Ways to Stay Recharged in an Inbound World
At Upright, we are constantly coming up with new ideas for clients and bouncing ideas around internally. Being in the inbound marketing business means we need to be attracting new visitors all the time. I myself for instance need to constantly stay vigilant on campaigns and make sure offers are delivered on time. I think everyone today can understand that type of pressure and workload. So how do you relax when you know the work will go on tomorrow? Well, at Upright, we’ve initiated some pretty fun ways to build community, friendship, and a frank openness among ourselves.
Donuts
Our Inbound Marketing Fuel
The philosophy of the donut is something many of us can understand. Its rich sweetness, fluffy texture, and all-around “I know it’s bad for me” fun, truly makes donuts a great way to refresh. I’m even eating my favorite donut as I write this post… it’s a Maple Bacon Blueberry Cake donut from Holtman’s donuts in Cincinnati! How do donuts fuel our fire? First of all, the best part about coming in the door with donuts is that everyone’s going to have a smile. Then we use the time we enjoy them as an opportunity to talk. When you’re running inbound campaigns, teamwork is crucial. These little moments make a big difference to open conversations at the office. Not to mention that wonderful sugar rush before the coffee kicks in!
Ping-Pong
Team Building at its Best
Almost two years ago we got a little Christmas present from Colleen, our awesome team building inspiring co-worker, which would turn our conference room table into a ping-pong table. The little kit we used was very fun despite the awkwardness of being attached to our oval conference room table. Not the easiest table to play on when you have no corners! Before long, almost every day after work all of us went into that conference room to play single and double matches. We started using this time as a creative work process, and would literally bounce ideas off each other as we played. It improved our team’s morale and communication so much that we went out and bought a professional table and paddles! Sometimes we will all stay at the office for more than an hour after the end of the day. If that’s not inspiring you to look into team building fun, I don’t know what would!
Darts
Our Latest Experiment
Stay on Target… Stay on Target
When working on any marketing campaign staying on target and hitting your goals is key. So Colleen thought, ‘Let’s try darts… everyone else uses that analogy. so let’s do it for real.’ and purchased the team a very nice dart board. The men of the office decided to construct a plywood mounting base for the board to protect the wall from the damage of errant shots. We proved to ourselves that we are in the internet business for a reason. We didn’t build the prettiest thing in the world, but the experience was great to get us out of our element to plan something different. Now we have mini dart meetings to chuck a few ideas around and see what sticks. Also, at the end of the day we can now choose between darts and ping-pong which has given us just one more way to unwind. I think this one is going to be a great success as well.
So, how does everyone else team build? I would love to hear your thought and ideas. Feel free to email me at Jacob@walkupright.com or take the conversation to twitter or facebook.