Gratefulness: Reflecting On 2020 And Looking Ahead to 2021

Gratefulness: Reflecting On 2020 And Looking Ahead to 2021

by | Nov 24, 2020 | Insights

Gratefulness: Reflecting On 2020 And Looking Ahead to 2021

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To our clients, friends, and members of the &Marketing team:

As we look to close out 2020 and think about the events that made up this incredibly unpredictable year, one thing for certain is our appreciation for you — our clients, partners, and team members!

Thanksgiving is a time of reflection. THANK YOU for being a part of our 2020 journey. We hope your year has been filled with bright spots and good health— and that you found some time to relax and reflect.

While challenges and uncertainties still persist, we at &Marketing are truly grateful for the trust you have put in us this year. We are committed to your success and wellbeing, and we will remain diligent in our efforts to help you reach your goals!

In times like these, one of the things we try to do is refocus on the basics, like gratitude and kindness. Over the past 2 years, &Marketing has had the privilege of partnering with a nonprofit organization, The Kind Like Joey Foundation. While the foundation offers many ways of promoting kindness, one of our favorite activities is World Kindness Day, which took place on November 13th. This year &Marketing continued our yearly tradition of performing a random act of kindness within our community. We hope that you will join us in this cause by performing a random act of kindness in your community in Joey’s honor on any day! We love participating in this day and supporting The Kind Like Joey Foundation and hope you feel inclined to get involved. You can learn more about The Kind Link Joey Foundation by following them on Facebook or Instagram – just search “Kind Like Joey” – or visit their website. 

It can feel daunting to set goals and plan for a new year when 2020 has been such a uniquely tumultuous one. If you need help measuring performance for 2020 and setting your strategy for 2021, be sure to watch this webinar. 

Thank you again for your support and partnership. Here’s to a wonderful final chapter of this year and a successful 2021!

Our company culture is one of the most important aspects of our business. We’ve taken that culture, along with what we’ve learned from one another, to create an eBook that contains a marketing word or phrase that best represents us for each letter of the alphabet.

Download the ABCs of &Marketing
About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Webinar Recap: Coping With Coronavirus: Mental Health, Remote Work Challenges, and Leading Through Uncertainty

Webinar Recap: Coping With Coronavirus: Mental Health, Remote Work Challenges, and Leading Through Uncertainty

by | May 20, 2020 | COVID Marketing, Events

Webinar Recap: Coping With Coronavirus: Mental Health, Remote Work Challenges, and Leading Through Uncertainty

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The world is in the midst of an unprecedented situation right now as we face the coronavirus pandemic. While battling extreme emotional changes, most people are also experiencing a drastically different work environment.

In an effort to help our community navigate the complex impact of this global health crisis, our Founder, Managing Director, and remote work expert, Rajat Kapur, teamed up with psychologist and mental health expert, Dr. Andrea Delligatti, for a free webinar to share ways to cope with stress, adjust to remote work environments, and lead through the uncertainty of this troubling time. Given that &Marketing operates remotely 24/7/365, we know a lot about how to productively work from home, so we were thankful for an opportunity to pass on some practices that work well for us.

Taking Care of Your Mental Health

During the webinar, Dr. Delligatti described some of the common effects that a crisis can have on our mental health, including anxiety, obsessive thinking, compulsive behavior, and sleep and appetite disturbances. If you are experiencing any or all of these effects, she recommended a few ways to combat them:

  • Be aware of the symptoms of stress. Remember, what you’re feeling is common under these circumstances. 

  • Articulate your stress. Say how you’re feeling out loud. Use the people around you (physically or virtually) who are the most helpful to you during times of stress. 

  • Take a break. Make time each day to consciously refocus your attention on something other than your work and the news. Take a walk, exercise, read, or meditate. Do whatever makes you feel most at ease. Give yourself “you” time.

  • Establish a new “normal.” Even though you’re not going into an office every day, you should still establish some sort of routine. The circumstances under which we’re living right now are not ideal – but it is our current reality – so it’s important to create structure and consistency. This will improve your focus and productivity.

  • Be thoughtful about your news intake. The media is inundating us with news about the crisis every hour of every day. To avoid this, take time away from your devices and televisions, and instead pick a few reputable sources to check a couple times during the day. Dr. Delligatti recommends the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and state/county health departments.  

  • Seek professional help if needed. If your stress becomes debilitating or you have thoughts of self-harm, contact a medical professional right away for support and guidance. 

Staying Focused in Your Remote Work Environment

Raj, who has a decade of experience in leading remote teams, provided advice on how to best work from this new environment, and what leaders can do to lead their teams through these changes and help them stay motivated and connected.

  • Create a dedicated workspace. When working remotely, the lines can get easily blurred between your work life and your personal life. Having a dedicated work area – especially with a door and away from others in your household – will create a barrier.

  • Adjust your routine. Raj emphasized that this is not business as usual. It’s important to rethink how you interact with coworkers (we love virtual 1:1 meetings and team “happy hours!). This will require you to be more proactive about how you manage your schedule. 

  • Avoid distractions. To maximize productivity, block out portions of your calendar to do work and turn off email, messenger, and phone notifications.

  • Use video. Rather than only communicating via phone, incorporate video to increase the quality of your interactions with coworkers (Zoom, UberConference, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, etc. are all great options!).

  • Offer flexibility. Everyone is going through this situation differently and juggling new work schedules and responsibilities (i.e. taking care of a child while working), so we need to be empathetic and enable flexibility. For example, if you can, let your teams know that the time at which they get their work done can be flexible to accommodate their needs.

To hear a more detailed discussion of these topics as well as a Q&A, we encourage you to listen to the full webinar here. 

Stay safe!

Watch the Webinar Here!
About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Assembling the Pieces: The Values That Shape Our Team

Assembling the Pieces: The Values That Shape Our Team

by | May 14, 2020 | Insights, Marketing Planning & Execution

Assembling the Pieces: The Values That Shape Our Team

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The &Marketing team is growing. We’re able to offer more services than ever before, in the same flexible and convenient system that’s been working for our clients so well for so long. With our expansion, we find ourselves in a position every business both envies and fears: how to maintain team integrity when the team is changing?

The answer is simple: shared values.

Our team is exceptionally and intentionally diverse, a talented group scattered throughout the country with, actually, very little in common on the surface. Scratch that surface, however, and you’ll immediately see that our team has been deliberately culled based on skill, yes, but also because we share core values.

Here are the shared values that make &Marketing tick:

Collaboration

We know that we reach our goals faster, better, and more efficiently when we work as a team—from the very beginning of each project. We may mostly work alone in remote locations, but we are never flying solo. Our noncompetitive, encouraging teammates are always maximizing each other’s strengths and jumping in wherever needed.  Sure, we use modern tools such as Slack and Trello to communicate and keep things moving, but for us, collaboration is a mentality that all of us together can produce a better result than any of us alone. It’s is the thread the ties all of our subsequent values together.

“&Marketing’s diverse team embodies and continually fosters a collaborative spirit in everything we do, creating a cohesive culture that is a keystone to our success. Each person’s skill set is a like a puzzle piece – requiring others to complete the picture for our clients”

— BETH MCDONOUGH

Innovation

Technology and its applications are changing by the minute, but at &Marketing, innovation means more than being tech savvy. We are always learning and applying fresh ideas on a daily basis, and the & team stays on the cutting edge to create value for our clients. We believe that taking risks, staying educated, and learning from every outcome inspires creativity.

“Our team is constantly looking for sources of new ideas for successful campaigns. We’re willing to try new things and push the envelope. One of our internal metrics is to ‘celebrate’ and learn from failures so we can all get better without pointing fingers. To us, failure simply opens a door for new ideas.”

— DEXTER BURGESS

Flexibility

True, we at &Marketing enjoy a flexible schedule that allows us to work wherever and whenever we want, simultaneously and beautifully meeting deadlines and making time for the demands and special moments of daily life. We work 9-5. We work at 2am. We take days off without guilt and come back stronger and more focused than ever. Our flexibility also shines with our clients—no two clients are the same, and we always customize our skills and offerings to the unique marketing needs each organization has. There’s nothing cookie cutter about us!

“As a working mom, &Marketing allows me to do satisfying work but also have the flexibility to be there for my family. I am able to find time for both my personal and professional lives that fits the demands of my life goals.”

— TRACEY COLLA

Authenticity

What you see is what you get with &Marketing. We pride ourselves on honest communication, ethical standards, and quality work. Authenticity is not always easy; sometimes it means telling people things they don’t want to hear. For example: if we can’t complete a project to our high standards, we won’t take it on. And while we’re the first to encourage great ideas, we’re not afraid to tell clients and teammates when their idea is… well, maybe not so good. Honesty is always the best policy!

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

&Marketing’s Official “Work From Home” Survival Guide

&Marketing’s Official “Work From Home” Survival Guide

by | Apr 1, 2020 | Business & Marketing Strategy, COVID Marketing, Insights

&Marketing’s Official “Work From Home” Survival Guide

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I was 25 years old on 9/11/2001, living in the Outer Sunset of San Francisco with my then boyfriend (now husband) and our roommates.  I remember going to bed on September 10th and our roommates— another couple, both from NYC— were on the couch watching the news. When I got up the next morning, they were on the couch again, and I was confused. Had they stayed up all night watching TV?  No, they hadn’t, but they had heard about the first attack and were glued to the coverage. I remember how surreal that day was.  

In many ways, what’s going on with the COVID-19 pandemic reminds me of that eerie time. However, 9/11 was so much different, because the one thing we had during that time was each other. We were shaken, saddened and scared, but we still had the ability to be with our friends and loved ones, to mourn and talk through all of our feelings. Not to mention the shortage of essentials like toilet paper and soap. Instead, the COVID-19 pandemic finds us all isolated in our homes, with a “survival of the fittest” mentality,

The &Marketing team works remotely almost all the time, so working from home is normal for most of us. I work from home and love the flexibility it allows me. I can take my son to and from school, occasionally volunteer to lend a hand in his classroom, squeeze in a workout mid-day, and take my dog (my actual SHADOW) on walks where he bullies bigger dogs and single men. 

Perfecting the art of working from home has been a journey. So I’ll save you some time and share my best tips for productivity, connection, and sanity.

Use Slack

It’s a great tool to communicate both one on one with folks or in groups and can really help maintain a sense of community and solidarity right now. Create channels to direct specific conversations based on topic, so all of your collaborative work can stay organized. Our team even has a dedicated channel for “water cooler talk” like silly kids pictures, movie trailers, and memes.  GIFs abound on the &Marketing Slack channel.

Don’t Hesitate to Pick up the Phone

I know I just recommended Slack, but beware of using it as a crutch for all conversation when you aren’t just a cubicle away from your coworkers. Things get lost and misinterpreted sometimes via Slack, email, or text. If you’re confused, feeling frustrated, or potentially misunderstanding someone’s tone, just make a call and talk it through.  You’ll most likely come to a solution quicker than you would if you kept going back and forth on Slack. 

Hold Virtual Happy Hours 

When you’re working remotely, you can sometimes miss out on the team building or bonding activities that can happen in the office. Pot luck lunches and after-hours drinks are few and far between with social isolation. Our team always works remotely and is spread out across several states, so we hold a virtual happy hour once a month. 

Bring a beer or cup of tea and hop on a Zoom call to chat and debrief after a long day. Turn those cameras on so everyone can see each other and get some social time in.

Have as Many Meetings as Possible on Video

Speaking of Zoom, video calls are valuable for more than just happy hours. Body language is important, and so is focus. People pay attention to the call they’re on more when they’re on camera, because it limits the amount of multitasking behind the scenes.  Meet people where they are, though. Avoid making them sit still in front of the computer— some of us need to stand or walk around a bit, and maybe even refill our coffee if it’s a long meeting. And of course, no judgment on appearance, unless it’s a client call.

Encourage Introverts to Chime In

Our team meets on video each Monday morning to kick off a new work week together.  We always start with an icebreaker to get the conversation going, and we take turns coming up with it each week. Lots of introverts (or even just shy team members) feel more comfortable giving input when they feel prepared, so sending out agenda and ice breaker questions in advance sometimes helps those folks feel more inclined to participate.

Being Productive With Kids

Many of us are also now finding ourselves both working remotely  and juggling kids who are at home with us. I asked the rest of the seasoned pros on our team to provide their best tips and tricks for surviving working remotely and keeping the kids occupied. Here’s what they said:

  • Our Marketing Director, Amanda Cook, has two kiddos joining her at home right now. She says her best tip for having kids home during this time is to provide them with a schedule. Her kids have eLearning from 9-12, lunch/freetime from 12-1 and quiet time in the afternoon from 1-3. 

  • Our Client Experience DIrector, Tina DePrisco says to get up earlier than others in your house and either do a work out or get work done with no interruptions. Getting some quiet productivity time is a great way to start the day feeling accomplished and ahead of the game.

In some ways, not a lot has changed for me during this pandemic. But in other ways so much has changed. My 11-year old son Ollie is home, so I frequently get text messages or handwritten notes during meetings asking me, “How much homework do I have left to do?” or “Can I play video games with so-and-so?”  My husband is home, too, and two days in, I’m loving having him here. He works in his studio, and I’m in our guestroom/office hybrid, while Ollie wanders between the living room, his room and running laps around the block.

With a moratorium on leaving the house in order to slow the spread of COVID-19, there are tons of pieces coming out about remote working. Recently, I read the article Sorry, But Working from Home is Overrated, in the New York Times. The author, Kevin Roose, writes that he thinks people are able to establish better work life balance and be more creative in an office setting.

I totally disagree.

Whether you’re like Tina on our team and have been working from home for almost 25 years, or more like my husband, who is doing this for the first time in over a decade, there is plenty of joy and fulfillment you can gain from this adjustment. Hopefully these tips will help you and your team find it together!

About the Author

Marketing Director Tracey Colla focuses on ensuring each client’s needs are being met in a timely, productive, and creative way. She is a well-rounded marketer, with a talent for identifying opportunity, product strategy and positioning, go-to-market strategies and launches.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Horrible Bosses Are The Worst, But What Can We Learn From Them?

Horrible Bosses Are The Worst, But What Can We Learn From Them?

by | Mar 31, 2020 | Insights

Horrible Bosses Are The Worst, But What Can We Learn From Them?

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A boss can make or break a job. A bad one can make your work life unbearable, but a good one is just…the best. For many of us, much of our time is spent working, so having a boss you like and respect goes a long way. 

A podcast called “Caffeinated Convos & Horrible Bosses” dives deep into this topic. It’s hosted by Lauren Williams, Chief Boss Lady of Harmony HR Experts, and features a new guest each week, where they share stories of their best and worst bosses — and all that we can learn from both. 

In her third episode, Lauren speaks with our very own Rajat Kapur, Founder and Managing Director at &Marketing. While it can be entertaining to hear about other people’s horror stories, the episode also serves as a lesson for all of us on how we can apply these stories to our own situation. For example, when Raj was going through a tough time with a bad boss early in his career, a mentor told him, “Take it with you.  Make sure you never forget the way you feel right now with the poor management and leadership. Then, when you’re the boss, do better.” How profound is that? What a way to make lemonade when life gives you lemons.  

We encourage you to give the episode a listen and think about:

  • What you can learn from your bad boss?

  • What NOT to do if you supervise other people? 

Check out the full episode here!

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.