At the end of the day, when you think about the products and services you are bringing your customers and clients, what are you really trying to create for them? The answer is simple. Delight.

About two years into launching our agency, we ended up on the floor of a med device trade show. We had acquired our tickets through a friend and were now in a space filled with companies leading in innovation, automation, and technology. We walked from booth to booth and had conversations with many leaders we viewed as prospects and potential clients. The most important conversation we had all morning, though, was with someone who didn't need anything from us. We needed them – or to put it better, we needed to hear what they had to say…

Over the past week, on four different occasions with four different prospective clients, we’ve heard the same thing. Two men, two women, four completely different businesses. They called us reaching out for help in their content marketing, and in each instance, they shared the following, almost word for word… “I know that I should get in front of a camera, shoot some video, and tell our story. I just don’t want to. It’s so uncomfortable... and it’s just not me.”

Strengths and weaknesses… What areas do you excel in, and where are you lacking? Often, we try to stretch our boundaries. We want to get stronger in the areas where we’re weak. From a growth perspective, that can be a good thing. Constantly learning new things and stretching ourselves leads to growth. At the same time, there are moments where we need to step back and reassess.

From 1997 to 2002, "Think different." was Apple's ad slogan. It showed up in TV commercials, print ads, and posters, and the campaign honored a collection of individuals who were known for thinking different and innovating. The list included Albert Einstein, Jim Henson, Amelia Earhart, Martin Luther King Jr., and Pablo Picasso. The ad agency that created the campaign, Chiat\Day, referred to them as the "Crazy Ones" in the TV commercials which Steve Jobs narrated. The message is still influential today...

The exact date will differ for everyone who reads this, but we’re each coming up on the anniversary of that day last year where we realized that COVID-19 was going to impact our lives in dramatic ways. For most of us, we didn’t understand at the time what that impact was genuinely going to feel like or how many things would change, but we all had that moment where it hit us – things were going to be different for a while. Personally and professionally, everything changed in what seemed like an instant. Now, a year later, it seems like a good time to reflect back a bit. Here are three questions to ask yourself…

How do we attract more customers and clients? How can we be more magnetic to them? Whether you provide a service or sell a product, collecting some basic insights on what your customers and clients need and want is an essential part of becoming magnetic. You can't create compelling content marketing, design an engaging new website, or pitch your business to a prospect unless you know how you can help them first. Here are a few questions we ask in our process at OrangeBall to help guide this...

We walk into work in the morning we have some idea of how our day is going to unfold. We're going to focus on a handful of projects for the day – work to be done for our customers in the business, and work done on our business too. But what happens when we shift from doing business to putting out fires instead?

“Push to Elevate.” We’ve shared this idea in the past as one of our core values. But what does Push to Elevate really mean, and how does it apply to you?

It’s our birthday! Today, OrangeBall turns nine! What’s a birthday, really? They’re more than just a marker for another trip around the sun. Birthdays are a time to reflect, to look backward and celebrate the past, and to cast our visions forward into the future. Where have we been and what have we learned, and where do we want to head from here? When looking back, what are we proud of?