Kudos

I'm really impressed with Adithi's work on the Stavtar wireframe. The client came to us wanting a website inspired by Apple (lol), and her wireframe truly delivers. Every component seems well thought out and especially catered towards the clients' needs. It's visually stunning and easy to navigate, and sets a high bar for what's to come. GREAT WORK!!

Yay, team! Dawn and I are so grateful for your team scrambling the fighter jets to help us get the Excellence 2.0 kicked off. The sales folks are energized and they are being incentivized share the good news of Medallion far and wide! Working with partners like you is awesome! Dawn and I feel like we can take a breath When partnering with you. Thank you for being amazing, please thank your team, and please have a great weekend!

Huge kudos to the LuxWall team today for the super fast work on a new site outline and wireframes! Appreciate the teamwork to meet a tight deadline!

Kudos to Maria for her work on the KraftMaid community management activity. She's going above and beyond for the client and does so in a dedicated manner! She's also developed a process that is replicable and could benefit other clients as well. Also preemptive kudos to Ryan for managing while Maria is out next week.

Kudos to Katie and Emma for their beautiful work on the FLOW logos and brand panels! And a super late kudos to Charlie for his awesome positioning!

Kudos to the NewSouth team for everything you’ve been juggling! I want to give a special shoutout to Grace for all the support she’s given me as a newcomer to this account. She’s always willing to chat or hop on a call to guide me through new projects. I truly appreciate her patience and kindness!

Meant to mention on Friday — seeing all of Valentina's fantastic KraftMaid work last week was super inspiring for future Wilsonart content. The power of sharing our work!

From Kim at Yeo & Yeo this morning: I wanted to share some exciting news … Yeo & Yeo’s brand placed in the Top 200 of an annual Accounting Firm Brand Index performed by Resound Creative this past summer. What’s more thrilling is that our brand ranked #16 out of 1,495 accounting firm brands evaluated in the research index, placing us in the Top 1% of firms Indexed. We can certainly attribute this accomplishment to the stellar work your team helped us accomplish! We will be pushing some PR out on social and will be including Phire in the communications if you don’t mind.

A big shout out to the Chem-Trend team for stepping it up while Blaire has been on mat leave. Those are some big shoes to fill, and everyone has been taking initiative/supporting when needed. Some examples from this week: web team talking strategy about the NA form page, so much collaboration prepping for the brand summit, Maria leading our status meeting, Valentina/Alex pivoting messaging for the Europe ads, and so much more!

Kudos to Paige + Adithi for creating an annotating system for us to share Figma notes between UX, design, and dev. I've been using their new system lately, and it's been so helpful! Thanks for taking the time to make our web process better

Incredible work done by the U-M Stamps team. The big research/branding presentation was today and the client was blown away! A few words they used when reacting to what was shared: "unbelievable amount of work", "incredibly impressive", "compelling", "spot-on", "empowering"... the list goes on! Can't wait to see how we can continue to push the envelope on this project!

Belated kudos for the interns! Their presentation on Friday went really well. The client was super impressed with all of their work and is excited to keep working with us on AgTech-related projects!

I missed a few people in my Skyview story this morning, so wanted to give them credit as well! Parita has been steering the ship this whole time and has done a great job keeping everyone on point while also coming to the table with ideas based on the client's feedback. Coach and Jim stepped in to lend support and bring fresh perspectives (Coach also made a quikturn update to help with some testing). And Blaire came back from being out sick as if she never missed a beat, adding client input and helping to communicate all the changes we're making. I probably missed more people too, so if so, sorry!

Had to share another kudos from Trevor at Skyview. Not only did he post about our team on his LI page, complimenting our work on the new site, he followed up with this text to me: "We have visions of becoming a $100M company that becomes a household name across the entire state of Michigan. When anyone thinks about updating their backyard in Michigan, we want them to think of Skyview Detroit. And we feel that the new website and brand and the work we’re doing with Phire Group is setting us up for that. Excited to work together for years to come."

Sharing text from our client at Skyview "I just want to say, I am in love with this website. It has far exceeded my expectations." Kudos deserved for everyone who worked on this site!

We sent over the Print designs for Skyview Detroit, and our Account Executive at Hour Media emailed back with comments about how much she loved the designs! Great job, Paige!

From Shannon at AF Group: "So – some great news, all. The annual report is approved (with a few noted changes below). And quoting Lisa (President and CEO)... "I love it - great job - you guys killed it."

Major kudos to Paige for leading our new Design/Dev/UX meetings. These meetings have been a great space for people to share challenges, improve our process, and learn from each other. Thanks for starting this, Paige!

Alex put together a great SEO document for Lake Trust landing pages that will simplify content writing and make the process more intuitive. Appreciate him doing the work that makes our future lives easier!

Fantastic note from Marketplace Homes on Melissa, Tony and Jim's initial branding presentation: "We'd like to express our appreciation for the effort and creativity your team has put in thus far. Your attention to detail and commitment to capturing our brand has been greatly appreciated. We are immensely impressed by the progress made thus far and are excited to see our vision come to life.

A huge Kudos to John for his collaborative spirit on the final stages of AF Group annual report microsite. The client approved the design, we built the whole thing with Lorem Ipsum, and THEN we received the final content (so not our usual process). But he took the content, led a mini working session where we all problem-solved and placed content across the pages, and got the site across the finish line for a tight deadline. AND THE SITE IS AMAZING! It's my favorite one we've done yet. Honestly, it was such a wonderful experience working with our team through this project. Big determination, curiosity, and human-ness.

Kudos to Ryan for putting together the Social Media Best Practices docs. I've been getting a lot of use out them the last couple of weeks, and they are so helpful! Very clear.

From Shannon at AF Group regarding the annual report: "I am blown away. Really really well done." I'm not doing it justice, but Shannon was incredibly happy and complimentary of the annual report this year, espeically Grace's design. But to all have worked on it so far, kudos!

During dinner with SEBU last night, Pablo (VP of Marketing) mentioned that he is a big fan of our video case studies. Big kudos to everyone on the External Comms team for shining such a light on our work. Clients are noticing.

Big shout out to Alex for TBD. I think back to his random late-night text floating this crazy concept to me. I was supportive (but maybe skeptical?). Anyway, the initial report is fantastic. Dive in when you get a chance.

I really enjoyed the Culture Connect meeting this morning. Nice work, Culture Committee! It was great to hear different perspectives and comforting to know that although we may occasionally self doubt, we've got an amazing team for support.

Kudos to Ryan for joining a Lake Trust call this week and walking through TikTok for them. She's done a lot of research and has set up their account for them, expanding our capabilities and helping the client reach a new audience.

Shoutout to Hoge and Melissa for their work to pull off a seamless Chem-Trend video! Praise from a client: "It came together very nicely, again – kudos to you. It was tough for Austin to deliver more than a sentence at a time during the filming, I remember. This seems very fluid and tells a very positive story about our value beyond the product – excellent!"

Touting some very kind words from our client at Skyview. Kudos well deserved for Charlie, Parita, and Ryan for all the work so far! "Thank you so much. We are very impressed with your team and the work you have done so far. We're very excited to kick off this journey with you all. Feeling very confident in our decision to partner with Phire Group!"

Kudos to John for developing an awesome CMS experience for UMMA — the client was very complementary about the ease and flexibility on our weekly status call today. They had very high expectations and we delivered!

Kudos to John for developing an awesome CMS experience for UMMA — the client was very complementary about the ease and flexibility on our weekly status call today. They had very high expectations and we delivered!

Congrats to the Michigan Public team for getting featured in Brand New! https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_name_logo_and_identity_for_michigan_public_by_phire_group.php#memberful_overlay

The new GM at Michigan Public, Wendy Turner. sent me the following note: "I want to say thank you for the magnificent rebranding work you did with us. I am so proud to join this organization at such a pivotal and exciting time."

The new GM at Michigan Public, Wendy Turner. sent me the following note: "I want to say thank you for the magnificent rebranding work you did with us. I am so proud to join this organization at such a pivotal and exciting time."

I wanted to second Tony's kudos from this morning about Kristen's video process doc! When I saw the first draft it was already 90% there. The fact that she knows my process almost better than me is such a testament to her and how good she is at her job. Thanks again, Kristen!

Kudos to the entire Rehmann team (+ Julie and Jim for coordinating the send of holiday gifts to our clients). Received a really nice note from Holly at Rehmann this morning: "We received the awesome Zingerman’s gift you sent! Thank you so much! We appreciate the relationship we’ve built this past year. We’re looking forward to a really awesome 2024 working with you more closely on all things digital. Please share my thanks with anyone else appropriate on your team."

A lot of the Rehmann team was out today, so I wanted to make sure you all felt the love. Rehmann this week was very complimentary of the entire Phire team, have sent several referrals our way, and wanted to express how much they have loved working with us. That's all related to the comprehensive work we've done with them, so kudos to Casey, Kristen, Coach, Tony, Josh, and Valentina for building such a strong foundation for the relationship.

Props to Hoge for whipping out four last-minute logo animations for MRB Group, on top of being out sick today. Dedication, determination, creativity. All the values and more for that one. +Kudo-ing Melissa for sticking with it throughout the long logo design process. She's pulled off at least 25+ to date and we finally have four final concepts the client feels excited about. Nearing the finish line and admire your endless work on these!

Maria put together a full plan for the 2024 social strategy, content development, process improvements, goals, and beyond for Chem-Trend. It was beautifully thought out and presented to the team seamlessly. Kudos for being determined to push our team to run more efficiently and creatively. The client was extremely pleased with the ideas shared today!

Big kudos to Valentina for work on SEBU. Specifically, she took on the product line positioning for their non-impact product. SEBU has been a challenge, but she stayed resillient and determined and produced great work.

From our client at MEC: "We received excellent, and I do mean EXCELLENT, feedback on the brand at our annual member meeting last Friday. Overall, folks were so, so impressed with the thought behind the design itself, the clean lines, and the modern feel. They really embraced the brand story document and loved the swag we had printed. Please give Paige and the team a big high-five from all of us!"

Kudos to Julie for taking a pretty complex invoicing request from a client and handling it with a problem-solving mentality. She's been working directly with the client on it and has done it all with a determination that we will get this figured out.

From Morgan at Arts MSU regarding the continued launch of the new brand (and potentially more work for us there): "There’s so much excitement and the work got a lot of praise. So both I’m sorry and/or you’re welcome if you get many more MSU calls down the line, depending on capacity, because there were a lot of thrilled and impressed folks out there

Received some very kind words from the Hardenbergh team regarding our work on tradeshow booth and campaign: "We had an All Hands meeting today and highlighted the Phire work on our new booth and transition campaign. I wanted to reiterate how great everything looked. It’s quite impressive and a strong statement when you’re able to see all the elements together. The design, copy and cohesive execution were truly outstanding. Please pass along to your team."

Kathy from Hardenbergh sent along this nice note regarding the NAMSS tradeshow booth that Jim and Melissa helped put together: "NAMSS was amazing! Booth turned out great!! There was a professional photographer onsite and as soon as they post the pictures, I will send some better ones over. Thank you again for the amazing job, design work and support!"

Kudos to Maria for putting together the Chem-Trend brand summit doc we went through earlier this week (the other meeting I alluded to during the standup). In the spirit of collaboration, she put together the skeleton of the document as well as some thought-starters which gave us room to discuss what we'd like the presentation to be while serving as a really good guide for the conversation.

Shout out to Emma for presenting a video storyboard to the client. It was great content, and she did a fabulous job presenting.

Shoutout to the Global Michigan website team for their hard work leading up to launch. Special kudos to Josh for his patience navigating hosting with UM-IT and his dedication to move this to the finish line. Site looks amazing!!!

Got a great note from Christy with Fencing Supply Group so I had to share! Way to go team!!"It’s SO great when you all make it SO easy! Love the work for sure, so please share the JOY with the team! Also, appreciate the promptness in getting this back to us."

Celebrating the stunning and thoughtful work done by Amelia and Janice. Just finished the final presentation call with UMS and team—Direct quote from Sara: "This is just superb work. I am 100% convinced you will see your work within our work very soon." Amazing job this summer and can't wait to see them roll out their messaging and creative work soon!

Kudos to Paige for her work on MEC logos. She walked us through her progress during our weekly creative meeting, and I was so impressed with her thought process and level of care. Creating a memorable mark that tells a story and resonates with an audience is challenging (especially when there are many opinions/voices in the mix), but Paige approached this project with poise and determination!

From Morgan at Arts MSU: "YOU ALL!!!!! This is so fantastic! You caught us at a perfect moment, we were both able to take a look and we are completely ecstatic! This is so gorgeous, we love how bright it is and especially after hearing how thrilled Heather was earlier with our color choices, to see them come through so boldly here we know will be very exciting to so many others. We couldn’t be happier!"

Sharing some love from Georgie at Chem-Trend for video production and work both Hoge and Melissa supported! Adding in the rest of the crew to share my praise for the production and finished video. I found myself smiling through the video – Patricia has an endearing and understated way about her that I think many will also be appreciated and admired by others here who’ll watch this. What an educated and thoughtful leader – I’m excited that we can share this with the organization! Well done!"

A well-deserved kudos for Melissa and Tony's work on MRB Group brand panels presentation today. Not only did they present in under 50 min (which the client was so appreciative of), they knocked it out of the park! The client was so pleased and said they "nailed it!" Fab work on both presenting and executing on first round of ideas and logos.

From Morgan at Arts MSU in response to our finalized brand panels: YAY!!! This is absolutely gorgeous, we’re so thrilled. We love the colors, the weight of the logo—everything! This is 100% good to go on our end. Please extend our sincerest thanks to everyone who touched this. We couldn’t be more excited to go into the weekend with a final direction, and it encapsulates everything we heard in the focus groups and everything we’ve been hoping for since beginning this work. We are so grateful.

Supplemental Chem-Trend story: When Melissa and I were tearing down after the shoot, Jessica from CT asked us what clients we had that were really fun to work on (inferring that CT is very dry and not fun). I didn't really know what to say for a sec then Melissa just jumped in and said "I actually really like working on Chem-Trend." And that led to both of us rattling off all the things we really like about working with their brand and their team. It was cool. Kudos to the whole CT team!

Supplemental Chem-Trend story: When Melissa and I were tearing down after the shoot, Jessica from CT asked us what clients we had that were really fun to work on (inferring that CT is very dry and not fun). I didn't really know what to say for a sec then Melissa just jumped in and said "I actually really like working on Chem-Trend." And that led to both of us rattling off all the things we really like about working with their brand and their team. It was cool. Kudos to the whole CT team!

Ryan presented an activation strategy to Afia Analytics today, and it went great! Not only was the client very receptive to the strategy and plan, Ryan had to fight some technical issues and did so extermely well. Nice work Ryan!

Just received an awesome note from Dwight at Coherix: "CONGRATULATIONS COHERIX MARKETING TEAM !!! Yesterday a high-level high tech executive visited Coherix. I showed him our new video. HE WAS VERY IMPRESSED !! GREAT JOB !!!" Kudos, team!

I forgot to also mention this story this morning, so I'll post it here: Paige is a superstar! She took time out of her week last week and answered a slew of Figma questions I had. Learning a new program can be daunting, but she explained it in such a way (and with such patience) that it finally "clicked" for me. It's one thing to be able to know a program, but another thing to teach it. So here is a very heartfelt kudos to Paige for giving the gift of her time and knowledge to me last week.

Blaire, Alex, and John, and I had a ChemTrend meeting yesterday AM with the India region. We had a lot thrown at us, and some pretty high energy coming from India. (understatement - LOL) But we took it in stride, but specifically Blaire and John did a great job taking in the info, answering questions, and redirecting a lot to ChemTrend for a regroup to further discuss. It's awesome to feel so aligned with the client (Kathy and Julie specifically), when internally they needed help and needed to lean on us a bit. (Alex, thanks for jumping on at the last minute, and for missing your 9:00 meeting - sorry about that). Nice work team!!

Kudos to John, Blaire, and Coach for managing a tough call with Chem-Trend India's agency. They were asking a lot of us relatively early in the morning and Blaire did a great job being diplomatic and realigning on capabilities in the current framework, Coach did a great job moderating the conversation, interpreting what the agency was asking, and working with them to find a solution. And John did a great job explaining the limitations in a way that was simple but flexible. Nice work!

And anotha' one (sorry) — Cheers to the MRB Group team for work and presentation on Discovery+Positioning this AM! Great feedback came back from Eric: "I was nervous this morning about this meeting and I will say that was absolutely amazing. You are right on point and that was VERY impressive. Thank you guys again!" Ryan, Jim, Valentina, Parita!

Sharing some kind words from a client vendor following our visit yesterday: "Thank you for coming and for your partnership. Paige is a blast — what a great team at Phire ☺️." You go girl.

Just found out we're finalists for the Weaver website -- financial services/consulting/CPAs. The CMO followed up with this note: "Thanks, Jim. We look forward to the meeting. I also want to let you know that I am attending a conference with Holly from Rehmann. At dinner last night, she was very complimentary of your team and the work you did on their new site. Excellent impromptu reference!" That's how we do it! Kudos to team Rehmann and the power of relationships and great work!

Kudos to Coach for his work on the UMMA wireframe. He took some chances on things that we don't typically do. It was cool to see the direction he took on a complex site with a lot of unique needs. Nice work Coach.

Kudos to Valentina for her work on the Compressions Molding knowledge content piece for Chem-Trend. She was able to take a very complex process and indirect feedback from a client and turn it into a truly interesting content piece. Great work!

Kudos to the entire Lake Trust crew (Alex, Charlie, Jim, Kristen, Hoge, Tony) for all of the hard work on the latest batch of Lake Trust stories videos and campaign creative (a whole lot of it). An already high bar has been raised.. can't wait for the rollout.

Sorry I missed this in my previous kudos! I got so excited by the client's response that I didn't read the full email. Gotta give some love to Grace and Paige for their work on the Global Michigan homepage designs as well. Here's what the client said: "The designs were also so incredible. Overall, we really enjoy how light and airy both of the designs were. They both feel so much more breathable than what we currently have."

Shoutout to the Global Michigan team for all of our hard work! Here is the note we just received from the client on v1 of wireframes: "The wireframe is amazing! Overall, it's already so much better than what we currently have and addresses a lot of the pain points that we have faced with the current Global Michigan site."

Just jumped off a Rehmann dashboard call where Alex walked the client through this past month's updates. They were so pleased with how things were structured and how knowledgable he was. Definitely a great continued relationship!

(Since Parita wasn’t here today to hear, I’m dropping this here. Here.) The U-M Global team has been very helpful over the past several days helping me decipher and work through the content provided and developing the wireframes. Yesterday we presented them (along with a homepage design) and it went great! Specifically, I want to call out Parita for jumping in with a suggested opportunity that really got the client thinking a little “out of the box”. It was awesome to hear her voice and to be very present in the meeting (while frantically taking notes, too). Thanks!

I've been meaning to give our team a kudos for the work on Censys. The client beat me to it. Awesome work, Parita, Grace, and John. Zach included me but he really shouldn't have. Parita managed this in an incredible way. "Just wanted to shoot over a quick note thanking you all for the amazing work you put into this website project (and for the incredible speed at which you delivered everything!) We launched officially last night and are already receiving tons of warm praise from folks internally. A huge shoutout to Parita for effortlessly managing this wild-at-times project (and for gently keeping me on track for delivery of all things), Mike for being awesome as ever and helpful when we needed to reassess our schedule, Grace for her incredible (as always), thoughtful, and truly delightful design work, and John for his top-notch dev work (and willingness to jump in and quickly fix some things for us in the final hour). We appreciate you all and the love you poured into our brand over these last few months." -Zach at Censys

Kudos to Maria for the great discussion she led with Chem-Trend today. The company is eliminating PFAS from their products, and very intentional and balanced messaging is needed to promote this. Maria presented an awesome framework that really helped the client -- and us -- put things in perspective. Nice work, as usual!!

Kudos to Maria for the great discussion she led with Chem-Trend today. The company is eliminating PFAS from their products, and very intentional and balanced messaging is needed to promote this. Maria presented an awesome framework that really helped the client -- and us -- put things in perspective. Nice work, as usual!!

Thanks to Julie for driving all over Ann Arbor to hand deliver our B blank notepads and stickies! Appreciate you taking time out of your day to do that. It's the little things that make our team feel connected!

Big shout to our Media Department. Ryan just did a fantastic job presenting a Michigan Radio activation plan, and Maria was a huge help on MSU Discovery work. It's awesome to see the department continue to grow and excel (Alex too). Woot.

A huge thanks to David for going the extra mile on a route for a PGT ad we are working on. The client sent feedback to include the builder's name/info on the ad, and David did a quick deep dive to make sure the information was correct (which it wasn't!) So we were able to correct the naming before we sent it to the client for review. Wow. Such a small catch that made a big difference in polishing our work. Thanks for all that you do!

Kudos to Mike for his awesome SEBU campaign frameworks/presos. They're super clear and direct, helping both the client and the team stay focused.

Kudos to the Seraph team! We just received a great note from the client, Lisa: "A quick note to say thank you for all the work Phire did to help us launch the Seraph Operational Excellence Awards. You were the glue that held everything together and were so responsive to our needs. We sure learned a lot as we went through the process of what worked!"

Kudos to Grace for her determination and commitment on the AF Group Annual report. Her work has been fantastic, despite a challenging client.

Kudos again to the UMMA team! The client sent a fantastic note yesterday: "Thanks for the great meeting today, please pass that along to everyone - you are all doing great work and we're feeling incredibly lucky to be partnering with you on this!"

Parita has done such a great job pushing some of our PM-specific initiatives along this week and it's so appreciated! Thanks for keeping the momentum and continuously improving the department from all different angles!

Kudos to Paige for the fun energy and passion she brings to HathiTrust. Sharing a note from a client: "Please pass on to Paige how impressed I am with her work! I love how passionate she is and responsive to our requests. She's delivered so many creative ideas and solutions. Thanks Paige!"

This is a test email to see if the server is sending emails. Ever since we increased our email security there has been issues receiving messages from web forms on our websites. IF you receive this.. there have been 2 Kudos this year, that you probably haven't seen. Thank you. That is all. - Semi-IT

I just got off a call with Miranda from Rehmann where she was very excited about the launch of the site. She said (I'm paraphrasing) that she's gotten phenomenal feedback and it really feels like the Rehmann brand is finally able to be shown off in a really cool way.

A 2 in 1 kudos for both the Chem-Trend and SEBU teams for starting the year off strong and keeping our 2023 strategic goals in mind as we work through many various deliverables, big and small. I'm excited to see how the teams are able to support and push our clients to thrive!

Kudos to Paige for presenting her first website designs today! The designs were beautiful (client also loved them), and she was so great at explaining her decisions and answering all of the clients' questions. So impressed at how confident and prepared she was and the solutions she provided. Great work!

Just wanted to to share a comment from David Snodgrass at their Powered By Good day. After Jim's speech, David spoke and said a lot of nice things, but this stood out: "You know, we feel really fortunate to have found in our own backyard in Ann Arbor, a company like Jim's, that they themselves are a genuine brand." That's a compliment to everyone here . Also, Jim's speech was great as well. Yes we found it. Yes we watched it. Nice work Jim.

BIG OL' SHOUTOUT to the Michigan Radio creative team who put together the brand panels. They presented them today and the client showered them with compliments. A few words thrown around: "outstanding", "highly sophisticated" "well-thought out", "priceless"... the list goes on. A definite well deserved kudos!

Sharing a kind note from a client (CARES) following the completion of our mini-project! Great work Parita, Valentina, and Monet. Here’s a belated follow up to say thank you so much! The Brand standards and other working files look great – we really appreciate help from you and your team for this aspect of our project.

Huge shoutout to the R-Zero team (Jim, Parita and Tony) for all the hard work on positioning -- quick turnarounds, productive brainstorming sessions with the client, and phenomenal work time and time again! Such a sweet moment when the client said "This is perfect" on the brand statement! Glad to have such a great team to work with!

Unprovoked 5-star Google Review just came in from Josh, a Coherix client. "Amazingly talented Team at Phire! They sure now how to tell a story and represent a brand...top notch!!!" Way to go Team Coherix!

We had a retainer client proactively reach out to us last night to already (in August) indicate that they want to work with us again next year. She added "We are getting great support from Blaire, Alex, Kristen, and the team. I believe things are running smoothly and appreciate the frequent proactive ideas brought forward regarding our marketing goals and website optimization!"

Kudos to the Chem-Trend team from Kathy. Blaire and I were on a call with her yesterday and she said, to paraphrase, "I'm so happy we have Phire. All you guys do such great work and I'm not used to it." This was in reference to all the work we've done including social, web, etc. So kudos to Kristen, Valentina, Blaire, Maria, Melissa, Josh, John, and Coach! It's clear they are really appreciative of what we are bringing to the table.

Huge kudos to Ryan for her work on Friends In Deed and going above and beyond this past weekend. Not only did she volunteer at the event, helping to plan out for next year, making sure we got a diverse set of content we could use, but she even helped out at the VIP event the night before, well after normal working hours....on a Friday. The client appreciated it greatly and it really shows her dedication to the work she did for them.

John trained BCD M&E on their CMS earlier today and killed it! There are specifically 22 different "lego blocks" to choose from on the site and he had to explain what each one did and all the variations that each one had. He made each one so easy to manage and use. The client seemed very excited to get in there and start populating content and build out the pages. Nice job, John!

To Alex for fulfilling a quick turn request from Lake Trust for information regarding advertising targeting. Thank you for being an excellent resource for our clients and doing all you can to make them happy! Above and beyond.

Sharing a really nice note from Georgie at Chem-Trend (with regard to Blaire's prep and Melissa's help on a recent photoshoot): Wanted to express my appreciation for all of those at Phire to coordinate yesterday’s shoot. The day went flawlessly, and Melissa was a huge asset to have onsite – her attention to detail and ability to step in, move equipment, clean up areas, wrangle talent, etc. went beyond expectations. We look forward to the final shot selection – really going to have a tough time deciding on the short list for retouching!

Friends In Deed wanted help understanding the process for video editing and wanted to see if they could do a bit more on their end. However, they had no idea how to do it. Hoge met with them for 45 minutes, answered their many questions and set them up to edit videos more turnkey. The client was excited and is already trying to make some edits. Definitely above and beyond the call of duty, Hoge. Thank you.

Spotlighting Hoge for his support with a video project for Chem-Trend and going above and beyond per usual. I'll let the compliments from the client speak for itself: Please let me express my immense gratitude to Michael and the rest of your team involved on this project for making the entire process so incredibly efficient and the tutorial so straightforward. I should have our first video up and running before close of business today and I could not have done that without some of the explicit instructions he gave in the tutorial video. I’m a true novice and he made AfterEffects approachable for me – which is saying something because it’s an intimidating piece of software.

Great way to end the day with a sweet note from the Director of U-M BLI. Good work team!! "The past few weeks have been challenging, with so many things disrupting our hope for a better future. Your presentation has reassured us that we are on the right track and need to keep up with our work. Thanks for your message, and we needed it this week."

Over the weekend A2RU's site went down. We have no idea why (we seldom do), but we know we didn't specific do anything. But Josh, Lina, and Karlie worked to get info from the client and Josh did what he could to get the site back up. Nice job and thanks guys!

Over the weekend A2RU's site went down. We have no idea how or why. What we know is it wasn't "us", but Josh, Lina, and Karlie dug in and did what we could to get it back up for them. Nice job, guys!

Kudos to Blaire, Maria, Kristen, and Miker for the Chem-Trend meeting earlier this week. It was an important meeting welcoming their new team member, but also meeting with them to continue to think about growth and the future. Blaire did an awesome job moving the conversation into a great place, and I'm always impressed by the conversations that we can have when we are in person with the client. Each person played an important role in that meeting, so big kudos to everyone!

I just wanted to pass along a kudos we received from a New Business call this morning. The bank that took over Monroe Bank (First Merchants) was incredibly complimentary of our brand/messaging work on MBT to the point where they said it was actually painful to absorb the brand. In addition to that, they complimented the stories and approach and much more. I apologize that I don't fully remember everyone that worked on it since it was several years ago, but I just wanted to share that they were very impressed and loved the brand.

Today is the last day for our Wilsonart clients (Kasey). He called me to officially say goodbye and had such WONDERFUL words about our team. He wanted me to pass along how much he appreciated all of the hard work we put forward and that we've been such a wonderful partner during his time at Wilsonart. He called out each team member by name and what a pleasure it was to work with our team. He said we made his life easier and he always knew he could count on us. He said he will take our contact info with us to his new adventure! Great job, team!! Miker - Special shout out to you from Kasey for being an amazing leader.

Great compliment from client for Monet's quick work on their Series Brochure + Order form! "And I don't think I've said it, but -- WOW! It really looks terrific and has come such a long way in such a short amount of time!"

Shout out to Emma for helping out on a few extra projects this week outside of her usual workload! That includes this massive, messy PPT that she had to redesign for WinDoor and she did an amazing job! From the client: "This is fabulous, please thank your team w/ multiple kudos." Excellent work!

Kudos to the entire CAN/Family Ties website team. We've had to change gears a bit, but I'm impressed with everyone's realism, positive attitude, and ability to adapt throughout. Special shout out to Blaire, Kristen, and Coach for being super thorough in communicating and determined to do the job right. And one more shout out to John for stepping in last minute to build the site from scratch. Excited to see how this one turns out!

Kudos to Maria for cultivating such great relationships with our clients! Sharing some kinds words from one of them I saw come through to Maria today—such a sweet moment: "Have I told you lately that I appreciate you?"

From Geraldine at Autonomic: "A job candidate recently noted how our website fulfilled their expectations for a tech company and made Autonomic's work and vision digestible and exciting to them." Great work everyone!!

Kudos to Grace for always pushing the design of PGTI brand materials forward. It's very inspiring and keeps us from getting stagnant.

We're embarking on a super complicated launch of a broadcast TV campaign for CGI in the Miami market. Karlie is running the management of it, and just lead a fantastic meeting with all parties involved. During the meeting I got this chat from the client; "Love Karlie (heart emoji)."

Kudos to Ryan who presented her first media plan today! She fought through some tech issues and some people that didn't know they weren't muted and did a great job walking the client through their options, what each tactic meant, and what we can expect out of the campaign. Great work, Ryan!

Shoutout to Monet for working this past week and weekend to finalize the UMS Fiddler Program Book! This was a beast of a job with a tight turnaround and laundry list of revisions. Client is so pleased with the final product: "Thanks to everyone and to Monet! This started off in great shape and I'm sure it helped Mark put all the final pieces of this weekend's production together." Admire your dedication and determination to see this through!

Kudos to Maria, Ryan, Jim and the entire Yeo & Yeo team for their work on the Activation Strategy and Personas. Extremely detailed. Great job being curious and thinking outside of the box. Wonderful discussions with the client today and more exciting discussions to come. Looking forward to taking their brand to the next level! Great work team!!

Kudos to Karlie for the amazing job she's done with the round tables. I'm always so impressed with how she engages with the team. Her approach is always so thoughtful and so thorough.

To the media team for their on-the-fly brainstorming this week for TMC. We were able to provide great recommendations to the client as to how they could capitalize off of a viral Tweet and resulting media opportunities. Thank you!

Kudos to Alex for his work on the new, robust Lake Trust media calendar document. Appreciate his determination to develop a tool perfectly in line with the client's expectations.

From a call with Censys. Kudos to ALL involved, true team effort. Rachel Benson3:44 PM "there's a level of simplicity and sophistication in this brand that really comes across" - Brad, new CEO

A huge THANK YOU to Valentina for her assistance on the Cooper video storyboard. As questions and needs popped up, she was more than ready to help in any way she could. It felt so good to know someone had my back. Thanks again for everything!

Kudos to Melissa, Hoge, and Tony for all of the hard work that went into the Censys brand panel presentation. Unique concepts paired with some beautiful animations is going to (hopefully) create some jaw dropping action during our client meeting on Monday. A special high-five goes to Tony for his quick logo concepts that he threw together. I think they ended up being everyone's favorite. And an additional kudos goes to the whole creative team for collaboratively working on the jamboard that inspired so many pieces of our designs. This was a team effort. Thank you everyone!

Huge kudos to Casey for all his hard work on Lake Trust. True dedication and determination every day on the account. From back and forth emails to creating presentations, he's truly going above and beyond to make sure that our relationship with the client is a strong one.

I just wanted to express my gratitude to the design team for hanging in there (while kicking butt) with all of the end of year chaos. Your hard work and determination to get things out the door is so appreciated!

Huge shout out to John and his consistent effort to think about websites from a very human standpoint. He's always very aware of ADA concerns, making websites inclusive, and calling all of our attention to the issue.

Kudos to Jim, Tony, and Melissa for their excellent work on Coherix positioning and brand visualization. The creative connected very well with the client and they had only positive things to say. A lot of shared excitement around next steps. Cheers!

We got this note after our Discovery and Positioning preso to C2AE. Great work team!! "LOVED it! Chatting with a few coworkers in the office now and someone did say “I had chills!”. Definite excitement from everyone. I know we have done a lot of work so far but seeing some tangible words down on paper makes it fell really REAL!"

From Shannon at AF Group, "Shoot went great. Grace is awesome." He's a man of a few words, but is always very complimentary of what Grace brings to the team. Nice work, Grace!

Spotlighting Tony for his work on UMS' Annual Report this year. Letting kudos from client VPs speak for themselves: "This actually might be my favorite annual report, to date. Great job!", "I agree! It's great."

Kudos to Kristen for resizing eight images for a client. A small example of how Kristen helps in the biggest of ways, but also the smallest of ways. Taking a task off someone else's plate, and adding it to her own to just get the job done! This happens so many times per week I have lost count. So let this be a kudos to a million other invisible kudos you deserve! Endlessly grateful and amazed by all you do for us!

Kudos to Alex for always being willing to help at a moment's notice. He took some time to kindly help me think through an outline this morning, so I could get started on my task. Appreciate it so much!

From a new client, Coherix: Hi Mike, I hope all is well with you. I just wanted to share with you that Casey is doing a great job with coordinating and leading the interviews with our Team Members and Customers! I have already received some positive feedback from a couple of Team Members about their interviews and his professionalism. I truly appreciate how Casey is handling everything, it has made my life much easier! Just figured I would share this positive feedback with you, as many times people forget to share the good and only share the bad. Best Regards, Josh Anton Senior Marketing Communications Specialist

Kudos to Coach for his amazing work on the U-M Innovation Partnerships Wireframe!! A TON of hard work went into creating this and the client loved it! Your ability to navigate complex information and present it in a simple manner for both users and the clients to understand absolutely amazes me. &&& Thank you for letting me be so involved in the wireframe process! It helped me understand the client on a deeper level.

Kudos to Alex for the next-level 2022 media plan he's created for Lake Trust. Strategic. KPI/Goals oriented. Brand first. Detailed. Will go a very long way in making a case for double the media spend in the new year. Awesome work!

This was already mentioned this morning, but I wanted to reiterate the amazing work done by Valentina, Melissa, and Mike on the Chem-Trend sustainability report. We just got off a call presenting the initial full design to them and Mark said: "You’ve done a very nice job. It’s a beautiful piece, and it has a lot of useful and relevant information." That's huge!

This was already mentioned during our Friday morning meeting this morning, but deserves another shout out! Kurt, Charlie, Emma, and Hoge have been rocking it with all things Wilsonart product launches! With two happening on the same day, it's bound to be super intense. We shared the full launch video for HPL to the client and got this back: "Ricky said "This is the best thing we have ever done" in reference to the HPL full launch video. That's a big deal. :)" Great job, team! That is a MAJOR compliment, especially with someone who is usually very picky! Proud of you all!

Praise goes out to Maria for a conversation with a client today. Despite impressive results following a campaign, they were struggling to see the hard work due to a combination of ignorance and confusion. Maria navigated their critical questions and (hate to say it) but complete lack of understanding so gracefully. She stayed solutions-minded and so positive. Always impressed by the depth of knowledge you have, your poise, and your ability to right the ship when clients go a little of course! Meeting ended great—thanks to your determination and brilliance!

The PGT WinGuard + Origins video presentation knocked some socks off today due to a bold script and some smooth animation pieces. A lot of hard work and dedication went into showing the client something new to react too. Great job team!

Monet has done such a wonderful job working through the ever-changing needs of this UMS Single Ticket Brochure she created. From picking up physical proofs to review in person, to corresponding directly with the printer on additional needs- she's crushed it the whole way through. Thank you for your hard work and perseverance!

Major kudos to Tony for his work on the Tooling U-SME Smart Manufacturing campaign!! You continue to amaze me with your ideas and creativity! Really looking forward to sharing designs with the client this week. GREAT WORK!

Hoge has been doing amazing video work, taking client projects to whole new level. So proud you have joined our team!

Big kudos to Lina for her presentation to Wilson Art yesterday. She is amazing, and is such an advocate for our team, the work, and the client. Literally could not manage that account w/out her.

a2ru.org launched this week and the client clearly is appreciative. On Instagram Shannon shared the website to her followers sayinig, "So thrilled to launch the new a2ru.org today. Project managing this redesign over the past year with the terrific team at Phire has been a huge learning experience and so rewarding. Maryrose also posted on Facebook, "Much thanks to Shannon for her work and Phire Group for the transformation!" Great work all.

Kudos to Valentina, Grace, Hoge, Lina, And Miker on the AF Group video presentation. Not only does it look/read great, Shannon even said, "I don't mean to be too dramatic, but I literally got goosebumps. I really feel like you guys get us. It's a product of time and listening and working with us." Great work on it!

Huge Kudos to Karlie for going above and beyond with the Virtue room photography and playing the role of an interior designer. Your determination and willingness to jump in and help wherever needed is inspiring.

Shout out to the Chem-Trend website team who had a hand in resolving some of the spam issues the client was experiencing. Diego provided an update today and said that the number of spammy entries significantly decreased since we've implemented our latest updates. Mark even gave us a "pat on the back"! Great job for staying determined through the entire process.

Ultimate kudos goes to Melissa and Charlie for their work on the Virtue Sample Tile Boxes! Clever. Sophisticated. Elevated. Simple. Both of your creativity and attention to detail never ceases to amaze me. Great work! Very excited to share this project with the client. :)

Oh David. Where to begin? This isn't one particular story, but just you all around. We all appreciate everything you do, your sense of humor, and your way with words. Your responses are clever, make me laugh, and make the review process that much more exciting. I appreciate you jumping in on random proofing requests that I (and probably a ton of other people) throw your way. You not only do your job, but you make it engaging! Thank you!

Kudos to Blaire and Maria for an excellent and thorough Discovery/Competitive review for Family Ties. It's a complicated ecosystem of 3 different brands, and it was complete and compelling. Well done!

Kudos to Grace for doing an incredible job creating informative and fun content for Phire's Instagram page. For those of you who don't know, she did an IG stories takeover where she spoke about Emotion + Credibility + Logic to our followers. We've never done anything like this before on our IG account, and I was blown away by how she took a small idea, created a script, and even recorded herself speaking. What's even better is that it was well received by our audience, and many people watched the takeover in its entirety. Kudos also to the external communications team (Maria, Kristen, Alex, and Casey) for organizing and executing :)

Kudos to Kristen for managing Gongos and their requests. She's been AE'ing + PM'ing them for a while now, taking their somewhat random requests, making sense of them, and going above and beyond to provide excellent support for them as a client, and her usual phenomenal support of Phire. Thank you!

We presented our initial recommendations for Positioning to TWO MEN AND A TRUCK this week. Jim nailed it. The client was super impressed. It was a good reminder about what a CORE great writing is to our business. Let me know if you want a copy of the presentation and I'll share it.

We had a client ask us to expand our reporting to include the monitoring of reviews on Google/Glass Door, etc. This is not something we currently do, but could definitely be a nice addition to our services. Alex took on investigating 3rd party services and we are in the process of making a recommendation. Just another example of going above and beyond your "defined" role to add value and grow/push the agency forward. Kudos, Alex!

Blaire did an incredible job navigating some tough questions and ensured we were being fair to ourselves on a call with a client and I'm just blown away at how naturally she's able to have those types of discussions! OH, and all while lil Connor was on her lap. Double-tasking to the extreme. Nice work!

Major shout out to Melissa for her quick thinking and determination to find imagery for Chem-Trend ads that are due to the publication TODAY and required much back and forth with the client and plenty of research and digging. Your perseverance is admirable! (Thanks to Tony too!)

I'm continuously amazed at David's thoroughness when proofing work I've routed to him. I felt compelled to send him an email to express this amazement, and he credited it to "lots of squinting", but it honestly seems like he's equipped with a super power! So thanks for being determined and for being (super) human!

I want to throw a Kudos right back to Jim! This morning, we presented the discovery + positioning phase to Tooling U - SME. You put a lot of hard work into the presentation and the clients' comments speak for themselves: "Wow I feel amazing right now." "You had me through the entire thing." "This is the best version of us." "You had me at hello today." Also, props to Charlie! Your work on the competitive review was very thorough and a huge part to the overall presentation. Good work!!

This one speaks for itself! Email from a client this morning: Everyone at Phire has been an amazing partner to work with since our kick off last year. I talked about how WE had to pivot quickly to execute all of the virtual webinars in addition to numerous email blasts to “stay in front” of our clients in light of COVID, but I did not stress how AWESOME YOU were in helping us every step of the way. We could not have accomplished the heavy lift last year without your guidance, expertise and help. Everyone at Phire was eager, willing, flexible, and saw every project through successfully to the end. All this, despite barely knowing us and our business as new clients. I realize a typical “kickoff” with a new client doesn’t usually go straight “to the fire (Phire)” but ours did, and you all deserve a tremendous shout out as partners. Additionally (Jim – this is for you), Blaire, Maria and Kristen have all done a tremendous job supporting our initiatives. Maria and Kristen picked up the pieces seamlessly for Blaire while she was off, and Blaire has done the same upon her reentry. Kudos to your team, they are fantastic. Thank you again for your support of Hardenbergh and MDReview!! Looking forward to a great and mutually successful 2021!

Gotta throw some major points to John for his tireless work on Chem-Trend. Your solutions-minded approach and always prompt (and successful) completion of ANY and all tasks thrown your way is impressive, to say the least. It's a huge comfort during client calls to know you always navigate any question or concern with ease. CT is lucky to have you on board!

Karlie has been with the team almost three weeks. She has jumped right in to handle clients, learn Phire processes, creating proposals and getting shit done. Bravo, you are an inspiring new addition to the Phire team.

Shout out to Casey for handling a "Brand Scorecard" project Lake Trust tasked us with. He did a great job managing a complicated ask and presenting it to the Lake Trust leadership team professionally and concisely. Nice work, Casey.

Kudos to everyone who's worked on the Architectural Surfaces website—to Coach in particular for his work on the wireframes the past couple of weeks. It's great to see everything we've learned applied—learnings from the several sites we've built for them and our recent user testing/research. We're a ways from the finish line, but it's already clear this is going to be an amazing tool for the client for years to come.

I *really* should've given Josh my Kudo, so I'll put it here to live on forever. His willingness and desire to jump into the Magento system is beyond being determined, curious, and human. It really demonstrates his desire to do whatever it takes to get the job done - even when it's working in a CMS that involves less than 1% development work. Making design decisions while being handcuffed is not easy. Thank you SO much!

PEA Group decided to put their campaign on pause this morning, but their Director of Marketing passed along a nice note I thought I would share: "I just want to reach out and say 'thank you' for everything you have done for us over the past almost 2 years with our rebranding initiative and digital initiative. We could not have accomplished this without your expertise. For that, we are extremely grateful." Shout out to everyone who worked on it, specifically Jim, Lina, Tony, John, Casey, Coach and Miker. What was really supposed to be a less than six month engagement turned into 2 years of work. Good work everyone.

Kudos to Kristen for facilitating, organizing, and putting in the extra for the ChemTrend meeting today. And then, on top of that, being selfless by giving the rest of the team kudos when they should be going directly to her. Amazing!

Big ol' shout out to Jim, Alex, and Coach for their collaboration and efforts on a higher level Chem-Trend website discussion call we just had. It went well and best of all- Mark seemed pleased. (Additional kudos to Tony, Josh, and John for their participation/ideas in the internal brainstorm session last week). Exciting things ahead!

Kudos to Jim and Miker (and anyone else who pitched Virginia Tile over the last two years)! We just got off a call with one of their Territory Managers who was part of the selection process and he couldn't say enough good things about Phire. Specifically he mentioned our "Creative mindset" that brings "care and love to everything we work on." He was very excited about the process and what's to come!

Shout out to Melissa who just ran her second usability test and she killed it. She was able to uncover some very interesting details on how users tend to use the site! Nice work! Also want to call out Coach and Casey for their work here too as they added valuable commentary throughout.

Alumobility launched this morning! Huge shout out to everyone who helped bring that brand to life, and for your dedication to a particularly demanding client. Be sure to check it out: alumobility.com

Shout out to Johnny for the great work on the SEBU accessibility audit. He was fair and to the point ... on 3 sites that HE actually built, too. They need some work that isn't just dev, but his determination and dedication to the process deserves a round of applause. Thanks, Johnny!

Big kudos to Blaire for a fantastic Discovery presentation to Michigan OPEN. It went great and we're moving to the next phase.

Tony deserves a serious kudos for taking our team through the nitty gritty process of packaging logos for clients. There were so many tips, tricks, and knowledge he shared with us! Tony's Tuts strikes again.

Kudos to Julie for coordinating the holiday gifts for our clients. Clients are always excited (and surprised) to receive their gifts. Says a lot about how we value our partnerships!

Kudos to Monet for putting together the most beautiful UMS learning guide yet. The client ended up wanting to shift the look and feel to be more kid friendly and she did an amazing job. It’s colorful with great illustrations throughout and still feels completely on brand. It’s one of those things I see and get jealous of that I didn’t do it. Great work!

Kudos to Grace for knocking the Alumobilty site out of the park. Working within a tight timeline and on top of everything else she had on her plate, she crushed it. The way everything collapsed down to mobile and still looks great is amazing. Love it!

Big kudos to Maria for going above and beyond in her prep work. Last week, I worked on an Escalent project with her, and she mapped it out so well and made a complicated content task so much easier than it could have been. This week, I'm working on a press release that she outlined so thoroughly, and it feels luxurious. Thanks, Maria!

Shout out to Kurt and the amount of work he's cranked out for Wilsonart in just these two days. You always do such a great job interpreting their (not always clear) feedback and still designing a beautiful piece in the end!

One of several positive notes from Monroe County in light of the launch of their brand reveal site (michcornerstone.com)—"The site is outstanding! I love it! Fantastic job!" Great work, team! Kudos to Jim, Tony, Josh, and Coach for their awesome work on a short timeline.

Kudos to Emma for sharing her illustration process with the team during our creative meeting as part of our knowledge sharing. It was really awesome and inspiring to see all the steps that go into the process and what tools she uses.

Kudos for the team working on the 60th Anniversary video series for Chem-Trend (including Ryan). Mark and Georgie both loved the latest video we shared and are very happy with the project! Great work all!

I was a dummy and missed that the standup got moved up this morning, so dropping my "stories" here. Monet stayed up super late to get a Leelanau Cellars project done for this morning, the work looks great. Our AF Group 2021 Big Idea presentation went amazing earlier this week. Valentina/Grace/Alex/Lina/Charlie absolutely killed it. A very busy, but very very good week. Kudos!

Great work to the entire Medicool team. We just finished presenting the Medicool branding and they literally liked everything! It was a solid presentation that hit everything we needed it to. Great work all!

Kudos all-around for the launch of the new Geonexus website and brand. Both the brand and site look fantastic! The client is very excited to share their new brand with the world and is appreciative of all the hard work to-date. Shout-out to Josh for hoping online first thing this morning to launch it!

Sharing kudos from client to everyone on Escalent team! Nice job! "Yesterday I updated all of the language versions of the privacy policy on the website and added two new ones: Korean and Japanese. In your next web meeting with Phire please deliver my thanks for a well-designed site that is simple to manage."

Maria has done an absolute KILLER job keeping this messy Chem-Trend 60th Anniversary Video project straight. She's organized direction, assets, additional notes, etc. so well and it's been the biggest help to try and keep everything straight. Thank you! (x8)

Coach took on a project that Chem-Trend gave us to research web domains they own. Coach was committed to not only understanding the task, but getting it done in a timely manner. He took the lead on it and was able to get a good chunk of it done without any help from me (my bad Coach). And he did it all with a very positive and understanding attitude. While this one task is a small one, this is representative of a lot of the work Coach does — positive, committed, good, etc.

Kudos to the entire creative team working on Hardenbergh and MDReview! (I hope I captured everyone). Just wrapped both initial brand panels presentations. Client has sung high praises for all the meaningful and SPOT ON work presented. Well done!

Shout out + a big thank you to Monét for helping me with some work for Chem-Trend this week! Resizing, renaming, and uploading files to their database is not the most fun, but she has been super detail-oriented and positive. Much appreciated :)

Shout out to Valentina, Tony, and Coach for an awesome job on the Geonexus brand video! We shared V1 of the video edit and it was approved as is! They loved seeing it come to life. We appreciate you three! Also, special shout out to Casey who always does such a great job addressing client needs and making sure they feel comfortable. Not always an easy task!

Charlie's editing skills have really evolved these past few months. He was always good at routes, but lately he's suggested some really smart changes that might seem minor but make a meaningful difference in the tone and messaging.

Kudos to Maria and Alex for their work with Over the Edge/Friends In Deed. In these challenging times, they were able to surpass their aggressive fundraising goals! Pretty amazing stuff, and a lot of unsung work taking place. Allow me to sing on your behalf!

Huge kudos to the team working on Lake Trust. Just got off a call with them, and they were very complimentary, at one point stating, "We're very appreciative of Phire's flexibility and support...we've never worked with an agency like you before and we're looking forward to continuing the relationship." Big shout out to Casey who has been leading this up and doing an awesome job, but also to Mike, Tony, Kristen and Jim as well.

Kudos to the SUPERSTAR in our midst, Maria Newton. Any time I ask for assistance with a client, whether it's in or outside of her job description, she's on it no questions asked. I couldn't ask for a more reliable and knowledgeable teammate. You bring a level of dedication, sophistication, and consistency to your work that makes us all better. It certainly makes me better - I learn from you every day! Major props to you.

Major kudos to Melissa and Valentina. We just wrapped up an initial creative presentation to Grace O from SEBU. They presented their work articulately and with passion. The client was super impressed with all of it.

Shout out to Coach for owning this Wilsonart Performance matrix he's working on. He's been coordinating directly with the client and making edits on the fly. I know they appreciate it, and I do too! Great work and hustle!

BIG-TIME kudos to Melissa for stepping in for Kurt to make some final edits to the Wetwall Lowe's line review. Appreciate her setting aside most of the day to get it done!

Sharing some client kudos to all who worked on the Chem-Trend HERA Case Study + video. So much work, time, and redos went into the making of this. Efforts paid off!! "Quite simply, this is excellent. Both the case study and the video, which is actually somewhat dramatic, given the music and the flow. I actually felt a level of excitement after reading the case and watching the video. Please congratulate everyone who developed these pieces, as they are very creative and very well done."

Bravo to both Alex and Maria for their continued efforts over the past 8+ months to the Chem-Trend Content Map. From establishing initial KPIs, to compiling data, to building slides, we're now able to see trackable improvements across the board. Data was presented this morning during our first 6-mo review with their Industry directors and both absolutely blew the team away with results and knowledge of topic. Keep up the good work!!!

The AF Group team (Miker, Alex, Lina, Charlie, Valentina, Monet) put together an awesome, interactive Mid Year Summit presentation. They were brave enough to practice in front Kristen, Jim and I, and encourage our feedback. I'm super appreciative of this effort of collaboration and I'm sure the client will be too.

Ready to embarrass Kristen? I am! Here's a note from Georgie at Chem-Trend IMMEDIATELY following a meeting today. Awesome stuff! "Quick note to express my appreciation for Kristen, which is long overdue given that I've noticed this for some time and failed to send a note. She is consistently clear and "on top of it," so to speak, as far as outlining next steps, delivering updates and ensuring that we're getting what we need. It's a pleasure to work with her and the positivity that she brings to her projects is refreshing."

Kudos to Blaire and Maria for a great Hardenbergh presentation. "Awesome job." "You guys really get us." Glowing feedback and language all around. Nice work!

Kudos to Jim for wearing multiple hats, working crazy hard, and always leading the way for us. I could name any number of projects as an example, but most recently we won the Constellium/Novelis project because of his determination. He's always my inspiration to work harder and push further.

Kudos to Blaire for leading up the entire Discovery/research process and compiling the presentation (with Maria's help) for Hardenbergh. Excellent work!

A 2-in-1 double-the-love kudos for our awesome AE's, based on experiences from this afternoon. First- Blaire handled a tough conversation regarding hours overages in a positive, poised, and profesh way. The client was aligned and still felt taken care of. So impressed by the way you navigated that topic! Second- I continue to be blown away by Casey's ability to maintain higher level logistics, while also somehow knowing ALL the fine details of projects he manages (referring to that tricky Wilsonart Lowes deck). It's the best of both worlds!

This is not news to anyone, but Charlie is the best! Even though I was not expecting it, he stayed working an extra TWO hours to help me get through a hefty PGT website V2. It was some pretty complicated, confusing, and tedious stuff, but he stuck with it. Can you believe this guy?!

Kristen is faster than me! Echoing what she said. Their team is really thankful for us presenting a new structure for them to follow. Great job to everyone on the WA team who has been cranking away for the last three months, working tirelessly to get things out the door. This document was a way for us to be real with ourselves and the client on what works for us, a way to remind ourselves that we are human and need time and space to think, and a way to help us stay determined to do the best work possible. Special kudos to Mike who has been wrangling literally everything and to Kristen who is the best partner in crime in this WA world and helped me with this process!

Mike, Lina, and I just got off our "Process Improvements" call with Wilsonart and it could not have gone better! Their team was excited about the updates and thankful to us for putting them together. There was a ton of positive energy and we now have set plans to move forward in a more sustainable way for both teams. A great sigh of relief on a Friday!

This isn't just Be Determined...it's just flat out Be Good At What You Do. Three days after the PEA Group launch, we are seeing phenomenal results from an SEO perspective. In total, Site Score improved 25%, Site Speed improved 70%, and the total number of SEO errors = 0. What's more, we are seeing really strong numbers too. Conversions have already reached their levels from June in 3 days. Huge shout out to John, Coach, and Tony for their work on it.

Kudos to Julie for putting together all of the retainer hours reports. This can be a thankless job, but requires a ton of double checking/calculations and tedious work. THANK you for all the effort!

Charlie has taken over a few copywriting tasks with Valentina on vacation, and has done so with efficiency and accuracy! Thank you for all your help with these miscellaneous (sometimes quick turn) requests. It's greatly appreciated!

Blaire went above and beyond to learn how to put on webinars in Zoom and integrate it with Hubspot. She put together a presentation for the client that is clear and very knowledgable! Totally out of her job description to take this on, major kudos!!

Kudos to everyone who has worked on the Chem-Trend ad campaigns. It's been a 6-month experience, but we were able to launch our B portion of our A/B test this week, and we have more ads to launch coming up in July. Maria, Melissa, Tony, Jim, Valentina, Charlie, Kristen, and Blaire have all contributed in different/valuable ways and it is greatly appreciated.

Phire Phun Committee The Zingerman baking class was a blast! Thank you for planning it.

Wanted to give everyone in the office a Kudos this morning for being determined. It feels like everyone has jumped in to help wherever they can. Whether it's working on clients you've never done work for before, hopping on new types of projects, jumping into different roles. It's been super impressive. Thank you all.

Melissa's doing a great job jumping in and taking on PGTI work. Grace has set a very high standard, and Melissa's taking it on with determination and lots of style. Super impressed!

Maria did an amazing job pulling together helpful analytics and walking Escalent through potential improvements and suggestions, all while fielding some tricky questions from the client. Way to lead that call yesterday!

I wanted to give a kudos to Jim, Casey, and Maria for their work on the Lake Trust workshop earlier this week. Each brought something different to the table for the prep and discussion. Casey - For leading the charge, putting together the presentation, and keeping a mindful look toward the future with them. Maria - For being curious, participating in a conversation for a client she hasn't worked on and bringing invaluable insight into the prep. Jim - For being bold, able to not only facilitate a discussion that was slow, but to add that certain Jim je ne sais quoi that always gives the client confidence.

This is too good not to share agency wide. Context; AF Group (Bethany) is our client. A different company under their broader company umbrella reached out to her to ask if she'd recommend them working with us. Here's her response to him: "Our partnership with Phire started in 2014 when they helped us refresh our public websites. Because we had such a great experience, we decided to give them our advertising business as well – which they have now managed for several years. We’ve spent the last year refreshing our websites again, which they’ve been an integral part of – including the research that prompted the decision to rebuild them. They also assist with our social media efforts and provide monthly dashboards with metrics for our adv/social media. They’re a fantastic group of people and always make us a priority when needs arise. They recently worked with the Digital Acquisition team to create a ‘digital marketing playbook’ for our agent partners who were appointed to sell through our new digital platform. We would absolutely recommend them – and really think you’ll enjoy working with their team. Please reach out to Mike Rouech at miker@phiregroup.com and let him know that Shannon and I gave you his contact info. If you have any other questions, or need anything else, let me know!"

Melissa just presented concepts for CGI's new website. I'm not sure how many client-facing presentations she's made in her career, but she absolutely killed it. Super professional, poised and articulate. Oh, and the work was great too.

Shoutout to Tony for whipping out some beautiful, and creative animation for a not-so-creative client, Chem-Trend. With a client that can be hard to read and critical, you have really gone above and beyond to put something fresh and engaging together. Thank you for dedicating so much to this! It shows.

Casey did an amazing job facilitating a meeting with C-Sed today, that we really didn't know what to expect. What great partners with all the changes happening at UM. Bravo!

From SEBU, talking about a recent presentation of rebate materials that Grace and Valentina put together: Killer job on this one. This first pass is outstanding! Please let the team know.

Big Kudos to Casey. We got him involved in a new portion of the Wilsonart account (Wetwall/Mermaid/Shore). He dove in, quickly got up to speed, and just got them to sign an additional $60,000 worth of work. Obviously, a very big deal.

Sharing some seriously wonderful feedback from our client at SHAR Music. Applaud the entire SHAR team for their work on this!! "I’m certainly not the first…and won’t be the last to congratulate you. The recent Shar video…as I first starting watching, not knowing anything about it (Tina just forwarded it to me), I couldn’t stop thinking, “Which competitor has created this wonder….Johnson, Gewa, Eastman or some creative devil that has me more than worried”. I thought, It’s bloody sensational and beyond. Finally, I saw the words and logo that made me smile from ear to ear. What you have created is what I call, Network Quality….and, a “Super Bowl Commercial”…As such, it would be voted the best! I then watched it 3 more times…..never wanting to stop, just keep my adrenaline running at high speed. I have sent it, with great pride, to a few colleagues. I have also congratulated those at Shar for their part in bringing this dream piece into reality. It’s a beautiful work….and so appropriate, coming at this exact time. Just Beautiful!!!"

Kudos to all who worked on the UMS Series brochure. So much work, but so beautifully done! For those who'd like a look.... https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/63302366/ums-2020-21-series-brochure

Here's a kudos from a customer of a client (Wilsonart/Performs). This is related to a website and HTML email we recently launched. Pretty cool. Hi Teresa, I hope you’re doing well! I just wanted to tell you that I found this email in my inbox this morning and I thought that the message was strong, and that first picture just made me smile. Not sure why, probably because is resemble my work from home life with an almost 4 year old, but it brought me a little joy this morning, so I wanted to let you know and say thank you

Miker has been churning out proposals left and right for current and potential clients, with a lot of them coming back with a signature. It's exciting to know April's numbers are in better shape. Nice hustle!

Kudos to Monet and Melissa for putting together some really smart and beautiful concepts for Leelanau. And an extra one for Monet for walking the client through all the thinking that went into each design. Sounds like it was really well received and appreciated.

Matt deserves a huge Kudos for helping Grace figure out a roundabout way to have access to the server while working from home. He's could be my IT anytime!

Tony designed a logo and two envelopes for Friends In Deed (a pro bono client we are helping out). From the client: "The envelopes look beautiful. We really appreciate the work and it looks fantastic." Thanks for putting it together Tony. Little things definitely add up!

Had a great branding presentation with Dryer Vent today. Client really loved both directions. They're in an interesting situation because they were acquired during the rebrand, so we'll see how we move forward. They seemed really enthusiastic and impressed with all the work though. Great work team!

Our dentistry client DGY put a hold on our retainer because of COVID. We went ahead and still provided them social posts and a video w/out cost. Things like this are why we have relationships that span decades and get us through tough times. Here's her email: "Thank you. Your ongoing support and kindness has literally brought a tear to my eye. Thank you." ZERRIN YILMAZ, DDS DGY Dentistry

Kurt/Kristen/Jim for Wilsonart. This was brought up a couple times this morning, but I want to reiterate how crazy and intense Wilsonart is right now. Basically working 9-5 and well beyond and I want everyone to know the immense commitment they're giving to get everything done. It will pay off in the long run.

Kudos to Melissa for her work on the new C-SED site. The design is looking great—very clean, sharp, and unique. Excited to see everything continue to come together.

Shoutout and THANK YOU to both Jim and Tony for handling various requests from clients in need of quick-turn arounds, despite everything else going on. You always go the extra mile to get it done -- and impressively quick! Greatly appreciate the reliability and hustle from you guys.

Kudos to all involved in the creation of the new Artisan Group website—Josh launched it this morning. It looks great! Take a look for yourself: artisan-counters.com

Friday social hour Josh thanks for providing us with music that was awesome. Coach thanks for figuring out how to set up the google chat so we can see everyones smiling faces.

We just had a great call presenting the GeoNexus branding. The client was really receptive to the directions and appreciative of all the work that goes into the branding process. Great work team. This will be a fun one to extend and see the impact it will have.

Despite the working from home situation and tending to an adorable one year old, Blaire has continued to be impressively on top of it. Putting together complicated creative briefs for kickoffs, knocking out proposals, scheduling regroups, etc. Props to your organization skills! And thanks for your help!

Monet has been killing it with LWC. The creative is great, and the level of detail/background she puts in her notes (explaining her thinking in the design, etc.) is amazing. Clients love that stuff.

Valentina and Natalie are always so helpful and collaborative as I work on projects with them. Not only do they push out awesome work - but they always question how to make it better and are determined to make our team think deeper before it gets sent to the client. Shout out to all the work you do! :)

Tony put all of the 20/21 photos for UMS on Dropbox so that we don't have to rely on the slow server connection for those assets. It is fully appreciated, thank you!

Grace has been a huge help with the SEBU Roadshow video. A ton of stuff to find and keep track of. Thanks, Grace!

As usual, Kristen and Lina are such a bright spot to the day. They're both so positive and focused on helping us get through our projects.

To Alex + Maria --> Not only for taking on this work with Friends in Deed for their Over the Edge event, but for being a strong partner during strange times and holding firm on pausing most messaging/donation requests.

I haven't communicated with everyone yet, but so far so good on this end. Thanks! Nice job, gang! Keep it up! WE WILL DO THIS! I will SEE you all in the morning ... even if only as tiny little boxes on my screen. Looking forward to it. (If you are having any technical difficulties, let me know and I will do my best to help you work through the issue.)

To The Whole Phire Gang, during this strange time that we are in right now, it has been great to see the work that is being done and see your smiling faces on the google hangouts during meetings. We will get through this even if we are not physically together

Big'o'Kudos to Melissa for powering through a ton of stuff this week. Everything from brand panels to banner ads. Thanks for the extra hard work.

The definition of determination: we finally jumped to page one for "Release Agents" for Chem-Trend. This was a client obsession, and rightly so. We kept at it, tried new things, made new pages... and today we're #3 on the page. This has been a six month journey. Great work!!!

Sharing UMS/client feedback on the Donor Circle materials we've been creating... "This looks really fantastic -- thanks so much for all of your hard work bring this from conception to reality!" Nice work Monet!!

Melissa and Valentina have been heavily involved in a series of intense Chem-Trend PowerPoints (everyone's favorite) and have done a really nice job cleaning up, organizing, and improving the content provided. Thanks for staying dedicated!

I wanted to relay a Kudos Mike R. told me in regards to Monet...she crushed the Leelanau presentation. Also, Kudos to both Monet and Grace for the awesome concepts. Great work all around on a fun project.

Lina Thank you for being positive and solution minded while reviewing client hours together.

Kudos to all who worked on the Second To None website and brand! We should all be very proud of what we accomplished. I just received a very nice note from the client, Jeff: "Thank you to your entire team for the successful site launch yesterday! Everyone here is incredibly excited about introducing our new positioning to the market!"

Valentina wrote some pretty inspiring copy to work with for the PGT Black Vinyl campaign (and I had a ton of fun designing with it!) The product kit was presented to the client today and was received well. So thanks again for pushing boundaries and opening new doors for creativity.

Kristen has been keeping us on track and organized with all of the SEBU content calendar items that we tackle each week. It's a lot of moving parts between our teams, but feedback is always beautifully conveyed and helpful. So thanks for a superstar!

Melissa has been a huge help today handling the chaos of Wilsonart, Chem-Trend, and new business. Thank you for your attention to detail, your positive attitude, and incredible work! It's so appreciated.

Kudos to Josh for doing anything and everything in his power to push our website projects to the finish line. We all appreciate his versatility and flexibility (with the Second To None and Pental site builds as of late).

I've said it before and I'm going to say it again.. I appreciate John for putting up with BCD and the miscellaneous asks that keep coming through. That man deserves a lot of peppermint bark!

Kudos to Coach for making much-needed updates to the UM C-SED IIA website as they approach an important yearly event. They couldn't have promoted their event without his help!

Kudos to Natalie and Valentina for jumping in on the Second To None website project to help with some last-minute copy needs. Appreciate their willingness to jump on the ask quickly and polish an important section of the site!

SHOUTOUT to my cube mate and media extraordinaire, Maria Newton. She dominated our presentation to Thrive Juicery and landed a downtown campaign! You impress me every day with your knowledge, confidence, and skillset. A true lady boss, I can always rely on you to go above and beyond and deliver! NICE work.

Just wanted to thanks to Matt and the dev team for all the effort and research that went into the ADA lunch-n-learn presentation yesterday. It was super informational and I know I took a lot away from it...some very simple things that will shift the way we think when approaching the design process.

For MONÉT, MARIA & JIM - Thank you for taking the time to sit and talk about your path/careers with the group that came in from U of M. They were very appreciative + I love working in a place where sharing knowledge is encouraged.

Mike and Kurt have travelled alot over the last two weeks. While they were getting stuff done outside the office with our clients, the rest of the team kept all the projects moving. Nice Teamwork Phire!

Mike Thank you for buying lunch today with your super bowl winnings. It was yummy!

Kurt and Tony gave Melissa and I an informative run down of our website creation process. I appreciate the time that they took out of their day to answer our questions and make sure we are well-prepared for future projects. By doing this, we'll be able to work more efficiently and with consistency. I'm looking forward to applying what I've learned, thanks guys!

Kudos to entire interview crew. The thought that everyone puts into the process and their feedback is always impressive. Feels amazing tackling this as a team and landing on the same page.

General shout out to Julie for all her work on invoicing. It's definitely a huge undertaking, especially with currency exchange rates, the fluctuating Euro, and all the back-and-forths with European publications. And that's only a fraction of what she does. Absolutely deserves a kudos for handling so well.

Kyle and Blaire did a great job building out the Ann Arbor Summer Festival Research/Discovery presentation. Tons of data but most importantly clear and concise insights. Can't wait to extend and share with the internal team and to see how this impacts the Festival going forward.

Blaire & Casey approach each discovery period with a client with fresh eyes, ask probing clarifying questions and always challenge us internally to think deeper.

Kristen, for always being a complete professional in meetings, even when challenging, and also for running a very thorough/organized and informed internal creative kickoff for PGT.

Jim is trying a Rapid Brand Process with a new client proposal. Fresh ideas in 2020. Love this new approach.

John has been plugging away on the AF Group site for the past several weeks and has made excellent progress. We're not launched yet, but wanted to call out the work he's done thus far all while helping on different tasks for others.

Mike included us on an internal project he is working on and it's great to not only be involved in a collaborative piece as a creative team, but work on something new for the agency. Excited to see how it turns out!

To the entire team: as we sit at the end of the first month of 2020, a big congratulations to all of you. Great energy. Great enthusiasm from our clients. Incredible work everywhere. A big month of signings. Opportunities abound ahead of us. And yes, a renewed sense of kindness in the air. Let's keep it up! Virtual high five! (Actual high five available upon request.)

During yesterday's brand presentation of GeoNexus, I was so impressed with the brand messaging that Valentina came up with. She was able to knock out some great work in a short amount of time, and it helps us designers become motivated and inspired. I appreciate you and your creativity!

Huge thanks to Julie for coordinating all the interviews, phone calls, and meetings with all the designer candidates. It would seem like an overwhelming and daunting task with everything else going on. Much appreciated.

A little delayed, but kudos to Mike and Kurt for taking on KBIS and IBS last week. It sounds like you've gathered some really beneficial takeaways that we can use to plan a path forward!

Shout out to Maria who continues to do great work. Over the last few weeks, she's put together several non-traditional media plans that are more involved (and evolved) than our normal plans. All that on top of the SEO, Social, Analytics, etc. work that she does on a regular basis.

Blaire and Casey continue to take on a larger role in managing a bigger and more diverse set of clients and are doing a fantastic job. It's much appreciated (and necessary)!

To Natalie + Valentina for their great work on the new positioning for Dryer Vent Wizard. We tried an altered process where my poor excuse for copywriting wouldn't hinder them and it paid off in spades. The new copy emotes in a way that makes me jealous + happy you guys are on our team.

Valentina has been working a boat load of hours on AF Group Website copy, even giving up Phire Phun Day. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication to the project.

Thank you to the Phire Phun committee for planning bowling on Friday. It was a great turnout and fun to hang with everyone (competitively) outside of the office!

I absolutely love how Maria and Kyle has taken the Google Slide presentation templates and run with them. The Thrive activation playbook looks great. Using the brand colors and logo throughout really makes these unique for each client.

Casey has been super on top of all of the projects that I've been involved with this week. He's just been crushing it. So appreciated, makes everything feel smooth. Thanks for the extra hard work.

For Maria + Blaire - Working with Thrive on landing this plane has taken creativity, curiosity, and a true human touch to make one of our smallest clients feel really taken care of without overextending the agency. Praying hands emoji. Send message.

To PM'S and AE Team; great meeting today being solution minded on our retainer clients as some are nearing hours already. You are always looking out for team members and the client.

Blaire and Kristen worked tirelessly though many rounds of edits on a UMS booklet with me. I appreciate their great attitude, understanding, and moral support, haha. I love working with you two! Shoutout to Natalie for the thorough proofing as well!

This week I've felt so much encouragement and support from my coworkers. Especially my team. Every once in awhile a passerby would express how much they liked a project I was working on, or offered me tips on how to do something I was unsure of. Thanks so much to all of you. The kindness is real up in here.

It is official, After a decade, "Phire Group" is now a registered trademark! Bravo Jim

Mike blew us all away with the Wilsonart video. It's truly inspiring to see the extra thought he puts into every project.

Monét has designed some really amazing illustrations for the new Leelanau label project! She really pushed herself to learn a new skill and the extra time and effort is apparent in the quality of the work. Thank you for going above and beyond and trying something new! I think we all feel super inspired by what you showed. :)

I touched on this during last week's stand up. Our approach to new business in 2020 is much more considered, inclusive and thoughtful. Kudos to all that have been involved, and Jim specifically for heading up the new direction. We're already starting to see results.

With all of the various AF Group projects and tasks moving around, Lina has been crushing it on keeping everything organized and communicated. Thanks for all of your hard work, thoughtful suggestions, and positive energy!

To the account team - We've been full throttle on projects leading up to and after the break. Their willingness to talk through new ways of approaching deliverables and spearhead of pushing us further for client success has been awesome to be a part of!

Lina conducted a wonder meeting with Tech Transfer and Jim on Monday, handling all the numerous changes, smiling the whole time. Bravo

Kudos Friday! Shoutout to Maria for going above and beyond to support Chem-Trend's media efforts. Client has been sending rapid fire requests requiring thorough industry research and reporting. She brings a great sense of knowledge and expertise to the table and has has built a great rapport with them independently! Nice work!!

From Monet: "My story for today would be: Be Human and Be Determined. There was so much willingness to help each other on our team. Specifically Melissa and Tony on UMS posters and all who volunteered to contribute to the LLC wine labels."

I've been really impressed with how thorough and detail oriented Natalie has been with all the routing we've bombarded her with. It's been awesome to see her dive right in. So glad to have her join the team.

Grace has gone above and beyond in helping the department start to put together our first creative retreat. Still more planning to do, but we wouldn't be where we're at now in the process and as a creative team without her continued drive pushing us forward in all we do.

Agency wide kudos. The positive energy and open/solution focused mindset in pretty much every meeting I've been a part of in 2020 is fantastic.

John has been incredibly patient in waiting for the AF Group brands resource library to get finalized. Once he (finally) got the green light, he tore through the uploads & tagging, about 200 individual documents per brand, in a flash.

Blaire, Just landed our first project contract for 2020. Way to go!

To Julie, who was here quite a bit over the break. It is a huge effort to flip the calendar from one year to the next, and it unfortunately always falls during the holiday season. Thank you for all you do!

Melissa always asks how she can help the team. Most recently she took over working on a UMS poster which allowed me more time to focus on high priority projects on my task list. Thank you, Melissa!

Big shout out to Coach, Monet and Marissa for going the extra mile on today's team building exercise. The work speaks for itself. A great way to wrap up 2019!

From Sandy at PGT/SEBU, verbatim; "Thank you all SO very much for all of your hard work. We appreciate each of you."

Congrats to the Wilsonart team who has been working furiously on the trade show booth graphics. They look fantastic, and we JUST submitted our final file to the booth vendor. It feels good!

We had a great Discovery presentation to Lake Trust yesterday. They were blown away with the depth of our research and insights. We had to present a 100 page deck twice (back to back). First to executives, and then to the internal marketing team. Literally got applause after. Kudos to Casey, Kyle and Alex.

Sharing praise for Lina for stepping in to help out with a revised contract for client. She's graciously spent hours coordinating with team, readjusting hours, working on calculations, and more to get this right. It's only been 2 weeks and our homegirl is already back with a vengeance! Thank you for determination to see this through!

Valentina killed it with a naming presentation to Leelanau Wine Cellars this morning. The client was very impressed.

big day for the media team (Maria and Alex), with great presentations to both Chem-Trend and DGY. moving strong into 2020.

Big congrats to the team that worked on the 2020 plan for the AF Group family of brands. The presentation this morning was a great culmination of thought, collaboration and bigger thinking. It was easy to see in the room that we've earned trust from the client and we answered the call of showing them the path forward AND being able to prove the success.

The Thrive branding presentation went extremely well and the client was very happy with the directions. Gotta give a shout out to the research team that paved the way, the content team that nailed the positioning, and the creative team that crushed it.

Kudos to V & Grace for the content work they've been doing for the AF Group family of brands. We've created a new process, built up their social media content library and even gotten things approved in less than an hour!

Kudos to Kyle for discovering a bug with Kudos which has now been fixed.

Love from UMS - Our No Safety Net ad was selected as one of Adverator's favorites for the month. Just wanted to share the glowing compliments for some extra Friday feels :) Way to nail this Monet!!

Shout out to Jim, Josh, John, and Coach for all their work on the Chem-Trend site and for SEO improvements. Sometimes it seems like a daunting task to improve their site, but their additions/improvements have made Chem-Trend's visibility jump over 12% over the past week or so. Also, an overlooked improvement, Site Speed went from 69% to 93% at launch. HUGE improvement there. Great work guys.

Valentina wrote a [expletive deleted] ton of copy for all five AF Group sites and did an awesome job incorporating SEO keywords throughout. It's a tough thing to fit all the variations of workers' compensation into a single site and still keep it interesting, but she found a way. Good work.

Kudos to Casey and Kyle for all of the time and effort they have been putting into the Lake Trust interviews. They've been out of the office a ton, but have still managed to stay on top of all of the other projects and client work going on.

Kudos to Mike on crushing the LOC brand video! It has a ton of movement and is super engaging, even though we only had a small budget for stock footage and photography. It's something different than I've ever seen us do before and I think it really brings the brand elements to life. I think the client is going to be thrilled when they see it!

Nice work to everyone's efforts on the Chem-Trend TP Product Selector Guide! Sharing positive feedback from client: I am really impressed by the product selector app and also, the "Solution Finder" features of the new website. One aspect I noted today (that I hadn't seen or appreciated earlier) is the Sustainability Handprint metrics that are embedded in the Case Studies.

Just spoke to the client. The Farm Fresh brand we created for Leelanau Cellars at Meijer is Meijer's 10th highest-selling brand over the last 3 weeks. As you can imagine, Meijer moves a lot of wine. This is a very big deal for a company the size of LWC.

Thank you to Valentina and Melissa for their teamwork on some quick Chem-Trend ads. They were determined to get it done, but still curious when creating copy/design. I really appreciate your help!

Blaire and Kyle just killed it on a Discovery presentation to Thrive. An extremely thoughtful, insightful and professional presentation throughout. Jim's positioning really resonated as well.

Kudos to Melissa for jumping right into a quick turnaround for Chem-Trend and handling it like a pro. She stayed late (even sacrificed part of HH...) to send out final files in time. Thank you for the determination to get this done!!

Raising my glass to the Chem-Trend kids for their determination and tireless efforts in re-working and improving the case studies. This has not been an easy task. Their dedication and quality of work is hard to beat and was noticed by the client leadership team. Great job all!! "I really like the way these series of case studies are shaping up and getting further refined, striking a better balance of information usefulness and detail to sales, while also highlighting all the Handprint aspects associated with them. Congratulations to all involved."

Kudos to Casey and Kyle for heading out to Guardian (Auburn Hills) on a Friday afternoon before a holiday to lead a discussion about an upcoming project. And for pushing forward to develop a quote/plan. Much appreciated!

Shout out to Stephanie for tackling not one but TWO last minute rush projects on a Friday afternoon. Thank you for your attention to detail and speediness. It's appreciated!

Kudos to Blaire for having the Chem-Trend account in a better place than it's ever been. This has required determination, boldness, curiosity, realness and humanity.

Forgot to mention in the Roundup... kudos to all who have contributed content to our blog. We're getting fantastic participation from all departments/multiple perspectives. Sharing our knowledge and putting it out there is our best marketing. If you want to participate - just let us know. We will help you!

Kudos to everyone who worked on the Boyne Golf presentation. It raised the bar, yet again, for what's possible here. It was fun to work on. Fun to present. And even fun to drive back and forth from yesterday, knowing we put forth the maximum effort. Win or lose, we boldly put it out there. Congrats.

Big kudos to Tony and John for their work on the updated dashboard. They've made it way more visually appealing/compelling and I'm very excited to switch over to it. Can't wait to show it off.

Kudos to Blaire and Casey for their professionalism, organization, and determination in handling many many many clients. As most can probably tell, our staff of 3 has been stretched and challenged in unique ways over the last few months. They have a stick to it attitude that is much appreciated. Thanks.

Valentina did an awesome job on some blog outlines for AF Group/United Heartland, but really showed determination in the research she did. Citing several meaningful sources, she was really able to show an extensive knowledge of the industry and write a well-done outline.

Blaire has been so helpful with everything Chem-Trend. She's always willing to answer my questions and go the extra mile to make sure we have the correct, clear answer for the team. Thank you so much for all the hard work!

Extra big kudos to the creative team for battling the waves of work coming in. Everyone has been jumping in where they can and doing a great job. And an extra thanks to Kristen and Lina for managing the tasks/deadlines!

Said this at the morning meeting, but wanted to reiterate that Steph has been an absolute rockstar this week! She has helped me immensely with the CFE videos, and jumped on urgent SEBU materials yesterday without question. Thanks for always putting in the extra effort in all you do, and for helping never hesitating to offer help to others.

A LinkedIn post from Marc Buchanan at LOC Credit Union: "We've been working with Phire Group the last 9 months to help give our brand a refresh. A logo is a major component of a brand identity and our team is super excited with the change. We can't wait to see it fully executed later next month." Comment to his post by Susan Prater, a former client elsewhere: "Phire Group does great work! Happy to hear they’re a part of your team!"

Lina did an amazing job covering for me while I was on vacation. It was so nice coming back to see all of the tasks/projects taken care of. Going beyond that- she's always so good about asking questions and getting the team together for quick regroups. Thank you Lina!

Stephanie and Mike made the Nexus video look so awesome. Great design work from Stephanie and the animations Mike did are spectacular. Continually raising the bar!

Maria for sticking with it on DGY. The client's stated #1 priority has been SEO rankings. Through perseverance/pushing and continued learning we have them consistently showing up on the first page. Kudos to Maria for leading this charge!

Just want to give Alex major kudos for handling our call with 3CU so well today. They are a tough audience and threw a lot at him. Throughout the call, it was apparent that Alex very clearly understands our brands and their associated campaign goals. He was able to differentiate between brands without hesitation…even when I’m sure he was feeling slightly rattled by their persistent questions. It’s very reassuring to go into meetings when you’re confident your vendor partners will nail it – which he definitely did. We’ve got our work cut out with them (Alex can fill you in), but I am certain we’ll get there. THANKS ALEX – you rock!!

From a client email: Just want to give Alex major kudos for handling our call with 3CU so well today. They are a tough audience and threw a lot at him. Throughout the call, it was apparent that Alex very clearly understands our brands and their associated campaign goals. He was able to differentiate between brands without hesitation…even when I’m sure he was feeling slightly rattled by their persistent questions. It’s very reassuring to go into meetings when you’re confident your vendor partners will nail it – which he definitely did. We’ve got our work cut out with them (Alex can fill you in), but I am certain we’ll get there. THANKS ALEX – you rock!!

Shoutout to the Steph + Kyle P.Point PRO team for their hard work on getting a Chem-Trend presentation template completed!! This turned out to be a beast and I thank you for the dedication and teamwork. You make me look good : )

The Culture Committee + Jim did a great job with Phire Retreat part #1 this morning. It was organized very well and felt productive and collaborative. It will be exciting to see what comes from part #2!

To Stephanie for knocking it out of the park with the Nexus video storyboard. A lot of really innovative ideas throughout. Excited to see Mike bring it to life as we push forward.

Kudos for Alex for quietly updating nearly 2,000 AdWords ads for Chem-Trend due to the website launch. I was in the office after 8 last night, and he was diligently going through each one. Unsung for sure. That's why I'm singing now!

Echoing Kyle's kudos for Valentina – the PEA naming exercise was incredibly fun (and hopefully helpful!). It was great to get perspectives from different individuals and all contribute to the effort. I'd love to see more of these workshops in the future!

To Valentina for leading the difficult PEA naming charge. The collaborative standing brainstorm was a great way to bring the agency together and explore new paths and seemed to be a great experience for everyone!

In working on the Cooper Tire rebate presentation we realized we needed to bolster it with additional background/research. Blaire, Casey and Mike B pulled together at the last minute and visited 6 tire dealers on a Friday afternoon and we worked over the weekend to prep for a Monday morning presentation. The client was very impressed with the entire package. Kudos to the team for dedication and commitment, going above and beyond. It's much appreciated, especially as this is a client we hope to grow.

To piggyback off Grace, Kudos to Lina and Kristen for their work on updating the client status sheets as well--This was a team effort and client feedback on these has been well received!

Kudos to Blaire for organizing and updating the project sheets for the PGTI brands so beautifully! Every time we have a meeting with the client, I always feel confident with what is in movement. Having that project transparency is huge! I feel so spoiled using them.

Kyle took on the job of searching for and managing the development of a 3d tour for PGTI's new showroom. We haven't done this type of thing before. Take a look: https://pgtinnovations.com/showroom/ Client quote: "It looks amazing. I was on the phone with Steph and she felt the same!"

Here's a note from Chem-Trend regarding a very complicated project that John has been working on (TP Product Selector). This is a big deal as it was called out by their executive team as a strategic initiative in their digitalization planning for 2019. "Hello Mike! It works really nice and it looks great. Congratulations to all of you! You made a good job! Cheers" -Alexis John made a good job, indeed.

Respect points for Alex during yesterday's meeting with Chem-Trend. This was the first opportunity I had to see him run through Dashboard analysis with client and it was nothing short of Schwarzenegger in the Terminator. He absolutely killed it. Impressed by your deep understanding of all things SEO.

It's been a while since i've been on a client call, but today I listened in while Coach led the ASG Pental website wireframes discussion and he crushed it. He always has such an impressive knowledge of each client's company and organization. It can get complicated quick but he helped the client work through their thoughts and kept the call moving along smoothly.

Marissa and Mike F. have been helping out huge in between their tasks with some of the final pieces needed for the Phire website case studies. Everything is coming together great and I'm super excited for everyone to see the progress soon.

Alex (and Blaire) led a meeting with Chem-Trend today and killed it. Such a good feeling to have great team members that can take a ball and run.

Josh is doing such a fantastic job with the SCUP site. I know it's been one big, messy project- but it really looks beautiful. There are so many complicated levels and he's tackling things on the fly. Can't wait for that sucker to LAUNCH.

Casey and Kyle led a great brand kickoff for PEA today. They provided a lot of actionable info and really gave a complete background of the company. Nice work making our goals, challenges, and opportunities so clear.

Valentina has been writing a content series for AF Group and we're seeing the particles being shared/touted on LinkedIn by their company's leadership and others. Kudos to her for great collaborating on topic development and creating shareable content.

Kudos to Lina for helping me with timelines for a couple clients! She's saved me a lot of time and brought some great process-related ideas to the table.

Blaire crushed her first Chem-Trend status call filling in for Mike while he's out. We only had a quick 30 minutes to review all ongoing projects prior to our conversation with Mark, but she took everyone through them efficiently and while keeping things positive/light!

Kristen has been so amazing onboarding Lina and helping her to get settled. Thank you for being so welcoming while also staying on top all of the (many) tasks and projects going on! You're a PM rockstar.

Casey has been doing an amazing job on Amcor and all the UM projects! He's great about following meeting process and is so knowledgable about client needs. Which is very helpful for when we are working through revisions.

Valentina and Kurt took a random request from a client to create a Brand PPT presentation and knocked it out of the park. They understood that seemingly small requests like this can be very impacting. The PPT will be used to present the brand to executive leaders within the organization, and may be the most visible thing we're working on for them. Kudos, it's much appreciated!

Stephanie and Grace killed it on a website homepage presentation to WinDoor. The client was very impressed.

Valentina has been absolutely crushing her task list (which has been especially long/intense these past couple of weeks) all while creating thoughtful, accurate copy, and staying positive the whole time! Thank you for being a rockstar.

Mike F. was awesome at the CFE video shoot on Monday. He was so organized and thoughtful when asking interview questions, and helped make the whole process go smoothly. It's great having him involved in video projects from the start because he brings so much experience and knowledge to our team. Thanks, Mike!

When my task list piles up and questions need answering, Kristen always has my back. Kristen: I know that every project that comes in is organized and cleaned up by you. Thanks for all that you do! You are very much appreciated.

Special thanks to Cary for proofing the WinDoor Parts guide today! It was a huge project with a lot of documents to proof against. His thoroughness and knowledge fine-tuned the content beautifully. Thanks again, Cary!

Casey for his work on the PEA research/discovery process. He lead it up in full, and the document is very well done. Kudos.

Thank you Maria, Kurt, and John for another successful Process/Collaboration Committee meeting! We were able to tackle everything in the agenda and make great progress.

Checked out a portion of the custom Dominos presentation Will is putting together, looks really awesome. The extra effort going into that one is very appreciated.Excited to see the finished product.

Kudos to Stephanie for taking the initiative and meeting with team members from different departments to find out how she and the creative team can improve personally and collaboratively.

Mike F. did an awesome job with the Windoor video. The transitions are awesome; definitely has a high-end feel. Expecting the client to love it as much as we do internally!

Grace, Kristen, Mike F., and Mike R. were so helpful and kept the ball rolling with AF Group while I was away. Everything was delivered on time and the client is very happy with the images for their press release.

Thanks to everyone who helped get the photoshoot prep done. It'll definitely help things run smoother.

Maria did a very impressive job explaining the complex world of SEO during our DGY meeting yesterday. She answered every question with easy-to-understand explanations and lots of enthusiasm.

Got a chance to sneak a peek at the Amcor video Mike's been working on and Mike is truly getting us to that next level. Super excited to have him on the team, and I can't wait to see what's next!

Kudos to Marissa for taking the initiative and attacking the blog on the new site...among other things as well. "Can't stress it enough" how much it helps ease the workload of the new site with her jumping onto every component she can help with when her time permits. #newsitecomingsoon

I hear multiple times a week from different departments how refreshing it is having Grace on the team. She continually raises the bar by helping push us strategically and creatively.

Kudos to Stephanie for her continued collaboration with Will and willingness to always guide and help out when needed. It's great to see new groups of people taking advantage of the adjusted seating and working together in new ways.

Kudos to Will for not only handling the UMS series brochure while I was out, but the season extension as well. Everything piece is looking great and consistent.

from Diego at Chem-Trend regarding the CMS training we just gave them... GREAT JOB!!! I believe the training went good. You covered a lot of ground in a short schedule. I liked the way it was structured and the depth of the explanations. I liked the fact that they were able to see the changes on the fly, with real content. CMS is much more simple that the one we are currently using, which is also very beneficial. The SEO portion was great as well, very detailed and showing the why and the how.

Shout out to Maria, Josh, Mike, Valentina and everyone currently working to improve the DGY SEO performance. This is a tough task, but they've all stayed very committed to the end goal and keep coming up with new solutions to improve the site, and our process as a whole. Maria even put together a doc that shows everything we've done for them to date, and what is to come and it looks great.

Kurt and Grace covered a client/vendor call in my absence, w/out me even asking. Small but huge thing during a challenging week. Much appreciated!

Thanks to Josh and Kristen for helping me fix broken video links in our presentation for U-M students today. It was last minute and I really appreciate them taking time out of their day to help!

Kyle thank you for jumping on a Chem-Trend call this morning with John so he wasn't all alone. Teamwork!

Kristen for staying on top of everything and always being so professional and positive.

Kudos to Grace for cranking out several great looking pieces for WinDoor this week! It's really exciting to see everything come together.

To Will for his amazing work on the UMS Series Brochure and all of the million other UMS things he works so carefully on. I so appreciate your creativity and patience and I know the client does, too!

Rebecca has provided thorough background/direction for a few projects just today and I am forever grateful! It's saved me a lot of confusion and time and I really appreciate it.

Kudos to Coach for taking the lead on the pizza party last week and the spring cook out today! Two nice little activities to brighten the week. We're definitely spoiled!

Julie for her work on improving the interview process. She's shown much leadership and direction and it's very appreciated.

Kudos to Kyle for being a proponent of Coach's wireframe today at our AF Group meeting. He led the group back to all the positive aspects of the design in a meaningful way.

Major kudos to the CGI Scout crew. I so appreciate you all. The client wanted to send out a teaser email today and despite a few last minute requests/changes, we pulled it off! The client is very happy and all of the launch materials we've created so far look fantastic. Thank you tons!

Andi (along with Kyle, Valentina and Alex) put together an Owned + Earned media plan for AF Group. The client is raving about it; "Thanks Mike this is excellent. I really like the timing of the topics, angles and strategies. Look forward to working with you all on this! Thanks again! Bob" This is an emerging area for Phire Group and it's exciting to see such positive feedback from a client.

Seconding Julie's kudo for Kristen - working through a super complex system with patience and positivity!

Kristen From all of us on the Mavenlink Demo Team you ran an awesome meeting today. Lots of great discussion, much to learn and we will make this system work great for Phire Group!

To Stephanie for stepping in to create a CoE graphic for a survey despite having a lot on her plate at the moment!

To Will and Tony for their creativity with the new season direction for UMS. And to Jim for writing the copy/theme. The creative and copy fit together so well and the client is loving it. Really nice work and thanks for breathing new life into this client.

to Kyle for getting Pączkis! and for taking on an ever growing role in strategic leadership. but mostly for Pączkis!

Thank you to Julie and Kristen for working so hard to get Mavenlink set up. I know you both have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure the new system is coordinated correctly. I know we're all very appreciate and excited for it to become a reality!

Kudos to Casey for staying so committed, even during an especially busy time. You have so many projects and new clients on your plate, but always approach any challenge thrown your way with positivity.

Kudos to Kurt, Marissa, and Tony for their work on the LOC brand panels (and presentation). The new presentation format is very thorough (yet concise). Can't wait to present to the client!

Maria stepped up to define high-level goals and strategy for the external communications committee. Thank you for taking the time to thoughtfully draft this so we can stay mindful of our objectives for the year!

Casey took the Google Slides template and created a U-M branded version on his own...very cool. Love the effort to make something custom and taking the initiative to do it.

Thank you to the creative team for using this new adobe acrobat PDF link review tool. It's now SO much easier for everyone who is routing to review at the same time. Added bonus: no repeat attached PDFs in emails, and less printouts!

follow up on my trip to Vegas last week. The Eze-Breeze brand launched at the International Builders' Show. it was a huge success and the client was blown away. Jeff Rafter has been selling the Eze-Breeze brand for decades, and literally teared up from the overall look and feel of the materials (website, video, booth, handouts). And they got a ton of great leads. Big shout out to everyone that worked on it; Grace, Rebecca, Marissa, John, Kristen, Coach, Kurt, Jim, Alex and anyone I missed.

Delayed kudos here from Marek (one of the photographers we've worked with often as of late): "Shane (his assistant) and I keep saying how you're one of the nicest agencies with the nicest, extraordinarily creative and organized people we had privilege to work with." Can't stress enough how much our outside partners enjoy working with us!

Valentina and Grace did an awesome job at the WinDoor photoshoot last week. I so appreciate your diligence and determination and have gotten very positive comments from both the client and the video crew. Thank you both and looking forward to seeing the end product!

To John for being so on top of the EZB website. It's always helpful to have clarity on what's missing and where we need to be pushing the client. Thank you!

Grace has been so committed to creative planning process of the WinDoor shoot. Every iteration of the storyboard is more impressive than the next.

We're using a video production company from Orlando to assist in the WinDoor video we're creating. I just received this note from them in response to a presentation from Grace from our team: "Great call today. The storyboard/script looks great, by far the best we’ve received from an advertising agency so kudos to you and your team.

To the entire AE team and their relentless positivity and commitment. There's no one event I can point to because they each bring this attitude to every meeting and project.

To Kurt for stepping in to develop the U-M Coulter wireframe. He did a great job executing and is allowing us to keep the project on track.

Casey for awesome work on LOC discovery. Very thorough and insightful.

Will designed his first full website. It's a great looking site and the client loved it. No revisions...that's never happened by the way.

Will put together some great poster concepts for UMS, and provided a detailed breakdown of his thinking behind the designs and it was so cool to see how much research and thought went into them! Really nice work.

To Kristen for her incredible ability to remain on top of things even when it's crazy here. Thanks.

Kudos to Kurt for his wealth of knowledge and helpfulness - especially these past few weeks! He's always there to answer a question or find a solution to the plethora of projects that have been coming our way. Thanks for all that you do. It is always appreciated!

Kudos to Rebecca for continually keeping all of the moving parts of PGTI in order. With all of their brands, projects, and feedback she's always on top of it. Thanks for all of your hard work!

Kudos to Grace, Alex, Kyle and Mike R. on the 2019 plan for AF Group. We presented right before the holidays and our ideas were well received by the client. It was great to collaborate with this group!

To Kurt for jumping in on all sorts of PGTI projects this week. Thanks for all of your insight/guidance (and for sitting through so many conference calls with me!)

Kudos to Maria and Stephanie for the DGY presentation yesterday. It's fun to sit back and watch you both engage with the client in a deep and meaningful way.

Kudos to Kurt and Marissa on all of their hard work on Eze-Breeze. The photoshoot direction is beautiful and I look forward to seeing our ideas come to life! Working with them is always inspirational.

Kudos to Kristen and Rebecca for answering soooo many questions from me (and then a bunch of follow-ups) in the past few days with kindness. Much appreciated.

To Kurt, Marissa and Tony for their work on the Second to None brand panels. The client loved the three directions we presented and came to a decision very quickly. Probably the smoothest (and quickest) panels presentation I've been involved in at Phire. Looking forward to next steps.

Major kudos to Andi for her extensive work on any and all Chem-Trend press releases. Their science isn't easy to read, let alone write, but she's been producing new copy at rapid speed while remaining mindful of Mark's (many) requests.

Kudos to Farah for her endless proofing and positive attitude. You treat each and every item that routes through you with the utmost importance and consistently answer my word- related questions, no matter how silly. I appreciate you!

Kudos to Alex for developing an advertising "brief"/cheat sheet for Monroe. We need to push them towards several decisions for 2019—this should help get them there. I appreciate the commitment to the client and the agency despite the circumstances.

To Tony and Grace for developing great, new concepts for the 284 Partners website homepage. They inherited a tough one, but should be pushing things forward to development with these concepts.

Rachel, for always being super professional, positive, level headed and thick-skinned with a "challenging" client that will remain nameless. It is much appreciated.

Just wanted to say great job to Will&Grace(TM). The TedX meeting went great and they did an amazing job presenting their work.

Shout out to Stephanie, Grace, and Will for their TEDx creative concepts. Each one was unique and so cool!

Kudos to the crew that worked on the HathiTrust logo concepts. The client loved the presentation and really appreciated the thought process that went into such a variety of concepts.

To John for being so thorough and speedy- we've been working on several different projects recently that have required a lot of back and forth with the client and have been new territory for me. Thanks for your patience with my countless questions!

Kudos to Grace for continually helping out with and cranking out cool concepts for UMS posters.

Big thanks to Marissa for tackling the UMS postcards to help spread out workload this week. I know it’s not always easy jumping in on other peoples projects, but it’s definitely appreciated.

Mike (& Team), The video turned out great. Thank you all for all your hard work to pull this thing off. It got the crowd excited! Well done, my friends!! You all humble me by your passion and dedication to make things “right”! Danielle Mikesell, PGT Innovations Senior Vice President Marketing & Product Management

Kurt Thank you for salting the sidewalk and steps as we watch the snow falling. So thoughtful of you to help keep all of us safe.

To Grace for her constant creativity. No matter the scale of the project, Grace brings a great attitude and consistently looks for ways to improve the end product. The PGTI calendar is a perfect example of this. She found a way to simplify it and the client was thrilled. It may seem small to us but clients notice/appreciate when we bring innovative solutions to the table- it makes a big difference!

Kudos to Marissa for stepping up to the plate to close out the Conlin website design! She's worked quickly (and diligently) to fill the gaps.

Farah weighed in on a press release for Chem-Trend and it was incredibly helpful! She had great recommendations (as always).

Big kudos to Coach and Julie for taking the initiative and then ordering new knives for the kitchen. Really nice knives and generally a thing people forget to do (actually order stuff they need) in their own houses, let alone their workplace. Thanks so much, both.

Kudos to Andi for helping to organize, manage, and plan a lot of internal initiatives this week. From Jim's presentation today at Creative Mornings to helping restructure the Internal Communications committee to planning the Phall Party, there has been a lot going on behind the scenes that she has helped with. Thanks for helping us stay on track!

Kudos to Jim! He presented at Creative Mornings today and talked about about taking an honest approach in our work with clients. The audience really enjoyed his talk and he fielded a lot of great questions.

Everyone may not have noticed the addition to Rebecca's title, she's now "Account Executive/Content Strategist." Content creation is something she's had an interest in for some time (and clearly a need we have at Phire). Today she helped to present brand positioning work she was involved with to a new client (SCUP). It was very well received. Major kudos!

Kudos to everyone that attended the Women in Leadership Conference on Wednesday. It was a really informative night, and it was motivating to see women in our community promoting positive changes, diversity, and equality in the workplace. One more thanks to Jim as well for encouraging continued learning through these types of conferences and opportunities!

Shoutout to Coach (and everyone else involved!) for working so hard on the TP Product Selector Wireframes under a tight deadline. Mark from Chem-Trend said the folks he showed them to in Germany were thrilled and really excited about having a tool like this!

Shout out to Will (& Kurt) for powering through the direction provided on HORIBA. I appreciate your help and patience!

Kudos to all who worked on the CGIC Slimfront launch materials. We were given very minimal direction (and assets) and still managed to come up with a theme and really sharp deliverables. We got creative to get there and it's awesome to see where we ended up. Nice work, all.

From Shannon at AF Group: Hey guys—we got a cool mention in an industry blog this week. Joe is a pretty respected player—so it was nice to see this… https://www.joepaduda.com/

Thanks Kristen for sending out the Process Improvement doc! So helpful and I really appreciate you helping all of us stay organized.

Thank you to Will for taking care of so many UMS ads and program books lately. I know they appreciate our timeliness with updates and I appreciate your positivity throughout it all!

Shout out to Coach for his great work on the PGTI Year in Review video. I know it took some late nights and long hours but it turned out amazing and i'm sure they'll be thrilled with the result!

Kudos to Alex for his work on the 2019 Monroe Bank media plan. It's a great summary of efforts to date and presents a great path forward. Looking forward to the presentation to the client.

Thanks to the Hope Foundation team, Rebecca, Grace, Stephanie, John, and Kristen! We launched their advertising campaign today after a long planning and approval process. The ads and site look great. Excited to see the campaign impact their organization!

From Suzanne at PGT: The new WinGuard Aluminum brochure looks amazing. The new photography is great. The layout w/ the big “Hero” shots really punches up the aesthetics of the product presentation. And Mike T. the paper quality and gloss yells “quality.”

From Grace at PGT regarding the WGA launch we just completed. Kudos to all involved. "We hosted soft launch training the past 2 days, and dealer feedback has been really great. One of our very seasoned dealers said that he was thrilled that we are modernizing our materials, and he is no longer embarrassed by them (yikes). The e-brochure was a hit, and I know the traditional materials will be too. Thanks again for all of your help. It’s really exciting to see everything come together!"

Kudos to Rachel, Stephanie, and Kristen for everything they do to keep Chem-Trend on track and organized. I'm not involved with that client, but all of the extra effort and time does not go unnoticed!

General kudos to Alex and Maria for their consistently great work on client dashboards. They're such a valuable resource for our clients that we should never take for granted!

Steph has absolutely killed it on all things Chem-Trend this week. And there was a lot! Thank you for all your help!

Kudos to Stephanie for all of her guidance on projects that were transitioned to my plate! She has been very helpful in navigating assets, files, and understanding the project history. Her attention to detail is awesome! Thanks Stephanie #teamwork

Kudos to Andi for all her work on Chem-Trend products press releases! Learning all the products is a huge task in itself, let alone understanding all their features and benefits! Great job staying committed and positive throughout the process!

Kudos Maria for work on DGY. We're seeing major increases in traffic to site and more importantly the client is reporting increases in new visits/new clients. Awesome work.

To Jim for turning out such quick quality copy at the drop of a dime. Truly showing commitment and respect for the client and team!

Rachel and Mike have had a plethora of Chem-Trend meetings lately, including early morning calls to other countries. Kudos to your commitment and positivity through it all!

Kudos to Andi for charging full speed ahead with PR for CGI. From coordinating calls with reporters to identifying areas where we can push in to further support their internal team, she's stayed organized and thoughtful.

Huge kudos to Kurt for handling the extra workload with Tony out sick and for keeping everything on track upstairs.

Julie, for the painstaking work of tracking client hours and helping to establish a consistent reporting system across clients. It's vital work, and much appreciated.

Kudos to Marissa, Maria, and Josh for their work on the DLS campaign so far. This has taken shape quickly and I appreciate the collaboration. Excited for more. Thanks, all.

Kudos to Grace for her help on the Leelanau Farm Fresh labels! It was so fun to work on this together and I think the client is going to be thrilled with all of the concepts we're showing.

I wanted to say thanks to everyone for making my first weeks here at Phire so welcoming! You have all been generous with your time and willingness to help me get acclimated. Thanks team!

Thank you to Julie for cleaning up our BBQ and bagel messes. Not ever in the job descript, but always willing to keep the place moving forward with visiting clients coming. Please give her a shout out. Also... never be afraid to pitch in please!

Coach thanks for cooking today awesome Phire Phriday BBQ! Josh and John thanks for shopping for the food with Coach.

Kudos to Josh for putting together Phront Page every month and designing the new employee spotlight emails. They look great!

Kudos to Kyle for his work on the Chem-Trend social media strategy. Not only is the content for this presentation great, but it provides us with a template for future plans for other clients as well.

This was mentioned a couple of times in our stand up meeting this morning, but another shout out to everyone who helped with UMS this week. I just checked and there have been 28 tasks completed this week for them. JOB(S) WELL DONE.

It seems like all of Rebecca's clients in particular have been especially active/demanding lately, but she still stays positive, organized, and responsive! It's impressive.

Kudos to Coach for his work on the Mastercraft video. The client is very pleased with the final result! Despite being text-heavy without narration, the video is compelling and looks great!

Casey, for keeping all of this clients on track/on hours and overall very well managed.

(Delayed) Kudos to Marissa for her work on all of the Monroe Bank digital ads! She kept positive despite the seemingly endless amount of ads she had to create and layered client feedback.

Kudos to Will for his continued work on the Adient presentation! He's done a great job of cranking out updates on what has been a very tight timeline. #Willpower

Kudos to Kristen for expertly managing my accounts last week! Thanks to her, I knew everything was in good hands.

Thank you to the volunteer committee for organizing the Give 365 event on Friday! We had perfect weather and a lot of fun.

From DGY regarding the new site; "ZZ LOVES the site!!! It is beautiful!! in her words, sexy." oh boy.

From the President & CEO of Gongos: "Just a quick note to let you know I am thrilled with our new website! You truly captured the essence of what we are hoping to project as the next best version of Gongos. I’ve heard nothing but positive comments from our employees – so much so that they are excited to share with family/friends… to me that’s a true sign of pride."

Sometimes positive client feedback comes from unexpected places. From Jay at Gerotech, regarding how their van wraps turned out: "...the vehicle looks really sharp. Our tech said he has received multiple compliments regarding the vehicle. The different shades of grey turned out exactly how we intended. Thanks for your help." Kudos for Marissa and Tony for their commitment to getting this done and making the client happy in the end.

Kudos to Maria on her work with the De La Salle media plan. It's officially been approved and starts soon! Looking forward to seeing some of the new stuff that comes out of it.

Rebecca for growing De La Salle and managing it turnkey. Much appreciated!

Will's been crushing presos, including some monsters lately. K-U-D-O-S!! #reachoutandtouchtheuniverse

Huge thanks Mike for covering for us at the Chem-Trend shoot tomorrow. Lots of stuff happening, great to rely on each other for help!

Kudos to Will for expertly working through the humongous Adient presentation, draft after draft.

Thanks to Stephanie for covering the Chem-Trend photoshoot in Bay City last week. Can't wait to see the shots!

Shout out to everyone who is/has/will be working on the CGIC/Western Windows Integration on the PGTI website. Christy just called me thanking us *a million* for pushing hard on these updates for them. She reiterated several times how much they value us, our work, and the relationship. Thanks, y'all.

Kudos to Marissa for the amazing Leelanau Swag! shop.lwc.wine/womens-c18.aspx (link may not work)

Thanks Kristen for alway giving feedback/edits with such a positive attitude. It may not seem like a big deal, but it's much appreciate! :)

Matt/Coach helped me update a video for Chem-Trend (last minute). It was a really quick turn around and a huge help!

From our contact at AF Group: "I just got off a call with Kristi Houston who spent five minutes raving about our campaign and feel good video. She said she couldn’t even put into words via email how much she loves it. She laughed, she cried...and said this is exactly what she’d been hoping we would do with one of our campaigns. It was a fantastic call - so I wanted to share. So proud of what this team has put together— and appreciative of your amazing effort and talent. Thanks everyone!!! Have a great weekend."

A well-deserved kudos to Julie for everything she's done over the last couple of weeks just making sure everything is organized for when the new employees arrive and prior to going into interviews.

Great presentation by Andi and Rebecca today. A lot to think about and discuss as we continue to evolve and improve. Love the fresh perspectives and new ideas!

Thank you for past/future efforts to everyone helping with the WinDoor Estate Collection launch (still in progress). The teamwork has been great and the materials created so far look really sharp.

Kudos to Mike B Thank you for installing the new papertowel holders in the bathrooms.

Kudos to Madina for tackling the UMS Single Ticket Brochure. This one was a beast and she was so on top of it. Sara says, "Really looks fantastic! I still can't believe we got this done on schedule, and am so grateful to your team for their hard work on it."

Kudos to everybody. (Yes, I can do that.) We are busy and shorthanded, but meetings like today are great reminders of how damn good we are at what we do. It's inspiring to see the work, the results, and the forward momentum across the board. Cheers y'all.

Extra thanks to Stephanie & Mike for all their help during the photoshoot. The extra help and attention to detail was huge on this shoot because we had so much to cover in a short amount of time. Super excited about the process and for the finished product.

Marissa explored some 'merchandise' logos for Leelanau and Gabe just sent over this email: You guys crushed it. Very happy with this work – thank you! Nice work! They looked fantastic.

Major kudos to Maria for her support with both Hope Foundation and De La Salle. Both very specific industries and clients. She's been so thorough and thoughtful with both and the clients have definitely appreciated it. Thank you!

Hi, guys! Wanted to say thank you for the outstanding shoot today. I am really pumped about so many of the shots we got and am confident that tomorrow will be equally awesome. Once we got on a roll, that flow stayed with us throughout the day and there was some serious creativity in play too. Very happy here! Yay, team! (Mike, please share my gratitude with Stephanie and Tony, and Marek, please share with Shane and Christopher -- thank you!) Thanks much, Michelle

Madina took the lead and handled the entire UMS single ticket brochure this year. It came out great and we're even ahead of schedule. Thaaaaanks.

Extra thanks to Marissa for taking the lead on the internal video. Awesome to see that kind of commitment and dedication to get it done.

Huge thanks to Stephanie for all the effort on the walkthrough and prep work for the Chem-Trend photoshoot.

Maria and Lindsay put together a social media plan for customer appreciation month for Monroe Bank & Trust. It's great to see our client taking your direction and keeping the "Story of you" campaign going.

Shout out to Alec for the work he's done on the Monroe Bank spreadsheet. It's looking awesome and could potentially be really helpful down the road for multiple campaigns outside of Monroe. Nice work on it and thanks for putting it together!

Shout out to everyone who has been helping with the CGI Sparta launch materials! There's been a lot of back and forth with the client, but all pieces that have been sent back to them look flawless!

Kudos to everyone involved with the Cosmic Stone website project. We just went live this afternoon at cosmicstone.com! Specific kudos to Josh for addressing the client's feedback during the development stage quickly and for getting them up and running on a more reliable hosting environment.

Kudos to Marissa, John, Coach, and Kristen for their work on the A2SF newsletter a while back. I get them when they send and the updates look great. It took a while for us to work through/ figure out, but the final product looks great!

To Casey, and everyone working on the Monroe Bank account. They just agreed to extend our relationship to include digital support. Great client. Happy client.

Reiterating this kudo, with client input. Tony created a fantastic set of guidelines for Crypton's photoshoot next week and they are thrilled about it. Elise said,"This is really helpful and super easy to understand! Thank you for putting this together in such a thoughtful and organized fashion. And Thank you for doing the sketches!"

In a short week and a half, Lindsay's already contributed so much to the media/PR team. Great work so far!

Thank you to the media gang for putting together the social media posts spec sheet AND the campaign timing sheet. Both are super helpful tools that I look forward to sharing with the rest of the team!

Trucent loves the tradeshow materials that Tony put together. The client said, "These look awesome. The team killed it on the pop-up banners!"

This is a bit meta, but Susan from Gongos sent a kudo using the word kudo: "I can’t tell you how invigorated I am re: the site’s progress. The design and content, how it is informing internal branding, and the move into development. Kudos to your direction."

Mitch from Chem-Trend said, "I spent the past week at the NPE expo in Orlando and wanted to let you and the team know that our TP team really liked the Lusin Lub O 32 F sell sheets. They specifically liked the image of the bottles; it was professional looking and its something totally different than what our competition is doing."

Kudos to Maria for taking over Hope Foundation's media management. She's not only been on top of it, but she's been incredibly positive about the project and is bringing new ideas to the table to better support the client. Great work. Keep it up.

Formal kudos to everyone who has worked on the Rainbow Child Care account up to this point. Our positioning/ brand panels/ media assessment and recommendations presentation went really well yesterday. The client is excited about progress and was impressed with creative direction. Great dedication and collaboration thus far!