Fargo INC! February 2016

ISSUE b u s i n e s s f e b r u a r y

m a g a z i n e

2 0 1 6

FargoBusinessOwner @FargoBusinessOwner

Hey @FargoINC! marketing is a headache. Help me!!!

Fargo INC! @FargoINC!

THE

@FargoBusinessOwner read the magazine and hear what @Absolute @Flint @Sundog @H2M & @InHouse have to say on page 21!

E D I TO R' S N OT E

Navigating The

Our cover story this month really centered around one question: If I'm running a company – whether it's an agricultural equipment manufacturer, a restaurant or an electric utility – how do I market my business in 2016?

People are listening to radio on their phones, watching TV on their tablets and reading the newspaper on their Kindles. Their attention spans continue to decrease, and their eyes and ears are being pulled in an ever-increasing number of directions. So how do you get them to pay attention?

To answer this question and many others, we turned to experts from local marketing and advertising agencies. We spoke with CEOs, marketing advisors and creative strategists – with decades of combined experience in a variety of industries – about what works and what doesn't in our fractured media landscape.

Some of the agencies focused on specific case studies and others on more general marketing information and advice, but the

Photo by Paul Flessland

Marketing Maze

common thread is that they all focused on one of their real-life clients: companies doing business right here in the Red River Valley. Companies that, just like yours, have had to learn to find and engage their audiences in more effective and efficient ways.

Some of their answers will surprise you, others maybe not as much. But at the very least, you'll gain some behind-thescenes insight into the marketing process and develop an appreciation for the amount of resources, time and attention that successful marketing requires in today's business world.

Enjoy!

Nate Mickelberg Editor, Fargo INC!

nate@spotlightmediafargo.com NateMickelberg linkedin.com/in/natemickelberg

FEBRUARY 2016 Volume 1. Issue 2.

Meet The Team

MIKE

BRENT

BOUGIE

MICHAEL

SODA

DANIELLE

TRACY

ERICA

JESSE

Fargo INC! is published 12 times a year and is available at area businesses and online at fargobusiness.com.

Publisher Mike Dragosavich

drago@spotlightmediafargo.com

General Manager Brent Tehven

brent@spotlightmediafargo.com

CREATIVE

Editorial Director Andrew Jason

andrew@spotlightmediafargo.com

Editor Nate Mickelberg

nate@spotlightmediafargo.com

Graphic Designers Sarah Geiger, Soda Tran, Ryan Koehler

Head Photographer J. Alan Paul Photography jesse@jalanpaul.com

Photographer Paul Flessland Contributors Andrew Jason, Marisa Jackels,

Nate Mickelberg, Craig Whitney

Copy Editors Erica Rapp, Joe Kerlin

ANDREW

JOE

SARAH

PAUL

HEATHER

NATE

PAUL

RYAN

TANK

Web Editor Danielle Wente Social Media Danielle Wente

ADVERTISING

Senior Account Tracy Nicholson Manager tracy@spotlightmediafargo.com

Marketing/Sales Paul Hoefer

paul@spotlightmediafargo.com

Paul Bougie

paulbougie@spotlightmediafargo.com

Tank McNamara

tank@spotlightmediafargo.com

Jenny Johnson

jenny@spotlightmediafargo.com

Business Heather Hemingway Operations Manager

CIRCULATION

Delivery Mitch Rapp

Fargo INC! is published by Spotlight Media LLC. Copyright 2016 Fargo INC! & fargobusiness.com. All Rights Reserved. No parts of this periodical may be reproduced without written permission of Fargo INC! Fargo INC! & spotlightmediafargo.com will not be held responsible for any errors or omissions found in the magazine or on fargobusiness.com. Spotlight Media LLC., accepts no liability for the accuracy of statements made by the advertisers.

To learn more about Spotlight Media, go to spotlightmediafargo.com

JENNY

CONTENTS

FEBRUARY 2016

ADDITIONAL CONTENT

The Marketing Issue

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58

Ross Manson, principal of the Fargo Eide Bailly, takes us through the quagmire of healthcare and what it means for your business and you.

64

A Conversation About Healthcare with Ross Manson

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1 Million Thanks

Relive the best of what happened in the entrepreneurial scene in 2015 with a recap of Emerging Prairie's 1 Million Thanks.

16

Groomed on the Gridiron You may recognize Nick Schommer from his football days with NDSU or the Tennessee Titans. He's up to something a little bit different today, though.

52

A Message from Craig Whitney

COVER STORY

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FEBRUARY 2016

The Fargo Moorhead West Fargo Chamber of Commerce President & CEO Craig Whitney talks about the importance of North Dakota's Air National Guard.

THE MARKETING ISSUE

With technology and audience engagement constantly changing, local agencies In-House, Absolute, Sundog, H2M and Flint talk to us about how they approach marketing with their own clients to show how you should be marketing your own business.

54

Mentor Meetup

A photographer and media production veteran meet up to talk about how you go about creating a business in a creative industry.

Office of the Month: dogIDs

Startup of the Month: CoSchedule 68

What Fargo Business Owners Are Reading We polled some Fargo business owners to ask them what business books they're reading to help grow their companies.

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​New in Town

Meet some of the newest companies in the FM area.

72

Fargo Career Finder

Have you met Nathan Stacken?

We set out to find this sports broadcast hopeful a career in his field.

74

​ hat Software ​W Are You Using?

Fargo business owners tell us what software they're using to make their business run effectively and efficiently.

76

​ usiness Events ​B Calendar

ADVICE

By Andrew Jason | Photos by Paul Flessland

Ross Manson LOCAL LEADER:

Talking Healthcare with Eide Bailly

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FEBRUARY 2016

ADVICE NEXT ADVICE

ROSS MANSON HAS A LOT MORE THINGS ON HIS TO DO LIST THESE DAYS. AS THE PRINCIPAL IN CHARGE OF THE FARGO OFFICE OF EIDE BAILLY, ROSS OVERSEES THE DAY-TO-DAY OPERATIONS AND STRATEGY OF THE FARGO OFFICE, THE LARGEST OF EIDE BAILLY’S 29 OFFICES (IN 13 STATES), WHICH ALSO HOUSES THE FIRM’S HEADQUARTERS. IN ADDITION, HE WORKS IN EIDE BAILLY’S HEALTHCARE DEPARTMENT, ONE OF THE LARGEST DEPARTMENTS IN THE FIRM, PROVIDING CONSULTING ON THINGS SUCH AS OPERATIONS AND REVENUE CYCLES. AND IF THAT WASN’T ENOUGH, HE HAS SPENT THE PAST FEW YEARS STUDYING, SPEAKING AND CONSULTING ON THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT AND ITS IMPACT ON BUSINESS. MANSON TOOK US THROUGH THE QUAGMIRE THAT HEALTHCARE HAS BECOME. I’M GOING TO TAKE A GUESS AND SAY YOUR JOB HAS GOTTEN A LOT MORE COMPLICATED IN THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS.

ABOUT EIDE BAILLY

Eide Bailly is a tax, accounting and CPA firm that has been around for almost 100 years. They work with their clients on services ranging from employee benefits to accounting services.

EIDEBAILLY.COM

“Absolutely. There’s no doubt that healthcare is highly regulated and highly political, so that brings a lot of different changes to the industry.

And when an industry is under constant change from a regulatory perspective, there are a number of different facets that impact our practice and then being able to bring that back out to assist our client as well. It’s really hard for a lot of our clients to keep up with that, as they’re taking care of their patients on a day-to-day basis and understanding all the regulatory changes, too.

That’s really where we can fill one of the gaps for them by providing service.”

SAY YOU’RE SPEAKING TO A MEDIUM-SIZED COMPANY THAT DOESN’T OFFER HEALTH INSURANCE. WHAT WOULD BE SOME OF THE THINGS BUSINESS OWNERS SHOULD KNOW SINCE EVERYTHING'S CHANGED SO DRAMATICALLY? “Small to medium businesses, from a health care perspective, now they’re starting to get into that space where they need to figure out whether

they’re going to offer healthcare insurance as a benefit or not. The dynamic that is out there under the ACA (Affordable Care Act) and the employer penalties and also the individual mandate is a new dynamic for businesses in how they approach that.

“From a small business perspective, it’s really about taking a look at your talent and your resource pool and asking if that is a differentiator that is going to help you get the resources that you want and need. Now, from a small business perspective, there are different vehicles that you can go down to take a look at providing that coverage perspective. Health insurance still tends to be a benefit that people are wanting.

That migration hasn’t happened as fast as some people were thinking, but then you also have the federal marketplace and – in some states – the state marketplace where individuals can go and get insurance.”

ARE YOU FINDING THAT MORE BUSINESSES AREN’T OFFERING HEALTH INSURANCE? “I can’t say definitively that more businesses aren’t offering insurance. I think a number of businesses are continuing to look at the health insurance benefit and making sure that they’re, first of all, compliant with the rules and 11

“For just about every business out there – small, medium, large – the costs have continued to go up. That’s one of the reasons employers continue to take a look at healthcare coverage and try to offer it in an effective, efficient and cost-containment strategy to make sure that, ‘Okay, we have this benefit, but we’re providing the resources of the benefit to our employers but also not putting a stranglehold on the organization.’ It’s been a tough balance over the last decade, as healthcare costs and premiums have risen quite a bit.”

ADVICE

FOR A MEDIUM-SIZED BUSINESS, HOW HAVE THE COSTS CHANGED WHEN IT COMES TO OFFERING HEALTH INSURANCE NOW, VERSUS 10 YEARS AGO?

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN FOR THE JOE SCHMO EMPLOYEE WHO MIGHT BE LOOKING FOR A JOB AT A MEDIUM-SIZED COMPANY AND THEY DON’T OFFER HEALTH INSURANCE?

NEXT

regulations but also trying to administer their plan in the most efficient and effective manner.

In some cases, for some businesses, that means that they’re going to do it in an entirely different manner, by either not offering it or by doing it under a type of arrangement in a selffunded plan or moving their employees out to the public marketplace as well. It really depends on the business, their cycle, their resources that they’re going after and all of those capacities that would impact their decision.”

ADVICE

"I THINK A NUMBER OF BUSINESSES ARE CONTINUING TO LOOK AT THE HEALTH INSURANCE BENEFIT AND MAKING SURE THAT THEY’RE, FIRST OF ALL, COMPLIANT WITH THE RULES AND REGULATIONS BUT ALSO TRYING TO ADMINISTER THEIR PLAN IN THE MOST EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE MANNER."

WHERE THE HECK DO I LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS SUBJECT? With this being such a complicated subject, Manson suggested some resources where consumers can go for more information. His first suggested stop, if your company has one, is to talk to your HR department for more information about health insurance.

BCBSND.COM

“I think that what we’re going to see is that healthcare literacy and healthcare consumerism will really continue to take shape, and individuals are going to be much more responsible for understanding some of the healthcare dynamics and utilizations out there.

“What does that mean? On an individual, they’re really going to be taking care of their utilization, how they access care and what cost levels they are looking at. In some cases, individuals are going to have higher dollar exposure with higher out-of-pockets that they have to pay. That’s going to change their behaviors as well, from a consumer perspective.

“When you start to change behaviors and consumer attributes, you start to see them become more savvy in health insurance literacy out there. It’s going to have a changing dynamic in the marketplace.”

COMMONWEALTHFUND.ORG

KHN.ORG

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EMERGING PRAIRIE & 1 MILLION THANKS

CELEBRATE ANOTHER YEAR OF GROWTH

O

N JANUARY 21, EMERGING PRAIRIE HOSTED THEIR SECOND ANNUAL 1 MILLION THANKS EVENT WITH MORE THAN 170 PEOPLE AT ECCE ART + YOGA IN DOWNTOWN FARGO.

By Marisa Jackels, lead writer & social media manager of Emerging Prairie Photos courtesy of Emerging Prairie

For More Information emergingprairie.com

The event, which debuted in 2015, celebrated another year of activity and energy in the Fargo-Moorhead community, and recognition awards were given to community members.

Jim Gartin, president of the Greater Fargo-Moorhead Economic Development Corporation, gave a keynote presentation.

(Original speaker Marc Nager, builder of Startup Weekend, was unable to attend due to emergency shoulder surgery.)

In it, Gartin explained how he moved to Fargo from Ann Arbor, Mich., and was amazed at the growth in the city.

“I’d like you to think back to Fargo, four years ago,” he asked the audience.

“Think about what Fargo was like. What’s happened in this city … it’s been truly transformational.”

That growth, he said, is entirely dependent on the entrepreneurs, risk-takers, innovators and community-builders who have taken the initiative in the city. Self-organized meetups, student programs, event attendees – each are components to a vibrant, healthy community, he said.

“You will make it happen,” Gartin said.

A few people who are “making it happen” were given awards as a recognition for the work, time and money they are lending to support the community.

Awards were chosen by a host committee, and each recipient received a hand-painted railroad spike award, made by Fargo artist McCal Joy Johnson. Here are the winners: ··Rookie of the Year Award Cooper Bierscheid Protosthetics ··Team Player Award Botlink ··Kick-ass Award Eide Bailly ··Belief Award Dave and Sammie Binkard PODS Game Design ··Champion Award Greater Fargo-Moorhead EDC's board of directors ··Startup of the Year Award CoSchedule

As the event came to a close, many remarked about the “good energy” of the event. One excited attendee, University of Mary (N.D.) student Liv Stromme, drove three hours to attend.

“I drove all this way because I believe in the Fargo community,” she said, brimming with excitement. “I love this event.”

1 Million Thanks was created last year as the brainchild of Annika Nynas and Greg Tehven and was rooted in a desire to say a big "thank you" to the community, they said.

“Emerging Prairie only exists because of these people,” Tehven said. “It’s the least we can do.”

This year, Scott Brusven, Emerging Prairie's director of partnerships and events, designed and organized the event. Livewire produced the lighting and folksy live music was provided by Fargo band Boots. The Fargo Jet Center, the GFMEDC and Warner Insurance all contributed to make the event possible.

Next year’s event is already in the books.

The third 1 Million Thanks will take place January 19, 2017.

PROFILE 16

FEBRUARY 2016

By Nate Mickelberg Photos by J. Alan Paul Photography and courtesy of Nick Schommer

Q: a:

You went from an incredibly violent and dangerous job to an office job. Did you find yourself having to rethink your identity at all?

“Oh, definitely. They talk about it all the time, how professional athletes kind of get lost when they’re done playing.

Because they’ve had something for so long and it’s just gone from their life. You can kind of imagine different parts of your life that have been consistent for 10, 15 years and all of a sudden you just remove that. It’s just gone.

And you can’t do anything about it. And with basketball, baseball, you can always go play

career timeline

Nick Schommer was a Third-team FCS All-American safety for the Bison in 2008.

Drafted in the seventh round of the 2009 NFL Draft, Schommer played two and a half seasons for the Tennessee Titans before injuries forced him into an early retirement.

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MARKETING

A

fter injuries derailed the NFL career of former Bison football standout Nick Schommer, he was faced with the prospect of giving up the only thing he'd ever known. After a few years of soulsearching and figuring out what he wanted from his second career, he's found his niche as a project and operations manager for local software development company Hash Interactive. And while a tech startup might seem like it's about as far away from a football field as you can get, Schommer says he's carried many of the values he learned from being an elite athlete into the conference room.

NEXT

What Football Taught Nick Schommer About Succeeding in Business

PROFILE

Groomed on the Gridiron

PROFILE MARKETING NEXT

intramurals or get in a town league. Football is different. They have some of that stuff, but I’m already probably going to have health problems when I’m older, so there’s no reason for me to risk playing on some team for $20 a week or whatever.

that I couldn’t. So it’s one of those things where you’re always pushing yourself and you’ve got that inner drive to be better than your peers. So I think it gives you a lot of values that, say, a normal college student may not have.

“I don’t want to say I was depressed. That’s not the way to put it. But there was definitely something missing in my life, and it kind of messed me up a little bit, not having (football). And it actually took me probably two or three years to realize that, without it, I wasn’t who I normally was. But then I finally realized, I’m not the person I was when I was in college or in the NFL. Because I had something missing, even if I didn’t realize it was missing.”

“There’s also having a passion for something.

I think that’s a big thing is, once you have a passion for something, it doesn’t really matter how much money you make, it’s just a fire burning non-stop. And that’s kind of how football was back when I played.

There are no shortcuts to being great or achieving success. Everyone sees you play on Saturday and Sundays, as well as sees the success of your business. However, what they don't see is the countless hours you put in out of the spotlight. If you put your mind to something and have the enthusiasm to do it, through the countless hours of work and failure, eventually you will succeed."

Q: a:

Have you found there are any specific skills that translate well from the football field to the business world?

“Absolutely. I think the biggest thing that football gives you – and this is not even necessarily football – I think this is just competitive college sports, but it gives you that drive. Where a lot of people come in to work every day and need to be told what to do – and I’m not saying I don’t need to be told what to do sometimes, too – because let’s be honest, one of the hardest things to do is to drive yourself. But to have that competitiveness, to come in every day and try to get better. Going back to college, I hated when someone could do something

Q: a:

The success the Bison football team has enjoyed recently is well documented. Do you think there are any lessons a business could learn from the program?

“I think culture is one of the biggest things that makes companies succeed and fail. If you hire the right people with the right culture, it’s a winning combination.

Whereas, if you start getting people who don’t fit your culture, you start getting that split and it pulls people in directions they

Schommer's first job after his playing days were over was as an athletic trainer in Woodbury, Minn.

He then spent two seasons as an assistant coach with the Minnesota State University Moorhead Dragons football team.

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FEBRUARY 2016

didn’t think they’d get pulled in. And then, all of a sudden, instead of having one company, you’ve got multiple people with different values and different ideas of where they think the company should go.

“It’s why I think NDSU has been so successful the last 10 years. They’ve recruited people with the same values to build that culture.

Everyone has that personality or values that they build this culture around, and these freshmen come in, they see it, and they strive to be just like the guy above them. It starts at the top with – Coach Bohl, he recruited the right guys to get the right culture and Coach Klieman has continued it – and I think that’s why good teams are successful is because they build around culture. They’re not going out there just to get the most talented guy all the time.”

Q: a:

Hash Interactive recently moved into the Prairie Den in Downtown Fargo.

How do you think it's helped you guys as a team?

“It’s a collaborative, creative environment.

People come in there and they feed off each other, just like sports or anything else. When that energy is high and people can see it and they thrive off of it, everyone starts to see what the potential is – whether it’s technology, advertising, whatever. When you have that enthusiasm and the right culture and everything’s positive, you can really see things start to come together.”

Realizing coaching wasn't for him, in 2014, Schommer accepted a position managing the daily operations of local web development and graphic design startup Hash Interactive.

The Marketing Issue

by NATE MICKELBERG & ANDREW JASON

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FEBRUARY 2016

How much is a 'like' worth?

Should my media mix be split evenly between traditional and digital?

Should I be staffing a full-time social media person?

How should I be measuring the effectiveness of my billboard advertising?

What's the next big thing in marketing?

If you're a business owner, you've probably asked yourself at least one of these questions.

Fortunately, we have answers to those and many more questions – straight from the mouths of some of the most respected marketing and advertising minds in the area. We sat down with five FM area agencies and asked them how they approach marketing in 2016, with each focusing on one of their own clients.

From how they identify audiences to how they select the media to deliver a company's message, it was a fascinating look at just how much thought goes into the advertising we're surrounded by every day.

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MARKETING

Absolute Marketing Group

Over the last two years, Absolute Marketing has done the impossible. They've taken road construction and made it fun and engaging for their audience. This is how they did it.

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FEBRUARY 2016

By Nate Mickelberg | Photos by J. Alan Paul Photography & courtesy of Absolute Marketing Group

A Moving Target (Market)

ABSOLUTE MARKETING GROUP

absolutemg.com 222 Broadway N, Fargo ​701-478-1111

UNDERSTAND When Fargo-based Absolute Marketing Group was awarded a $150,000 contract to serve as the North Dakota Department of Transportation’s public information coordinator for the DOT’s Williston District during the 2014 construction season, the job description was fairly clear: inform the public about what’s going on with road construction in the area, get across safety messages and remind people to always play it safe in construction zones.

They would partner with the DOT’s own media and public information department to get across any important information to the traveling public in western North Dakota.

Thanks in large part to conditions created by the oil boom, the DOT was finding it difficult to relay crucial traffic information and obtain consistent media coverage for their numerous ongoing projects in the area, frustrations that were compounded by the fact that they weren’t sure how to go about disseminating the information to the demographic that needed it most. Absolute Marketing Advisor and project head Wendy McCord explains: “(The DOT) was having difficulty reaching the audience that had come up to work,” McCord says. “So the oil workers, construction workers – people who weren’t from the area – a lot of them just didn’t have any loyalty to traditional media. A lot of them were working a lot of hours and then going back home (out of state).”

MARKETING

Absolute Marketing Group Marketing Advisor Wendy McCord

These temporary residents would often work for 10 days at a time, go home for a week and then come back, and, as McCord alluded to, because they didn’t have a permanent connection to the area, weren’t as likely to read the local paper or listen to a local radio station.

“And then, there wasn’t a website or any kind of a hub of information,” McCord says.

“There wasn’t any real safety messaging getting out there, and so there were a lot of unique problems to solve.”

just the city of Williston but the whole district – for the locals. But for the people who had come up there to work – transplanted oil company managers, new companies – a lot of that was, seriously a lot of ad hoc research.”

McCord put in some good oldfashioned legwork and headed out west herself. She’d show up at convenience stores, restaurants and other local gathering places, and if she suspected that someone was from out of town, she’d strike up a conversation with them about the media they were accessing and how they were accessing it.

“It had to be very much what you see,” McCord says, “Because anything published would’ve been way too outdated.”

IDENTIFY Even under ideal circumstances, it can be hard to connect your intended audience with your product or message, and especially so when you have little to no reliable data to work with.

“Normally, you can do research about your demographics,” McCord says. “Getting some of that information from your client, relying on some of your past experience, looking at what their goals are and who their current customers are, that kind of thing. But with this particular campaign, none of that applied.

“We could get some general information about the demographics of the city – not

It wasn’t all bad, though, because, as McCord explains, they had a built-in advantage.

“This audience was more interested than your average one,” she says, “Because their ability to get around (was being affected).”

McCord says that unless you experienced it first-hand, it’s hard to explain how difficult it was to get around the Williston area a couple years ago. The progress was outpacing the infrastructure and people – locals and transplants alike – were frustrated. And that’s when Absolute saw an opportunity for how they’d approach their new campaign, McCord says.

“We wanted to say (to people), it is going to change,” McCord says. “It’s going to be much better. You just have to hang tight with us.”

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EXECUTE Once they felt they understood the problems they were trying to solve and had a good idea of who the audience was that they were trying to reach – a splintered mix of locals and non-locals in this case – the Absolute team turned their attention toward forming a clear and consistent message for the campaign. They settled on “Let’s Drive North Dakota Progress” as both a slogan and a way of creating a collective identity in the area.

“We wanted people to feel like we’re all in this together,” McCord says. “And if we can all stay safe in construction zones and be patient and let this infrastructure start to be built, then it’s going to be better for all of us.”

As the DOT had never hired a vendor for the Williston District before, McCord and her team were more or less starting from scratch – especially when it came to digital and social media – and because of that, felt they needed an information hub for the content they’d be creating and disseminating for the campaign.

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FEBRUARY 2016

WEBSITE “The website was one of the first things we did,” McCord says. “This past construction season, there were 15 projects and when you’re looking at that many and you’ve got news coming out about each one concurrently – we needed a centralized place for everything.

So the website was really important in getting that done.”

It’s a great lesson in understanding why, even with something as basic as a website, it’s important to have a specific strategy from the outset. For McCord and her team, they weren’t building a site “just because,” they were building it with a specific purpose in mind and, more importantly, a specific audience in mind. They understood their audience’s needs and how they would interact with the campaign’s content and designed the site accordingly.

MARKETING

MAPS

First, people could take a wider look at where, on a regional level, each of the projects was taking place.

Interactive maps were a big part of the user-focused marketing strategy, as McCord says they understood that, above all, motorists needed information about how to navigate the maze of construction that surrounded them in all directions.

“When you’re dealing with a lot of people who are from outside of the area,” she says, “You need to make it really clear and concise and easy for people to find their way around and look at these things and say, ‘Oh, that’s where that project is. That makes sense.’ Or, ‘This is what they’re doing or that’s where this major detour is.’”

The maps they created allowed motorists to find a variety of information about the projects that affected them.

They could then zoom in and click on an individual project to find out what routes were affected, as well as get a general description of the project.

McCord explains why the maps took on an even greater importance, given who they were targeting with them.

“We had plenty of wonderful coverage from the TV stations,” she says, “And we have an ongoing relationship with a radio station where we do traffic updates. But for those who aren’t queued in to that media, we needed a way to get out there what was going on with a project, what was going to be in place once it was complete.”

If they still wanted more information, they could click a link that would take them to a separate page with updates on the project’s status, expected start and completion dates, and an even more detailed map.

SOCIAL As with the rest of the campaign, McCord says that before they decided on a social media approach, it was essential that they understood not only what platform(s) would work best with the content they were producing but also how the audience was going to interact with it.

One Facebook post about a closure on the Lewis & Clark Bridge was seen by roughly 50,000 people.

“One of the things (the DOT) was able to tell us,” McCord says, “Was that Williston was really a Facebook town. And we had to take that into account when coming up with a social media strategy.

“Facebook has definitely been the cornerstone. It’s the most flexible. We could link to videos, put videos on there and now they even auto launch. We can put a 20 MB video up there and it’s no big deal.”

And while Absolute also created a YouTube channel and Twitter and Google Plus accounts for the DOT, it was the content compatibility coupled with an intimate understanding of who was most likely to seek out the information that ultimately led them to a Facebook-heavy approach.

“Those who are old enough to care enough to like our page and come and watch our videos,” McCord explains, “Are going to be old enough to find Facebook to be a source of information. So we’re reaching a much broader audience. If you think about Snapchat or Instagram or some of the things that the younger kids use, they're not looking for traffic information.”

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MARKETING

VIDEO Another important part of Absolute’s strategy with the “Drive Progress” campaign was to utilize video in a more informative and engaging way.

The idea was to give their audience a look at what was being planned for each of the DOT’s individual projects across the Williston District and to do so through short videos narrated by a single person.

“The DOT wanted there to be someone who could be a spokesperson,” McCord says.

“Someone who could be a part of the videos and be on camera and report the information.

Just because that’s a lot more personal.”

That someone was Christian Calabrese, a video and communications specialist at Absolute, who actually lived and worked full-time in the Williston District for the entirety of the construction season.

Calabrese become something of a public face of the campaign, traveling across the western part of the state to individual construction sites, getting footage of crews at work, and giving people a better idea of

SUMMARY OF MARKETING APPROACH, 2006 VS. 2016

the location and scope of each job. In the final product, detailed bullet points appeared on screen alongside Calabrese, who walked motorists through, stepby-step, what they could expect from each respective project.

“It’s always more engaging to look at a photo or to watch a video clip,” McCord says. “We hear from people all the time.

They love the videos. We get people who tell us how much they love the videography and those visuals really do make a big difference.”

“If this same client came to us 10 years ago, we would’ve had a much heavier paid media broadcast approach and would’ve definitely spent more time on media relations. We still did that in the current campaign, but because you didn’t have social media, you relied more heavily on things like handouts – actually printing and then going and delivering things.

“Letting people know with little maps, like, 'Here’s where the detours are.' And you take them to the gas stations and hotels and you would have to actually go out and do it that way instead of going to things like social.

And we still did that, but we purposely went and connected with organizations, drove people to come to our page. We didn’t just wait for them to find us.”

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MARKETING

Relationships > Sales With more than 3,000 independent dealers in more than 140 countries worldwide, Duluth, Ga.-based AGCO Corporation is one of the largest agricultural equipment manufacturers in the world. And until a few years ago, they had virtually no digital marketing presence. Fargobased Flint Group, which manages AGCO’s marketing and public relations, wanted to change that, but first they had to convince decision-makers in one of the most traditional-minded industries that the world of likes and retweets could be good for their bottom line.

We sat down with Flint Group CEO Roger Reierson and President Jodi Duncan and talked about the process of implementing some nontraditional elements into AGCO dealers’ marketing strategies and how their work with the client is indicative of some larger trends in today’s marketing world.

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By Nate Mickelberg | Photos by J. Alan Paul Photography & courtesy of Flint Group

Flint Group

MARKETING

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in putting together a marketing program for AGCO’s dealers?

JODI DUNCAN: “To get them

FLINT GROUP (FARGO OFFICE) flint-group.com 101 10th St. N, Suite 300, Fargo 701-237-4850

engaged in non-traditional media. Prior to us putting together their dealer programs, pretty much everything they did was just your basic traditional media – print, radio, a little bit of television. And so they had this dealer force of 600 dealers that weren’t engaging in social media and weren’t engaging in any digital activity. And we brought them into that fold.”

What was that process like, getting them to warm up to the idea of introducing a digital component to their media mix?

JD: “It was really challenging

because most of the dealer principals are probably in their 50s or 60s and were really opposed to doing a lot of digital or spending money in social media at all. And so we started out by doing educational sessions. And it probably was two years of educating dealers before we really started getting them to buy into it. And now I would say probably 40 percent of their dealer channel engages in it in some manner.

WHO THEY ARE Flint Group is a full-service branding, marketing, advertising, public relations and interactive business with clients all over the world. They pride themselves on blending art, science and technology to tell stories, change minds and build meaningful connections.

They believe in hiring based on talent – not location – and it’s afforded them the ability to bring people onto their team who represent all facets of marketing communication, from strategists and project managers to specialists in social media, email marketing and crisis management, among others.

While Flint Group's work frequently includes clients at the national level, the firm maintains a continued focus on regional clients and community involvement.

“But we make it super easy for them. We give them information on exactly what they should do to engage in it and the different steps they need to take. And 29

MARKETING

As part of its social media strategy for AGCO, Flint Group suggests contest ideas, photo ideas and other elements that make the plan easy for the client to implement.

unless they’re very committed, especially in the social media spaces, we encourage them not to do it unless they’re committed to the followthrough and the type of activity it entails.”

with a lot of companies in that area. That social media and the person who's helping you – whether it be an AGCO dealer or whatever – is really a marketing person on your staff.”

What does that commitment look like?

With AGCO's dealers, do you push one social media platform more than others?

ROGER REIERSON: “A lot of

companies don’t relate the cost. Because with social media, the fallacy is, ‘Oh, let’s just do it online. That’s a lot cheaper.’ They don’t get the hourly commitment or the personnel commitment to really do social media right. So what you have to convince them of is, you’re not buying space in a magazine. Instead of using that money to buy space in a magazine, you need to use that money to buy someone who’s going to be contentdriven to build your social media content.

“Instead of a marketing expense, they think it’s a salary expense and they can’t quite put the two of those together.

You’re trying to convince them, it’s part of your marketing budget to hire that social media content person. That mindset, I think, has to change

JD: “We almost always start

them off with Facebook because that’s what they’re the most familiar with and that’s what their customer base is usually involved in. And then some of them will do Twitter, but it’s a little harder to get them to engage in that. And we’re starting to do Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat.

“With Facebook, we try to get them to commit to a strategy so that they have a really thought-out approach to their social spaces and probably 80 to 90 percent of (dealers) are Facebook and that’s it. We give them exactly what they should post. We give them photo ideas, contest ideas, different things that map to whatever their objectives are.”

Do you track social media traffic for dealers using data and analytics?

JD: “Yep, we track all that. And we provide the dealer with a dashboard to show their activity level. But we also set goals for the activity. So we don’t necessarily want them to just get a bunch of likes.

We want them to actually have some engagement from their prospects or customers.

And that might be responses, it might be comments, it might be sparking different conversations.”

How do photo and video fit into your digital strategy with AGCO? JD: “We really try to encourage them to have kind of a humanized approach so that it doesn’t look like something that came from an advertising company. We want it to feel very personal. So a lot of times, it’s things like: snap a photo of somebody who just bought a combine or go to their field and take pictures.

But we try to really help them engage their customer.

“It depends on what we’re 31

MARKETING

FLINT

BY THE NUMBERS

95+

trying to accomplish. One thing that’s worked really well with dealers is how-to videos.

So it could be, if there’s a particular service that needs to be done to a machine or if there’s a complicated issue that comes up, we encourage them to have a way to solve that, have something (a customer) can access at any time. And sometimes that comes from their customer base. If customers are asking for something and asking questions about something consistently.”

For AGCO or really any campaign, do you first identify your message and then select the media you’ll employ or is it the other way around?

JD: “I would say, for a

campaign, we always set goals and objectives first and then figure out what the appropriate vehicles are to deliver the message.”

RR: “We’re always building

what we consider a 'message matrix.' So in every campaign, there’s always more than one audience. There are key 32

FEBRUARY 2016

influencers, there are your direct audiences. Those that are maybe considered ‘buy later.’ In every one of those cases, there’s a message that’s tweaked a little bit, depending on who you’re talking to. And in every one of those cases, there’s a different way to reach them.

“In the old, traditional advertising, you’d run an ad and try to get it to them, but you never thought about the way back again. So in the AGCO world or all of our clients, today it’s not just, ‘I need to talk to Prospect A.’ It’s thinking about, ‘How is Prospect A going to come back to us? How do we get the conversation started?’”

Is that the biggest difference in the approach to messaging, compared to 10 or 15 years ago?

JD: “I think so. When I started,

from a brand perspective, everything I learned was, ‘Say the same thing over and over and make sure that you use the same verbage and that everything looks the same.'

And now everything is so

With any campaign, Flint Group sets goals first, then identifies the right platform to deliver the message.

Number of full-time Flint staff, sprinkled throughout the Midwest in Grand Forks, N.D., St. Cloud, Minn., and the Twin Cities, with the two largest offices in Fargo and Duluth, Minn.

1946 The year Flint was born. They're celebrating their 70th birthday in 2016.

4 Number of Flint offices – Fargo, St. Cloud, Grand Forks and Duluth.

7 Total number of Flint’s strategic partners

130+ Toal number of Flint's strategic partners, including AdFarm, Media Productions, Praxis Strategy Group, Prime Contact, Street Smart, SuperStudio and Giant Goat

MARKETING

customized – I want you to talk to me differently than you’d talk to my 18-year-old daughter. I think that’s hard for brands.”

RR: “Before, it was, build

Search engine marketing (SEM) is just one element of a successful online marketing campaign.

your messages around feature benefits. Today, the whole attitude is starting a conversation with that customer base. Everything has to have a response.

Even traditional – print, radio, television – it’s all based on trying to make a connection to get a response, to start a conversation with a prospect that’s out there. And a lot of times, what you have to focus on is it has to be a one-on-one conversation. You can’t send a single message to a household and think you’ve got them all.

Because the husband, the daughter and the wife are all going to react to that message differently. Now you have different ways to reach each

one of them.

Bobcat to move stuff.

“And once you start that conversation, now the whole deal is – it used to be, make a sale. Well, now everything’s about gaining a customer for life. How much is Rancher A worth to AGCO over a lifetime? That’s what they’re thinking about.”

“Same piece of equipment, completely different usage and completely different messaging to each customer base.

Bobcat’s a great example of how one piece of machinery can cross a whole gamut of audiences. Our job is to know those audiences.”

What would be a specific example of that more customized marketing process?

What do you see as the next frontier in marketing?

RR: “Probably the Bobcat

account is the best example of that. You’re selling the same piece of equipment, but you could be selling it to a guy who works in town but has a small acreage ranch and owns a Bobcat versus the same Bobcat being sold to a guy who has 8,000 acres who’s baling hay and needs the

RR: “I’d say the next biggest

thing we’re investing in is mobile. We’ve gotta keep driving the mobile side as that becomes bigger and bigger.

“The clients aren’t asking for mobile a lot. They are here and there. I think – just like social, just like engaged marketing – clients aren’t paying attention.

It’s up to us to bring it to them and tell them why they need to pay attention to it. I think our investment in mobile is a little ahead of our clients because we’ve got to be the ones to tell them how to use it best in their situations.”

What kinds of mobile, specifically?

JD: “Mobile response to

websites is probably the biggest thing.”

RR: “And building of apps. Apps that are maybe not long-term apps that you’re going to keep on your phone for three, four years, but they’re apps related to a certain campaign or a trade show. Or an app you’re going to download for a specific reason and it will probably go away after the campaign’s over.”

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H2M

You know how you walk into some restaurants and immediately you feel a certain way? Well, that doesn't happen by accident. Fargo advertising agency H2M has spent years helping one place make its customers feel like it's summer all year long.

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FEBRUARY 2016

By Nate Mickelberg | Photos by J. Alan Paul Photography & courtesy of H2M

The Art of the Billboard

UNDERSTAND

H2M

h2m.biz ​320 5th St. N, Fargo 701-237-4180

"Hey, honey, you want to go out to eat tonight?"

"Yeah, let's do that."

"Okay, great, what are you hungry for?"

"I don't know."

"Steak?"

"No." "Mexican?"

"Yeah, that sounds good."

"Okay, well where do you want to go?"

Dave Hanson, CEO and president of Fargo advertising agency H2M, wants you to consider this hypothetical conversation for a moment. It's an exchange that takes place thousands of times every day across the Fargo-Moorhead area, but unless you own a restaurant or work in marketing

"The first thing is, you have to be in what we call the 'considered set,'" says Hanson, whose agency has worked with area restaurants and bars for years. "There's a set of restaurants you'll go to, and there's a set you won't even consider because they're not a part of your habit."

It's that most fundamental of tasks, getting a restaurant's name in people's heads and making it an option for their patronage, that Hanson and his team specializes in, and it's one of the reasons why area pizza and Mexican joint Zorbaz chose H2M to handle its marketing roughly 12 years ago.

While Zorbaz opened its first spot in Detroit Lakes, Minn., in 1969 and has been a staple in the lakes area for decades, they were a one-location operation for many years. And when they felt that their growth – they now operate 11 stores across Minnesota – began to exceed their internal marketing capabilities, they hired an agency that could carry on the fun, irreverent brand Zorbaz had spent years creating.

IDENTIFY Where agencies sometimes have to spend significant time and resources researching and

identifying the target market for a product or company, things were relatively straightforward for Hanson and his H2M team when they took over day-today marketing operations for the restaurant.

"Here's the thing about Zorbaz," Hanson says. "It’s a really broad base, because they'll open at 11 in the morning, and it's everybody from working people for lunch and then all the way into dinner. And then at 9p.m., it turns into a whole different animal. It turns into more of a nightclub, with music and dancing.

"It's funny because (former Zorbaz owner) Tom (Hanson) and his son, Cole, they'd always had a discussion as to, are we a pizza shop or a bar?

And they'd discuss it back and forth – because they each had their own opinions – but basically we all settled on the fact that we're a hang. It's a hangout. And that's the charm of it."

And so while Hanson and his team felt they understood Zorbaz-goers as a whole, there was something they knew they had to always keep in mind.

"What we found out," Hanson says, "Is that Zorbaz's patrons consider (their respective location) their Zorbaz. It's THEIRS. So what we always say is, we don't want to be Applebee's in the sense that you walk in to any Applebee's and they all look the same.

And it's been very important for them – and us helping them guide their brand – to make sure that each restaurant, each location, has its own defined kind of feel. But still retains the feel of a larger encompassing brand. The common thing is that it's summer when you walk in the door."

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MARKETING

for one, you probably don't know how hard it is to make your establishment the answer to that last question.

EXECUTE

One of Zorbaz's most recognizable billboards ever, this design commemorated its 40th anniversary and roots in the hippie culture of the late '60s.

"They were very nervous about putting it up," says Dave Hanson, president & CEO of Fargo agency H2M, which manages Zorbaz's marketing.

"But they said, 'Oh, hell yeah, let's do it.' That board hasn't run for years and still, today, people mention it."

The cornerstone of H2M's marketing strategy with Zorbaz is, and always has been, billboard advertising. But before you raise your eyebrows at a company concentrating a majority of its marketing dollars in 2016 in outdoor signage, Hanson would like a word.

"We've got years of experience with what people call traditional media," he says, "Which is usually used as a pejorative now. But we call it 'proven-effective media.' And that's a big difference between us and other agencies, I think.

To me, social media is the unproven media at this point.

"But to me, billboards, done correctly, are the most – you can't ignore them. You can't turn the page. If you're driving by them, you're going to see them, unless you're halfsleeping at the wheel. I think billboards are an absolute work of art when done right."

A billboard-centric approach is ultimately not about Hanson's personal preferences, though.

It's a product of where most Zorbaz stores are located and the crowd they're trying to attract.

"It's very much a destination restaurant," Hanson says.

"They're all on lakes, on water, and that's the deal. That's their key. You have to want to go there. So it's just keeping that logo in front of people as often as you can, in places they're likely to be intercepted heading that way."

The billboards, which are typically humorous and topical in nature (a recent example being: "Zorbaz: Eazier to Order than ObamaCare"), are not necessarily intended to steer people into the nearest Zorbaz parking lot, according to Hanson.

MARKETING

BILLBOARD

right then, on most products," he says. "'I saw that billboard, I went right to the place and bought a pizza.' Humans aren't like that. They don't respond that way. The saying we have here is, familiarity breeds trust."

It's that trust that H2M is constantly trying to establish and re-establish with the tens of thousands of lake-going, potential patrons who drive by their boards year-round.

"We're never selling," Hanson explains. "These boards are just expressing the attitude of the company, the owners, the managers. This is a fun, irreverent spot. The tone is tongue-in-cheek, and the maxim has been to take it to the edge and then go right over it a little bit. And then we'll pull back to where we think it's okay."

"Oftentimes, people – when they see advertising – they're not in a position to purchase

Zorbaz's billboards follow their trademark style of replacing every 's' with a 'z'.

OTHER NOTABLE H2M CLIENTS ·· ·· ·· ·· ·· ·· ··

DuraTech Industries Lake Region Healthcare Lund Boats 702 Communications Essentia Health Kroll's Diner Otter Tail Tourism

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MARKETING

SOCIAL Zorbaz frequently runs Instagram contests to gather fan photos of people enjoying their restaurants. They say they've found that creating certain incentives noticeably increases the number of submissions.

Hanson believes in using one criterion, in particular, for measuring the effectiveness of an advertising medium or a series of marketing campaigns: is business going up at the end of the year?

And with digital and social platforms, the answer to that question is a little too fuzzy for him right now.

Zorbaz Detroit Lakez

"We do a lot of work around the country with credit unions and stuff," he says, "And a lot of them have drank the KoolAid that you have to do social media and stuff. But when you really look at the statistics of what percentage they're really reaching – the stats are very foggy on it."

He says he thinks the brands that can benefit the most from social media are the ones that are social themselves, by nature.

"Social media absolutely has a value, but not for everybody," Hanson says. "For Zorbaz, it's incredible. We see the numbers rising and we see the engagement. They're an extremely social brand. What we track with social media – and we track it pretty tightly – we know when these platforms are peaking."

The company's social accounts are as unique as each of the company's

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11 locations, and Hanson says that while they do offer specials and connect Zorbaz customers through their various digital platforms, they mostly use them for brand affinity purposes – in much the same way as the billboards.

"We're not idiots," Hanson says. "We know it's gotta be part of the mix, but we just have not bought in to the KoolAid that if you're not doing social – I mean, Apple, the largest company in the world, does not have a Facebook page. They don't do any social media. So, I mean, we use it as a tool."

"Social media absolutely has a value but not for everybody. for Zorbaz, it's incredible."

– Dave Hanson, president and CEO of H2M

MARKETING

Sundog Interactive

Otter Tail Power Company is one of Fargo-based Sundog Interactive's more unique clients. For one, they're a regulated electric utility, meaning they generate and distribute electricity in a regulated market.

Also, their audience is fixed. So if you live in a given pocket in the tristate area, Otter Tail's your electic provider. This means Sundog spends less time and resources on identifying the company's target market and more time engaging with who they know is already there.

We spoke with Jason Jacobson, a creative strategist and a Sundogger who's worked on the Otter Tail account for four years, about some of the unique challenges of doing marketing work for the client, as well as some of the ways Sundog is moving away from a census-type approach to marketing.

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By Nate Mickelberg | Photos by J. Alan Paul Photography & courtesy of Sundog

Marketing Matchmakers

MARKETING

Sundog Creative Strategist Jason Jacobson

WHO THEY ARE What are some of the areas Sundog does work in for Otter Tail Power Company?

SUNDOG INTERACTIVE

sundoginteractive.com 2000 44th St. S, Fargo 701-235-5525

"We run three buckets of campaigns for them on a regular basis: 1. General awareness ​– ​"We're present in your community.

We're a positive influence."

2. Stewardship-based ​– "Here are the specific ways we're giving back to your community.

For example, a couple years ago, we were trying to get Otter Tail customers to switch from receiving a paper bill to paperless billing. If you signed up for this – it was basically just a short, digital form – we would donate X amount of dollars to different charities."

3. ​Conservation ​– "​The Department of Energy's regulators have certain benchmarks they want you to hit. Because what they're trying to do is reduce the burden on the electric system. So that might mean a program where you're buying a new electric water heater that gets you on off-peak rates. It might be, in the summers, going on efficient time-of-delivery. It's called the Cool Savings program. You're agreeing to cycle your A/C off and on for 15 minutes during peak hours."

Sundog Interactive has a very specific marketing approach they take with their roughly 75 clients: +Marketing Understand your customers and their unique journeys through research and in-depth industry expertise. Then deliver the right message, through the right channel, at the right time. +Creative Customize your content and cut through the clutter with big ideas that connect and engage your customers. Every step of the way. +Technology Optimize and integrate technology platforms to produce the best results. All fueled with cutting-edge innovation and expertise. +Insights Measure every step of your customer's journey with powerful analytics, so you can understand what results you're driving – and what's driving those results.

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What's the approach Sundog takes to connect Otter Tail's customers with these three buckets of messaging?

1. Economic Impact – "It'll save you money."

2. Community impact ​– "It might sound like a little bit, but if everyone does it, we'll make a big difference."

3. Environmental – "Conserving energy helps preserve the place where you live. If you're serving rural communities, that environmental aspect is incredibly important. These are people who love to hunt and fish, they're involved with or closely associated with ag."

With Otter Tail, you have customers spread out all over North Dakota, Minnesota and South Dakota. Does that pose any specific challenges?

"In order to hit one market, you have to buy this much ​ geography. You're being charged to reach all these people, even though your customers are only in a small pocket. Which is where digital kind of offsets that. Digital provides better targeting for rural audiences.

media, we can target digital radio – Pandora – by zip code. So now we're at the zip code level. When we start doing digital display ads and working with ad networks, we're able to place ads based on behaviors rather than demographics. We're not targeting by genre, by age, by gender. It's zip code. And a lot of these small towns have probably one or two, which allows us to save so much more money than buying a large geographic region that may spill over into people who aren't Otter Tail customers.

And that allows us to be more efficient."

Sundog's Revenue Performance Model platform

You mentioned something before about the customer journey. What is that?

"Basically, every consumer has to go through a series of phases before they make a purchase: unaware aware perception preference use loyalty or I don't know anything.

I've heard of you.

I like you.

I want you.

I buy you.

I buy you again."

"When we're buying digital 43

MARKETING

That almost sounds like dating.

"YOU CAN ADVERTISE ON SO MANY SITES, SO MANY PLATFORMS, YOU WANT TO BE SELECTIVE. IT'S NOT WANT, YOU NEED TO BE SELECTIVE." 44

FEBRUARY 2016

"Absolutely it is. There's a huge correlation. As marketers, we're matchmakers. ​There's a brand that has all of these attributes, and there's a buyer who has all of these needs.

And it's about setting them up. We would never tell a company: 'Go ask this person to marry you on the first date.'

It has to be incremental. It has to be conversational. It has to be based on genuine facts.

If you look at the dark days of advertising, you could get away with that. Because there was no social media and there was no Internet. In the digital era, if you're dishonest, you'll be discovered."

Let's jump back to what you were talking about with behavior-based marketing.

How, exactly, does that work with respect to your Otter Tail customers?

"So you think about, okay, who would be most interested in a conservation program?

What websites are they going to? What are they interacting with? By tracking based on behaviors, you're going to find

pockets of audiences. This is an important shift. One, you're going to spend less money trying to find these people. And two, you're going to be able to get a greater conversion because you've aligned with how they already think or what they already support. They're already picking up what you're laying down. You can advertise on so many sites, so many platforms, you want to be selective. It's not want, you NEED to be selective."

Does this force you to view customers in a different way than you used to?

"We can't think of them demographically anymore.

And we shouldn't be. We have the tools and metrics to stop looking at customers like census data. Instead, let's focus on behaviors. It's kind of elegant in how, not looking at demographic information, solely, tears down a lot of stereotypes. We're not looking at people based on gender. It doesn't matter your gender, it doesn't matter your age, it doesn't matter your education level, it doesn't matter how much money you make. It doesn't matter what you look like or where you're from. It's,

what are your needs? And what are your behaviors? I'm no longer trying to write copy or come up with ideas like: women, 35-54, are going to love this!"

How does this affect the sales side of things?

"So take a pay-per-click campaign, for example, which we can track to the word. We can track if the word 'buy' is getting more conversions than the word 'shop.' A consumer clicks the ad and goes to the website. Now that they're on the site, we still don't know who they are. But based on the time they've spent on the site, the pages they're interacting with, the content they're interacting with, we start to understand who they might be. They may convert, saying, 'I'd like to sign up for an email. I'd like to download a white paper. I'd like to get a demo. I'd like to get a quote.'

"Based on some of those activities, we can start to pull them into a back-end system, qualify leads. 'Hey, sales guy, Customer A – they just want content, more white papers or more information. Customer B has done a certain number of tasks. You should probably get in touch with them.' We're able to give them a better profile.

"Before this model, marketing would run campaigns, sales would try to build relationships and close deals. And there was this enormous gap between the two. Now, there are so many more choices, it's really up to marketing to lead and to nurture prospects."

MARKETING

In-House Advertising

About 18 years ago, Steve Dye left radio to work in his own advertising agency. Shortly after, some of his clients asked for his help, and that’s when In-House was born. The goal was to get results. With clients such as the Fargo Marathon, Cass-Clay, Luther Family Buick GMC and more, In-House and its marketing team are helping their clients find and communicate with their audience. We present to you tips for successful marketing straight from Dye himself.

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By Andrew Jason | Photos by Paul Flessland

Back to the Basics

MARKETING

“In-House is a small agency.

IN-HOUSE

inhouseadagency.biz 322 Sheyenne St, West Fargo

We have about a dozen key people. We brainstorm a lot.

We discuss ideas and how today's consumer thinks. We do believe in a core formula that can be broken down for effective advertising.

Reach times frequency times message equals results. After all, the only marketing that works is marketing that drives return on investment.

“To me, it always starts with growth. I think most people look at advertising as facilitating growth for their business. Whether it’s getting website traffic, store traffic or phone traffic, the overall goal is connecting the business with customers. We feel like that’s our main job as a marketing company. We’ve got to facilitate some sort of traffic for that business. If we’re seeing an increase in traffic and we’re not seeing an increase in sales, then we need to explore why the sales transaction is not taking place.

“We try to partner with our clients. We discuss all aspects of the business. After all, good marketing is only part of the success formula. You also have to provide a great product, value and experience for the customer or they will not come back. If you drive a bunch of people with a crazy creative ad into a store but the customer

experience isn’t there, the advertising really falls flat in a hurry. It’s a lot easier to get great results with great clients.”

“You determine, what is the outcome they’re looking for? What are the goals for

the client? We have a very straightforward conversation with them about establishing real objectives of marketing.

Do we have a realistic timeline? Do we have realistic expectations? Do you have the right marketing and resources that are going to get that accomplished? What’s the competition doing? What’s the customer experience like?

There are a lot of different things that go in to that.”

“I think the more you work with the client to set a specific goal – whether it’s a sales goal, traffic goal or something about a product – the better.

It’s definitely more measurable when you have a goal. Yeah, we look at it and say, ‘Is it a particular product? Is it a particular day? Is it a particular service that we want to grow?

What are those expectations?

Is that realistic with what’s going on in the marketplace?’"

“It’s a lot like losing weight.

If someone goes to a trainer and says, ‘I want to lose 20 pounds.’ They can’t say, ‘Okay, here’s a sheet of paper.

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MARKETING

LET'S TALK DETAILS

This is what you need to do and you’re guaranteed to lose 20 pounds.’ Now, they’re talking about specific diets for different DNAs, different body chemistries. I know this sounds really weird, but I almost look at being a marketing consultant like being a doctor. When a patient walks in, you just don’t write a prescription and say, ‘Here you go.’ Good doctors work with their patients and understand one size doesn’t fit all. There might be a lot of underlying factors that contribute to an ailment. The same goes for marketing. There may be many factors about the business that you don’t know about right away until you start working with them."

“Any time you can invite somebody who's a potential client into your business, you’re going to win. I also believe that

there are a lot of audiences, but finding that core audience, finding that audience that wants to buy that product, is as important as the size of that audience or where that audience is. You can get success from alternative advertising, social media, and you can still get success from traditional advertising as well.”

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FEBRUARY 2016

Sometimes, even a wellestablished company can lose its market share. That’s what was happening with 75-year old company Fargo creamery. In 2012, Kemps bought out CassClay. All of the marketing was being done out of Minneapolis and Cass-Clay was losing its touch with the community of Fargo-Moorhead. In-House began communicating with Cass-Clay General Manager Jason Rapp and convinced him that Cass-Clay needed to become more involved in the community.

“Fargo-Moorhead is a pretty unique community,” says Dye. “It’s a big small town, so through those conversations, we were able to convince corporate to give us some dollars and work on some community marketing projects. We got them involved with some other clients: the Red River Valley Fair and the Fargo Marathon. We ran some outdoor billboards, magazine ads and online ads.”

“THE ONLY MARKETING THAT WORKS IS MARKETING THAT DRIVES RETURN ON INVESTMENT.”

In-House knew the perfect way to get Cass-Clay back into the community. To coincide with the monumental return of the NDSU-UND football game, Cass-Clay began the Battle of the Bowls. The ice cream flavor Bison Crunch faced off against UND Champion Chip. That’s when In-House really started to begin marketing.

“Our process was to determine the goal of the client – in this case to grow market share," Dye says. "We did the research, looking at who our target market was and what are they doing? How can we reach them? Are the ratings there? I really think that data gives you a starting point; a starting point that can help build a foundation of any campaign. In a market this size, we are limited by how much data we have available, but with the numbers we have, a baseline can be built and sometimes you just have to trust your instincts.”

In-House started advertising the competition on radio, billboards and non-traditional advertising such as Facebook. To coincide with this, In-House pushed community involvement with samplings at Hornbacher’s and other events. This was an important moment for CassClay to reinvent itself.

“When people go to a grocery store, they might notice different brands, but if somebody is asking them to purchase a specific brand over time, they forget about the people that aren’t asking them and tend to go with the advertised brand.

You have to invite business to do business with you.”

The campaign was a success, as there was an increase in ice cream sales and positive feedback from grocery stores and consumers. However, much to Bison fans' chagrin, UND Champion Chip won the Battle of the Bowls.

COLUMN ADVICE NEXT

ND'S

AIR NATIONAL GUARD

A Positive Impact on the Metro

T

he business climate in Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo has been getting a lot of national attention lately. In fact, just last month, the front page of The New York Times featured our region’s leadership on the forefront of the use of drones for commercial purposes.

Quoted in the article was Shawn Muehler, COO of local start-up called Botlink. The company is developing unique software that, according to its website, “is the world’s most capable Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) control software and hardware, providing the capability to safely fly your drone, remain compliant and send data over the cellular network.”

While this is a great news story about entrepreneurship in our community, there is also a great “old” story underneath. According to The New York Times, as a member of North Dakota’s Air National Guard, Muehler got his idea for Botlink while piloting Predator UAV’s throughout the globe from a small facility at the Air Guard facility at Fargo's Hector Airport.

That facility is home to just the latest critical mission of the 119th Wing of the Air National Guard, known both respectfully and affectionately as The Happy Hooligans.

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For nearly 70 years, The Happy Hooligans have been helping to keep our country safe and in the process making a tremendous economic impact on our area. Whether flying F-16 fighter jets to help secure our nation’s capital city after 9/11, fulfilling a global mission or remotely piloting aircraft in support of warfighters throughout the world, the 119th continues to be recognized for its excellence.

In fact, recently, the 119th received its 17th Air Force Outstanding Unit Award (AFOUA) during a ceremony at the Air National Guard base in Fargo.

The Air Force continues to recognize the Happy Hooligans time and time again – recognition that is no mystery to the citizens of our cities.

Preliminary reports from a study being done by North Dakota State University indicate that the Guard’s total economic impact to our region could be as much as $100 million. The Guard is the 36th-largest employer in the area, and the roughly 1,000 members of the 119th (from both sides of the Red River) are visible and active members of the surrounding cities, spending their well-earned pay in our communities. One goal the Guard has is to achieve up to 100 percent

authorized manning, and with strong recruiting efforts and community support, it's an achievable goal.

When I joined The Chamber, I was Craig Whitney is the surprised to find president and CEO of that no military the Fargo Moorhead affairs support group West Fargo Chamber existed. As a result, of Commerce. we established a formal military affairs committee that is now filled with dedicated business leaders in the community, some of whom are veterans and are deeply aware of the significance of the North Dakota Air National Guard, as well as what it means to our nation and the impact it has on the Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo area.

But that awareness should not be limited to a Chamber committee, no matter how sincere. Without the familiar roar of F-16s in the skies above us, it may be easy to forget that our Air Guard is still here, but, as that front page story in The New York Times proves, The Happy Hooligans are not only still here, they are as impactful as ever.

Photo by J. Alan Paul Photography

By Craig Whitney

ADVICE

Q Mentor Meetup:

A

It's Simple:

Follow Your Passion and Be Polite

W

ith technology making freelance and self-employment a full-time option for more and more people, it's more important than ever for those choosing to go it alone to understand what they're getting themselves into. In this month's "Mentor Meetup," we paired president and executive director of Fargo-based Media Productions, Lee Massey, with local photographer and videographer, Paul Flessland, and the two of them chatted about everything from basic supply and demand principles to the power of a good old-fashioned thank-you note.

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By Nate Mickelberg | Photos by J. Alan Paul Photography

Q

ADVICE

A

NEXT

LEE MASSEY

Flessland is a photographer at Fargo-based Spotlight Media, the publishing company behind Fargo INC!, as well as the owner of his own photography and videography business, Paul Flessland Photo. He does wedding, product, editorial and commercial work.

Question

Along with partner Kit Grove, Massey started Media Productions more than 40 years ago, originally as a high-quality audio production studio. The business eventually evolved into a full-service media production company, providing video, audio and event services to clients on a local, regional and national stage.

Answer

PAUL: Being a photographer and videographer, I've struggled at times figuring out how to properly value my work. Do you have any advice for putting a price tag on my services?

LEE: "If there are people in your market

PAUL: My business is relatively young, and I sometimes question whether I should be establishing a niche or if I should just take any business I can get?.

LEE: "If you're shooting weddings

doing the same thing that you're doing and you want to be able to get some of that work, you have to be competitive within the market. So certainly look at what other people are charging. And then, if you have created a niche, if there's something that you feel you're a little bit better at, let's say it's photography of pets – or whatever it is – if you're doing that kind of work and it's very unique and it's the kind of thing that you feel you can charge a little bit more for, maybe you can do that. Maybe you can charge more for it. If it's the kind of thing where you're offering a specialty that other people aren't offering, you can maybe charge a little bit more for it if you do things a little bit differently. Where if you're offering the exact same services, you have to be pretty competitive, price-wise."

and you really hate shooting weddings, you're going to hate your job. But if you are shooting product photography for an industry or business and you really enjoy that, you're going to love getting up and going to work every day. So I would say base that decision more on what you're passionate about. I can't think of anything worse than getting up every day and doing something you don't like.

"If you find you're really good at it, if you find that it's the kind of thing that's unique (Continues on next page) 55

CULTURE

PAUL FLESSLAND

ADVICE

Question Continued from previous page

PAUL: My business is relatively

young, and I sometimes question whether I should be establishing a niche or if I should just take any business I can get?

PAUL: What do you see as the pros and cons of being self-employed versus working for a larger, often moreestablished company?

Answer in your marketplace, then you can price it accordingly. But if you're doing the same thing that 20 other photographers are doing, it's going to be a little tougher to charge more. Because what's going to distinguish you? If you're passionate about something and if you're doing great work, the financial part of it is going to come and you'll be able to charge what it's worth because you're good at what you're doing."

LEE: "Well, the easy answer is the buck stops here. You're responsible for your own destiny.

A really great quote I heard recently: 'It's not my fault, but it's my responsibility.' If you're in business and something goes wrong or something happens, it may not be your fault, but things happen. You can't go to the boss and say, 'Hey, I screwed up. Fix this for me.' You have to be willing to take the responsibility of doing everything.

"Some people are good self-motivators, good self-starters. There are people who work from home and can get up in the morning and they can get a ton of work done sitting in their pajamas in their kitchen. And there are other people who would love to do that, who would love to try that, but they wake up in the morning and just can't get themselves motivated, can't get themselves going. And that's the other part to it. You have to make sure that if you're working for yourself, that you're going to have the discipline it takes to do what you need to do. And if you're just starting, that means hustling a whole lot. You've gotta be out there, you've gotta be doing the work, you've gotta be making contacts."

PAUL: As a freelance shooter who stays plenty busy with the creative side, do you think it's worth it to just bite the bullet and hire someone to take care of the financials?

LEE: "If you find that the business part of it is really difficult or you're not doing an adequate

PAUL: I know that one of the

LEE: "We've been really fortunate because, many times, new clients find us. When you've

most intimidating parts of starting your own business is establishing an initial client base. Do you have any advice for seeking out new business?

job at it, and if you're able to sustain yourself and maybe feed another mouth doing what you're doing, then hire somebody to take care of the accounting or do the business part for you.

"There are a lot of really talented people in a lot of different industries who have to rely on business managers. You look at musicians, you look at artists, and they are phenomenal at what they do. But if they had to manage their money, if they had to take care of billing, it would drive them nuts. Sometimes, people find that the hardest part of doing their job is sending out a bill."

been in a business for a while, your reputation is there. If you've got a good reputation, many times clients will seek you out. I think, if I was out meeting a client for the first time, I would want to have a portfolio that showed the kind of work that I do, but more importantly, I would learn enough about that client – before I walked in to meet with them – to know what they do.

Get a good sense of what their needs are.

"The other thing – and I think that this is maybe a little bit more 'old school versus new school' or 'old guy versus millennial' – is to be polite, dress appropriately, send thank you notes after you have an appointment with someone. Even if you don't close the deal with them the day of, send them a note and thank them for their time. Many times, businesses or people hire other businesses or other people because of a feeling, because of a relationship that they feel they could build. And so, while it's certainly going to be somewhat skill-based, many times they're going to hire you because you impressed them with the kind of person you are.

If you're in our business, there's a lot of people who do what we do. A lot of times, people are hiring us because they feel good about the way that we present ourselves, they feel that there's a level of experience that's going to be valuable for them. They feel that they can relate to us."

Paul Flessland Photo

LOCATION Moorhead, MN PHONE 320-583-8786 WEB paulflesslandphoto.com

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Media Productions

LOCATION 3241 University Dr. S, Fargo PHONE 701-237-6863 WEB mediaproductions.com

CULTURE

OFFICE OF THE MONTH

dogIDs

Must Love

DOGS

By NATE MICKELBERG Photos by J. ALAN PAUL PHOTOGRAPHY

dogIDs

Meadowlark Building

W

hen dogIDs Founder Clint Howitz tells you that his company’s customer email list is upward of 75,000, you realize how successful his business is. And when he points out that only one-third of lost dogs find their way home, you realize how personal it is.

The Fargo-based e-commerce company manufactures and ships high-quality, personalized pet products to clients all over the world, and this past August, it moved into their new 8,800-square-foot space in the basement of the Meadowlark Building in Downtown Fargo. dogIDs Director of Operations James Whirlwind Soldier and Digital Marketing Specialist Hannah Savoy showed us around and we have to admit, we were doggone impressed.

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503 7th St. N #001, Fargo

701-277-4939

dogids.com

CULTURE NEXT STARTUP The in-house production area takes up roughly half of the almost 9,000-squarefoot space. This is where the production team embroiders, rivets, engraves and ships all of their collars, leashes and ID tags. While they don’t manufacture the materials themselves, Whirlwind Soldier says they’re very particular about which vendors they use.

dogIDs employees are not only allowed, but actually encouraged, to bring their pooches with them to work.

There are about five dogs in the office on a typical day, according to Savoy.

The office itself sits on the other side of a sliding, glass barn door and is right in line with the startup aesthetic.

It’s an open concept, complete with unfinished wood ceilings, exposed brick and vents, and plenty of natural light – even for a basement. There are two conference rooms, and there’s even a separate space devoted to the customer service department.

dogIDs by the Numbers

12

3 current number of full-time employees

current number of part-time employees

8,800

total square footage of the office

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CULTURE

One of the most popular offerings from dogIDs is a patented product known as the ScruffTag collar. In addition to being a quieter alternative to noisier collars, Whirlwind Soldier explains the thinking behind the ScruffTag’s unique design:

dogIDs products come in a variety of materials, from nylon to the more waterand odor-resistant BioThane to a number of different types of leather. They also use a custom fitting process to ensure a proper fit for your pet.

“Not everybody’s a dog person, right?

And some people might be a little more reluctant to approach a dog that they see is loose. And they might be even more reluctant to reach underneath the dog’s mouth to read a collar. This sits on the back of a dog’s neck, which allows the individual to read the data without having to reach under the dog’s neck.”

The company prides itself on providing a level of quality and customer service unmatched by the big box stores.

This includes everything down to their engraving process, which provides a deeper and more durable cut than the doit-yourself machines found in pet shops.

Whirlwind Soldier says a real point of pride for the dogIDs office is what he believes are “the best bathrooms in town.” With a design reminiscent of an upscale speakeasy, it’s hard to argue with the claim.

dogIDs by the Numbers

2 1 year company was officially founded

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woof

woof

woof

75,000

woof current number of customers on dogIDs email list

1

3

the fraction of lost dogs that find their way home

STARTUP

aa better better

way way 64

FEBRUARY 2016

STARTUP

STARTUP OF THE MONTH

CoSchedule

“We saw a Google Alert come through where we saw the first job description where CoSchedule was listed as recommended software that (the applicant) understood,” says Garrett Moon, who, along with business partner Justin Walsh, founded the Bismarckbased company of the same name two years ago. “That was a big moment for us.”

And while they may still be a ways away from “CoSchedule it” entering the lexicon, they’re on the right path.

CoSchedule is a social media and content marketing tool that allows everyone from an individual blogger to a large company more efficiently plan, schedule and publish content online. It can be used as a standalone application or as a Wordpress plug-in, which is one of its more popular features.

If you’re wondering how that didn’t exist before 2013, Moon says you’re not alone.

“Sometimes those ideas that seem really obvious but aren’t there yet, those are the ones to go after,” he says. “And I think every product out there, in some way, is reinventing something that’s out there. And I think CoSchedule is a product that reinvents social media.

People have been scheduling social media before, but we now do it in a way

BOOKS

T

here are a number of milestones for a software startup: developing a minimum viable product, a private beta launch, seeing that first paying customer. There’s another one a little further down the line, though, which very few companies ever get to experience.

By Nate Mickelberg Photos by J. Alan Paul Photography

NEXT

These Bismarck entrepreneurs were fed up with clunky social media and content marketing tools. So they decided to create their own.

There are six things you can put on your CoSchedule marketing calendar:

that combines it with other tasks they are already completing.

“I think the key to CoSchedule is that we bring content and social media together. And no one else really takes that approach.

They’re either content or they’re social media. And by combining them, we get something very unique and much more powerful.”

The home base, so to speak, of CoSchedule, is your marketing calendar.

On your calendar, you can assign tasks to specific team members and choose the type of content you want something identified as, as well as color code it. You can edit the content using the content editor, Google Docs or Evernote, and everything can be managed with task workflows and editorial comments. And you can, of course, always connect social messages alongside all of your calendar’s content.

As is the case with many startups, the idea for CoSchedule was born from a series of personal frustrations.

Moon and Walsh were running a web consulting company and found the marketing side of their business to be a headache that was spreading their resources and attention thin.

1

BLOG POSTS connected with WordPress plug-in

2

SOCIAL MESSAGES as standalone messages or part of a campaign

3

STANDALONE CONTENT can be used for articles, e-books and press releases

4

EVENTS

5

NOTES

6

TASKS 65

STARTUP BOOKS

Just how much time can CoSchedule save you on social media and content marketing?

CoSchedule Cofounder Garrett Moon:

NEXT

“We surveyed our users and asked them: per post that you publish, how much time are you saving that you were spending doing this marketing before?

And 30 minutes was the smallest amount of time. Some of our marketing team said they were savings upwards of two hours for a blog post they were writing.”

CoSchedule UI/UX Design Lead Shannon Wiedman at the company's recently opened Fargo office.

“We had five or six tabs open on our browser window in order to get that (marketing) work done,” he says. “Things were stored in Excel spreadsheets or these very plain-type calendars – like Google Calendar or Outlook – that aren’t connected to any of the services that we were using.

“We knew we weren’t the only people who were publishing blog content and using social media to share it on the web.

CoSchedule Cofounder Garrett Moon says one of the reasons they decided to open an office in Fargo was to gain better access to the talent pool the FM area offers.

And the original concept was really about connecting content creation and blogging and social media together more tightly.

Because they’re usually handled by two or three companies’ separate tools.”

They didn’t just assume their hypothetical solution would be a hit, though.

They mocked up and stitched together some screenshots in Photoshop and, along with a single landing page that included a short description, emailed their idea out to four or five Wordpress and social media blogs to gauge interest. Within a day, they had an email list of a few hundred people, which soon turned into 10,000 – all before they’d launched an actual product.

“We started to use that audience to get feedback on the product,” Moon says. “We walked them through and got their feedback on, ‘Would you use this? Is this something you’d pay for? What are the frustrations within your company that this might help you solve?’ We already knew

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what our customers wanted before we started writing code at all.”

Fast forward to 2016, and CoSchedule now has more than 5,000 customers in more than 90 countries around the world.

You might recognize a few of the names – Adidas, Zulilly and Rosetta Stone – and while Moon says that while every new client is always exciting, he concedes that seeing Microsoft’s name pop up was a “pretty nice moment.”

They’re expecting to grow their team from 25 to 30 by the middle of the year, and they anticipate at least 50 percent of future hires to join their 10-person Fargo office, which they opened about six months ago in the Meadowlark Building downtown.

Moon says that even though a fraction of a percentage of their clients are based in the tri-state area, they’re committed to keeping the company in North Dakota.

“We liked North Dakota,” he

says. “We liked the state we grew up in. We wanted to stay.

But we couldn’t find work that was challenging to us and that's what we wanted to do. So that’s originally why we went out and started our own business in the first place.

“So I think – for us – it’s a little bit about, we took that step because we wanted to be here and wanted to do something more interesting. And now we want to be able to, in turn, provide that opportunity for others. And there are lots of people who want that opportunity. We have a great market of talented people who are ready to do the work and have been looking for exactly what CoSchedule offers.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION CoSchedule coschedule.com 503 7th St. N, Fargo (Fargo office) 318 E. Broadway Ave., Bismarck (Bismarck office) 701-595-0567

BOOKS

1 2

3 4 5 6

7

9 10

8

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BOOKS

What Fargo Business Owners Are

NEXT BUSINESS

READING

In today’s fast-paced world, we’re often inundated with more words, images and information than we know what to do with. That’s why now, more than ever, it’s important for us to sit down with a good book and really think a problem out. For businesspeople especially, whose time can’t always be spent analyzing their day-today operations, some long-form reading offers an opportunity to examine in greater detail their business practices and challenge themselves on some of their most basic assumptions. We recently surveyed dozens of Fargo business owners to see what they’ve been reading, and these were some of their suggestions.

1 THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO Atul Gawande Shows what the simple idea of the checklist reveals about the complexity of our lives and how to deal with it.

2 GOOD TO GREAT Jim Collins For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins: are there companies that defy gravity and convert longterm mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?

3 THE 4-HOUR WORKWEEK Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management or just living

more and working less, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint.

4 LEADERS EAT LAST Simon Sinek The biology is clear: when it matters most, leaders who are willing to eat last are rewarded with deeply loyal colleagues who will stop at nothing to advance their leader's vision and their organization's interests.

5 THE HARD THING ABOUT HARD THINGS Ben Horowitz Horowitz analyzes the problems that confront business leaders every day, sharing the insights he's gained developing, managing, buying, investing in and supervising technology companies. A lifelong rap fanatic, he amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs.

6 LEAN IN Sheryl Sandberg Sandberg examines why women's progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled, explains the root causes and offers compelling, common sense solutions that can empower women to achieve their full potential.

7 THE MISFIT ECONOMY Alexa Clay & Kyra Maya Phillips A book that argues that lessons in creativity, innovation, salesmanship and entrepreneurship can come from surprising places: pirates, bootleggers, counterfeiters, hustlers, and others living and working on the margins of business and society.

8 TRACTION Gino Wickman Decisions never seem to get made, or, once made, fail to be properly implemented.

But there is a solution. The

By Nate Mickelberg Photo by J. Alan Paul Photography Note: All excerpts from Amazon.com book summaries

Entrepreneurial Operating System® is a practical method for achieving business success you have always envisioned.

START SOMETHING THAT MATTERS Blake Mycoskie What matters most to you?

Should you focus on earning a living, pursuing your passions or devoting yourself to the causes that inspire you? The surprising truth is you don't have to choose – and that you'll find more success if you don't.

9

#GIRLBOSS Sophia Amoruso Sophia was never a typical CEO – or a typical anything – and she's written #GIRLBOSS ​ for other girls like her: outsiders (and insiders) seeking a unique path to success, even when that path is windy as hell and lined with naysayers.

10

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CAREERS

BUSINESS

2

NEXT

3

NEW

4

Whether you're in the market for a new realtor, investment firm or graphic designer, New in Town keeps you up to date on all the new(ish) companies and organizations in the FM area.

1

MDESIGN

Formerly Minuteman Press in Fargo, Mdesign is a fullservice printer located in the Moorhead Center Mall.

They're a one-stop shop for any needs related to customized printing, mailings, wedding accessories, apparel and graphic design needs.

They also offer more than 850,000 promotional items, including hats, labels, key chains and magnets, among many others. promoplace.com/mdesign 420 Center Ave. #19, Moorhead 218-512-0221

2

FUTURE BRIGHT

With a new location in Moorhead, Future Bright is the nation's first registered investment advisor firm to adopt a Silicon Valley brokerage company for its investment management fulfillment. Leveraging Motif Investing's cutting-edge industry innovation and price efficiency, Future Bright manages investment portfolios for individuals, trusts and all sizes of business entities. With technology, transparency and education at the core of its business model, Future Bright is fully equipped to meet the rapidly-changing needs of the current generation and the next generation's investors. futurebright4u.com 935 37th Ave. S, Suite 128, Moorhead 218-359-2305

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3

CREATIVE MONKE

Creative Monke is a Moorheadbased graphic design and marketing firm that does branding and logo design, as well as business collateral such as brochures, business cards, booklets, postcards, newsletters and signs. They work with a lot of small businesses that have existing brands started and are needing an extra hand in taking their business to the next level.

They also work with startups, beginning with a brand strategy session that allows an emerging company to really dive into their business and figure out who their audience is, what their needs are and who their competition is. creativemonke.com Moorhead 701-799-9625

4 MARKETING IDEAS FOR PRINTERS

These guys know printing. So much so that they created a new arm to their business dedicated to helping small and mid-sized commercial printers better market their services.

Marketing Ideas for Printers is a Fargo-based company that helps printers create business-ready websites, distribute compelling social media content and promote their business through email marketing. They even offer a number of free trials so you can give their services a test run first. marketingideasforprinters.com 5990 14th St. S, Fargo 701-241-9204

By Nate Mickelberg | Photos provided by Mdesign, Creative Monke, Marketing Ideas for Printers and Future Bright

IN TOW N

1

SOFTWARE

CAREER

CAREER finder

NEXT

Here at Fargo INC!, we want to do more than just deliver quality, area business-related content. We want to make a difference in our readers’ lives. That’s why we'll occasionally be featuring one local job-seeker in our "Career Finder" section. They’ll have the opportunity to be seen by thousands of local employers, with the hope of actually landing a position – or at the very least an interview.

·· NAME Nathan Stacken ·· CURRENT POSITION Service coordinator at Daktronics (Aug. 2011 – present)

·· SEEKING Sports writing or radio position ·· EDUCATION Bachelor of Arts, South Dakota State University

·· YEARS ATTENDED 2006-2010 ·· MAJOR Broadcast journalism NATHAN'S STORY or a lot of millennials, it’s less about being unemployed and more about being underemployed.

Nathan Stacken of Fargo fits that description.

After studying broadcast journalism at South Dakota State University for four years, Stacken hoped to pursue a career as a sports journalist once he graduated in spring of 2010. Like a lot of fellow Gen Y-ers, though, he says he was too picky.

By Nate Mickelberg | Photo by J. Alan Paul Photography

F

“You have to be willing to start out maybe doing a job that you don’t necessarily want to do,” Stacken said. I had an opportunity to work at KEYC (TV) in Mankato (Minn.) as a reporter. I was trying to explore the radio field and I wasn’t quite ready to make that jump yet. I do think there is some of that out

PHONE 507-530-6446 72

FEBRUARY 2016

there, where people are like, ‘Oh, I’m going to wait for a job that might be better,’ and they don’t take the job right there for them.”

Stacken interned at a local TV station and wrote for SDSU’s school paper – both while in college – but after graduating, he didn’t have much luck applying for numerous reporting and digital media jobs, mostly in the Twin Cities. So he moved back home to Marshall, Minn., where he waited tables for a little more than a year before eventually taking a position in Brookings, S.D., as a service coordinator at Daktronics, a South Dakotabased electronic sign and billboard company.

He’s now been at Daktronics for almost four and a half years – the last seven months

EMAIL ndstacken@jacks.sdstate.edu

in Fargo working remotely – and while he says he likes his job and appreciates the opportunity Daktronics has given him, he’s ready to really pursue his passion: sports.

really wish someone would spot me, find me, hear me, something, and realize, ‘Hey, this guy could be really good.’ It just hasn’t led to any tangible results.”

Stacken produces a weekly sports podcast, The Sports Block, where he recaps the top sports stories of the past week, as well as a sports blog, which is called The Stack.

Stacken said that while a sports job is the ultimate goal, he also has interest in marketing, preferably something in customer relations.

“That’s why I’ve kept doing my podcast since I graduated,” he said. "I’ve kept doing the blog. It’s almost like a pipe dream. I

BLOG stackattack.sportsblog.com

If you’re interested in speaking with Stacken about a potential job opportunity, you can find his contact information below, as well as a link to his blog.

SOFTWARE

WHAT

Software ARE YOU USING?

By Andrew Jason

CALENDAR NEXT

MANAGEMENT

LET’S FACE IT. Technology, for the most part, is making our lives easier. That's also true in business.

We sent out an anonymous survey to dozens of Fargo business owners and asked them what types of software they are using. This is what they had to say.

MONEY

ZEN PAYROLL zenpayroll.com Control your payroll with this software. Record all of your employees’ information online, handle benefits and enroll direct deposit, all from Zen Payroll. The best part is, Zen Payroll will automatically pay all local, state and federal taxes for you.

MANAGEMENT

HARVEST getharvest.com Nobody likes tracking their time, but Harvest lets employees easily record their time on a computer or smartphone. Plus, it gives an easy-to-read report for the project manager.

COMMUNICATION

HATCHBUCK hatchbuck.com Send targeted emails, create professionallooking newsletters or use the built-in customer relationship management program. It’s all on Hatchbuck’s software.

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ASANA asana.com This project management system allows you to track projects, tasks and conversations with its intuitive and easy-to-use online interface. Asana will tell you exactly where your project is at with a simple glance.

MONEY

PROFIT PROS profitpros.com This software, created

by Advanced Business Solutions in Fargo, can help you find money hidden in your organization by getting insight on how your business's numbers are trending, understanding fixed and variable cost trends, and creating realistic budgets.

COMMUNICATION

TEAMVIEWER teamviewer.com You can remote control any computer via the internet with Teamviewer.

It also allows you to hold online meetings. This is great for those companies who have employees working remotely.

HEALTH

WODIFY wodify.com For those not up on their workout terms, WOD stand for "workout of the day." Gym owners can track their members, sell gear and run detailed reports with Wodify. Plus, a gym’s athletes can log in to the account and track their performance.

COMMUNICATION COMMUNICATION

OFFICEVIBE officevibe.com Officevibe will measure your employees’ engagement and satisfaction by automatically sending out weekly questions. You will be able to see how satisfied your employees are with their job, with its easy-to-read graphs and feedback system.

YESWARE yesware.com Ever wonder what happens to your email after you hit send?

Wonder no more as this software will tell you if people have opened your email. Managers can also log the daily activity on every email sent from your team. There's also a whole slew of other components.

BUSINESS EVENT

CALENDAR

CALENDAR

5

2 1 1 MILLION CUPS FARGO

Every Wednesday from 9:15-10:15 a.m.

Join the vibrant entrepreneurial community of Fargo-Moorhead and Emerging Prairie by participating in an event filled with guest speakers, tons of coffee, ideas and excellent networking opportunities.

1millioncups.com/fargo The Stage at Island Park 333 4th St. S, Fargo

2 BUSINESS AFTER HOURS

Thursday, February 4 from 4:306:30 p.m.

Once again, the Fargo Moorhead West Fargo Chamber of Commerce is hosting one of the best networking events.

This time, it’s happening at the Courtyard by Marriot and is sponsored by Advanced Business Methods. fmchamber.com Courtyard by Marriot Fargo-Moorhead 1080 28th Ave. S, Moorhead

3 20/20 FARGO’S SECOND

ANNUAL BREWERY TOUR

Saturday, February 6 at 2 p.m.

The young professionals group 20/20 will be hosting its second annual brewery tour. A bus will pick up attendees at the Old Broadway and will take guests to all four of the breweries. Tickets are $25 and can be found on Eventbrite. Go to their Facebook page for more information. facebook.com/20.20Fargo

4 BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT THROUGH MENTORING HOW IT’S DONE!

Tuesday, February 9 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Deidre Hillman from the ND Center for Business will talk about how to switch from being a men76

FEBRUARY 2016

11 tee to a mentor. Tickets are $25 in advance or $30 at the door.

Lunch at Usher’s is included.

This event is hosted by the Women’s Business Exchange of Fargo-Moorhead. facebook.com/WBEFM Usher’s House 700 1st Ave. N, Moorhead

5 FM POWER LUNCH

Thursday, February 11 from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.

This free lunch from Bethel Church offers a Christian-based message for business professionals. This month will feature nationally known inspirational speaker Dawn Kaiser. RSVPs are appreciated but not necessary. bethelfc.com Bethel Church 2702 30th Ave. S, Fargo

6 POWER UP YOUR MESSAGE: WHAT TO SAY, HOW TO SAY IT & WHEN TO SHUT UP

Wednesday, February 17 from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.

Dawn Kaiser, inspirational speaker and author of “Joy Notes: 90 Days of Delight,” will help attendees take a deeper look at communication. You’ll discover how to connect your head to their heart in conversations. Tickets are $25 per person in advance or $35 at the door for Chamber members or $45 in advance or $55 at the door for non-members. fmchamber.com Hilton Garden Inn Fargo 4351 17th Ave. S, Fargo

7 YPN NEW MEMBER SOCIAL Wednesday, February 17 from 4:30 to 5:15 p.m.

Thinking about joining the Young Professionals Network?

Then you need to check out

8

9

this event. Free to attend, this event lets you connect with other members and learn more about the program. Registration is required. fmchamber.com Slammers at Red River Lanes 707 28th Ave. N, Fargo

FEBRUARY OFF THE CLOCK

Wednesday, February 17 from 5:15-7:30 p.m.

Come for the bowling, stay for the networking. Young Professionals Network members will receive a discount of $3 per game and free shoe rental. There will also be tasty snacks served at this free event. fmchamber.com Slammers at Red River Lanes 707 28th Ave. N, Fargo

WOMEN CONNECT: LEADING OUTSIDE OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE

Tuesday, February 23 from 3:30-5 p.m.

Social from 5-6 p.m.

This Women’s Connect event will feature Lieutenant Colonel Teresa Luthi McDonough and Major Penny Ripperger, both members of the 119th Wing of the North Dakota Air National Guard. They will touch on several subjects, such as their personal views on how to earn respect, overcoming the sometimes negative stereotype of being a confident woman and most importantly, staying true to yourself. Tickets are $25 in advance or $35 at the door. Chamber members $45 in advance or $55 at the door for non-members. fmchamber.com Avalon Events Center, Prairie Rose Room, 2525 9th Ave. S, Fargo

10 ECONOMIC OUTLOOK FORUM

Thursday, February 25 from Noon-1:30 p.m.

Join Jim Paulsen, the chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management, to learn about global and local economic trends and how it will affect your business. Tickets are $35 in advance or $45 at the door for Chamber members or $50 in advance or $60 at the door for non-members. fmchamber.com Holiday Inn Fargo 3803 13th Ave. S, Fargo

11 FARGO STARTUP WEEKEND

Friday, March 4 to 6 Some of the Red River Valley’s best developers, designers, marketers and other non-coders will be coming together to pitch their business idea and work on launching their own business. If you have an idea you’ve been dying to get off the ground, this is the perfect time to do it. facebook.com/StartupweekendFargo Various locations

12 LEARNING TO LEAD

Wednesday, March 9 from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.

Steve D. Scheel of Scheels will share with attendees proven habits that good leaders build into their leadership. This is aimed at helping the vast majority of individuals in leadership roles who have never had any formal training in leading people.

Tickets are $25 per person in advance or $35 at the door for Chamber members or $45 in advance or $55 at the door for non-members. fmchamber.com Ramada Plaza & Suites 1635 42nd St. S, Fargo