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SRQ DAILY Jun 8, 2015

Monday Business Edition

Monday Business Edition

"Each of us lives, breathes, eats and sleeps digital marketing every single day."

- David Johnson, Grow The Dream Show
 

[Jobs]  Top Sarasota Employers

PGT Industries, a maker of high-endurance glass in Venice, today boasts the title of top full-time job provider in Sarasota County, according to figures from the Economic Development Corporation of Sarasota County. The statistics in the graphic, showing the county's top 10 private sector employers, reflect job numbers as of November 2013. 

[Sports]  MLFB Promises Football Year-Round
Jacob Ogles, jacob.ogles@srqme.com

The most ambitious effort to run an American professional football league in the spring will be launched from a corporate headquarters in Lakewood Ranch, and multiple pro teams will use the Premiere Sports Campus as a training ground. Officials with Major League Football made the announcement on Friday that Manatee County, weeks after the approval of more than $200,000 in tax incentives, will serve as home to this potential sports revolution.

Officials with the new league stress, though, that the league should not be viewed as any type of affront or competitor to the NFL. “We won’t compete with the NFL or Major League Baseball,” said Ivory Sully, MLFB executive vice president of branding and licensing. “We are not a feeder league of any type, but we are here to help develop young men and their football skills.” While not technically a sub-organization like Minor Legaue Baseball, Sully predicts the league will shepherd some players left behind in the NFL draft until they are ready for for the big time. The hope is that the league will be embraced by hardcore football plans who want to see professional football played year-round.

The MLFB will launch its first season in Spring of 2016, at which time league officials hope to have 10 teams, all owned by the league itself, in emerging markets throughout the country. At least one team will be based in Florida—in Orlando. No team will be headquartered in Manatee County, at least at first. Teams have been announced for Little Rock, Arkansas; Birmingham, Alabama; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, among other markets. 

Sully, who played in the NFL for the Tampa Bay Bucanneers in the 1985-86 season after several years with the Los Angeles Rams, said talent will be scouted among those players who did well in college but didn’t get drafted, or maybe those who did but got cut at training camp. Open tryouts will be held by teams. Sully also noted that the league would put resources toward teaching the young athletes how to properly manage their finances and their own behavior, a timely promise given high-profile controversies surrounding several NFL players in the last season. 

[Startups]  Grow The Dream Show Podcast
Jacob Ogles, jacob.ogles@srqme.com

Entrepreneurs love talking with colleagues about the nature of running a business, so why not record and broadcast those chats? That’s what the team behind the Grow The Dream podcast—Grow The Dream founder David Johnson, consultant Josh Muccio and The Thomson Group founder Rod Thomson—decided to do, and now the podcast has been ranked by Hubspot as the No. 2 “Podcast You Should Be Listening To.” SRQ got the Dream team to talk some more.

Why did a podcast seem like a good way to speak about growing businesses? Muccio: Podcasting was the right medium for helping out business owners to think more strategic with their marketing efforts.  By providing great content and bringing on top-notch guests, we’ll be able to grow our listener base over time. Though, being featured on the HubSpot blog certainly helped accelerate things. Johnson: Podcasting is undergoing a bit of a renaissance lately. Nearly all of us carry smartphones everywhere we go that have always-on internet connections. At the same time, mobile apps for discovering and listening to podcasts have improved dramatically, and the number of listeners is exploding right now. All three of us understand the value and importance of content marketing. Thomson: Our entire economy is going through a huge change, shifting to an on-demand economy characterized by the Uberization of services. In that vein, podcasts are a perfect fit. People are coming to expect to get more and more on demand, at their own timing and pace. Podcasts are a perfect vehicle for that.

What sort of preparation goes into an episode? Johnson: Each of us lives, breathes, eats and sleeps digital marketing every single day. So we prepare for the Grow The Dream Show in our day-to-day work. Questions we get asked by clients, struggles and challenges we have to overcome and campaigns we roll out that succeed or fail all inform the discussions that we have each week. We recently had Jay Baer on the show, who is at the top of the content marketing business right now. I read his New York Times bestseller, Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is about Help Not Hype, in advance of the interview to be better prepared. But all three of us had been reading his blog and had listened to some of his podcast episodes beforehand, so we were comfortable enough to just dive in and start asking questions. Thomson: We don’t often need to do a lot of prep when we tackle a specific marketing/messaging/communication issues. When we have guests, we try to be well-versed. Great guests, with large social identification, can help grow the podcast organically, so we really want to make sure it is a great show and they will want to promote it through their own channels.

Do you work to make the topic of each episode timeless?  Thomson: Evergreen content is the best for most podcasts because of varying listening habits. Many listeners, including myself, tend to binge listen to different shows, either new ones that are discovered or ones that we just have not got to for awhile. We can see that listeners do just that, as the download count on early episodes continues to climb. Muccio: We try to include principles of marketing in every episode. But we do spend some time chatting about the latest tools and other current news that affects business owners looking to grow.  Johnson: When we first got started, we made a very intentional strategic decision to avoid spending large amounts of time dealing with overly “current” topics that would have a limited shelf life. Things are constantly changing in the world of digital marketing. At the end of the day, we have to address some of the time-sensitive areas that our listeners face as business owners trying to be effective. 

Read an extended version of this interview at SRQMagazine.com

[Exec Moves]  Scott Retired From Education Foundation

Susan Scott, executive director of the Education Foundation of Sarasota County, announced her decision to retire at the end of the year.  She made the announcement at the foundation’s annual meeting on June 3. The board of directors will conduct the process to choose a successor. Scott will remain in her position until a successor is named. 

Education Foundation of Sarasota County

[Exec Moves]  Ford Leading Manatee School Support Services

Sandra Ford has been named chief support services officer for the School District of Manatee County. In her new position, Ford will oversee the school district’s departments of Transportation, Vehicle Maintenance, Capital Projects, Food and Nutrition Services and Maintenance and Operations. Director of the Manatee District’s Food and Nutrition Services Department for the last 11 years, Ford has been frequently recognized for her work, including being named Florida Director of the Year in 2009, earning the FAME Silver Spirit Award in 2000 and the Thelma Flanagan Gold Award in 1994. 

Manatee County School District

SRQ Media Group

SRQ DAILY is produced by SRQ | The Magazine. Note: The views and opinions expressed in the Saturday Perspectives Edition and in the Letters department of SRQ DAILY are those of the author(s) and do not imply endorsement by SRQ Media. Senior Editor Jacob Ogles edits the Saturday Perspective Edition, Letters and Guest Contributor columns.In the CocoTele department, SRQ DAILY is providing excerpts from news releases as a public service. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by SRQ DAILY. The views expressed by individuals are their own and their appearance in this section does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. For rates on SRQ DAILY banner advertising and sponsored content opportunities, please contact Ashley Ryan Cannon at 941-365-7702 x211 or via email

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