Jim Delameter gave the invocation with a refreshing reflection on prayer. The more simple the prayer, he advised, the more complete. Depth of meaning does not require lots and lots of words to become present in our minds. Prayer is an attitude of the head desiring to communicate with the divine. A myriad of ways can express prayer. The essence is connecting, which is transformative. Don’t worry about the details.
Guests were introduced.
Annika was introduced by Shari Clifford to share her experiences as a Rotary Youth Exchange student in Thailand. Annika attends Park Central in Cottage Grove. She spent her junior year in Khon Kaen, a city in the northeastern part of Thailand. Annika learned some Thai but was most engaged with her class in French. Since her host families did not know English well, Annika worked harder at speaking Thai. She and the other exchange student had fun speaking Thai to each other, proving that no one is limited to only one way of thinking in words. She taught English to younger students. With one of her host families, she learned Thai dance and to play Thai music. She loved the weekend night market.
President Michael Jon deftly observed that limited fluency is no barrier to friendship.
Carolyn Will introduced the speaker, Amanda K. Brinkman. Amanda is Chief Brand Officer of Deluxe.
The company was founded in 1915 to print checks. Today it has reinvented itself profitably for an economy which has moved beyond a payment system using the technology of writing on and cashing pieces of paper. Now Deluxe is a supporter of its small business clients with payroll, marketing and promotions, websites, logos, apparel.
Amanda described how providing the new products and services came about through partnering with clients and learning how to support their best interests. This strategy Amanda called doing well by doing good.
She started a campaign for the company in 2015 to achieve brand recognition, to break through the clutter out there distracting potential customers. Rather than “talk at” audiences, the campaign was designed to tell stories about small businesses. Deluxe decided to be the champion of small businesses, walking alongside them.
The campaign would grow to tell the stories of 100 small businesses – heroes of the American economy.
The campaign produced documentary videos and photo portfolios. Name partners from Shark Tank, Small Business Administration, and Harvard were recruited to elevate the storylines. The campaign grew brand recognition elevenfold.
Then as part of a movement to celebrate and promote small businesses, the campaign started a competition – finding exceptional small businesses to help with marketing, operations, and renovation of physical premises.
Most small businesses are still part of small towns, community downtowns under stress from big box retailers and national food chains. So, nominations of small towns were solicited. A few were chosen and then a competition for remarkable small businesses in each town was held. The winners then had their stories told in a documentary for TV and would receive help funded by Deluxe. Marketing support for the winners looked at direct mail, email campaigns, events and seminars.
There have been 4 seasons of telling the stories of winning companies. The 5th season starts this November in Hulu and Prime Video.
Amanda’s best memory was of a bridal store in Wabash, Indiana. The owner had to pay down for inventory the same prices as big chains like David’s. Amanda suggested she call up the manufacturers of wedding gowns and ask for lower down-payments on inventory. The owner did and the manufacturers cut the prices, giving her more financial margin and sustainability. And she grew in confidence and competitive drive.
As icing on the cake, the manufacturers then gave the same lower prices to small bridal businesses across the country, enhancing their resilience.
When asked to give advice to those small businesses coming out of lockdown, Amanda had these recommendations: communicate and communicate with existing customers to take advantage of loyalty; check to ensure listings on all possible directories, listings; go on line; make ordering on line or pickups very easy, provide full instructions; create safety for customers to come to the store.
President Michael Jon closed the meeting with a reminder that the May 28 program will welcome the teacher of the year at 5:01 pm. A special speaker will be a middle school student talking about how to find leadership.
Michael Jon’s closing thought was that “helpers are heroes”.
