{"id":521,"date":"2007-06-01T09:09:10","date_gmt":"2007-06-01T16:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/?p=521"},"modified":"2007-06-01T09:09:10","modified_gmt":"2007-06-01T16:09:10","slug":"iowa-nama-hosts-leadership-seminar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/?p=521","title":{"rendered":"Iowa NAMA Hosts Leadership Seminar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" align=\"right\" src=\"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/images\/ioaread4.jpg\" \/>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t talk about branding, you demonstrate branding,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Mike Wagner, President of White Rabbit Group, during April\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Iowa NAMA Professional Development Seminar. The Read-Ready Leadership Seminar was held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Johnston, Iowa, April 23.<\/p>\n<p>Wagner advocated the importance of a brand during the one day seminar. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Consumers have the ability, now more than ever, to exempt themselves from advertising messages. Even though you might have a strong brand, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a competitive landscape, and companies will experience change,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wagner explained.<\/p>\n<p>Dan Belzer, Marketing Manager, Vermeer Manufacturing agreed, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Being in a company who recently changed logos, it was timely and very informative.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Belzer noted, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I always enjoy learning from other industry experts about their challenges and successes within agricultural marketing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" align=\"right\" src=\"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/images\/ioaread3.jpg\" \/>Consumers will continue to sieve out what they see and hear, however emotional attachments between themselves and the brands they buy will continue to deepen. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Quality gets you into the competitive landscape, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t guarantee a sale. In the next 5 to 10 years companies that offer a commodity and differentiate themselves based upon quality alone will be bought, sold, or go out of business,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wagner predicts. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In a competitive global environment, it won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be enough to have quality as your point of sale.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Wagner advised, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Quality has now become table stakes. It just gets you into the game.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Brand-focused companies are idea rich. Your company becomes a commodity when you stop bringing good ideas to the market place. Organizational leaders have to ask themselves, if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re ready to move to an intentionally-branded culture, then the brand becomes a business decision-making tool \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the driver of your organization.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" align=\"right\" src=\"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/images\/ioaread2.jpg\" \/>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No one ever waxed a rental car,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wagner commented. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important in an organization experiencing change that your people are trained to read the moment and know what has to be done and most importantly how to keep focus on your brand purpose. Everyone needs to understand their contribution and know what you need to do. When you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have ownership, you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make decisions around the brand.<\/p>\n<p>Fernando Valdez, Ph.D., Senior Product Manager, Kemin Agri Foods North America, Inc. saw the seminar as very beneficial to his business, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This topic was presented at a very opportune time for me. Topics and seminars of this kind in the local Des Moines area and with local people make our NAMA membership very valuable.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" align=\"right\" src=\"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/images\/ioaread1.jpg\" \/>Wagner challenged leaders of organizations to prepare their people to be able to lead in any given situation, always focusing on the brand promises. NAMA members reviewed four types of read-ready personalities that make up an organization; Blue (Relationship Specialists), Gold (Achievement Specialists), Green (Process Specialists), Orange (Social Specialists). Personality styles were evaluated in an effort to help build fully-engaged teams and workforces.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We no longer live in an era of resources; we have to live in an era of resourcefulness,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d states Mike Wagner. Shannon Latham, Latham Hi-Tech Hybrids agrees, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Read-Ready Leadership program challenged me to rethink how we conduct business. Mike emphasized the importance of leading change, regardless of whether one serves on the management team. And as a result, I became motivated to lead change within my own company. I want each person on our staff to feel empowered to \u00e2\u20ac\u2122live the brand.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Our business will be so much more successful in the long run if each of us demonstrates our company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brand promise while working with others both inside and outside the organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t talk about branding, you demonstrate branding,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Mike Wagner, President of White Rabbit Group, during April\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Iowa NAMA Professional Development Seminar. The Read-Ready Leadership Seminar was held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Johnston, Iowa, April 23. Wagner advocated the importance of a brand during the one day seminar. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Consumers have the ability, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[280,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-activities","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}