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Health for All

Capiche Conversations: Interview with Janet Troy, Executive Director, Ashland Community Health Foundation

Posted by Capiche on
 September 25, 2023
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Interview with Janet Troy, Executive Director, Ashland Community Health Foundation, conducted by Vicki Purslow, Capiche Research Analyst and Co-founder of Majoring In.

Founded in 1977, the Foundation was established to provide a way for community members to support the work of Ashland Community Hospital. Over the past 46 years, the generosity of its donors has had an incredible impact on the variety and quality of health care services available in the community.

In 2021, the Ashland Community Health Foundation’s board of directors approved the expansion of its mission. Now, the Foundation supports community health and wellness initiatives in Ashland, Talent, and Phoenix.

ACHF Team

ACHF Team: Kathleen Mackris, Nicole Gutrich, Janet Troy, Stephanie Roland

Q: Between 1977 and 2021, the Foundation supported some innovative projects and programs at the Ashland Community Hospital. What are some of the projects that stand out most in your memory?

Janet: Through the generosity of our family of donors, we were able to touch every corner of the hospital. We were very involved in the renovation of the Emergency Department and the Family Birth Center, as well as the creation of the Chapel and Comfort Care Room. Our funding of equipment purchases allowed the hospital to have the state-of-the-art technology it needed to best serve our community. Our Foundation has supported the School Nurse Program for decades, ensuring that nurses are available when students need their care and support.

Q: I know your team was excited when the Foundation’s board of directors approved the expansion of its mission. Working with consultant Cynthia Scherr, of Scherr Management Consulting, you created a new strategic plan. What are some of the highlights of the new strategy?

Janet: Our new strategic plan guided our transition from a traditional hospital foundation to a community foundation focused on supporting health and wellness needs in Ashland, Talent, and Phoenix. One of the most significant changes made as a result of our expanded mission has been an increased focus on our grantmaking and scholarship programs. We are now awarding grants to a more diverse group of local non-profits committed to building healthier communities. We have also broadened our scholarship program to support both nursing and allied health students interested in careers in the Rogue Valley. At the same time, we have the ability to offer our donors additional opportunities to make a meaningful impact in the community through their contributions to the foundation.

ACHF Board

ACHF Board of Directors

Q: Wow – that really broadens the focus of the Foundation! How wonderful to be able to reach further into the communities of Ashland, Talent, and Phoenix to help support community-based projects! What are some of the projects that you have funded?

Janet: We focus our grantmaking on projects that create or expand health and wellness services in Ashland, Talent, and Phoenix. We tend to define health and wellness broadly, so we fund a wider range of projects designed to promote health in many settings. We value collaboration and partnerships and most of the projects we have supported involve organizations working together to create solutions. Our first round of community grants in 2022 supported La Clinica, Mercy Flights, OHRA, Rogue Valley Farm to School, Rogue Valley Mentoring, Talent Maker City, and the United Way of Jackson County.

Q: So far in 2023, ACHF has granted close to $510,000 to support health and wellness initiatives and scholarships. Please tell me more about the projects and programs you funded.

Janet: This year, we awarded grants totaling $258,000 to 11 nonprofit organizations through our community grant process. These organizations are involved in innovative partnerships that provide medical and behavioral health services, promote prevention and inclusion, support nutrition and early literacy, and more. Addressing the shortage of health care professionals is an important goal of our Foundation, and our scholarship program continues to grow each year. We have awarded almost $192,000 to 43 local students attending nursing and allied health programs through September this year. We also continue to grant funds to Asante Ashland Community Hospital and have awarded more than $60,000 to support their school nurses and lab and engineering departments.

Q: Your nursing scholarships have been a hallmark of the Foundation for years and remain central to your mission. Tell me more about your nursing scholarship program.

Janet: The William G. and Ruth T. Evans Endowed Nursing Scholarship was established in 2002 by Ruth Evans. Mrs. Evans was a retired nurse and her husband, Bill, was a retired family physician. The scholarship was created to honor Bill after his death and help address the nursing shortage in the Rogue Valley. Since its creation, more than $1.2 million in scholarships have been awarded to over 300 local students attending nursing programs at OHSU Ashland Campus at SOU and RCC.

Q: Although the Foundation continues to support its original mission, it makes sense that an expanded strategic focus would lead to renaming the Foundation and creating a new brand. You hired Capiche Consulting to help guide you through this process and continued to work with Chris Cook, Capiche’s principal, during its implementation. Who was involved with the rebranding, and what did it consist of?

Janet: The decision to expand our mission led to our consideration of a new look and feel for our Foundation, in addition to the introduction of a new name that is a better representation of who we are today. It was not a decision that our board of directors and staff arrived at easily but we are pleased with the changes we made as we embarked on this new journey. The process that Chris guided us through was thoughtful and strategic. We learned so much about the importance of creating a brand that reflected our new identity and the pieces that are part of the brand puzzle. Developing our positioning statement, brand promise, key messaging, and more was very educational and insightful.

Website on Devices

Photo by Ruby Slipper

Q: What was the next step after landing on the brand messaging tool?

Janet: There is more involved in the development of a new brand than I ever imagined. It required us to take a fresh look at our website, newsletter, signage, and even our stationery. We debated about colors, fonts, and a new logo. It was a fascinating process, and I’m very happy with the outcome.

Q: You continued to work with Chris after developing your new brand. What else did Chris help you with during that time?

Janet: Chris was very helpful in teaching us how to spread the word about our work. Initially, she helped us develop a communication plan and assisted us by writing newsletter articles and press releases. She helped us develop a media strategy and contacts so we could share our story in the most effective way. Most importantly, she gave us the tools we needed to manage this activity independently.  For me, that is one of the best gifts a consultant can give an organization.

Janet Troy

Janet Troy

Q: Looking back, what was the value in working with Capiche to complete your name change and rebranding?

Janet: We are well-versed in the field of philanthropy but not experts in brand development. Chris shared her expertise at a time when we were preparing to embrace an exciting new strategic direction that would shape our future for years to come. Her knowledge and professionalism were a real plus as we navigated unknown territory.

Q: How can people interested in community health partner with the Foundation?

Janet: There are so many ways that interested individuals and businesses can partner with us to build a healthier community. Our Patrons Campaign and Lights for Life are long-standing community traditions for giving. We accept gifts of all sizes and shapes, including donations of stock and vehicles. Some of our supporters prefer to give once or twice a year, while others prefer to set up monthly donations. Many community members have also included us in their estate plans. We now offer donors new ways to start their own named funds or endowments, and our expanded mission provides more opportunities to make a difference in our community. I encourage folks to visit our website (achfoundation.org) or contact our office (541-482-0367) to learn more about work.

ACHF Offices

ACHF Office

SERVICES CAPICHE HAS PROVIDED FOR THE ASHLAND COMMUNITY HEALTH FOUNDATION
  • Rebranding/Name Change
  • Brand Toolkit Development (Key Messages, Graphic Standards, and Style Guide)
  • Liaison with Graphic Designer and Web Developer
  • Marketing Communication Strategy
  • Media Relations, PR, and Newsletter Writing
  • Team Training
Chris shared her expertise at a time when we were preparing to embrace an exciting new strategic direction that would shape our future for years to come. —Janet Troy Share on X
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Woman Making Thumbs-Down Sign

Yes, It’s BiG—a BiG Fail! 5 Ways to Avoid a Colossal Campaign Clunker

Posted by Chris Cook on
 February 16, 2020
  ·  No Comments

At the end of each year, many publications “celebrate” the worst marketing campaigns of the year. Less than 40 days into the new year, and there was already a regrettable fail that hit my mailbox. Earlier this month, I published this to my Capiche.wine blog. While I was at the Oregon Wine Symposium last week, several of my readers remarked that they’d been appalled by this example of a marketing fail—so much so that I decided to share the story on this site as well. Here ya go!

The Unified Wine & Grape Symposium has moved from downtown Sacramento to Cal Expo—the state’s fairgrounds. This was a great decision as it centralizes the entire three-day event. “It’s Going to Be BiG” was a good marketing theme. The location change will give 14,000 wine industry members the opportunity to network and visit the 700+ industry suppliers without having to travel throughout the downtown.

BiG Unified Wine and Grape Symposium Wine Spectator Cover

“It’s Going to Be BiG” is a PR nightmare! Because of the way the circular is folded, there is the appearance of a massive breast, complete with an areola, with the tiniest squirrel positioned in front of what looks like a nipple. The acorn is about 16 times larger than the squirrel, hence the “BiG”—except conference organizers (and worse yet, their graphic design team) didn’t look at the circular in its folded format, or so they say.

We called both sponsors of the event—the American Society for Enology and Viticulture (ASEV) and the California Association of Winegrape Growers (CAWG). One organization was understanding and concerned. The other was more defensive.

Ideally, your organization and the marketing team and graphic artist will look at every ad as it will be delivered. We were told this didn’t occur. Seasoned marketing professionals know to do this. We would like to believe there was never the intent to produce an offensive ad, but this was a colossal fail. And the defensive response from one organizer compounded the problem.

Five ways to avoid a colossal clunker:

  1. Consider your audience—will the messaging resonate with them (or, in this case, disgust them)?
  2. Be sensitive to cultural references and stereotypes (e.g., H&M).
  3. Review timing so as not to cause confusion with unrelated activities that may be added with your campaign (e.g., Milwaukee Bucks).
  4. Involve others in your organization in the review process—different perspectives can reveal problems before it’s too late.
  5. Test content in all formats—online mobile, tablet, and desktop; printed flyers (folded and not), print ads, and so on.

How to recover:

So, what do you do if you have a colossal failure? Get out in front of it. Pull it off the web, out of the publications, off the walls. Issue a public apology and move on with a more appropriate campaign. Ironically, this “bad” attention gives your organization a chance to self-correct and look “good” in the public’s eye. And they’ll pay more attention to the new campaign as a result. But don’t use this as a PR tactic—it’s better to have a strong campaign to begin with, and that should be every marketer’s goal.

Note: This post was originally published at our sister site, Capiche.wine.
What do you do if you have a colossal failure? Get out in front of it. Share on X
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Happy Customer Experience

Business Success: It’s All About EX (Experience)

Posted by Chris Cook on
 January 24, 2019
  ·  No Comments

Promise Big and Deliver Bigger

What do successful companies have in common? They all have robust, differentiated brands; fervent clients; and a culture driven by a shared vision, values, and purpose—all focused on their clients. As I’ve recently been reminded, the secret to success lies at the intersection of client experience, employee experience, and brand experience. These functions work together to deliver your firm’s brand promise and showcase your value proposition.

In this blog post, I recall a recent conversation I had with Alder Yarrow, CXO (chief experience officer) at San Francisco design agency CIBO, and inspiration from the article referenced below by Tim Asimos. I’ve got to admit, the CXO title was new to me—and I LOVE it! Here we go! Thanks, Alder and Tim!

Your brand is not a logo, label, or website—it’s your promise: At its core, a brand exists in the mind of your audience. It’s the sum of their thoughts, feelings, and experiences with your firm—the good, bad, and ugly.

Every brand, regardless of the industry, promises something. Marketing and branding should reinforce what your existing clients experience when they interact with you and offer potential clients/customers a glimpse of what they can expect.

Branding is the process of defining, conveying, and maintaining your firm’s core values and differentiators. It’s about figuring out who you are, what you stand for, and why it matters to your audience—and then reinforcing that promise in a meaningful and consistent way.

Strategic marketing promotes that promise: To successfully hold its place in the market, an organization needs a codified brand strategy. Marketing plans are fluid and change over time as new information and opportunities become available. But the brand strategy should remain intact over a long period of time. (Think how long “I ♥ New York” and “Virginia is for Lovers” have heralded these super-successful state tourism brands.)

The promise is realized through experience: Your firm’s brand promise can only be realized through the experience you serve your clients. No amount of marketing and communication can change what clients actually experience. This is why it’s critical to align brand experience and client experience.

We all can think of a brand whose marketing promises are completely incongruent from what customers actually encounter. Sadly, Gallup surveys have consistently found that most companies fail to live up to their brand promises. Experience is where your branding is either validated or discredited. So get clear on your brand promise, build your marketing strategy around it, and let customer experience be its showcase!

How’s It Going?

We’re always eager to see great brands in action, so please share your successes and best practices. Please post here or email me at chris@capiche.us. I’d also love to chat. Perhaps we can help you build a brand experience that matches your desired brand. Call me at 541.601.0114.

Here’s to your successful brand!

Note: This post was inspired by Tim Asimos’ article “The Convergence of Experience To Deliver Your Brand Promise” and a recent conversation with Alder Yarrow, CXO at CIBO.
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Millennial Excited to Receive Snail Mail

Old Tech for the New Gen: Millennials Love Snail Mail!

Posted by Chris Cook on
 May 22, 2018
  ·  2 Comments
Note: This post was originally published at our sister site, Capiche.wine.
One of our biggest marketing surprises over the last few years has been how strongly millennials—the generation of digital natives—respond to direct mail. According to USPS Mail Moments 2016, millennials are more likely to read, organize, and sort their mail than all other generations. They are also less likely to discard their mail without reading it.

Millennials enjoy receiving mail more than their non-millennial counterparts, debunking the notion that the generation is paper-adverse. Half of millennials say they like to discover what the mail holds for them and consider their time engaging with mail as time well spent. As many as 34% feel excited at the prospect of checking their mail.

Why do these smartphone-addicted, electronically wired consumers still respond so strongly to print? Could it be, in part, how we are physically and psychologically wired? The answer is yes. Neuromarketing research shows our brains react differently to printed material than to digital media.

When the United States Postal Service partnered with the Center for Neural Decision Making at Temple University’s Fox School of Business to gauge responses to physical and digital advertising pieces, they found:

  • Participants processed digital ad content more quickly and spent more time with physical ads.
  • Physical ads triggered activity in a part of the brain that corresponds with the emotions that determine value and desirability.
  • With this stronger emotional response to physical ads, participants remembered them better.

Using brain images, biometrics (e.g., heart rate and blood pressure), eye tracking, and questionnaires to measure reactions, Canada Post found similarly intriguing results in its neuromarketing research. When they measured the response to campaigns that used the same creative approach and messaging for both physical and digital media, they found:

  • Direct mail campaigns required 21% less cognitive effort to process.
  • Participants’ recall was 70% higher if they were exposed to direct mail rather than a digital ad.
  • Activation in parts of the brain that correspond to motivation response was 20% higher for direct mail.

As human beings, we are wired to respond more strongly to physical, printed messages. For marketers who want advertising with long-lasting impact and easy recollection, printed materials clearly make a difference.

When planning your next marketing campaign, remember that physical mail—whether a letter, special offer, brochure, or flyer—presents a clear benefit that your consumers can engage with and respond to, providing ample opportunity to reach the generation with the most spending power: millennials.

Words of advice. Don’t send junk. Each piece of mail without perceived value chips away at your brand. Make it engaging. Make it worthwhile. Make it something shareable—person to person. Via snail mail. And maybe (wink) even on social media.

Is your organization ready for a fresh marketing campaign? Let us know. We would love to get you started.

Excerpted and edited from the USPSDelivers.com presentation Still Relevant: A Look at How Millennials Respond to Direct Mail (2017). Originally posted at Capiche.wine.
Don’t send junk. Each piece of mail without perceived value chips away at your brand. Share on X
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Superhero Woman Finds Her Strengths

Identify Your Distinctive Strengths for Increased Business and Personal Success

Posted by Chris Cook on
 July 21, 2017
  ·  No Comments

What sets you apart? What is the cream that floats to the top? The icing on the cake? If someone were to ask what your top three strengths are, what would you say?

Whether you are promoting yourself or your business, you’ll excel when you know and understand your strengths—so you can put them front and center.

If you are looking for a job or promotion, you need to know your strengths. If you can’t articulate them, you can’t expect your boss or potential employer to, either.

If you are looking to grow your business, increase your client base or expand your market share, you need to know your business’ strengths. If you’re not sure of them yourself, how can you expect your clients to understand them?

Here’s a four-step process to identifying what sets you and your business apart:

  1. List your strengths. Include skills and knowledge you’ve acquired through experience and education as well as softer intrinsic strengths such as insightfulness, empathy or stellar customer service.
  2. Ask for input. Ask colleagues or clients for honest feedback.
  3. Revisit past feedback. Reread old performance reviews and think back on coaching from previous bosses (businesses can check out YELP or TripAdvisor reviews).
  4. Modify your list. Adjust your original list to reflect what you’ve learned. Make sure the strengths are specific so they are credible and useful.

Now what? Use these distinctive strengths to build your brand—either personal or business. It all follows the same formula in the end: identify and promote your strengths to the people you want to influence. BAM. Done!

A great resource for identifying personal strengths is Strengthsfinder by Gallup. I use this regularly for my coaching clients with great success. Check it out and let me know your thoughts.

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Generation Z Chart

Meet the Plurals: What’s So Special About Generation Z?

Posted by Melissa Michaels on
 April 12, 2017
  ·  2 Comments

They were born texting, their itty fingers swiping across their cell phone screen while they listened to their iPod on earbuds as Blue’s Clues played on the television, Dad watched cat videos on the laptop and Mom slew Doom demons on the desktop.

It was the mid-nineties to early 2000s, and the iGeneration was born into this quasi-anachronistic mash-up scene. Tech-savvy from toddlerhood, these youngsters grew up wending their way around the Internet, “playing” with friends over social media and communicating via emoticons.

At more than a quarter (25.9%) of the US population and growing, Generation Z has already surpassed the percentage of Millennials (24.5%), who themselves outnumbered Baby Boomers (23.6%) by a million (77 to 76 million) in 2015.

These Post-Millennials are your next wave of employees, entrepreneurs, leaders and customers, and it’s time to meet them.

This generation is known for being resourceful, self-motivated and driven. Three-quarters (76%) aspire to turn their passions into careers, whereas only half of Gen Y had such hopes. Nearly as many (72%) wish to start their own businesses one day.

Growing up in a post-9/11 world and witnessing the Global Financial Crisis, they earned yet another moniker as the Homeland Generation for preferring the safety of home and feeling less secure in the world at large.

Gen Z has been reared by protective parents who emphasized tradition, academics and social-emotional learning (SEL). Perhaps because of living in a more uncertain world fraught with the possibility of terror, these kids are turning out to be more conservative than their Millennial predecessors.

They have no illusions about achieving the American Dream, but they do want to better the world, and 76% are worried about the future of the planet. More than a quarter of 16- to 19-year-olds volunteer, and three-fifths (60%) hope to secure jobs that make a difference in the world. Like Millennials, they seek a sense of purpose in their work.

Other epithets (e.g., Gen Tech, Net Gen and Gen Wii) emphasize the group’s tech fluency. Spending a minimum of three hours a day on the computer for activities unrelated to school, the curious Digital Natives value visual and video forms of communication (Instagram and YouTube over Facebook), bite-sized content (Reddit and Twitter), choice (more options with greater levels of customization) and connection (social media, live-streaming).

According to the 2014 study Generation Z Goes to College, the teens use such terms as “loyal,” “compassionate,” “thoughtful,” “open-minded,” “responsible” and “determined” to describe themselves.

These Gen-X offspring instantly spot inauthenticity and patronizing attempts by marketers to court them. If you do win their respect, however, Gen Zers are known for being brand-loyal, and they will evangelize on your behalf if they believe in your products and services.

The most diverse generation to date, the Plurals embrace multiculturalism. While they are more pessimistic than Millennials, this bleaker attitude may propel them to seek pragmatic solutions to crises such as global warming, economic inequality and terrorism. Greater consciousness of planetary problems could well lead to direct action.

Whatever the future holds, these enterprising and creative self-starters give us cause for hope.

See below for a fun and informative infographic on Generation Z courtesy of Marketo.

Generation Z: Marketing's Next Big Audience Infographic

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Wheres the Beef? Why Customer Experience Is the New Marketing

Where’s the Beef? Why Customer Experience Is the New Marketing

Posted by Melissa Michaels on
 February 19, 2016
  ·  No Comments

What motivates you to try a new product or service? Is it a million-dollar ad campaign full of sound and fury? Is it that steady stream of robo emails you keep marking as Junk? Or maybe it’s those sidebar ads that pop up based on your content browsing habits.

I’m guessing it’s none of these because you—like most of today’s consumers—have a finely attuned BS barometer. In other words, you don’t believe the hype.

Instead, you probably seek out recommendations from friends. You listen to word of mouth, and you do your research. You carefully study Amazon and Yelp reviews, looking for verified purchasers and reviews that ring true.

In a consumer world where everyone is connected, shoddy quality and poor customer service have a global ripple effect that can deliver a deathblow in minutes.

That is why, according to Experience: The Blog author Augie Ray, companies shouldn’t be so much concerned with content marketing strategies as with customer experience.

Where’s the Beef?

The days are gone when a company can glide by on glitz, buying its way into consumers’ hearts with earworm jingles and inane catchphrases. We’re inured to their tactics because we see through them.

Transparency is the new watchword. If it isn’t WYSIWYG, people tune out.

As human beings, we crave authenticity. We demand substance—from product quality to customer service, every element of the experience must deliver genuine value.

Make It Real

We want to associate with organizations that possess a deep sense of purpose and values that echo our own—companies that live their brand.

One reason Thrive Market has been so deliciously successful is they began with a clearly defined mission: “to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone.” And the many people who care about eating healthy, living sustainably, and helping to feed hungry families have been recommending them like crazy.

Rather than jumping into social marketing campaigns, Augie Ray argues in a recent interview that companies should be “focusing on improving the customer experience and then activating trusted peer-to-peer word of mouth.”

Be All That You Can Be

Cultivating a positive customer experience is not a skin-deep exercise. It goes down to the bones of your organization—your culture.

As we’ve repeatedly explored in past blog posts, your culture is your brand; your brand is your culture. Creating a workplace that is a palpable example of your core values helps nurture those values in your employees.

I’m Lovin’ It

If you want your employees to deliver a WOW experience to customers as Zappos does (see How to Live the Brand), you need to create a culture where you’re wowing your employees.

We already know from research that having happier employees means greater productivity and superior customer service (see The Top 4 Employee Needs to Fulfill for Greater Happiness and Productivity). The question is how to get there.

Be More

Honing your leadership capacities will help you foster a healthy, happy culture, and that in turn, will build the “empathy, loyalty, and trust” Ray describes as crucial to a successful company.

Ray writes, “The importance of purposeful, ethical leadership is underscored in Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer report, which finds that the biggest gaps companies have are in attributes such as listens to customers; treats employees well; is ethical, transparent and open; and puts customers before profits.”

Just Do It

Like a Zen koan, the paradoxical truth is that by prioritizing employee happiness and customer experience over the bottom line, companies ultimately profit more. How can organizations not see the value in that?

Call 541.601.0114 or email Chris Cook to start building a healthier, happier organization today.

Note: Special thanks to one of our readers (Lisa Baehr) for sharing Augie’s interview and inspiring this article.

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The Secret to Exceeding Customer Expectations

Posted by Chris Cook on
 March 4, 2015
  ·  No Comments

Coding ZEAL Leaders
Above: Trever Yarrish, Sean Culver, and Adam Cuppy (photo by Jim Craven; courtesy of The Southern Oregon Edge)

What do coffee, code, and marketing have in common? For Adam Cuppy, Trever Yarrish and Sean Culver—founders of the wildly successful Coding ZEAL based here in Southern Oregon—it doesn’t matter what they have in common. What matters is the experience customers have while enjoying your product and interacting with your company.

“It’s not about the product you think you’re selling,” said Adam in a recent interview I conducted with him for The Southern Oregon Edge. “It really is about the relationships.… Ask yourself what is the experience you’re going to provide to the people that are going to consume it.”

In 2007, Yarrish and Cuppy left their stint as Dutch Bros. marketing and creative directors to create a marketing company in Grants Pass. Six years later, they partnered up again—this time joined by Sean Culver—to found a superhero-flavored development company in Medford.

Guided by the principle of zeal, the founders sought to “create an amazing experience.” Discussing the origin of the name “Zeal,” Adam says, “What I love about the name was I looked it up and it said ‘gross unadulterated enthusiasm.’ What’s more amazing and audacious than that? What says nothing about programming and everything about the experience? ‘Zeal’ does.”

Sure, the quality of your product matters, but what matters more is how you answer the question, “What am I going to do to blow people’s minds? What am I going to do make raving fans?”

And Coding ZEAL has done just that. With clients ranging from Mavenlink.com to Oregon Shakespeare Festival, SilverCloud to Scratch-it.com, the company has seen 1400 percent annual growth since its launch.

Agility is at the heart of their success. “We’re an agile agency,” says Trever, “so when technology changes, we move where we need to move.”

This fluidity allows the company to focus on not only satisfying customers but on wowing them.

Coding ZEAL Customer Expectations Versus RealityTo illustrate this concept, Adam draws two columns, one representing customer expectations and the other reality, each with a scale ranging from 1 to 10. The customer relationship begins when expectations meet reality.

A customer usually starts by expecting an average experience—a 5, say. If you give them what they expect, no lasting impression will be made. If you give them a 4 or worse, you’ve not only lost the opportunity to build brand loyalty, but that customer may go on to complain publicly, leading to the loss of other potential customers.

“So instead what we’re going to do is they come in and they get a 7. They come in and we’re going to take an opportunity to blow their mind somehow, some way,” explains Adam.

But that’s just the beginning. Now that they’ve had a 7 experience, their expectations will change, and they’ll want a 7 again next time. So what do you have to do as a company? You up the ante. You give them an 8.

With each new interaction, you deliver an even better experience. Once a relationship is built, you just have to sustain that level of service. Even if a bump occurs along the path, the customer is going to be more forgiving because of the positive relationship you’ve established.

Using this model of expectation dilemmas, a company that consistently achieves between an 8 and a 10 discovers “this wonderful, wonderful thing,” says Trever. “Right there is the secret to success in forming loyalty.”

Empathy is key to continually exceeding customer expectations. “We are trying to always understand where you’re at, what you’re needs are, what’s most important to you,” says Trever.

At Coding ZEAL, questions drive the conversation. They don’t assume they know what customers want.

“As leaders, our responsibility is to ask questions constantly,” says Trever. “One of those questions can be, ‘So how can we speak to our customers more clearly? Where are our customers? Who can we service better every single day?’”

In the end, it’s all about that fundamental connection between two people. The company, the product—those are ephemeral. What the customer will go away remembering, what they will feel and think and what will impact their future buying decisions, occurs in that magical moment of interaction.

For Cuppy, Yarrish, Culver and their happy employees, zeal “is not just a word and it’s not just a logo. The excitement and energy that’s wrapped around our brand is real and authentic and we mean it,” says Adam. “Every day, it’s about waking up and feeling that level of excitement and reaching out with that intention, with the intention that we’re going to connect with our clients. We’re going to connect with each other. We’re going to connect with our culture, our environment.”

Our next post will explore Coding ZEAL’s insights into leadership and employee happiness.

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Oregon Vineyard

Ever Wonder About the Value of Marketing?

Posted by Chris Cook on
 February 17, 2015
  ·  2 Comments

Ever wonder about the value of marketing?

Well, you’re not alone.

Last week, I saw an example of best marketing practices in action—at the Portland, Oregon, airport. We were in between flights from Medford to Spokane with some time to enjoy. We happened past the Made in Oregon store, where there was a wine-tasting in progress.

We tried some terrific wines and developed a nice rapport with the person pouring wine—I’ll call her the brand ambassador. She told us she had earned her bachelor’s degree at Southern Oregon College (now Southern Oregon University). A self-described hippie, she loves Ashland—and she would be happy to come to our house and do a full-blown wine-tasting event!

“WOW!” we said. “You’ve got a deal.”

Waiting for the connection to Spokane, we spent 20 minutes coming up with the perfect guest list. Let’s do it when my parents are visiting from New York. That would be fun. Who do we want them to meet? Who do we know that loves wine? Hmm … it’s an easy list to make.

Then we started thinking about marketing. And how powerful a brand ambassador can be.

This brand ambassador is going to travel from Eugene to Ashland to entertain and delight a party of wine and food aficionados. She will probably pour six bottles of wine during the tasting plus another six during the meal. We will pay for some of it. She will leave the party with orders from our guests—maybe up to 20 cases of wine. Not much of a return for the cost of it all, you say? Well, think about the lifetime value of a customer.

I’ve learned a customer’s value should be measured over their lifetime. That’s calculated by initial purchase, subsequent purchases and influence on others’ purchases. This is a little hard to measure, but it’s important to attempt a rough estimate. And don’t forget the concept of brand loyalty. You know what it is. You have it. We all do.

Think about this: our new friend Shelley, the brand ambassador from Willamette Winery, will travel to our house from Eugene and pour wine for 20 of our foodie friends to get an initial order of possibly 20 cases and 20 new customers, who will tell their friends and become like brand ambassadors themselves.

To me, that sounds like good marketing. What do you think?

I love examples of good marketing practices in action. What’s your favorite? Please share here and visit Capiche’s Facebook page, too.

Blog Branding Food and Dining Marketing Travel
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Mt. Ashland Creates Its Brand from the Inside Out

Posted by Chris Cook on
 September 24, 2014
  ·  No Comments

Mt. Ashland

Why Your Culture Comes First

Your culture is your brand; your brand is your culture. The two are one and the same—inextricably intertwined. It’s where marketing, positive psychology and innovative business practices intersect. And it’s the common denominator in successful companies. Virgin Atlantic, Apple, Google, Harley Davidson, BMW and Autodesk all have strong brands and strong cultures, and all are wildly successful. I’ll bet you can name one or more in your industry.

Anyone who has been through a branding process knows the hardest part of branding isn’t coming up with a logo or tagline. It’s getting to your company’s DNA (what is at its heart)—its values, vision, passion and purpose. That’s your culture. When you get to that, you can create your brand.

Yes, this is a revisit of a previous blog post, but it’s a topic that’s particularly important to me now. It’s more relevant than ever as my Mt. Ashland—and I say my because I am a season pass holder, a board member and chair of the Community Outreach Committee—begins its 51st year with a rebranding.

Here’s an outline of what we are doing and best practices you can use in your own organization:

1. Define Mt. Ashland’s DNA.

What this means is we have defined its culture, values, vision, passion and purpose. It is real, honest and yet still a little aspirational. This is important because a brand must be rooted in reality with room to reach toward the future. Clearly defining an organization’s culture is the first step in building a brand.

2. Bring the brand to life with words.

What are your key messages? How do you communicate values, vision, passion and purpose? These words will shape all communication and will serve to be a barometer for each and every business decision. Because Mt. Ashland says it’s a steward of the environment, it will look for ways to reduce energy use and landfill waste as well as protecting the Forest Service land it operates on.

3. Create a visual identity with graphics, colors, photos and video.

Thanks to an in-kind donation from Lithia Auto Stores, we are working with their world-class marketing team. They have taken on the graphic design element of rebranding. We saw the first logo design suggestions yesterday—amazing!

4. Live the brand.

This is the hardest part. This is where most organizations fall short. Creating and embodying your unique company culture is how you answer the phone. It’s how you interact with others on the team and everyone who comes into contact with your organization. It’s whom you hire. And it’s how you bring them on board. It’s what you base EVERY business decision on.

Medford Mail Tribune Article on Mt. Ashland

Click here for a recent Mail Tribune article on this topic.

Building the culture/brand is everybody’s business, and companies that understand that have a real advantage. That’s why it’s crucial to engage your employees in your branding process, asking them to help define your values, vision, passion and purpose. Getting their input and buy-in is critical to the success of your brand. You all need to get behind the same values, vision, passion and purpose. It’s vital to creating a cohesive, productive and engaging workplace.

You will also be asking all your constituents to weigh in on what defines your company DNA. This means clients, subcontractors, other team members and influencers. Asking and listening to your constituents (and employees) is a natural way to build trust and take your relationships to the next level. This is marketing and management brilliance.

Mt. Ashland accomplished this with a community survey that was distributed widely and completed by more than 1,200 area residents. Mt. Ashland is listening to the public and making adjustments to the ski area based on their input. The aspirational part of the DNA is based on satisfying public desires for the ski area.

Good to Great and Tribal Leadership Book CoversThe realization that happy workers drive business success is sweeping the world, and the research keeps growing. Researchers at Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, University of California at Riverside and Oxford University are leading the pack. Bestselling management books Good to Great and Tribal Leadership credit a shared company vision and purpose. A company with a vision has a higher purpose beyond just money, profits or being number one in a market, and this important element separates sustainable profitable companies from the rest.

Are you seeing a connection? The “great” companies build their brands around their values, vision, passion and purpose, which guide the company’s culture. The two are inextricably intertwined.

When your people are living your brand, their personal values are in synch with the company’s. They are happier and more productive—and they are your best ambassadors. Involve them from the start, get clear on values, vision, passion and purpose, walk the talk, and enjoy your success!

If you are ready to get going on your company culture and brand, give me a call at 541.601.0114 or email me at chris@capiche.us. Let me help you uncover your own unique culture and brand to propel your organization forward. And let’s have a great time doing so!

Blog Branding Happiness at Work Marketing Organizational Development Science of Happiness
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