Six years ago this month, I was on a daily mission to launch Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors and Marple Friends & Neighbors magazines in print and online. For several months, I met with local business owners who would listen to my vision of bringing people together through social-media-in-print I promised would become a free monthly pleasure in reading feel-good feature articles about Newtown Square history, residents, places, organizations and events that reveal hometown pride of living in Newtown Square.
My efforts led to agreement by forward-thinking business owners whose financial commitment as advertising Sponsors, backed by their limited marketing budgets, had them choose to invest in our community because it was their community, or important to the success of their business, and we launched your hometown magazine in August 2018. Those early Charter Sponsors, and all our advertising Sponsors since, I call Hometown Heroes because their commitment enables your hometown magazine to be mailed to your home for free, and to also be published online at NewtownSquareMag.com.
I met one Charter Sponsor by chance at the 2018 Marple Newtown July 4th Parade. Kevin O’Donnell had only recently moved his family to Broomall and not long before had taken the reins of his father Larry’s roofing business: O’Donnell Roofing Co. Six years later, Kevin is still serving us as a Sponsor, and as our Roofing & Siding Expert Contributor of Roofing & Siding features written from his expertise, that we publish in his hometown magazine. Kevin’s financial commitment as an advertising Sponsor has funded, in part, the launch and monthly cost of publishing Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors so it can be mailed for free to homeowners in Kevin’s hometown.
In 2018, I published our first Business Profile about O’Donnell Roofing Co. to help readers understand the company I came to know, led by Kevin and his staff. Under his leadership and implementation of best practices for roofing companies, including extreme attention to customer satisfaction and competitive pricing, Kevin has continually monitored his company’s brand and its reputation in the community.
That was Kevin O’Donnell’s playbook for growing his company. It also included giving back to the communities he knew were important to the success of his company, through his company’s involvement in charitable endeavors and sponsorships. That conviction led to O’Donnell Roofing Co. sponsoring our hometown magazine to support our effort to mail thousands of his Marple Newtown friends and neighbors their hometown magazine. So, you might be asking now, where’s the stumble, Bob?
No stumble by Kevin O’Donnell, nor by O’Donnell Roofing Co. Not there, but right here, my stumble at the Publisher plate, hit by that pitch publishers fear most – when a feature goes to print with regretful errors or omissions.
You likely read our January issue’s Community Feature: O’Donnell Roofing: A Century of Dependable and Honest Service. If not, visit NewtownSquareMag.com to read Sheila Turner-Hilliard’s feature about this 100-year-old family-operated business in our hometown. From its founding by Kevin’s great-great grandfather, Clement Aloysius (C.A.) O’Donnell, to Kevin beginning to work with his dad at age 12 to learn the family trade and later becoming a journeyman roofer, job site foreman, and then focusing on company sales for growth of the business.
But it was that “growth,” in more recent years that was woefully underscored in the January issue feature that went to print. The typo told readers how, since 2017 when Kevin O’Donnell took over leadership of O’Donnell Roofing Co., the company “grew from 5 employees to a staff of 20+.” OH NO! That was supposed to read: “grew from 5 employees to a staff of 100+!”
OUCH! How’d that get past our five proofreaders to go over the falls, off to the printer, and into the mail. But wait, WHAT? In eight years, O’Donnell Roofing’s staff grew from 5 to more than 100? That’s a 2,000% growth in staff! (Bob, that’s not a typo, that’s a fall down stumble.) Yes, it was. And there was more we missed sharing with you, too.
The feature I sent to the printer used notes from years ago, and also similarly missed sharing the growth in the O’Donnell Roofing team’s active volunteering and donating to our local sports teams and charitable organizations in our community, and not only as a Premier Sponsor of
Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors magazine.
Why such rapid growth in the past seven years? No doubt it was Kevin’s playbook for competitive pricing and best business practices, combined with putting more back into the community than just new roofs and siding. In the last few years alone, O’Donnell Roofing Co. sponsored a family through Grands Stepping Up, to help grandparents raise their grandchildren. They’ve collected and donated toys to assist the Delaware County Veterans
Memorial Association aid families in need at Christmas and donated a new roof needed at the Newtown Square Petticoat League, while also helping other youth baseball and softball organizations. That generosity was seen by many, and seen even more when it was extended to sponsoring the first-ever Delco Gives Day, the Mighty MoJo’s Warriors Run, and while leading a food drive for the Chester County Food Bank.
I missed all that in the feature I published about O’Donnell Roofing Co., and I’ve been missing just how successful our advertising Sponsor has become since we first met. My lessons learned: get the facts straight and proof harder before going to print or risk stumbling again. I stumbled. My apologies go out again to Kevin O’Donnell.
But this printing error has allowed me to more deeply experience what I already believed – that best business practices can escalate business growth far more rapidly when the business is also recognized for putting back into the communities that are important to the success of their business, as a friend and neighbor of the community, bringing more than only the products or services to that community. Kevin O’Donnell – RESPECT.