The Ad4! Radio Show Countdown

Only 1 week until the kick-off of the Ad4! Radio Show. We're very excited here at Ad4! about the show and many of the cool guests who have already committed to appearing. 

If you want to hear discussion about marketing strategies for small business, tune in Thursdays from 8 - 9 AM on WTKI 1450 AM - 92.9 FM Huntsville and WEKI 1490 AM - 94.7 FM Decatur. You can stream the show live on your computer at www.wtkiradio.com/. Once our new website is completed, you'll be able to download the podcasts directly to your smart phone and list to us on the go.  

The show will focus on communication and marketing strategies and using the popular tools available for small business to drive customers and ultimately revenue. It's all about the bottom line. If you're marketing strategy isn't helping you create more customers, more sales, more income, it's not really working for you. We'll talk about the what, why, and how of marketing. We're basically giving away our secret sauce. To get it, just listen to the show. 

We still have a few sponsorship slots available, so if you're interested, let me or Felica know. 

Connect with Chris on  Google+  LinkedIn  Twitter  Ad4!

This Meeting Is Wasting My Time

We’re talking about meetings and using them to efficiently make decisions and manage your business.

So how do you use your time more efficiently during meetings and become more productive? The easiest first step is to have an agenda. Know before the meeting what you want to accomplish. For regular meetings, like a weekly staff meeting, the agenda can become an agenda item. You can determine what will be discussed during the next meeting and how much time you will allocate to that topic. Then, by assigning a timekeeper to keep track of time and a gatekeeper to keep the discussion within the bounds of the agenda, the meeting can stay on track and on time. At the end of the allotted time, the entire group can decide if the topic needs to be allocated additional time or if enough discussion has taken place to move forward.

For less formal meetings, you can effectively do the same thing with the entire group acting as gatekeepers. This function is a key role in making meeting time more efficient. You probably have an individual in your organization that talks on and on about whatever comes to mind once he gets the floor. You can prevent this by having an understanding by the whole group that you’re going to try to be efficient and not allow any one person to hijack a meeting.

Another key ingredient in effective meetings is doing your homework before the meeting. If you’re supposed to investigate a topic and be prepared to present it to your meeting group, then do it. Nothing is more frustrating than showing up for a meeting about a specific topic from someone, who forgot or just didn’t have time to get their research done. That wastes everyone’s time.

Got a thought about making meetings more effective? Why not share?

Connect with Chris on  Google+  LinkedIn  Twitter  Ad4!

The Ad4! Radio Show

We have been working for several months at Ad4! on hosting our own radio show. We've finally worked out the details and are excited to announce that we'll start on January 3, 2013. The show will air on Thursday mornings from 8 - 9 AM on WTKI 1450 AM - 92.9 FM Huntsville and WEKI 1490 AM - 94.7 FM Decatur. You can stream the show live on your computer at www.wtkiradio.com/. We're also working on a new website and will have the broadcasts available for download when the new site is ready. 

The show will focus on communication and marketing strategies and using the popular tools available for small business to drive customers and ultimately revenue. It's all about the bottom line. If you're marketing strategy isn't helping you create more customers, more sales, more income, it's not really working for you. We'll talk about the what, why, and how of marketing. We're basically giving away our secret sauce. To get it, just listen to the show. 

We still have a few sponsorship slots available, so if you're interested, let me or Felica know. 

Here's the official Press Release if you're interested. 

AD4! ANNOUNCES RADIO SHOW

HUNTSVILLE, AL, December 20, 2012 - Ad4! announced today the launch of the Ad4! Radio Show on WTKI 1450 AM / 92.9 FM Huntsville and WEKI 1490 AM / 94.7 FM Decatur. The show will air on Thursday mornings from 8:00 AM until 9:00 AM beginning January 3, 2013. The show will be hosted by Chris Gattis with regular appearances from Felica Sparks and other members of the Ad4! Group. The show will focus on communication and marketing strategies. “We’re very excited about the show,” said Gattis, “we’ll be giving away our secret sauce; all you have to do is listen.” 

Ad4! founder, Felica Sparks, said “the show is an opportunity to highlight trends in the industry, teach the techniques of creating and implementing a marketing strategy, and show off some interesting work being done by our clients.” During the first quarter of 2013, the programming schedule will concentrate on the popular promotion vehicles available to business such as video, smart web applications, and social media. “We’re going to start by showing how to use the current tools from PR to social media to ultimately drive revenue. More importantly, we’ll discuss why these tools are changing the way marketing is done in the digital age and why small businesses must adapt their tried and true methods to the new standards,” explained Gattis.  

Ad4! is a strategy and communication services boutique. We work with a network of the best artists, videographers and programmers allowing us to use top shelf talent on your project. From blogs to billboards, Ad4! delivers relevant marketing communications essential in today's dynamic and competitive market. Our emphasis on research, analysis, and strategy will set you apart from your competition and allow better market-based decisions. From start-ups and family-owned shops to multi-national manufacturers and defense contractors, Ad4! helps define and implement a marketing strategy that effectively communicates your brand promise and grow your business. Ad4! Communication that counts!

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If you’d like more information about Ad4! please contact Felica Sparks at 256-426-2718 or felica@ad4group.com or visit www.ad4group.com.

The Meeting Value Calculation

During December, we’re talking about meetings and how to be more efficient with your time and more productive. Sometimes, you just have to meet. Email and texts and so forth can be very effective, but sometimes you need to look each other in the eye and discuss things. However, if you think about the cost of meetings, you’ll hopefully be more sensitive to the true cost of that time.

Let’s say you you’re the president of a company and you have a staff meeting every Monday with your team. You include the VP of Sales & Marketing, the CFO, the VP of Operations, the IT manager, the customer service manager, and your admin who takes minutes. Have you ever thought about the cost of that group of people sitting around a table for an hour or three? Well, let’s do a little calculation. These executive and their annual and effective hourly pay rates are listed below.

Position                                            Annual Salary                        Effective Hourly Rate

President                                $175,000                               $84.13
VP of Sales & Marketing            $150,000                               $72.12
CFO                                        $150,000                               $72.12
VP of Operations                      $135,000                               $64.90
IT Manager                               $115,000                               $55.29
Customer Service Manager          $78,000                               $37.50
Executive Admin                        $42,000                              $20.19

Total                                     $845,000                            $406.25

So a two hour Monday morning meeting costs $812.50, at least from an effective rate. So the president should be thinking about his time and the time of his staff and whether or not the meeting effectiveness is worth $812.50 PER WEEK. If you meet every week, that’s an effective rate of $21,125 per year, just in staff meetings. You’ll need to be pretty darn efficient to make that investment in your business.

You and your team may not make the kind of salaries that this group makes, but you still have a hefty combined hourly rate for meetings of several people. Next time you’re in a meeting at your company, do a quick calculation and determine if you’re getting the best efficiency out of your meetings and if you’re solving problems and making good decisions worth the total cost of your team’s time.

Got a thought? Why not share?

Connect with Chris on  Google+  LinkedIn  Twitter  Ad4!

Oh no, not another meeting!

Meetings can be such a waste of time. You tend to sit around while other people waste your time blowing hot air about things that don’t really impact you. I find that many times, people just schedule meetings so they have someone to listen to them yak on and on.

In one of my previous lives, I spent lots of time training project and quality teams how to be effective, and most of that had to do with how to run meetings. We would take a group of people from the plant, give them some team training, and set them to work fixing all sorts of production related problems. These are the people who are closest to the problem and they frequently have the best solutions for fixing them. The real problem is that the management doesn’t generally care what the line workers think, so these guys are used to keeping their mouth shut. We found that by forming a cross functional team of plant guys, with just a corporate facilitator to keep them on the right track and help them with the process of process improvement, they got all kinds of great work done. We put them in charge of their own destiny and as a facilitator, my job was to keep quiet and just make sure they followed the improvement processes. When they came up with a solution, the facilitator would help them prepare a proposal to the president’s staff that they would then deliver. If their idea made sense, and they usually did, the improvement plan was approved and budgets allocated. It was an awesome process and very empowering for the workers. Of course, you have to believe that your workers are more than just a pair of hands for a process like this to work.

But back to meetings. One of the process improvement tools we taught was to be effective in their meetings. Take minutes, have an agenda, a set time, and all that good stuff. They came to the meetings prepared to discuss their topic in the allotted time, they made a decision, and moved on. The meetings were quick, to the point, and very effective.

For the next few weeks, we’re going to explore some topics relative to meeting efficiencies, cost of meetings, and how to use them to your advantage. If you have some thoughts, please be sure to share.

Connect with Chris on  Google+  LinkedIn  Twitter  Ad4!