Madison

Unlocking Potential #12: Q&A With Mariah Haberman

Garth Beyer

Mariah Haberman EAA

Welcome back to another Q&A with a remarkable marketer as part of the Unlocking Potential series. I heard about a woman named Mariah Haberman when I first moved to Madison, I found out she worked at the PR agency I hope to work at, and then I got to see her speak not too long ago. (Post about impressions and link to her presentation here.)

Mariah has drive, excitement, and more passion that I thought one person could have. It will be clear as you read on. Without further ado, welcome Mariah.

Q: What motivates you to get out of your bed in the morning?

Mariah: Caffeine! And lots of it! I am so not a morning person so the fact that I make it into work before 10 a.m. is a miracle in itself. That said, I can honestly say I have never dreaded a day of work. Getting to discover Wisconsin is a cool gig but I think working alongside amazing and talented people is just the best thing ever. (Also: Free Sprecher root beer :D)

Q: What business would you say you’re in and how did you get there? What’s your story?

Mariah: I have a weird hybrid role: I’m both a television/radio host and a PR and social media marketer.

I always dreamt of working in television. In fact, I can recall writing my sixth grade career report for Mrs. Herbers about my aspirations of becoming a news anchor. In college though, I threw those dreams out the window after coming to the conclusion that a television career in Wisconsin during a recession was a ridiculous dream to have.

So I picked public relations. And upon graduating from UW-Oshkosh, I threw a few suitcases in my tiny ’02 Corolla and with my shiny, new diploma in tow, I made the trek to Chicago. There, I worked as a temporary assistant at an entertainment PR firm. Next, I decided to freelance back in the Madison area and then I worked at a wonderful marketing agency in town.

Meanwhile, I spent three years competing for the title of Miss Wisconsin. That endeavor really reignited my desire to pursue television. So, I reached out to the one contact I had at Discover Mediaworks and asked if, by any chance, they’d ever consider letting me guest host an episode or two. After several months of back-and-forth, the crew finally invited me to come in for an interview and audition. Apparently, they saw something in me, and the rest, as they say, is history!

Q: What are four life lessons you’ve learned from following your muse?

1) Make things happen for you.

2) Be nice to people.

3) Own up when you’ve messed up.

4) Never take yourself or your work too seriously.

Q: You’re constantly putting yourself out there. How have you dealt with fear – be it of rejection or failure or even success?

Mariah: I hate to quote the most buzzed about kid flick of all time, but when it comes to being in front of crowds, you really have to just let it go. I’ll get nervous from time to time during the preparation of a big shoot or speaking engagement, but once I am on stage, or those cameras are rolling, I don’t even let myself go to that place of self-doubt. You’ve really gotta own it and believe in yourself, and when you make mistakes, you assess and move on.

So much of the television business I think is listening to your own gut. You are going to get people who absolutely adore you and your work. And the opposite of those people are Internet trolls :). I take it all with a grain of salt—both the compliments and the critiques.

Q: What do you do to continue growing in your field? Are there a few special practices or habits you think people reading may benefit from doing too?

Mariah: The idea of being stagnant or out of the loop as both a host and marketer downright scares me. I am constantly trying to learn and get better at my craft whether it be through improv classes or online marketing research—you name it. Regardless of how long you’ve been in the biz, learning is essential.

The beauty of working in the agency world is that you’re surrounded by folks who specialize in all sorts of things that you may not necessarily be an expert in. But making an effort to understand their work inherently makes you better at your own.

Q: What has been a major highlight of your work?

Mariah: A viewer reached out to me on Facebook the other day to tell me that he and his daughter make it a weekly tradition to sit down every Saturday morning and watch Discover Wisconsin together. Hearing things like that – from people who make our show a part of their lives – is the kind of stuff that sticks with me.

Q: What is one characteristic you’ve noticed every successful marketer has? Better yet, what the heck does it take to become a remarkable PR pro or marketer?

Mariah: Great marketers want to learn; they are asking questions. They are paying attention not only to what other brands are doing out there, but more importantly, they’re noticing what people care about, why they do the things they do, buy the things they buy, and hang out with the people they hang out with. I think a marketer has to be easily fascinated by and curious about the world around him or her—and I’d say the same thing applies to great TV/radio hosts.

When you understand why people do the things they do, the ideations, strategizing and executing for brands comes a whole heck of a lot more naturally. (It’s still a tough gig, don’t get me wrong!)

Q: Would you tell us about a time you almost gave up and what you did instead?

Mariah: Interestingly enough, I actually have to tell myself to let go of things more often. (Noticing a theme here?) I get invested too easily. I love to dream big and I think the upshot of dreaming big is that you tend to bite off more than you can chew. So while “giving up” often has a negative connotation, I really have to continue to remind myself the importance of walking away from the stuff I can’t or shouldn’t fix.

Q: How do you try to live your life? Do you have a life motto or a particular quote you stand by?

Mariah: Nah. No life quotes really. I just try to live life to the fullest…you know, find the silver lining in even the crappiest of days!

Q: What is a dream you have or a project you want to create that you haven’t had the time for?

Mariah: Sooooo many. I want to write my own book(s). Open a wine bar. Learn French. And piano. And how to cook (better). And more time for travel would be lovely!

Q: Where can people find you and your work? (Shameless self-promotion here!)

Mariah: Why, you can watch “my work” every weekend on your TV screens (or laptops or tablets or smartphones)! Broadcast guide here: www.bobber.discoverwisconsin.com/broadcast …and because social media is my thang, I’m pretty easy to find on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram 🙂

 

Stay Positive & Curiously Alive

Dana Arnold – On Her Soapbox

Garth Beyer

Dana ArnoldIt takes less than a minute in the same room as Dana Arnold to hear her signature laugh and see her contagious smile. Behind the smile is a high-powered woman and thought leader who started her own public relations practice at 25 and is currently the Director of Public Relations and Social Media at Hiebing, an integrated marketing and brand development firm in Madison, Wisconsin.

“I’ve always known PR is what I wanted to do,” Dana says, dressed like a CEO, but with her dark brown hair let down. After completing internships while at John Carroll University, she landed a gig at Akhia, a small PR agency in Ohio. Her first full-time boss, Jan, became one of her idols. Today, a photo of Jan rests on a desk shelf in Dana’s office at Hiebing. The photo reminds Dana how great it was to have a boss who is skilled at finding great talent and helping them understand how valuable they are to the agency.

“She taught me how to lead with empathy, to care as much about individuals as the work they are doing,” Dana says. “People don’t work for companies, they work for people. That’s how loyalty is created.”

After three years of learning and building loyalty, Dana moved to Arizona where her passions for food, cooking and restaurants could be combined with her PR skills. In Scottsdale, Arizona, hospitality is big business. Openings of new restaurants and hotels happen every week, building the tourism market and making the market extremely competitive. Dana stepped in that market to create a buzz around businesses that would have difficulty doing so on their own.

At age 25, Dana started Soapbox PR. “Ignorance is bliss,” she says while laughing. At the time she was building her business, her business coach Troy Henson, who was with Be! Coaching, recommended reading the E-myth. The myth is the mistaken belief that a business is started by someone with phenomenal business skills, when, in fact, most are started by those who may know little about running a business, but push forward anyway.

“80 to 85 percent start their own business by saying ‘I can do this on my own, I can do this better on my own, and make money on my own. I got this.’ Which is totally how I was,” Dana says. “What they don’t realize is that starting a business is 1/3 of the work.” They forget they have two other jobs of getting new clients and being a manager of people, according to Dana.

Dana was lucky she enjoyed seeking new clients, kickstarting projects, building new relationships, and everything that goes into the action of getting new clients. As for the action of managing people, she learned something vitally important along the way.

“Initially I subscribed to the notion of ‘I want to hire people I don’t have to manage.’ And that’s just stupid,” Dana says. “[Now] the people I want on my team are those who want to be pushed, want to be given feedback, and want to know what they should be doing different or better… I learned that coming out of the gates.”

While any entrepreneur learns plenty on their own, a mentor is vitally important when starting a business, according to Dana. “Whether you’re a business of one person or 20 people, if you are the head of that business, you are the end of the line, and it’s a stressful place to be,” Dana says. “There was no doubt I was going to continue to climb, but the coach helped me spike and not let the valleys get as deep as they could have if I didn’t have someone to help me there.”

Four years later, Soapbox PR merged with Olson Communications and Dana acquired the title of vice-president. Three years after the merge Dana admitted what many confess when they stop learning. “I was bored,” Dana says. “I don’t know how to explain it any other way.”

Dana came to an agreement with Olson Communications that she would retain the restaurant-related clients for her own independent PR practice called BigKitchen Marketing.

Through her endeavors, Dana learned three main qualities to seek in a work partner. Are they cheap? Are they good? And are they fast? In order to have a successful partnership, you need to pick someone who excels at two of the three qualities, according to Dana. This trifecta framed Dana’s decision-making process of whom to work with.

“I have a client who’s asking for turnaround tomorrow so I can’t work with this guy who is slow as molasses, as cheap as he is or as good as he is. So I’ll go over here to someone who is more expensive, but good and fast,” Dana says. “And some people are only one of the three and you need to get rid of them.” Ultimately it is through trial and error where you figure out who you will ultimately partner with. As with any solo endeavor, there are limitations to what you can do alone.

At Hiebing, Dana found her home, her family, the place where she wouldn’t get bored, wouldn’t need to do things alone, and where she could always learn from others. Not only is Dana on the management committee at the agency, but she is also on the board of directors. “I’d like to think that I play a key role in helping to define our culture, growth trajectory and financial success because of this,” Dana wrote in email. While at Hiebing she gets to mentor aspiring marketers and entrepreneurs, she is also in an environment where she continues to learn.

Dave Florin, president of Hiebing, taught Dana the importance of feedback. “Accountability is so important,” Dana says, reflecting on the lessons from Dave. “It showcases that you care about somebody when you give them feedback.” Feedback also means observing if someone is trying their hardest. “[When] they are selling themselves short of what they are capable of, not realizing their full potential,” Dana says. “That drives me bonkers.”

Today, Dana continues to stretch her capabilities and excel at her role at Hiebing by seeking out new challenges. She dances on the line of being the teacher and the student. Above all, despite her superpowers, Dana continues to be human and makes mistakes.

“The ones that bother me the most are the ones where I thought I should do something, but I didn’t make the time to do it and I regretted it on the other side,” Dana says. “If I only would have spent the five minutes to make the phone call or 10 minutes on a conversation about the thing I just thought of. It’s the little things.”

Two photos of her boys, Frankie (8) and Dominic (6) on her desk shelf and the several hours Dana says she works begs one of the most important questions of a PR pro who has had a habit of putting in 60 hours of work a week: How do you balance work and life?

“Work life balance is what you make it,” Dana says. “I used to sweat the balance, but when I was at South-by-SouthWest (an interactive conference held in Austin, Texas) I saw a panel of female executives, and one of them said to stop talking about balance. It makes you feel like you’re on a teeter-totter. It’s not work-life balance. It’s work-life blend.”

Dana has stopped worrying what other people think her balance looks like and now concerns herself with the blend that works for her, her husband Keith, and her kids. “I checked the box this past year getting over what I should be doing to what feels right,” Dana says.

There is no doubt Dana will continue to climb the PR ladder, to do what feels right, and expose herself to more growing and learning opportunities. “You attract what you are passionate about,” Dana says.

 

Stay Positive & Takes All You Can From This Profile Piece

U.S Foaming Over With Number Of Craft Breweries

U.S Foaming Over With Number Of Craft Breweries

Garth Beyer

Craftbrew Craze

One million dollars. That’s the average price to start a brewery according to Chris Farmand, founder of Small Batch Standard, a CPA firm helping craft breweries across North America. Farmand suggests tacking on an additional 30 percent of the $1 million as working capital just to get you through the starting months. That makes the closing tab of starting a brewery and keeping it alive during the first few challenging months $1.3 million dollars on average.

The president of Central Waters Brewing Company, Paul Graham, argues a small brewery can be started with a mere $30,000 of capital. The ease of starting a brewery has concerned Graham about the current and future competition. “There are more breweries in the U.S. than there has ever been,” Graham said. “The number of breweries has doubled in the last two years.”

According to Steve Hindy, author of “The Craft Beer Revolution” and co-founder of the Brooklyn Brewery, a thousand new brands of beer launched in 2013, supporting Graham’s assessment that the industry is “a little crazy competitive.”

The problem for Graham is partially the competition. Graham and Central Waters were lucky to be part of the first generation of breweries before “this uptick started.” Graham’s major concern is with the beer quality these small brewers are brewing.

“The bigger you are, the better the equipment you can afford. A lot of the brewers shouldn’t be brewing beer in it [the cheap equipment], but it allows you to start a brewery for $30,000,” Graham said.

Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association, spoke about the brewing industry’s beer quality at the recent Craft Brewers Conference in Colorado. Gatza spoke about one particular beer festival he attended. He reported “seven or eight of the 10 breweries needed improvement,” while also noting the people who were making the beer didn’t recognize how poor quality the beer was. [Gatza did not, however, say specifically what was wrong with the beer.]

Veteran brewer John Harris, who recently opened Ecliptic Brewing in Portland, offered a solution to the poor quality beer of new startup breweries. “If you are having problems with beer, ask others for help,” Harris said during an interview. “Don’t be too proud. We can help each other make our beer better.” Many new brewers have taken his advice to heart.

Henry Schwartz, co-founder of MobCraft Beer, a recent 2012 startup in Madison, has tackled the issue of poor quality by partnering with House of Brews a community supported brewery, to brew MobCraft beer. MobCraft receives assistance from other professional brewers in the community from being partnered with House of Brews.

Additionally, MobCraft Beer focuses on brewing a new flavored beer each month. Schwartz and his team experiment with different flavors of beer to gain continuous experience.

As a contributor to the craft beer craze, Schwartz has a positive outlook on the increasing number of new craft breweries. “Right now I see the addition of small breweries as a great thing,” said Schwartz.

However, the increased competition is prompting the larger, established breweries, like Central Waters, Potosi, New Glarus and many others to expand to stay ahead of the competition.

After remodeling its tap-room and barrel-aging warehouse, Central Waters still has a lot to do. “Our project list on installations of equipment and making things more efficient is backlogged a year right now,” said Graham.

Potosi Brewery is building a new brew house, packing line and storage facilities with hopes of restoring its former glory days as one of Wisconsin’s largest breweries.

While larger established breweries work to retain and extend their current markets, there’s still plenty of room in the U.S. for smaller breweries to open. The Chief Economist for the Brewers Association, Bart Watson, writes “long gone are the days where San Diego and Portland are hogging all the local breweries.”

America still has plenty of room for new breweries to grow, and the chances of drinking beer produced by local brewers is ever more likely. For now, the tap handle is pulled down and the number of breweries and beers is foaming over. Fortunately for all these new brewers, the adventurous beer drinkers don’t mind the foam at all.

 

Stay Positive & Craft Remarkable Beer

Photo credit 

Sources:
http://www.craftbrewingbusiness.com/business-marketing/five-business-issues-to-consider-before-starting-a-brewery/

Phone interview with Paul Graham, president of Central Waters.

http://www.brewersassociation.org/insights/where-craft-breweries-are-located/

Contact with Henry Schwartz, co-founder of MobCraft Beer

In person conversation with Frank Fiorenza of Potosi Brewery.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/beer/2014/04/10/americas-fast-growing-craft-beer-industry-quality-problem/13432/

 

Der Rathskeller – Leave Your Cares Outside

Garth Beyer

Der Rathskeller

You see burrowed brows, yapping mouths and jolly faces on all in Der Rathskeller when you walk through the back-bent archway entrance. For years, Der Rathskeller has been home to students of intellect, chaps of discourse, and diverse drinkers of beer (as Der Rathskeller was the first union to serve beer at a public university).

Opened in 1928, Der Rathskeller established itself as a town hall center for the men at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It wasn’t until 1937 that women could enter Der Rathskeller, but even then there were time restrictions for when women could be there. Continuously morphing since, Der Rathskeller accepts the ever changing culture of not only the Madison community, but all who come through and stop in for a brew or a Bavarian pretzel.

When you enter Der Rathskeller, often referred to simply as “the Rat,” you enter a different atmosphere, containing history of conversation, spilled beverages, and burnt out neurons from students studying and ruminating with one another.

To enter this atmosphere, there’s no door; there are only archways. It seems fair Der Rathskeller’s parameters comprise of archway after archway because you’re not merely entering a new room; you’re entering something larger and more important.

While the edges of each archway contain slim colorful designs, 50 shades of beige and a bit of blood-crusted red coat the rest of the Rat. The lighting of the red-shaded chandeliers makes the room and the artwork in it appear both friendly and private.

Artwork of simple, silly, yet careful design imprints the open wall spaces separating each archway. Each art piece represents a main extracurricular activity of students, such as government, journalism, music, drama, athletics and so on.

As diverse as the activities and art, so too are those who visit the Rat. The Rat has become a place for people dressed to the nines and others to the zeros. It is now a hub for the astute and the nonchalant. You can hear asinine conversation to the right of your table and sophisticated political discourse to the left. The Rat’s archways have extended their arms to people of all backgrounds, circumstances, and educations.

It’s not uncommon for the Rat to exceed its maximum seating capacity, which reads 525 on a sign above the condiments bar. You only need to visit on the weekend or during a night a live band takes the stage to see an infested, crowded Rat. With that many people, it’s surprising the Bavarian steins held behind a glass wall on the North side of the Rat don’t tip over from the constant stampede of people. However, some objects aren’t as fortunate.

In the Rat everything is old, cracked and weathered, especially the chairs if you find yourself fortunate enough to find one unoccupied in the evening. Despite their design containing angled legs – so to make it more difficult to tip over – you can see and feel the dents and scrapes of having been tipped over again and again. No design can save them from the wrath of the crowd that a live band attracts or of a heated conversation that exceeds boiling point.

Some conversations have apparently been so heated the steam from them melted the glue holding the tile to the ceiling. Chunks of tile are missing throughout the ceiling of the Rat, peculiarly above tables that only seat two.

The tables too, when you float your fingers across their surfaces, make you wonder of the wars they’ve survived, and the tattoos, the engravings they have and how they got them.

Could one have been so bored in the Rat to engrave only lines, not words into the table? What made those who carved warnings into the table do so? What knowledge is lost on the tables from those engraving over the scripture of another? There’s history on the tables, but there’s no way of absorbing it; you can only feel that it’s there.

While the writing on the tables may be indecipherable, the writing on the Rat’s entrance is clear to all who can read German (or who can read the English translation on a sign to the left of the entranceway). The text, written in an old German-Gothic style, reminds people they are entering a new world of jubilation. The writing above the archway entrance reads, “lassen Sie Ihre Sorgen außerhalb,” or, in English, “leave your cares outside.”

 

Stay Positive & If You’re Ever In Madison, Send Me An Email, We Can Meet At The Rat

Photo credit

It Only Makes Sense

Garth Beyer

When I write long form fiction or create a business plan or branding strategy, I have a check-list by each page.

  • see
  • smell
  • taste
  • hear
  • touch

When you walk into a store, do you notice the pleasant smell? Scent marketers are paid to make the store smell pleasant so you stay longer, enjoy yourself more and generally feel relaxed while shopping. Not all stores do this, in fact, not many do.

Hostess, with their Twinkies, really sells the sound of opening the Twinkie package.

Apple does a fine job with design when it comes to their pads, you can see it. More importantly, you can touch it. You can swipe your finger, hold it in the corner with one hand, graze your palm across it.

Appealing to the five senses even comes in play when selling a home. A couple of homes at the Madison parade of homes did a fine job of checking off the list of senses.

My significant other and I could see the entire house, we could smell lemons in one and a pleasant sort of Febreez smell in another. We could taste the wine and beer just by looking at the bars downstairs. (One house did have water and sprite in the fridge for guests, but unfortunately did not advertise it.) Just outside the homes, there was a food cart. Another house had a very hotel feel to it, specifically in the bathroom. Not three steps into the bathroom my significant other was dancing. They had music playing, fit to the hotel, a Frank Sanatra-feel. And yes, we could touch the railings, the carpet, the backsplash, the cabinet knobs. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check.

When writing, when designing, when strategizing, let’s not forget the other senses. I can’t guarantee a sale, but I can guarantee appealing to all senses lowers the number of complaints and raises the talkability-factor of the product or service.

 

Stay Positive & Mmm Mmmm Good

 

 

A Tribal Puzzle

Garth Beyer

We are all programmed to find, build, and invest in tribes. It’s just one natural order of being human. Seth Godin proves it in his book Tribes and Lee Richard states the obvious of it in his introduction to Jack Reacher’s Rules.

What puzzles me, though, is that we work best in smaller tribes, yet strive to make large tribes. In businesses, the rule is 150, Dunbar’s number. It’s the maximum number of people who can work socially and effectively in a group. Yet, most businesses do their best to fit as many employees in one large building as possible.

There are three major startup curators in Madison, WI. (100state, Sector67, and gener8tor.) All are working to come together under one roof. To that, I ask, why?

When all data reflects the smaller the better, why strive for more, more, more?

The way I see it is this, if you release a product, make sure it targets a small audience. Focus all your attention on the 20 percent that you can profit from and forget the other 80 percent that will take all your time and energy. And if by some chance, your product begins to appeal to the other 80 percent as strongly as the first 20 percent, then open it up. But until that day, quit striving for it.

I guarantee more creative projects will come out of the three startup curators while separated than when under the same roof.

 

Stay Positive & Less Is More, More, More

Garth E. Beyer

What Makes A Successful Garage Band

Garth Beyer

(If you don’t want to read, click the last hyperlink in this post.)

There’s no lack of talent when it comes to vocals or who can play a guitar or win over an audience with a ridiculously fast paced bass solo. It’s no longer about who can play an instrument and how well, but how many instruments they can play, how they can incorporate the multiple instruments into a show, and how they can show the audience their passion.

Times have changed but very few garage bands are falling behind. They’re excited to try new instruments, mish mash sounds, and – generally speaking – have fun. Something that is hard to say for those entering the professional world of freelance.

Last night I had the honor to see a handful of bands play at a Launchpad event. Launchpad is a statewide, alternative music competition for Wisconsin high school students who are in bands formed outside of the traditional music classroom ensembles. (view some of the bands here.) These high schoolers were incredible performers, showmakers, and artists.

But the truly exceptional ones brought out different instruments: extra drums, key board, violin. Now it’s now more common to have an extra instrument in a band, but the way these students incorporated them into their songs, well, that was real talent. (One band actually switched their trumpeter with the vocalist, vocalist with the drummer, drummer with the keyboard, and keyboard with the trumpeter. Impressive!)

The status quo is being kicked and bruised by those living the garage band or what I like to call, garage project workstyle/artstyle/lifestyle. There are no longer boundaries. You can no longer bring your one “instrument” and perform. You have to bring everything (all of your “instruments”) and perform some instrumental alchemy.

The worlds changing. Best to be a leader of it.

 

Stay Positive & Rubber Bands Are Still Accepted

Garth E. Beyer