Episode # 26 Meet Taylor Brough
This week I interviewed our graphic designer Taylor Brough. A graduate of The Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Art at Indiana University, Taylor brings a unique artistic style to our design projects.
In the last 18 months, he has truly masted the art of the WebBanner and the effective 6 x 9 postcard, but his favorite projects are definitely his logo designs:
Click here to listen to the interview
Episode # 25: Meet Jay Mattingly
In addition to interviewing friends and local business experts, I have had some fun interviewing members of the Roundeg team for my podcast: More Than a Few Words.
In this podcast, you get a chance to meet the newest member of the Roundpeg Team; Jay Mattingly. A recent graduate of IUPUI, Jay brings a great sense of humor and can do attitude to his role as an account executive and web designer.
Although he has only been here a few months, he already has some great projects under his belt including websites for the Lung Care Group and Greenwater Infrastructure.
While you can find him here at Roundpeg, he is also out and about at Rainmaker events, and Paul Poteeet’s Gotta Eat events around town, so if you see him, be sure to say hi!
Welcome Back Jay!
We are excited to welcome Jay Mattingly back to Roundpeg. Some of you may remember Jay from his tenure here as an intern this summer. Well, he is back, with a brand new diploma from IUPUI’s Kelley School of Business. And we are glad he is! In the few months that he was here, he became an integral part of our team, so it seems only natural to have him back full time.
So drop him a note (jay @ roundpeg . biz) or post a comment here to make him feel at home.
What you should know about Jay :
Jay was born and raised in Greenfield, Indiana. After completing high school, he was directly admitted into the Indiana University Kelley School of Business in Indianapolis, where he completed his marketing degree in December 2009.
In addition to his experience in the I-CORE program at the Kelley School, Jay spent the summer of 2009 interning at Roundpeg, a full-service marketing firm in Carmel. Jay loves basketball, golf, and pretending he’s working out.
Roundpeg – Employee of the Year!
It was a hard decision this year, but after long discussions and long lost nights of sleep we decided the employee of the year for 2009 at Roundpeg was the one and only…wait for it…Clyde the cat.
Yes, Clyde is our office cat and an integral part of the team here at Roundpeg. She works long hours and does tasks which could not be completed by Lorraine, Taylor, Michelle or even Rebecca. We don’t want to share her whole list because it could be embarrassing, but here are just a few of her many contributions:
1) Greets each employee, client, cleaning company, and even her rival Bonnie the dog.
2) An extraordinary sales professional, she knows exactly when to jump into the lap of a prospect who is undecided about whether or not to hire the Roundpeg team.
3) She is well qualified to supervise printing projects, from her perch atop the printer or help with the filing by climbing into the drawers where the files should go.
4) Her most valuable role is to entertains the team with climbing and acrobatic feats on our “off” days
Even though there is so much more to say about our favorite employee, I felt these pictures and video will give you a closer look into her first full year at roundpeg.
Have you met her yet? If you haven’t, stop by, she’d love it.
Congratulations Clyde!
CoolIris in Progress
We showed off how we could use CoolIris to display videos. It works equally well for graphics. Here are just a few items from our design portfolio displayed with CoolIris.
The World is Getting Smaller
One of the services we provide here at Roundpeg is the IndyBiz calendar. We try hard to include business networking events happening in and around the greater Indianapolis area. We solicit events on a variety of social media platforms and get a wide range of submissions.
As I was catching up on my emails this morning, I came across an event submission. At first glance, I did not recognize the organization or location. When I looked more closely, I realized we had received information for a networking event planned for January of 2010 happening in London.
A few of you may realize that there is a London in not only Indiana but also Ohio and Kentucky. This particular event is happening in THE London (as in England). So, while “the world is getting smaller” is an easy catch phrase to throw around, here at Roundpeg that phrase rang true to us this morning.
But if you are going to be in London, check it out, it sounds like fun
Organization: NFI Networking :Date/Time: Thursday 28th January, 2010. 18:00-21:00
Contact Name: NFI Networking
Location: The Woodstore Bar and Grill, North Road, London, N7 9EF
Web Link for More Info: http://nfinetworking.com
Event Description: This is a networking organisation for business people that want to selflessly help other business people, to buy services and recommend the services of other people. It’s about being helpful, not the hard sell. It’s about back-scratching, offering selfless advice and doing favours. It’s about business karma.
It’s not a place where you simply sell your services. It’s about helping people. It’s also about meeting a diverse group of business people, so you are also requested to bring along a representative from another industry not on the NFI list.
Certain groups of people are NFI – Not Flipping Invited – not necessarily because they are unhelpful, but generally because there’s a saturation of them at networking events. After the event, you are asked to post a comment to the NFI Networking blog or LinkedIn group about the selfless advice, help and sales leads that you offered another person – to prove that you were helpful.
Your help should also be validated by the person to whom you tried to help, whether or not the help proves fruitful or not.
The Beginning of a Podcasting Journey
Written by Neil Chaggar
There are many ways to inform, educate, and communicate with people over the internet. However, there’s one medium that literally gets your voice across to your audience; it’s called Podcasting.
Podcasting works similar to blogging; however it can be far more effective if the presenter is an exceptional speaker rather than a writer or if the audience prefers listening to their media/feed rather than reading it.
Earlier this week, Lorraine expressed an interest in Podcasting to compliment her written blog.
I was excited to work on this project since I already knew how useful yet simple this medium is to get your message across. I’ve listened to Podcasts in the past but didn’t know exactly how to set it up on our website; so began the Podcasting research.
I soon learned many people choose iTunes to publish their Podcasts so they are easily available to anyone and everyone. In addition, there are many other things to consider before you can start Podcasting. To begin, you need to have a quality recording tool. While most computers can record sound into a WAV file, you need additional software to save your files as MP3s.
Turns out, there are many software options from which to choose from but finding a cheap yet efficient one was tricky. Finally, we settled on Audacity, which is free and has decent effects and features, along with capability to save and convert MP3 files.
Another issue Podcaster face is choosing a third-party server where you can upload all your files and material along with RSS codes so iTunes can publish your Podcasts. After looking at several website, some more expensive than others, we chose www.solidcasts.com, which allows users to have first 100MB of space for free and reasonable monthly prices for up to 20GB of space.
Now we have all the precise tools and software to create and publish Podcasts, you can soon listen to Lorraine Ball has to say, literally. Furthermore, if you already publish Podcasts on your own website, feel free to check out the websites and software mentioned above to see if it can improve your Podcasting activities.
Neil out!
Business Plan Lesson 5: Operations
This is the fifth part of a ten part series on business planning. If you want to be sure to see all the posts sign up for the Free Weekly Business Planning Series and recieve a blank business outline too!
If the strategy section outlines where you are going, the operations section describes the type of fuel you will put in your engine. Here you begin the prcess of dividing the tasks and responsibilities so no important details are forgotten, and resources are allocated appropriately.
Sales and Sales Management – The plan should include discussion on who will conduct sales and how will they be trained and compensated.
Manufacturing/Supply – Think of manufacturing in broad terms. What is your process for creating and delivering your product or service?
Staffing Issues – Summarize the current key job descriptions and outline a plan for business continuation.
Controls – Recordkeeping and documentation are important parts of your business. Lenders look to your records to be sure there is adequate control over finances. More important, these records will help you as a business owner determine whether you are on track to achieve success. Important records include:
- Accounting System and Auditors
- Records for Monitoring Sales Activity
- Other Marketing Records
Your Assignment
Outline the tools you will use, or are using to track your business. What do you use for accounting, and marketing records. Share your favorite tools here!
Roundpeg Receives 2009 Best of Indianapolis Award
Roundpeg has just been notified that we have been awarded a 2009 Best of Indianapolis Award by the US Commerce Association(USCA).
Each year, the USCA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.
Read more here.
Business Plan – Lesson 1 – What Should Your Business Plan Contain?
This is the first part of a 10 part series on business planning which we will run once a week on Fridays. If you want to be sure to see all the posts sign up for the Free Weekly Business Planning Series and recieve a blank business outline too!
What Is a Business Plan?
A business plan is simply a tool to help a business look ahead, allocate resources, focus on key points, and prepare for opportunities and problems. You use it the same way you study a map to plan a route, determine where to turn, and locate key landmarks. A complete plan includes descriptions of the company, product or service, market, forecasts, management team, and financial analysis.
Executive Summary should contain:
- Company description and current status
- Products/services and market description
- Company objectives
- Financial performance and funding plans
History and Position to Date
Here you describe why you started the business, why you believe it will succeed, and how you will define success. It should include:
- Company background
- Sales and other achievements
- Mission, vision, values, and goals
- Business structure and management team
- Product/service description
Market Research Includes
- Description of the target customers
- Product preferences and purchase influencers
- Market trends
- Description of the competitors
Business Strategy – Includes all four elements of your business strategy: Product, Price, Place and Promotion.
Operations
This section is not complete without the milestone schedule, a table that captures all the assignments, commitments, and plans that assign timelines and responsibilities. It shoudl also include your plans for :
- Sales and sales management
- Manufacturing/supply
- Staffing issues
- Business controls and critical risk
Forecasting and Financials - The plan culminates with the financials. Ultimately, your business plan must boil down to results.
Appendix - What goes into the appendix? Everything else!
Find this interesting? Sign-up for our Business Plan in 10 Weeks Newsletter or purchase my “Business Map: A Practical Guide to Business Planning”
YOUR ASSIGNMENT:
- Buy a 3 ring binder, a set a tabs and some paper
- Print your outline and insert the questions in the appropriate sections so you are ready to start writing.
