Last week we launched a Facebook fan page contest to create a new tagline for our newly designed Web site, set to launch late this week. We’ve had some great entries, but want to also open it to our blog readers.

Following are a couple of our favorites. But they are totally unprofessional, which is why we need your help.

* Arment Dietrich. Better Than Sex.

* Arment Dietrich. The Only Thing We Spin Is Our Bike.

The winner not only gains fame, but will have the tagline (with credit) on our home page. Heck, we might even have a t-shirt or mug to give the winner.

Before we changed the business model our tagline was “Service. Results. Spirit.” Boring, right?

But with the new Web site and our new business model (don’t know about the new business model? Read more here), we figure it’s a good time to get rid of the boring and introduce something really good.

So…I leave it in your hands. What tagline do you think best represents Arment Dietrich?

I’m having an identity crisis and I need your help.

It’s no secret we’ve changed our business model this year to incorporate social media into our traditional communication firm. All along I’ve been saying that PR deserves a place at the social media table, that so much of it is about relationships and messaging, which is what our industry has been doing for centuries.

So why is it, then, that the PR industry isn’t all over this? The global PR firms have begun to hire social media planners or experts to help them, but it seems like it’s just a “have to do this so we’ll hire someone” kind of thing. I’m not sensing a strategy or a change in the way the businesses operate, mostly because I think even the big firms look at social media like most companies – they don’t get it and don’t like giving up control of the message (which we know is just a perception).

Am I off my rocker or do we have a severe competitive advantage now that our business model completely incorporates social media….and has for a year?

This week’s Crain’s Chicago Business focuses on enterprising women (and yes, I’m featured). But I’m not blogging about it to toot my own horn. I think there is more to the story than Crain’s was allowed to tell and I want to share some of the things I’ve learned.

2008 was the recession year for Arment Dietrich

The communication business, historically, is a key leading indicator for the economy. Having a company not quite three years old  when 2007 ended, I didn’t understand this. I was scared to death, listening to all of the economists speak, but I thought I had some time.  I thought the recession would hit us in 2009 so I spent last year building staff and preparing for the downturn. Boy was I WRONG!

Key learning: Pay attention to economists, to politics, to policy, to new laws and regulations, to community leaders, to business bloggers and reporters. Even though it’s not your core expertise, and it may not affect you directly, it’s important to understand how the world affects your business’s profitability.

Starting a business does not mean you get to do your craft every day

I have a sign on my wall that I wrote two years ago. It says, “I am no longer a kick @ss communication professional. I am a company grower.” My Vistage Chair actually added “kick @ss” between “a” and “company”, which is kind of funny and drives me a little batty at the same time. I’m a bit OCD and he ruined my pretty sign. But I leave it to remind myself that, even though growing  a company is not my craft, I am getting better at it every day.

Key learning: If you start a business, and you decide you want to build something, be prepared to do less of your craft every day. I like to think of it as changing my career so that I feel like I’m really doing my job when I grow the business and less like I’m doing my job when I allow myself to go back into the day-to-day activities of communication.

Have a basic understanding of everything outside your core expertise

Last October, the bank called. Said I was out of covenant on my line of credit and that, because of the economy, they weren’t going to be lending money to professional services firms for the time being. I had no idea what that meant. I didn’t know what a covenant was or how we could be outside of one. I didn’t know what a borrowing base was, but they said I had to complete one immediately. I took it personally. I cried and cried and cried. I fought with my banker. It was a bad day. In fact, it was a bad few weeks.

Key learning: Be as educated as you can be about things outside of your expertise. Even if you have experts (in this case a controller or CFO), understand what your personal guarantee means, understand what you have to do to stay within covenant, understand how to complete the basic financial documents the bank needs monthly, and treat your banker as if he/she is your partner. Turns out, after I decided I’d rather pick myself up than close the business, the bank was very willing to work with us and we’re back in covenant and I understand everything they need to keep our line open.

It’s okay to fail

It should come as no surprise that I’m a perfectionist. I’ve never really failed at anything. So when I do something that is not perfect, I make a big mistake, or I do something I think people will perceive as failure, I’m REALLY hard on myself. I make mistakes every day. Sometimes they’re little. Sometimes they’re huge. And I beat myself up every time.

After the bank situation, and after we had two clients send us “Dear John, the economy sucks” letters right before the holidays last year, I went into a pretty deep depression. I beat myself up. Why didn’t I pay attention to the signs? How did I not know our industry is a key leading indicator? Why did I do some things my gut told me not to do? What were people going to think that I had a good three year run, but I couldn’t grow a business beyond that? How was I going to tell my staff we had to close? How was I going to tell our clients? How was I going to pay our outstanding vendor bills? Why had I built a business only to have nothing to show for it?

And then I happened across a Confucius quote that shook me and brought me out of my self-doubt. “It’s not in that we fail, but in how we pick ourselves up when we do.”

Key learning: It’s okay to fail. It’s how human beings learn. I went back to the office on January 5, 2009, ready to kick butt and take names! We ventured on a new path and shook up our business model. We had to do some lay-offs in January. We had to reorganize the business. I had to make some very hard, personal decisions. But the business is back in the black, every single team member is a rock star, we’re doing the work we love to do, and our culture now embodies everything I’ve envisioned for the past four years. I wouldn’t have done this had I not made some pretty big mistakes last year and everything were status quo.

So yes, Crain’s, this fledgling firm is growing and Global Domination is back on our minds!

What are some of the mistakes and key learnings you can share?

When the Zappos/Amazon deal went through on July 22, my friend Travis Dudfield asked my opinion on the communication to Zappos employees. I told him to let the media storm die down and I would write a blog post about it.

So here it is!

There was A LOT of criticism about how Tony Hsieh communicated the sale to his employees, beginning with the fact that he told everyone they still have their jobs and that he used email, video, and Twitter to spread the message.

I’m not there every day, and I don’t know what it is he is legally allowed to say, or what he’s not allowed to say, but I will tell you that in his letter (see it here) he is as transparent as he can be with an acquisition of this size. And using the social networks to spread the words goes to what he believes in and the core values of the company. So why would he do it any differently?

Let me tell you something that happened at Arment Dietrich at the beginning of this year. Before Thanksgiving last year, there were some insecurities among my colleagues that there might be lay-offs. The rumors were not warranted and I put the kibosh on them, telling all in a staff meeting that there were not going to be lay-offs.

But on Christmas Eve (Christmas EVE!), I received a certified letter from a client stating that, because of the ecomomy, they were terminating our contract effective immediately. Then, right after Christmas, but before the new year started, I received another letter in the overnight mail stating that our largest client was cutting their budget by 65 percent.

I got through the holidays without further incident, but went  back into the office right after the first of the year and knew something had to change or we wouldn’t be able to make payroll by the end of February.

So we laid off. We cut deeper than we probably needed to, but I wanted to be sure the business was in a position to survive any more cuts so we didn’t have to go through that again and so my colleagues could focus on the job at hand and not worry about lay-offs later in the year.

It was not fun. And I got a lot of flack for telling everyone before Thanksgiving that we weren’t going to have lay-offs. Some even called me a liar.

The fact of the matter is that, before Thanksgiving, I was transparent and honest and gave them all of the information I had at the time. No one considered I went through the entire holiday season knowing I was going to have to make a hard business choice after the new year because some of our clients were inconsiderate about the timing of their decisions (even though I understood they needed to happen before year’s end).

I didn’t lie. I didn’t withhold information. I was transparent with all of the information I had at the time.

So even though I’m not in Tony Hseih’s shoes, and my situation was not a major and public acquistion, based on what I know about him and the culture he’s built, the information provided in his communication is what he knows now and can legally tell his employees.

Will they lay off? Maybe.

Will the culture change? Maybe.

Will Tony, Fred, or Alfred leave? Maybe.

Did he share all of the information he could within legal boundaries, as soon as he could? I think he did.

Some of you know that we have a fan of the week of our Facebook page. I know that you know because yesterday I received several direct messages on Twitter asking me how YOU can be fan of the week. If you don’t already know about this, read on because you, too, can be fan of the week!

First things first. If you’re not already a fan of Arment Dietrich on Facebook, please click HERE and become one. You can’t be fan of the week without being an actual fan.

Next, you have to connect and engage with other fans on our page. This means commenting on topics posted by our team. But it also means posting your own industry trends and news for other fans to comment on.

We look for new ways of thinking and we love to be challenged. If you spark a conversation, either by a new topic or a new way of thinking on one of our posts, you’ll quickly move to the top of the fan of the week draft.

If you present an idea that is then turned into a blog post here, you may very well become fan of the month AND you’ll be interviewed for an article here.

We look for a few things:

* Engaging and insightful comments

* Consistent comments and participation; one time wonders don’t work

* Interesting industry trends, stats, or stories

* Funny and witty responses that are full of personality

So become a fan, interact, connect, engage, and be funny and you will soon have your 15 minutes of fame! And you never know, the prize the week you win might be Elvis.

P.S. If you want to cheat and use money to achieve status, please send your checks to Molli Megasko. We are, after all, in Chicago. We’re not above under-the-table deals.

I was interested to read a June 1 article in PRWeek that was a debate between Steve Cody, the founder of Peppercom (and someone I got to cycle with in Palm Springs a couple of weeks ago) and Sean Cassidy, president of DKC (someone I’ve never met) about fixed retainer versus hourly rates.

When I started Arment Dietrich four years ago, a business coach told me that we would make money only if we billed our time. I’ve always thought about that, even as everyone complained not only about entering time, but tracking it against client projects.

That being said, we find that clients have a budget, they want to be billed the same amount each month, and they don’t want to pay by the hour. So we have a bit of a hybrid between the retainer and the hourly rates.  We help clients set budgets, based on what they want to accomplish, and allocate a certain number of hours per month against that dollar amount. Then we track our monthly hours and decide, if we’re going to go over, if it’s because we needed to train internally or because the client asked us to do something outside of scope. If it’s outside of scope, our account leads have to have a conversation with the client to either switch gears and not do the new project (or, in very rare cases, even get additional dollars).

This allows us to do what Cody says: Get paid for the strategy and high-level thinking that goes into getting the results.  As Cassidy suggests (and PRWeek agrees with), we should do anything and everything it takes to get results, even if it means we spend $40,000 in time, even if the budget is only $20,000.

I’m a fan of PRWeek. I think their editorial staff is smart and savvy. It surprises me they agree to what sounds like something only a big agency can do…overservice because they have the resources to do so. If we did that, we’d be out of business by now.

We’ve talked on this blog, in recent weeks, about creating value-based fees. But, we haven’t yet found anyone who wants to pay us a hybrid of a flat fee for strategic thinking and ramping up, and then bonuses for affecting business growth. Could be the economy. Could be no flexibility in budgets. Could be we’re just ahead of our time.

What is working for others?