Today is Angelica Colantuoni’s birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!) so I thought that is a perfect reason for her to be the focus of #FollowFriday. A quick story about how Angelica and I met. She was working for an agency in Washington, D.C. and Arment Dietrich was about a year old. She needed help with a Denny’s coffee promotion in Chicago and she called to see if we could assist. We began to work together and, immediately, grew very fond of her. She has great work ethic, makes the right decisions under pressure, and has a sense of humor that, if you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss. She’s humble, but wicked smart; tiny, but could kick your butt. But what sealed the deal for our friendship was this…

Alex Parker was leading the event and he came into my office the afternoon before we were to deliver Denny’s coffee to all of the TV and radio stations in the city. He had a sheer look of panic on his face. He said, “We don’t have any coffee.” What? “We don’t have any coffee.” So we got all hands on deck and we went through the boxes twice. We had packs to keep the coffee hot. We had cups. We had lids. We had brochures and flyers. We had creamer and sugar. We had stirrers. WE DID NOT HAVE ANY COFFEE.

Now, let me preface what I did next by saying it was not up to Angelica and her team to send the coffee. Which is why I felt I could call her and say, “So we are helping you with a coffee promotion and we DON’T HAVE ANY COFFEE” (yes, I yelled that part) and I proceeded to laugh hysterically into her voicemail. I’m pretty sure she called me a bunch of bad names, we got the coffee, and the event went off without a hitch. But rumor has it, she kept that voicemail to listen to when she was having a bad day until she moved to Chicago.

She writes a great blog called The Chic Fit, which describes her quest to hit girls in the face, riding the lakefront with me, playing soccer, and teaching SPIN class (she even includes her play lists for you!).  If you’re not interested in exercise, then follow her on Twitter. At the very least, you’ll see her making fun of me at least once a day.

Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich is the founder, CEO, and author of Spin Sucks, host of the Spin Sucks podcast, and author of Spin Sucks (the book). She is the creator of the PESO Model and has crafted a certification for it in partnership with Syracuse University. She has run and grown an agency for the past 15 years. She is co-author of Marketing in the Round, co-host of Inside PR, and co-host of The Agency Leadership podcast.

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