“How to create a fantastic work culture” with John Sammon Founder & CEO at Sixth City Marketing

As a part of my series about about how leaders can create a “fantastic work culture”, I had the pleasure of interviewing John Sammon, founder and CEO of Sixth City Marketing, holds a master’s degree in Visual Communication, with a specialization in interactive multimedia, and has over fifteen years of experience with web development and interactive strategy. He considers website design, SEO, SEM, website usability, CSS and video his strengths and passion.

The innovative SEO strategies John has provided have helped dozens of clients outrank their strongest competitors for the most desirable industry keyword phrases. His knowledge of effective web design has additionally aided him in producing customized client sites built to convert.

John also created and taught a popular elective class at Ohio University entitled Online Marketing Strategies. The course introduced students to the strategies and uses of popular online marketing channels such as search engine optimization.

Outside of his duties as CEO at Sixth City Marketing, you can find him walking his dog Bernie, offering help on the Moz SEO forum, hacking up an Ohio golf course, or cursing/celebrating the failures/successes of his favorite professional sports teams (the Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians, and Cleveland Cavaliers).

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I built a website in the mid-2000s for a local Cleveland-based company as part of freelance work outside of my day job. At that time, I believed that redesigning a website alone to enhance its look would help improve business for an organization. I found out that this wasn’t the case. The site looked great but the traffic and sales from the website actually dropped after I launched it. I honestly felt terrible about it and set out to find the correct way to help a business beyond just a pretty-looking site. That’s what led me to SEO and online marketing.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

The story of how a business grows is full of “interesting” moments. One of ours came late in the first year of the business. I was very much trying to just make it and establish the business over the first few years. My interesting moment came when I used the change jar in my cupboard to keep the bank account positive while I waited for checks to come in. We’ve come a long way from those days, but these types of gritty moments contributed to where the business is now.

Are you working on any exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

In 2019, our organization is putting a stronger emphasis on community outreach and education. I recently wrote a blog post designed to help college students find internships, and I’ve been trying to allocate more time each month to speaking to community and business organizations about digital marketing. My goal is to help them have a better understanding and a stronger grasp of the various facets so they can better market their business.

Ok, lets jump to the main part of our interview. According to this study cited in Forbes, more than half of the U.S. workforce is unhappy. Why do you think that number is so high?

It’s incredibly interesting as many of the reasons cited align with why I was unhappy in previous roles at companies before I went out on my own. When I was working as an employee at other companies, there were things that I always looked for in terms of how I felt about my job:

1. Did I get to voice ideas and was I heard?
2. Was the company doing the little things to show appreciation to its employees?
3. Was I able to grow at the company, in both knowledge and rank/responsibilities?
4. My salary — was I able to attain higher pay through working hard?

I keep these things in mind as I run my company. The things that always matter the most to people are the little things. The little things can be anything from:

1. Swinging by a local bakery and buying some donuts
2. Upgrading the coffee brand and investing way too much money in International Delight’s Cold Stone Brand Creamer
3. Taking an employee out to lunch to touch base and say thanks

Ultimately, I think that companies should value developing people in their roles and promoting longevity at an organization. If they do, some of the workplace dissatisfaction would change.

Based on your experience or research, how do you think an unhappy workforce will impact a) company productivity b) company profitability c) and employee health and wellbeing?

While I haven’t seen raw data on the impact an unhappy workforce can have on the company or the employee’s health, I have no doubt that it is detrimental for all.

If you have an unhappy workforce, they will likely be less motivated, which can affect both company productivity and profitability because your team isn’t working at full capacity.

Additionally, it’s easy to see how being unhappy at work could have a negative effect on the employee’s health and wellbeing. With stress, depression and overall anxiety being likely consequences of a negative environment, employees can really start to suffer, especially after an extended period of time.

This is why I’ll refer you to my answer to the previous question about valuing longevity with employees and making that a priority when showing your appreciation to your workforce.

Can you share 5 things that managers and executives should be doing to improve their company work culture? Can you give a personal story or example for each?

1. Bring in something for your team — Getting food/donuts/coffee/bagels/pastries as a surprise is a great way to say thank you. Don’t just get Dunkin’ Donuts — try to find a place that’s unique and that you like or is well known so that they know that you care. Pay for it out of your own pocket if you have to. These small things make a big difference with the team. Often people forget to even eat breakfast and they appreciate this.
2. Create a competition for something internally that’s ridiculous — Identify an upcoming event, like the NFL season, NCAA tournament, or the Oscars. Get people involved with it and make it a competition. There are many online websites that will allow you to register everyone. Buy a trophy for whoever wins via one of those online trophy websites. The bigger the trophy the better. It’ll cost you about twenty dollars. People get into that type of thing and it often gives them a chance to talk to others about something unrelated to work. Post mass emails to the team about who is winning each week to up the ante. Bonus if you can tie trophies to work goals (which we do too).
3. Talk to your team about what they want to do — I try as much as I can to tailor specific tasks in a role toward what people are interested in (as long as it’s relevant to either professional growth or the business). Even if they spend a small amount of time on it, it helps build a positive attitude. Listen to them — it does wonders.
4. Throw them off — Call an unexpected meeting and do something fun. I did this one day — I sensed that the team morale was low because of a high volume of work and I scheduled a “water pong” tournament in the office. I randomly paired up people and gave them a schedule for when they would play in the main conference room. I bought pizza for the team as they watched the finalists battle. They didn’t expect it and had never experienced something like that before. It worked well.
5. Let them go early — If you can, let them go early on a random Friday in the summer when the weather is nice. It’ll pay dividends for morale. Everyone likes a random early dismissal.

It’s very nice to suggest ideas, but it seems like we have to “change the culture regarding work culture”. What can we do as a society to make a broader change in the U.S. workforce’s work culture?

Find data that ties positive morale to profit/savings. Unfortunately, profits and savings are the focus of most companies and educating business leaders on these aspects could help change the culture.

How would you describe your leadership or management style? Can you give us a few examples?

I have a pretty laid-back and level-headed approach to management. I feel that having a level-headed demeaner is key for culture as the last thing employees want to worry about is whether they have Jekyll or Hyde as their manager. I take an encouraging and positive-focused approach with my staff. People will make mistakes but it’s key to learn from that. Learning is a big part of our industry, so it makes sense to incorporate that into my approach.

There are moments where you have to stand up and guide the team and I pick them strategically. I challenge them to think and try to structure my feedback in almost an educational/interactive fashion.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Beyond my parents and my wife helping me and supporting me, I do have a story. I really was struggling with direction in my career in the early 2000s after graduation. I looked into graduate school and moved to Athens, Ohio with the goal of taking more graphic/web design classes at Ohio University in order to get a better job (with a focus on design). I had networked with professors in the Visual Communications school ahead of applying. One of them was Sam Girton.

Unfortunately, when it came time to apply and take classes, I couldn’t afford them (and was unable to take out more loans). It was devastating to me at the time. I shared the news with Sam and told him that I was moving back to Cleveland. He replied to my email almost immediately and said we should meet for coffee.

Sam said that I shouldn’t go back and that he would plug me into the design community at OU. He told me I could even sit in on his class to learn more about the things that I wanted to learn. Finally, he even offered to connect me with a local cab company so that I could make some money while I learned more about design independent of the university. Keep in mind that at the time I wasn’t a student and Sam barely knew me other than meeting with me briefly.

I took Sam’s advice, stayed in Athens for about a year and survived on freelance work and savings. The things I learned in that time period changed my career. I built a portfolio, got a design/development job in Cleveland (based off of this portfolio) and started my career in online marketing.

Without his help, I wouldn’t be where I am right now. I think of this any time someone asks me for help that just graduated. This experience also inspired me to be a professor at one point in time and is why I actively go back and talk to college classes.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

We have made that a priority for our business in 2019 and plan to do more to help others.

We’ve sought out to do more other-focused projects this year. We co-hosted an event to provide free meals to federal workers that were on furlough at the time in January and we’ve recently introduced a scholarship for college students. Our focus in February is to try and get the word out to people about the scholarship and give talented students the opportunity to excel.

I look forward to developing this side of Sixth City and finding more ways to give back to the community in the coming year.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Your value to a company is the amount you either save or make for the business.”

That was a quote one of my first managers bestowed upon me. It came after I asked for a raise. She told me this to help me better structure my presentation or case. However, it was a key lesson in understanding how I could be helpful to a business. I changed the focus of my path in online marketing because of this understanding, moving from web development/design to online marketing.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Our goal this year as a firm is to do more charitable work to give back. I would challenge more firms to take these types of steps and prioritize giving back if they have the means.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you continued success!