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Category Archives: Small Business

When Tragedy Strikes How to Respond as a Business

Posted on May 26, 2022 - 1:15 am by

When tragedy strikes, we collectively feel it. So many of us feel sadness when something dreadful comes to the surface. A mass shooting, a natural disaster, a pandemic, a war, hate crimes, or any kind of suffering of any form collectively wounds all of us. It’s natural for an individual and a business to have the urge to respond, make a statement, or say something because behind every business are people. Our goal is to help you navigate what to do when tragedy strikes, how to respond as a business.

Uvalde, Texas Mass shooting

Yesterday I cried as I saw what unfolded in Uvalde, Texas where an 18-year-old walked into Robb Elementary School and murdered 18 children and 2 teachers. I am a mother of a 4.5-year-old and immediately my heart shattered scrolling through social media. I felt despair with the news that children were gunned down in their classrooms. Shaking and weeping overwhelmed me as I heard what happened. There are still many feelings around the events of the day. Reaching out to other mothers to find comfort in this shared grief provided the only reprieve amid the news and social media.

I spoke with a friend today and we both agreed there are so many sad feelings even if you aren’t a parent. When we say statements like “I can’t imagine..” well I truly believe you can imagine and we ought to sit in that empathy and compassion together even if the tragedy is not happening in your town or country. When tragedy strikes we all feel it and for years we have experienced so much — too much. I mentioned to my friend that I was frankly tired of seeing statements being released from politicians. It often feels like the bare minimum of what we can do to stand up and take action.

As a mother first I am angered and I feel helpless that change will not take place in response to yet again another mass shooting where innocent children are murdered in their classroom. As a business, I am angered and I feel helpless because I can’t and shouldn’t detach my humanity away from tragedy. This issue in America is a moral one and not a political one.

when tragedy strikes, how to respond as a business

When things feel THIS heavy, I like to take a breath and give the moment breathing space. Holding space. Honoring the loss. Process. Feel the feelings.

What you DON’T want to motivate you to put out a statement:

  • To make you or your business look a certain way
  • To just “check it off your list” of things to acknowledge
  • To profit from tragedy

What you DO want to motivate you to put out a statement:

  • To be authentic to you and your brand
  • To share your humanity
  • To build awareness around an issue you and your business care about
  • To help support your community

When tragedy strikes, here’s how to respond as a business — be authentic. Be exactly as you are, give yourself grace, don’t rush to make a statement, and allow for your humanness to shine through even and especially in the dark.

In response to the Uvalde, Texas Mass Shooting..

As a mother, a sister, a daughter, a wife, a community member and human being what occurred at Robb Elementary School was a nightmare. My heart is with all the parents/caregivers that are aching in their grief especially the families of all the little children that were taken away by senseless gun violence. We urge our lawmakers to do the right thing and pass legislation to tighten up gun laws so irresponsible and violent people can not obtain firearms that replicates horrible events such as this.

Take care of yourself. Hold your loved ones tightly. Demand more, demand better for our children that deserve a safe place to learn and to grow.

Are YOU Essential?

Posted on February 20, 2022 - 11:59 pm by
Radcliff “Rad” Spencer was a man of laughter and traditions.

The definition of essential is what’s absolutely necessary, extremely important.

The question: “Are you essential?” was posed to our community group Mindfulness for Mamas here in Jackson, Wyoming. The mama group shared so many different ways in which we’ve experienced the past 2.5 years during a global pandemic as mothers, as wives, as partners, and as career-oriented women. The pandemic has brought a lot of big questions to our lives about our significance and our importance. How do we decide to spend our time? How do we want to show up in our lives? Who do we want to spend on our time on? What do we decide to pour our time and energy into?

We are all essential to someone, right? The first thing that comes to mind is if you have lived, you have mattered to someone. Our community suffered a recent loss of Radcliff “Rad” Spencer, 27 years old to the mountains. The loss felt deep and wide in the community. Rad was our real estate agent that helped us with the purchase of our very first home in October 2021. He was the youngest partner at age 24 at Neville Asbell Spencer team at Compass Real Estate. He was way more than his occupation though, he was a son, a brother, a friend, a mountaineer, a skier, a lacrosse coach, a breakfast and coffee lover, and even a hot yoga guy! Rad lived up to his name, a person and a name you could never soon forget.

Is your business essential to the community?

It’s important to ask ourselves this question to have a moment of pause and reflection. How can we be better servants to our community? What kind of impact do we want to have on our community?

Peel back businesses, there are people behind them. No matter the size, no matter the industry. People reside.

We all need to have opportunities to think and reflect on how we live our own lives. When we lose someone that was an essential part of the community we have an opportunity to take stock. Despite how many years of experience I have in serving businesses and nonprofit organizations I can still learn something new. I tell my son when I send him off to preschool, I say “You go to school. Mommy goes to ‘life school.’” When you stop learning you stop living.

How will you be essentially rad in your own way?

Rest in Peace, Rad! This is not goodbye, but see you bassoon!

Content Overload

Posted on February 10, 2022 - 12:12 am by

If you have internet you must be feeling the same content overload that I feel.

Since the pandemic began in early 2020 I recalled seeing my inbox implode with emails almost immediately. Everyone, I mean everyone wanted to fuel connection. The trouble with too much too often is the overload conundrum. My inbox becomes a sea of emails I don’t have time to read, it becomes noise. And I am one of those folks that loves to keep my number of emails unread very low. I mean low, like 2 to 5. Work email especially. I flag them or star them to keep myself accountable to tasks that need my attention. But for the most part I skim through emails to make sure I don’t miss important deadlines, obligations, appointments or events. With “content overload” it sure makes it difficult to reach your audience.

What makes your email campaign content stand out without the content overload?

  1. Frequency: If your emails are being scheduled out with great succession that surely can make it difficult for your audience to: a. stay on top of what you already sent them AND b. care about what you sent them.
  2. Attention Grabbing: Have your subject line standout among the sea of emails. I’m a fan of emojis!
  3. Unique content: Share something NEW and exciting with your audience. Don’t tell them something they already know, this keeps them more engaged.
  4. Relevant content: Stay relevant to your audience. If they can’t relate to your content they will unsubscribe. Note: Unsubscribers are doing you a favor. Don’t waste unnecessary time on trying to capture their attention they’ve made their choice to step back and that’s okay, it’s not personal.
  5. Simplicity: Keep your emails short (dear God). Your audience will likely not read your lengthy email that has no photos or icons, or colors to break up the monotony of reading your boring email. Sorry to be so blunt but it’s true. We folk have a short attention span, let’s keep it short and sweet. Gifs (moving images/graphics) do help keep the eye interested. Be sure to use alternative text to reach your audience that use screen readers. The alternative text helps describe the images on your emails, website and now social media imagery too.

Providing Humanity in Marketing

  1. Elicit (positive) emotion, especially connection: If you just flip on the news, you are inundated with content that elicits fear, negativity and division. Phew, let’s not use that same influence here in their inbox. Help solve a problem, bring positivity to the inbox, share goodness and inspiration. The very last thing you want to do with your messaging is for it to become someone else’s white noise. If you can accomplish connection in your emails, that’s something special. Societally many of us have felt disconnected but if you can help even for a moment to inspire your audience feel connection you’ve accomplished something truly amazing.
  2. You are NOT for Everyone: Release the idea that you are for everyone. It is an impossible expectation to have when deploying your marketing strategy. Focus on your sweet spot bullseye audience and allow for your inbound audience to discover you.
  3. Allow for Discovery: Again, help solve a problem, educate your audience, and inspire them to make a decision about your business. What I have found is that individuals love “discovery” of new businesses and products. Allow for that discovery to happen by sharing your content piece meal through your social media posts, blog posts, and newsletters. That inbound audience will follow the breadcrumbs and make their decision on purchasing from you based on that important groundwork.

Honor where you are

I attended a ED (Executive Director) Roundtable event with Jackson Hole community yesterday and I felt inspired by the presenter. Paige Curry, ED of Astoria Park Conservancy is taking a step back from social media as she recognizes the “content overload” and quite frankly I respect that. She claimed as a mother she doesn’t have time for catching up with everyone right now and needs a personal break. She felt perhaps her audience felt the same. I thought to myself, “Amen, sister. Amen.” In fact, many of the takeaways from her leading of this ED Roundtable inspired this blog post. Thanks Paige!

On a personal note, staying up night after night glancing at my phone has just stopped working for me. It kept me stressed and “on” too much. When you work for yourself or when you work remotely you can easily get sucked into the never ending to-do list that looms. Put down the device and walk away. I am typing this last sentence and shutting my laptop because the next thing on my list can wait until tomorrow.

Good-bye, content overload.

The Advantages of Shopping Local

Posted on October 31, 2021 - 10:39 am by

It’s Halloween now, how did that happen? You probably already notice Christmas ads sneaking in. The capital frenzy of holiday shopping is an all too familiar behavior in American culture. You have probably noticed that camp stove you bought online was backed up for months and just came in. That is 100% because of the chain supply shortage. So many of us consumers have leaned on these online sales especially during the pandemic for things that have provided comfort and convenience during the most inconvenient time. Local shops do rely on the chain supply for material and inventory, too however those handmade items they are less dependent. Especially those local artisans. Convenience stores can’t replace the advantages of shopping local. The experience, personality, value, and soul of local shops are unmatched.

Here are the Advantages of Shopping Local:

1. Talk to a human being, not a hotline number speaking to an automation. Have a problem? Take it back to your local store.

2. Quality over quantity. More is not necessarily better here.

3. Word-of-mouth is golden, your friends and family are your most influential voices in your purchase choice.

4. Align with your values with where you shop. Spending your money locally helps funnel that money to charities that are doing good locally in your community. You have seen campaigns that kick 5-10% of sales to a local cause. Keep your eye out to those opportunities to give back when you purchase items this season.

5. You are supporting local people in your community.

We hope you have the chance to get out there for Small Business Saturday and enjoy the advantages of shopping local! Fill out our client questionnaire at this link if you’re interested in working with Transcend Ideas as a small business this year!

Top 5 Things to Think About Before Hiring A Creative Agency

Posted on May 18, 2021 - 4:58 am by

Here is a list of Top 5 Things to Think About Before hiring a creative agency to help with your small business or organization’s meaningful messaging.

5. Answer your “WHAT” and your HOW?”


The WHAT and the HOW are all in that clever business plan of yours. And some of those plans aren’t refined and that’s certainly at least a place to begin.

If your endeavor is to start up a life coaching practice, your HOW will look much different from a coffee shop and café. This HOW actually does help your creative team to meet your needs and propose specific tactics in marketing strategy both online and offline.

4. Answer your “WHY?”


The WHY of your endeavors will help grant you direction and stability in the product or services you plan to provide your audience. The WHY brings about in many cases the reason you are doing what you are doing.

Someone who starts a bakery locally may say for example;
My WHY is to provide freshly baked goods to my customers. They will find happiness in consuming the quality products I offer.

3. Answer your “WHO?”


The WHO is the target audience that you will be honing in on. Many optimistic entrepreneurs tend to step into this journey thinking everyone is their target audience. I am here to convince you otherwise. Knowing your target audience intimately means you’ve chosen to begin with a narrow market to begin. Who’s to say you won’t broaden your market down the road?

For example, Amazon begins its endeavors selling books online out of Bezo’s garage in Bellevue, Washington.

2. What’s your entity name?


Some folks have names they are quite attached to and others come in with a clean slate. Wherever you might be with this, bring that energy to the creatives because they can help polish ideas or propose brand discovery which can bring a fresh perspective to your vision. The entity name is just the beginning of the logo design and branding journey which helps present your business/organization to the world.

Keep in mind you don’t want brand confusion. The first step is to check in with the Secretary of State in their business name entity search tool to see if anyone has already registered the name you were hoping to utilize before even going down the road of branding. Also, a simple Google search helps to determine if there may be confusion in general with your audience finding you. Don’t be discouraged if someone else is utilizing your business name idea, as long as the name you choose doesn’t cause confusion in the state you are planning to operate and market to, you should be safe to proceed in your efforts.

1. What’s your mission and vision?


This #1 of the Top 5 is the most crucial to how you conduct business and attract the ideal client. Your marketing helps dictate who these clients are. They will respond to your messaging accordingly so a careful assessment of your mission and vision will help creatives hit it out of the park by delivering your message effectively.

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Good luck, there are SO many that can help bring your vision to light. If you have questions about hiring a creative agency or on how Transcend Ideas can help, email us at hello@transcendideas.com and we have that first free consult to see if we are the right fit for you and your meaningful journey.