On February 8th, our very own social media guru, Charles Anderson, gave a presentation at a social media seminar hosted by Local First Lexington, a local nonprofit organization consisting of locally owned businesses. Charles is the Online Marketing Strategist here at Big Ass Fans and oversees our Facebook page, Twitter account, this blog, and the company’s strong presence on YouTube.

The seminar invited a diverse group of social media professionals to discuss the role that the medium has played in their company objectives. Charles spoke about the impact social media has had on Big Ass Fans and its customers and how it has allowed the company to contribute to the culture and economy of Lexington. At the event he also assisted other local companies on their own social media strategies.

Currently, we have over 1,000 followers on both Facebook and Twitter. We use these sites to encourage public participation and share company news. An example of this is Big Ass Fans’ current “Show us Your Fanny” campaign. Friends can request a free Big Ass Fan foam donkey to dress up, and upload their costumed Fanny photos onto Facebook or email them to fanny(at)bigassfans.com. “Show us Your Fanny” currently has over 100 participants. For more information on how to get your own Fanny to dress up, visit the Show Us Your Fanny Page @ bigassfans.com.

Here at Big Ass Fans, it’s pretty much a given that we are geniuses, but don’t let that fool you - we are not all work! After putting in long hours of effort to bring our Big Ass piece of comfort and joy to the world, we play just as hard! From Happy Hours to UK games, running clubs and cornhole tournaments, our Fannytopians are always up to something.

Our most recent big event was The Lexington Living Arts and Science Center’s 20th Anniversary H’Artful of Fun, hosted by Big Ass Fans for the third year running. This live and silent auction draws a diverse crowd from all over the city to benefit The Lexington Living Arts and Science Center, a not-for-profit organization now entering its 42nd year of bringing the arts to Central Kentucky.

The theme for this year was “The Emerald City”, and from the moment you walked in the door at the newly built Big Ass Fans R & D center, you couldn’t help feeling like you had stepped into your own personal Oz for the evening. Exhibitors and party-goers alike were dressed to the nines, including a few Dorothies, Glendas, and Cowardly Lions! As you walked along the “Yellow-Brick Road” you were treated to a beautiful display of artwork, all up for bid in the silent auction, a variety of sampling booths for caterers, bakeries, and our own local distilleries, plus the slamming sounds of Caught Red Handed!

It was a fun night for all who attended – exhibitors, volunteers and guests – and all to benefit a great Lexington institution.

Are you a name or a number with your employer? If the owner, CFO, or president of your company was to walk by you, would they acknowledge you by name? If not, you are probably just a number and not an actual name in your company; and, for certain, you do not work for Big Ass Fans.

Perhaps uncommon to most businesses, at Big Ass Fans, it’s not unusual to see our Chief Big Ass (aka Carey Smith, President and Owner of Big Ass Fans) actively check out the day-to-day operations of business. On days when he is in the office, he makes a point of visiting and walking through every department at least once. Not only does he make his presence known, but he usually invests time to stop and acknowledge his employees. It may be a simple, “Hey, how’s it going?” Or, perhaps a comment about football the previous Sunday; regardless, he stops to converse with his employees and knows everyone by name. Regardless of what he says or does, Mr. Smith constantly perpetuates an attitude of care and concern for his employees.

Even those that are not part of the “Big Ass” family (i.e.: visitors, customers, vendor, etc…) feel right at home as soon as they walk through the doors of the building. In fact, from the moment guests walk in the building, they have an idea of who every employee at Big Ass Fans is. Not only are they greeted by everyone’s picture, name, and date of hire, but they also are provided with a sense of the Big Ass humor, by reading the personal quote that each employee has on the bottom of their photograph.

So, in just a glance there is a name to connect with the face, and a bit of personality to go with it. It truly presents a unique experience for visitors interested in touring Big Ass Fans’ facilities. Additionally, as an employee, one has the opportunity to work for a Company whose priority is getting to know their employees. It not only provides everyone with a happier, healthier working environment, but, it also encourages a feeling of belonging and a sense that the work done here forty hours a week is worth-while and important, not only to our customers, but also to the man who signs our paychecks!

At the 2010 AHR Expo (International Air-Conditioning, Heating, Refrigerating Exposition) our mobile fan, AirGo™,  was a popular draw for visitors and mascots alike. They would all come by our booth for a quick cool-off. The AirGo’s cooling breeze did attract a certain pink feline that seemed to relish in the comfort.

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AirGo’s mobility and plug-and-play capability make it perfect for events like this. To learn more about the AirGo visit www.bigassfans.com/airgo.

One of the benefits of being a Certified Energy Manger (CEM) at Big Ass Fans is that not only do we get to help customers save energy, but we often get to work on our own energy conservation projects. Recently, we have been evaluating replacing some of the lighting in our 100,000 sq. ft. manufacturing building to save energy, reduce operating costs, and decrease our carbon footprint. While reviewing the energy simulations of the retrofit project, we noticed that the savings were not as significant as we had anticipated.

On the cooling side, the simulations were showing an annual savings of roughly $9,000 on the reduction in lighting energy usage plus another $200 in annual savings from the reduced air conditioning load in the office areas.

Unfortunately, the savings from the reduction in lighting energy also meant a reduction in the heat sources in the winter months. This decrease in internal heat gain was forcing the heating system to work harder, which offset roughly 15% of the savings. Fortunately, when the heat recirculation provided by the installation of a couple of Big Ass Fans was factored into the simulation, the fans not only offset the increased heating cost, but added additional savings to the energy conservation project. Pairing the energy savings from the Big Ass Fans with the lighting retrofit will hopefully add to our growing list of sustainable initiatives.

Energy savings and sustainability can come from many different places, not just from using Big Ass Fans. What are some of the ways you are increasing your efficiency while decreasing your carbon footprint?

I have been serving Big Ass Fans as our Receptionist Extraordinaire for just over 2½ years now. During that time, I’ve managed to gain somewhat of a reputation among the office, as well as from callers, as being an exceptional gatekeeper. Well, that may be putting it nicely. To quote a couple of my beloved co-workers, I may be better known as the “Salesperson’s Nightmare” or my personal favorite, “The Nazi Receptionist”. (Thanks Karen!)

I’m sure that the majority of receptionists out there can probably feel where I am coming from, especially if they consider themselves any kind of a gatekeeper at all. I was consistently surprised at the lengths that salespeople would go to in order to break through my carefully built “gate”.

One morning, a couple of years ago, I had a solicitor call me repeatedly – I’m talking like 5 times between 8:00 – 9:00 in the morning – for our Marketing Director, for the sake of the story, I will just call him MD. Knowing that MD was in a meeting, I had sent the caller to voice mail. Finally, he told me that he was with a bank and that he was calling about MD’s account, because he feared that it had been hacked into and money was being stolen from it.

Naturally, I found this a little fishy and when he told me that he didn’t have MD’s home or cell number, I saw red flags all over the call. I called MD out of his meeting and explained to him what the caller was telling me and MD agreed that it sounded weird but took the phone call.

Within just a few moments, MD called to tell me that as soon as he answered the phone, the caller started talking about Big Ass Fans advertising during the Super Bowl!

He interrupted the caller to ask what all of this hoopla with his “bank account” was about, and the caller denied ever having said anything of the sort! Naturally, MD wasn’t buying it and promptly ended the call. I hope that caller realized he didn’t just lose a potential client with that stunt, he cost his company credibility.

I wish I could say that this was the only dishonest solicitor I’ve had over these years, but unfortunately I can’t. This prompts me to ask, what crazy phone calls have ended up at your desk?

This month’s Bluegrass ASHRAE Chapter meeting will highlight Big Ass Fans, recipient of the chapter’s technology award for our LEED Gold Research and Development facility. LEED is the USGBC’s premier rating system for designing and constructing the world’s greenest, most energy efficient buildings. At the Research and Development facility, we are able to conduct research in order to offer our customers the newest most cutting edge fan innovations.

The modern, sophisticated facility demonstrates Big Ass Fans’ commitment to sustainable practices. It was successfully designed using 35 percent less energy and 58 percent less water than a building meeting the minimum code requirements. By employing an innovative design practice during construction, nine percent fewer construction materials were used and 51 percent less landfill waste was generated than typical construction projects.

For more information about the January Bluegrass ASHRAE Chapter meeting, visit their website. Also, take our virtual tour of this facility and learn about Big Ass Fans’ efforts to earn LEED Gold certification. Read more about this award and our Test Facility.

We’ve all had one at some point…the idea that will propel us to marketing greatness. Personally, I have about 3 or 4 a day. Then reality sets in and I realize my fondness for an idea doesn’t translate to the receptivity of our target audience.

That’s where testing comes in handy. Test everything: copy, images, subject lines, envelopes, offers, etc. Just make sure the sample you’re testing is representative of your audience. Your buddies or relatives don’t count…sorry.

Make sure your measurement criteria are pre-determined. What analytics will you use to gauge success? Is it a simple A/B split or multivariate testing? Defining the test is crucial, and all external factors must be considered (time of day, day of week, geographic location, etc.) to make sure your test shows validity (strength of relationship) and reliability (consistency of results). If you’re like Big Ass Fans, you have an extremely diverse target audience. We can’t send the same message to schools that we just sent to an industrial plant; chances are the response will be quite different. And test results with one audience won’t necessarily transfer to another, so testing is a continuous and sometimes tedious process.

Sounds like a lot of work, huh? Testing proves well worth the extra effort when done right. Finding out what works and what doesn’t work can save your company time, money and resources and boost the ROI of your future marketing efforts.

Solar power is a technology that offers the ability to reduce a buildings carbon footprint and lower operating costs. When paired with the local/state/federal incentives that are currently available, photovoltaic, or PV,  systems are starting to offer increasingly attractive paybacks.

So why don’t more companies offer solar powered equipment? As an example of why, we will investigate the viability of a solar powered desk fan.

One PV panel should be enough to power the desk fan. At an installed cost of $8 per Watt minus a $2.50 rebate and a 30% tax credit, the total installed cost of the PV system would be $4.20 per watt. In Phoenix, AZ, the single panel would produce approximately 130 kWh of electricity and offset about $12 in electric use annually. At that rate, the PV system would pay for itself in about 23 years.

In reality, the desk fan would only be running during office hours, so on the weekend and before/after work hours the energy produced by the dedicated PV system is lost. Factoring in the wasted energy from non-office hours, the system will only offset 93 kWh of electricity, which extends the payback to about 45 years.

If a 10 panel PV array was tied into the building’s electrical system, the installed cost per Watt would decrease by approximately 1/3, all of the energy generated by the PV system would be utilized to run whatever equipment was using electricity at the time, and the payback on the system would be closer to 10 years.

By combining the economies of scale and utilizing every last watt generated, larger PV systems can be a reasonable long term investment. However, until the price of solar panels drop significantly, extremely small PV systems dedicated to a single piece of equipment are simply not economically viable.

It’s no great secret by now that Big Ass Fans has a test lab – the biggest facility of its kind, and the only one specifically designed for the testing of HVLS fans. So, I’m sure it’s no great surprise to hear that we test fans (hey, we had to do SOMETHING in there).

But we don’t just use it to test Big Ass Fans. We test EVERYBODY’s fans. So we know, in great detail, not only how our fans perform, but how other makes perform as well. And we know which performance claims can be trusted and which ones can’t.

There are other companies selling HVLS fans these days, but none of them have the kind of testing capabilities that we have here at Big Ass Fans; which means that we probably know more about the performance of other makes of fans than their own manufacturers do. It’s an interesting thought, and maybe one that’s a little scary if you happen to be one of those other manufacturers… but knowledge is a good thing.

So, if you hear a claim that makes you curious, and you’re wondering if it’s too good to be true or if the product really performs the way they say … go ahead and ask.

We know.