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Showing posts from 2018

Gain the Mouth-Watering, Competitive Advantage

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In 2011, Matt Salzberg was a restless associate at a Silicon Valley investment firm. He and his friend Ilia Papas wanted to create a business and were intrigued by food. "We both loved food," Salzberg said. "We liked trying new ingredients, new recipes, new techniques, but we found it really inaccessible to cook at home. It was expensive, time-consuming and difficult to find recipes that we trusted." The duo tried a few ideas before landing on the one that became Blue Apron: give people an easy way to make dinner using chef-recommended recipes and the fresh, precisely measured ingredients they'd need. With 20 friends beta-testing the product, Salzberg immediately realized they had a winner. Beyond rave reviews and contagious social media sharing, they had undeniable momentum: "Pretty much from day one we've had steady exponential customer growth. I think the moment we did our first week of deliveries we sort of knew that we had a business

4 Print Marketing Trends to Inspire You in the Year to Come

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Print marketing is compelling, memorable, and engaging. As people touch, hold, and even smell paper, they respond in a profoundly personal way. While digital communication is booming, this has only enhanced the unique voice that print brings for any business. Millennials and Gen Z are very difficult crowds to reach digitally, with 63 percent using AdBlocker and 82 percent ignoring online banner ads . This trend toward tactile is stirring potential for many exciting creative opportunities. Today, we'll highlight four print marketing trends from 2018 to inspire you in the year to come. Simplicity The world is filled with chaos, and fundamentally, viewers long for a return to simplicity. Minimalist designs offer the respite people crave. Minimalist designs include images with a clear, elegant purpose, maximizing white space and using layouts that are clean and authentic. Uncluttered visuals bring an honest, compelling point into focus in a quick and arr

7 Gifts that Delight (But Won't Break the Bank)

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Tis the season to be gifting! What is a gift? A gift is not comprised merely of what is given, but of the thoughtfulness or care that is behind it. A gift is appreciation on wheels. December is a great time to show your appreciation. Whether it's seasonal incentives, end of the year bonuses, or a just a friendly reminder that you care, here are seven unique (but inexpensive) gifts that your customers or employees will love: Favorite Flavors If you have a small staff or a handful of VIP clients, dig up info on the hobby or flavor of their choice (coffee, chocolate, classical guitar) and personalize a basket to their delight. Or if you know your friends enjoy golf, assemble a kit including items like towels, ball markers, balls, and tees. Use a stylish bag that can clip easily onto their golf bag. Or assemble a sports tote full of goodies featuring a college or professional team of their choice. Touchscreen Gloves Gloves are both a necessity and a perk,

How to Use Customization to Gain Customers

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Coca-Cola is a brand built on scenes of enjoying life together. Coke has worked tirelessly to promote not only its product, but the message behind it: that sharing, or gathering family and friends together, brings happiness. "Enjoying a coke" is the message in every ad, every culture, and every medium Coke communicates through. The company's 2014 "Share a Coke" campaign was one of its memorable marketing initiatives in history. That summer, Coca-Cola removed its iconic logo on 20-ounce bottles and replaced them with 250 of the country's most popular names. Consumers were encouraged to find bottles with names that held personal meaning and to share them with others or post photos online with the hashtag #ShareaCoke. Within the first year, more than 500,000 photos were posted. Consumers ordered over six million virtual Coke bottles, and Coca-Cola gained roughly 25 million Facebook followers. A Distinctly Personal Experience What did Coke

Print: Use Faces to Command Viewer Attention

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Did you know that humans are the only primates with eyes that contain a white sclera around the dark iris and the pupil? Consequently, unlike our animal counterparts, we have the ability and tendency to follow each other's eye gaze, to pinpoint precisely what someone is focusing on, and even to read into the emotion behind a viewer's eye. This also gives us an innate ability to sense when we're being looked at or to hastily avert our gaze in awkward moments. Eye contact plays a crucial role in human communication, and faces have an incredible ability to command a viewer's attention. Imagine yourself walking down a busy street in a large city where you don't know anyone. Suddenly, among a sea of faces, you spy a family member. Among hundreds of people, you can immediately recognize one individual and you have a strong emotional response. Why is this experience so powerful? Scientist Nancy Kanwisher identified a special part of the brain called t

Grow Your Business Through Successful Staffing

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Todd Fishman and Hunter Brooks were childhood friends who attended the University of Washington before heading to corporate Manhattan for several years. The friends reconnected in New York, bonding over their love of great salad. Yes, young men eating salad. Salads are so trendy that in Manhattan the lines for gourmet salad bars stretch around the block. While waiting in one of these lines, the friends had their "Aha" moment . They looked at each other and said, "This would be killer in Seattle!" A Quickly Budding Dream Enter Evergreens healthy food chain, co-founded with their associate Ryan Suddendorf in 2013. Over five years, Evergreens has seen 200% revenue growth each year, with six stores in Seattle and a projected 11 more by 2019. Evergreens caters and offers salads, wraps, and grain bowls while keeping food fun with names like "Dice-Dice Baby," the "Cobbsby Show," and an Asian mix called "Pear-ly Legal."

Four Reasons Great Promotional Products Work

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Branded products are everywhere: featured in movies, professional sports, and even on your favorite jacket or thumb drive. These products bring pleasure and familiarity while sending a message of brand support to friends and casual observers. And these ideas carry substantial weight. Another Washington First The first known example of distributing promotional products was in 1789. Commemorative buttons, created to celebrate George Washington's inauguration, featured a crisp, stamped profile of Washington and the Latin phrase "Pater Patriæ," meaning "Father of his Country." Sported by patriotic Americans, the buttons celebrated American democracy and support for the first president. The passion behind this message continues to live on : in February of 2018, one of the inaugural buttons was auctioned for $225,000! The Gift That Keeps On Giving Washington's buttons fueled momentum, and your customers are wired to respond to promot

Four Reasons Great Promotional Products Work

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Branded products are everywhere: featured in movies, professional sports, and even on your favorite jacket or thumb drive. These products bring pleasure and familiarity while sending a message of brand support to friends and casual observers. And these ideas carry substantial weight. Another Washington First The first known example of distributing promotional products was in 1789. Commemorative buttons, created to celebrate George Washington's inauguration, featured a crisp, stamped profile of Washington and the Latin phrase "Pater Patriæ," meaning "Father of his Country." Sported by patriotic Americans, the buttons celebrated American democracy and support for the first president. The passion behind this message continues to live on : in February of 2018, one of the inaugural buttons was auctioned for $225,000! The Gift That Keeps On Giving Washington's buttons fueled momentum, and your customers are wired to respond to promot

Leaving a Legacy with Your Small Business

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In the 1950s, a young boy named John was enthralled by every chance to visit his best friend. This family owned a soda pop bottling plant, which sparked a lifelong love for exotic flavors in John Nese. Years later, Nese brought soda to his family's Italian grocery store in Los Angeles, known today for its 600 soda and beer flavors from around the world. The variety wasn't always this broad. Nese said the change came 20 years ago when independent grocers were being squeezed out by chains. One soda dealer offered a profit of $30 a pallet if Nese would streamline shelves and eliminate variety. Nese wouldn't bite : "Nuts to that," he said. "A light bulb went off (and I said), 'You know, John, you should be happy you own your shelf space, and Pepsi doesn't, and you can sell anything you want.' So I went out and found 25 brands of little sodas." Nese says this "freedom of choice" philosophy defines his family and his

Use Great Body Language to Speak with Success

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Ramona Smith, a 31-year-old Houston teacher, has faced many challenges, including coaxing her son through cancer and struggling through a divorce. But Smith believes life is about more than what knocks you down, it's about the lifelines people offer to help you back up. One of Smith's lifelines was the mentorship she found in Toastmasters, a non-profit educational organization that teaches public speaking and leadership. In her 2018 speech, "Still Standing," Smith posed as a fighter on stage and talked about surviving round after round with life but bouncing back again. Her accomplishments include dropping out of college four times (before graduating at the top of her class) and, most recently, being crowned the Toastmasters World Champion of Public Speaking in Chicago.  Smith outlasted 30,000 other competitors over six months of competition before being named the champion in August. Her success comes not only from her will to fight but from one speak

Start Mouth-Watering Conversations Through Word-of-Mouth Marketing

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Karen Weber-Mendham was a part-time librarian and mother of three when she turned her family's propensity for garlic cheesy bread into a cool million. This northern Wisconsin family often ordered cheesy bread while waiting on pizza. Weber-Mendham said the kids' appetizer passion was so strong "they would arm-wrestle each other for a piece!"   Cheesy fever inspired the family to enter the 2013 Lay's potato chip competition, "Do Us a Flavor," challenging customers to create a new chip flavor to hit store shelves that year. Lays was swamped with 3.8 million submissions as the contest winner was given the better of two options: $1 million or 1% of the flavor's net sales over a year. Beyond fame and fortune, Weber-Mendham was given the opportunity to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and was flown to Los Angeles for the big reveal with Lay's endorsement celebrity Eva Longoria. "Eva was so genuine and happy for me when I

The Power of Store Ambiance and Sensory Cues

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Unmistakable Ambiance As viewers enter the Richard Mille watch boutique in Paris, their senses are inundated with beauty. Large glass panels are etched with details of the emblematic RM tourbillon, giving viewers the sensation that they might be entering the heart of the watch itself. Extreme elegance buoys buyers through the store, with black leather chairs, Macassar ebony, and brushed steel accents. The impact is palpable. As a primary showcase of the watches, these interior design elements are vital. The Paris boutique offers a theatrical look with a touch of femininity. "I wanted to go against the traditional macho design, with its dark materials, cold metals, and dark atmosphere," said Mélanie Treton-Monceyron, the watchmaker's creative director. "I thought we needed to open the shops, give light and add lighter colors." Treton-Monceyron says she's stirred by functional spaces like hotels, airports, and factories, rather than drawing

Keys for Change: Small Businesses Making a Big Impact (Part 1)

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The winter of 2013 was a hard one for Georgette Carter. As a single mom raising two young boys while she cared for a father with dementia, money was very tight. Then, she totaled her car and found her resources – and her hope – were nearly gone. That is, until a 1996 blue Ford Contour arrived from the Connor Brother Collisions "Recycled Rides" program. Conner Brothers of Richmond, VA, overhauls donated cars and awards them to people who have been nominated by community members. Carter said her heart was rehabilitated almost more than the car she received: "It turned my life around. I can get to my job on time, and I don't have to maneuver to get my child out of daycare. I'll never take that for granted again." Getting Others Involved Small businesses like Conner Brothers are creating innovative giving models that not only impact people but strengthen the business and the character of the companies themselves. Kevin Conner said his c

Printed Gifts Are Perfect Any Time of Year

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Providing your customers with a small memento of your business is one of the best ways to keep your brand top-of-mind. However, many business owners struggle with ideas about what they can use as gifts that are cost-effective, memorable, and useful to their clients. There are plenty of options on the market today in terms of promotional products, but a thoughtful printed gift may be the ideal option for your business. Here are some of the ways that businesses are making themselves memorable in print! The Gift of Humor Knock knock. Who's there? Etch. Etch who? Bless you, friend.  There are few things that will put a smile on someone's face more quickly than a corny knock-knock joke. You know they are terrible, but you still have to smile! Your customers will feel the same way, so why not gift them with a little light and laughter in their life? A small printed joke book is the perfect way to let your customers know you're thinking about them. Humor ha

Customize Printed Mailings to Maximize Your Impact

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One of the best ways that brands can engage their customers is by making people feel valued and unique. Brands that are able to provide their customers with this feeling of connection are going to be one step closer to creating true advocates for their brand. Perhaps one of the best ways that modern organizations can offer a customized experience is through meaningful personalization -- far beyond the "Dear Friend" found in some mass mailings. See how businesses are using personalization in their printed materials to create an experience that customers will appreciate and remember.  Tailored Offers Drive Traffic Grocery stores are able to effectively track a massive number of items and customers, including when and where they purchased specific products. While your business may not be quite that complex, you can certainly track in a more simplistic way in order to offer timely and meaningful coupons to your customers. For instance, offering a discount ca

3 Keys to Build Better Workplace Morale

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Did you know October 7 is "Worldwide Smile Day?" Smile day is celebrated on the first Friday of October, dedicating twenty-four hours to smiling and acts of community kindness. Why? In a "bad news" world, a little dose of joy goes a long way. Gretchen Rubin certainly believes this. From outside perspectives, Rubin lived a marvelously successful life. She had a good marriage, a thriving writing career (formerly a Yale graduate clerk to Sandra Day O'Connor), a warm relationship with in-laws, and two lovely daughters. But in 2006, Rubin realized something was missing. She had a mild case of "the blues," a below-the-surface irritableness she couldn't shake. While she was generally happy, Rubin struggled to enjoy happiness each day. "Did I have a heart to be contented? No, not particularly. I had a tendency to be discontented: ambitious, dissatisfied, fretful, and tough to please . . . (It was) easier to complain than to laugh, easie

The Enduring Impact of Print

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The 1960s gave us many iconic classic cars, but perhaps none is more legendary than the Aston Martin driven by James Bond (Sean Connery) in the 1964 film, Goldfinger . A long list of tricks made it one of the most beloved movie cars of all time: machine guns, an ejector seat, smoke screens, and a futuristic onboard navigational system. Bond's reputation as a suave man of action and a smart connoisseur of fine things rocketed Aston Martin to popularity as one of the most desirable automobile brands in the world. The car was so beloved it was later stolen from a Florida airport hanger and is reportedly worth nearly 10 million today . Vintage. Classic. Irreplaceable. Those are some of the words we associate with things that are original, things that set the "status quo," and that just can't be shattered or ignored. Today's generation is manifesting a hunger for the authentic, and a desire for craftsmanship is at the forefront. In an age of identit

Why Aesop Would Have Been More Successful Than Bill Gates Today

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An ancient Greek storyteller and fabulist, Aesop is thought to have been a slave who eventually acquired his freedom by reciting clever moral fables involving animals with human characteristics. Insightful and astonishingly original even today, Aesop's fables continue to delight and educate us with their startling observations of human failings and strengths. We all know who Bill Gates is--only one of the wealthiest people in the world and founder of Microsoft. Although Gates is the epitome of the successful businessman, Aesop would have given him a run for his money, so to speak. Aesop's keen intuitiveness into the human psyche would have made him the ultimate inspirational and motivational manager or employee. In fact, Gates may have chosen to work for Aesop instead of running his own business! Check out these three fables from Aesop and how you can apply their moral teachings to your own business: The Donkey and the Mule The owner of both a mule and a donkey load

5 Ways to Skillfully Handle Criticism With a Smile Instead of a Frown

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"This work is sloppy and does not meet the needs of the company. You'll have to completely rework it." "Is this all you've gotten done for today? You're going to have to step up your pace." "Why didn't you follow the instructions I gave you? This is terrible work." "I liked your old hairstyle better." Criticism, no matter how delicately someone gives it to you, hurts. Being criticized makes us feel worthless, painfully vulnerable to our own negative thoughts and unsure of our abilities. Some inexperienced managers think criticizing their employees will incentivize them to work faster and harder but, of course, we know this tactic is the absolutely wrong way to motivate employees. Scientists speculate there is something instinctual, or innate, about our adverse reaction to even mild criticism. Just like the human body is hard-wired to instantly move into a "fight or flight" state when confronted by danger, our

How to Chart Your New Future (Part 1)

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Irene Obera is an 84-year-old southern California native who loves bowling, tennis, and educating others. She also happens to be the fastest woman on earth for her age. Irene has been breaking records in Masters athletics for forty years, and her aging philosophies are captured in her own words : “If you don’t move it, you lose it.” And: “A quitter never wins, and a winner never quits – and I want to be a winner.” Irene is one of many “superagers,” a term for people in their 70s and 80s who have the mental or physical capability of their decades-younger counterparts. Irene serves as an inspiration, not only for the power of dedication but the promise of possibility when we harness our full potential. Living well is a goal we all desire and living fully alive is the essence of life. No matter what our strengths or sphere of influence, each of us has the potential for success and impact. This potential is a treasure that should be uncovered, protected, and stewarded! Shake Of

These Two Things are the Keys to a Successful Business

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The physical and emotional abuse began when she was five years old. By the time she was 13, she was homeless and relying on the kindness of strangers to feed and house her. At 14, she gave birth to a son who died in infancy. Shortly afterward, she was sent to live with an uncle in whom she later referred to as her "father." Even though this teenager had suffered years of poverty and abuse, something fierce and fiery within her would not give up. She attended a Milwaukee high school and earned grades good enough to get her into the Upward Bound program, a federally funded program to help gifted students achieve academic success. This determined, courageous young woman was later transferred to a suburban high school where she was picked on by her more affluent peers. After being caught stealing money to keep up with the lifestyle of her peers, she was once again sent to live with another relative in Nashville, TN. Here, she became an honors student and joined a speech/debat