Honoring the Trades, Building the Future

By Rosemarie Ascherl-Lenhard, PR Foreman, Sonnhalter

It seems especially appropriate to address the subject of “skills gap” today, the third Friday in September, which is also “National Tradesmen Day.” National Tradesmen Day is a day where we honor the men and women dedicated to maintaining the complex infrastructure of our roads, cities, water systems and power grids. The skills and knowledge of those in the trades–electricians, plumbers, masons, mechanics, carpenters and everyone in between–ensure the jobs get done and businesses, homes and entire nations keep running.

While these professionals work day in and out to maintain their skills unique to their trade, the grim reality is that every day qualified workers retire, and the demand for skilled workers grows. In fact, as the country grows, the skilled trades are one of the fastest-growing sectors in the job market today. Their skills and jobs are so valuable, in fact, that training is available in nearly every sector of the skilled trade job market.

The problem is there are fewer and fewer students pursuing an education in the trades. Instead, they have been led to believe that it’s necessary to attend a four-year college in order to get a high-paying, satisfying job. It isn’t. There are other paths to a good career.

Build Your Future, an organization that aims to be the catalyst for recruiting the next generation of craft professionals, elaborates on the advantages of a career in the skilled trades in this guest post.

By 2023, there will be 1.5 million construction jobs that need to be filled. This shortage could be detrimental to the infrastructure and construction projects in America.

As the skills gap worsens, those with a lot of knowledge and experience in the crafts will be highly sought out with high-paying opportunities. Following the idea of supply and demand, this shortage has led to stable, high-paying careers for construction professionals.

With so much opportunity in the skilled crafts arena, it makes sense to explore the many options—and become part of the much-needed team of professionals that keep our nation running smoothly with their hands, their skills, their tools and their training.

Want to read more on the subject? Check out this post:

“Using the Gender Gap to Close the Skills Gap”

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Rosemarie Ascherl-Lenhard Rejoins Sonnhalter as Public Relations Foreman

CLEVELAND – June 2018 – Sonnhalter, a communications firm marketing to the professional tradesman in the construction, industrial and MRO markets, recently announced Rosemarie Ascherl-Lenhard is rejoining the firm as public relations foreman.

In the role of public relations foreman, Ascherl-Lenhard will oversee developing clients’ public relations strategies, as well as planning and implementing B2T (business-to-tradesmen) public relations programs and initiatives for the Sonnhalter client base.

Prior to rejoining Sonnhalter, Ascherl-Lenhard was senior communications strategist at NMV Strategies. Ascherl-Lenhard previously held the position of public relations foreman from 1998 to 2015 at Sonnhalter. In the past she also held public relations positions at Magic American Corporation and Saifman Richards Communications. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio.

“We are excited to have Rosemarie rejoin our team. Her background and experience in our niche of marketing to the professional tradesmen will be an asset to our clients,” said Matt Sonnhalter, vision architect at Sonnhalter.

“I am extremely thrilled to be back at Sonnhalter, serving clients in an industry segment I’m especially passionate and knowledgeable about,” added Ascherl-Lenhard.

About Sonnhalter

Established in 1976, Sonnhalter is the leading B2T marketing communications firm to companies that target professional tradesmen in construction, industrial and MRO markets. Sonnhalter is located in the historic Brownell Building in the heart of downtown Cleveland. Sonnhalter’s brand identity highlights its expertise in marketing to the professional tradesmen. Its tagline, “Not Afraid To Get Our Hands Dirty,” promotes the employees’ willingness to roll up their sleeves and dig deep into clients’ businesses, also, it refers to the market it targets: the tradesmen who work with – and dirty – their hands every day. Sonnhalter developed the acronym “B2T,” which stands for “business-to-tradesmen” to capture the essence of its specialty. For more information, visit the company website at Sonnhalter.com.

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Takeaways from 2014 PRSA International Conference

Rosemarie Ascherl, PR Foreman at Sonnhalter

Earlier this month I had the privilege of attending the 2014 PRSA International Conference in Washington D.C. For three days I was exposed to an incredible amount of expertise, knowledge and thought-provoking ideas, that left me motivated and energized when I returned to my office.

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While the takeaways were numerous, a couple really stood out.

Every company should have a media crisis strategy. Crises do happen. Having a plan in place can make all the difference in managing the outcome correctly. Of course, you never know exactly what your company’s crisis will be, but establishing a crisis management team, identifying key audiences, creating a media statement template and conducting media spokesperson training are all elements that encourage better preparedness. Contrary to the goals of most public relations professionals, who are seeking media coverage, in a crisis management scenario, success is NO story.

Visuals continue to rule. We live in a visual world, and compelling images that resonate with your audience are imperative to communicating your message. Bigger images are better. Smart phones are getting larger to accommodate larger images, and in response, clothes manufacturers are designing clothing with large pockets. Consumption habits are changing as well—in 2013, the average view went down to 8 seconds from the average view in 2000 of 12 seconds. Images are also becoming very short-lived as evidenced by Snapchat and Slingshot apps. Visual data is driving the industry, and sooner rather than later, as communicators, we will need to optimize for wearable technology such as Google glass.

The media is facing their own set of challenges. As communicators, we need to do everything we can to help the media do their jobs. Deadlines are faster, resources are shriveling and the expectations are to do more with less, and faster. Often media contacts don’t have time to take phone calls; instead, develop a relationship with them on Twitter. Be sincere and learn what their interests are and the types of stories and angles they cover. Provide content that is readily usable, packaged with research and sources, saving time and helping the media contact meet their deadline.

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Highlights from the Fifth Annual Sonnhalter Tool Drive Round-Up

Thanks to all that supported Sonnhalter’s 5th Annual Tool Drive to benefit Habitat for Humanity.
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We recently completed our fifth annual Sonnhalter Tool Drive to benefit Habitat for Humanity. Thanks to everyone’s generous support, we received more than $35,000 in tools and building supplies. Since Sonnhalter began its efforts in 2010, it has collected more than $141,000 in donations.

We thought we’d share some highlights.

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Organizing the donations that arrived at our offices to fit in the Habitat for Humanity truck on collection day.

Trade industry participants included Contractor Magazine, Council Tool Company, Gerber Plumbing, KNIPEX Tools LP, Lakeside Supply, Osborn, RIDGID, Samsel Supply, Sutton Industrial Hardware, WD40 Company, Welch Packaging, Wolff Bros. Supply, Woodhill Supply and Work Area Protection Corporation.

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Work Area Protection’s donation of traffic cones.

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Gerber’s donations of plumbing fixtures.

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Loading the RIDGID donation during the round-up.

Community participants included the Berea Recreation Center, Café Ah-Roma, Cuyahoga County Public Library-Berea Branch, Edward Jones Investments, Perk-CUP! Café, St. Mary’s Church of Berea, St. Mary’s of the Falls, Sylvester’s Auto and Light Truck Service, Tony K’s Bar & Grille and many community members.

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Pick up from one of our community drop-off locations at Perk-Cup Café.

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Round-up stop at community drop-off location Berea Branch, Cuyahoga County Library.

It was a huge success and we are very thankful for the generosity of everyone that helped!

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Sonnhalter employees are not afraid to get their hands dirty during the tool round-up.

Click here to read more about the Sonnhalter Fifth Annual Tool Drive.

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Trade Shows: Are You Taking Advantage of the Media Opportunities?

By Rosemarie Ascherl, PR Foreman, Sonnhalter

TradeshowimageIndustry trade shows are much more than just a chance to get out of the office and mingle with prospective customers, answering questions about the newest product launches with aching feet and dry mouths. Industry trade shows are actually terrific opportunities for connecting with industry trade editors who are attending the trade shows to report on the latest and greatest happenings in their markets.

Here are a few ideas to take advantage of the editors’ presence:

1. Schedule editor meetings at your booth. Contact the trade show management a couple of months ahead of time to obtain its list of registered media. Review the list and identify editors who are key to your industry or who are unfamiliar with your products and services, but should be familiar.

Contact the editors to determine if they are interested in meeting with a company representative. Chances are they will be. Editors want to make the best use of their time at trade shows to gather information that they can share with the readers of their publications, e-newsletters and on their websites, to showcase the latest industry trends. Make sure you are prepared to walk the editor through a short presentation and demonstration of your company’s products or services at the booth and then leave them with a thumb drive or a link to follow-up press materials.

2. Press events. Have a worthy product introduction or key company news? Depending on its newsworthiness [see below], a press event, in the form of a media breakfast, media luncheon or media cocktail hour, is an extremely effective method for conveying important company information and building favorable media relationships.

Depending on the trade show’s rules and regulations, the event can be held at your company’s booth before or after show hours, or at a nearby hotel or restaurant venue. A short presentation by company executives, demonstrations, networking, socializing and the all-important leave-behind press materials can make for a very valuable hour and a half event for key media contacts.

3. Press conferences. Reserved for only the most important of company announcements, it is recommended that press conferences be planned judiciously. While we like to believe that our company’s product improvement is extremely important to the industry—in perspective, it may not be perceived as quite that important to busy editors that are shuffling through multiple invitations and parceling out their precious time.

Make sure a press conference is warranted, because an empty press conference room will be a disappointment to not only the team that planned it, but also the company executives.

Are you taking advantage of these trade show opportunities with industry trade media? If you’re not, you should be!

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