AlphaGraphics Kansas City’s President and Owner Haley Haar has confidence in her team. Enough confidence to say “Call me if you have an idea that ‘can’t be done.” That’s bold, unless you back it up the way they do. Hear about her approach to creative problem solving and everything you wanted to know about AlphaGraphics in our featured segment! But first, what’s the image you’re putting out there at your next trade show?
Transcript:
Welcome to the Small Business Miracles Podcast. I’m Jeff Randolph. This Small Business Podcast is
brought to you by EAG Advertising and Marketing. We’re going to talk about marketing
and we’re also here to celebrate entrepreneurs. We have marketing news and advice
that business owners can use to keep moving forward. If you notice a difference in sound
for this episode, it’s because we’re recording outside of the office today. Again, winter in
Kansas City means snow this time. So a little bit of an audio difference from our normal
glorious audio that we get. Today though, we’re talking to Haley Haar. She is president and
owner of Alpha Graphics Kansas City. Good conversation coming up, but first, we’ve got another
small business marketing tip to talk about.
Yeah!
For today’s marketing tip, I’d like to talk about trade shows.
And we have a lot of things to say about trade shows. We’ve blogged about it on our
website. We’ve definitely spoken to some clients. Um, you…
trade shows. You love them. You hate them. But they can be an important place to
make an impact and engage with your audience. So let’s walk through this scenario.
You have a show to attend. You are attending a trade show. You pack your comfiest shoes
because you’re going to be standing all day. And if I’m judging by the trends I’ve seen,
there are probably some hokas. Nice thick padding there. You bought double padding to
have underneath the carpet and you’re smart enough not to buy tickets to Epcot after working the
trade show all day. Which is the last time I mess that one up. You are ready for this show.
So you get to the show, but work continues to happen back at the office. So you hop on
email and give it a quick check from the back of the booth. Or you grab lunch and you eat it in
the back of the booth during a period of, I don’t know, lower booth traffic. Maybe there’s some
education sessions happening there. Or you casually scroll on your phone to catch up on social media
or make dinner reservations while you’re sitting there in the booth. And all of that presents a
terrible image. And you know it does. But you can’t help yourself because, you know, work is
still going on in the real world and outside of trade show world. Look, you’ve made a huge investment
and being at this trade show. How your staff looks, how they interact, the image they present,
that’s the important part. Don’t fumble the ball on the one yard line. There’s a book, and this is
Jeff’s book club recommendation happening here, called Three Feet from Seven Figures that highlights
this kind of thing. You are three feet from your next potential seven figure deal at a trade show.
How you interact, how you look, the questions that you ask to stop that prospect from walking
right past you, that’s one of the last really important things to get right in this trade show.
And you absolutely have to get it right. You really can’t present that terrible image of eating
your lunch in the back of the show booth or not being, you know, present for that entire time that
you’re standing there. Now, again, we have a ton of things to say about trade shows, but let’s leave
this one right here for our marketing tip. I mean, we’ll pick up with some more trade show tips next time.
Welcome back to the featured section of our show, our featured interview. And I’m here with Haley
Haar. She is the president and owner of Alpha Graphics, Kansas City. Haley, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Jeff. I’m excited to be here.
We’re excited to have you because you are also a KC Chamber small business superstar
for this year. Congratulations. Thank you.
Wonderful. Hey, let’s start out and just get a sense of Alpha Graphics because some people may
know or heard of Alpha Graphics. Some people may have used them in a different city.
You know, we don’t know what’s going on here. Let’s learn about Alpha Graphics. What can you
tell us about Alpha Graphics, Kansas City? So Alpha Graphics is we are Alpha Graphics,
Kansas City. We’re downtown, right in the heart of the crossroads, not far from you all.
And we are a member of a franchise. So Alpha Graphics is a franchise. So it is very likely
you could have used us in another city or one of our friends here in Kansas City as well. But
we are the downtown location. And what we do is printing and marketing. So and signage, I guess,
is always that goes in. I always like to say if we can put ink or something on it, then we can
print it. It’s probably something in our in our wheelhouse. So yeah, signs, graphics, direct mail.
You know, if it has some tie into marketing and it’s ink on something, then we that’s really what
we do. We’re the ink on something people ink on something people. That’s not a bad way to do it.
Yeah. Every anything, anything, shirts, paper, whatever. We got it. All right. That’s and that
covers a ton of ground. In fact, we’ve and we’ve been partners for a long time. We’ve used you for
all all number of things. And and one of the the things I wanted to talk about next is really
a phrase that you have on your LinkedIn profile. And on your LinkedIn profile, you say, call me if
you have an idea that can’t be done. Now, I’ve known you for a long time. So I know the kind of
grit and determination that it takes to say those words and not have it be just talk. You you live
that that attitude. And it’s something we’ve come to rely on you for. Can can you share an example
of something like that where where you know, you got that call and it couldn’t be done and you
figured out a way to make something happen? Sure. So one of my favorite things is I think one of my
team’s favorite things is that creativity piece. You know, we know what the everyday business cards,
letterhead, four by six banners look like. But when our customers call us and say, hey, I was
thinking about this and but I can’t find anybody to do it. I feel that’s where we really shine.
And a recent example is is that we just it’s the fourth edition of a book by a man named William
Barry. And he was an art teacher in several locations, but at MU most recently before he
passed away. And he had a book that he had written. I can’t remember when the first edition came out.
But the first edition, he said we printed the fourth edition. And with each edition, it didn’t
fulfill his vision of what this book should look like, because it’s a textbook and it’s gorgeous.
It reads like an anatomy book. It’s called Drawing the Human Form. And it is very much about how to
draw the human body. So his wife and her graphic designer came to us and said, we want to recreate
this, but we want it to be the vision that William originally had. And with the colors and with the
paper and with the binding and everything that we originally wanted and never, never quite achieved.
And took us about months to get through the whole project. But at the end, we had the right
colors, the right paper, the right binding, the right color of foil on the outside of the book.
That really completed the vision of what he had years ago today. And using methods that he
wasn’t able to use then, we were able to achieve today what his vision originally was.
Nice. Yeah. And I think about that because when any of us marketing manager or whatever marketing
title you have, folks come to you, we’re coming to you with the history in our brain of everything
we’ve been able to do before. But we’re probably not to speed on the latest and greatest and the
coolest thing and hey, we now have a machine that does blank. So yeah, that’s the being collaborative
number one thing for, you know, always approach when talking to Haley and her team,
just come with an open mind. Yeah. And that’s where we, I think that’s where we do really well,
like particularly with you guys and other marketers and teams that we work with is,
okay, you have this vision. And okay, maybe you want to, let’s say a by book.
That’s an odd size for us. But hey, if you’re willing to go a little bit bigger, a little bit
smaller, here are the options. And here’s how we can make this work better for you. And that’s
really where that collaboration and listening and understanding works out the best.
Yeah, outstanding. You are responsible for the signage at KCI, our brand new, newly remodeled
Kansas City International single terminal airport. You do literally everything there, right? Talk to
me about what you do there and what that process looks like. So we don’t do literally everything,
but you do not make the donuts at Dunkin Donuts. Is that what you’re saying? We do not. We do not.
But we do a lot. So we don’t do a lot of the directional signage. So I would say that I don’t
want to get, there’ve been a few complaints about that. But you know, I think overall, but the
advertising graphics, a lot of the concession graphics and images we see, you see when you
grow up, there are the things we do. We partner with a company called Departure Media, and everything
that they do, their job is creating advertising and airports around the country. And Kansas City
is the partner that KCI, the aviation department chose, and they’re a great company to work with.
And we partner with them because they’re a woman-owned business, and we’re a woman-owned business.
So lots of synergies there. And so when you go through the airport and you see graphics on the
floor, advertising, Garmin was one we did, or the Kansas City Current, or on the walls, those are a
lot of things that we add a hand in. Our favorite ones are about monthly. You’ll see a rotating
advertising on the glass as you exit the airport. And those are pieces that we’re installing. We
love when we’re there, de-installing or reinstalling and people stop and watch. My team
has gotten used to answering lots of questions and having people do that. But I think what we’re
really proud of in the airport is we were there from the very beginning. You know, when we first
started doing a lot of these things, when the terminals were being built, we were in there
getting to see it from the ground floor. We built and installed the Welcome to Kansas City signage
that you see as you go down the escalators. And that’s all really exciting stuff. And it was great
to be a part of that process and continue to be a part of that process. Yeah, we had… You invited
us out for a tour ahead of time with hard hats and safety vests and everything. As the airport
was still under construction, that was super cool. But then every time I’ve had to travel and
we’re coming back home, just the impact that all of those graphics have makes us look good. And I
appreciate that. Thanks for helping us look good. Thanks for representing the city well.
And I think that was what was a lot of fun for us. Thinking of those things that can’t be done or
what do we do is there are a lot of… At the beginning, there were a lot of empty advertising
spaces. And so we worked with departure media, like how do we fill those? And do you just create
blanket advertising? And one of the things that my team and I came up with was what if we found
historical or current imagery that showcases Kansas City? So when there are empty spaces
without advertising, you see images from the library archives or from VisitKC’s archives
that really represent Kansas City instead of there just being a blank graphic that doesn’t…
That’s just like, hey, advertise here. Yes. This space available, you look.
We don’t need to do that. We can do better. Right. And some of those images are just really
fantastic to see and let people get exposed to that history and that experience of Kansas City
is really exciting. Yeah. I’ve enjoyed it. Thanks for making us look good. Conferences and trade
shows. I wanted to ask a question about conferences and trade shows because those are something that
many of us marketers have to deal with. Excuse me. Let me rephrase that. We get to, we look forward
to conferences and trade shows and helping our clients look really good. Talk about AlphaGraphics
Kansas City’s capabilities there and how you approach a conference and trade show. So we have
a couple of ways that we help conferences and trade shows. We just wrapped up the Heart of America
Eye Care Congress and we literally, I guess, and figuratively too, help them from everything from
the branding to their conference all the way through creating all of the materials and installing
a lot of the materials they need for their trade shows. One of the things that I’m really proud of
is last year we installed a new flatbed printer. So a lot of those graphics or window wall floor
imagery that is used in a trade show, we can create really quickly and cost effectively in-house now
where we were working with partners who had that kind of equipment. And so trade shows and
conferences are those things where as a conference hub, a lot of people come to Kansas City and us be
downtown. We work with VisitKC for a lot of people coming in. And we want to be sure that
we’re making that when you come to us and say, hey, I have a conference or I have a trade show,
or I have a client that’s looking for this, we’re understanding what’s the need. Is it to draw people
in to a booth? Is it to advertise a new product? Is it something that you want long term, short term?
And really think about those pieces because you spend a lot of money to go to trade shows.
It’s an investment. Yeah, it is an investment.
And we want to make sure that we’re giving you the best tools to achieve your goals. And I think that
a lot of customers don’t think far enough ahead. They just think about, oh, I need to fill my booth.
Well, thinking about why and what are we going to do to fill the booths and what is the intent
for that booth is really where I feel like we’re able to help customers understand their needs.
Yeah. How do I stand out? What do I need to look like? What are those very few words that
need to be written kind of like billboard style where you don’t have long as someone is walking
down the aisle to make somebody turn, stop, read it and engage with you in some way?
And again, on kind of the working together as partners, how many times we’ve had something in
our mind and have talked to you about it and you said, oh, you know what’s new and throw out
something that we have not considered, didn’t know about, didn’t see yet, but is super cool and
gets the job done. So yeah, again, collaboration is great. That’s really important.
Yeah. We enjoy that.
Well, let me do this. I think it’s time to go into the lightning round. Are you ready for the
lightning round? I think I’m ready.
You have no way to know anything that I might ask. We do this to try to make sure that everybody
gets a sense of who you are and what you do. And I’m going to ask this question in the lightning
round. We handle this question quite a bit as we talk to entrepreneurs and as we’ve interviewed
other entrepreneurs on the show. And it’s about relationships at work. And you work day to day
with your husband, Matt, and his responsibilities are on the CFO side and the operations side.
What is the best thing and worst thing about owning a business with your spouse?
She’s right now thinking through all of the things she’s like, I matted him for the dishes,
but I’m not going to say that right now.
Right now. No. Well, the funny thing is, is Matt and I have worked together longer than we’ve
been married. So we met on the job. So then there was only like a couple of years that we didn’t
work together in this time period. So the best thing I think is that you know each other really
well. And you know where some of those boundaries and some of those, those buttons you can push are.
Right. But that can also be the worst part too, because there’s that feeling of familiarity. And
I wouldn’t tell you that I think you’re a jerk at work, but.
And I appreciate that.
But I might do that to you. And you cross that line. It’s really easy to cross that line from
professional to familiar. And that can really make complications. So that the familiarity is great
in a lot of ways, but it can also breed some bad behaviors too.
Do you find that there is that break of, hey, no, we’re at home with our kids now.
When, let’s stop talking about work things.
Yeah. I remember our, we have a year old and when she was, I think she was like three or four,
we’re sitting at the dinner table and Matt and they’re entering back and forth about work.
And she kind of looks at it and it’s like, I can’t remember exactly what she said,
but the feeling was, mom, can we talk about something else?
Some of us are not into this conversation. Can we move on please?
But it’s also great. Like at we have a and year old and even an eight year old,
they get business. Like they understand it. It’s really cool that you know, you have an employee
leave and their first question is, well, what does that mean for the company? You know, like
they get it, they get it. So it’s cool too. That’s a leg up somewhere. Yeah. We’ve actually had some
people we’ve interviewed on this have had to fire their spouse, which you know, is that makes for
an awkward conversation later, but it all worked out in that case. So we’re good. You are a
Kansas city woman of impact award winner through your work and fundraising efforts, fighting heart
disease with the American heart association, which is great in its own right. But you also
use it as an opportunity to creatively approach the problem. And I kind of want to dive in there
a little bit that you did everything from raffling a box of my home’s crunch cereal for any donation
of $and more to letting people park in your parking lot for the chief’s victory parade in
exchange for a donation. Tell us about the, you know, doing work for a cause that you believe in,
but then how, how that sparked creativity and kind of the things that you were able to do.
Sure. So I real, I feel really strongly that when you go into these types of fundraising,
I mean, it’s a lot like sales. You have to be really authentic to yourself. You can’t go in
and try to be somebody you’re not. And, um, I’m not really the public speaker. I love talking to
people, but to get in the front of a room and, and, you know, have some kind of big event or
do these things is, is not me. So I want to see the difference. Yeah. Yeah. So I want it to be
authentic to myself. And, and as we think about like, how do we do that? Um, we were thinking
about, okay, well, I had friends who donated some chief stuff to me, everything from the crunch to
like some banners and stuff. And I was like, how do we use these things? Could I do it? Like I
could do a silent auction or something like that. But you know, what, what’s, what’s, what value does
that bring sometimes? Right. Right. Um, and we were lucky the, the both in the year I won in
um, last year with my friend, Mary Messner, um, who won last year’s woman of impact. We both
had Superbowl wins and I was able to say, Hey, let’s raffle off parking because we’re a few blocks
from the parade route. Um, and we were really successful with that. And so just kind of finding
things that, that are meaningful to us. I will let you know that my daughter is a nominee. Um,
there are five young women and a young man who are up for this year’s teen of impact for the American
Heart Association. Congratulations. Thank you. And so she is raising funds for them this year.
And, um, and we’re, you know, her campaign looks different than mine. Um, she wants to do a CPR
class. She wants to do, um, she’s stepping out there and reaching out to some big hitters that,
she’s interested in. And so supporting her and saying, okay, how do you want to do this is fun.
Well, speaking of raising empowered daughters, uh, as a Girl Scout troop leader, can you officially
tell us the best Girl Scout cookie flavor? I think that is a personal choice, but I, I mean,
my favorite one was one they don’t make anymore. Oh, thanks a lot. It was a chocolate. Yeah. Oh,
absolutely. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot of the choice. Yeah. But our, um, in our house, um,
we end up with usually with a lot of thin mints and, um, then a lot of the, uh, or a few of the
Caramel Delights. So those are usually, you know, we usually have a few of everything, but, uh,
but yeah, those are the thin mints and the thanks a lot were our, our big, our big ones in the past.
Uh, a thin, now are you a thin mint, uh, in the freezer kind of family or are you a thin mint on
the counter kind of family? We do mostly counter, but I think that’s primarily because once you open
a sleeve, like they’re not living very long, you know, like they’re gone. Well, that’s one,
that’s one serving size. A sleeve is one serving size as far as I’m concerned. That’s just
immediately. Exactly. Uh, yeah, I think I’m gonna, I would back that the thin mints and the Caramel
Delight or, or, uh, samosas, samosas, samosas. If you’re on the other coast, uh, solid choices.
So yeah, they are. Um, as so last question, I’ll, I’ll wrap it up with this as an entrepreneur,
you’ve had a lot of, of entrepreneurial education. You’ve, you’ve been a part of hemp,
the Ellsberg entrepreneurial mentoring program, uh, under small business award winner.
As you think back on that entrepreneurial journey that you’ve taken from, from year one to today,
what’s a piece of advice that you would give to first year in business? You, um, if, if you could
go back and have, you know, the, that conversation with yourself, what would you tell yourself,
yourself having the benefit of, of all of that time that’s passed in between?
Oh, so I don’t, I don’t even know that I would have had this advice five years ago, but, um,
just some through COVID and I think different things like really early on in your business,
I really think it’s really important to understand the financials aspect of your business,
you know, have somebody sit down with you and help you understand what a profit and loss statement
looks like, understand what contribution margins are, understand what your, um, your cash rotation
is, because when you understand those things, it makes so many of the other decisions easier.
And I think as entrepreneurs, we’re so focused on, and particularly me, like I love the creative
side and don’t get me wrong, I can sit in front of an Excel spreadsheet and, and you know,
mind focus and dive Excel with the best of them. Yeah. Like overanalyze an Excel spreadsheet.
But I think there are times where, you know, you just say, okay, I’m making money and you’re
like, yeah, but could I be making more money or am I making money the right way? Or, you know,
could I be making it faster? You know, and those are things that until you, until you’ve had a big
mistake or you’ve had a good loss or something like COVID-shows up. Yeah. Yeah. And then
you, you just kind of roll with the punches and I didn’t come from a finance background. I have a
degree in biology. So like, so like it’s, um, I really think in those first few years, getting
with somebody who can really outline for you what your business financial needs are and how you make
money is one of the most important things you can do. Here’s what this means. Look at these indicators,
this dial. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And some of that is the difference in being able to work in the business
versus on the business and vice versa, where you’re, you’re able to focus and get there.
Right. And, and finding out what it means for your industry, because for us, you know, we have cost
of goods. You guys are more of a service business. You do have cost of goods, but it’s, you don’t sit
with thousands of dollars of inventory in your back office. No, we do. We do not. And so like
understanding how that usage means, what waste means, like, um, really understanding your business
where, and what it is and how it works, um, is important. That’s a spectacular advice to first
year in business. You, uh, I’ll take you out of the lightning round. You survived. There’s nothing,
no trouble whatsoever. No sweat. Um, Hey, tell everybody where they can find you. If they want
more information about you, if they want, want to find alpha graphics, if they’re, if they’re in need
of, of trade show materials, whatever that is, how do they find you? So one of the best places to find
me, like you said, is, um, LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn, um, Alpha graphics, Kansas city, or
Haley har. And, um, but then, uh, just look us up online and give us a call. You know, we are located
down in the crossroads at th and cherry. Um, we have a great office lots. We, and we love showing
it off. We love showing you our, our toys and, um, our equipment and all the fun things and awesome
things we do. Um, but then we, um, yeah, our website is alpha graphics, Casey.com. And, um,
but you know, we’re always welcome for walk-ins and phone calls and messages on online.
All right. Haley, our president and owner of Alpha graphics, Kansas city. Thanks for being on the
show. Well, thank you, Jeff is great to see you. And I love all of your team and all of the, the
people over at EAG. Oh, you’re too kind to say so we don’t require you to say that at the end. You
can, you could just drop off. We probably will leave it in, in the end, just for fun, but thank
you. Thank you. You’re welcome. Yeah. And that is our show. Thanks to Alpha graphics, Kansas city.
And thank you for listening to the small business miracles podcast. Remember to subscribe, leave us
a five star rating and review. Drop us a line on the website at EAGADV.com. If you have any thoughts
until then we’ll be out here helping entrepreneurs with another small business miracle.