So I’ve spent a good deal of time at the Mayo Clinic this week, and as I have been fascinated by my sister’s surgeon and the overall work they do at Mayo, I had a little epiphany about my own business.  These surgeons are there to fix and help people that need to be better.  They spend years, almost a decade, studying medicine and best practices, and continually educating themselves on modern medicines for the most effective outcomes.  And I could go on and but at the end of the day they help people.  They do their absolute best job and engulf themselves in these procedures so that these patients have a chance at a positive outcome, literally by taking them apart and putting them back together. Once the surgeons have done their work they help nurture these patients back to a functional state, whatever that may be, and then guide them to a better life.  They then leave it in the hands of the patients to continue onwards with whatever quality of life they have been given. Again, it all depends on the situation, condition, patient and possibilities…but it’s their job and their calling. 

All that being said, it made me reflect on what I do.  Of course I am not saving human lives, but I did find some analogous ties from my observations at Mayo to our work at Greenhouse. We tend to get a lot of push back, hesitation and aversion to change, as we should, but really we are putting out best talents and expertise to help your company truly be better. We are here to help. That’s what we want, what we set out to do and that what we love to do. Discovering, taking apart, moving things around, repositioning, crafting, building, etc so that we can help you have a stronger and more effective brand. Everyone tends to be guarded about it, and they should be, just as if they were being told by a surgeon, “we are going to physically change your body, but trust me you’ll have a better life.” But it is rewarding to see a company be re-inspired, re-energized and better positioned for growth. So I guess for a minute I looked at us as creative surgeons, which was really kind of a cool and positive parallel.  We try to make a brand better and then we hand it off to our clients to have a more positive quality of life within their respective company and guide them along the way. It all kind of hit me this morning when my little sis called me after they changed out all of her lines/IVs just to tell me that she was pimpin her Greenhouse t-shirt I had brought to her last night. Represent kiddo, that’s awesome (I snuck a pic in).

Thank you again Dr. Landmann, you have been truly amazing and inspiring, and have done wonders for my sister. I am forever grateful.

This is a great testimony for Greenhouse, but more importantly showcases the impact that a brand and image can have for a company…even in less than a week!  It’s all about what “they think you are” and Jeff Whitaker, owner of the newly rebranded GatorGear, has recently come to understand the power of a brand and had these nice words to share with us…

“For over four years, we’d been grinding and pushing our business, hoping that our hard work would eventually lead to successful growth in our industry. We had no idea about the power of branding and marketing, and were seeing only marginal growth in our profits each year.  In the fall of 2009, we were introduced to Greenhouse Studio, and our lives have been forever changed.  The new website and marketing campaigns have been remarkable, and within one week of the launch of our new brand we experienced more customer traffic and response in one day than in the previous 3 months!  We are going to be forced to go out and hire a couple new employees to handle the workload that has come in since we went live.

There are numerous tangible statistics that reflect the positive effect Greenhouse has had…sales and exposure have soared.  But what has truly resonated from our experience with Greenhouse is the education they provided us regarding how to give our company a focus and a direction.  Most importantly, Kat, Spencer, Greg and the gang made us feel like the success of our custom headwear business was at the top of their agenda every day.”

And if you need some awesome new, customized hats…check out gghats.com!  You’ll see some sweet lookin’ Greenhouse Studio ones around town soon.

Cheers from Greenhouse to your successes Jeff! 

Here’s our own little memorial to honor Patrick’s hand-painted toy that he designed for the Designers in Toyland/AIGA event tonight.  Unfortunately, his dog literally ate it as the paint was drying.  Come out tonight and support Patrick and the other designers who’ve worked hard to make this a great event.

Our most recent brand launch, Environs, truly broke new ground at IAAPA 2009 and was honored with the Best Exhibit award out of 1100 exhibitors. The booth was completed in just 4 weeks from concept to completion! Nice job team. Check it out: http://twitpic.com/pw9w9.  If you haven’t had the chance to visit their website DO IT NOW. Their work is ridiculous. http://www.environs.com

Congrats to the Environs group for the award and a successful brand launch. Thanks for letting us be a part of this.

We had a VERY difficult decision to make, as we had some many great stories and passionate business leaders submit to our campaign.  Thank you all for making this a success.

And the envelope please…

Greenhouse Studio, after hours of deliberation, has selected TWO companies:

#1 - Our first place winner is The Cookie Momsters, moms on a mission for those with special dietary needs.  We were touched by this story and how the struggle with autism flourished into food products that are gluten and casein free, and surrounded by an advocacy mission.  Within the past couple weeks this organization opened a bakery and over the past few months have begun to distribute their cookie dough into organic food stores, such as Whole Foods. The gluten free diet is very challenging and this organization offers a possible solution to those with autism, food allergies, celiac, and more.  These are two moms on a mission and looking for our expertise to help them get to the next level of awareness and growth.  We were flattered and congrats!

Lynne Yeager, owner and president of The Cookie Momsters, was nice enough to share these kind words with Greg and I. “We are so excited to be granted the opportunity of being the chosen Brand Sprout company, and can’t wait to have Greenhouse Studio help to tell our story. We look forward to building our brand and familiarizing individuals and families about our mission and goals. Greenhouse will be instrumental to sharing our products and advocacy.”

#2 - Our second place winner is KapePur Coffee.  We offered to help with all of their brand development, creative execution and website to help get them launched into 2010.  KapePur is a coffee that is created and processed from the Asian palm civet, it is the finest coffee beans and boasts a rich, unique taste (it’s true, we tried it).  The amazing thing about this company is that they are changing the lives of people in the South Philippines.  By harvesting this coffee and importing these beans to the U.S. they are creating jobs and amazing opportunity for the Bagobo tribe in the Philippines to prosper.  This is a rare, unique coffee that is quite pricey by the cup, but with every delicious cup you are giving back. KapePur is the only U.S. distributor and have the exclusive rights to these coffee beans from this village. We loved your passion and story, and congrats on your #2 selection!

“We are thrilled with the amazing opportunity to work with Greenhouse Studio on the development of our KapePur brand.  Words cannot fully express our gratitude and excitement. Thank you Greenhouse!” Shared the owners of KapePur Coffee and Earth Bee Foods.

More on both of these companies and will be posted over the coming weeks and months as we further develop…the Greenhouse Studio team is extremely excited by the privileged opportunity to help these companies grow! To read about the campaign, please visit gogreenhouse.com/brandsprout.

For all those that have submitted to this contest, we thank you.  We have been deliberating over all of your amazing stories all afternoon and have a tough decision in front of us at Greenhouse. We have 4 finalists that we have now decided we want to interview in person.  As we originally committed to, all of you will receive a call tomorrow to schedule your face-to-face interview for Monday, November 2nd.  Our contest winner will be announced on Tuesday, November 3rd. Stay tuned…more to come from Brand Sprout!

Today Greenhouse received a letter from the Mayor of Jacksonville thanking us for the Brand Sprout Campaign. It was such an unexpected surprise and endorsement that was truly inspiring to what we are doing at Greenhouse and why we love doing it. To quote our Mayor:

“A new business can have the best product or service but still fail because the public doesn’t know about the company.  Marketing is a necessary part of any business plan that unfortunately is too often overlooked…Jacksonville is a growing city that needs every business to prosper.  Your assistance to the lucky contest winner will hopefully increase its business and add to the growing list of successes in this recovering financial climate. It is in this spirit of cooperation and community commitment that will propel Jacksonville in the coming years…”

Thank you Mayor Peyton for your genuine and unsolicited support. There are still 10 days left to submit…gogreenhouse.com/brandsprout.

Wow.  Greenhouse is just over one year old and we’ve been reflecting on our first year of business. While looking back at our success and thinking about the great people we’ve had the pleasure to work with, we’ve come to the conclusion that we REALLY love what we do.

We’ve worked with companies of all sizes, but what’s really been amazing is to work with people who have taken a huge step to start their own business, especially in a volatile economy.  The more we thought about it, the more we wanted to help out others who have recently made or are considering starting a new company.  So that’s what we’re going to do. 

Introducing Brand Sprout.  If you fit the bill, are passionate about your company and can convince us that we need to pick YOU, we want to help. No, we’re not crazy, this is just something we want to do and we’re committed to doing it.

Greenhouse Studio (along with several awesome sponsors) will work with the winner to make sure your brand strategy, message, identity, website and collateral are in tip top shape.  What’s more, we’re going to make the entire process open to the public and get feedback from the community. For this to work, we’re asking everyone to Blog it, Tweet it, Digg it and be über-social. Visit Brand Sprout for more details.

So this has now happened several times for us in the young life of Greenhouse Studio, receiving payment from a client and it’s the very first check that their company wrote.  I reflected on this the other day when I noticed another check #1001.  I love what we are doing, but truly amazing to be that partner with a “soon to be” company that is literally just getting off the ground, we’re giving them the brand and image to do it with, and we are literally their FIRST investment. These friends of Greenhouse truly understand the importance of a strong brand and we look forward to helping them grow it!

We recently launched a rebranding effort for a small, but soon to be very successful, company.  In our discovery process, we fell in love with the story behind the name, culture, potential and vision of the company…and where we could take the brand.  Easy to creatively invest in a great product, person and story… a unique hydraulic fluid product that was discovered while competitively golfing, rapidly created on a determined curiosity, named after his grandson who he wanted to leave a legacy to and ultimately inspired by his own father, a hero to him, and of whom he wished his daughter knew more. Plus with his patriotic pride and love for red, white and blue, it seemed only appropriate to help him launch on 4th of July weekend.

The project overall was inspiring and rewarding, and not only were we able to help elevate the brand image and tell the story, but learned a lot about hydraulic fluids.  We’re looking forward helping him grow CPO and tell his story for a long time. Cheers to Chase!