Greetings!

My name is Chad Wingerd and I am one of the newest members of the Fullmoon Digital team. Over my many years, I’ve had a lot of different jobs—from cop to teacher, from professional actor to hotel and restaurant manager—but nothing has resonated within me as much as being a content creator and writer have.

This also means that I’ve had a lot of experience working with a huge variety of people from all walks of life, and in my first weeks here at Fullmoon, I can assuredly attest to their commitment to diversity in the workplace and inclusion. It’s rather fascinating and amazing at the same time.

Allow me a few moments to explain.

People

Everything starts with the brains and the hearts and the hands that can get the job done.

As a manager-on-duty for a major international hotel brand, I had first-hand experience seeing how a diverse staff really helped our greater Los Angeles area hotel thrive. My job, at the time, was to know everything that was going on.

From the front desk to the back office, from the valet to the concierge, from fine dining to event spaces to the shipping docks, I had an all-access keycard, and I knew exactly what was taking place during my shift. So much so, I wish back in those days I had a step-tracking smart-watch because I’m sure I was hitting at least 15,000 or more each day I worked there.

When I would walk the lobby, the upper floors, and throughout every space, the splendidly diverse staff could be seen everywhere, and because the company’s philosophy was to always put the customer first and always go the extra mile in serving them, the resonating joy was palpable. This isn’t to say every single customer was always 100% happy, and in fact, when they weren’t, it was my favorite thing to tackle.

As the shift manager, I had top-tier access to comp our hotel’s customers. In other words, if a patron of the hotel was unhappy about anything, I was given near carte blanche authority to buy them a meal, add a free night, send them to a local show, or nearly anything else that would make amends for their unhappiness.

The most important takeaway here is that despite the hiccups and day-to-day challenges of keeping every single patron happy and comfortable, the hotel’s diverse staff allowed happiness and comfort to happen more often. Customers from all walks of life were greeted and cared for by a staff from all walks of life.

Fullmoon Digital embodies many of the same philosophies of that hotel chain: to ensure our clients come first, and to always go above the call of duty (the extra mile) in being there for them so they can be there for their customers. It’s built right into how we structure our business.

Passion

Without passion and direction, diversity becomes just diversity.

The reason we’re sharing this article meant to highlight diversity helping generate greater results is because it’s all about mindset and intention. You can have a diverse staff—which is a very good thing—but if that staff doesn’t have the right mindset and are all moving in the same direction, then diversity could end up being just diversity.

However, when you’ve led your staff down the right paths to putting customers first and filled roles with a wide range of varying social distinctions, you not only make customers feel appreciated and valued, you also make them feel like they are part of something larger and more important. Bear in mind, much of this is subconscious, but it does happen.

Take, for instance, a study published by Northwestern University and Brigham Young University in March, 2009. They proved that having a more diverse group of people working together—even when each individual wasn’t on the same page as others who had been around longer—their performance was greater and most improved. Now imagine having a wonderfully diverse staff and being on the same page about the work you’re doing as a company and a team. Or, ideally, a family.

In another study which was published in 2004 and then again in 2007, an economics professor at the University of Michigan found that a diverse group of problem-solvers can outperform a group of high-ability problem-solvers. What’s shocking was that Dr. Scott Page’s study wasn’t meant to prove the benefits of diversity. In fact, his study was meant to prove the opposite. I guess you can say that backfired rather nicely.

All of this is interesting and positive, but let’s get down the main gist of what we’re trying to convey. Diversity is a strong foundation upon which you can build your business. It leads to greater discussion and problem solving as proven by various studies. But from a customer’s standpoint, diversity also develops a sense of inclusion.

While most customers of any business don’t actively notice it, when they walk into a place that is riddled with diversity, they feel more included. It’s almost as if they subtly and deeply sense a feeling that they are more invited to be a part of the variety. Sure, there are outliers on either side of the spectrum, but for the most part, customers value diversity and variety for the same reasons the above studies showed greater work production and teamwork.

At Fullmoon Digital, we know that we may not look much different from other digital marketing agencies from the outside. But we built our company on a foundation made up of diversity, deep communication, transparency, speed of execution, and most definitely passion. (As the new guy on the team, I can already attest to the passion which resonates in every single person I’ve interacted with since joining Fullmoon.) So why would you pick us over the others? Because we believe these things help us stand out among all the rest.

Performance

Bringing outside-of-the-box results to our clients because we fully embrace diversity.

What does all of this mean for you? We’re glad you asked!

Fullmoon Digital prides itself on diversity. Not just with ideas, management and/or organizational styles and approaches to problem solving, but also in our workforce. Roughly 50% of our staff is minority, 60% of our staff is female, and we are humbly honored that about 25% of our staff are veterans. Our inspirational founder and leader, Derek Chew, had a vision for success beyond all of the norms of what regular business builders would have you assume. Fullmoon Digital was developed to be a business outside of the box, with a diverse staff that thinks outside of the box, so that we can deliver you outside of the box results.

This is all possible because diversity is one of the foundations upon which Fullmoon Digital was built. Without diversity, there would be no sense of inclusion, or a desire by our clientele to feel like they belong or are highly valued. We’d otherwise only be catering to “like-minded” individuals and organizations and, again, as proven by the studies noted above, that doesn’t lead to greater success.

On top of our foundation, we have built a structure in which you own the data (you’re not a hostage), you control the length of your contract with us, you have direct and regular contact with us, you receive countless hours of effort by our team to get the job done well, and you can have unlimited amounts of campaigns without extra costs to ensure your brand reaches new heights.

Essentially, we’re your “Titans” when it comes to pulling it together to achieve victory, and we’re your “Ghostbusters” when it comes to not being afraid to cross the streams to defeat the biggest obstacles.

There is an old saying: “Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day.” We dig this idea because it’s true, and it’s how we do business.