Whether we’re talking raising children or senior living marketing, successful outcomes rely on having a village to support you. This is a lesson I’ve learned again and again throughout my life. And one that has proven itself again with the rebranding of Sabal Strategy. Having that village made it possible to transform Sabal Group into Sabal Strategy in less than three months!
Assembling a Village
Surrounding yourself with the right people is the key to success in so many endeavors. How you find them and what makes them right are topics we’ll save for another day. Suffice it to say, luck or fate plays a certain role in it. In this instance, I worked with a tiny group of key individuals who made the magic happen.
The Look of a Village
If you’ve visited the new Sabal Strategy website, you know I couldn’t have done that by myself. It all began with a designer who was willing to take words and ideas and turn them into a visual statement that is fresh, strong, and feminine. Blake Lookabill of Look Design & Direction provided the creative spark to reimagine our ‘look’ from the logo to the website’s typeface.
Working within senior living marketing, you know the vital importance of having the right visual impact in your marketing campaigns. Whether it’s images or the new invitation postcard, design matters a great deal in our visual world. Relying on the same-old same-old is a recipe for diminishing leads.
Connecting Your Village
An inviting new color palette, exciting logo reflecting our new name and a new font were just the beginning of our adventures. We needed to update our 5-year-old website. Again, luck played a part. Blake has a strong working relationship with a web wizard by the name of Ed Nailor. This relationship proved invaluable considering our accelerated timeline.
We began our work with Blake in mid-June. By July 24, Blake had the website designs finalized and ready for Ed to begin building the new website. Within one month, Ed and Blake had the website ready for the Sabal Strategy team to visit the completed site. Page by page, we reviewed everything from the tiniest detail to the hundreds of new images. Four days later, last-minute changes were complete and the site was ready to go live.
Having the right people in place (hint: Blake & Ed) meant that an aggressive timeline was possible. They worked their magic so we could go from an idea first given voice on June 13 to a new brand launch on September 3. For those who are counting, that’s 82 days. And we had two national holidays (hello long weekends), vacation time, and other project deadlines.
Celebrate Your Village
Humans are social animals. We build communities. We crave the company of other people. That’s true in our personal lives and it should be true within our business lives. But building a village or a community takes effort. It takes work. And it takes celebrating good work and effort.
We were a distributed team, so video calls were indispensable to our village. But when we ran into a snag, our key players were quick to offer an on-site visit to solve a digital challenge. I’ve also made it a practice to meet with key team members to have important face-to-face meetings. I also meet with them in person to celebrate their good work.
When we take a look at your senior living marketing village, what stands out to you? Are you celebrating wins? Making merry while you brainstorm new ideas? Literally meeting with key players on their turf instead of your office? Building a community of key people who willingly tackle the impossible and produces magic? If not, I’d love the opportunity to chat with you about my experiences. Together, we can make it possible to build a winning village for you.
