Arvest River Market on Ice

It’s hard to believe, but Thanksgiving is over and the Christmas tree is up at the agency! Are you looking for a fun activity to kick off your holiday season? Look no further than Arvest’s River Market on Ice taking place now in downtown Little Rock. As a community-focused bank, Arvest is excited to bring this winter activity to the community along with the Little Rock Advertising and Promotion Commission, Downtown Little Rock Partnership and Little Rock Parks and Recreation.

Our creative department enjoyed working with Arvest to design and create a tree-topper for the Christmas tree located at the rink.

The ice rink, located in one of the open-air pavilions overlooking Riverfront Park and the Arkansas River, is open now through January 8th. For a complete list of hours visit http://www.holidaysinlittlerock.com/river_market_on_ice/.

Our Second Wind

We recently sent a couple of our account executives to the Windy City for “Certified Account Executive College” offered by Second Wind.

The two-day seminar for smaller to mid-size agencies was comprised of industry-specific courses in account service and account management skills; account planning and strategic planning; and proposal writing and presentation skills.

Account executive Allison Drennon said the most valuable thing she learned in Chicago was training in the latest strategic planning best practices… and that the best view of Chicago is from the ladies room on the 96^th floor of the John Hancock building, not the 95^th.

They came back with more ideas than we can deploy at once, so we are taking one step at a time to help our clients and our agency get a second wind. One easy change we have been trying to make is to structure our days. If we schedule meetings in the mornings or late afternoons, the creative has an uninterrupted mid-day to really groove and our account service team can get quality time with our clients.

Second Wind is a partner and advertising resource to more than 800 small to mid-sized agencies. Find out more about Second Wind at www.secondwindonline.com.

Starting a New Path with Edafio Technology Partners

As we approach the holiday season and 2011 begins to wind down, we can’t say that things are slowing down around the agency. At Sells, we are excited to announce our newest client, Edafio Technology Partners.

Founded in 1999, Edafio, a Greek word meaning “passage” or “pathway,” has itself taken an interesting path to success in the IT industry. When local information technology providers couldn’t meet the needs of the Little Rock-based JPMS Cox accounting firm and many of its clients, the firm decided to create its own solution – Edafio Technology Partners. The newly established business was so successful in producing results for JPMS that it quickly developed into a full-service IT provider and began taking on clients of its own.

Over the years, Edafio has grown to a successful company, but had recently begun experiencing some pains in the sales and marketing area – primarily in closing new business prospects. That’s when they came to us.

As we always do, we started with research to understand as much about the company and its competitors, customers and prospects as possible. We analyzed their sales cycle and identified some key barriers to converting more prospects into customers. We are beginning to focus on the lead generation part of the sales cycle, which, if you’re a business owner or IT manager in Central Arkansas, you’ll be seeing soon. We’ll keep you updated as we work with Edafio to communicate their brand and allow them to effectively sell their core services to prospects.

Where will the Edafio/Sells Agency path lead? Stay tuned to find out.