Kindness Inside the Company

This time on The Kindness Marketing Podcast, social media expert Dawn Renshaw explores how internal marketing shapes culture, starting with the idea that employees are our first customers and kindness is something we model through everyday actions. 

Dawn shares specific habits that build trust, reduce turnover, and create ripple effects that reach clients, families, and communities. 

Episode Resources

Stoney Creek Social Media

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Kindness Matters

Richard Piet 0:07

I'm Richard Piet. This is the Kindness Marketing Podcast. Dawn Renshaw, the founder of Stoney Creek Social Media. We talk about the elements of kindness. In fact, if this is the first episode you're hearing, uh you may wish to go back because we started really digging in a little bit to the notion of kindness and some aspects of that. And now we've we've been uh branching off a bit, talking about different things through which an element of kindness can exist and be useful. Welcome back, Dawn. Thank you, Richard.

What Internal Marketing Really Means

Richard Piet 0:42

Today we're talking about kindness in internal marketing. What is internal marketing anyway?

Dawn Renshaw 0:48

Um, it's you know, emails back and forth with clients. Um, we use a software called Basecamp and anything that we do. And I also look at it somewhat um like employee birthdays or employee anniversaries or how you talk about your employees on your social media and other marketing avenues.

Richard Piet 1:11

So the the social media component, and I say social media, but like Basecamp and and uh other platforms through which employees might interact with one another, have a hand in setting the tone of the culture. True.

Employees As Your First Customers

Dawn Renshaw 1:30

Exactly, exactly. One of the things I learned early on, because I wasn't brought up as an entrepreneur, my parents weren't entrepreneurs, nobody in my family, so I kind of got thrown in into the into the water, so to speak. And one of the things that I saw lacking was employers being kind to their employees. Not saying that they were not nice to their employees, but being kind, because the way I saw it from the very beginning was my employees are my customers. And so, in order for them to show my customers, our customers, kindness, I need to show them kindness. You know, it goes back to, you know, one of the things when my children were small, if I would be at the park and somebody, a child would hit another child and the parent would hit that child and say, Don't hit them. And I'm like, you just hit them and you're telling them not, you know. And so, you know, often people, children, I will say people, they're often they see more, they learn more from what they see than from what they hear. So, you know, if you are kind to your employees, then they are going to in turn be kind to your customers.

Richard Piet 2:53

Oh, think about that. So I was landing in the zone of of helping employees understand their value, which I suppose is part of this, but this is an interesting flow you've just pointed out. If I feel valued or or uh kind that that I'm being treated kindly, I'm going to do the same.

Dawn Renshaw 3:16

Yes. Wow. That's my belief, and that's what I

Real Examples Of Kind Leadership

Dawn Renshaw 3:20

I've been doing for for 17 years. And and also, you know, there's things that, like I said, we've we've talked in previous episodes about the difference between being nice and being kind. So, you know, when I I had an employee whose whose grandmother passed away, and I said, you know, take a week off, we're all good. Um, and he came back and said, you know, my mom was very close to her mom, and she's really struggling because now we have to move my grandmother's stuff from the long-term care facility. He said, Is there any way I can take like the morning off to help her move? And I said, you know what? I said, I think you need to take another week off.

Richard Piet 3:59

Oh my.

Dawn Renshaw 4:00

And and people, I'm sure people were like, you know, but it that's just what I felt the right thing to do was, you know, and we we've talked offline a little bit about, you know, Austin, one of my employees, he also freelances and does some stuff with the Bassmaster Elite series. And it's probably gonna be hard for people to hear. But Austin's been with me six years, it'll be seven in in June. He gets six weeks paid vacation, you know, and that's hard for people to hear. And it's things where, you know, employees have come to me and said, you know, this is going on in my in my personal life, this is happening here. And I'll be like, take the rest of the day off. Uh, you know, or, you know, there's just different things that have come up where, you know, a certain financial situation has happened and, you know, I've advanced their pay where people are like, you know, and it's funny because my my business art friends is like, don't get in the habit of that, you know, don't do that, you know, presidents, you know, they're gonna take advantage of it, you know, and I really leave from my heart and what I feel like I should do. And that's something that um I get I get ridiculed on them, you know, you're too nice to your employees, but it's something that, you know, the the world can be can be rough. And so there's, you know, situations where, you know, I had one employee who, you know, broke their contact. They had the hard contact, you know, and they had to be special made. So they couldn't drive. And so, you know, they couldn't come into the office. So it was like, okay, we'll figure it out. And that's just what we do. But, you know, I I see often uh people will have a lot of turnover with employees. There's different things that happen. I'm very fortunate that I I haven't had that, but it does take a lot on my part where you know, you know, reach out and say, hey, you know, what what's what's

Rituals That Shape Company Culture

Dawn Renshaw 5:45

happening in your life? How can I help you? We have um monthly staff meetings, we have weekly Zoom meetings, and we start out and it's kind of funny because we we talk about business high and a personal high, like business best, personal best. And, you know, sometimes it takes 15 minutes to go through that that little segment, but it's just need to know like what's going on in their life. You know, every now and then I'll reach out on base camp and I'll just say, Hey, how can I pray for you today? Um, another funny thing, um, I was in at the office and um Natalie was getting her wedding dress altered across the hall. Um, there's a seamstress. And when she left, I said, Love you. And when the my customer was like, Do you always tell your employers that you love them? I'm like, Yeah, don't you? And somebody said before, like, isn't that an HR violation? I'm like, I am HR, so we're all good.

Richard Piet 6:34

Well, so I was about to bring that up. The idea that the culture of some organizations could be different, of course, right? Right, right. But right, uh you're setting the tone because you are HR. But I mean, if you have the opportunity to help set the tone this way, the kindness element can be a foundation for that.

Dawn Renshaw 6:58

Right, right. And we've uh had some positions open and I've interviewed people. Um, we've had we've probably spoke a dozen times at Western, either one or the other of us or the whole group of us. And so, you know, when we we have a job opening, we get a lot of of the kids from Western are like, I remember when you were in, or I've been at an event before where someone's come up and said, you know, you know, I'm like introduced myself, like, oh, we know who you are. You're you have the best culture of any any company and that we've ever heard of. And yeah, and it's fun. We're um I'm on the board for the AMA, the marketing American Marketing Association, and we have monthly events, and my team all shows up, all decked out in their Stoney Creek merch. But um, but yeah, you know, I have to be out of town for the uh the big event coming up this month, and my team will be there, and they know that they can count on them to carry things in, carry things out, and they're just we're just known as as really being being kind. And that's that's that means the world to me.

Richard Piet 7:59

And that is the example, one of them, of how internal kindness will uh permeate externally. Yeah.

When People Might Take Advantage

Richard Piet 8:10

Are some people trepidatious about that and say, you know, people might take advantage of me? What do you say to that?

Dawn Renshaw 8:19

I have that, you know, and it and I kind of go back to the point is it's like they will they they have a conscience and they will have they have will have to deal with that. There has been a few times where I feel like maybe it's it it might be on that on the edge of like, okay, is someone really taking advantage of this? And a lot of times, you know, I'll have that conversation and just from a you know, from a loving, kind point of view, and just say, you know, it's come to my attention that I feel like this might be happening. Can you just clarify me, clarify to me what's actually happening? Um, but also you have one thing I feel like I've earned with this, with my approach to my employees is a level of respect that I have never ever encountered in any type of work workplace environment.

Richard Piet 9:08

Well, there's another byproduct of this approach, right? It stimulates a a two-way understanding here and that feeling of being valued. So they will value you.

Dawn Renshaw 9:22

Right. Right. Yeah. And like I said, you know, the birthday shout-outs and the anniversary shout-outs on online. And, you know, we we tend to have a lot of fun together and do fun things and you know, and that really people want to do business with people who are kind and fun and and caring. Um, I can't, if you would go through our Google reviews, a lot of them talk about, you know, one of our core values other than kindness is going above and beyond, which to me is is kindness, but you know, we we do it all the time.

Richard Piet 9:53

So

How To Evaluate Internal Kindness

Richard Piet 9:54

if someone is wondering, Dawn, am I doing enough internally to employ the notion of kindness in what we do, how can they evaluate that? How do you know?

Dawn Renshaw 10:09

One of the things I talk about is is that one-to-one communication, you know. So, so you know, I have a one-to-one with three of my employees, uh, three of my full-time employees, and every week. So that's, you know, that's three hours out of my week every single week. Um, and you know, then once a month we have that the staff meeting where they come in and it's usually three or four hours, and I buy them lunch. And, you know, again, things I don't have to do. And I I don't want this to make in any way think that I'm bragging on myself because I'm not. This is this is something that my parents taught me from an early age up that you know, that other people matter and what you do for people. And through the part of my life when I was a single parent, a lot of people stepped up and helped me that didn't have to. They weren't relatives of mine. And so you learn through through the different ebbs and flows of your life that there are times when you need somebody to be kind and somebody, you know, somebody shows up. And there are times that, you know, that you see people, whether they're an employee of yours, a customer of yours, a total stranger, that, you know, if you can show up for them, you don't know what type of a ripple effect that will have in their life. And that's one of the things about kindness that I look at.

The Ripple Effect Beyond Work

Dawn Renshaw 11:25

You know, I had someone come to me, not to get too far off the off the beaten path, but came to me. Um, it was a young man who lived next door um to me and the girls when I first went through my divorce. And he was like 10 years younger than I was, and he had two girl, two young girls. And, you know, every now and then we always remind me of that Tim Toole Taylor, Tim, Tim the Toolman Taylor, you know, the fence, and we had the wooden fence, and we'd got there and talk. And I saw him like five years later, and he said, you know, because of you, he said, I am sober today. Oh, I had no idea he was even suffering with that, but he said, you know, Don, he goes, sometimes when I thought I needed a drink, I would go out in the backyard and you would be there and you would talk to me. And he said, it really helps. So you never know at the time what type of an effect. And I do know that I have an employee um that came to me and said, he goes, because of you and because of Sunny Creek, I'm nicer to my parents, I'm nicer to my girlfriend, I'm nicer to people in the grocery store. And that that's that's a win for me.

Richard Piet 12:26

No kidding. Wow, to have people come back to you and recount that feeling and how it helped them. Hello, that uh cements the whole feeling that you had about it.

Dawn Renshaw 12:39

Right. And if think if everybody could do, everybody could just be this much kinder. Just think about how the world, you know. I I sound like this little girl with, you know, the pie in the sky and you know, my little, my little sign, but that's the way I truly feel from and anybody I think that truly knows me knows that that's the way I feel is that if everybody was just this much kinder, uh what the world would be like.

A Small Challenge And Closing Notes

Richard Piet 13:03

And maybe that's what we leave folks with this time. What does this much kinder mean to you? Maybe it's a a one-on-one with an employee this week, uh, or uh developing the uh process by which you acknowledge their birthdays or uh uh some such thing that uh allows them to feel valued. The kindness is a big part of that, the kindness component. All right. Maybe Dawn is your wheels turning about some of these things in the show notes. Contact information, check it out. Maybe reach out to Dawn and ask her. Say, I, you know, kind of thinking about what you said, but I don't know if I quite know how to get there. She'll have an answer for you after that initial conversation. Kindness Marketing Podcast. That's what this is. We invite you to subscribe or follow, depending on where you are, listening, watching. We're glad you found us. Dawn Renshaw, founder of Stoney Creek Social Media. We'll see you again soon.

Dawn Renshaw 14:11

Bye.