In a nutshell

I am thinking of developing an educational program for the city of Eden Prairie to help generate interest and involvement between the schools and the fire stations. Every year we get a chance to spend 30-45 minutes in a classroom lecturing and demonstrating the dangers of fire and how to be safe. This is critical part to the education process. It also helps strengthen the role/bond between the department, fire fighters and the community. You hope the kids remember and apply the learning.
But to be certain, why not give the little ones a little motivation. My concept is to build or license (have someone build) a website that allows kids to select an age appropriate curriculum. Then proceed to a simple test to check their comprehension. Each curriculum allows the student to print a certificate of achievement. Each certificate can be brought in to a fire station to get an age appropriate gift (think coloring book, pencil, etc…) This gives the child an incentive to meet fire fighters and tour a station.

That is it….in a nutshell.

Back Online

I have been so focused on maintaining my fire blog that I realized my first priority blog has taken a back seat.

Well, unlike fire, I have a lot of changes to report on at work. We are in the midst of rolling out a new CRM application & dbase and just completed our first phase of the holiday season.

A lot of changes at corporate including a new VP of Marketing and CIO (Both very much needed).

Now the focus is balancing short term marketing success with long term LTV of our customers.

Seriously?

It is not that I don't love my current job..because I do. Well, I might not love it, but it is a great company, team and opportunity and I am very grateful.

But, after returning from vacation I was thinking.....how could I make a living (nothing too modest, but enough to maintain our current lifestyle and build for the future) doing what I love doing:

• Cycling
• Adventure Racing
• Firefighter
• Hiking/Climbing
• Camping
• Coaching

(Get the idea...anything outdoor related)?

Then it hit me. All I need to do is position myself as a fulltime volunteer/fund raiser. What fortune 500 company wouldn't want a dedicated person to lead their organization on hikes, walks, climbs and other special events?

Simply give me some gear with logo's, a satellite computer (so I can stay connected and solicit donations); a modest travel budget and salary....and a ten year contract. I'd be set.

Anyone interested?

Partnership Marketing

3.5 months into my new role at Christopher & Banks and things are really starting to move forward. Being in the retail space we are down like many of our competitors but we have been putting a lot of efforts around grass roots marketing...specifically focusing on the local level where we have strong relationship with customer.

We just concluded a test with a national "Shoe" retailer (not at liberty to share the details as our promotion just ended and I have not shared any details with the partner yet) where we offer a reciprocal $10 off coupon at each others locations. We test three markets and saw some very promising numbers in terms of new customers while driving higher AOS of existing customers.

I am looking for other partners out there who would be interested in working Christopher & Banks. We are a 850+ specialty retailer in the women's category. We run two brands (CB= Petite and Misses and CJ = Plus).

If you are interested in talking please shoot me a message at dgandrud@christopherandbanks.com

Polar Plunge in July?

This weekend was the second annual Eden Prairie Polar Plunge. The event raises money for the Special Olympics. EP raised over $33K from 200 ‘plungers’ This years weather felt more like mid July with a warm spell in the high 40’s (in comparison to our negative numbers a few days earlier). This year my 13yo son joined me….Kudo’s to Alex. I have to hand it to him…I gave him about a 60 minute notice that he was going to leave the confines of our warm basement and go jump into a murky, frozen lake….and he did. Very proud of him.

Next year we need to make it a bit more challenging and move the date to January when it truly feels polar!

Refreshing Sales Call

I just had a very refreshing sales with a CRM SaaS provider called Aplicor. After 15 minutes she told me their solution is likely not a great fit for our needs. And she even offered to put me in touch with someone who just went through a similar process.

The fact that a sales person can recognize when their solution is not the right fit and walk away is very refreshing. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have been on that side of the fence where, as an organization, you sell a solution that requires a boatload of customization. Nobody wins.

This gives me a glimmer of hope that there are (sales) people and organizations out there who get it. If anybody is looking for a vendor to help drive and qualify leads i would strongly suggest calling Aplicor and asking for Lisa D.

Wine vs. Scotch

As Mark Twain said, "I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead", which I think is a perfect statement to my current situation. I could consider my traditional way of think as to over complicate things. I tend to look too far down the road and consider ALL variables and options. Which in many situations is a good thing. But what I am discovering now that the it may be better to go with the simple(r) ideas.....at least with technology.

When you consider how fast technology changes why invest in the biggest and best solution today when there will be a bigger, faster solution tomorrow? When is the right time to pull the trigger on an investment? Compound the change in technology with the change in economy and who knows what tomorrow will look like for retailers, developers and other businesses.

Which is why I am exploring the idea of integrating 3 to 4 businesses that each specialize in one area of CRM, instead of looking for one fully integrated solution. Some of the disciplines include:

• Campaign Management


• Business Intelligence


• CRM Platform/Data Hygiene


• Loyalty


• Email management

The beauty of this strategy is it keeps my initial (capital) investment low and provides a best of breed solution to each discipline. In addition, if some new widget or strategy becomes available down the road, my investment is minimal which gives me great opportunity for change.

One downside of this solution is the fact that I have multiple vendors to manage and I need to rely on making sure they all play nice together. And the fact that I have to look at my payment structure as being spread out over time (paying for each sip of wine vs. purchasing an entire winery). However, this might not be a bad thing if we decide scotch is our drink of choice after a few years? okay bad analogy but you get the idea.

As of right now this direction is only an idea. I have defined a few players but now all. I am not sure if I can make this a reality or not in the time frame I have been given...but i am going to give it a shot.

The Power of Chris Brogan

I never stop being amazed at the power and timeliness of social media.

No less than 60 seconds ago I decided to send Chris Brogan a Tweet about a social media idea I came up with last month. The idea is simple. How quickly (and how much) can a single blog and a few posts penetrate the social network to drive attention and awareness.



In this case, I decided to see if I could raise money for charity. The Power of One (dollar). No less then seconds, literally seconds from the time is sent my tweet to Mr. Brogan (check out his website) did I see an influx of Twitter followers and people already supporting this cause.

THANK YOU CHRIS! Thank you Social Media.


http://www.chrisbrogan.com/

Customer Service the Way it Should Be!

I just had to post a quick statement regarding TheLadders executive recruiting web site. Customer Service the way it should be....

I signed up for a three month membership when my previous employer decided to relocate my job. At the time, I did not read the fine print (my error) about auto renewal.

Fortunately, I landed my current opportunity within three months. But I have continued to receive premium benefits from The Ladders. I thought it might be just a timing issue so I did not check...until this morning. It turns out I have signed up for another three months.

Talk about convenience. The Ladders offers real time chat. So I initiated a dialog with Gloria. After explaining the situation and listening to Gloria defend the company's policy, I asked her if she "will do the right thing" and she did. Refunded my $75 and wished me a pleasant day.

As you can see.....I am surprised and grateful.