Family vacation in Chicago
Believe it or not the Garrett clan finally saddled up and took our first ever full family vacation this year. We decided to keep it simple since it was our first effort and headed up to Chicago. Along for the trip was Patrick’s sister Kelly and her husband Mike.
Everyone had a wonderful time and the kids were truly perfect. Hopefully I can get Kate to write a little more about our time in Chicago but for now I wanted to make sure I posted a link so everyone can see our photos.
View our Chicago vacation photos here.
Back To The Basics
Marketing. WordNet at Princeton.com defines marketing as “the commercial processes involved in promoting and selling and distributing a product or service”. Simple enough in definition and simple in terms of how I viewed marketing as I was growing up and first realized I had a real desire to be involved in the marketing industry. Today, however, my view of marketing – as well as most of the world’s view – is that marketing has become a very complex, fragmented and quite often prohibitively expensive practice of trying to get your products or services noticed by buyers over and above a competitor’s. (Please bear with my over simplification of marketing as I simply trying to get across the point that marketing has become a increasingly complex industry that often rewards those with the big media budgets.)
It is this perceived complexity and cost that keeps many aspiring small business owners from successfully marketing their products, or at least testing out new marketing channel opportunities. In my professional capacity I work with larger businesses that tend to have significant budgets and as a result I often forget that not everyone has a financial reserve to put towards their marketing efforts. Recently though I had the honor to participate in a radio interview on the Business Owner’s Toolkit that focused on the topic of online marketing for small business owners. (Listen to my interview here. My segment begins around 18:20 into the broadcast.) In this interview I covered a variety of topics but what really stayed with me after the interview was my response to providing advice to business owners who don’t have a much budget or many resources at their disposal. My advice was to stop, take a step back and observe what was going on in their market. Go online and observe their target customers in social networks, research keyword usage and volume of queries and try to get a real feel for the “right” opportunities to connect with their customers in the digital realm. Once they were comfortable with their knowledge they should then step into tactical efforts that were aligned with reaching these target customers in a way (and location) they would be open to online.
My advice obviously struck a chord as I have received several emails about my interview from people thanking me for helping them stop and take a moment to look over their marketing efforts and try and gain some perspective. In fact, I had one gentleman actually call me from Utah to discuss his thoughts on my comments as well as explore how he could better approach marketing his own business – as well as a new venture he is looking to launch in the near future. I spent an hour talking to him and exploring a variety of options for his business as well as how he could go about identifying a unique sub-niche for his new venture. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and look forward to keeping in touch with him and hearing how things go with his efforts. And while I enjoyed the call for many reasons I think what really made it a great call for me was the fact we discussed the basics of marketing. We didn’t worry about the channel of execution, we didn’t discuss media budgets and we definitely didn’t discuss strategy. Instead we talked about taking the time to listen and to learn. To identify what it is our target consumers want and how they want to receive it. And from that we agreed that the rest of our marketing would evolve.
In summary I guess we often let the complexity and the costs of marketing get in the way of getting back to basics. I suggest that you take some time and step back from your marketing efforts and review them to see if they are really hitting your target customers in the right way. You might even want to take some time and just go online and eavesdrop on the conversation. If you do please keep it down as I will probably be just a mouse-click away listening as well.
Elizabeth’s First Communion
Today was Libby’s First Communion. It was a wonderful day spent with family and friends. Libby was absolutely gorgeous in her white dress and more than made Kate and I both very proud. Thank you to everyone that was able to join us and celebrate Libby’s special day. She had a wonderful time. She is getting so very grown up and I have to hope that it will be at least 30 more years before I have to see her wear a similar white dress again. 
Click here to view the rest of the day’s photos.
Daddy promised us ice cream…
Yes, it’s sad but true. Daddy did indeed promise the kids ice cream if they went up to the top of the Arch. Bribery is not beneath me and I feel no shame. All you parents out there understand where I am on this issue – don’t hide on this one.
Despite the ice cream bribe Libby, Jack and Will all eagerly and willingly rode to the top of the Gateway Arch this afternoon with Kate and I. We spent a few hours together on the riverfront touring the museum under the Arch, riding to the top and then took a horse carriage ride on the water front. It was a very fun afternoon despite the rain and generally dreary weather. Not too bad for an afternoon excursion on a Friday.
(PS – Jack is upset in this photo because we were already heading down to board the tram down when I remember I needed a photo to prove we had actually been to the top. Total time at the top of the Arch — 3.5 minutes.)
I’m too cute!
Just a quick post of a photo taken of Will last week in the backyard. I think the look on his face says it all….
Happy Easter 2009
Happy Easter to everyone! We have survived another sugar-filled day of excitement and joy at the Garrett homestead. Everyone had a wonderful time celebrating Easter together this year at our new home. And despite the cold dreary weather we even had a good old fashioned Easter egg hunt in the backyard. However, I do have to comment that this year was a little bittersweet for yours truly as my little girl, Libby, who is now 8 years old decided not to participate in the egg hunt. She instead chose to help hide the eggs for everyone else since last year she found too many eggs herself. Nothing in my life has made me feel old before…until this of course.
Despite Libby’s decision to grow up on Easter it was a great day filled with lots of fun and family. Please take a few moments and check out some of the photos we have posted over on our SmugMug website.
Forgotten Turkey
Ever find something you forgot when cleaning out a closet? Well, today I did but not while cleaning a closet. I found something while trying to free up some email space. Last fall I attended a parent’s day at Libby’s school and during her computer class she created a digital turkey. Her beautiful computer artwork is present below for your pleasure.
Jack visits the hospital
Once again I am late in posting something to the site so my eternal apologies.
About 2.5 weeks ago Jack had adenoid surgery. He’s been having snoring issues and lots of really bad colds with runny nose, etc. so we thought it best to have them taken out and at least give him a fighting chance. Jack was a very brave boy and did extremely well. He came through it all with flying colors and was back to his old self the very same night. We have gone through the full recover process and he has been released from supervision. So he’s 100% Jack again minus his adenoids.
As a side note, when getting ready for surgery at Cardinal Glennon Hospital, Jack stayed in one of the same rooms that Patrick stayed at when he was a child and spent time in the hospital for surgery. Jack thought that was pretty cool.
Libby Narrates the Rosa Parks Story
This past Friday Libby was one of the narrators of her class’ telling of the Rosa Park’s story I wasn’t able to attend during the day but luckily Kate was able to shoot a short video of the play. It’s only about 5 minutes in duration and our apologies for the not so good sound quality.
Diary of A Semi-Suburban Housewife, or (I swear I am not a soccer mom!)
The below is from a piece that Kate wrote about 8 months ago about our old minivan. I just now found it again and thought everyone would enjoy reading it – especially those who know Kate and knew our old van. Since writing this Kate as involved in an accident that retired the green van permanently. So in a way her story below has become a eulogy of sorts.
=====================================================
I knew I was doomed form the moment the Mighty Green Yak entered my life. It was a cold windswept Saturday morning in March as I stood contemplately the real value of a beige minivan with beige interior…shiny, new, dvd player, captain chairs…in other words fully loaded. The car salesman was waxing poetically wile I stood in stone cold silence (to match the weather) staring at my husband being sucked into the abyss of new car bells and whistles.
“I want bench seats, roll down windows, and absolutely no dvd player,” I said.
“All our new van come fully equipped with dvd players, “ he replied.
“Then you will have to take it out.”, I adamantly stated.
The sales man looked appealingly at my husband who replied, “she’s not kidding.”
As we sat in the warmish cubicle of the sales man’s office and played the annoying game of buying a car, I wandered to the window and looked out—and there she was—the Might Green Yak… minivan the color of gang green complimented by its puke brown interior and tricked out with absolutely nothing.
I turned to the salesman and asked “Is that for sale?”
He hesitated, feeling his commission evaporating, replied in the affirmative.
“I’ll take it,” I said. “It’s perfect.”
The Mighty Green Yak and I have come to a right understanding and now have a very productive love-hate relationship. I hate the yak for reminding me that my shiny European car we traded in for her could never hold three cars seats, and that I will never, ever, live down my declaration of: “I will never own a mini-van!” But somehow, I really love the van. It reminds me of the blessed event that required the purchase of car seat number three. And no matter how much I hate to admit it, the Yak is infinitely more realiable than the shiny European car.
So now if you ever want to find me just look for the green van driving around with stickers in the window, a half-hanging-off bumper (not my fault), and a huge dent in the passenger side door (my fault—hence the moniker “yak”). I am the one happily toteing children here and there…as a semi-complacent…semi-suburban housewife.
