For years, 97th Floor employees selected charities to receive their company-sponsored donations—giving the team the opportunity to learn about new causes, find greater empathy, and gain awareness of brave organizations driving change in the world.
We wanted to extend this “tool” to the world publicly, deciding to build the first-ever charity-matching engine to connect people with causes they care about.
Users take the “Charity Quiz”—a series of questions that identify one’s philanthropic goals. For example, users can focus their efforts and donations on addressing climate change, inequality, or education—learning about organizations that tackle these issues.
It's almost time to kick off Mastermind 2024 and we're excited to see you all in Park City very soon! Below are event details, including travel info, a packing list, and agenda.
If you haven't already taken our 5-minute Mastermind Welcome Survey, please click here to fill that survey promptly.
We have prepared an in-depth agenda for Mastermind—check it out HERE. Everything kicks off with registration opening at 11am on Tuesday, November 19th and Lunch being served at 1pm.
Arrival: If you're flying in, you will be taking a Lyft ride from the Salt Lake City Airport up to Park City. Each attendee has one Lyft voucher to travel from the Salt Lake City Airport to Pendry in Park City. The Lyft pickup area is located in the middle traffic lane on the ground level outside of the terminal (follow signs as you exit the terminal). To use the voucher, make sure you have the Lyft app installed on your phone and an account created. Go to https://lyft.com/lp/97THRIDE and log in to your Lyft account to add the voucher using code 97THRIDE. You will then see a Lyft Pass called "Mastermind 2024" in your Payment section. This is only valid at the beginning of the event as people are arriving (11/18 or 11/19).
Otherwise, you can also select a ride from the airport to Park City and in they payment section, select "Add promo code" using "97THRIDE".
Departure: We have prepared shuttles to take all attendees from Park City back to the Salt Lake City Airport on the final day of Mastermind, Thursday November 21st. These shuttles will be leaving every few hours to make sure you're back to the airport in time for your flight.
Parking: If you're driving to Mastermind this year, please follow the signs to Pendry's guest parking underneath the resort.
Pendry Park City
Located in: Canyons Village at Park City
Address: 2417 W High Mountain Rd, Park City, UT 84098
When you arrive at the Pendry Resort, you should be dropped off on the west side of the resort. Members of the 97th Floor team will be roaming around and the Pendry staff will also direct you.
Each year, we create a Mastermind slack group where attendees can find all the information they need, introduce themselves, connect with other attendees, and share links to helpful resources.
We invite you to join the Slack group ahead of time by clicking here. Start by jumping into the #introductions channel to share a picture, your name, company, title, and maybe a fun fact or two!
Weather update: The forecast is looking like we might have fresh snow and the temperatures will be cold (high of 35° F), so be sure to pack a coat!
We want to make sure you’re comfortable during the event. Here’s a quick packing guide:
Indoor:
Outdoor:
Everything else should be taken care of in the way of food, lodging, materials, etc.
We're very excited to have Greg McKeown joining us as our Keynote this year—if you haven't picked up a copy of Essentialism, we highly recommend it! Here's a little more about him:
Author, Public Speaker, Leadership and Business Strategist
Greg McKeown has dedicated his professional life to uncovering counterintuitive ways to be very successful–without burning out. He has written two New York Times bestsellers, “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less”, which has sold over one million copies and “Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most”.
McKeown has spoken to hundreds of audiences as he has traveled to 40 countries around the world, including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Nike.
He’s the host of The Greg McKeown Podcast which has been ranked in the Top 5 of all Self Improvement podcasts (out of 11,000) and his work has been covered in print media including in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Time, Fast Company, Fortune, Politico, Inc., and Harvard Business Review.
Organizations, teams, and individuals have benefited from McKeown’s innovative perspective, which challenges conventional wisdom and defines how to break through to the next level of success and profitability. In a compelling way, Greg Mckeown’s Essentialism keynotes will ignite a conversation that revolutionizes the way your organizations think and work.
We're looking forward to meeting and learning from you at Mastermind this year!
97th Floor specializes in full-funnel marketing strategy combining SEO, paid media, content marketing and design services. We generate sustainable growth for well-funded startups up to the Fortune 500—including AT&T, LG, Google and Celebrity Cruises.
Operating from the intersection of creative and analytical work, we deliver the results our clients want and need, like...
The award-winning campaign (featuring sledge hammers) that won 100+ closed deals for Revver (formerly eFileCabinet) from one trade show, Increasing new users by 48% with a killer SEO strategy, cutting a 240-day sales cycle to 90 days,
A 371% increase in MoM digital sales for the Utah Jazz, and a 390% increase in referral traffic.
Our ability to generate sustainable growth for our clients is impressive, but the how is quite simple. The 97th Floor advantage all comes down to team structure.
When working with a marketing agency, you almost exclusively interface with an account manager who directs strategy.
We found that this approach leaves too much room for miscommunication and errors.
97th Floor’s approach is radically different, yet radically simple: The people who are working on an account are all on the same team, supported by off-team leadership.
With us, there’s no relay between an account manager and the marketers executing strategy.
Our digital marketing experts have direct contact with our clients—the experts on their customers' needs—empowering our teams to deliver what our clients want and their businesses need.
What matters to you - meeting revenue goals, moving new leads into the pipeline, an upcoming site migration, proving ROI - is never repeated in a haphazard game of telephone throughout the agency.
So what do these teams actually look like? Here are the savvy experts that our clients interact with on each team:
An account director has chiefly three roles:
Because account directors oversee all of our disciplines, they work with their team members to ensure that execution is meeting strategy needs.
Most agencies use an account manager to manage a client-directed strategy. A key difference at 97th Floor is that the account director, leaning on their expertise and insights, forms a strategy and then connects with the client and the team to ensure communication and execution of the strategy is clear.
You’ve heard the phrase, “content is king,” before, right?
While certainly true, this phrase spurred thousands of organizations to produce drivel for over a decade, all to the demise of good user experience online.
Short-term thinking has ruined content marketing.
The role of a content marketer at 97th Floor is to help our clients escape this monotony by crafting content based on in-depth persona research and a customer journey.
The content marketer on each team is the “true north” when it comes to the customer’s experience and buyer journey, advocating for them and providing value across every stage.
Our content marketers bring value to our clients because they:
An SEO specialist is responsible for the client’s organic growth. Every initiative an SEO specialist takes on will fall under one of these three categories.
Everything an SEO does, be it an audit, backlink, or optimization, is tied to bottom-line results—brand awareness, traffic, and most importantly, revenue.
SEO specialists who cannot defend their tactics as revenue-generating do not have a place at 97th Floor.
Our advertising specialists are a true blend of creative and analytical, responsible for knowing:
As advertising is a huge investment for both ad creation and management, our promise is to find the best way to spend your money based on who your target audience is (or should be) and what your goals are.
Last year, we ran ads across 23 different platforms based on the custom campaign strategy we crafted for each client.
To name a few, our ad specialists have robust experience in the following areas:
Clear data coupled with responsive and creative optimizations make our advertising specialists ROI machines.
Every member of our client teams is given off-team support and training, all to our client’s benefit.
Head of Content - From buyer personas, semantic research, content production, and strategy development, Rachel Bascom ensures that each content marketer has the know-how and the tools to create winning content strategies for our clients.
Head of Advertising - Haley Riemenschneider helps our ad specialists drive client results with awareness continuums, B2B buyer journeys, and customer funnels to create cutting-edge marketing campaigns across multiple ad platforms.
Head of SEO - Trent Howard keeps our SEO specialists sharp, always exploring the best tools and techniques for uncovering the best practices to bring our clients sustainable organic growth.
Head of Design - Rian Kasner’s design team delivers beautiful and functional designs on time and in a variety of styles. The diversity of 97th Floor designers ensures that each execution team can provide a wide array of design formats and styles.
Executive Director of Palomar - Palomar is a patent-pending software suite for digital marketers developed by 97th Floor. The toolset inside Palomar analyzes large mountains of data in real-time to create a clear-cut digital strategy. Executive Director of Palomar Josh Moody monitors the latest trends in keyword research, SEO analysis, and content marketing to keep building tools that help our teams make the best decisions for our clients.
VP of Client Services - Samantha Brown fills this crucial support role for our marketing teams. She makes it possible for our teams to deliver excellent work by:
Our system follows a pattern of continuous improvement, but at its core, we believe that when our clients interface directly with a team of marketers that work together daily, both 97th Floor and our clients are better for it.
For experienced marketers, the clock is ticking for the day you'll be asked to leave the comfort of familiarity behind and jump into the role of Team Leader. This step requires new skills and perspectives, and can be challenging. Paxton Gray, CEO at 97th Floor, walks through key points on how to beat your obstacles, develop trust, and ultimately create a world-class marketing team.
Marketers work with data every day, but it can be easy to forget that there are real people behind every number—we set out to find one of those people and help them out this holiday season. Check out how we did it .
Marketers crave data. It informs our decisions, helps us solve problems, and runs the world around us. But marketing data is more than numbers in a spreadsheet, an analytics report, or a list in your CRM—behind every number is a person.
For our 2022 holiday campaign, we challenged ourselves to find the real people behind the data we analyze every day, see what we could learn from them, and find a way to lift them up. Our friends and clients at ProAthlete (a hugely successful sports equipment company that owns JustBats, JustBallGloves, JustPaddles and Routine) eagerly partnered with us to make this possible.
For weeks and with the help of the ProAthlete marketing team, we crawled through ProAthlete’s data, layering it with other data sources to find a real customer we could help. In our search we combed through:
Finally we discovered the perfect candidate for this year's campaign—Chris Evans and his non-profit, named the I AM KING Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri.
We invited Chris and a few of his players to tour ProAthlete’s facility telling them we would be donating $1000 dollars to the foundation, but we had something much bigger planned—a $30,000 donation to the foundation to cover the costs of new equipment and to help contribute to the I AM KING scholarship funds.
What is the I AM KING Foundation?
Chris Evans founded the I Am King Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, “to educate, inspire and empower young men to become community leaders.”
“When my son was in kindergarten, I literally had to beg parents to bring their kids out to play baseball because everyone wanted to do football and basketball. I brought them out there and they loved it. We had a great time and decided to see how far we could take it” - Chris Evans
Each baseball season Chris invests 20-30 hours of his time weekly coaching little league teams, planning educational field trips, and developing the young men he works with into leaders. The I Am King Foundation accepts donations in an effort to “level the playing field in little league baseball.”
What is Pledge 1%?
Pledge 1% is a movement founded by leaders of Salesforce and Atlassian that encourages and empowers companies to donate 1% of their revenue to charitable and community-based causes. For years, as part of 97th Floor’s Pledge 1% commitment, we have been fortunate enough to elevate brands and people just like Chris Evans that we believe in.
Want to learn more about how 97th Floor elevates people?
Check out last year's project CharityLabs—an engine to help you find charities that match your values and interests.
If you saw photos of a bunch of marketers partying in early October, you got half the story.
97th Floor's Mastermind is an annual marketing leadership conference located in Park City, Utah. This year, from October 3-5, marketing leaders spent two days at The St. Regis Deer Valley participating in expert-led discussions on marketing strategy, listening to keynote speaker Ryan Holiday, and collaborating with peers.
There may or may not have also been a cooking challenge, some painting and hiking, and delicious food all against the stunning background of Park City’s colorful fall mountains.
We’ve pulled together 8 lessons from the bright minds of our attendees. Note that because each discussion leader took a different approach to their topic, each write-up will read a little differently. Here's what you're in for:
Brand-marketing-adverse leadership are armed with one argument: You can’t prove ROI. Sean Michael Colee-Addington and Tatiana Fabregas from NBCU dissolved this argument in their discussion on balancing brand and performance marketing.
But what about tracking? Tatiana is confident that the “data is getting there to give you the ROI" for brand marketing. Brand marketing can be measured; it’s just measured differently through awareness, education, values, introduction, and sustaining a competitive edge. Get creative and think about what other tangible metrics could be driven by brand marketing. You may not see any movement in revenue for the immediate next quarter, but you can see lift and trust that budget spent on brand marketing will pay out with increase in the future.
Asking someone to trust that a spend will pay out — without immediate proof — is exactly what every pitch comes down to. Whether it's a marketing budget conversation or a funding moment, the structure of the ask is the same: conviction, clarity, and a credible case for patience.
Daniel Nisan, startup founder with direct experience on both sides of the investor table, shares what he's learned about making that case when real money is on the line. This short video captures the mindset and mechanics behind a high-stakes pitch that actually lands.
Do This: Reevaluate what percentage of your marketing efforts are branded—if high-funnel, branded campaigns aren't receiving any budget, allocate a small portion of budget to test your ideas and establish a system for measuring value.
97th Floor’s unique team structure isn’t the only thing that makes us the best choice for our clients - it’s also the leadership values and style we practice in the company.
97th Floor CEO Paxton Gray led a discussion about how marketing leaders can develop a productive team. We’ve pulled key takeaways from those who participated.
- Carve out ownership for everyone on your team.
- Don’t take away an opportunity to learn or grow by just doing something yourself.
- When hiring, it's not about finding a culture fit, it's about finding a culture add.
- Embrace a diversity of approaches for the diversity in your team.
- When working with your team, be involved and mirror the passion of what excites them about the work.
Do this: Evaluate your team's feedback loops—how does each team member see and understand the impact they have on the company's bottom line? Build a system for more frequent and thorough feedback.
Sam Oh, Ahrefs' VP of Marketing, led a discussion about developing standard operating procedures that will:
Here's his team's internal process...for creating processes:
Keep in mind that there’s no such thing as a “perfect” system. Train your team to proactively notice blockers in your systems and propose optimizations.
A strong foundational systems that should free up individual contributors' time and attention to be more creative. Scaleable creativity comes from defined systems that get modified and improved on in documented, measurable ways.
Do this: Using Sam's flow and as a marketing team, take 15 minutes to create a documented system for one task your team performs regularly. Set a date for when you'll reevaluate and optimize that process.
Christina Garnett is Hubspot’s Principal Community Manager for Offline Community and Advocacy. Her discussion group benefited from learning Christina's 3 ingredients for turning customers into brand advocates.
Do this: Think about core memories you have with brands. What do these memories inspire you to do for your customers? Hold a brainstorm with your marketing team on how your brand can create core memories.
John Huntinghouse, VP of Marketing at TAB Bank, pulled from proprietary 2020 research to show the importance of thought leadership for decision-makers.
Here's some of the juice:
Put your content through these filters to determine if it will be valuable thought leadership for your space:
Do this: Use John's questions to evaluate your upcoming content calendar—it's not too late to pivot (or even scrap) content that doesn't meet standards.
97th Floor’s not-so-secret sauce for every campaign is an undying commitment to understand our client’s customers before we do anything else. Danny Allen, 97th Floor’s VP of Marketing, discussed how to use personas to create content. Consider this:
When things go wrong, we're not failing—we're just doing business. We're just in the middle of solving problems. In an exclusive sit-down at 97th Floor's client and partner Mastermind event, 97th Floor CEO Paxton Gray interviews Pixar Founder Ed Catmull about our relationship with the word "Failure" and what he learned from Steve Jobs.
It’s no secret that we are currently living through some uncertain times. With that in mind, I thought it would be good for me to explain to our clients our level of preparation and our status during all this. This isn’t our first recession. 97th Floor was three years old in 2008 and it turned out to be a very positive, pivotal year for us and really launched us into a steady growth mode. I often felt bad as other entrepreneurial friends would ask me if I was having to lay off people and what I was doing to survive and my message was, “I am swamped and can’t hire fast enough.” However, going through that showed me that uncertainty is certain and that we should always be prepared at 97th Floor.
97th Floor has no debt. We don’t have a board of investors that are looking to line their pockets no matter what is going on in the world. For many years now, we've operated our client fulfillment teams on a specific budget that is a percentage of what the client pays us. Most of the time our teams are able to spend a bit less than that percentage on their team payroll. Instead of the company taking that difference as additional profit over the years, we've saved and built up these "buffer budgets" to withstand sudden changes in our monthly revenue. This allows us to have "bad months" from a revenue standpoint and not have to immediately lay off team members. It gives us stability to weather small storms like a client not renewing as well as huge storms like the one the world is in right now.
Because of that, we have no plans of letting anyone go due to the economic slowdown; we have never had to “ramp up” for a big influx of new clients and we’ve never had to lay off during slower months. COVID-19 is no exception. If anything, I would say we are running better than ever because our employees feel safe and secure in their jobs which is going to have an impact on the work they are doing for you.
We have been a ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) company since 2015, so going 100% work from home was nothing more than us being sad we wouldn’t get the face-to-face interaction if we wanted to. But it’s caused no issues with workflow as we were ready and equipped. In fact, last week we issued a $250 bonus per employee (even interns) to help our teams purchase equipment to better their work from home setups and to encourage what turned out to be a $25,000 boost in the economy.
We have an extensive and proactive wellness program that includes memberships to SteadyMD, a telemedicine company, enabling our employees to have access to doctors and nurses from home to make sure their families are safe and can get prescriptions and answers to their health questions. We recently added Oura Ring to our wellness program which is now in a clinical trial to prove it can predict COVID-19 and other ailments before becoming symptomatic. These two things plus everything else is another layer of security for our employees. They are not stressed, they are weathering the storm and they feel the full support of 97th Floor behind them.
Lastly, I would like to say while I am generally an optimistic person (some would say too much), I know that these times are uncertain and things are happening which are out of your control. Rest assured that your team at 97th Floor is in full effect and will make weathering this a little more positive and optimistic by providing results for your business. I would also say I learned a lot from my clients in 2008 that saw uncertain times as an opportunity to finally pass up their competitor that always seemed out of reach. Double down on email, it’s free. SEO is very cost-effective and it will pay dividends when the searches come back. Don’t be afraid to make content; we need more positive messages that have substance. It seems like we either get doom and gloom or the family reenacting Pirates of the Caribbean ride content these days. We need more and it needs to be positive. A lot of companies were started during recessions a lot of people have figured out how to thrive during uncertain times and we need to be sharing and spreading that message.
Marketing matters more now than it ever has before. If you're curious about what to do with your marketing in this landscape, we’re here to talk. We’d love to set up some time with you and one of our team members to get some ideas going. They'll run a free audit for you and offer some guidance, no strings attached.
Over the years of building 97th Floor, the hardest decisions to make were often the ones that were best for the company but not so easy for me personally. Well, today is the hardest of those decisions in that I announced to the company in our January kick off meeting that I will be transitioning from CEO to Chairman of the Board, effective June 1, 2020.
The natural evolution of 97th Floor has brought us here. I am not the best person to take it from where it is to where I would like it to go. The funny thing is that as I started to have these thoughts about a year ago, I wasn’t nervous, I didn’t feel trepidation about it. It felt right. Of course I am sad that I won’t be as involved with the people of 97th Floor. I love them all dearly. Paxton Gray, our current EVP of Operations, will be taking my place as CEO.
Paxton is the reason I have zero hesitation or fear. He loves marketing as much as I do, and he has more than proven himself in being an invaluable leader over his 7 years as an employee at 97th Floor. Wayne Sleight, our current COO and 97th Floor’s first true employee, who will be joining me on the board in January 2021, shared a story today of Paxton’s first months at the company. Paxton was new sitting in the worst possible seat (right under the Nerf basketball hoop) as an entry level employee. He didn’t let the fact that he was new stop him from getting involved, but would hash things out with Wayne and go head to head, challenging systems, processes and expectations. He has demonstrated ownership since the first day of his career. Pax is ready, and I have 100% confidence in him that he will take 97th Floor to the next level (pun absolutely intended). He will grow the company by leaps and bounds, and he won’t do it at the expense of our clients, team members, or culture. He has already been doing it out in the open--and behind the scenes--for years.
97th Floor is so much more than a marketing company; it is a living breathing thing that marches to the beat of its own drum. It was built around one idea: always do what’s best for the client. If what we do isn’t working for the client, then what are we doing? This is at the center of everything, and it has always gauged us. It’s what drives us.
I may be wearing rose colored glasses, but I believe in the power of marketing. Marketing shapes the world, it steers our collective consciousness for better or worse, and I’ve always strived to be on the right side of that. Marketing has enabled our clients to create more jobs, open new offices, launch charities, and have give-back initiatives. Marketing affects every part of our lives--from your friend posting on Instagram about her new favorite shampoo to the billboards along the highway to politicians tweeting to justify their support of a cause--, and while that can be exhausting, it can also be exciting. I truly feel every day that 97th Floor is changing the world for the better by helping our clients and supporting our team members.
I am so blessed and so lucky to have the people I have had around me my whole life. My mother and father were the best: they always supported me in my crazy ideas that changed all the time until landing on 97th Floor. They never discouraged me. My siblings have been a huge inspiration as well. We are an annoying bunch, always analyzing products and ideas. My wife, my wife, my wife: in 2004 we had twins and we were struggling and by 2005 she supported and in fact encouraged me to take the leap: quit my job and go full-time on 97th Floor. I worked in our unfinished basement in the dead of winter with my jacket on and a little space heater. I would come up in-between naps when the boys were awake and I would head back down at night after everyone was asleep. It was like that for years before we got an office and more stability. She supported me when I had to buy diapers on a credit card because we didn’t have enough in the checking account, and she celebrated when we closed a big client. She has pushed me so hard, and she is the perfect partner as I am a hopeless optimist and she is the realist that steers me in the end. My twin boys, Cove and Braxton, who are literally my best friends: thank you for inspiring me and for thinking (or at least being good at pretending) your dad is cool. In business, no one has helped me, supported me, and challenged me more than Wayne Sleight. I started 97th Floor on my own, but we wouldn’t be a formidable business without Wayne. He is truly my business partner and best friend, and we have still got a lot left to do. Thank you for not being a “Yes Man.” There was nothing I needed more.
Over the last 15 years, 97th Floor has built the foundations of what will be a legacy. We empower our 97 team members (yes, we actually have exactly 97 employees right now. That feels like it should be a sign) through trust and autonomy; we encourage the scales to be tipped in favor of life compared to work. We launched a world class wellness program that has changed lives, and we give 1% of our gross to charities and organizations that our team members choose. We love getting to work every day, we love marketing, and most of all we love our clients. Without them, we would be nothing.
I am so excited about what the future will bring for 97th Floor. I’m excited about how this change will enable the company to grow, how it will help our employees to do amazing work, and how we will make our clients even more successful. The past fifteen years have been the best in my life, and I look forward to the next fifteen -- and even fifty -- to see 97th Floor absolutely change the world.
As each year comes to an end, we all draw our minds to what’s next.
But in the twilight between today and 2020, we at 97th Floor kick off our annual #20Helps campaign. The campaign was launched five years ago with a simple challenge: Demonstrate the positive power of money by setting aside a $20 bill for good.
We love the #20Helps campaign because it allows us to fulfill our mission of giving back. Being a Pledge 1% organization gives us many opportunities to share with our local and global community. We love that we can add #20Helps to our list of charity doings!
On the fifth year anniversary of #20Helps, we thought to tackle one of the biggest problems in today’s day and age. We thought, how can we use this campaign to connect people together?
This year, #20Helps is an invitation to connect.
As the years pass us by a $20 dollar bill doesn’t go as far as it used to. But when gifted with the love and attention that only comes through a genuine human connection, $20 can impact lives.
Here are a few ideas we thought of to make the most out of #20Helps this year:
We’d love to see what you come up with! Share your story using the hashtag #20Helps and track your impact with the #20Helps app (iOS) (Android).
Picking an agency partner is scary.
If marketing were a jungle with wild bloodthirsty beasts and treacherous weather conditions, picking the right guide would mean life or death. In a similar sense, the success of your brand — and maybe even your job — depends on picking the right marketing guide, and you’ve been burned in the past. If your agency screws up, you’re on the chopping block. It’s easy to see why you might feel tense.
You know your business well, and you know where you want to go. On the proverbial marketing journey, you wonder if it would be easier to just grab a field guide and a map and embark alone. After all, finding a good guide who is skilled and trained and knows the lay of the land takes considerable work, and you don’t have much time to spare. It may be easier to just get going; you could maybe tackle the journey on your own.
Maybe, but maybe not.
You see, you may love your business like no one else and know where you want to go, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re the one who’s most qualified to get there. Effective marketing requires more than just heart; it requires training, experience, tools, and time, all qualities possessed by an experienced guide. And that’s what you get when you bring on 97th Floor.
The world of digital marketing is a jungle, so don’t go it alone; let us be your guides.
Think of this piece as if we were sitting down with you and preparing together for your journey. Naturally, you’ll want to know what we bring to the table as your guide. Thus, this post is not meant to be a platform to boast, but rather one to help you get to know us a little better as your potential partners.
Choosing a leader to help you navigate the mysterious wilderness of marketing means having the faith that they’ll get you to your destination. Your business is precious and it takes a lot of trust to hand it over to someone else. We understand your anxiety, and we know what your brand means to you. So let us just reassure you that concern for your business is at the heart of everything we do. Digital. Marketing. Elevated — It’s more than just a cute slogan. At 97th Floor, your vision is ours, and together, we can take your business to new heights.
Without a destination, you’ll wander aimlessly through the jungle. Your desired goal is what drives us as your guide. Every company is different. Every contract should be as well. We work closely with you to clearly understand your specific pain points and desired outcomes, and together we build a customized contract with KPIs and budget laser-focused around your unique needs. Tell us your destination, and as your guide, we’ll create a map that’ll get us through the weeds to where you want to go.
Getting through the jungle is about pushing through obstacles. And in the wilderness, it’s a matter of life and death. You choose a leader knowing together you’ll make progress, and that they will safely direct you around every danger along the journey, and get you to your destination. In short, you want results, and you want to reach your goals. As your guides, our whole culture at 97th Floor is built around results. Our Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) means that every employee is held accountable to the results they achieve for clients. That’s all we focus on, because ultimately that’s what really matters. You want results, and so do we; that’s why we live and die by them. Everything we do helps achieve the results set out in the contract, but we don’t stop there. In the jungle of marketing, one success must follow another until we reach our destination.
Just as an experienced guide wouldn’t just get you to your destination alive, but rather mentor you and help you feel comfortable along the way, we go beyond simply hitting KPIs. We are your agency partner in all things digital. Whether it’s copywriting, design, SEO strategy, or anything else that might play a part in defining your digital presence, we are always available to help you find the right solutions. In addition to regular emails, we hold weekly meetings to keep you updated on everything we’re doing to get you results. Thanks to our culture of transparency and communication, you’ll never feel left out of the loop. We know the lay of the land, but we’ll help you understand it as well. At the end of our journey, you’ll emerge more seasoned and better equipped to navigate the treacherous and perplexing marketing jungles you’ll encounter in the future.
You’d never hire an untrained guide to get you through the perils of the jungle. All of our marketers are certified in Google Analytics, Hubspot Content Marketing, and Hubspot Inbound Marketing, but that’s only the beginning; they are also required to complete another marketing certification course of their choice, and are expected to remain up to date on all new advances, theories, and strategies related to digital marketing. We value education, and by evaluating trends, sharing insights, and learning the newest technologies and tools, we keep 97th Floor at the forefront of the marketing expedition.
You’ll want a guide with a proven and recognized track record of success. That’s exactly what you’ll get with 97th Floor. The proficiency of each individual employee contributes to our overall agency expertise. We’re the only agency in Utah on the Moz recommended list. We’ve been honored to receive numerous awards and accolades from business publications such as Fortune and Inc., and many of our employees have received individual recognition for their work and the results they’ve brought to clients. But even with so much recognition for the work we do, some of the awards we are most proud of relate to our culture. We’ve been featured on numerous “best place to work” lists. This gives us more than just bragging rights (and don’t get us wrong, bragging rights are pretty great), but it also enables us to retain top talent and provide our clients with the best results. When it comes to blazing trails and getting places, we’ve been through the process.
You want a guide who is a leader, not a follower. You want a guide who is organized, exceptionally knowledgeable, and mingles with other experts. We do just that. Our annual Mastermind conference brings together a speaking lineup of the industry’s best, headlined in 2018 and 2019 by author and marketing thought leader, Seth Godin. We believe that knowledge should be shared. That’s why we openly offer regular tips on advanced digital marketing tactics and technical SEO strategies. In our Mastermind Interview Series, we interview key influencers from the biggest and brightest up-and-coming brands to uncover the most groundbreaking marketing strategies. Our leaders and employees have spoken in conferences all over the world.
A good guide understands their relationship to the earth and gives it the respect and gratitude it is due. Just as the land provides him with water and food, so he gives back. We pledge 1% of our revenue to charitable causes and let each employee individually decide to which charity their portion of the funds will be allocated. We sponsor the AF Canyon Run Against Cancer and invite our clients to run with us free of charge. We run the board for the Silicon Slopes marketing chapter, and our VP of Operations sits on the board of the Utah Digital Marketing Collective. We give back to the marketing world that has given us so much.
Getting through the jungle with a guide is the experience of a lifetime. Just so, working with an agency should be an elevating experience in every way. That’s why we treat our clients to experiences that go beyond just elite-level results. The “wow” factor isn’t just something extra; it’s what drives us. In everything we do, we deliver the best. From corporate ski passes to priority access to our annual Mastermind conference, we take every available opportunity to delight our clients. After all, customer satisfaction is only the first step. At 97th Floor, we embrace the idea of an experience economy, and when it comes to how we treat our clients, “good enough” is never good enough. We’ll get you through the jungle and to your journey’s end better than you were when you started and you’ll have some unforgettable experiences along the way.
Simply put, when you take 97th Floor as your guide, something just feels different.
We spend time doing the dirty work. In the crazy jungle of marketing, we are your boots on the ground, your trailblazers in the weeds. Your vision is our vision and we will help you get there. The online marketing world is a vast and complicated one, but we will be your guides.
Let’s start our journey today!
Depending on who you ask (or which result you click in Google), the years of birth to be considered a Millennial range somewhere between 1980 and 2000. So being a proud 1986er myself, I’m perfectly qualified to chime in on what Millennials expect from work.
When I first started hearing about Millennials and their stereotypes, I figured the term referred to people much younger than myself. Teenagers. The kids that had cell phones in elementary school. The kids on Snapchat. They couldn’t be talking about my age group. I used payphones in high school, after all! And of course I didn’t pay for the payphone...like anyone my age knows, I used the Collect Call trick. (My parents received and declined a lot of phone calls from “HeymomitsWayneI’mreadypickmeup!” and I always got picked up.) I had dial-up internet in high school. And no, we didn’t pay for it...like anyone in the economic situation like I was growing up knows, I kept taking the free AOL CDs from Walmart to use the free hours, and then once that was out we’d pop in a new one with a new email address.
I was wrong, though. I am in fact a Millennial, and those “kids” are part of a new generation called Generation Z.
To be honest, for these last seven or so years, I’ve been slightly ashamed of being a Millennial. Maybe embarrassed is a better word for how I felt. Everything I read, heard, and watched made Millennials seem pretty terrible. Especially in the workplace. What Millennials expected from work was bean bag chairs, video games, snacks and a keg. Oh and don’t forget about the ping pong table. For all of that time spent having a party at work, we wanted immediate raises and promotions.
Well, I didn’t feel like I fit this narrative. Sure, I came across a handful of Millennials that matched the profile, but I was somehow lucky enough to mostly surround myself with and know Millennials like me. They didn’t expect those types of things from work, either; nor did they/we necessarily want them.
I’ve come to find out in recent years that all of that was a myth. Click bait. Attention-grabbing consultants. There were a few studies that seemed to prove those stereotypes were facts, but the research was poor. They mainly tried to show the differences between generations. Academics have looked at these so-called studies and have concluded that there have been “gross generalizations based on weak survey research, and the speculations of profit-oriented consultants should be treated with extreme caution.” A group of researchers from George Washington University and the Department of Defense concluded that “meaningful differences among generations probably do not exist in the workplace.” While there are some differences, those have more to do with age and the stages of life people are experiencing. You can read more about how Millennials don’t differ much from other generations in this great article published on Harvard Business Review by Bruce N. Pfau.
Below are results from two studies that actually show Millennials to be pretty much the same as Baby Boomers and Gen Xers when it comes to what they want out of work. While all generations were very similar, it is interesting to see Millennials cared the least about having a fun place to work. If your company is spending more attention and/or money on video games and ice cream parties than it is on trainings and education, you have a problem.
I’m no longer embarrassed to be a Millennial. We’re not much different from other generations when it comes to the things that really matter, especially in our careers. We want to do great work. We want to continue to learn. We want to add value to our companies. We want to work with great colleagues. We want to grow and take on new challenges. We want our work to positively influence our lives outside of work and vice versa.
At 97th Floor, we’re mostly made up of Millennials. We do have some Gen Xers on board, and in the past there have been other Gen Xers and even Baby Boomers. When I heard those people describe the company culture at 97th Floor as the best they’ve ever been a part of, I figured they were just Millennials at heart and were finally at a company geared towards Millennials. But over the last couple of years, I’ve realized it’s because a great company culture like the one we have at 97th Floor doesn’t only appeal to one specific generation. I believe that, now that there is more transparency (the internet in general and specifically Glassdoor), companies need to focus on company culture to stay competitive. This is a good thing, of course, and all generations are benefiting from the change.
My dad used to tell me to be my own boss when I grew up. At a young age, I figured he said that because bosses are the ones that make a lot of money. As I became a teenager and young man, I started to realize that his advice didn’t really have much to do with making a lot of money. His advice was to stay away from the typical company that controlled their employees and created a labor force of disengaged employees. We still have plenty of these types of companies today.
At 97th Floor, we essentially want people to be their own bosses. We want them to receive the benefits of being their own boss without having to deal with the accompanying downsides. To me, it comes down to giving our employees five things that most companies don’t allow them to have. That lack often leads to disengaged employees or employees who leave for a company that provides those benefits, or even start their own company. Each of these points could be the basis for a whole article in itself, but for now, I’ll just share a couple thoughts on each.
1. Autonomy
As Dan Pink teaches in his book Drive, autonomy is one of the things that truly motivates people. Traditional company cultures strip autonomy away from people. Autonomy in the workplace encompasses the employee’s time, team, task, and technique. We try our best to give each employee at 97th Floor 100% autonomy over these things. We allow people to choose the teams they want to be a part of. It’s not uncommon for teams to make offers to one employee and the employee chooses which one they want to take. This is similar to the open market, except that it is happening within our company. We also are a ROWE organization, which really helps us give employees 100% autonomy. We just demand 100% accountability in return.
The ‘time’ part of autonomy seems to be a particularly important factor for Millennials, though it’s really important for everyone. A survey by Intelligence Group found that 74% of Millennials want flexible work schedules and 88% want “work-life integration.” If you’re your own boss, you work when you want to, so long as you can achieve the necessary results.
In the same survey by Intelligence Group, 87% of Millennials said professional development was an important part of their job. From my experience, most companies do a pretty good job with helping their employees develop their knowledge and skills. However, one thing few companies do a good job at is allowing employees to expand their knowledge and skills outside of their position. As a business owner, you learn and develop skills in pretty much every facet of business. While not every employee will care to learn a lot about every part of the business, it’s important for the company to provide those opportunities for their employees. It separates the person from the position, which is a good thing. The company pays the employee for the position they fill, and at the end of the day, the company judges the employee on how they perform in that position; but the employee needs to know that they are viewed and treated as an individual and not just a role.
As a business owner, your income is 100% tied to your work. As an employee, it sometimes doesn’t feel this way. Too often, you feel like you’re taking a lot more work and not seeing more income. While it’d have to be a very dumb company or manager to not recognize a star performer and then compensate them, there is a lot of room for improvement for most companies. At 97th Floor, we have a financial structure for almost all of our employees that rewards them for their productivity and efficiency. It’s not perfect, but it’s an attempt to make employees think like business owners, and it’s helped us a lot over the last few years. We allow employees to decide if they need to hire another person on the team or if they really need that new tool. If they can be more efficient and not hire that person or buy that tool, that money comes back to the team. However, if those type of decisions hurt their productivity, that will hurt their earnings potential. So it’s a constant balance of productivity and efficiency—just like a business owner has to do. While that’s a challenge, it does give control to the employees and allows them to feel that they have a say in their compensation.
As part of our ROWE certification, we were trained to call managers (or bosses) by a new name: “Results Coach”. While we’re not perfect and you’ll still hear “manager” and “boss” being used at 97th Floor, we do a pretty good job of acting like results coaches. The basic difference is that, as results coaches, we set the results we want our team to achieve and the timeframe to achieve them. From there, we get out of their way, help when needed, and give advice. There isn’t the stereotypical boss attitude of “my way or the highway.” In the previously-mentioned survey by Intelligence Group, 72% of Millennials would like to be their own boss, but if they have to work for a boss, 79% of them would want that boss to serve as more of a coach or mentor.
Most people care about more than just money. However, many companies focus almost entirely on revenue. So when you’re an employee, there’s a good chance you’ll end up at a company where your only purpose is to drive revenue. In the Intelligence Group survey, 64% of Millennials say that making the world a better place is a priority for them. If your employees don’t feel that they are accomplishing this, they’re going to leave and find a company where they can feel that purpose. Barring that option, they’ll start their own companies so that they can be their own boss and direct the purpose of the company themselves.
