At Roundpeg, we love to play hooky. It’s not that we don’t love our jobs or aren’t passionate about marketing and web design and all that other good stuff. But sometimes, you have to take a step back from your work and take a day for other things. That’s why last Friday we cancelled work. Oh, sure, a few of us did a couple of hours of work in the morning or a smidgen in the afternoon, but most of our day was focused purely on having fun and enjoying the crazy carnival atmosphere that is the Super Bowl in Indianapolis. We even got paid for our time.

It’s a pretty radical thing to do, for an employer to pay their employees for not working. But we’ve found that taking time away from work as a team can be just as valuable as anything we do from 9-5 in our office. First, it refreshes us. Because all of us are creatives of one stripe of another, it can be critical to avoid burnout by becoming inspired by the work of others. That’s why the TURF art exhibit presented by the Indianapolis Downtown Artists and Dealers Association was such a godsend. It’s like a giant playground for grownups (okay, some kids too) where you can interact with art, view it from all different angles, crawl around on the ground and manipulate lights with your body. It’s important to step away from our own art sometimes and to look at what others are doing, how their viewpoints and perspectives differ radically from ours, and to see how we can incorporate that inspiration into our work in fresh, new ways.

The other important thing that our hooky day did was to help us form a stronger team. In our office, there are very few projects that we complete solo. Sure, I might do most of the work on a social media account, Peter shepherds website projects from start to finish and Jenna rules the roost with logos, but there are very few projects any of us complete alone. Whether we’re coordinating work together or just turning to the others for advice and moral support, we’re a team. So when we can get a chance to bond about things other than difficult customers or tricky WordPress themes, it adds a different dimension to our office relationships. It helps us learn to trust each other, and to view each other as whole people instead of just coworkers.

And finally, it’s fun. Fun is a critical part of our culture–an aspect of business that experts are agreeing is becoming more and more important. Culture is the motivation, cohesion, connection, spirit and focus that drive all great businesses. It’s about what makes you go to work besides money and why you deliver the best service day after day. And a little fun never hurt anyone.

Just take a look at some of the fun we had:

One of my all-time favorite TV shows is MASH. I loved all the characters of the quirky, somewhat political comedy. In the eleven years the show was on the air, many of the cast came and went. The writers and the director made a deliberate decision not to simply shove another actor into the same role. When a cast member left, they used it as an opportunity to take the show in a new direction.

The same is true of Roundpeg. In our ten years in business, team members have come and gone. The hardest thing to learn was that I couldn’t cast a new member in the same role. Each new person redefined the job around their skills and talents. While the essence of Roundpeg has remained the same, the company has evolved as a result of their influence.

These days, we have some new characters in our cast. Jenna Giles sits at the Art Director’s desk. While she has the same art degree as her predecessor Taylor, she definitely has her own style. In between designing logos and graphics for clients, she has been organizing our servers and files, shopping for pet fashions and teaching the cats stupid pet tricks.  Jenna  is passionate about her designs and comfortable explaining her concepts to clients, which has allowed me to spend more time looking for new projects.

We knew we had to hire Peter Wolfgram when Maybee drank his water and crawled into his lap during the interview.  Most afternoons you can still find her sitting there. As our production artist, Peter brings a calm center to the chaos that is Roundpeg.  He rolls his eyes ever so slightly when we suggest something he thinks is a dumb idea, you have to be paying attention to catch it. And when he is not designing, he  finds the most obscure and interesting links to share on Twitter. If you don’t follow him @pwolfgram, you should.

Some things haven’t changed. Roundpeg is still a quirky, productive place, filled with laughter, animals, and dining adventures.  It is however, a bit more polished, more professional and more grown up thanks to our newest cast members.   And with this new cast, I expect to run for quite a few more seasons.

They had many nicknames in the Indy business community, but to us they will always be The Boy Band. An unlikely duo, Jay Mattingly and Taylor Brough  shared a sense of  fun and a passion for what they did which allowed them to find a collaborative rhythm.

As solo artists they brought dramatically different backgrounds, skills and personality styles to Roundpeg.

Taylor was the quiet one.  He would often hesitate, thinking carefully about what he wanted to say. When he spoke up, it was worth paying attention.  After three years of working together, he could read my mind and my handwriting.   I am not sure which I valued most.

Jay exploded into every room he entered.  He had a million ideas and loved brainstorming with me. His telephone personality was an amazing mix of fun and business, and I know people called in just to talk to Jay.  The office is a little quieter without him.

 When they both left this summer to pursue bigger dreams, they took a piece of our hearts with them, but they left behind a wonderful legacy:

• Roundpeg Radio which started as a bit of summer music fun and transformed into our popular weekly podcast More than a Few Words.
• Adventures in Dining and Adventures in Culture – A standard practice of road trips as a team to find unusual food and experiences.   Next up? Paintball!
• On the business side they gave us a huge portfolio of great logos and websites and the RP avatar which is now the face of Roundpeg on all social media.

I didn’t want to come to my interview at Roundpeg. I wanted to go to the zoo.

It was late January, 2010. I had been un- or underemployed for the eight months since my college graduation. I’d worked retail, I’d done some contract writing work for a local university and most recently, I’d been laid off from a part-time job that I hated but wished would go full-time because it paid well and I wanted a job–any job.

I was down-in-the-dumps on that January day when Roundpeg called and told me they didn’t have any jobs available, but they’d talk to me about an unpaid internship. I didn’t want an unpaid internship, I wanted a job. I was tired of being poor and depressed. But I knew that I needed to keep moving and learning if I was ever going to find that elusive full-time gig.

“Can you come in Monday?” My heart sank. Monday was going to be a rare day for myself. You see, Monday was Martin Luther King Day, which meant free admission at the Indianapolis Zoo. It was going to be my treat to myself: a free trip to the zoo on a frigid winter’s day.

“Of course I can.”

So I went. We interviewed, but I don’t really remember it. I was full of resentment and hurt, going through the motions. But Roundpeg and I looked at each other and saw the same thing: potential. They saw a girl who was a little surly, a little battered, but who might just have some chops. And I saw a company that was a little rough around the edges, a little scrappy, but which might just have the makings of something great.

“When can you start? How about today?” Lorraine asked.

Goodbye, shark petting tank. Goodbye, red pandas. “Sure, why not?”

I worked the whole day, and then never left. Two months later, I was brought on full time.

So much has changed since that day I first walked into the little white house. For one thing, we don’t hire interns on the spot anymore. The company is also more confident, more focused and more profitable. The cast of characters has changed, revolving around the constants of Lorraine, Rebecca and Clyde. The brand and the company have grown up tremendously, and it’s been incredible to watch the change.

And for me? I’m more confident, focused and profitable, too. I’ve honed my writing skills, discovered the wild and wonderful world of social media, built a tight network in the Indianapolis community, gotten comfortable enough with myself and with my boss to help steer the direction of the company. I’ve learned to manage people–sort of. I’ve executed great campaigns with clients I loved that reaped big results, and I’ve face planted on a few projects that left me with valuable, if painful lessons.

But most importantly in my two years at the ‘Peg, I’ve rediscovered my self worth. I’ve grown up. And I’ve had a lot of fun along the way, with Taylor and Jay and Peter and Jenna  and Rebecca and the parade of interns.

Lorraine still owes me a trip to the zoo, though.

When I started Roundpeg, the company was run from a spare bedroom in my house. My cats Snowball and Midnight were my companions and coworkers. Midnight enjoyed sleeping on my planner or mouse pad and Snowball was always fascinated with the movement on my computer screen.

It felt  strange when we moved to the little white house and there were no animals.  That didn’t last long. Rebecca was remodeling her kitchen and her dog, Bonnie, was not getting along with the construction workers. I agreed to let her come to work for a few weeks.

Four years later, Bonnie is a regular part of the routine at Roundpeg. Her daily duties include greeting the team, ignoring our cats, charming our clients and snoring as she snoozes on a pillow in my office.

If you are going to have an office dog named Bonnie, you have to have an office cat named  . . . you guessed it, Clyde. And of course, we do. Weighing just a few pounds when we got her, she quickly established herself as the head of the office.  When she is not hazing interns, new employees and the other office animals, you can find her perched high on bookshelves surveying the chaos beneath her.

And finally, there is Maybee who can always be found in the middle of things. Every water cup and lap are her domain, including those belonging to potential clients or prospective employees.

The animals are a part of Roundpeg adding personality to our Facebook page and fun to our office. They make us laugh as they interrupt our work flow, sales presentations and seminars with their antics.  Most of all, they make our house feel like home.

For more of their antics: Check out our Cats at Work Album on Facebook.

Interns are a part of the fabric of Roundpeg. I am a teacher at heart, and I love sharing what I know about marketing with people who are interested in learning. Every semester we have one, two or three individuals who are testing their careers with us.

Traditional and non-traditional candidates, our interns come in all shapes and sizes.  BabyD was a high school sophomore with a talent for video and web design. Mid-career interns Jenn and Kristen were mature women, with more than a few years of experience in different fields.  They came to Roundpeg to learn things which would allow them to take their careers in a new direction.

We even had an international student, Liang Chen, who was here as part of a delegation of students from Taiwan participating in Butler University’s International Trade Institute’s International Business Administration Program.

The faces change, but you can always count on a little bit of learning going on at Roundpeg. And the learning is not one way.  The good interns, the ones we will always remember, gave us as much as we gave them.    Meet some of our interns:

Grant Harris (Jan. 2008) joined us during his last year at Ball State.

Together, he and I learned about Alexa rankings and the positive impact blogging and commenting on other blogs can have on our website’s traffic

Emily (Felts) Reynolds (May 2008) spent the summer working on email marketing, and  event promotion.   But her greatest gift to Roundpeg was the introduction to our former Art Director, Taylor Brough.

Liang Chen (2008), Jay Mattingly (2009) and Scott Pfeiffer (2011) were each  a part of the redesign of the Roundpeg website. With little or no wordpress training when they started, they each left a lasting mark on our brand when they left.

Jenn Riley Simone (Nov. 2010) came to Roundpeg hoping to learn about social media.  She learned enough to open her own marketing firm, offering social media as one of of many services for her clients.

She brought a wonderful sense of fun to Roundpeg and along the way she taught Allison how to be a mentor and a manager. But her greatest gift was the interview she landed for the two of us on NPR’s Marketplace Radio program.  

Not every intern gets offered a job at Roundpeg. Sometimes we are ready to say goodbye at the end of their internship, and sometimes the timing is wrong. We haven’t been able to offer jobs to all the talented, creative people who have been a part of Roundpeg over the years.

But sometimes we learn enough to know the intern is a keeper like Annalise Corman (2008), Jay Mattingly (2009), Sharayah Saunders (2010), Allison Carter (2010) and Peter Wolfgram (2011).

It is not always easy, starting over, carving out time for training, and answering the same questions over and over again, but a good intern is always worth the effort.

When I first started Roundpeg I looked to people who had started successful businesses. I looked at the path taken by people who had come from the same place I was coming from.  They were people who had made the transition from corporate executive  to entrepreneur.

One of the first people I looked to was Matt Michel.  Matt and I had worked together at Lennox, a lifetime ago.  After a successful career, he went out on his own, forming the Service Roundtable, an online community and resource program for HVAC contractors. I called Matt and asked him how to start a business. He gave me a number of good suggestions, but the best thing he did was give me one of my first testimonials.

Unsolicited, Matt wrote some really nice things about me, and those testimonials were used again and again in our brochure, web site and proposals. His reputation, credibility and words of endorsement opened a lot of doors for me.  Many of my early HVAC contracts came as a direct result of Matt’s initial comments.

As I look back at where we came from and forward to where we will be, one of the things I know are that “words” have power. What you say about someone else may seem like a small thing to you, but it can have tremendous impact on others. As you read my thank you to Matt, think about the people whose words have been valuable to you.

Think about the people who took the time to introduce and endorse you, opening doors for your business.  Have you said thank you?  And more importantly, have you used your words to introduce, endorse and open a door for someone else?

If you call Roundpeg, you will notice several things:

1. During business hours the phone is answered on the first ring
2. It is answered by a live human being
3. And the greeting is almost always the same, no matter who answers:  Thanks for calling Roundpeg, this is  (name). Can I help you?

Over the years, we have had a series of talented, young professionals answer that phone. Not only were they the face of Roundpeg, they were the voice. Amy Rowe Dolk, Erica Gardner Dobson and Annalise Corman each spent about a year at Roundpeg.  For them, it was a chance to start their career. For us, it was a chance to figure out what the role of an account executive should be.  The annual turnover of the account executive was part of life at Roundpeg.

Each of these women brought very different skills to the job. Annalise was a strong writer, Erica had a talent for web design (even though that was not what she went to school for) and Amy was gifted as the center of our customer service activities. With each of them, I experimented with the job description, trying to figure out what we needed most.  Working with them I learned about the pros and cons to hiring new college grads.

On the plus side:

• They brought enthusiasm, energy and new ideas
• They were willing to start at the bottom and were open to almost any assignment

On the down side:

• When you are young life changes – Amy followed her fiancee to Omaha. Erica, newly married was ready to buy a house, and needed a job with a bigger future.  Annalise figured out that she didn’t love writing as a career the way she had in school.
• With each change in their lives, came changes in ours.  Lots of interviewing, training and reorganizing.

We have stayed in touch, danced at their weddings, and watched their careers progress.  I am proud so many talented people have gotten their start at Roundpeg. But the constant turnover was holding us back.  I made a decision to invest in programs which would allow us to retain key employees.  It was a big step, but it was the only way we could  mature and grow.

In recent years, our staff has begun to change.  We still have some new college grads, but we also have team members with more experience.  People still come and go, but they stay longer giving us a chance to grow with them.  I know we will always have turn over. I know we will always be looking for that next great team player, who will bring new skills and new ideas to Roundpeg. And I also know some things won’t change…like how we answer the phone.

Thanks for calling Roundpeg, this is Lorraine.  Can I help you?

Nine years ago, Joel and I shared something in common. We each needed someone to take a chance on us. Joel’s young company had just lost a major client. As he worked through the details of reorganizing his company, he knew he needed a loan. With few hard assets, he needed a bank to take a chance on him.

As a relatively new company with few clients, Roundpeg needed him to take a chance on my skills as a business plan writer. If successful, the project would solve his problem and mine.

Today, eImagine Technology is one of the top computer consulting companies and one of the fastest growing private companies in the state. Joel was also named to the Forty Under 40 Class of 2010. As you review the lengthy list of the company’s achievements, it is obvious the bankers who took a chance on him, made the right choice. And it is cool we were a part of the early stages of that company.

Joel has often said that meeting me at that time set him on the path which took his business to the next level. But I don’t know if I have ever told him how much it meant when he took a chance on me. Working through that project gave me the confidence to sell those services to a host of other companies.

Although business plan writing is no longer a cornerstone of what we do at Roundpeg, Joel’s willingness to take a chance on me set Roundpeg on the path to where it is today.

As you look at your business, who are the people who took a risk, or supported you when you needed it most?  Have you said thank you lately?

Walking into a narrow hallway at a Rainmaker event, I came face to face with Eric Schneller. It was awkward to pass, so I stopped and introduced myself.  ”Hi,” I said, “I am Lorraine.”

I expected that my companion would reply in kind, so I was surprised when he said “Me too!”

Seriously?  What would convince a tall, rather large man that he was a middle age woman? I would have backed away, but as I mentioned, it was a narrow hallway. There was no way to gracefully exit, so I asked why he thought he was me.

He explained that although we had never met, we had spoken on the phone. We had been introduced by my friend Sandy when I was looking for a substitute for a BNI meeting. So in a way, he had been me. We had a good laugh, chatted a few more minutes and the conversation should have ended there.

Eric was a remodeling contractor, and I had just finished a major renovation of my home. I had no need for his services. He had a good relationship with another marketing company, so he had no need for mine. But we enjoyed the conversation and decided to meet for coffee.

Over the next few years we became great friends, supporters of each other’s businesses, and eventually partners. No, I don’t own a piece of a construction company, but five years ago, Eric and I were both looking for a way to move our businesses out of our spare bedrooms. Our companies were growing and we both needed a “home.”  The solution?  We purchased the little white house together. From that point on, I always introduced Eric as “my roommate.” It always generated questions, odd looks and a few laughs. The relationship that started in a hallway resulted in us sharing one.

Without Eric, I am not sure I would have found the courage to buy a building, but together it seemed manageable. The space gave me room to expand and grow. It was a great place to bring customers, and with the addition of the cats and the dogs, it felt like home.

And the office built our brand awareness. Eric encouraged me to put a sign outside, even though I never thought people would drive down the street looking for a marketing company. He was right. Our sign is clearly visible to traffic on well-traveled 106th Street. As a result, whenever I hand my card to someone in Carmel, they know immediately where we are located.

Eric shut his business down two years ago and so I no longer have a roommate or a partner, but I still have a friend.