The Business of Giving

Kevin Krall 0:00
You're listening to special programming sponsored by the cars marketing Chamber of Commerce. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Speaker 1 0:25
What's wrong with the world Maamar people live in the whole world. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the business of giving podcast. My name is Guy Dawson and I am the Executive Director of the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. And our organization sponsors this show to bring greater recognition to cause marketing and to feature worthy businesses and nonprofit organizations. And really quickly I'll share with you what the mission is of the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. The CMC see ignites opportunities between businesses and nonprofits for the purpose of benefiting our members and the communities we serve. Our vision is a world where social responsibility is the new bottom line, and the values of the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce, our integrity, unity, community engagement and professionalism. And a little over six months ago, we began to partner with 91.5 FM, K, u and v here in Las Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada to broadcast this show. And it's it's been a wonderful experience, we've really greatly appreciated the opportunity to share the merits of what we're doing at the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. It's an organization a 501, C six nonprofit organization that we developed to, again, to build two of the biggest pillars in the community that are often underrated. I think that the contributions that businesses make to communities and the contributions that nonprofit organizations make to communities are not recognized nearly as much as they should be in with our particular organization. We bring both of these entities together, to strengthen them to enable them to work together to build relationships that inevitably, will bring more recognition to each and again, we were just so thrilled to have an opportunity to to get the word out via radio, one of the greatest platforms of all time, I personally, started in radio back in 2011, I started hosting my first radio show, and it's through the years I've been in broadcasting a little over a decade now. And I have found this to be one of the greatest platforms to reach your community. And again, our partnership with KU envy is something that we are enjoying greatly. I have two guests on the show today. My first guest is a friend of mine, he's a part of, of a group that I'm in that helps people to become better CEOs of companies and Jim Redding owns a company called aroma retail. So those of you out there who've been to casinos or have been to some of the businesses around town, you know that sometimes you walk into that business and it just smells great. You don't know why it smells great. It's because someone like Jim has created great products that enable you to be connect with that business to the way that it smells. And he's also a huge giver, someone who contribute to to the community as well. And I thought he'd be the perfect guest to have on the business of giving Show. Welcome, Jim.

Unknown Speaker 3:35
Thank you guy, I'm thrilled to be part of this role

Speaker 1 3:38
more retail is the name of your business. Will you tell us about how you got it started?

Speaker 2 3:45
Sure, yeah. For four years I was developing the the fragrances that are used at the resorts and we we decided to create a company aroma. retail.com is the website where we could take those same pure grade fragrance oils and the same types of devices used to scent world class resorts and make them available to the public. So you know, most of our business comes from people that are at a resort and they'll they'll look at their phone and say what is the center at this hotel and more often than not, it'll bring them to our website.

Speaker 1 4:29
I had a chance to stop by Jim's office today actually, for the first time the whole operations of the company and it was just a fascinating experience Jim seeing from end to end how you literally take concepts of what things should smell like and and package it and market it and what uh, what is it been like putting all that together? There's a lot of pieces that go to the puzzle in order to be able to deliver those great sense to the businesses and that you work with

Speaker 2 5:01
absolutely no, that's a good question guy in there, there are a lot of pieces. I mean, when it when it comes to the scent itself, you know, we start with the, with essential oils and different ingredients and develop a combination that smells the way we want it to smell. Because when we're developing this, and we're considering the customer and what what is their brand, who is their target demographic, their space, what's the design, what's the best way to complete that, that design. And so we start, we start with a blend of essential oils, and then we, we have to go back and remove the volatile organic compounds from that blend, because, you know, essential oils are great, they've got great medicinal qualities. But you don't want to diffuse them in a space where you might have a guest that that has an allergic reaction to something and that's what the resorts have to do. It's one of the one of the ways our Fragrance Oil is is unique. So we removed the volatile organic compounds, so it's impossible to have an allergic reaction to it. And that's quite a process because sometimes you'll remove a volatile compound, and then it smells different. So you got to go look at ingredients again and back and forth. And then after we, we have a recipe that works, we, we build it up and it it takes time. You know, it takes a good month to properly drip, a good usable quantity and let it macerate the right amount of time and all that other stuff. But once it's there, off we go. And here at aroma retail, we're we have a you came to this smelly bar, it's on Valley View between Trump and Russell. And here we do everything we we start with that fragrance oil, and we hand pour the fragrance oils that are used in our machines. And we also hand pour candles and read diffusers, room sprays, linen sprays, and wax melts. And we do it all ourselves using different recipes depending on what the product is. The smelly

Speaker 1 7:11
bar is one of the great features when you visit that office gym, I had the opportunity to smell so many different scents and be that that in itself, even if you just went to visit, aroma retail for the smelly bar aspect, I think that that would be really impressive. And how do you create all the distinctions? In the many bottles of scents that you have? I know you touched on it, is it sort of like a chemistry lab?

Speaker 2 7:40
It is yeah, it's just a, you know, honestly, it starts with a beaker and pipettes you know and you start just dripping different combinations until you get close. And then and then you you do have to take a more more measured approach once you get in the neighborhood to really dial it in. I noticed when you smelled bookstore, that was when you had the biggest reaction. And so you know, that's a good example where I wanted my my bookstore sent to have all the components of an old school bookstore with you know, the leather bound books, the glue that you find in the, in the stem of books and the pulp from the old pages and the wood from the bookshelves, you name it. And you know where you got to dial it in is, is you have components, like the floral component of the glue that goes in the spine of a book that could take over the whole party if you let it you know. And so, you know, you let it macerate and you find out something got too strong and you gotta go back to the drawing board. But, you know, honestly, it's, it's one of the funnest parts of my my job is just playing with that. And I have to admit, oftentimes, I'll be going one direction, and then it'll macerate and change just a little bit and I'll be like, Oh, that's even better. You know, but, but yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 8:56
I think we associate certain smells with things throughout our lives. I know me, it's like I go by go visit my mother and I walk in and she's she fries chicken and she does like the greatest fried chicken you've ever had. And I mean, I have an immediate connection, you know, going back to being a little kid and smelling smelling that particular smell. There's so many others that I could talk about. But when I go into these places, and you know their sense there, but it's always so subtle, how are you able to, to engineer it so that we get the smells but that there are subtle as they are?

Speaker 2 9:32
Well that is by design. You know, I am a firm believer that environmental scent incenting should be subtle, you should look for an ambient solution, not a punch in the nose. Because, you know when people walk into a space and you smell you know, a pine Pine Sol or you know something like that you're thinking okay, what are you guys trying to cover up? You know what I mean? And that's why That's That's one of the reasons we're, we're pretty popular in environmental sensing is because we stay away from those, those five to seven common fragrances that you find as mass market solutions, you know, we're not we're not going to do a cherry bomb or lemon or something like that, you know, I mean, we have we have like the lemon ginger that Nobu uses in their in their hotels and spas, and no booze, lemon, ginger, it's a very complex blend, where the ginger is just as powerful as the lemon and you got about a dozen other ingredients as well. So it smells very deep and luxurious. And it is very powerful. So you don't have to diffuse a lot of it just to dial in that ambient scent.

Speaker 1 10:45
Yeah, really interesting. The process again, I thoroughly enjoyed my field trip, Jim. And one other thing, one of the reasons why I wanted you to come on the business of giving show today is that along with running this very successful business, that you've grown in a relatively short period of time, you're also big, in wanting to give back to your community and giving I know that you have been a pivotal part of a nonprofit organization, would you like to talk about that that organization?

Speaker 2 11:14
Sure, I would, you know, before I do, though, I wanted to tell you, you know, at aroma retail, we we have a very mixed bag of of charities, and we and we move around depending on what's going on in the market, and in our communities at a given time. Basically, who needs the most help and when, and I have to say, you know, so far most of our giving has gone to three square, and I just want to give them a shout out what a what a great organization, you know, when and one of one of my favorite givings that we did was, was during the pandemic, when three square identified the schoolchildren that had been relying on lunches for their main meal of the day. And we got together and we, we, we we went heavy, huge percentage of sales we push to feed as many of those kids as possible. And you know, later to find out that that you've said something like 75,000 kids or whatever it was for a period of a few months. I mean, I know I know, that's not a complete solution. But boy, I gotta tell you, I never felt better about anything in my life when it came to charity. But then, as far as you know, my charity of course, I'm biased. I am I am the Chairman of love the sea website is love the sea.org. And that charity we started, I don't even remember when I won't waste your time. But basically, we were helping to address this situation of of garbage in the ocean, particularly plastic and anything that floats. My wife and I we like to sail and we typically say a lot of Long Beach and tulle around Catalina and we always take a pool net with us because you know, we run into garbage in the sea. And then I I got to know some people that were working in Hawaii and learned that the Hawaiian Islands kind of acts as a filter where a lot of the garbage on its way up to the huge garbage patch in the Northern Pacific Ocean is is coming from China and other countries in that region that have a lot of industry and a lot of that garbage is stopping on the Hawaiian island beaches. And there are a lot of charities in Hawaii that we'll we'll clean the beaches as that garbage washes up on the beaches. But what love the sea does that special is we go after the hard to reach portions, those portions where it's it's trapped on jagged rocks with waves hitting against it and and you just can't it's very difficult to mobilize people to collect that. And if you don't collect it, it's eventually going to get washed right back into the ocean. So that's our, that's our area of focus. It's it's a lot of fun, something I just got into but I have to say, you know, I'm biased because I'm the chairman and our Executive Director, Campbell Farrell, he was a you might know the name he was a big wave surfer and now that's what he does. He's he's out there on jet skis and helicopters, you name it. You know getting out there and reaching those hard to reach beaches and getting as much garbage out of the ocean as we can and we deal in the tons the tons per month that we're pulling out of the ocean and sending off to different businesses that we have partnerships with that are converting that to consumer products. Making

Speaker 1 14:40
the world a better place by looking out for our ecology is a really really significant contribution. Jim and I want to thank you so much for being a part of the business of giving show today where you let all the listeners out there know how they can get in contact with you to learn more about aroma retail to come by that smelly bar again I highly recommend anyone out there who wants an experience of a lifetime really unique experience to come by for that smelly bar. Yeah, let let the listeners know how they can get a hold of you. Well,

Speaker 2 15:12
come on by the smelly bar, everybody is invited, we are on Valley View between Trump and Russell at 5525, South Valley View or you can just pull out your Google Maps and put in aroma retail, or go to my website, aroma, retail.com, aroma retail.com. And guy I put together a coupon code just for you. If you if you go to my website or come into the smelly bar, you can use coupon code radio guy for 15% off. All

Speaker 1 15:41
right, take advantage of that opportunity. Everyone out there, I know that you will appreciate it. And Jim has generously loaned me or given me some smells to utilize it in my home. So I will definitely be reporting back to the audience very soon, Jim about my experiences. But again, we appreciate your your entrepreneurial spirit as well as your spirit of giving.

Speaker 2 16:06
Thank you guys, it's an honor to be on the show. Thank you.

Speaker 1 16:09
Right and for more details about the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce, by the way, you can always visit our website cause marketing chamber.com. At that website, you'll get details about the chamber itself, events that we're hosting and all the happenings, many of the happenings in the nonprofit world, we try to stay connected with so many things that are going on within the nonprofit and for profit communities, we really, really want to be on the cutting edge of providing great opportunities for businesses to network with one another to network with nonprofit organizations. And of course, we've always got projects that people are working on related to both of these worlds. And so our website is the primary resource to learn more about what we do, and that is cause marketing chamber.com. And my second guest for today is Maria Perez, she runs a company called cause marketing consulting. And if there couldn't possibly be a business, I think that could be more in alignment with what we do as an actual cause marketing consultant. And welcome to the show. Maria.

Speaker 3 17:13
Thank you for having me today. Great to be here.

Speaker 1 17:17
So you and I are definitely kindred spirits. You running a company called cause marketing consulting me founding an organization called the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. When I connected with you are I knew there was a kinsmen ship there.

Speaker 3 17:33
Yep, I am a professional cause marketer? That's correct. It's a wonderful job to have. And let's say,

Speaker 1 17:40
tell us what a professional cause marketer does.

Speaker 3 17:43
Sir, I basically connect companies with causes and social issues, if they're normally realized as sponsorships and partnerships, so I'm sort of a coach and consultant in space. And I help with strategy and sales and execution to help a both sides of the house, you know, the nonprofit organization and the business, create cause times and I, you know, the wonderful thing about this time in the world is that there are really good opportunities for nonprofits, because brands are increasingly adopting purpose as a core attributes. And charities are now being called upon to help float a lot of boats, awareness, affinity, sales, community relations, attracting employees retention. So you know, it is a wonderful time for the nonprofit to partner with business. On the small business side, you know, there are a lot of businesses that support nonprofits, but they don't know how to leverage their cause support investment beyond goodwill. And so we we work with them to help them realize sales, get additional earned media reach new audiences. I mean, you know, what your previous guest was talking about in terms of some of the charitable affiliations that they have, all things being equal, just knowing what he he talked about, I would buy from him in an instant. Right? Because of what he's doing for the oceans and how cautious and caring he is with with the aroma side. So these are very important things to no longer brag brag about it used to be okay to brag about these things. Now you have to live, live the life walk the walk, talk the talk and, and show evidence. And

Speaker 1 19:30
yeah, yeah, you were talking about small businesses implementing these disciplines. Maria and that's part of the reason why we developed the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce was to share what most of the big corporations have figured this out at a high level. I mean, when you look at the amount of philanthropy that most of the major corporations in the world are involved in, they understand the value of it. As far as being able to teach this to small business owners. What are some of the For the tactics, you as a consultant use to help them to be able to leverage as you had mentioned before, these principles to to benefit their own businesses as well as the community.

Speaker 3 20:10
One of my favorite examples of that is a naming rights and naming rights for an event or a naming rights for a program or a naming rights for an initiative, where there's the name and word mark. In France, I've been doing it since time immemorial. But you know, instead of just having the halo effect, what about having a naming rights for a nonprofit event where your brand is mentioned, but the nonprofit is the beneficiary. And it truly is a partnership. So that that's an example of a sponsorship tactic. Beyond just, you know, PR value, although I have to say that both earned and paid media is excellent as well, again, people consumers are not asking or acknowledging that it's that important to have a cause affiliation. If you don't do it, they're going to buy from your competitor. So you know, this is this is no longer a nice to have this is should be baked into the DNA of small businesses. And I help them by encouraging them to sponsor encouraging them to, to joint venture to go beyond just what they've been doing in the past. You know, you can be philanthropic and give somebody money. And that's Thank you. But you can truly bake it into your DNA, bake it into your employee engagement. And it's received by the consumer far better. And

Speaker 1 21:43
you talked about getting beyond the halo effect. I think most people that I encounter Maria, when I tell them what I do for a living, as far as being involved with a cause marketing Chamber of Commerce, they really think about the goodwill aspect. And yet, this point that you bring up consistently, I think is really important is that yes, there is a goodwill aspect me as the PR person, that's always where I go, because that's generally what I'm trying to create. But it's there's a bigger picture, maybe you could elaborate on differentiating yourself from just the halo effect and croute and truly creating results that will make a business want to partner with a with a nonprofit.

Speaker 3 22:25
Or you could take it even the other direction. You know, there are a lot of race fans out there that are probably listening to this broadcast. And recently, Firestone Firestone brands, decided to partner with open wheel racing to showcase a new tire. And this new tire is a green tire. It is not made from rubber. It is not made from recycled parts. It is made in the USA. And a percentage of all the proceeds for the sales of these tires, which are good for the environment, it's good stewardship and being good to the planet are also funding initiatives for nonprofits that are trying to do similar activities in their communities. So again, when I say baked into the DNA, it's really pervasive. And it's a it's truly mutually beneficial. So it's a win win. Hands down. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 23:15
It becomes a part of the culture, as you had mentioned before, and because, again, people who are practicing this at a high level and you being the consultant of those people, it becomes indistinguishable. I know, with certain brands, you can't distinguish the giving part from the traditional business. It's just and I guess that's kind of the point that you'd want to get to is that right, Maria, where it's, you just think of this company and you think of the give back and you've got the consumer has the natural instinct of making that connection, and they make buying purchases based on that.

Speaker 3 23:53
Again, I think it's it's no longer enough. No longer I just did a talk on this recently, it's just no longer enough to have an affiliation. There has to be it just has to be endemic, endemic into the business practice endemic into their advertising endemic into their social media posts, and there has to be social proof. I think that is the most evidence trends, I'm seeing that if there is no social proof. And if it looks disingenuous, now you really piss off the consumer.

Speaker 1 24:27
Yes, and I'm sure we've all seen examples of that. And that's why having a consultant like you, Maria might be really beneficial for a business or a nonprofit organization. Because I would imagine that a lot that you do is about making the message clear, truly getting a business or nonprofit in alignment with the mission that they want to accomplish through cause marketing.

Speaker 3 24:51
Yeah, I mean, I will say for the nonprofits out there, I tried to get them to business sigh go Two things they have that they can monetize. So they can have more social impact. And they can do more good. And in fact, you know, what I do for nonprofits in the community. And I'll extend this here is I give them a fast up on sponsorship and partnerships coaching session, and I do it pro bono, because that's my contribution to my community. So any nonprofit out there that happens to be listening, you can go to my website, cause marketing consultant.com and sign up for a free cause coach Maria session, and I'd be happy to try to point you in the right direction. And on the nonprofit on the business side, I really, really, really enjoy, I would love to work with somebody like them that has made a significant financial investment, but wants to scale. And maybe doesn't know how i He seems to be a very astute businessman. So he probably knows how but I would assume there are a lot of small businesses out there that don't know how to leverage their cause investment beyond philanthropy. And I just, I love the work, and I love to help them do that. And I, I really enjoy imparting the skills so that they can repeat it over and over again. I don't need to be there forever. Right? Right.

Speaker 1 26:07
Yes, you definitely have a business that's valuable to the community and Maria, will you let the audience know how they can get in contact with you again, I know you just shared your information. But us being on the radio and you being a media person, you understand the value of repetition, can you share with them again, how they can get ahold of you,

Speaker 3 26:24
or my website is cause marketing consultant singular cause marketing consultant.com and my phone number, my email is there and there's a contact form as well. And if you just put cause coach Maria free session, I'd be happy to connect with you and and have a chat.

Speaker 1 26:49
Thanks again for being a part of the business of giving show and Maria and her she is actually a member of the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce, and we're really grateful to have are a part of what we're doing because she brings the knowledge and for us as we're in development, creating a platform that we want to be large. I think that having member businesses such as hers is just so critical in but before we go off the air, I want to read a short excerpt from a letter that we received from Spread the Word Nevada, they're the nonprofit organization that we sponsored at the last businesses with heart. Dear Mr. Dawson, you have truly delighted us in so many ways, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your incredibly generous gift. This donation will bring the magic of books to children in at risk communities and continue to transform their lives day after day, page after page. We are so grateful for your kind heart and dedication to advancing children's literacy skills in Nevada. And so for us as an organization, we actually helped that nonprofit organization Spread the Word Nevada with a cash donation of $896 as a direct result of the event that we hosted back in September. And so for us, this is what it's all about. We were able to bring lots of businesses together to network and refer business with one another, we got to feature that nonprofit organization. And they benefited greatly not only from that exposure, but also financially. And so I really feel that the work that we're doing and compasses what this is all about. And so we're we're thrilled again to continue to be operating this chamber you can learn more about it at the cause marketing chamber.com website and if you want to become a member, you can sign up directly online, we have a special that we're running for people who sign up for the cause marketing chamber within a certain time period. So cause marketing chamber.com for more details. You can also follow us on all of our social media sites. We're on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, we have a wonderful newsletter and so for those of you out there who are into causes or or into business, we're a great resource for you and I want to leave you with one message before we stop our broadcast today. Give and do business for good. See you on the next

Unknown Speaker 29:18
wave is.

Unknown Speaker 29:30
The weight of the world on my shoulder as I'm getting older your people get sold. Most of us only care about money.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai