Welcome to the latest episode of Behind The Print, where we bring you the creative stories of industry leaders shaping the world of professional printing. In this episode of Behind the Print, we’re joined by Executive Vice President of SUNNY505, DeAnn OConnor. With over 30 years of experience, DeAnn walks us through how she uses print to help elevate SUNNY505’s advertising services and drive client success.

Below, you’ll find the transcript of our conversation, edited for clarity to ensure easy reading. If you want the full, authentic experience, make sure to check out the video attached below.

Connor Shields: Welcome back to Behind the Print Podcast, where we feature industry leaders and uncover the creative minds and their businesses within the world of professional printing. Our mission is to provide you with inspiring actionable resources that elevate your business projects and accelerate your journey to excellence in profit and in print. Today I am joined by the executive Vice president of Sunny 5 0 5 Deanna O’Connor. Welcome to the podcast.

DeAnn OConnor: Hi, Connor. How are you?

Connor Shields: I’m good, thanks. If you’re ready, let’s just dive right into it.

DeAnn OConnor: Sounds good.

Connor Shields: So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do.

DeAnn OConnor: So I’m currently the Executive Vice President at Sunny 505. We’re a full service advertising agency at Albuquerque, New Mexico. I started my career as a graphic designer. I believe I’ve been in the industry for. 30 plus years.

Connor Shields: That’s quite the career.

DeAnn OConnor: Yeah, it’s been great. I started as a production manager for a community college and moved up the ranks there. Then I had my daughter and left that job and kind of started my own little boutique agency for about 13 years. I grew my own agency and I think  around 2021 I merged with Sunny 505 who I had been freelancing for a while, and then we all came together. We’re one big agency and moving forward.

Connor Shields: I’m curious, where did the name Sunny 505 come from?

DeAnn OConnor: Well, we’re in New Mexico, so our, area code is 505 for the most part. It used to be that way that the entire state of New Mexico is 505. Now it’s 575 and 505. So  when Sunny 505, who used to be an agency called Griffin & Associates, when we merged with another company. We decided we were deciding on names and basically we thought sunny, kind of perfect, kind of bright would be a really good way to market ourselves.

And 505, it makes people ask questions exactly like you did, so it’s kind of cool.

Connor Shields: Yeah, I also imagine it being in New Mexico. It’s probably sunny pretty much all the time.

“We’re in New Mexico, so our, area code is 505 for the most part. It used to be that way that the entire state of New Mexico is 505. Now it’s 575 and 505. So  when Sunny 505, who used to be an agency called Griffin & Associates, when we merged with another company. We decided we were deciding on names and basically we thought sunny, kind of perfect, kind of bright would be a really good way to market ourselves.”

DeAnn OConnor: There’s no doubt. It’s definitely beautiful weather over here constantly.

Connor Shields: I can imagine. So I was checking out your website and saw that Sunny 505 offers tons of services. What would you say is the most popular service you offer?

DeAnn OConnor: That’s an excellent question. I feel like our most popular services probably shifted in the past couple years as it does. We started with mostly public relations, then we brought in graph design towards the beginning and of course, there was  a ton of print going on.

But right now it’s feeling like we’re doing a fair amount of web and social media projects. It’s really interesting, I’m finding now that we don’t necessarily stick to one tactic or one kind of media, it’s all coming in as lumps of different tactics. So we’ll be doing social media with print projects, we’ll be doing, a public relation piece that also has a podcast element,

Connor Shields: Yeah. I imagine a lot of that just goes hand in hand, pretty much like an ecosystem.

DeAnn OConnor: Exactly, exactly. That’s the right way to describe it.

Connor Shields: So what can you tell me about your typical clients?

DeAnn OConnor: We work a lot with the tourism industry, which means that we’re working with some government agencies. Our typical clients isn’t really just one individual, it’s actually a whole lot of people trying to do a whole lot of things and narrow it down into one specific goal.

Connor Shields: You mentioned you guys do a lot of work in the tourism industry and said you do work with government agencies, is that like the National Park Service?

DeAnn OConnor: Not necessarily. No. One of our big clients right now is Santa Fe County. I guess that’s what I mean by government agencies, the people in city and the people in the county.

Connor Shields: What sort of problems do you typically help solve for these people?

DeAnn OConnor: Well that’s an interesting question. I feel like the problems come at us from different spaces daily. Santa Fe County and City of Santa Fe are two completely separate entities. And so they’re both ultimately trying to get to the same goal: trying to get people to come and visit.

Connor Shields: How do you go about solving these problems?

“I feel like the problems come at us from different spaces daily. Santa Fe County and City of Santa Fe are two completely separate entities. And so they’re both ultimately trying to get to the same goal: trying to get people to come and visit.”

DeAnn OConnor: Interesting question. So one of our clients, which is another Santa Fe client, is the Santa Fe Arts and Culture Department. They’re a department within the city of Santa Fe, they wanted to market Santa Fe and it’s status as an arts destination. But they wanted to do it from a different angle, not just regular tourism. They wanted to put forth this campaign where we pinpointed people that are “Santa Famous” people that are like locally well known.

Connor Shields: “Santa famous” – I like that. That’s good. That’s great..

DeAnn OConnor: It was the, the Santa famous campaign. So we were pinpointing these people that were very locally well known and trying to see Santa Fe through their eyes.

And that was our way of getting outside of Santa Fe and showing people what Santa Fe offers. So the campaign we put out to the surrounding states in Texas and Colorado and Arizona.

We then went and interviewed the Santa famous people and got their story and had them tell their real stories of growing up in Santa Fe and living there and what they’ve gathered from it. And it was kind of an interesting way to go about it because it felt like a backhanded way to do tourism marketing.

You’re not just like putting everything out there face value, you’re asking this person to tell you their story in hopes that somebody would latch on and it’d be like “I really want to experience that” and then make the move. For me, I found that interesting because no matter what, I wanna know this person as opposed to I wanna do this activity.

Connor Shields: So out of all the Santa famous clients that you have, what would you say was the most interesting or unique?

DeAnn OConnor:  That’s an excellent question. All out of all these clients that we have there’s a local company, it’s called Build with Robots.

And what they do is they, they have these little robots that will go into a room and basically clean the entire room. They’ll shoot out this spray and all these things that clean the entire room. I found that client really interesting.

Connor Shields: That is very interesting

DeAnn OConnor: It was a tough sell though because it’s a high dollar experience that people are buying here, but they’re set up to clean these large rooms. I just I found that really interesting. They were doing such an important and interesting service and with these little robots.  

Connor Shields: Yeah. Especially during the worst of COVID. I can imagine those would be very useful. Were they used for like hospitals and medical facilities?

DeAnn OConnor: Hospitals and sports arenas. I think there were a few large companies that purchased the service. Its pretty cool

Connor Shields: That is very cool. It’s a little bit more complicated than a Roomba. So in addition to offering such a wide plethora of services, how else do you guys stand out from other businesses in your field?

DeAnn OConnor: To be completely honest, New Mexico is a big state, but it’s also a small state at the same time. It feels like all the agencies know each other, we go to the same events. What’s kind of cool about New Mexico is it’s a small amount of agencies here in the state. So respectively, competition is an interesting thing in New Mexico. It feels like it’s competition, but also friends.

Connor Shields: Do you primarily do most of your business in New Mexico?

“To be completely honest, New Mexico is a big state, but it’s also a small state at the same time. It feels like all the agencies know each other, we go to the same events. What’s kind of cool about New Mexico is it’s a small amount of agencies here in the state. So respectively, competition is an interesting thing in New Mexico. It feels like it’s competition, but also friends.”

DeAnn OConnor: Most of it but not all of it. We have clients out of Florida. We’ve had clients out of New Hampshire, which is one of our satellite offices in New Hampshire. Same with Florida. We’ve had clients in Texas, of course, but for the most part, most of our clients are in New Mexico.

Connor Shields: Okay, so I saw that you were named Albuquerque Business First Woman of Influence and a person to watch in Graphic Design USA magazine. Can you tell me more about these achievements?

DeAnn OConnor: Yes. So Woman of Influence is pretty cool, but Albuquerque Business First I believe is a nationwide business magazine, and the Albuquerque version is ours of course. And so every year they pull together a handful of women and we go through like a nomination process. There’s a jury, it’s a jury process, and I made it into Women of Influence. And what I gathered is that, at the time that I won,I had been the president of the American Advertising Federation, New Mexico. And so I was overseeing that piece while I was running my own agency and at the time is was pulling together teams to work on clients because I had. For the most part I was working on things on my own, but I had so much work at the time that I was pulling in teams. It was an accolade that I was very, very proud of because I was doing a lot of work with a lot of people in New Mexico, which is kind of cool.

I’ve won a few awards in Graphic Design USA magazine, and for a period of time there I would get an American Graphic Design award for several years. And then I got an email from them and said “Hey, we really want the feature you in this, in our person to watch  edition”

I think it was 2023, and what was funny about that is they gave me a series of questions to answer. I struggled so hard answering these simple questions because I knew it was gonna be in print and  print to me felt so permanent. It was cool. That’s one of my favorite things in my bio.

“So Woman of Influence is pretty cool, but Albuquerque Business First I believe is a nationwide business magazine, and the Albuquerque version is ours of course. And so every year they pull together a handful of women and we go through like a nomination process. There’s a jury, it’s a jury process, and I made it into Women of Influence.”

Connor Shields: Yeah, that’s quite the list of achievements. Can you tell me about any other major accomplishments that you or Sunny 505 has made?

DeAnn OConnor: Well, Sunny 505 has recently been listed in Inc. 500 Best Places to Work. We got that this year, which is so exciting and so fantastic. We have 20 people on our team. So for an agency in New Mexico, that’s a large team. We’re really, really proud that we got this nationwide recognition for that. We function as a family. We really work well together, and I feel like we’re just in such a good space right now.

Connor Shields: Yeah. That’s great to hear. Having good company culture is so important, not just for having a good place to work, but also maintaining the quality of what you produce.

DeAnn OConnor: Yeah. There’s no doubt.

Connor Shields: Can you tell me about any challenges or obstacles that are holding you back or holding your business back?

DeAnn OConnor: I think the biggest challenge is lack of time. We tend to take on projects. And then another project. And then another project. And realize at the end we are so strapped for time. I think what’s been tough with my team is that our schedules are not a typical eight to five. We’re deadline driven. And so the big problem is just having enough time in all of our days to get the work done and really understanding each other as a team and what it takes to get these projects done. We have six designers on our team. We have a handful of account managers. We have web developers, and so we definitely don’t always speak the same language, but really getting everybody to communicate and understand that if to put out really amazing work and to put out.

Top-notch stuff takes time and we always do our best relaying that to the client. We’re not going to just knock something out just to get it out. We’re going to make sure that it’s really good, really functional, and really going to meet the goal.

Connor Shields: When you’re dealing with these multiple projects, how do you avoid burnout and maintain your productivity.

DeAnn OConnor: Well, I wish I knew the answer to that question, it’s a daily struggle. Like I said, we’re constantly talking about it. We’re constantly in the state of heightened stress. Some days it’s like we expect the burnout, we expect that it’s going to happen, but when it’s not, when things are kind of slowing down, we take that time to notice when somebody is reaching that point and say, “okay, you need to take a minute. Go ahead.” So I think the key of all of it, and why we work so well together as a team, is we truly have each other’s backs.  I think you could reach that space where you’re like, I’m burnt out and I don’t even realize it, and somebody else will notice.

Connor Shields: I definitely think that’s had an effect on being named such a great place to work.

DeAnn OConnor: That’s true. It feels good.

Connor Shields: How has Print helped elevate your business?

DeAnn OConnor: For me as a graph designer, print was all I did a long time ago. And so I know it well. I worked in a pre-press shop long, long ago, right out of college. But coming from that up into where we are now, print still plays a really big role. You always hear that print is going away. It’s hard to get ahold of paper and print shops are struggling.

That’s not necessarily the case in my, in New Mexico. There’s still a large amount of print work that we do. It’s still important and we really sell that. It is a part of the puzzle.

“For me as a graph designer, print was all I did a long time ago. And so I know it well. I worked in a pre-press shop long, long ago, right out of college. But coming from that up into where we are now, print still plays a really big role. You always hear that print is going away. It’s hard to get ahold of paper and print shops are struggling.”

Connor Shields: I completely agree. I can say it’s the same case for us. I think it’s just a nice break from screens, like you’re looking at screens all day. But just having a physical copy of something, something that you could hold in your hand, something that is tactile, I still think that’s incredibly relevant today.

DeAnn OConnor: People still want it. And it’s funny, my kids in school, it’s everything’s on screen and it kind of drives me a little nuts to see that,  because I’m like, “you gotta write it down. You gotta have something in your hands.” And maybe that’s just me being old, but I still think it’s so very relevant.

Connor Shields: Absolutely. I 100% agree. So, kind of a different question for you here. If you had a day completely free to spend however you’d like. What would you choose to do?

DeAnn OConnor: Excellent question. One of our clients is a place called Sandia Resort and Casino. They have the best pool. And so I would grab my kids, grab my husband, go rent a cabana, and just sit by the pool all day.

Connor Shields: That sounds great. So one last question for you. How can our listeners get in touch with you to learn more or maybe request some of your service or collaborate with you on a project?

DeAnn OConnor: So you’d go to our website. We’re at sunny505.com. And you’ll find everything you need there. We’re expanding our website very soon which is great to show all the services that we offer. We’re adding on crisis communications, which is great, but that’s how you find us sunny505.com

Connor Shields:  Well, I’d say that’s a wrap on another episode of Behind the Print. Thank you for joining us and thank you to our listeners for joining us as we explore the artistry and innovation of the printing world. Remember, having a strong vision, building the right strategy, and using tools like print to amplify your message will make your brand stand out from the crowd.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to get your sample pack today from printing center usa.com and share it with your fellow business enthusiasts. Until next time, keep those creative sparks flying. And remember, there’s always more to discover behind the print.

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