A Congenial Disentanglement

I am separating from Northern Broadcast which owns Marigold and until last Friday, aired Mary in the Morning. Last week I sat down with the powers that be, looked at the options and we agreed to a congenial disentanglement. I believe it was as tough of a conversation for both sides. I honestly have no bad feelings toward the makers of this decision, it makes sense from a strictly business perspective.

Northern Broadcast’s management reviewed revenue and expense budgets – and although the quality of our programming was excellent, they needed to allocate their resources to more profitable cost centers.

I do feel just terrible for the rest of the team who are now looking for jobs. They are all awesome women who will make great additions to any organization. I will tell you in a moment how to stay in touch with them.

But what about you? In speaking with many of you over the weekend I heard sadness, shock, and some anger. I understand. Marigold and Mary in the Morning are very personal brands. They were designed to be that way. They were sincerely designed to make you feel like a part of something, to give you a warm and positive feeling about your community, your world and yourself. I think we accomplished that very well because it came from our hearts and not just a marketing plan. Karyn Hertel did a wonderful job as Director of Marigold because she believed in and embodied the Marigold spirit.

When Proctor & Gamble sold Spic n' Span, consumers went nuts when the pine scent was discontinued. There are blogs and websites populated by crushed consumers pining for their...pine! Men & women relied on their Spic n' Span  not only to clean their homes, but they connected the unique pine scent with a job well done cleaning their house. The truth is, not enough people bought the pine scent. You can still find the product through eBay where savvy folks have stockpiled the stuff and sell it at huge profit margins.

Unfortunately, we can't sell you what we made in a box. It was the community that we brought together that made it what it was. Both Mary in the Morning and Marigold could resurface in the future in other forms. But when they operated side-by-side, it created a certain magic for us all: staff, sponsors, show guests, event speakers, attendees, advertisers, publicists, even our vendors loved being a part of what we were doing.

Please subscribe to this blog, there is link on the right-hand side of this page. Here, I will continue to post my blog, also you can keep track of our happenings and stay in touch. I will also continue my Mary in the Morning Facebook page which I hope you will "like".

Please keep our community together by sharing your comments here on the blog.

You can reach our team members as follows:

Mary Rogers - maryrogers@chartermi.net

Karyn Hertel - karyn.hertel@yahoo.com

Erin Cheney - erinecheney@gmail.com

Heather Daniels - heather@1067youfm.com

Carol Vernam - vernams@charter.net

Thank you for everything,

Mary Rogers

Homemaker of the Year

On Monday, the 2010 Homemaker of the Year was named at the Northwestern Michigan Fair. This makes many women very edgy. First, because it takes a very narrow view of a woman's talents and yet to discount the importance of "making a home" under values the role of women. Once again, we sigh a collective sigh and mutter, "I don't even know what to think about this!".

I do think you need to put this in the context of a county or state fair, where these competitions are held. The fairs spotlight the agricultural community and the traditions of farming. This is where the womanly arts of canning and quilting (yes, both are judged categories) were developed and remain part of our historical perspective. Back in the day, these skills, along with rug beating, clothes line drying, sewing, plucking  feathers for down pillows, were all necessary and valued skills. Today, we buy Smuckers jams, get a poly-something bed quilt which we wash and dry in machines and use a vacuum cleaner from Sweden. 

Homemaking has changed, but I put forth that it is no less important.

When you first walk into a family's home, in that first moment, you can grasp the effort, or lack of, that has been made to make a home. It can be chaotic or peaceful, rustic or stark and modern, richly adorned or a mismatch of yard sale furniture, it doesn't matter. You can sense when a house or apartment is a home.

Regardless if it is a man or woman in charge of the home, you can tell when somebody cares enough and knows enough to create an atmosphere of home. Looking closer, there is the care to manage the family schedules and finances. Thoughtful parenting is taking place here. I think these are very important skills, not just Donna Reed-isms.

Yes, I hope my daughter grows up to be the president of something, but when I am invited to her home, I will be a bit disappointed if she doesn't know how to make a pot roast. Because, pot roast is delicious. Nothing you buy in the frozen food section is every going to taste as good as pot roast with potatoes and gravy. It won't make her a good or bad person, but she and her family will miss out if they don't have a home that when other people walk in, they feel happy.


Keep in mind, I am an extremely homey person. I can feed 10 people dinner with an hour's notice, I can sew (but don't), I can knit, I can design, plant and care for a garden, I know how to set a dinner table, throw a brunch for Mother's Day, needlepoint Christmas stockings and remove most stains. I truly enjoy the effort it takes to make my home a home. It should also be noted that my house is usually quite cluttered and we do eat fast food when all fails.

Most of my accomplishments have been made outside of my home, in the arena of my career and community involvement. And an equally important role most women play now includes management of the family finances, but I consider these "domestic arts" to be just as much a piece of Me. My family means enough to me to warrant Making The Effort to Make a Home.


If you work 60 hours a week, then you can pay somebody else to do a lot of this, but you yearn to have time to put in the Effort.


I will certainly never be a Homemaker of the Year, but I appreciate the art!

Mary's New Blog

Thank you for visiting my blog. New content is coming daily, so do check back and see how I've grown. 

The best new feature of my blog is access to a store of all the books featured on Mary in the Morning or my Facebook page booknotes, plus more great books that I personally recommend. Check out the amazon.com store featuring all these great reads (growing daily!). You can buy them right here, or make a list and visit a local bookseller or visit your local library.

If you would like to contribute content to my blog or wish to link in a mutually satisfying sort of way... drop me a note here.

Never Negotiate the SPIRIT of the Deal

Okay, so I am an organizational development geek, admittedly. But I want to share with you a moment in a meeting that I found so perfect, so clarifying, so break through the bull, because I promise you can use it immediately in just about any situation. Here it is: Before collaborating, and I use that term very loosely, be sure that all parties share the same spirit of the agreement to come.

Some examples:

Before you agree to co-host a bridal shower, be sure you both will share in all expenses and work involved. True Co-Hosting, Big C Big H. Or does the other person mean: she expects you to have it at your clean house, you to pay for the food and drink, you clean up the mess, handle RSVPs and she's just "helping where you need her". She'll "be there for you". Small c Small h.

Entering a business deal as partners on a project to a shared client. What does the term partnership mean? 50-50? 10-90? Both are perfectly acceptable, as long as it is clear from the beginning. 

What is the spirit of the deal?

What is the spirit of the collaboration?

Warning!! Warning!! If you are walking into the deal WITHOUT the same spirit, no matter what you  negotiate, there will be trouble ahead!!

In the meeting I was at, we were discussing a possible collaboration between two organizations with complementary missions coming together for a joint event. A collaborative effort. A partnership. One of the masterminds behind this plan said: "Before we sweat the details of this proposal to organization #2, let's make sure that they are open to the spirit of the deal. Organization #1 is in charge of and owns the overall event. Organization #2 will own a portion of the overall event". She was absolutely right in simplifying the approach. Be sure the spirit is agreeable before you commit to anything.

You've probably learned that a lack of communication up front can sour a deal later on. But this "spirit discussion" will bring clarity to all the little details along the way.

I wish I had learned this a long, long time ago. I could have saved myself from so many business regrets, not to mention cursing under my breath during bridal showers!

When you you get to the dirt of the deal, here's the best book yet on negotiating: You Can Negotiate Anything by Herb Cohen

Grow or die... or not?

I love making speeches! I am a freak, I know. Like a songwriter who will tell you that the song must be sung, that it is bursting from their very pores, I get the same way with a speech.

But everything has a time and a place. Barbra Streisand would probably not be well received at a Tattoo Festival. In a few months from now I am scheduled to make a keynote speech at a women business owners conference in Detroit. For me, this is something of a homecoming appearance and frankly, I want to knock it out of the ballpark. My old colleagues wonder what the heck happened to Mary after she moved up north? I'm sharing with you my thoughts about preparing for this in hopes that it will help you in how you approach your own communications, be they one-on-one or one-to-one thousand. My second reason is to get some feedback from folks I know and trust who may want to tell me to re-think this.

My experience as a public speaker has taught me:

• Speak from the heart. You can never fool a crowd
• Give your audience information or inspiration that they can use that very day
• Speak for the benefit of your audience not yourself

My heartfelt message these days is to enjoy the place (emotional, physical, financial, etc) that you are in, so as not to overlook the joys that are yours while scrambling to figure out how to be bigger and better than you are right now, right here. Could you find yourself in your sweet spot and not be living the life of a millionaire? Find yourself living where the ranking of your priorities match the energy expended.

A few years ago, when I was scrambling for career and business growth, I had a conversation with a businessman who was new to the area. He wanted to work with local companies to help them expand into new markets. He shared his frustration with me over local folks satisfaction with "enough". He told me that he found himself actually having to convince people (plumbers, insurance agents, small manufacturers, etc...) that they should want to grow. I completely sympathized with the guy! "You're kidding! Grow or die, baby!". They told him they made more money than their parents ever dreamed of, had a nice house, 2 cars in the driveway, went to Florida for a week each winter. Why grow? They would have more work, more worry, and less time to spend enjoying things that really mattered to them. They had enough right now. The poor guy was left speechless.

I feel compelled to share this message because I have spent a great deal of my time in "scramble mode" and I can practically smell the burn of it on others. We are programmed to expand, grow and win. 

I suggest that you re-examine your assumptions of your own priorities, your own goals, and then decide if ambition is your driving passion. If it is, go for it! If you adopted in from the ad managers at Proctor & Gamble or More magazine, I say hit the brakes. 

Personally, I feel like Alice in Wonderland when she drank from the cup labeled "Drink This". I see things from a very different perspective these days. I am fully committed to do the best at what I do, but not in a bigger, splashier, more recognized way. I love what I am doing right now. Yes, I could make more money somewhere else, but then I would have to give "this" up! I love this. Right now, right here. And that's okay dammit! Maybe next week I'll want to conquer the world. But not right now.

This might sound like a message of giving up your dreams and that is when I get nervous about ending a major address on this note. Keep in mind, I will be speaking to hundreds of women running businesses in a cut throat depressed economic market. I am the first speaker of the day before the conference goers spend the morning at various workshops on business marketing and finance and technology. Is it unrealistic to ask frightened business owners to take a moment to smell the roses, celebrate their accomplishments and maybe (just maybe) accept this time as a season of maintenance and not growth?

Am I creating this message because I want to give it OR because it could be inspirational to the women I'll be speaking to. Am I ignoring the reality of their daily life?

Your very satisfied friend,

Mary Rogers

Would you like fries with that?

No matter what type of business you are in, the old truism stands: Nothing happens until someone sells something. You may be the best at what you do, but if you avoid selling, you are dead in the water. If prospecting isn't your idea of fun, and let's face it, who among us enjoys cold calling, maybe there is another way to boost your selling. 

Before you get a cold call panic attack, let's maximize each sale that comes in the door now. Fast food companies are the ultimate marketers of selling more than the customer plans to buy. "Would you like fries with that?" or, " Would you like to Super Size that for just a dollar more?" Why not apply the same philosophy to how you service your current clients? 

Keep them in the Family

Do you have related products or services to your core business? Begin today to offer them with every sale! Consider packaging or bundling products and services with different names (Silver, Gold, Platinum). Example: Siding installers can offer power washing. Call it what you want but offer an add-on of 3 annual power washings and free inspections. 

Get a Commitment

Do your customers need your services repeatedly? Example: Hair stylists... Offer an annual hair care package of a cut every 8 weeks, color every 16 weeks, nail service and a $50 retail credit for products. Discount it for advance purchase or throw in a labor only expense such as unlimited brow waxing.

There's a place down the road...

Could you expand your line of products or services. Here's an exercise: What type of referrals do your salespeople make most often to another business. Why pass revenue to someone else's cash register. If you are a window cleaning service, think about adding screen repair. If you are a travel agent, consider a house or pet sitting service.

It's that time of year

Check in with customers as they near the anniversary date of their last purchase. Your business may be seasonal, or the customer always calls you in October because that is when their birthday reminds them of your service, in any case, take advantage of the opportunity to call and check in. Even if it is just to "see how things are". It is a chance to tell them about new offerings that may be of interest.

Your current clients are the easiest path to larger revenues. Before you embark on a prospecting campaign, be certain that all staff with customer contact are looking for sales potential of current buyers and that they have a menu of offerings.

Good luck and get selling!,
Mary

Men in bras

In 1986, I was charged with establishing The Women's Business Council of a local chamber of commerce. As the staff member leading a group of member volunteers, it was my role to implement the member's vision of the Board of Directors directive to serve the needs of women in the business community. I was filled with a passion for celebrating modern empowered women. I came to my first meeting with the group armed with a folder full of workshop and speaker ideas on accessing capital, establishing gender-neutral employee policies, sexual harassment awareness programs, etc... All designed to provide cutting edge information and strategies to liberate us from the oppression of the patriarchal business culture. The group wanted to host a fashion show.  I wanted to cry.

"No!" I railed. I probably said something like "Over my dead body", but I can't be sure, it is a blur, a big pink blur. But I am sure that I tried something along the lines of..."Ladies, we have been given an opportunity to be taken seriously, to rise above the ranks of the secretarial pool, we must provide programming that not only serves women but sends a message to the entire community that women in business must to be taken SERIOUSLY!!!!! They stared at me. "Oh".

Keep in mind that my manila folder full of ideas was the ONLY accessory to my plain blue suit with sensible flat-heeled shoes and understated (if even existent) jewelry. We were dressing like men so that we would be treated like men. Those of us at the helm of the womens' business movement were denying our every feminine quality.

Twenty-five years later, I would host a fashion show without a second thought. In fact, Mary in the Morning and Marigold are the proud sponsors of the National Cherry Festival's Royal Pageant of Fashion . Whodathunkit? So what's changed? We can now be WOMEN instead of men in bras.

The worlds of feminism and fashion have always clashed. When I think of an over-the-top hard-core feminist I see a hairy arm-pitted woman in no make up with stringy, if not un-brushed hair. She's not prettying herself up for a man! Well, the message is she's not prettying up for ANYBODY! 

Nowadays, I'm perfectly comfortable expressing myself through fashion and beauty as a complement to what I have to contribute to a conversation. I see a fashion show as an opportunity to preview what is available in stores to help save me precious time when I need or want a new outfit. I am definitely not a fashion plate and consider myself to be fashion-challenged, so for me, a fashion show is like spell check, preventing me from making gaffes that would be potentially embarrassing to "Brand Mary".

I hope to see you at The Royal Pageant of Fashion!

Change Your Plans for Thursday!

Whatever your plans may be for Thursday morning, you will want to change them. At 7:30AM you want to be by a radio, tuned in to my conversation with Donna. Donna? Yes, Donna. She's going to say some things that may shock you, may make you uncomfortable, but I guarantee that you will be talking about her for the rest of the day.

Donna Estes Antebi has written a book, The Real Secrets Women Only Whisper, The 21st Century Woman's Guide to Success and Survival - including dirty tricks every woman needs to know! 

The book is not being released until this fall, but I have an advance copy. Now, keep in mind that I get a pile of books each and every week from publishers and publicists wanting to get their author on Mary in the Morning. I've become very discerning in deciding who I feels has something new, relevant and original to lend to my show. Since first picking up this book about a month ago, I've thought about it every single day. I've given it to friends to read and review, and despite her Keep This Book Away From Men warning on the cover, I've given it to men and listened to their ideas as well.. Everyone who reads it is somewhat shocked, somewhat jarred, but all are impacted.  

Last week I caught up with Donna by phone at her office in Los Angeles. We spoke for an hour or so about our adult sons and their choices of women, WEEDS (her term for younger women stealing married men and destroying families), the swinging pendulum and backlash of feminism on the role of men. It was fascinating conversation. 

She'll tell you to just stop being a bitch to your husband, why to sign a pre-nup, why not to sleep with men you wouldn't marry, how to be a Cleo instead of a Cougar,why it's okay for your man to dress badly, and why you will never be Oprah.

I will interview her on Wednesday afternoon, it will air on Thursday at 7:30am. We do have a few copies to give away to listeners, but don't expect me to give up mine!

What does Mary think of Dr. Laura

Last month YOU-FM, the home of Mary in in the Morning, switched to an all talk format. Will it be a ratings coup? A bomb? It will be a couple years before we know for sure, but the line-up of shows has certainly gotten some tongues wagging. I'm thoroughly enjoying the comments I'm getting from listeners.

The reaction so far has been completely random from love to hate, very little middle ground here. The prime time line-up includes the Queen of the Left, Stephanie Miller who airs immediately after Mary in the Morning; Dave Ramsey the Live Debt Free guru who brings Jesus into the conversation with callers quite comfortably; the acerbic Dr. Laura is there for your afternoon drive, followed by rightie-pants Jerry Doyle.

When I'm out and about I'm asking people their thoughts on the line-up, 90 percent of the time the conversation leads to: "Mary, what do YOU think of Dr. Laura?" This is a very polarizing question, or at least I think it is meant to be. If you say they you like Dr. Laura, people can fit you into a box full of assumptions (pro-life, anti-gay, women should stay home with the kids, blah, blah, blah) So here you have it: I love Dr. Laura for being Dr. Laura. I don't agree with many of her positions on how we humans run our lives, but I do respect and cheer for her decision to not be politically correct.

This woman has balls.  Dr. Laura filters her callers questions through a simple filter of right and wrong, black or white, her way the highway. She doesn't have the inclination or interest or time to sugar coat it. She gives her opinion. And that is why people continue to call and take the abuse. She makes the drama of our lives so simple. Do this, goodbye, Next caller....
Even when I'm disagreeing with her, calling her names, rolling my eyes at the radio, I am completely and thoroughly enjoying myself. I try to catch at least part of her show every day. We seem at times to be a nation of very stupid people, and Dr. Laura is one of the only brave voices out their.

Most importantly, Dr. Laura has been on the scene long enough that every caller to her show should know what to expect. She is so predictable that she couldn't possibly be accused of ambushing anybody. Simplistic? Yes. Heartless? Perhaps. Ambivalent? Never!

Tune in to Dr. Laura daily 3-6PM and let me know your thoughts on her show.

Mary