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August 2024 The Contractor’s Advantage
HarrisonLawGroup.com (410) 832-0000 jwyatt@harrisonlawgroup.com
My family and I recently returned from a vacation to France. France had a lot to offer: famous vineyards and the Eiffel Tower, for starters. You can fill your belly with escargot and frog legs to your heart’s content. But I was most excited about the trip because of the region’s rich history. Arguably, not even France’s history but that of Ancient Rome! For most of my adult life, I have been fascinated with the history of Rome. From the rise of the Roman Republic to the fall of the Roman Empire, the history of that empire is rife with conflict, conquest, colorful characters, and captivating tales. WITNESS TO HISTORY VISITING THE ANCIENT BATTLEFIELD OF ALESIA
Monthly Monikers Rome didn’t just build its reputation through conquest — it also introduced several civil innovations. Did you know the names we use for each month come to us from the Romans? January is named for the Roman god Janus, for example. But how August and July got their names is particularly interesting to me. July got its name from Julius Caesar, whose handiwork I admired during my trip. His successor, Augustus, had the honor of adding the month of August to the calendar. Now, this did throw things off somewhat. September, October, November, and December translate to the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months respectively. However, with the inclusion of July and August, the origins of their names no longer hold much weight. Echoes of the Past The legacy of Rome lingers on in other ways. As unbelievable as it may seem, our legal system shares some similarities to the Romans. Rome recognized the need for guardianship in certain situations, heirs’ right to inherit estates passed on to them by their parents, and even legal contractual obligations. Even personal injury cases existed in ancient Rome, particularly in the case of wrongful injury or destruction of property. One of the impacts Julius Caesar had on France was related to its legal system. When France was the Roman
“Rome didn’t just build its reputation through conquest — it also introduced several civil innovations as well. Did you know the names we use for each month come to us from the Romans?”
Perhaps the most famous of all the characters who emerged was Julius Caesar, the man who killed the Roman Republic. But Caesar wasn’t born on the throne. He actually got his start as a general, and he led his legions to great effect in his campaigns across Gaul, which encompassed what is now France. Julius Caesar would go on to have plenty of enemies. He battled an amalgam of clans across Western Europe and the British Isles and triumphed in a massive civil war against supporters of the Roman Republic, which he eventually toppled. But one of his enemies, Vercingetorix, who led a massive Gallic rebellion against Caesar’s legions, was among the most fearsome and fascinating. The site of their epic battle took place in Alesia, located in Eastern France. That is where I took a detour during my trip and walked in the footsteps of a figure who helped shape the world we live in today.
province of Gaul, it followed Roman Civil Law. Nowadays, the modern French legal system is a direct descendant of that system.
-Jeremy Wyatt
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Revitalize Your Marketing Approach
Marketing trends come and go as often as the seasons. Every few months, a new trend gains traction, and businesses nationwide scramble to make adjustments to ensure their marketing efforts connect with their potential clientele and are easily visible online. If you’re not in the nitty-gritty of the marketing world, simply learning about these new fads can be exhausting. Search engines constantly change the parameters determining what web pages appear earlier in search results, and new studies regularly showcase the “best” ways to connect with customers.
That way, they can learn about these topics while doing other things, such as exercising, driving, cooking, or any other activity where they cannot read. This also helps them connect better with the business owner, as podcasts provide a voice for listeners to hear. You should not forgo blogs altogether, but the rate at which you produce them should lessen if you’re making a podcast. Just ensure you’re letting your audience know where to find your podcast through email or direct marketing efforts!
Build your brand. Branding is not a new marketing trend, but it remains one of the most important things you
With 2024 over halfway gone, it’s time to review your marketing efforts again and determine whether any changes are necessary. Below, you’ll find four recent marketing trends that can boost your business once they are established.
can do for your business. When you think about some of the most well- known and respected brands, like Nike,
McDonald’s, or Heinz, they usually aren’t producing the highest quality or lowest price products. Instead, they’ve built a brand people can easily identify and want to be associated with. Your business may never reach the heights of these industry titans, but you can build an audience that supports your business through branding. Find what makes your business stand out and use it to build your brand.
Expand to other social media platforms.
You likely have a personal account on four or five different social media platforms, but what platforms do you
use for your business? Most businesses stick to the more popular options, like Facebook and Instagram, to promote their services and connect with customers, but these platforms might not be the best way to spread awareness about your brand. You need to go where potential customers are. Create a business profile on LinkedIn; use TikTok to promote any products, services, or sales your business offers; and create an account on X (formerly Twitter) to connect with a broader audience. Utilizing these platforms will help grow your business at a lower cost than other traditional marketing methods. Ditch blogs and start creating podcasts. There was a time when blogs were an essential part of everyone’s marketing strategy, but potential clients read blogs less often these days. Instead, many individuals would prefer to listen to the information through a podcast.
Shorten your content. Over the last few years, Google and other search
engines have upended the parameters that determine the top search results. Long-form content used to be the safe bet, but that is no longer the case. If you’re still writing content over 2,000 words for your website, you need to cut back. Most of your content should be between 400–700 words, but remember this could change within the next few months. People don’t want to read pages and pages of text. Cut back on your word count, but ensure your content is concise and compelling — no fluff. Marketing is an ever-changing part of your business. By staying on top of trends and implementing the proper tactics, you can ensure your marketing strategy is effective for years.
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The Outcome At a critical time, a supporter introduced Bobbie’s to Saddle Creek, a logistics services provider, and
Bobbie generated $18 million in revenue in its first year by selling subscriptions to mothers and delivering its product to their homes.
the company enlisted the Lakeland, Florida- based company to help manage its growth. Saddle Creek provided the tight systems
The Crisis In 2022, one of the Big Four formula makers, Abbott Laboratories, recalled contaminated formula made at one of its plants, creating a shortage and panicking countless parents. Investors took another look at Bobbie’s and quickly anted up an additional $50 million. A year after the company won FDA approval for its formula, Bobbie’s vaulted to triple-digit sales growth. The company faced a huge challenge in scaling up operations to sustain its headlong growth and
integration, multiple distribution centers, and close collaboration
Bobbie needed to meet soaring demand. The company’s revenue surpassed $100 million in 2022. Since then, Bobbie’s sales have grown exponentially. The company has started an R&D unit to explore new infant nutrition and maternal health products. In addition, in 2023, Bobbie acquired Nature’s
One, a pediatric nutrition company with an innovative manufacturing facility. Bobbie considered the acquisition a major step toward strengthening the domestic infant formula supply chain. As Modi sees it, investors’ chilly initial response in 2018 merely set her up for success.
adding a planned retail sales channel through Target. The company stopped accepting new subscribers to protect its trusting relationship with existing customers.
HAVE A Laugh
HEADLESS OF STATE Facts About the Late French Queen Marie Antoinette
French queen Marie Antoinette was one of the most famous characters to emerge from the French Revolution, surrounded by rumors and legends. Here are three true facts about Marie Antoinette.
Cake: Not on the Menu Although many ascribe the infamous words, “Let them eat cake,” to Marie Antoinette, she likely never uttered them. Many other royals, including the French noblewoman Marie Therese more than a century earlier, are credited with uttering the notorious sentence. Young Newlyweds Marie Antoinette was just 14 years old when she married the future king of France, Louis XVI. Faux Farmer Despite her regal estate and lavish lifestyle, one of Marie Antoinette’s favorite pastimes was pretending to work as a farmer. She had an entire fake farm built on the grounds of her palace in Versailles, where she and other noblewomen would dress in costumes and pretend to be sheepherders and milkmaids.
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Jeremy Wyatt jwyatt@harrisonlawgroup.com HarrisonLawGroup.com (410) 832-0000
40 West Chesapeake Avenue, Ste. 600 Towson, MD 21204
Inside This Edition
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Attorney’s Trip to French Battlefield Today’s Most Popular Marketing Trends The Truth About France’s Marie Antoinette
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Moms’ Startup Disrupts the Baby Formula Market
BOBBIE IS UNSTOPPABLE OPPOSITION FUELS LAURA MODI’S SUCCESS
The Challenge Modi couldn’t have chosen a more difficult industry to enter. Abbott Laboratories, Nestle, Mead Johnson, and Perrigo had consolidated control of the U.S. baby formula market for years. Additionally, Modi’s background proved to be of no help when she made the rounds of venture capital firms in 2018. Eight months pregnant and driven by her mission, Modi met rejection after rejection from prospective funders who dismissed her as an overwrought mom. The chilly response just inspired her to work harder. “When someone comes in and personally doubts you, it creates this fire and fuel to exceed expectations beyond anything else,” Modi told listeners at a recent CNBC Changemakers conference in New York. She recalls her father’s advice
Laura Modi was shopping for formula in 2016 to supplement her baby’s diet when she realized none of the options on the shelves of her local store were acceptable. She was forced to buy formula containing corn syrup, fillers, and palm oil — products she chose not to eat. A few years later, pregnant with her second child and motivated by that memory, Modi left her job at Airbnb in 2018 to co-found Bobbie Baby, LLC, with fellow Airbnb manager Sarah Hardy. They aimed to make a baby formula that used organic milk rather than corn syrup. With management experience as head of host operations at Airbnb and a previous position as a product operations manager at Google Finance, Modi thought her tech-company background would help her secure financing.
when she faced naysayers growing up in Ireland. “In anything I ever did, he was like, ‘You go prove them wrong.’” The Solution Modi eventually won funding from venture capitalists who could see a need for a healthy, organic infant formula. Bobbie’s baby formula, which contained no fillers, corn syrup, or palm oil, was the first to win organic certification from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the European Union (EU). After winning approval from the FDA to market its formula in 2021,
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