What’s the Most Interesting Challenge You’re Working out Right Now With Amc’s Loyalty Program?

Since my background prior to taking on AMC’s loyalty program was in interactive and social, I’m really looking for ways to better integrate rich social experiences into the loyalty program. Movie-going is such a social activity that it makes sense to find ways to tie in social to loyalty as well.

WHICH LOYALTY PROGRAMS IN OTHER INDUSTRIES ARE DOING IT RIGHT?

It’s almost become cliche to say Starbucks, but their program is so simple and straight-forward that it’s difficult to create any “best-of” loyalty list that doesn’t include them. When it comes to stalwarts of the loyalty space, travel is almost always on the list. Airlines and hotels are always fighting for customer loyalty and I really like Hilton and Southwest’s programs in those spaces, mostly because they are backed up by excellent customer experiences. In the Bond Brand Loyalty Report that named AMC Stubs as the #1 loyalty program in entertainment, I saw an increased focus on the importance of customer experience. You can have a great program, but if you don’t back it up with a great brand experience, it’s not nearly as effective.

YOUR PATH HAS INCLUDED STINTS IN DESIGN, SOCIAL, AND INTERACTIVE. NOW YOU’RE PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER. I’M CURIOUS IF EACH TRANSITION WAS INTENTIONAL OR YOU SIMPLY WENT WITH WHAT MADE SENSE AT THE TIME.

My first job out of school was as a writer at Perceptive Software, way back before they were huge. I was actually employee #18 at that company. When I left 6 ½ years later, they were over 300. When a company experiences that kind of growth, there are a lot of opportunities to do fun stuff. It was early in my career and I was still figuring things out. I moved around the company where they needed me until I really landed on interactive. I spent a decade working in web strategy and I began to see social become a bigger part of that strategy so I integrated it into my skillset. I helped launch the social program at Cerner before I came over to be a community manager at AMC.

Sometimes the transitions were intentional, but sometimes they weren’t. I worked hard to take the best out of every situation that I was in and to learn something new. I wasn’t born for this era…I would have thrived during the renaissance. I have a lot of interests and I’m confident enough in my ability to learn and adapt that I believe I can excel at just about anything.

The convergence of the skills that I’ve acquired over my career has really been found at AMC. I get to do things that I’m good at like build relationships with our guests through loyalty and social in an industry that is really fun. I mean, movies? Yeah, it’s as fun as it sounds.

How Does Your Photography Play Into All of This?

The photography business started very organically. My wife has been one of the coaches of the Gardner high school dance team for about 10 years. I spent a lot of time on sidelines helping to capture their moments and I began to get asked by some of the girls to take on their senior pictures. That grew into doing family pictures and it just kept growing. I’ve had an interest in photography since I was a kid and this was an incredible creative outlet for me. My wife is a painter and extremely creative in her own right and as we got more and more busy, it just made sense for us to work together. Our business has grown a lot in the past couple years, though we have been taking pictures together for almost a decade.

There’s something about candid photography that I love. Burk Uzzle once said, “Photography is a love affair with life.” That really encapsulates our approach to our shoots — we don’t want to just put people in poses and throw the camera on a tripod and go; we want our sessions to really capture our subjects in their most natural state.

Being able to share this with my wife is such a blast. We have so much fun together, especially during weddings. We have a unique offering as a husband and wife and we work well together. Our business is becoming more and more of a passion for us as it grows.

What Is Your Latest Epiphany?

Learn the word “no.” I have a lot of different things pulling at me. Not only do I work full-time at AMC and run a photography business with my wife on the weekends, but I also serve on the leadership team at my church. I’ve been doing my best to learn that short little word, “NO,” to help me free up some of my time.

I’m terrible at saying no. I need to be better at it. I remember reading an article a while back about how the advent of these smart devices that live with us everywhere enable us to create and consume content pretty much wherever we are. The problem with that: the lack of downtime where the mind wanders into the realm of creativity. We’re fearful of being bored or even just not being “busy,” but it’s in the times where we aren’t doing something that some of our best ideas can come to us.