One of our favorite gigs is for DBusiness Magazine – especially since some of our assignments are not about business per se, but rather about some very creative nonprofits working to make a difference in the Detroit area. That’s how we met Hamsa Yaqo, who is working with her business partner Paul Spiegelman to develop Kintsugi Village.

Housed in an old school building, Kintsugi Village will be a multifacted community resource for Detroit’s Corktown area, and we got a complete tour in June as part of an assignment for DBusiness.

Hamsa’s background is especially interesting since, while she has lived in the Detroit area for many years, she was born in Iraq and emigrated with her family when she was a young girl. For all these reasons, we thought she would be a great guest for this month’s Six Questions with Dan and Michelle.

We don’t often enter contests, because . . . we just don’t think about it! But we received a very nice surprise the first week in July, when we were informed by our DBusiness editor R.J. King that one of our stories had won a silver award for feature writing.

(Yes, we know, that’s not us in the photo. The executives at DBusiness had the honor of accepting the award on our behalf.)

We won for a feature story we wrote in the summer of 2024 about the economic and cultural impact of the NFL Draft on Detroit, after the city hosted it in April of that year. Here’s an excerpt from the DBusiness story announcing the award:

Judges wrote about Calabrese and Cohl’s “What’s on Tap?”: “What made this story a standout was its smart analysis about the aftereffects of the 2024 NFL Draft in Detroit, from the way it impacted the economy to the lift it gave to the city’s spirits to the universal satisfaction with its success. The clever drawings and colorful design elements were an added bonus.

What an unexpected and pleasant surprise it was to be recognized in this way. Thank you to DBusiness for entering us and thanks to the judges for choosing us!

Smart analysis. That’s our thing.

Last year we were talking to a prospect that was very interested in our services, and loved the plan we put together, but kept getting caught up on one point:

During the time of year when he was cash-flush, he was already plenty busy and didn’t need help finding more work (nor did he have the capacity for more work).

And during the time of year when he needed more work, he was nervous about spending the money.

This is an interesting conundrum, and here’s what we tried to get across: It’s a mistake to stop communicating when you’re doing well. In fact, that’s the best time to do it, because it’s when you’re in the best position to lead with your strength. When you’re busy, you have great case studies to share, interesting innovations to tout, and lots of positive energy to pour into content that tells your story.

Telling the story of your success when you’re on top of the world is the very thing that will whet people’s appetite for your products and services during that time of the year when you think you might be down.

We often say, and believe with all our hearts, that content marketing should generate leads and referrals. It should. That’s part of the process known as networking, and networking is often a slow-burn in the process of generating new business.

Telling people about your company at a time when you’re not looking for more business isn’t a bad thing at all. It keeps your network informed, keeps your reputation positive and builds up good will you can cash in when you need it.

It puts you in the driver’s seat with respect to when and how much you want to take on new clients.

When you only communicate during down times, and then stop communicating when things get better, the result will be a fractured message that doesn’t keep and hold the audience’s attention, and never quite shows you at your best.

Also: If you communicate when you’re doing well, there’s a much better chance those times when you’re not doing well never come.