White Paper now available

The White Paper "Brain Drain--Twenty Two Steps to Reduce the Impact of Retirement and Increase Employee Retention is now available on my website here.

To read the full press release, click this link.

This White Paper offers solid solutions to the coming loss of intellectual capital companies face with the impending retirement of Baby Boomers, historically brief job stays, and the difficulties of managing an increasingly multigenerational workforce.

My wonderful mother

Marge and my father Andy, married in 1940, founded two insurance agencies, but more importantly, taught their four children strong values. My brothers and I miss them daily.

My most awesome father

Here he is (left) introducing Barry Goldwater at his Rotary Club.

Everything I learned about how to treat people (and most of what I learned about insurance), I learned from my father and my mother.

May they rest in peace.

E-mail ads that work

This is a very interesting article about the development of different typefaces and the logo changes that The Nature Conservancy has undergone in its history. While we aren't type designers, we do develop e-mail advertising for some of the top MGAs in the country, so choosing a type that fits with your corporate image is always part of our design.

How do we design an ad for you? First, we spent quite a bit of time on your website and review any written communications you send out about your program. For example, if you're writing habitational products, we'll look at promotional material you send about your offerings or any links on your website such as where your agency agreements reside to determine the look of your website.

From there, we pick a theme. If our client allows, we try to think outside the insurance box. For example, we developed a hilarious and highly successful e-mail campaign for an insurance education provider. The theme: "I have to take another insurance class?" Then we found a picture of a young man sleeping in his coffee cup.

That particular campaign really generated click-throughs, which is the point. You want to drive people to your website. Even if they don't buy then, they know who you are and, perhaps with some repetition (another ad, because research shows it takes at least seven contacts before someone actually buys from you), they'll make a purchase.

People want to buy from people; not a nameless corporation. So it's vital that we learn a little bit about how you operate so that we can pitch your personality in our ad. We really enjoy designing email ads that help make our customers more successful.

E-mail ads must be expensive, you might think. They are very inexpensive when you consider you're getting thousands of people to see your ad, versus static advertising like an ad in a trade journal, which is not interactive and is often simply branding your corporate identity. As we've discussed before, branding is vital long-term. But if you need to make a sale this week, then e-mail is the best way to achieve that sale.

If you want to read an excellent article on typeface design, click here. And if we can help you, call anytime at 573.638.3738. I'm a writer; I work weird hours.

Google earth

If you want to see some beautiful pictures of the earth and sky, visit http://www.earth.google.com/ and download Google earth. Here's where I'm located, just in case you want to drop by. ;-)
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As technology improves with lightning speed and makes distances seem to disappear, it's good for those of us in customer service (and who isn't in customer service) to remember: The Golden Rule is never outdated in business or personal relationships.
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