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!
New Year, New Beginning
This week I began as an account executive here at Roundpeg. As many of you know, I served as an intern here last summer, and I was lucky enough to be invited back to work full-time. It’s been awesome coming into a situation where I’m already so comfortable and feel I fit in so well. With that being said, there are some adjustments for a recent college grad that hasn’t been awake before 9 in the morning since high school (hello McDonald’s breakfast menu!)
With the new year beginning, we have all kinds of new projects. This is the time of year many companies decide it’s time to optimize their marketing efforts, which keeps us plenty busy. There are tons of new things I’ve got to learn and become accustomed to. Luckily, I have a great-and patient-crew around me to help.
The best part about my new job has been the opportunity to work directly with clients right off the bat, as well as be a major contributor to several campaigns…and this has all been in the first three days.
So far, it’s been one new adventure after another. In my first two weeks I will have already worked on designing websites, attended corporate events, contributed to the blog, and opened dialog with a handful of clients. I’m discovering and learning new things every day.
I’m really excited about all the possibilities 2010 has to offer. Here at Roundpeg we’ve done a number of things to improve our business strategy and put ourselves in a great position to achieve our 2010 goals. What changes have you made to start the year off right? How will you improve and make 2010 your best year ever?
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.
Crew Property Improvement Specialists Announce New Website
We recently launched Crew Property Improvement Specialists new website – www.crewspecialists.com.
There old website had an attractive landing page, but without much text or SEO planning, it was not a productive site,
The new website provides more information regarding their home repair services, annual maintenance programs, pictures of past projects, testimonials from clients and company news. The creation of a blog was a major change for this site.
It allowed the firm to move away from a single testimonial page. After seven years in business this page was so long, the testimonials were lost. On the new site each testimonials is an individual blog. They don’t get lost in the shuffle.
The same was true with all the awards and press releases. This is a firm which makes news in the community. The blog allows them to share new information!
“Our old site was attractive, but confusing for the average visitor,” said Crew owner, Eric Schneller. “The new site makes it easy for consumers and realtors to easily find the information they’re seeking.”
To visit the site please go to: www.crewspecialists.com.
To learn more about some of the other features we added to the website Click Here.
Indiana’s Favorite Blogs
Voting has started for the 2009 Indiana’s Favorite Blog Contest. Actually there are two separate contents promoting local bloggers. So what is going on? Two groups had a similar thought to promote local bloggers. Since we are on both lists, I am glad they did!
I think Mike Seidle sums it up well when he says:
Reality is that I’m just glad to see Indiana bloggers get their due. Looking at the entries, it’s good to see a lot of the same names on both contests. It’s also good to see how many of the contestants in the 2009 Indina’s Favorite Blog contest are different than those on Indiana’s Top 50 Blogs.
To cast your votes, log in and visit the 2009 Indina’s Favorite Blog contest and Indiana’s Top Fifty Bloggers
There are so many great blogs here in Indiana it is cool to see some activity from the community to recognize them. So if you enjoy reading this blog, or others, please take the time to vote for your favorites!
Cliffe Metal Website Redesign
by Erica Gardner
When we first met with Cliffe Metal they were looking for a new web site which met several criteria
- Easy to update - As a manufacturers representative, their product line changes frequently, as they add new principles to their lines. They were frustrated by the amount of time it took to update the site – sending changes to their designer, and waiting for her to find the time to make the updates.
- Improved SEO - The lack of fresh content, conversion forms, and key terms was clearly keeping them off the first page of Google.
- A fresh look consistent with their professional image. The red, white and blue theme made the site look like 100 other sheet metal firms, all with logos that dated back to the formation of the company.
We started with a redesign of the their logo and color scheme. Moving away from the “patriotic red, white and blue, we encouraged them to consider colors in a metallic family and stronger fonts.
We recommended a transition to Wordpress to address their update issues. The site now includes a blog where they feature pricing and product availablity updates, along with other company news. This ability to share information as it becomes available was impossible with their original site. And given the volatile nature of raw material pricing, this gives them a unique competitive edge in the marketplace.
We designed the website to showcase the specific metal products they sell. We selected theNextGEN gallery to offer a better solution for displaying their products than simple pasting images of different sizes onto each page. We also added a sidebar to feature links to their top suppliers.
Using the All in One SEO plug in, along with new content, we have begun to improve their visibility on key terms. It will take awhile to move up the rankings, but they are on their way.
How to Lose a Customer
by Erica Gardner
There are several ways to keep your customers on board with you for a very long time. There are also several ways for you to lose customers.
Recently, we were working with a client to rebuild his website on a Wordpress platform. He was tired of the unresponsive service he was getting from his current web support team and wanted greater control over his web updates.
We make these conversions for existing websites on a regular basis, and have worked with a number of companies on the transition. Most of my peers both locally, and around the country understand websites move on a regular basis, and make the transition as easy as possible.
Obviously, The Computer Shop in Brownsburg, hasn’t learned this. What should have taken an hour took several weeks to complete. While we were annoyed, we began to understand why their client wanted to leave them as quickly as possible.
Here are just a few of the reasons why they lost a valuable customer:
- Never answering the phone
- Never calling us back when a message was left
- Screening their calls so they wouldn’t have to talk to us
- Not giving us the correct information we needed
In the end, they lost a very client because of their poor customer service. While they may not miss one client, when he, and the team at Roundpeg share our experiences, it is likely they will miss opportunities for other clients.
Seth Godin had an interesting post on a related topic, entitled, Win the Fight, Lose the Customer. In it he explains
“The customer is always right” doesn’t mean that they’d win in court or a debate. It means, “If you want the customer to remain a customer, you need to permit him to believe he’s right.”
I think this behavior should extend, when possible, even if you think you are going to lose the customer. You never know, if down the road they may want to return or talk to a prospect about you.
Clearly, the Computer Shop in Brownsburg is so busy digging trenches, they will lose both the fight and the war.
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.
Are You There? It’s Me, Melinda
Written by (you guessed it!) Melinda Cooper.
Hello!
I am the new (and overly enthused) public relations/marketing intern for Roundpeg.
It’s going to be a fun time here, I can already tell (based on Clyde the cat alone).
I want to know about YOU – your business and how I can help you achieve even more.
And… oh alright, here are some random facts about me (in case you care)
I’m pushing 30 (and it’s pushing back). I have a husband and two cats. I went to Ball State (Go Cards!). I’ve never met David Letterman but have made my own Top 10 list on more than one occasion.
My dad is a small business owner in Elkhart. I LOVE social networking sites and the Internet in general. What did the world do before the Internet anyway? I have worked in the magazine and newspaper world and am excited to learn more about public relations and marketing.
First Post by First Daughter
15 years ago if you had asked me if I would be working for my mother I would have thrown my head back and laughed you. 7 years ago if you had asked me if I would have worked for my mother 3 times, been fired twice and quite once, again I would have laughed. 6 months ago if you had asked me if I would be working for her now, enjoying the job, and getting along better with her before I started working for her this time around, again, I probably would have laughed at you.
Now I should probably explain that 7 years ago when I worked for her (and was fired twice and quit once) it was definitely an age and maturity level on my part (part may have been at her fault for being a new business and trying to grow her business and train a family member; but for the sake of my job and this post we’ll say the fault lays with me). I had not had real world experience and had not been in college long enough to know what a “real world” job was like. This time around, I have my degree and have been working in “real world” jobs for over 3 years and know what it takes to work in a business environment and be professional in the office.
I’ve been working for my mom for about month and a half now, and as an employee and the daughter, I’ve learned how stressful this job can be. From the employee standpoint I’ve learned how to be professional in the office and at meetings. From the daughter standpoint I’ve learned how to request things in a professional matter. At home I can use the “mommy I want this…” tone, but in the office I’ve learned that I need to use the “Mom, I’ve finished this task, what is next on my list” tone.
So far things are going well. I have not wanted to quit, nor has she wanted to fire me; that I know of; in the time I’ve been here. I hope we can keep our relationship strong here in the office, and at home and not drive my co-workers; or my dad insane with us working together.
