The Wax Blog

These days, the only job that seems to keep me interested is the one that combines quite a bit of disparate activity. In PR, we are part counselor, salesperson, troubleshooter, secretary, creative, mediator…you name it and we do it. As a kid I wasn’t much different. I had two main career aspirations – surgeon and go-go dancer.  In some ways, dissection and dancing go hand in hand in the public relations business –  so maybe I’m not that far off from my childhood dreams.

When I was 4, remember it was the sixties and go-go dancing was all the rage. I had the COOLEST pair of patent leather go-go boots, and the shimmeriest shiniest mini- skirt you’ve ever seen. Me and my friend Sheri would practice go-go dancing on the stone wall between our houses for hours. This is not unlike the activity involved with a pitch. Dress it up, make it snazzy, tap dance your way onto the phone with an editor and then hit ‘em with your jazz hands. (Everyone, do your jazz hands now. You know you want to.) That’s the outward appearance of PR to most people. We’re glad handers, salespeople, we add the “ta da” to the “to do”.

But in reality, there’s quite a bit more surgery involved than people are aware of. (more…)

Legacy seems to be a very popular name for marketing firms, or so I found out when I googled “marketing legacy” to try to get ideas for this blog post. Lyric Marketing’s blog tells me in order to leave a good legacy I have to be authentic, provide valuable content, show my personality..I’m sure all these things are true but they really don’t help me understand what that legacy thing actually is.

The legal guys say it’s a gift of personal property. The dictionary guys say it’s anything handed down from the past. Christians seem to write a lot about leaving a good legacy for their children. Environmentalists talk about leaving a legacy that includes a healthier planet. eHow even has an article about leaving a good legacy through your writing.

I once wrote about how marketing karma could help or hinder your business. I think I’m going to have to solve this “legacy” question by giving you a list of questions to ask yourself about your product or service. (And to be fair, I’ve answered them as well) (more…)

I love this topic but thought I’d take a little twist on it today. After 16 years of a successful career in technology, I left corporate America in 2001 feeling stifled, sad and beaten down by the mini-recession that followed the tech bubble.  Although we were a young, vibrant company I realized that the larger we got, the less creative we became and the less willing we were (or our lawyers were) to think outside of the box.

Since then, I’ve begun to work in a much more creative industry and I love it. I’ve had a few larger corporate clients but usually if I suggest something creative, it gets shot done because it might interrupt the process – I get that and I respect that. However for most bigger companies to continue to succeed, they will need to inject tolerance if not encouragement for creativity on the job. And cherish that creativity when it happens.

I worked for a start-up in the early 1990′s and we had some really creative thinkers on our team. These were guys who were technologists, but were able to think with both sides of their brain. So for me, creativity in a corporate sense always makes me think of  Paul, Shankaren, Ken, Salli…and many others.  We got the job done, but got it done in a new and fresh way. I’ve realized over the years it’s easy to be creative in a creative profession, but to be creative in the corporate world takes real talent.

Here’s how we defined creativity back in the day: (more…)

In marketing, there are holidays we come to dread.  Mother’s Day is a nightmare that starts in December if not before. We throw on our Christmas hats in July to get into the mood for pitching holiday stories to the longer lead publications. Labor Day is always a blur of trying to figure out the ‘back to school’ angle for the products and services we’re working on at the time.  For retail clients, it’s a matter of figuring out the promotion or sale idea to tie into the holiday. For consumer-based products and services, we have to determine a hook to interest the media.
As someone so wrapped up in the commercial side of holidays, Thanksgiving represents a day that can truly be celebrated for what it is. For many reasons, Thanksgiving gets missed by the marketers. The biggest shopping day of the year, Black Friday, comes right after Thanksgiving. Grocery stores always do an incredible business before Thanksgiving..they offer the same specials typically each year. Although Walmart and Sears have decided to stay open on Thanksgiving this year, most stores remain closed. The Super Bowl of retail, Christmas, is a much bigger target and one we spend months going after.

For all those reasons, Thanksgiving is the one holiday for me, as a marketer, that has no pressure associated with it. No clients struggling to make their numbers with a great holiday promotion. No radio schedules that might go awry. And so for me, Thanksgiving is a day where I can truly focus on the meaning of the holiday – giving thanks for every blessing.

And in case you’re wondering after all this whining – yes, I include my clients as part of those blessings.

This #letsblogoff topic is “Where’s Your Slice of Heaven?” I may be straying a bit off course,  but decided to answer the question honestly. Hopefully you won’t mind!

I was having the worst time trying to decide on my favorite place.  I’m a very lucky woman – I am from the great town of St. Paul, Minnesota and we also have a small home in the beautiful Rocky Mountains. I’ve been all over Italy and Greece, drank cafe au lait on the Left Bank in Paris and learned to drive a stick shift in London. Even now, I’m in a cabin on the North Shore of Lake Superior on a stunningly beautiful day.

But instead of a particular place,  my mind keeps going back to 1987 when things were pretty tough for me. You see, heaven for me is not beautiful scenery or five-star luxury, although I’ve experienced those. Heaven for me, believe it or not,  is a twin bed shoved under the window in my mother’s living room in St. Paul. Whenever I’m feeling angry or scared, I remember that little bed and I’m filled with an incredible sense of gratitude. It’s just as strong as I write this more than twenty years later. (more…)

I’m in the PR world and we use a lot of interns. For the most part, my experience has been a bit strange since I started Wax Marketing. At first, I thought maybe I had lost my touch…I used to manage a fairly large number of people and was known for spotting the best and brightest of the entry-level candidates. Maybe communications majors were just, well not as bright? (Sorry,  I come from the technology industry. They think everyone is dumber, no offense!) Maybe I should have hired on more individuals with a marketing degree background. Or maybe I’d lost some of my interviewing skills? Whatever it was, I was going through interns and new hires faster than cherry pie at a pie-eating contest.

I started to realize a few things had changed. For example, a pro bike race I worked on had a kids’ fun race. The race promoter insisted that everyone get a medal…a practice I had never heard of. A job candidate’s father accompanied him to his interview. Again, this blew me away. However, not as much as the intern who could not stop emailing her mother…127 emails in two days to be exact. Or the intern who locked herself in the office for two hours because I told her that her work had to be re-done. Worse of all probably, I had a client  who was late to an incredibly important meeting because her son wasn’t happy with what he was wearing to school that day. He was 15 at the time.

These occurrences and others like them have happened on a regular basis lately, and it helped me realize…maybe  it’s not just about me. There is something going on with the education system and with parents that has changed in the last ten years. I found Dr. Jean Twenge’s book Generation Me and others like it that explained our society’s determination to help kids know they’re truly “special” has turned them into a group ill-prepared to take on the competitiveness and, I have to say, at times unfair culture, of business today. (more…)