth is that it has inspired me to be more authentic myself. To:

• Make choices that make sense for me and my family.
• Spend my time doing what I want and not what I “should.”
• Care less what others’ perceptions are.
• Say no.
• Remember myself in the equation.

It’s freeing. I highly recommend it.

This way of being also translates to the business world, which has been a resounding theme in my short time working with the goddesses at Front Porch Marketing. I have realized just how important authenticity is for your business, particularly a small business. Can you answer the following:

1. Who are you?
2. What are you doing that makes you unique?
3. What is your brand?
4. How are you representing yourself?
5. Are you engaging in authentic online engagement?

It is imperative that you can answer these questions with clarity and that your brand is clear in everything you say and do. We on the Porch are passionate about helping you express your authentic self. It’s our mission!

Indeed, we want you to “just do you.”

These days it seems it’s hard to know when the best time to do your holiday shopping is between Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Free Shipping Day and Super Saturday, which are all made up days created to boost holiday sales.

Do you jump right in after Thanksgiving and knock out everything on your list? Or do you hold out for possibly better deals with the chance of not getting what you want? Or are you like me this year and got a really late start and are hoping for the best?

The National Retail Federation anticipates holiday sales this year will increase 4.1% over last year. Holiday retail sales reports have been very mixed this year. It started with a disappointing Black Friday, which is typically the busiest shopping day of the year. But despite a slow Thanksgiving weekend, November sales were actually up slightly over last year. It seems this can be attributed to an expansion in the sales season with retailers offering deep discounts as early as Halloween. With spotty sales reports so far this holiday season, retailers are now banking on Super Saturday, the last Saturday before Christmas, to make up for slow sales so far this year. In fact, according to ShopperTrak, Super Saturday is expected to surpass Black Friday as the top revenue-generating day of 2014 for brick-and-mortar stores. That means stores have to rely on procrastinators like me to save the holiday shopping season.

While the forecast for in-store sales is good this year, on-line holiday sales forecasts continue to grow year after year with Cyber Monday now being the biggest online shopping day of the year. Online sales are expected to grow 8 – 11% this year. The surge in online shopping shows holiday shoppers are in search of deals that are most convenient.

With lower gas prices and unemployment rates at a six-year low, retailers are hoping shoppers will have a little more cash to spend this holiday season. And with Christmas falling on Thursday this year, most people will have Friday off which will give them another opportunity to take advantage of after Christmas sales.

We’ll have to wait a few more days to see how the holiday shopping season ends up this year. In the meantime, I’ve got to get to it … Happy Shopping!

Multitasking ~ The concept is fantastic. The temptation to work on multiple things at once is great. We all have many demands on our very finite productive time which battle with the seemingly endless list of things to do both at work and at home.

However, it turns out that multitasking is not the most efficient way to work. In fact, many tasks done simultaneously are not as well done, take longer and are more likely to have errors. According to Travis Bradberry in a recent article in Forbes, multitasking can not only be ineffective, but can cause damage to your career and ultimately your brain. Research done at Stanford University found that, “those who multitask a lot and actually feel it boosts their performance, were worse at multitasking than those who like to do a single thing at a time.”

Apparently our brains prefer a single focus.

But … there is a time and place for everything. There is one area where multitasking is not only desirable, but essential. Marketing. It’s critical to have each initiative working as hard as it can simultaneously to intrigue and motivate the consumer to engage. Creative advertising campaigns, artfully crafted messages and carefully chosen images should be designed to make the most of every platform they reach by optimizing key search words. When done well, the consumer will willingly follow, much like Alice trailing the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole and an enticing new world. Your world.

Lead consumers to your world with an effective marketing program. Once they have landed at the bottom of the rabbit hole and are again faced with the realities of looming deadlines and gnawing to do lists, they will agree that the distraction was worth the trip.

I made it! Surgery went great.

Here’s my favorite things from my latest adventure:
1) The anesthesiologist came with her tray of champagne, her words, it really was tequila shots. Lights out quicker than I could say “see ya later.”
2) The day before surgery I received a pedicure … day of Pete, my husband, had to remove my new polish. They check for circulation through your toes. Now you know.
3) The people that surrounded me, picked me up, covered me in kindness and took care of my family and me during this time. I have so much gratitude!

Recovery is progressing as planned ~ slowly. Meaning I have spent a lot of time in my recliner … A. LOT. of. TIME.

For many entrepreneurs, their business is their life. Life can teach us lessons about business. In my experience, most business owners are firefighters. They like solving problems and typically get a rush from fixing things! There usually is a small or raging fire that gets their complete attention, from equipment, accounting, staffing, inventory or sales, and rightfully so, if they don’t put out the fire, who will?

I was at a dinner party two weeks ago. It was exciting to get out of the house for an adult evening. Someone asked me {kindly} what exactly I was doing with all my time. Lots of computer time, social media, reading and a whole lot of being still.

Folks, I am here to tell you. After staying in the same spot for a while, you start to notice things. Little things like dust under the TV stand and big things like schedules, strategies, systems and relationships.

In the stillness. In the quiet. A new perspective emerged.

What an interesting idea for business leaders and owners. How often do we sit still? How often do we take the time to seek new perspective? Fresh perspective can come from new employees, new business partners, customers, but it also needs to come from you. The person who lives and breathes the business. The business that is your life. Imagine the possibilities. Take the time to be still and see things differently.

Personally, I can’t wait to get off the bench and start applying a fresh, new perspective.

Chances are your business is using content marketing as part of your overall marketing plan. The objective of content marketing is to deliver valuable information that will engage your audience. Consumers are tuning out the more intrusive marketing tactics. What they really want is great, customer-focused information that helps them make a decision or solve a problem. That’s what content marketing delivers.

I actually like The Content Marketing Institute’s definition of content marketing the best: “Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

So when it comes to content marketing, as a marketing professional, your job is to create and share valuable, free content to attract and convert prospective buyers into customers and engage existing customers so they are repeat buyers. The content you create and share should be closely related to what you sell without selling.

The purpose is to build relationships, awareness, branding and overall establish your company as an expert in your industry. You want to educate people and gain their trust so they do business with you.

There are many types of content that form a content marketing strategy including:

• Blogging
• Guest blog posts
• Social media posts and sharing
• Email marketing
• Infographics
• PowerPoint presentations
• Podcasts
• Standard videos
• Micro-videos (i.e. Vine)
• Public Speaking
• Webinars
• Articles

It’s up to you to know what is the best way for your brand to reach those potential and current customers. Just remember the power of great content marketing can make a person stop, read, think and behave differently. The return on investment for content marketing can be huge if executed correctly. And, it really doesn’t take a significant investment!

On September 20, little did I know I would have a lesson on my latest opportunity to adapt to a new obstacle. I attended Camp Gladiator’s annual CG games, a fitness competition that pushes athletes to their limits.

We were there to do a fun run of the obstacle course. I was amazed, inspired by the competitors and already planning my training to be there as a competitor in 2015. I knew I could do this and wanted to do it!

Two hours later after a fall on the monkey bars, my adaptability was tested. My ACL was toast and needed reconstruction. Out with the goal to compete in CG games in 2015, new plan to be 100% recovered in a year.

Life happens, your professional life happens, business happens. To be successful in all areas in the current world that changes in a nanosecond, how can you ensure success?

To set your business up to prosper, it has to be flexible in any conditions. Here are three ways to ensure your business is adaptable:

1. Stay on top of market trends. Including customer insights, competitors, economy, employment, technology and laws and regulations.
2. Talk to your customers. Get feedback and respond.
3. Create and foster an innovative culture. Be open to new ideas from all levels within the organization.

Companies must constantly evolve to changing dynamics in society or an industry to be successful.

A couple adaptability examples:

• In the technology sector, you can easily see the winners and losers. As we switched from fax machines and snail mail to email and text, from bulky desktop computers to handheld devices, from Mapsco to built-in navigation systems, many organizations had to adapt. Apple was once considered dead. Look at them now. They innovated and adapted and are winning.
• In August 2001, the opening of The Shops of Willow Bend, an upscale shopping center with mostly high end tenants, opened shortly before the September 11, 2001, attacks. Retail sales nationwide entered a slump. When it first opened, the mall’s tenants included Escada, Bruno Magli, Burberry, Armani Collezioni, Montblanc, Nicole Miller, Diesel, D&G and Loro Piana among others. The economy and environment dictated the need for change. Today, they are focusing on opening national retail chains versus luxury stores. This year, the center was sold to Starwood Capital Group for more than $1.4 billion.
• In February 3, 2013, lights go out at SuperBowl XLVII. One hundred million viewers turn to social media to find Dunking in the Dark. That’s all. Oreo, you are genius and a perfect example of adaptability on the fly! Rock on!

Customer’s basic needs don’t change, but how they satisfy them do. Successful brands stay on-top of this.

Wish me luck on my surgery next week? Maybe I will blog about it …

We were excited to meet with a prospective client partner and learn more about their branding and marketing needs. The company is in the B2B space.

Well into the conversation, my pulse began to race, my leg started to shake and my voice rose an octave.

You see, they have been meeting with several potential marketing partners and being very thorough about their due diligence in selecting the right one. One agency told them that they could … wait for it … manage and execute all their email marketing for the entire year for an annual fee if they handed over all the email content in one meeting.

Whoa! Really?!?!

It sounded good to the prospective client. This was:

• Very cost effective
• Low effort on their part
• Efficient with their time
• Worry-free. They wouldn’t have to think about their email marketing for an entire year.

Yes, friends, but this is wrong in so. many. ways. Hence, me physically reacting to this idea.

Effective email marketing campaigns are, among other things:

• Useful. If you are sending content to your audience that is several months old, you are missing the boat. “We try to include something useful in every email,” says Ben Chestnut of MailChimp. “If the announcement was totally useless, let’s at least give the recipient a case study, or something educational (even if it points to some other resource).”
• Fresh. Our world is changing daily. What is relevant or newsworthy today is not going to be tonight or tomorrow, never mind months from now.
• Personal and relevant. Your current and potential customers’ needs and businesses are constantly evolving. What they want and is the crisis du jour changes hourly. You may learn something in a meeting or on a call with them that you have never thought of before that could be a new product or service offering for your company or a nugget of wisdom for your next company email. Sorry, too late, you can only submit your content once a year … Ugh …

The reality is email marketing takes experience, work and expertise. The good news is we’re here to make it easy, effective and right for your brand.