At The VAN LEUVEN Company, we have always believed that our words mean something. Whether they are the words that we put out into the world or the words that we repeat as our inner mantra, the power that a word has to motivate, inspire, align, and more, is something that we have sought to capitalize on throughout the years.
As we get ready to celebrate our company’s 23rd year in business, we sat down with CEO and Founder Diana Van Leuven to reflect on the past year and learn more about what lies ahead for VLC and its clients.
“On November 20, 2024, we will be celebrating our 23rd year in business, which, to me, is just incredible. When we started this company 23 years ago, it was with the idea of being able to serve the clients that we wanted to serve while being a family-first organization. I felt that it was important for our company to have that foundation—for people to have the opportunity to serve their families and their clients, but not have to pick and choose.” —Diana Van Leuven, CEO of The VAN LEUVEN Company
Those who have been in business for a long time know how easy it can be to become complacent. Day after day and year after year, doing the same work can leave us without the necessary variety or excitement that inspires growth. That’s why at The VAN LEUVEN Company, we introduced our Word of the Year tradition to provide a focus and a direction for the year ahead.
VLC Traditions: The Word of the Year
Each year, the entire VLC Team comes together for our end of year reflection and next-year planning meeting. This is a day dedicated to looking back at the past year, in all of its triumphs and failures, while also looking at the year ahead and seeing what we can and should strive for. The Word of the Year is voted upon by the entire VLC Team and the winner is absorbed as a mantra of sorts.
“Every year we select a word to focus on for the upcoming year. Each year brings different challenges and successes. You never really know what you’re going to get when January rolls around, but our goal in setting the course with a focused keyword is to work within the mindset for the entire year.”
One year ago, the VLC Team members sat in a room together and cast their votes for the 2024 Word of the Year: Embrace. While the word meant something different to each team member, it quickly became enmeshed within the very core of The VAN LEUVEN Company. From our daily VLC Huddles, to our responses to one another and to our clients, the impact of the word embrace was felt everywhere.
“As we moved into 2024, we established that the word embrace was going to be our Word of the Year, and when we chose that word, we were coming off of a year of using the word Elevate. I think what we learned from that experience was that elevating was a very singular mindset. It didn’t have the level of connection we felt with our people and our clients. Moving into 2024, we really felt that it was a time to celebrate on an even larger scale what VLC TLC is all about: Embracing one another, our clients, and the year as a whole.”
And that’s how the Word of the Year should be. In 2024, The VAN LEUVEN Company didn’t just embrace one specific new policy or one specific new person. The word embrace became the way we looked to new challenges, the long road ahead, our clients and each other, and so much more. In 2024, VLC truly embraced it all, and we are so grateful for the opportunity that we had to do so.
How VLC Embraced The Year
We Embraced Our Clients
2024 was the year of wrapping our arms around our clients and finding new, creative ways to support them. As the year presented uncertainties and new challenges arising from the aftershocks of a global pandemic, the VLC Team stepped up to embrace our clients with new, innovative programs, strategic initiatives, and a whole lot of VLC TLC.
“Coming out of the pandemic, we are a company that works almost exclusively within the retail sector. To rebound from an industry that saw a multitude of changes during this time, from being essential businesses and getting ready to serve customers to having an industry where they overstocked and had a surplus of inventory that their marketing team, The VAN LEUVEN Company, had to figure out how to alleviate through creative marketing campaigns.
Being a marketing agency working primarily within this industry, we had to think and pivot very quickly to come up with programs that would not only be successful but affordable. Having the word embrace meant embracing our clients during a time that they were struggling. Going into 2024, a lot of our clients used the last of their marketing dollars to afford their marketing services that we provided in 2024, and we are so grateful for those customers seeing the importance of our marketing team and how we can help. Now, as we look back on 2024, not only did we embrace our customers, employees, and each other, our clients embraced us. Through that mutual relationship, we’ve not only strengthened business, but we have grown in terms of new programs and tools that can reach new customers and grow foot traffic in their stores that they didn’t have before.”
We Embraced Our Identity
The VAN LEUVEN Company has a long history of commitment to clients that share our core values of healing, nurturing, enriching, and sustaining the world. In 2024, we cemented this as a part of our identity, streamlining our services to locally owned farm, feed, and ag retailers across the nation. In doing so, we were able to provide new programs and services that were tailored to the needs of these clients.
“Being more strategic in how we marketed our clients’ services, especially with our new Green Friday program, has become a real focus for our company. We are the locally-owned farm and ranch marketing agency. We only work with locally owned farm retailers. We do not work with national retailers. We are not on the national teams, we are only on the local team. To have a company with our expertise, our passionate employees, and the VLC TLC that we provide to each and every client, means that we’re able to help them in a much more effective way than a bigger agency where they’re just a number. To us, they mean everything because we’re also a small business.”
We Embraced Our Potential
At the beginning of 2024, The VAN LEUVEN Company embarked on a journey to embrace our potential with the help of Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up program. Through a CEO to CEO conversation with one of our clients, we discovered this program that could help us become more focused and able to achieve our goals.
“2024 was the time for our company to scale up. Scaling Up is a program that many successful companies have implemented to grow into the company that they aspire to be. It doesn’t mean that your company has to be the size of a Starbucks or the next multi-billion dollar company, but what it does mean is that when you scale up, you become extremely focused on the people who work for your company, the clients you work with, and what are you doing in terms of services that make the most sense for your business. Scaling up doesn’t mean to be the biggest company; it means being the best at whatever size.
For The VAN LEUVEN Company, we’re not scaling up to have the highest number of employees. We’re scaling up because we know for a fact that what we deliver to the locally-owned farm and feed retailer is unique. We do something that no other company can do, and we are so proud of it. Our mission is at the center of our scaling up program: To serve our customers and focus all of our energy on helping them with their business. Our mission doesn’t translate into selling more services and being more profitable and growing our company. Our true, ultimate mission is to help that small business survive.”
We Embraced One Another
No matter the year, there will always be challenges that present themselves within a company. At The VAN LEUVEN Company, when one of our team members is challenged personally, we all step in to help and support them. 2024 was a year of uncertainty, but one thing that remained certain was the VLC TLC that we showed to our team members along with our clients.
“We’re a company that already has the foundation of VLC TLC, so when one of our team members becomes ill and needs our team members to rally around them, it’s second nature—it’s how we work. We already know how to jump in, take over, and help them while they get better. 2024 was a year of a lot of health milestones for our team. As we look at 2025, we never know what’s around the corner but we do know that our team knows how to embrace each other and no matter what health struggle or personal challenges we’re going through, we know how to stick together.”
We Embraced Change in the Industry
The marketing landscape is constantly shifting and evolving, and at The VAN LEUVEN Company, we aim to stay vigilant when these changes occur. In 2024 particularly, we rolled out new procedures and policies that helped our clients to protect their digital assets that they have worked hard to build. Through the ongoing process of setting up the highest level of security on these assets, our team has been able to show the VLC TLC that we are famous for and give our clients the peace of mind they deserve when it comes to their online presence.
“In 2024, we took an aggressive stance with our clients’ digital assets to make sure that they were protected, and doing so has been a lengthy process, but a very thorough process. It’s because of our amazing team members working together to help our clients have a safer, more protected online presence. We are working through each and every one of our clients, and we will not stop until all of our clients have the highest level of security possible.”
While security was one of the top priorities for our company in 2024, we also embraced other features of technology that aided our company in terms of efficiency and accuracy. By incorporating Artificial Intelligence into our daily processes, The VAN LEUVEN Company has been able to increase efficiency and better serve our clients.
“The VAN LEUVEN Company embraced the Ai movement and utilized that tool to help make our company even more efficient and allow our employees to focus on their customers more.
As a company, you have two choices when new technology comes about: You can let the tech take over your job, which many companies have chosen to do with automated chat boxes and customer service options, or you can have the technology work for you. We have chosen that no matter how much technology improves, we will never lose the touchpoint with the customer. When you call, you will get a live person every single time.”
We Embraced Variety
In 2024, we discovered new opportunities and better ways to serve our clients with the full line of products and services they offer. With this new development, we have worked hard to create meaningful relationships with brands that offer increased support for our clients and the opportunity to draw more customers into their stores.
“2024 has been a year of growth for us in establishing new client relationships and being able to serve our locally-owned farm and ranch retailers with whatever products they have in their store. We now have that ability to serve them in bigger ways in 2025.”
Embrace Your Marketing with The VAN LEUVEN Company
“There are thousands of companies that can provide marketing services, but there’s only one company that can serve up VLC TLC, and that’s The VAN LEUVEN Company. We do it with love, grace, kindness, and patience, and we work with each of our clients to get them to where they need to be with customized marketing tools that help them grow their business. That’s what we’re all about.”
Embrace your business’s potential with customized marketing solutions by The VAN LEUVEN Company. For 23 years, we have been committed to supporting locally-owned businesses achieve growth, preserve multi-generational small businesses, and more. Our VLC TLC, a commitment to customer service that goes above and beyond, is what sets us apart, and we can’t wait for the chance to show you what it’s all about. To learn more about how The VAN LEUVEN Company can help you grow, contact us today.