Solutions Marketing Group

Providing clients with innovative strategies that position them to understand, penetrate and retain the disability market.

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Parenting a Child With a Disability Changed My Business

Carmen and Marcus

Carmen and Marcus enjoying a night at the circus c.2006.

In 2001, at the age of 35, I was pregnant with my first child. Since I am a paraplegic this wasn’t a decision I took lightly because additional health considerations had to be weighed.  Much to my delight the pregnancy went well and I didn’t avoid swollen ankles, along with cravings (my indulgence of choice was Popeye’s Chicken the first trimester).

At forty weeks, to the day, I delivered my beautiful baby boy – Marcus Solomon Jones. Upon delivery Marcus couldn’t breathe. The doctors began to panic as he lost color. The medical team had difficulty placing an endotracheal tube down his airway for additional support.  Once secure, the hospital decided he needed to be transferred to a hospital with a Level 4 neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). In an instant, his Dad and I went from palpable joy to utter fear.

The surgeons discovered Marcus had a tiny (think: coffee stirrer) trachea and required surgery to insert a tracheostomy tube. He also had a cleft lip and palate, which made it difficult for him to swallow, which resulted in another surgery to insert a g-tube for feeding. He encountered several setbacks, the first year, and we almost lived in the NICU.  When he was finally released from the hospital, we had 24/7 nursing care and my home’s second floor became a medical unit. It was hard to wrap my mind around the initial excitement of having a baby, being dashed by a life filled with daily therapy sessions, mounting medical expenses, strained relationships and social isolation. When I woke each day and Marcus was still alive, I considered it a small miracle.  Really.

While I’d started the Solutions Marketing Group a couple years earlier, and my team and I had done amazing work to advise and build disability inclusive strategies for Fortune 500 companies, I didn’t know one thing about the disability parenting culture. I had to figure out our new normal, which was a long process filled with tears, lots of medical appointments, and helping bridge my son’s developmental gap.

My breakthrough occurred while working on a market research project in Florida.  A client engaged SMG to gain insights about individuals with disabilities and their families. While moderating the groups, I listened to parents share how they adjusted their expectations and family life. My AHA moment occurred during my interaction with respondents and my heart soared with excitement. While this wasn’t a path I’d choose, I felt less alone and saw an opportunity for my company.  I discovered Census Bureau data that of the 70 million families in the U.S., 19 million families have a member with a disability. I knew families like mine wanted to hear from companies, like my client, assuring them they were understood. I decided to harness my personal experience and marketing expertise to deepen SMG’s portfolio to guide clients to target, employ and serve families in a bigger, bolder way.

I share my story to provide context for how my son was a catalyst for personal and professional growth, which changed my company. This unique journey has deepened my team’s ability to serve clients and position them for success. I offer a few insights that can strengthen your organization to market to, serve and employ families who have children with disabilities:

  1. Make Business/Employee Resource Groups Inclusive of Family Members: Many companies have affinity groups for employees with disabilities. An effective way to support employees with a family member with a disability is by providing a group for them. This platform offers a safe space for them to share resources, insights and peer support that is often needed.
  2. Provide Product/Service Enhancements Families Need: When my family went to Disney World Marcus was four year’s old son, wasn’t toilet trained and fed via g-tube. Prior to our trip, I did research and discovered Disney had private areas throughout the park, which allowed me to privately take care of his personal needs. Disney did their research and provided value families now enjoy without missing a beat. I suggest doing research to understand and identify specific enhancements your organization can make to meet the needs of families.
  3. Create Seamless Experiences for the Whole Family: Children with disabilities require a lot of attention from their parents. Typical siblings have told us this has an impact, as they have often felt overlooked. Your organization will win big by creating experiences the whole family can seamlessly enjoy. This can include a dedicated night for the whole family to enjoy a restaurant, theme park or movie. Or, it can include an event just for siblings of kids with disabilities.

Assuredly, as your organization strategically and authentically positions itself to meet the needs of families it will have a ripple effect that changes organizational culture and employee morale, garner positive public attention, and build a brand loyal relationship with consumers who are waiting to be reached.

Living the Life We Were Born to Live

By Joan Leotta

Born This Way, the Emmy award winning reality show featured on A&E, has set a new standard for people with disabilities in the entertainment industry. Now in its third season, the series grants a weekly glimpse into the lives and minds of people with Down Syndrome, as they experience the thrills and challenges common to all. In allowing millions of Americans to follow these thriving young adults, Born This Way fuses the ordinary with the extraordinary, as its fans learn to see people with the full or partial extra copy of chromosome 21 as capable, interesting individuals, and not as generic “Down syndrome” folks.

Born This Way Cast members

The cast of Born This Way: Top row (l to r): Sean, Jared, Steven and John). Bottom Row (l to r) – Rachel, Megan, Elena, Cristina, Caley and Cole

Development of Born This Way

Born this Way (BTW) was developed internally at Bunim Murray Productions (BMP) where founder Jon Murray also serves as executive consultant.  “Part of BMP’s mission,” Murray explains, “has been to feature people on TV who have been previously marginalized. We did it with The Real World on MTV where we feature 7 young adults of diverse backgrounds and we have done it in our casting of Project Runway on Lifetime.” As it turned out, BMP’s offices were located within a 10-minute drive of New Horizons of North Hills, a non-profit that provides services to people with developmental disabilities. In getting to know some of the clients of New Horizons, Murray and others at BMP realized that a community existed that was not being explored on prime-time television. Featuring the Down syndrome community was a project that fit the company’s goals and experience.

Casting the Show

In its search for cast members for the show, BMP benefitted from the support of local and national organizations such as New Horizons, Performing Arts Studio West, Special Olympics, Best Buddies, and National Down Syndrome Congress. Each assisted BMP in either the recruiting or the auditioning process. Still, as Murray points out, BMP approached selecting individual cast members as it does any other program. “We interviewed the potential participants on camera, getting to know them and their families. We also put them together with other potential cast members to see how they interacted with others.” As the selection process narrowed, the participants, who are paid for their work, “had an agent or lawyer negotiating their deal for them.”

Building Trust and Telling Stories

Sean

Born This Way cast member Sean

One factor in BTW’s success is the trust fostered between the cast and the production team. According to Murray, BMP lays this foundation “by reaching out to different organizations and non-profits that work with people with Down syndrome.”  In particular, New Horizons, RESPECTABILITY USA, and Gail Williamson of KMR Talent, who is also the parent of a child with Down syndrome have offered an invaluable expertise. The result has been groundbreaking programming that treats the cast as individuals and tells their stories with respect.

Though not without spontaneity, reality television does require direction. As Murray points out, “There is no script, but all of us (producers and cast) know what we are shooting each day. We don’t shoot 24-hours a day. We only shoot when specific things are happening that are part of the stories we are trying to capture.” Laura Korkoian who heads up the production staff “meets with the cast and their families at the beginning of each season to find out what is happening in their lives …We then work with the families and our principal cast to capture the story as it happens.” Meanwhile, behind the scenes, a team of people craft the gathered footage into a sixty-minute (minus ad time) show.

To determine which person will be selected for the single person camera cameos featured in each show, the production staff (consisting of Laura and her team) conducts regularly scheduled interviews with the cast and their family members. The staff then develops questions related to their observations during filming. It is at that point, Murray explains “we edit the episodes and decide which interviews to use”.  The lag time between shooting and airing is about three months.

In weighing the differences and similarities between BTW and other reality programming, Murray observes that “for the most part, this show is approached the way we shoot a number of our family based series. We work with the families to figure out what we will shoot and how we will tell their stories. The one difference might be that we have aligned with some non-profit organizations to help educate our team about people with Down syndrome. This alignment not only helps us tell our stories responsibly, it also sparks ideas for stories. Most of our cast and families already knew each other, giving Born This Way an authenticity many reality shows don’t have. That authenticity is further enhanced by the fact that our cast is very honest in their interactions with each other. I also love that the families of our cast are featured in the series. It is wonderful to watch our casts’ amazing parents who work so hard to help their children work towards full independence.”

Family Affair

Cast member Megan cries while her mother, Kris, embraces her

Bea, Megan and Kris

Some of the show’s most compelling moments took place at the Down Syndrome Association of Orange County when parents of cast members were filmed sharing their joys and challenges with the parents of toddlers with Down syndrome, all the while cast members interacted with the young children. As Murray explained, “we worked with the organization to plan the event. We thought it would be interesting for parents with babies and infants to hear from our parents and it would be interesting for our cast to take on the job of baby-sitting. Everyone who came to the event signed a release. Once the event was underway, we just filmed what happened.”

The episode was amazing not only in the absolute joy of the interaction between the toddlers and adults with Down syndrome, but also in the lesson of how much progress has been made in the public perception of people with Down.  The parents of the adults recalled being told to “give up” on their children in an era when services were limited. The toddlers’ parents received fresh hope as they were encouraged to believe that with hard work and persistence their children can achieve anything. The episode conveyed to the audience, too, that Down syndrome is not a limitation. It’s just a different path.

Success of the Show

Murray describes the Emmy nomination and win as great boosts for a show that began with only six episodes in its first season: “We were honored to be nominated and we were thrilled to win. It was definitely one of the top five moments of my career. And I know it was huge for our cast and their families. They were all warmly greeted by everyone at the Emmy’s including some of their favorite stars like Heidi Klum, Ryan Seacrest and Jane Lynch.”

The second season saw an increase to eleven episodes while season three will cap at ten. Murray also shared that, “Everyone is returning for season three. Plus, there will be a few new faces, but we’re staying mum for now the identity of those new faces.”

The Future

When asked what the success of Born This Way might mean for the future of people with disabilities in the entertainment business, the short answer from Murray is: “stay tuned.”

While this reply hints at what is to come, there can be no question of what has been accomplished. The producers and assembled cast of Born This Way have laid a rock-solid foundation for people with disabilities to walk out onto the world stage with greater confidence and independence. They have won over a viewership now capable of accepting people born with Down syndrome for who they are and who they can be.

Win the Disability Market with a Game Plan and Strategy

Xs and Os being drawn on a chalkboard to symbolize a game planCompanies that successfully reach consumers with disabilities understand it requires commitment, discipline and strategy. The truth is there’s such a barren landscape of companies speaking to them directly, that any company serious about penetrating the market has the opportunity to make the competition irrelevant. These disability inclusive companies know that moving beyond understanding to market penetration requires a well-developed game plan. A few things to consider as your organization takes actionable steps to engage people with disabilities, their families, and influencers are:

  1. Make it Personal: Many companies get into a quagmire about what to offer and how to communicate with consumers with disabilities. Understanding who these consumers are and what drives their behavior provides insight into the opportunity to reach, employ and serve them. It’s imperative to create an efficient path for consumers to navigate so they understand how their needs will be met. Communicating with them consistently minimizes the number of information sources they must touch while moving confidently toward a purchase. The most successful brands achieve this by personalizing the route. A way to personalize the process is having customer service staff that understands how people with disabilities use products and services.
  2. Offer Value: In many instances, people with disabilities, and families with a disabled child, live financially below their typical peers. They make their dollars stretch among the basics, with medications, therapies and medical supplies that also need to be purchased. Companies that simplify the purchase process offer bundled packages, incentive discounts as value-adds, which build loyalty and repeat sales.
  3. Be Consistent: The general rule is prospects have to have 7+ interactions with a company before making a purchase decision. To make an impact, companies have to develop an integrated disability market strategy, which is implemented consistently, resulting in desired results. There can no longer be a scramble to develop a plan to reach people with disabilities in July (anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act) or October (National Disability Employment Awareness Month). Consistent implementation, with resources, is critical to make an impact.

If you are interested in developing an year-round, inclusive marketing and outreach game plan for your organization, get in touch to request your free 30-minute consultation.

Planning for 2017 | VIDEO

The reason many organizations indicate why they aren’t targeting consumers with disabilities is because of ‘limited budgets’. Can you imagine if that were said of the African-American, Hispanic, LGBTQ or Tween markets? It’s almost unimaginable for a company to not target these markets, representing millions of dollars spent by countless consumers.

Why hasn’t this same attention been placed on the disability market?  There are 56M people in the United States with disabilities, with aggregate disposable income of $544B. It begs the question – why aren’t more companies targeting them as guests, customers and employees?

This week’s video will provide direction and clarity to help learn how you and your team can integrate people with disabilities into your 2017 plans.

Download the Just Start Disability Inclusion Discussion Guide

100 Percent: An Interview with Scott Monette, Founder of 100 Percent Wine

By Joan Leotta

Scott Monette, left and Matthews Monette, right

Scott Monette, Founder of 100 Percent Wine, and his son Matthew

Scott Monette ‘s St. Louis company, 100 Percent Wine, is more than just a purveyor of premium California wines. The company’s mission represents a major shift in paradigm, a change in the way America views people with disabilities in the workplace. Monette’s ambitious goal of creating more inclusive environments is powered by his belief: “Work is a basic right. Having a job helps people feel that they have a place in society.”

This very conviction — along with something more — inspired Monette to leave a prime position in the corporate world to found 100 Percent Wine. As he explains, “I have a strong vested interest in inclusive workplaces. My son Matthew is deaf and on the autism spectrum. The number of people in our country with disabilities is staggering—56, 57 million. In addition, two thirds of them are completely out of the workforce. A job defines your place in society. I wanted my new business to start a conversation about what people with disabilities can accomplish in the workplace if we just give them a chance.”

In both hiring people with disabilities and determining their placement within the organization’s structure, Monette’s approach is unique. Approximately half of his small staff identifies as having a disability and all its profits are donated to groups who work toward creatively integrating people with disabilities into the workforce. Monette explains, ” We are a certified “B” corporation. B Corps are certified by the nonprofit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency and not just wealth for shareholders., We take this seriously. In fact, we were recently named a 2016 Best for the World Company by the B in Change Media. This award highlights companies around the globe that create exceptional positive social and environmental impact. In our case, we were honored for our work in the communities we serve. We felt obtaining the certification and the award was important because they tell people we are serious about our commitment to the inclusion of people with disabilities into the workforce.” In evidence of this uncommon commitment, Monette’s salary as company head is one dollar per year.

Challenges

Or course, lofty goals are not without their own unique challenges. As Monette explains, product perception can be a stumbling block for potential consumers: “One of our major challenges is getting people to realize that they can have a great product experience while supporting a wonderful cause. So many companies have produced poor products under a charity umbrella that consumers have become rightly skeptical. I knew our wine had to over-deliver to be credible. Based on feedback from consumers and wine critics, all of our wines exceed that high standard. We have to prove it to consumers at every single tasting.”

Another challenge related to the company’s larger objectives is persuading potential employers to hire people with disabilities. To address this, 100 Percent Wine actively models both its hiring practices and training techniques. Such proactive transparency allows “other firms to see that hiring people with disabilities is a good business decision” Monette says. He goes on to point out that “we have plenty of data to show that people with disabilities make dedicated hard working employees— that their turnover and absentee rates are very low. Low turnover alone, once experienced, makes it well worth it to hire a person with a disability. These figures alone, however, do not make the case about the importance of training, or even one on one coaching. Experience makes that case.” Monette notes that one person can get the ball rolling in a large or small business. Walgreen’s Pepsi, Ford, UPS, Amazon,, and Xerox are industry giants who have innovated employment opportunities and implemented training for people with disabilities.

Employees at 100 Percent

Andrew, who has attention deficit challenges, is one of the employees whose job is to ensure that patrons of 100 Percent come away with positive shopping and purchase experiences. After Andrew’s first employee experience as a 100 Percent Brand Ambassador at a grocery store tasting, Monette was motivated to write an article describing what they had both learned that day. Those reflections which appeared in Fast Company relay the practicalities and the passions that combined, can create a successful venture. From the vantage point of company founder, Monette is clear about the learning curve: ” I had done a number of wine tastings and understood how to be effective,. I assumed all of that knowledge would be intuitive for Andrew. That was not only wrong, but it was also unfair. I realized that Andrew just needed some coaching on how to interact with customers, Once I took the time to help Andrew, he learned quickly and became successful— so successful that customers began to ignore me. He ended up selling twice the volume of wine that day that we normally sell. I learned a lot. My biggest lesson was that no company had really given Andrew a chance. I quickly figured out that Andrew could be very successful once he was properly trained, just like anyone else. I knew there were lots of other “Andrews” in the world who deserved a chance to be successful. At its core, that is what 100 Percent Wine stands for.”

Half of the small company’s staff of six have disabilities. Tom Jenkins who oversees social media has cerebral palsy and is mobility impaired. Valerie Hill, has learning difficulties and other disabilities goes out on tastings. As the company grows by adding products, Monette hopes to add more employees as well, including those with disabilities. “We still have a lot of work to do, but we know that once people see what we are doing it opens their minds to the possibility of hiring persons with disabilities in their own companies. It was important to have a person with a disability in a position where he or she would interact with the public. That works to change public perceptions of what people with disabilities can or cannot do. Disability inclusion is integral to our business.”

Monette works with local agencies committed to helping people with disabilities find meaningful employment. “We recruit employees from several organizations where job development is part of their mission. One of these is the St Louis Arc, which gave him the referral to Andrew.

As inspiration for this innovating venture, Matthew Monette may one day work full time for his father. Scott Monette explains, “Matthew works with me on a part-time basis now but he recently got a full time job at a local grocery. Matthew always comes home smiling from work. When I was driving him home recently, he pointed to the grocery store where he works and said, ‘That is a happy place.’ I want everyone to feel the same sense of accomplishment and joy that Matthew feels from work.”

Customer Reaction

Even the most altruistic of business enterprises rely on positive customer feedback, a reality which Monette has sought to balance with the other objectives of his company. With a goal of “creating an experience beyond the simple transaction of tasting the wine,” Monette seeks to establish “customer engagement that not only creates a good atmosphere for the product but also helps the general public change any negative perceptions about people with disabilities in general and specifically about what they can do in the workplace.”

Exceeding customer expectations contributes to the company bottom line which in turn strengthens the case Monette makes to potential employers in other lines of business. People with disabilities constitute a vast untapped labor pool. By engaging the challenges unique to this highly diverse and talented demographic, 100 Percent Wine effectively models how to “build on each small success and clearly articulates as a company that this is who we are [hiring]. If it were easy it would have no real value.”

Partners and Profits

At present, two organizations, United Cerebral Palsy Heartland and Mercy Hospital in St. Louis, are the largest recipients of 100 Percent Wine profits. Of special note, Mercy’s work in the community closely aligns with Monette’s own business objectives. Dana Brodeur, who serves as Manager of Disability Inclusion Services for Mercy Hospitals in St. Louis, has, according to Monette, developed a stellar program “that turns volunteers, especially volunteers with disabilities, into employees. Not only has she formed a very successful program, she has made it into an innovative employment creation model and implemented it in all of the other Mercy hospitals in the area. In addition, she is broadening it to the six other states where Mercy has a presence. She uses volunteering as a way of training for the people she hires. She has also integrated dealing with people with disabilities into the hospital’s diversity training program.”

Making Progress

In addition to the positive coverage in disability media, several local, general media outlets have devoted news stories highlighting the company’s mission and its important impact on the community.

Regrettably, not every interaction has been a success. Monette recounted a recent incident where a grocery manager asked Andrew to leave the store before he had even begun the tasting. Monette notes that Andrew had done anything wrong and when pressed, the manager used a flimsy excuse to justify asking Andrew to leave. Monette says, “Andrew was, of course, deeply hurt and it reminded me that although we have made progress, there is still a lot of work to do.”

Vision for 100 Percent Wine

Fortunately, such episodes are infrequent and will not deter Monette and like-minded businesses and organizations from seeking even great inroads. For this father and CEO, the future is clear: “Our vision is to develop more products, hire more people including people with disabilities … and as a bigger company we will be able to support more organizations with a vision for employment of people with disabilities.” To this, Monette added: “I like to think that we are in the business to help people. Some are cynical but I have a son in this population and I am committed to making this work. We are transparent as a company and we live what we say we are going to do. We want to continue to be a brand that brings lasting value and impacts lives.”

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Note: 100 Percent Wine’s products in many retail stores throughout Illinois and Missouri. In states where online alcohol purchase and delivery are legal, visit drinkwinehelppeople.org or contact Scott directly at Scott@drinkwinehelppeople.org.