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Wrapping Up Summer With Homemade Muffins (and Affinity Marketing)

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Did you know there’s a method to the madness of a tasty muffin? You betcha. The muffin mixing method combines dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in another, and then folds the two together for a light and fluffy treat. Easy peasy!

Interestingly, the muffin method can be paralleled to affinity marketing. They both bring together multiple ingredients (businesses) and form a partnership of mutual benefit. Simply put, you grease my pan and I’ll grease yours.

If you’re like me, you wonder how your small business can practice affinity marketing. Voilà! Circle M Market Farm BnB recently popped in to my social media feed and it’s a perfect example of businesses working together. Notice how owner Kriss Marion not only uses products from her neighboring farmers, she also promotes them. She’s a smart cookie, because their success contributes to her success. And—perhaps most importantly— encouraging others is a simple and caring thing to do.

Don’t these muffins look delish? Owner Kriss Marion shares the recipe in the comments of her Facebook post. Check out Circle M here, and many more farm stays here in beautiful Wisconsin.

What I’m Working On This Month

Looking for an outdoor festival for celebrating October? Mark your calendar for Fermentation Fest in the rolling countryside of Driftless Wisconsin. What seems weeks away, means work and planning now. This month I’ve been hard at it with the creative team of Wormfarm Institute.

What I’m Tuned In To This Month

Speaking of Hiking…

Wisconsin’s Ice Age Trail Alliance has come out with its 2023 atlas and guidebook, which means I’ll soon come out with my updated map. Added trails, new trail communities— they’re all here and ready for press!

In the meantime, check out Adunate’s super sale on 2022 maps. Get these for the cost of shipping and handling only—a great way to get started on your Ice Age Trail adventure. Hurry, only a few left!

Shop Here
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Powering Through the Bottom Third

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Let’s divide homemade bread into the job rule of thirds: 1) baking the bread: my passion, 2) shopping for the ingredients: so-so, 3) doing the dishes: blech. 

The job rule of thirds says that all jobs, even those that fulfill our passions and get us up in the morning, are subject to three levels of must do’s. One third of our tasks are those we absolutely love. Another third are tasks that are so-so, but not too bad. The last third, unfortunately, are tasks we dislike, maybe even hate. 

For many small business owners, marketing is like doing the dishes. It’s the bottom third of the job and we’d rather not do it. Yet, the reality is, if we don’t market our business, we won’t have a business.

How can we power through that bottom third and get this difficult task done?

Make It Fit, Set Goals, Follow a Routine

Sounds like an exercise program, yes? Actually, it is. It’s an exercise in growing your business. Here are three ways to help:

  1. Decide what kind of marketing fits you and your customers. If social media is your go-to, determine which platforms your customers use and how many of those you can handle. Whatever form of marketing you do, make it your own.
     
  2. Set quantitative goals. Maybe you’re going to spend one hour a day on marketing. Or maybe do three social media posts a week. Whatever goal you set, make it achievable.
     
  3. Follow a routine. Many people find getting the difficult task out of the way first makes the rest of the day more productive and fun. Whatever routine you choose, stick to it.
LET’s WORK TOGETHER

What I’m Working On This Month

My annual project—an annual report for Forward Mutual Insurance Company. Lots of fun stuff here; content, photos, financial graphs, reports and, yes, most importantly, a cover reflecting the unprecedented year of 2020.

What I’m Tuned In To This Month

  1. Roadside Culture Stands: Jay Salinas, from my client Wormfarm Institute, talks about the artist-built mobile farm stands popping up around Wisconsin.
  2. The Case for Reviving the Civilian Conservation Corps: Successful during the Depression, maybe it’s what we need now.
  3. Back on Track: Feel like you’re drifting after a year of COVID? Listen to this.
  4. A Nearly True Story: The Tale of the Hamlet, by Tim Rinne. A great article on neighbors coming together and growing food during COVID.

The Sweet Freedom of Your Own Business

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There’s so much to love about winter—glistening beauty, outdoor adventures, indoor coziness. But if there’s one thing we all really love, it’s the END of winter.

a.k.a. Maple Syrup Season

Since I’m relatively new to syruping, I appreciate learning from social media groups. There you’ll find tappers of every kind, from a single tree in their urban backyard to thousands in rural forests. You’ve got your traditionalists hanging buckets and your enterprisers stringing tubal lines. You’ve got your watchkeepers over heat-induced evaporators and your innovators pushing the process with reverse osmosis.

Me? I’m thrilled with my six taps drip, drip, dripping into old-fashioned buckets and I happily stoke wood into our even-more-old-fashioned, not-at-all-efficient, outdoor fireplace. Yet, I’m hinting to my engineering peeps that a home-fabricated RO system sure would be interesting.

When it comes to maple syruping, I’m definitely my own girl. 

Speaking of Sweetness

In a recent workshop, I showcased Hilary Kearny, of Girl Next Door Honey. She’s a savvy business woman and is brilliant in branding herself to her profitable customers. 

When I asked Hilary about her tactics, she admitted: “If I’m totally honest, I was mostly just celebrating my own freedom to make my business and branding whatever I wanted.”

Celebrating your own freedom. Isn’t that simply the best?

Running a business is like tapping for syrup: there are many ways to do it. But in the end, your business is YOUR business. Celebrate the freedom to make it whatever you want it to be!

LET’s WORK TOGETHER

What I’m Working On This Month

As mentioned above, I recently presented a marketing workshop for the Women Food & Ag Network (WFAN) for its “Stories that Sell: A Robust Communications Toolkit for Sustainable Ag Farmers and Ranchers.”

Be sure to follow WFAN for upcoming podcasts, videos, webinars and handouts. 

What I’m Tuned In To This Month

  1. Family Recipe: A poetic video of family, ingredients, and blending together.
  2. No Ordinary Woman, by Janice Sanford Beck. Outdoor adventures—my own and other’s— have saved me from winter/pandemic blahs. Looking forward to reading this for my book club.
  3. Emily Ford—another amazing woman—has been hiking Wisconsin’s 1200-mile Ice Age Trail through since December 28.
  4. 13 Ways to Launch a Food Business of Your Dreams: by Bon Appétit. 

Seasons Greetings from Adunate!

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From our home to yours, may your celebrations be blessed!

So, yes, this is my home office, where for the past 15 years Adunate has worked its magic. This year my work space has been both a refuge and, well, an isolation (I’m guessing you can relate). But, hey, no complaints here. As we wrap up 2020, I’m thankful for so many blessings: faith, family, friends and good health. 

Keep On Keeping On

I’m also thankful for another year working with inspiring clients. It’s an understatement to say it was one of complexities and contrasts, thanks to the coronavirus. I watched some clients struggle to keep their doors open. Yet another client started a new business—check out Hymns In My Heart, a specialty card shop.

One of my clients had to cancel its annual conference part way through our project, yet I was privileged to present marketing workshops at two others. The world stopped meeting in person and overnight we mastered all manner of videoconferencing technology. Amazing, isn’t it?

Many of my clients have changed the way they deliver their products. Curbside pickup and online shopping carts are now the norm, which in turn changes the work I do for them. This year, web design kept me much busier than print design. 

Through it all, I cherish our meaningful friendships. I truly work with the best clients! As Curtis Mayfield used to sing, “And there’s still a lot of faith and warmth and trust, when we keep on keeping on.”

And that’s just what we’re doing—keeping on.

LET’s WORK TOGETHER

What I’m Working On This Month: Vacation!

Every holiday season my husband and I take time off between Christmas and New Year. This year we’re adding a couple days on either side to make it a full two weeks, said with a big cheer! We’re planning a few day trips, hiking (hopefully snowshoeing) and plain ol’ hanging out at home. Glorious!

These off-days are also the time I clean my office and start planning the new year. Stashing the old calendars and putting out the new is always rejuvenating. I think we’re all ready for that, right?

Good riddance, 2020!

What I’m Tuned In To This Month

  1. Christmas in Lake Country: meaningful for the whole family, either in Facebook or YouTube
  2. Ever want to align your planting with the seasons? Me too. I bought this Gardening By The Moon Calendar for 2021.
  3. WFH is a hot topic. I love perusing home offices and creative spaces.
  4. Art Story: The Ecology of Expression and Perspective, celebrate Winter Solstice with the Women, Food & Ag Network.

Wrapping Up 2020

However you celebrate the holidays, my prayer is that God is with you. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Pickles, Pumpkins, and the Pandemic Pivot

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This year, for whatever reason (let’s just blame COVID), we had a horrible cucumber crop. But we had green beans galore, so we pickled dillies instead. We lost all our pumpkins to beetles. But we had a glorious peach crop, so I’ll buy a pie pumpkin for Thanksgiving and serve cobblers the following months.

Our summer gardening mimics the change in direction many businesses have recently taken. Call it the Pandemic Pivot, if you will, it’s the dance businesses large and small have done in order to survive these past seven months. It’s the steps they may have to continue for the next seven months. 

How’s business been for you? What might you need to do differently next year? Now’s a good time to take a reality check.

LET’s WORK TOGETHER

What I’m Working On This Month

Ever wonder why some businesses get all the media attention? I’m putting together a workshop that answers just that. Check out the Women’s Farm & Ag Network Annual Conference and sign up for “Create a Media Kit that Brings Publicity to Your Farm.”

What I’m Tuned In To This Month

  1. The Land Remembers, by Ben Logan.This month would have been his centennial birthday. A great memoir of growing up on the farm in the 1920-30s in Driftless Wisconsin.
  2. Young Blood Beer Co. Their business plan was to open a taproom, then COVID hit. In their words, they “revised,” “adjusted,” and accepted “it is what it is.”
  3. Octoberfest Brewery Tour. Every year we take an annual “celebration of sipping and scenery.” This year we’re social distancing on the North Shores.
  4. Revisiting Carole Cadwalladr’s still-relevant TED Talk. “It’s not about left or right…it’s about whether it’s actually possible to have a free and fair election ever again.” 
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