Getting yourself out there

There are all kinds of ways of getting yourself out there as a company and showcasing your expertise for others. For many there is a centralized figure head who becomes the voice of the company. We're not that and we truly hate when one person "is the man (or woman)"! We do not believe that one person will make a company; and shouldn't. We believe that a team consists of a group of people that are truly good at what they do but together those good people become great. This is what makes JM2 Webdesigners & Marketing of Valparaiso Indiana unique and different. The owner (me; John) give equal say to everyone as it's not about "me". What we do for our small business customers is about them and to help our clients grow takes an entire team and not one person. We volunteer our time and talent to talk in front of groups and organizations. Not for sales pitches (of course that is an underlying cause but not our motivation). We want the local population to become more educated, informed, and have a better understanding of what digital marketing for small business is and can be. In this article, I am going to talk about a recent talk Kyle and I did with First Trust Credit Union of Michigan City Indiana.

It all started with an email asking a member of the team (not Kyle or I) if we (JM2) would be interested in talking at a quarterly business seminar. We already knew the answer would be a resounding yes as we strive for twelve of these per year. Of course, the date would have to e available on our calendars for us to do this. We found that the date was available on Kyle's calendar but not John. John already had a conflict for that date and time, but it was easily moved so that first happened in arranging the event. Once we knew that both Kyle and I were available, could make the trip from Valparaiso to Michigan City in time to talk everything started moving at a fast pace.

Once we had confirmation that we were locked in information was gathered, how many attendees were anticipated, events went up on Facebook, and Kyle & I do what they always do. We went straight to the whiteboard and creating an outline. The event was more than a month away but that didn't mean preparations shouldn't start. We knew the topic was marketing for small businesses and we were going to have to cover websites and social media in a very short period (20 minutes – like that would ever happen [hint: it didn't!]). On the whiteboard we put four bullet points up for each as we felt that would be enough to provide a high-level overview and leave room for the 10-minute Q&A session at the end. Boy we were mistaken on that one! John (myself) talks way too much (but we'll blame Kyle as I am writing this!). We ended up going twice as long which did cover the Q&A session.

Everyone stayed and was highly engaged in the entire process, asked some real killer questions (thank you!!!!), and afterward we could keep the questions going even deeper. Of course, then we were tossed out as you can't stay at a credit union all night. It would be fun to sleep on all that money but we're thinking the local authorities might not think it was as much fun as went through our mind at the time. That will have to stay on the bucket list for another time.

I have to say Kyle, as always, knocked it out of the park (and I did my part at making sure we met our talk time). If you have a group or organization and would like to learn about a specific area of small business digital marketing give us a call and we'll see what we can do together to make it happen.