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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!

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Bigger Isn’t Always Better

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Here in Wisconsin we’ve been happily (and deliciously) celebrating June Dairy Month. Dairy breakfasts, cheese factory tours, ice cream polls—yes, Wisconsinites do love their dairy heritage. And even though many small dairies have given way to corporate, thankfully, there still are family operations successfully defying the “get big or get out.”

Here are premium examples (a few of my favs):

  • St. Isidore’s Dairy: Inga Witscher crafts specialty cheddar cheeses from her micro herd of 10 jersey cows.
  • Chocolate Shoppe is family-owned since 1962 and churns super-premium ice cream.
  • Widmer’s Cheese Cellars is a four-generation factory and store producing traditional Brick and Colby cheese, both of which originated here in Wisconsin.

How to Market Against the Big Guys?

The dairies above are small, highly specialized and quality focused. You won’t find them in big box grocers and their consumers recognize the uniqueness of their brand, meaning they’re willing to pay a little more. These dairies also practice imaginative marketing, a necessity for small business survival.

  • Inga Witcher, of St. Isidor’s Dairy, also hosts Around the Farm Table, a PBS food and farming adventure where she champions not only her own product but also those of small farm producers throughout Wisconsin.
  • Chocolate Shoppe boasts its low overrun and high butterfat (translate: rich and creamy ice cream) with the unabashed tagline “You want nutrition, eat carrots.”
  • Cheesemaker Joe Widmer takes pride in using the same facility, bricks, open vats, brine tanks and traditions his grandfather used in 1922.

Feeling small with your business? Remember the well-spoken words of Basecamp’s Jason Fried: “There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.” 

LET’s WORK TOGETHER

What I’m Working On This Month

Adunate is easing out of the office and into the outdoors—for the summer, that is. For a second year, I’ve done a seasonal lightening of my work load and am spending more time gardening, hiking, kayaking and playing with grandkids. They say it’s good for the soul and the creative mind. I agree!

What I’m Tuned In To This Month

  • Wiser Than Me: Julia Louis-Dreyfus wants to know why we don’t hear more from older women so she invites them to her podcast. I love it.
  • Strawberry-Coconut Tres Leche Cake: June is dairy and strawberries. Yummm!
  • Ixonia: It’s what you get when you randomly choose letters for a town’s name.
  • The Teaching of Plants: Beloved author Robin Wall Kimmerer talks Western science and Indigenous knowledge.

Let’s Work Together

Think Adunate might be a good fit for your next project? Give me a holler and we’ll discuss ideas.

CONTACT ME

Making Room for an Update

I need to clean out before my next printing. Buy these at 40% Sale Price!

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Productive Marketing Requires a Productive Office

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Maybe it’s because home decor is on sale this time of year. Or maybe it’s because I recently relocated my office. Whatever the reason, I’ve lately been obsessing over home offices. Yes, I know this is a marketing newsletter, but to do good marketing, one definitely needs a good office. 

Functional, Not Fancy

There’s a plethora of information online for creating a functional home office. While each business requires workspace specific to its industry, here are five essentials for every office:

  1. Dedicated and personalized workspace
  2. Desk and ample work surface
  3. Ergonomic chair
  4. Reliable high speed internet
  5. Good lighting (preferably natural)

Want to see how I supercharged my new home office? It’s nothing fancy. Nonetheless, I’ve put together a space that works for me and keeps me motivated. Take a look. 

LET’s WORK TOGETHER

What I’m Working On This Month

January’s winter pace is usually slower, giving me time for Adunate updates. Not this year. I’ve taken on two new clients; one has me learning zoning laws, the other COVID safety. Stay tuned!

What I’m Tuned In To This Month

  1. What’s in your trunk could save your life: one columnist’s thoughts after Virginia’s highway shutdown on January 3.
  2. Growing your business and working from home, a conversation with Erin Ogden of Ogden, Glazer and Schaefer. 
  3. The Seed Keeper, a novel by Diane Wilson. A Dakota family’s struggle for preservation, meaningful because it takes place in my Minnesota college town. 
  4. What I Learned From a Lynching Survivor About Anger: An excellent speaker, one from whom we can all learn.
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Collaborate With Your Competitors? You Bet!

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My husband and I just returned from our annual Octoberfest Brewery Tour. This year we took our sipping and scenery to Charleston, SC, and it was glorious! 

Businesses Working Together

In one of Charleston’s lesser known but rising neighborhoods is the Charleston Brewery District. It’s a community of ten breweries “sharing their love of beer with the Lowcountry,” as they like to boast. It’s also an example of savvy entrepreneurs working together to create a tourist hotspot, benefitting both their businesses and their community.

Used with permission from the Charleston Brewery District

Creative Collaboration

Tarah Gee, president of the Charleston Brewery District, says there are many advantages to working together. Two innovative ideas rocking it for both the breweries and the community: 

  • Free Shuttle
    The ten breweries have chipped in to provide a free shuttle every Saturday. Beer enthusiasts ride from brewery to brewery, sampling and enjoying.
     
  • Keep Charleston Beautiful
    Once a month, the breweries take turns hosting a neighborhood clean-up. The breweries provide the bags and volunteers provide the umph. Afterward, everyone gathers for a beer. 

What about you? How can you and your competitors work together? 

LET’s WORK TOGETHER

What I’m Working On This Month

Join me November 4 as I present an inspiring workshop for the Women Food & Ag Network. Here’s the scoop!

What I’m Tuned In To This Month

  1. It takes a team, even in the craft beer industry.
  2. October was National Women’s Small Business Month: Two women forge their way and help others to do the same.
  3. What makes Wisconsin special: One brewery’s pandemic business model.
  4. Are predicted shortages stressing your gift plans? Give an Ice Age Trail poster.

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.