Tell Me Something Good #8

I know what it’s like to flounder mentally as you try to keep things straight in your business or professional life. I’ve finally been graced with a breakthrough. 

I know yours is coming soon. 

By continuing to share these great business stories, I hope you’ll reach out to these businesses if you see the chance for collaboration. 

At a minimum, I hope they inspire optimism and creativity as you approach your own business challenges. 

Forward to a business friend if they need to connect with one of the businesses featured here today!

COVID-19 Hasn’t Just Affected Humans

Mars Petcare, one of the world’s leading pet care companies, has a mission to help end pet homelessness and implemented new initiatives to help do so, including COVID relief grants/donations and adoption-focused programming. One way they’re doing this is through relief grants and donations. 

Mars Petcare provided $1 million to Humane Society International; Mars Petcare partnered with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and have matched $100,000 in giving, for a total of $200,000 in grants to be awarded to municipal and public shelters, rescues and animal welfare organizations through the 2020 BETTER CITIES FOR PETS™ grant program. 

Additionally, Mars Petcare’s Foster to Forever™ program raised awareness for the need for pet adoption by donating 1,000 starter kits to shelters across the country in some of the cities affected most by COVID. These FOSTER TO FOREVER kits are distributed to foster families who convert their foster pets into forever adoptions.

Mars Petcare’s PEDIGREE® brand launched the Dogs on Zoom program to provide a new, virtual way for consumers to adopt pets during shelter in place orders and provided a digital toolkit for shelters across the country who were interested in hosting virtual adoption events.

Creating Competent Conversations Around Inclusion

AJ Rao of AJ Rao, LLC is hosting the first-ever Culturally Competent Conversations around Equity and Belongingness (C3EB) Summit on August 26-28. 

The C3EB Summit is a platform for candid and culturally competent conversations around intentional inclusion through equity and belongingness consisting of experts and experienced professionals who are BIPOC, White and/or LGBTQIA+ and/or managing visible or invisible health challenges or disabilities. 

The summit features over 40 incredibly diverse speakers along 9 different tracks. There are still opportunities open for sponsorship and support of this timely summit. Sponsorship opportunities are available for the smallest businesses all the way up to enterprise-level organizations. 

If supporting such an event aligns with your business culture and company goals, please email aj@ajrao.com to see how you can support the summit.

25% Growth Thanks to Strategic Investments

Since the beginning of the year, Smith Kroeger, a 60-year old advertising agency, has experienced a 25% growth, most of that coming in since mid-March when the pandemic started.

By investing in its digital and media teams, Smith Kroeger has been able to pivot campaigns due to the changing environment – like turning an advocacy campaign for a large university system into one that promotes a free tuition program they updated to address student concerns about affording college.

Smith Kroeger also invested more in its video studio. As a result, the digital teams have been able to improve the quality of the videos in demand by clients – like videos for communicating to customers and employees updates and changes in lieu of being able to communicate in person.

In a recent example, by being able to quickly turn around this content, thousands of employees are able to hear first-hand from their CEO how the pandemic is affecting their business and how the company is moving forward. This reduced anxiety and improved morale during a time when there is a lot of uncertainty.

Best Sales Month in 2 Decades

In June, last month, PCS, an IT managed services and support firm, had its best sales month for contracts in more than two decades.

“We saw our pipeline had dried up, and we made simple calls to everyone asking how they were doing during this pandemic. We had a companywide policy of ‘no selling.’ Make the phone call and ensure that everyone is OK,” Anthony Mongeluzo, CEO of PCS, said. “There was one question that I had everyone ask: “How can we help?” That was my simple mandate.”

“It might sound counterintuitive, but I wanted our customers to know that we were thinking about them. As an IT firm, we understood that many of our clients had employees suddenly working from home. They’re going to have IT questions that didn’t exist previously.”

“I can sum it up this way: Show that you care, follow-through, and put authenticity behind your words. Customers can tell what’s the truth and what’s fiction.”

Remember, sharing is caring! So if you have a great business story to share, please clue me in so I can get your good news out there. You never know what your story might inspire in others!

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Yours in defiance,

Ruthie