Interview of Joy Gendusa

Episode Summary:

In the latest episode of the InPowered Women’s Podcast, host Sharon Lee interviews Joy Gendusa. In this episode, Joy gives insights into how the idea of PostcardMania was born, and how she was able to grow the company from a start-up, with no capital, to a behemoth of approximately 388 staff members. She delves into learning from her mistakes, especially in marketing and using that to her advantage and increasing her revenue.

Joy shares the importance of putting in the work, and not letting challenges come in the way, her natural progression from marketing to online ads, and how she was able to maintain longstanding relationships at work. Finally, she closes off by giving a piece of advice to other upcoming female leaders, and how she unplugs from work.

Insights from this episode:

• Insights into what PostcardMania is and how it was born
• Growing PostcardMania from a start-up for 26 years to a behemoth with approximately 388 staff members
• Starting as a graphic designer, Joy highlights how she built her company
• The importance of putting in the work, despite challenges that may come your way
• The importance of identifying gaps in businesses and being ahead of other entrepreneurs
• Joy Gendusa’s advice for young female leaders
• Why it is important to cultivate long-standing relationships at work
• What makes a successful postcard campaign and why postcards are important in marketing
  

Episode Transcript:

Speaker 1

Welcome to the InPower Women’s Podcast, where we tell the stories of unstoppable female leaders who excel, uplift and secure a clearer path for female leaders in the future. And I’m your host, Sharon Lee. Hi and welcome to today’s podcast. I’m Sharon Lee with Pinnacle Strategic Advisors. And before I get to my fabulous guest today, I would like to take a minute to thank our sponsor and that is Hopewell FarmsGA.com you think of them as this organic farm where you get fantastic meats and especially with the holidays coming up. But let’s talk about 2025 and a team building experience they can provide. It is world class. It provides an experienced leader as a facilitator. Hands on. It is no joke, something that you can’t get anywhere else around the state of Georgia. So book now at HopewellFarmsGA.com. You click the leadership tab at the top. And if you mention InPowered Women podcast, you can get 10% off of your spring team building. And with that, I would like to introduce my guest today.

Speaker 1

And that is Joy Gennusa with Postcard Mania. Hi Joy, how are you doing today?

Speaker 2

I’m doing great. How are you doing, Sharon?

Speaker 1

I am so fantastic and I just am so excited about today’s conversation. I love talking with female leaders and lifting them up and your story is so unique and I just can’t wait to talk about it. But first, tell everybody what Postcard Mania is. In a nutshell.

Speaker 2

It’s always hard for me to come up with a nutshell for postcard mania, but basically, Postcard Mania is a lead generation marketing company that primarily uses direct mail. However, we also use online advertising integrated with direct mail, and we grew for the last 26 years from a small startup. Me, myself and I, and now we’ve got 388 staff. We’ll do just over probably 110 million in revenue this year. It’s grown into a behemoth. Yeah, it’s hard to put it in a nutshell for me.

Speaker 1

I go back to when you’re dreaming of your dream business and that sort of thing. And so I jokingly think about, so you’re a little kid, you’re lying in your bed, you’ve got all your stuffed animals and your dolls around, and they’re just intermingled with little postcards everywhere. And you’re like, yep, I’m going to own this business down the road. So I’m guessing that’s exactly how it all started, right?

Speaker 2

I honestly had no clue what I was going to do. And I well, I did want to be an artist when I was a little girl. So when I say I had no clue, that’s not really true. When I was five years old, I decided I wanted to be an artist, and I did actually study graphic design. And that is kind of the beginning of how I started my company as a graphic designer freelancing.

Speaker 1

if I remember right, You were a very young mom, and you got the spark to not just go out and decide, hey, I’m going to provide for my family, but that I’m going to own a business that’s a unique I mean, that’s fierce, man. That’s fierce.

Speaker 2

I grew up in a house where my dad was an entrepreneur, so it wasn’t that crazy to me. In my mind, I didn’t necessarily have the traditional. I didn’t go to college. I dropped out of high school. My sister took the other path. She went to college and got her MBA in business, and she became an accountant. And now she works for me. Oh 11 I was kind of a ne’er do well. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I was serving, working in restaurants. But then, you know, once I had babies, I sort of felt like, goodness gracious, somebody’s going to have to provide for these kids, right? I was married to a guitar player teacher person at that time, and I knew it wasn’t going to be his motivation, those children to start to make money. And I didn’t want him to do something he didn’t want to do. I wanted him to be happy. So it really was me figuring out how am I going to pull this off?

Speaker 1

Going from, I’ve got to figure out how to pull this off to this multi-million dollar business. That doesn’t happen overnight. Tell me about the very beginnings. What were some of those wins where you felt like, okay, I’m putting one step in front of the next, but this is starting to work. So tell us the early days. Okay.

Speaker 2

I’ll tell you about the early days. So when I started my business, I was a freelance graphic designer. I slowly started to broker printing because I had worked in print shops and people needed to print whatever they were designing back then, because it wasn’t an online world as it is now. So I understood printing and printing was hard to know which type of printer to go to, for what type of printing you wanted, and the prices were all over the place. You couldn’t shop online and figure out who was going to give you the best deal. It was a different world. I started brokering printing and shortly after I started doing that, I realized that it was a lot easier for me to make money marking up printing than it was for me to make money charging hourly for graphic design. That’s when I went, oh goodness gracious, maybe I should hire a graphic designer. Even though I love doing it, maybe I should hire a graphic designer because I’m good at selling this printing thing. I’m good at selling, and I’m good at talking to customers, and I’m good at figuring out what they need.

Speaker 2

Maybe I should go down that path. And that’s the beginning. Beginning. I did that for a couple of years before I started Postcard Mania, which has its own story of how I came up with that.

Speaker 1

Okay, there’s this perfect segue. Tell us a little bit about you coming up with that and the name. That’s fantastic. 

Speaker 2

It’s kind of a funny story. First of all, in the back of my mind, I kept thinking, there’s got to be a way to scale what I’m doing. And the word scale didn’t exist. That word wasn’t in my mind. It was more like, yeah, how could I grow this company when I’m the one who has to think about everything? How am I supposed to train someone I couldn’t possibly afford? Someone who knew everything already? That was in my mind. And then I didn’t have a solution. But I kept thinking about it and pondering it. In the meantime, I receive promotion in the mail from a company who I don’t even know if they’re in business anymore, and it spoke to me. It was. You could order 5000 full color, super glossy postcards for $425.26 years ago, back in 1998. This was in 1998 to be able to buy 5000 full color, super glossy. Anything for $425 was unheard of. Exactly. I was like, excuse me, how do you do this?

Speaker 2

So I decided I would design a postcard for myself and promote my little business and use this company. So of course I designed a postcard. I put it on a CD. Put that CD in a Federal Express envelope. And I overnighted it to this company in New York. And when they printed out my proof, they put that proof into a Fedex envelope. Overnighted it back. When I received that proof, I pulled it out. It had their 800 number in a five point font on my design. So I pick up the phone, I call them up, and I say, hey, I sell printing, I don’t want your phone number on my design. And it was kind of like, oh, well. Clearly you didn’t read the fine print that will cost you $50 to remove.

Speaker 2

That person. And that policy at that company spurred postcard mania.

Speaker 1

I love it.

Speaker 2

I asked for a supervisor. The supervisor told me the same thing. You know, you get more with honey than vinegar. We know that as women. So I was very kind and said, hey, I really can’t afford the $50. Can you please take it off? We’ll take it off this time, but next time you’ll have to pay the $50 because you didn’t read the fine print, and now you know. Right. That customer service experience. I hung up the phone. I had like three staff. And I literally said from my office loudly, because we were in this little cottage that we rented, I said, we’re going to start a postcard company, and it’s going to be called Postcard Mania. And we’re not going to put our 800 number that we don’t have yet on our designs.

Speaker 1

So we don’t have yet. That is fantastic. Wow, what a great story. That is fantastic.

Speaker 2

Honestly, that is as fast as the name came to me. And you know, that name is like a pain in my butt now because we are not just a postcard company anymore, but because we’re nationally known. I can’t change my branding that easily, right? Postcard mania is pretty well known. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it as a marketer. 

Speaker 1

No, I had not, although I work with Hopewell Farms Georgia, and so we have talked about that before. And he was like, oh, you two need to know each other. And so there we go. But one thing that I really love about your story and your dynamic is the fact that you put your money where your mouth is, even after all of these years. Not that I want to skip over any of the middle pieces of the story. You still regularly are promoting your company through postcards every week. Talk a little bit about that because you are a testimony that it works.

Speaker 2

I really am a testimony that it works and I’m honestly so passionate about it. Sharon, I’ll get back to talk about that specifically. But twice a year we do a growth summit for our customers, and I preach, I mean preach from the pulpit about sending out direct mail and direct mail in large quantities, because it’s just been my most successful action. When I was a brand new business, I mailed a thousand postcards every week. I had a CD from Office Depot that had the yellow pages on it, and I literally pulled the largest just streets in our area. Gulf Bay Boulevard and US 19 and mailed to every single business on those streets. Of course, I learned that 7-Eleven aren’t going to call me. I write. I got better at what I was doing as time went on, but I realized that the quantity of mail that I was sending out was paramount to the quality that the sending out a lot of communication to anyone who will look at it is going to make the phones ring, and then tweaking that to make it better and better and get better and better response is the way to go.

Speaker 2

Instead of tweaking in the beginning and being so caught up in how perfect is this piece and how perfect is this mailing list, and how perfect is the message and how perfect is the offer? We’ll get there. We’ll tweak as we go. I started mailing a thousand pieces a week right away when I first started my business, and shortly thereafter I increased it to 2500 pieces per week. There was a turning point. I was sending out 2500 pieces a week for quite a while. And I don’t know about you, but have you ever had the experience or. I’ve had the experience where I feel like I’m taking three steps forward, two steps back in business. It’s going great, it’s going crappy, it’s going good again, it’s going crappy, and you’re not expanding, you’re not shrinking, but you’re not growing. And it’s just not comfortable because you’re trying so hard to grow and all that effort. So I reached that point with the 2500 pieces a week, but to double it and I got this datum out of the Hubbard management system.

Speaker 2

It’s called gross income, senior data. It basically, if I paraphrase says the size, not the quality of an organization’s mailing list and the number of mailings to it determines the gross income of that organization. This was written in the 60s. So you would think that I would have abandoned this concept at this point in time, but I have not at that time. I said to myself, okay, well, if the size of the mailing list and the number of mailings to it determines the gross income, I better double and see what happens. And I now know that it takes about 4 to 6 weeks to get somebody to convince themselves that it’s time to make a move and do direct mail. I am going to stick to 5000 pieces a week for six weeks. I’m going to bite the bullet. I’m going to spend the money on the postage. I didn’t have the money. I mean, let’s be real. I didn’t have the money. I just had to not pay somebody on time and make it go right.

Speaker 2

So I committed to it. And when I tell you I am not exaggerating, four weeks after I started mailing 5000 pieces a week, my revenue doubled. I was doing about $20,000 in revenue. My company grew pretty fast. I did 697,000, the first full year in business in 1999, and by 2000 I did 1.5 million people had no money. It was costing me a fortune. There was no profit.

Speaker 1

So it looked good on paper, though.

Speaker 2

It looked good on paper. Yeah. So I doubled and it was tough. I went from 20,000 a week to one week. We did over $50,000 in revenue and I was dumbfounded. I mean, I myself was going, oh, that really works. You have to have some faith to follow something like that and spend your hard earned money that you don’t have yet to see if it’s going to work. And I’ll tell you something. I learned such a lesson at that point that we’ve never, ever, ever skipped a week. Hurricanes, power outages, pandemics. We never skipped a week of getting the mail out. Ever.

Speaker 1

Wow, what a story. Well, you think about these outside forces, recessions and other things like that. And so I know that you will have outside advisers saying, oh, maybe you should cut back because the economy is crumbling around you and that sort of thing. And so what do you do? What do you say to these advisers? Because they know best, don’t they?

Speaker 2

That’s a funny thing that you’re bringing up because since I have no high school diploma and I never went to college, I read, you know, I was like, completely uneducated at this point. But I definitely always felt somebody knows better than I know. There were so many people that do know better than I know. To be truthful, I try never to be the smartest person in the room because I need to learn and grow, right? But I was advised to cut back on my marketing because I do spend a fortune on marketing. I was advised to cut back a little bit, and I didn’t cut back a lot, but I did cut back. It went against my better judgment, but I made a mistake. So what happened after that? Is that my numbers went down for the first time ever in 2009. So this was 2008 when I cut back at the end of 2008 and 2009, we were still cut back. And I’m watching. I mean, we watch the metrics every single week and I’m like, you know, I’m not screaming at the sales area because I don’t scream at anybody.

Speaker 2

But I’m like, come on, you guys. We need to get close percent up. I could outrun it with other efficiencies and putting my attention on other things, and I couldn’t. And we were down for the first time ever. And it was hard. It was hard because even at that point, the profit margins in print are not huge. For me to have that many staff at that time, I don’t remember how many staff I had at that time. Maybe it was 100 and something. That’s a lot of responsibility. People have families. I never miss the payroll. There is no way on God’s green earth that I could turn around and say, sorry, I can’t pay you this week. So. Yes, I made a big mistake. We cut the marketing. I did learn from that mistake. I did turn it around. And in 2010, we did have another highest ever year. We did turn it around. And I decided at that moment I do know best. I know what it took to grow this company, and I’m not going to listen to people who didn’t do what I did.

Speaker 1

Well, you know, in marketing, you have to meet people where they are. If you’re not there to meet them, either they’re going to find another alternative, which they might have. And an alternative in your situation, it could be a completely different type of media. It’s like, what’s that shiny object that’s being dangled in front of them right now? And it’s not you. And so you’ve got the double whammy. You’ve backed off. And so it just continues the cycle because you’re not there to be found in any of these industries. It’s like is there a real loyalty. And maybe there is to a certain degree over time, but with what you’re doing, where you’re blasting it out, you’re trying to find all those new faces, so it just goes away.

Speaker 2

So when the whole pandemic thing happened and people had to close their businesses, we’re a national company, right? So I was so freaked out because it took me years to build my reserves. And why did I build those reserves? I built them just in case something happened again, like in 2008, because I really never want to lay off a single person because I have this responsibility. So here we are. The whole world is shutting down. A lot of my clients gyms, restaurants all over the country are not going to be promoting the same way at this time. I again had people say to me, well, you probably should cut back on your marketing because you don’t want to lose money and you have to pay all these people. And I was like, heck no, no, let me tell you what happened. We out marketed every competitor that we have. All our competitors cut their market. So 2020 I was up 10% over 2019. The momentum was so crazy that in 2021, I was 30% over 2020.

Speaker 2

It took all these other companies all that time to catch back up to us. We had built such a momentum with our direct mail and our marketing. So I had to tell you that story because I do learn from my mistakes.

Speaker 1

But it’s a great success story and it’s something that just goes against what you make the assumption of. I love the fact that you believe wholeheartedly in what you do, and by going in full bore, it pays off. And you know, when I first met you, for whatever reason, I was thinking that you were very specific to an industry, but you are not. But can you talk about that? Because have you found more successes in some? I mean, have you thought about segmenting like that or it has been just a pure broadcast approach because that’s the way you’re going to find the best success?

Speaker 2

That’s a good question. It was a broadcast approach in the beginning. But then when we analyze who’s buying from us and who’s closing the easiest and the fastest and who’s buying the largest campaigns. We segment our marketing to reach those different industries, so there are definitely industries that spend a lot more with us. Anything in the home services is fantastic for postcard mania, anything in the home services that goes across so many different industries, from remodeling companies to roofers, furniture, all of those industries. Real estate is a great industry depending on what’s happening in the world and interest rates, because in 2008, most of our business, or 46% of our business, was mortgage brokers mortgage. When that went away, I had to diversify quite a bit. So that was a long time ago. Now there’s many different industries. We have experts in so many different industries. It’s segmented within postcard mania, so that if you are in real estate or if you’re in the home services, you’ll speak to someone who is an expert at that.

Speaker 1

Oh, okay. That’s fantastic. I gotta get into the secret sauce a little bit. Let’s take an industry like home improvement. If somebody new to advertising or specifically to this type of marketing, what would you say that secret sauce is what needs to be on that post card. Because, you know, so many people try to throw up everything they know because you have to cover every little thing and you don’t. But what would you say makes for the most effective where that person that receives it will actually take a look.

Speaker 2

So there are some very specific things. We’ve treated this like a science at Postcard Mania. I can send you the PDF if you’re interested in it, but there are 13 different successful elements that will make up a successful postcard campaign. They are really workable for any industry. You would have to determine how they would change a little bit as the graphic designer, which we train our graphic designers. But just to give you some specifics on it, you need a really good headline that immediately communicates either what the product or service is or what the biggest benefit. What problem does it solve for the recipient? So your headline has to be short to the point and be one of those two things. Period. Don’t get too clever. Look, if you can be clever and have a short headline that says exactly what the product or service is phenomenal. If you can be funny, phenomenal, but really simple on the headline, you have to have a graphic that backs up that image, instantaneous in the person’s mind.

Speaker 2

The recipient has to look at it and without thinking, know exactly what you sell and why they want to continue looking at that postcard. You have to have a call to action. People like to be told what to do. Yes. So instead of just having your phone number or your URL or a QR code, tell them scan here. Call this number. Ask to speak to so-and-so. Tell them what to do. Do not make them search around the card for your contact information. The call to action should be in a bright, non-matching color that drags the eye involuntarily to that call to action. I mean, I can speak about this all day long, girlfriend, I love it, I love it.

Speaker 1

You’re in my little space right now, so I’m seeing it.

Speaker 2

So the call to action is so important. And clients get really mad when my designers make it hot pink. But we just try to explain to them, we want people to call that number. We want people to scan that QR code. So the front of the postcard starts a communication. There has to be something that gets your attention. It has to be esthetic. So they see the postcard, they see the headline, they get the message instantly. And the purpose of that is to get them to turn over the postcard. So it starts a communication with them. The back of the postcard sort of continues that communication. So you need a subhead that answers the next question that the person would have in their mind. And then you really just want to have some bullets of benefits, stay away from features as much as you can and just have benefits there. What’s in it for the recipient? What’s in it for them? When clients want to put like this new equipment they got or give you some examples.

Speaker 2

I don’t know the names of the equipment, but especially in like the esthetic surgery or dentistry, there’s always new equipment and they want to put the names of these equipment. Nobody knows the names of your equipment. They’re not interested in that.

Speaker 1

And people are scared enough of the dentist. No, no. Thank you. Just show me a pretty smile, that’s all. It’s a pretty smile.

Speaker 2

And benefits. To give an example, if a practice has seven doctors, that would be a feature. But that we have office hours late at night and on the weekends is the benefit that you want to put there. So you want to have some bulleted benefits. Keep it really simple. Do not try to close the sale on a postcard. The whole point of a postcard is to get somebody to reach so that you can collect the identity of that person and follow up with them for the rest of their lives until they close. Right.

Speaker 1

It’s a process. This is a date. It’s not marriage.

Speaker 2

That’s right. So I hope that answered the question for you.

Speaker 1

You have the perfect answer. And you actually answered one of the questions within my question. So very good job. But now you are not 100% postcards anymore. You have branched out into other areas. Tell me, at what point in the business did you see that need? And then tell me what those areas are.

Speaker 2

Well, one of my successful actions as an entrepreneur, I would say, is staying one step ahead of other people in my industry. One of the things that I noticed with printers, quote unquote, was printers are slow to change. And I realized that if people are going to start using these other marketing techniques, that I better start offering these other marketing techniques. So I’m a marketer, not a printer, but I’m a printer because I own printing equipment. You can think that I’m a printer, but I’m really not. I started out just solely as a marketer, and marketing is very different than the vehicle. It’s the whole concept of getting your message out there. So it was kind of a natural progression for me to start offering online ads. And because my purpose is to help small business owners and to really look at it as the whole small business ecosystem and what that does for the United States of America, that is the backbone of the American economy. And I feel very, very passionate about helping small business owners, one small business at a time, get them to have success with their marketing.

Speaker 2

So they have to hire just one more person to help them deliver their goods and services. And if you do that on a broad scale, you can actually make a difference. And when you have a strong purpose that drives you to make change and do what you need to do. Does that answer the question? Because I feel like I went off on a tangent a little bit. 

Speaker 1

No, I think it did. And it actually helps to segue into another question that I have, because I do want to talk about leadership. And before we get into that, I’d really like to put you on the pedestal of being a female leader, because again, that’s what this podcast is about. If you have that female out there that’s either thinking about becoming an entrepreneur or thinking about changing something in their life. What kind of advice do you give? You’ve been through it, so I’m sure you have some points you might want to throw out.

Speaker 2

Oh goodness. If I’m going to give advice, I would give advice about attitude.

Speaker 1

Oh, I like it.

Speaker 2

I would give advice about starting your day no matter what mood you’re in, when you roll out of that bed, if your coffee tastes like crap and your kid is having a tantrum and you just had a big fight with whoever you’re married to. At the moment, though in my case, the way you approach that and the rest of your day is going to also determine your success for that day. So my advice is to check yourself before starting your day with your employees, with your clients, with yourself, and change your attitude, because that is in your control. How you respond to BS and upset is in your control. The more positive you can be about everything. I mean, think about Farmer Phil. Do we love Farmer Phil?

Speaker 1

Awesome.

Speaker 2

He is the most.

Speaker 1

Positive.

Speaker 2

Wonderful human being, and he is going to be successful at whatever he does because of that attitude. To my girlfriends out there that don’t know me, be good to yourself, but also stay positive.

Speaker 1

Well, so that is a great segue into leadership. And one aspect of leadership is creating that culture of loyalty. We were talking prior to recording about some of your executive folks around you, and how long they have been with you. So number one, that’s a testimony to the culture that you have built and the leader that you are. But you tell me your thoughts on leadership and what you’ve done to cultivate those long standing relationships. 

Speaker 2

When I started my business, I had no clue that I had leadership skills. I never took any courses on leadership. I didn’t honestly ever even read any books about leadership. If I really look at it, if I’m looking back at 26 years ago, it actually is caring about each individual so hardcore that you hire. First of all, I’m really good at hiring. I’m really freaking good at picking people. So that’s also something I had no idea I had a skill set in. However, first and foremost is picking the right person. So if we look at Melissa Bradshaw, who is the president of Postcard Mania, she started working for me when she was 19 years old. She is 46 this month. And when I look at how I mentored her, it was really how much I loved her and how much I care for her as a being and wanting her to succeed, and also trusting in her that she could do a good job, needing to trust her to do a good job, or we would not be able to move on to the next thing.

Speaker 2

Right. So I had such a good, successful journey with her that when I brought on the next person. I cultivated those successful actions that I put in with her and moved on to the next person. So it’s really caring about the person so much that they succeed, and they want to do whatever you need them to do.

Speaker 1

So what do you tell that person that feels like they have to micromanage that person that says, okay, I’m a leader and I’m going to go take vacation next week, but I’m not going to tell any of my employees that I’m going to go because they may not work as hard without me there. You’ve got those types of thoughts that micromanagement, you can’t loosen any of those reins. What do you say to that person?

Speaker 2

I am super not a micromanager at all. And I can say that what I realized is that as much as you want to have them do it exactly the way you would do it, it is more valuable to you as a business owner to have someone that will take full ownership of a position. If you take away that ownership and you keep correcting them, they will never be as good as they can be. That’s exactly right. They just won’t. And by giving them that autonomy and allowing them to make mistakes, I’ll give you a story. I had this gal, Jill, and she did work for me for 18 years, and I think she regrets not working for me anymore. However, she was so young when she came to work at Postcard Mania that the grass looked greener over there after 18 years, and I think she wishes she’d never left. But anyway, lovely girl. And when she first started out running our production, she made a big mistake and it cost me $5,000. And this was early on.

Speaker 2

I had to repay the postage and everything. I had to redo the whole campaign. She mailed this company’s cards to this company’s list. I mean, what a disaster. Ouch, ouch. Now that girl was beating herself up so hardcore. And as a woman and a mom, I couldn’t get mad at her. She was mad enough at herself. So why would I turn around and be like, you messed up and you did this and you did that. I said, okay, let’s figure out where we messed up and what policy is that we need to put in so that we don’t make that mistake again. And I kind of allowed her and the others in the area to fix the problem. Right. The policy. I didn’t come down on her. I didn’t have a conversation with her. I had a conversation only with her senior and said, I do not want this girl killed herself up. It happens. That story, it could have gone another way, and I don’t think it would have had her for 18 years.

Speaker 1

There used to be a program, a leadership program called TQM, Total Quality Management, and it was such a revolutionary thing because it did take the leaders to step back and say, the people doing the job need to write the rules, and it doesn’t mean that the leader doesn’t have a say in it. So it’s interesting that you took that concept without even realizing that was that concept. And it absolutely works because they own that she’s better for it, because every time you beat that person down, they don’t want to make another decision.

Speaker 2

They don’t want to make a mistake again. They don’t want to make a decision again.

Speaker 1

So you empowered her, and therefore you’re smart about the things that she’s doing. But she’s growing and that’s really fantastic. So this is a random question, but you said you have 300 plus employees. Is that right? 388 right now. 88. Almost four. So what would you say is the percentage of male to female?

Speaker 2

Oh gosh, I have no clue. I would say it’s probably 50 – 50. I’m not sure. We have a lot of women in leadership positions.

Speaker 1

So I was picking up on that. So I was wondering if that was throughout the whole company.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I mean, it’s funny, it used to be very female heavy in the beginning, but it’s not anymore. It’s kind of like the population at this point. So I would say in leadership positions, I have Melissa Bradshaw as the president of my company. My chief marketing officer is a woman. My chief experience officer is a woman. There are 21 executives from VP or above at Postcard Mania. And I’d have to like, literally write their names and tell you how many women. But I think it’s probably more women. Maybe it’s half and half. I’d have to look.

Speaker 1

Well, so I feel like in most marketing organizations, you have this culture and a spirit of a little bit on the fun side, because you do usually have creatives. So what do you do to keep everybody engaged? You know, Farmer Phil’s selling team building. Like what are some of those things? And with 400 employees, it’s hard to say. Well, let’s all go on a retreat. What do you do to keep them engaged?

Speaker 2

You do have such good questions! You clearly have talked to so many business owners. Okay. We have an internal PR director.

Speaker 1

I love that.

Speaker 2

We have a full salary to someone that basically keeps it fun. At Postcard Mania, we have cooking contests and bake offs and costume days and we do so much philanthropy. Once a month we go help a charity. We go out there on my dime during the workweek and go help at the Pet adoption place, and who did the nursing home and hang out with the elderly people and so many different things we’ve built. What is that organization that builds the houses for people? Oh, habitat? Yes, habitat for humanity. So keeping the culture was so important to us because as a really tiny company, we did it naturally. We were a handful of girls. We wanted to keep our street clean. So we found in the city they put up these signs that I saw that such and such company is keeping this street clean. I said, oh, we could do that on our street, and we can go out and have a sign, because when you’re a marketer, you just think of these things.

Speaker 2

You just think of these things. We did that early on, and as we grew, I really had to put certain things in place because I couldn’t do it myself anymore. And so that’s how we handled it.

Speaker 1

Well, I was thinking about that when you said you have a chief experience officer, and so I wondered if that was an internal thing or if it was an external thing. So what is the difference there? What does that person do with the external group?

Speaker 2

The chief experience officer is basically taking responsibility for the customer journey and the customer experience across reception to our extranet site, which is our dashboard to show your campaign from start to finish. The UI in that and every aspect of the customer journey, is that.

Speaker 1

Very customized, or is that something that she kind of has a framework? I say she I’m assuming she that she works within and tries to say, okay, well, this is part of this block and this is part of this block, but it could be a little bit different. That is a fascinating topic to me.

Speaker 2

It’s a really fascinating topic to me too. She’s worked for me for 15 years. It’s such an interesting role. I don’t know if I could even have somebody off the street do this job, because you have to know everything about postcard mania. And when you grow a company from scratch, there’s so many intricacies. And so she was promoted mainly for our dashboard. My postcard Mania.com is the dashboard site. And when I promoted her, I was like, okay, this thing is a shit show. Excuse me? There’s a lot of things that I don’t like about it as a customer from my viewpoint, but I didn’t have the time to go through everything, and the person who was building it didn’t have like, gooey experience, you know, graphic user interface experience for your listeners. So do I hire a person who’s an expert at that? And then they have to learn every single thing about postcard mania to be able to do a good job. Or do I promote somebody from within who I already know is super freaking smart and would love her to pieces already?

Speaker 2

This person was going to be my junior, and if you’re going to work for me directly, I have to love you from the top of your head.

Speaker 1

Well, you know, it’s interesting because I had a company approach me about facilitating their experience journey and sitting around their table. It was things like, well, should we take clients to Braves games? And it’s like, well, you know, sure. But if you’re actually trying to get them to give you feedback, are you going to sit there with them and take notes while you’re watching a Braves game? I mean, I think that you kind of missed the mark there a little bit. And so I had several conversations with the president of their company about those sorts of things. But he kept saying they keep going around and around. But I think that’s right. I think it’s great that she knows your company so inside and out and can kind of guide them, but she’s not part of theirs so that she can be that external person that can see their business from the outside.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I mean, she’s not doing it for their business. We’re not offering that as a service.

Speaker 1

No, I misunderstood that. 

Speaker 2

No, she’s doing it for postcard mania. 

Speaker 1

So your customers are having a good experience.

Speaker 2

Right? So she’s more like blind shopping all my competitors and finding out what you like about them and hate about them. And then looking at the experience that my customer is going to have when they pick up the phone and they call us and they talk to a receptionist, and what does that receptionist say and how long are they on hold? All of the experiences that they have. Every part of that is the marketing journey from taking them from lead to customer. And so that’s why I have her full time.

Speaker 1

It’s so funny because you think about the postcard is usually a piece of your marketing mix, and the fact that you all are taking something like that and making it an experience, that you’re making it bigger, that just shows why you’re growing and it shows why people would be coming back for repeat business. Because, you know, it’s one thing for them to get leads out of something, but for them to really understand why it works and for you to work through that with them. I just love that you’re taking so many of these things all the way to the nth degree, and that is just not the case. People aren’t taking any time with me. We’re in an ADD society, you know, it’s bullet points, baby. You don’t, you don’t, you don’t go into those details. So kudos to you for creating such a culture for that.

Speaker 2

Thank you, I appreciate that. I appreciate your appreciation because it does take quite a lot of intention care factor from my perspective. And then taking the leap of putting a full time person on a position, paying them quite the salary. Right. Hoping that you’re going to get the ROI from that salary. How do I calculate and track if I’m getting ROI from that salary? I mean, I’m like one of these very type A personalities. Like I’m very detail oriented. So I just appreciate that you appreciate it.

Speaker 1

100%. 100%. Well, I think that this is a good time to segue into, but you’d like to talk to you all day long into closing this up a little bit. You are so driven and so type A and that sort of thing. How do you unplug? How do you just go have fun?

Speaker 2

I definitely like to have fun. I definitely work like a crazy person for several months or weeks, and then I just turn it off. At this point in my career, I did take a year off once and I can if I want to, and it looks so nice in that year.

Speaker 1

I’ve got to know. Did you travel the world or what did you do? 

Speaker 2

I was on a Spiritual journey during that year and it was just for me to grow as a being. And I did that with my church. I was able to rely on my incredible leaders and executive team during that year. And, you know, I missed my company. So I would go sometimes at 4:00 or 5:00. Towards the end of the day, I would show up at the office and walk around and be like, hey, hi everybody. Because I did miss one, but I didn’t have to work. I did that for a year. I also really, really, really loved to cook. And I’m obsessed with organic farming or regenerative farming and the source of foods and health and taking care of myself and learning all about that stuff. So cooking is really the time that I can super unwind, slow down, enjoy chopping. I mean, I’m so into it.

Speaker 1

So what’s your favorite dish? If you were going to say, okay, you know, I really want to impress this person, that you don’t have a favorite dish, huh?

Speaker 2

I don’t have a favorite dish. I’ll tell you something. I made this apple cake. I don’t know, last time I was in Georgia. So I’m friends with my lake neighbors up here, and I made this apple cake where I sliced the apples like, super, super thin on a mandolin and it was almost like a custard cake. And I baked it in the oven. I don’t know where that recipe is. I didn’t even remember that I made that cake. My girlfriend said, let’s have the apple cake again. And I went, what apple cake? I don’t even remember. I’m in full create mode on it. It’s like my art. I just find a recipe, I start playing with it, and then once it’s delicious, I’m done.

Speaker 1

Okay, so you’re one of those people that works out of both sides of the brains that likes to bake and cook.

Speaker 2

I do, I like to bake and cook. I went through my little sourdough phase. Yeah, but I really do love to cook. For instance, my neighbors are coming over tomorrow for dinner, and I remember that I made this pasta chicken dish for my husband. I don’t remember exactly what I made. I really had to dig deep to remember, but I just got really excited. I’m going to make homemade pesto. I bought all the ingredients today.

Speaker 1

I’ll be right there tonight.

Speaker 2

It’s going to be yummy. That’s tomorrow. So I’ll have to cut off work tomorrow at like 4:00 so I can start on everything and just kind of stop. You know, it’s hard, but I can do it.

Speaker 1

Oh, well, I love it. Well, on that note, if somebody does want to reach out to you, are you accessible or how would someone reach you?

Speaker 2

I am very accessible. I love to hear from small business owners because I’m so passionate about helping and having them do well. Sometimes when I do a podcast, if you have a lot of reach, my email gets a little clogged up, but I will answer every single person myself. My email address is Joy Mendoza at Postcard Mania.com. I also have some giveaways for your listeners, if you’re cool with that. I did write a book. It’s called Postcard Marketing in an Online World, and you can get it by going to postcard Media.com slash podcast. If any of your listeners would like free samples of postcards, if they’re considering doing postcard marketing, we can send you like a really nice info pack that has postcards specifically for your industry, and that URL would be postcard.com/free samples.

Speaker 1

Very good job. Jessica will be so proud of you for getting all that.

Speaker 2

Well there’s more, there’s more. We have a call tracking phone number so that if somebody calls us from this podcast, we will know exactly which Marketing Avenue created that lead. And so that call tracking number is (855) 980-5492.

Speaker 1

Excellent. So I challenge everyone to blow that number up tomorrow. But we are going to put links to all of that in the show notes. So it’s not hard to find. And you don’t have to remember any of that stuff. So just look it up on the website and you can have access to Joy and all of her team. Enjoy. Oh my gosh, how serendipitous that you and I were on Phil’s podcast back to back. So we just happened to meet in studio while we were doing this. And then he did an intro afterward and we were just wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, and here you are on mine. And so I love that story. I have loved this conversation. I’ve loved getting to know you. So I can’t thank you enough for spending this hour with me and having a good time.

Speaker 2

Well, you are absolutely delightful. Sharon and I enjoyed myself just as much as you did, I’m sure.

Speaker 1

Fantastic. Well, next time you’re in Georgia, let me know. We’ll maybe have a little cooking class together and have some fun.

Speaker 2

That sounds great.

Speaker 1

Thank you for listening to InPowered Women. If you like what you heard, please give us a five star review and subscribe to the show. Wherever you listen to your podcast and share with those you think can benefit from this information, please email all questions, suggestions and compliments to Sharon at PinnacleStrategicAdvisors.net. The InPowered Women podcast is produced by the Podcast Laundry Production Company and executive produced by Sharon Lee.

Thank you to this episode’s sponsor, Hopewell Farms Georgia: Hopewell Farms.