I Love Projects!!!

Yesterday, Brian asked me what I thought about "personal branding" and what could be a unique branding for him in his line of business. So I thought through it a bit...he works for Enterprise Rideshare, they are a economically friendly company, making them a "green" business, he has a presentation tomorrow and that would be the perfect time for a debut of his branding!!! The first thing that pops into my head is a flower, for you know, the nature thing. Then the thought process progressed from there into...let's get miniature terra cotta flower pots, buy a few 6 packs of flowers, some ribbon, a few sheets of paper and create a really cute give away for the members in the BNI group. But, they can't be just any flowers...they need to be Forget-me-Nots. Or wait...maybe a better idea would be to buy flower seed packets and staple a business card on them to hand out...a little simpler, and not so awkward. Brian, of course opted for the less maintenance and not so awkward one of the two!

Just a side note to explain where I pulled this random thought of the flowers from. BNI is a "business networking group" that meets once a week. The whole purpose of the gathering is to network (obviously) and give eachother business through referrals. When it comes time to present your company, you usually put together something to hand out...most often is a packet of boring papers to follow along with. I wanted Brian's to be memorable and unique, much like the branding idea. So, the flower for the economically friendly "green" part, for them to place on their desk at work, or to go home and plant in their garden. More specifically, a Forget-me-Not for the obvious..."remember to refer a contact to me" when you see the flower smiling back at you on your monochromatic desk! As for the seed packets, pretty much the same thing, but easier to shove in a desk drawer or briefcase.

Sounds good right? It did to me too until it came time last night to go out a buy the darn stuff! I went to 3 different places trying to find those seeds...and who knew they were so expensive. I definately had to take that into consideration when planning for 26 people! To make a long story short, Brian and I came to the conclusion that it would be more cost effective to buy the pots and flowers. Even better though is that we found biodegradable pots to put them in...which made it even cheaper. Only bummer is that we could not find that specific flower anywhere. We settled for some Blue Victoria. So, we got out of Oshe's spending $20 for 5 6packs of flowers, the biodegradable pots, and soil. Next stop...to Michael's to get brown recycled paper and some green ribbon!

Needless to say, it was a last minute adventure, but turned out to be a pretty fun, and cute, project. Brian made the tags and I planted the flowers and tied the tags around the flower stem. This is the kind of stuff that makes helping Brian out fun. Coming up with the creative ideas to give him that much more of an edge...may be a girly edge, but who doesn't like flowers? And he is now officially branded as "the green guy". Our plan from here is to purchase the Forget-me-Not flower seed packets bulk off this website that I found (americanmeadows.com). They personalize seed packets with your logo, and the name of the flower is on there! I thought that would be perfect to continue on with this theme for mixers and future networking purposes. What do you think? Anyone have any better ideas?