INFORMER
[2-minute meeting]
by Beth Ewen
SALO staffers meet
while walking treadmill
in workplace health push
If you?re taking a phone meeting with a salesperson at SALO LLC, the Minneapolis financial staffing firm, chances are the SALO employee will be walking a treadmill while taking your call.
Co-founders Amy Langer and John Folkestad installed the treadmills, each designed to function as a stand-up desk, in order to improve their own health and the health of their employees. Staffers can sign up for four-hour sessions on the machines, and will either do phone work with potential clients or take a walking meeting with a co-worker.
Langer says a Mayo Clinic doctor has taken interest in the company?s efforts, and is monitoring overall health indicators there such as Body Mass Index (BMI). She says it?s part of her goal to incorporate health and fitness into every aspect of the company.
Try to make it to: SALO?s treadmills are part of its bright and open offices in downtown Minneapolis, also including a game room but not including any closed offices: 612.230.7300; johnfolkestad@salollc.com; amylanger@salollc.com; www.salollc.com
Guarding reputation
is hot topic at MN
Women in Marketing
?Reputation consists of perception, how others see you.? So says Sara Gavin, president of public relations firm Weber Shandwick in the Twin Cities and keynote speaker at January?s meeting of Minnesota Women in Marketing & Communications.
Her topic: Safeguarding and recovering reputation, with emphasis on the former, because the latter is difficult and takes a long time. She believes in building a good reputation so that when something inevitably goes wrong, people will give your company the benefit of the doubt.
Companies that have successfully built a good reputation ?know the right levers to push,? Gavin says. ?You can?t do everything. Choose those levers well, and then you?ll get the halo effect.?
For example, if a company is performing well financially, the outsider thinks that things must be going well there. ?It works the other way, too,? she says.
?One of the reasons reputation management is so challenging is the large number of stakeholders,? Gavin says, citing the magnifying effect of the Internet.
What can damage reputation? ?Financial irregularities, unethical behavior, environmental violations,? among other things.
Outline all your company?s stakeholders, and all your company?s potential problem areas. ?You can get in front of these things,? Gavin says.
Try to make it to: Minnesota Women in Marketing and Communications is hosting a one-day conference called Women at Work, on April 25: www.mnwc.org
Start with clean slate
each new year, Goff
Group founder urges
Janel Goff believes that each new year should bring a reckoning, where you start with a ?clean slate.? That includes personal finance and investing. She is first vice president at the Goff Investment Group for Merrill Lynch in Minneapolis.
At her monthly ?Invest in Yourself? seminar in January, Goff shared her tips for starting off the new year.
1. Review last year?s success and failures. ?Learn from those,? she says. What can you change in 2008?
2. Budget. ?This is not about what you make. It?s about what you spend,? Goff says.
3. Identify your financial goals. ?Every day you should know what you?re saving,? and why, she says.
4. Get educated. ?Is anyone aware that we?re kind of in a volatile stock market?? she said, to laughter from the audience on one of many days marked by market plunges around the world. ?These periods of volatility are opportunities.?
5. Review all insurance coverage once a year.
6. Put your personal financial plan in place, and stay committed to investing on a monthly basis. ?The worst thing to do is cash out in a down market,? Goff says.
Try to make it to: Janel Goff, The Goff Investment Group at Merrill Lynch, holds regular ?Invest in Yourself? seminars for women: 612.349.7896; janel_goff@ml.com
Joint Dinner pre-meeting
boosts annual confab and its
beneficiary, Women?s Foundation
A public relations luncheon in January is a key factor in the success of the Joint Dinner of Women?s Professional Associations, this year slated for March 13 at 5 p.m. and again expected to sell out, organizers say.
Sponsors and potential sponsors are invited, and marketing materials in print and electronic form are distributed for all at the meeting to spread to their own mailing lists.
The multiplier effect is large, because presenting organizations such as National Association of Women Business Owners, Business and Professional Women and Financial Women International each has many members.
Faegre & Benson law firm hosted the luncheon on behalf of Minnesota Women Lawyers, one of the presenters of the annual event. Dr. Verna Cornelia Price is this year?s keynote speaker. She is president and principal consultant for J. Cameron & Associates and JCAMA Publishers.
Her talk will ?help you discover your personal power and the four kinds of people that can positively influence your life and the world,? according to promotional materials.
This year?s event has ?the most corporate sponsors ever,? says Erin Ceynar, assistant development director for Women?s Foundation of Minnesota, which receives funds raised by the event.
Women?s Foundation has $17 million in invested assets and gives away $1 million a year, says Lee Roper-Batker, president and CEO. Its mission is ?advancing equality to women and girls in Minnesota.?
She cited one of the Women?s Foundation-funded programs at St. Cloud State University in which women students mentor girls in high schools, and the high school students in turn mentor junior high gir
