Behind The Scenes Wednesday: Joe Ehrmann!

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Joe Ehrmann is a former NFL defensive lineman for the 1973 Baltimore Colts! Local legend? I think so! Get ready to smile ear-to-ear.

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While at an Accelerent networking event, our president Max was able to strike up a conversation and snap a photo with Joe Ehrmann. Super cool guy, and nothing but nice!

Besides a Colts football helmet, Joe’s worn many hats. He’s been an educator, author, activist, pastor and coach spanning longer than than 25 years.

Joe played football at Syracuse University, lettered in lacrosse and was selected to the Syracuse All-Century Football Team. After being drafted, he played pro football for 13 years, and was named the Colts “Man of the Year”. He was also named NFL’s first Ed Block Courage Award winner. Parade Magazine even featured Joe on its cover, with the title, “The Most Important Coach in America”. Additionally, he’s been named one of the “Most Influential Sport Educators in America” by the Institute for International Sport.

Ehrmann is co-founder of Baltimore’s Ronald McDonald House and was chosen by the Baltimore Business Journal as the “Renaissance Person of the Decade” for his work in bettering our city. He co-founded The Door, a community-based organization that deals with issues pertaining to poverty, systemic racism and social justice. But his awesomeness doesn’t end there.

He’s been named National Fatherhood Initiative’s “Man of the Year” and awarded the Frederick Douglas National Man of the Year award for empowering youth to prevent forms of male violence.

His newly released book: InSideOut Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives highlights much of his life’s work. Joe is the subject of the New York Times Best Seller, Season of Life A Football Star, a Boy, a Journey to Manhood.

With all those amazing accomplishments mentioned, he believes his greatest has been his 30 plus years marriage to Paula and his four children Ali, Esther, Barney and Joey.

Pick up those books! This is a great coach, and a great man. 

-The MOS Creative Team

 

Invitation to the White House’s Baltimore Business Leaders’ Briefing

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Any invitation to the White House is an exciting one, and we’re even more psyched to be invited as part of the Baltimore Business Leaders’ Briefing, with about 35 other Maryland-based companies.

The agenda includes voicing our perspectives about the economy, technological innovation, healthcare reform, tax reform, and other pertinent issues.

Although our Columbia, MD office is only a short drive from Pennsylvania Ave., it often feels like the small business community doesn’t hold much consequence in the deliberations of our policy makers. So when any invitation is sent our way to voice our perspective on the condition of our local small businesses, we’re going to jump at it!

Max, our CEO, left the office all smiles this afternoon, no doubt with high hopes of receiving a more personal invitation to go golfing from Mr. Obama himself.

We’ll see what happens from today’s briefing, but either way it’s an honor to be personally chosen by the president’s right hand men as a representative of Baltimore businesses.

Read more about the event in Baltimore Business Journal’s article.

What it takes to be Steve Jobs

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“Why join the navy when you can be a pirate?” Wiser words never uttered by a man more influential and responsible for single-handedly transforming the computing and mobile landscape.

Steve Jobs told us to be crazy. He told us he wanted to put a ding in the universe. He didn’t put a ding, but he sure left an Apple.

A single glance at the non-stop media coverage, and you’d think America’s greatest superhero finally befell to his kryptonite. #SteveJobs, #iSad and #ThankYouSteve rotate Twitter’s trending topics, and pictures of our generation’s Thomas Edison continue to flood Facebook’s news feeds.

But in no jest, he was a hero to millions, probably billions, of people he never met. He changed the way we think about and interact with the world. Every time you have to ask your kid a computer question, remember, he’s the reason.

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Meet Shawn: Baltimore’s #1 Business Man

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Shawn H.

Almost two months into his stint at MOS Creative, and Shawn’s hanging with the big dogs as our  VP of Business Development, capturing the attention of some major clients!

First thing he does in the AM: Make coffee! This caffeine  addict can smell a good pot before it even touches his lips.

Guiltiest pleasure: How I met Your Mother - he’s definitely a Ted.
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Back to Basics: What is your Marketing Objective?

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When it comes to this whole marketing thing, do you sometimes feel like you’re in over your head? Maybe you’re new to the “branding” concept? You hear so much talk about “engaging your audience” via Facebook and social media, but are you completely lost in where to even start?

I’m not surprised. Go ahead, just try Googling “marketing ideas.” You’ll get 40,200,000 search results.

Talk about information overload. No wonder most business owners don’t even want to think about their marketing, so they put it off for as long as possible. I’m thinking you need a little direction. Am I right?

I’m gonna level with you – doing it right is not as easy as it looks. That’s why there are millions of professional marketing firms out there. And for the most part, the professionals will do a good job for you. But whether you’re coming up with the creative ideas, or you’re paying someone else to do it for you, you should NEVER go into your own marketing strategy blindly. It’s EXTREMELY important that you get involved. After all, who knows your clients, your product and your company’s needs and goals better than you do?

So before you delve into the details of how often to Tweet and which keywords to base your SEO around, let’s start with the basics. I just want to get your feet wet and get you thinking. Always start by figuring out what your marketing OBJECTIVE is. Everything else will come from there.

What’s your Objective?

1. Awareness – Potential customers must know of, or be reminded of your existence, your location, your product, your price range, and what makes you stand out from the competition

2. Build Contact List – Your mailing list is like gold. It’s what you rely on for promoting any campaign, and it takes a lot of nurturing to build and keep.

3. Get Involved – Your business is not soul-less. Companies are made up of people, and people like to patronize companies that they know go out of their way to help other people. Your company’s positive image reinforces the perception that you are genuinely caring and sharing.

4. Staff Incentives – A cared for and happy team makes for a harmonious, smooth operation. Customers can tell when your employees don’t want to be there. Think about the grouchy, frowning cashier at the supermarket. Make sure your employees feel appreciated!

5. Excitement – This is the kind of energy and excitement that makes you stand out from the competition. This is when you need to turn on your thinking cap and come up with some really creative promotions.

6. Frequency – When you’re trying to be “the place to go.” This is a brand loyalty thing, and keeping them coming as frequently as possible.

7. Publicity – For this one you’ve got to be interesting and newsworthy. Maybe you’re doing BIG things for the community, or you’re doing something so completely out of the box that it’s a story too good to pass up.

8. Generate Traffic - Simply getting people in the door or on the website is your goal here. Contests are great for this! You want to get potential customers to complete some sort of action, whether it’s entering the contest or downloading a form.

9. Branding – Image is everything. Period. If you don’t define your company and your brand, the market will define it for you. And that’s never what you want!

10. Increase Sales – a.k.a. Up-selling – This is every CEO’s favorite! From the sneaky but ingenious psychological tactics (a la putting candy, gum and magazines in the grocery checkout line) to having an in-depth understanding of how your industry works, there are really unlimited opportunities to do this one.

11. Creating Activity - Most industries have their “slow” periods during the year, but that’s not set in stone. This is where you will get creative to make the slow season profitable.

12. Trial Offer – Who’s gonna turn down a free sample? Come on, you’ll love it. This is when you really want to get those potential customers who are living on the edge to finally make the plunge – but without any of the risk.

(Great list compiled by Tom Feltenstein – And if you’re looking for a good book on the basics, try Tom’s “Encyclopedia of 401 Proven Killer Promotional Tactics”)