Recipes to Boost Focus in Meetings: Cinnamon-Roll Cheesecake #RBFM

By Fausto Mendez

    Pitching to a hungry audience is shooting yourself in the foot, so bring along some tasty treats - preferably sugary stuff - to boost client focus and mood. It WILL make a significant difference in the success or productivity of your meeting. This week’s #RBFM sugar spell: Cinnamon-Roll Cheesecake (with Cream-Cheese Frosting).

    What happens when you combine two of the most amazing deserts into one concoction? You get something like a cinnamon-roll-cheesecake absurdity. Though it might shave off a few minutes from your lifespan, it’s worth more than its weight in gold (at least to your taste buds). In an nutshell, it’s a cheesecake stuffed with cinnamon rolls. Delicious.

    Now, let’s get to work. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and grease a 9-inch Springform pan to get started. Next, search your house or the local supermarket for the following ingredients.

Step 0 - Gather Your Ingredients

+ Cinnamon Roll Batter: 2/3 cup sugar, 1 egg, 1/2 cup milk, 1/3 cup butter (room temp.), 1 tbsp vanilla extract, 2 tsp baking powder, 2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp salt

+ Cinnamon Filling: 3tbsp cinnamon, 1 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup butter (melted)

+ Cheesecake Filling: 16 oz. cream cheese (room temp.), 1 cup sugar, 1 tbsp vanilla extract, 3 eggs, 2 tbsp flour

Step 1 - Start the Cinnamon Roll Batter

+ Cream together the butter and sugar. 

+ Add the egg, milk and vanilla to the bown. Beat for a minute or so; scrape down the bowl.

+ Mix in some flour. Throw in some baking powder. Toss in a little bit of salt. Mix at a slow speed until thoroughly combined.

Step 2 - Start the Cinnamon Filling

+ Grab another bowl. Mix together the melted butter, cinnamon and sugar. 

Step 3 - Start the Cheesecake Filling

+ Grab a third bow. Fill i up with cream cheese and sugar. Beat it for two minutes at medium-high speed.

+ Crack some eggs. Don’t add them all at the same time. Mix in each egg before you add the next one. Scrape down the bowl.

+ Add vanilla and flour. Beat for minute or so.

Step 4 - Bake Your Cinnamon-Roll Cheesecake

+ Spread half of the cinnamon-roll batter onto the bottom of the Springform pan. Press it down. Make sure you spray your hands with cooking spray to prevent it from sticking to your hands.

+ Next, add all of the cheesecake batter into the Springform pan.

+ Drop spoonfuls of cinnamon filling over the top of the cheesecake batter. When you’re done with the cinnamon filling, drop spoonfuls of the cinnamon-roll batter over everything.

+ Gently swirl your mess of ingredients together. How much you swirl is up to you, but you don’t want to mix it all together. The goal of the swirl is for all of the different batters and fillings to not be so separated but to leave enough separation so you can experience different textures and flavors with each bite.

+ Bake for 50-55 minutes. Let it cool for 20 minutes at room temperature. Move it to the fridge for 4 hours or so. Take it out and let it warm up back to room temperature.

Step 6 - Now, Let’s Make Some Cream-Cheese Frosting

+ Beat some cream cheese and butter in a bowl for two minutes or so.

+ Add the other ingredients into the bowl; mix it together until you’re satisfied with the consistency of the frosting. If you feel that your frosting is too thick, thin it out with a splash of milk.

+ Pour the frosting over the top of the cake.

Step 7 - Consume

+ First, thank Culinary Concoctions for posting the original recipe.

+ This next step is arguably the easiest part of the recipe. You’ll need: a plate, a fork, some friends (or a lover), and either some good music or a few episodes of your favorite TV show. Eat.

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

Finished Work: Promotional Cutting Boards for Milk Bone

By Fausto Mendez

    Our partner AnyPromo.com is a promotional products supplier/retailer, and the company’s graphic artists love to show off their finished work. This is just another design of the many, many designs they finalize on a daily basis.

    Milk Bone® reached out to us for a promotional cutting board this week, and we’re honored to be approached by such a high-profile client. The above image previews the final design. This promotional product features full-color digital printing, so you’re not limited to by color and design. Check out the official product page for more details. Below, you can see a finished version of this cutting for another client.

    Promotional cutting boards are ideal for office lunch rooms. Visit clients and leads, and offer a promotional cutting board as a gift. It’ll serve as a friendly brand reminder, but it’ll also send the message that you really value this client and its business.

    In the end, you’re only limited by your creativity. The effectiveness of your promotional giveaway is dependent on your plan of approach as much as it depends on the product itself. 

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis.

Does it Make (Business) Sense that Facebook’s Launching a Custom Version of Android Deeply Integrated with Facebook?

By Fausto Mendez

  Facebook announced a custom version of Android for smartphones today (in some ways, it’s more like a big app suite), but by relying on Android, it’s automatically supporting Google. Does this make (business) sense? Furthermore, with the launch of open graph, Facebook is openly challenging Google in its main line of work - search. Now, Facebook is trying to take over smartphones? Is Mark Zuckerberg provoking a sleeping beast?

    Personally, it’s hard for me to see how Facebook will outsmart Google. Google seems to be three steps ahead for everything Facebook does, though it isn’t always obvious. For example, Google was analyzing social signals for SEO long before Facebook launched Open Graph (Facebook’s system for measuring social signals for a new search engine). And by relying on Android for it’s new smartphone OS, Facebook is automatically supporting Google - its main foe.

    Big #changes are happening in #socialmedia. As expected, #Google and #Facebook will fight it out to the death. Who do you think will #win? Why?

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com. Thanks to The Verge for the pics.

The Best Way to Deal with Difficult or Mean Clients

By Fausto Mendez

    Business is business - until it gets personal. Actually, when big money and reputations are on the line, it’s almost always personal. It’s really easy for your clients to step on your toes (or the other way around), but no matter who’s at fault, you need to be ready to deal with moody, rude or emotionally unstable customers in a positive and calm way that moves you closer to your business goals without sacrificing top-tier service.

    Law firms are a perfect example of a business atmosphere that is bursting with emotions. When you’re serving a client that’s on the verge of losing his house, business, freedom or a ton of cash, it’s silly not to expect some frustration to surface in ugly ways - not just from the client but perhaps from yourself too. That’s why the Harvard Business Review’s Mark Goulston is sharing the lessons he’s learned as a lawyer who’s served some of the rudest and downright meanest clients in his industry. His entire article is worth a read if you have the time, but we break down his advice to some actionable basics below. His tips can apply to any industry, so take notes. 

+ Start out by preparing yourself for the worst. Don’t expect your clients to respect you. This attitude prevents clients from surprising you with outbursts or insults.

+ If your career requires you to deliver really bad news to clients, it’s best to ask your clients how to approach them with bad news. When the time comes, bring up your previous conversation about how to deliver bad news, recap the client’s advice on delivering bad news, and then deliver the bad news in the way the client recommended.

+ In the event that insults come your way, detach yourself from the insults. It’s much easier said than done, especially when you’re caught off guard, but that’s why your start by preparing for the worst. It’s also important to keep in mind that the client doesn’t really know you as a whole person, so insults, in this case, are just a symptom of frustration. 

+ When shit finally goes down, the client may insult you, yell and maybe even threaten to fire you. Your ego won’t want to take it, and you may be tempted to yell back. Don’t. Just take a deep breath. Look them in the eyes, and pause. Though it’s not acceptable behavior, now would be a good time to remember that circumstances can drive anyone to behave this way.

+ When the insults finally come your way, ask a question that forces the client to examine and repeat what he or she just said, “do you really believe what you just said?” Another great question: “What was that all about?” Chances are that they expect you to fight back, so they won’t know how to respond.

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

7 Best April Fools 2013 Pranks by Big Brands

By Fausto Mendez

  April Fools has become a big holiday on the Web, and big brands are taking notice. It’s become an easy and effective way to reach out to target audiences with a fun and entertaining message that isn’t always tied back to a real product, but the message’s marketing power is real and effective. Below is our list of the funniest and most effective April Fools pranks of the year. 

    Though April Fools may not directly boost sales for most brands, it certainly increases brand awareness and makes fans out of otherwise oblivious web users. As usual, Google leads the pack with another absurd product launch.

    This year, Google launched Google Nose Beta, which enables your Android phone to excrete smells the way a speaker broadcasts sounds to the surrounding area. For example, if you find a picture of a lemon on the Web, you would smell it through your phone (without any additional hardware upgrades). It sounds as magical as any other technology that we use today, but it’s far from a real product.

    Though many companies are working on a version of this for TVs and desktop computers, Google’s implementation is absurd because it would require an expensive hardware upgrade. On Google’s end, it also requires a massive database of smells and a way to associate those smells with media on the Web. Perhaps one day, but not today.

    Google-owned YouTube also pulled its own prank this year. Riding on the Web’s frustration with the the recent shut down of some highly-beloved and popular products, such as Labs and Reader, Google announced that it is officially shutting down YouTube. Actually, YouTube was just a massive contest to find the best user-submitted video, and now, the company is ready to select a winner.

    Twitter also joined in the fun with a new tool, though it’s not known for its April shenanigans. The company announced a web-based that allows users to tweet without vowels, enabling them to broadcast significantly longer messages. It’s not much of a prank because it really does work, and we wouldn’t be surprised if Twitter launched an official version of this tool. 

    Sony launched Animalia, a new electronics line for pets, including tablets and headphones for dogs/cats and speakers for hamsters.

    Hulu’s prank should appeal to fans of popular TV shows. The company added a variety of new TV shows to its online offering, but there’s one problem. These shows don’t exist! They only exist within other TV shows. For example, you’ll find Itchy & Scratchy episodes from The Simpsons, Inspector Space Time episodes from Community and Mock Trial with J. Reinhold episodes from Arrested Development.

    Apparently, the US Army is training cats as soldiers. The caption for the below photo reads, “Gino, military working cat, 947th Police Detachment, 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), takes his class photo after graduating from the military working cat program.”

    Rounding out our list, Virgin Atlantic announced a new glass-bottom airplane. If I could choose any one of these pranks to be a real, I’d choose this one. Sure, it would be a bit scary at first - or during emergencies - but it would be damn fun.

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

Marketing Case Study: Weight Watchers Leads the Weight-Loss Race

By Fausto Mendez

We love to break down complex marketing campaigns to uncover the core motives of human behavior that fuel corporate success. This week, we’re analyzing Weight Watchers and the company’s classic marketing techniques. 

    Weight Watchers continues to dominate the weight-loss game with over $1.2 billion revenue each year and 8 million website visitors per month, and it’s closest competitors are about a third of its size. This constant success stems from a solid product that delivers results, but behind every great product is an even greater marketing campaign. Below, we break down the principles that made and continue to make the company’s marketing campaigns so damn successful. .

+ Sell the consequences. The average Weight Watchers customer isn’t interested in the product itself. Actually, the idea of self control is scary or boring, so why are people lining up for a membership? They want the consequences associated with that self control. They want the success, intimate relationships, fitness, appearance, money and whatever else results from losing weight, and they want to eat what they want while getting it. Weight Watchers sells the consequences, not the product.

+ Sell happiness. Weight Watches sells happiness, not a weight loss system. Similar to the previous point, the idea is to focus on the internal (emotional) results, not the actual product. 

+ Offer a test drive. Weight Watchers allows prospective customers to “join” the service for free. Furthermore, Weight Watches doesn’t force prospective customers to hand over a credit card number to do this. This style of free trials produces about a 30% conversion rate, which is not bad at all. 

+ Make it easy. The PointsPlus system makes it easy for customers to track calories without actually tracking calories. Sure, it’s based on basic nutritional science, but the target audience hates learning. PointsPlus is much easier in the short term. 

+ Exclusive products make it hard to leave the proprietary system. Weight Watchers sells (and sometimes gives away) PointsPlus calculators, snack foods, frozen meals, ice creams and other products that make it even easier to track calories. These products actually serve a brilliant marketing purpose because they: 1. boost brand awareness at key locations within supermarkets (where the target audience spends a lot time) and 2. make counting calories the traditional way even more tedious. 

+ Seek out new audiences. Your audience can get stale if you don’t actively court new targets. Weight Watchers recently started marketing to men, but they don’t expect men to show up at the meetings where 90% of the attendants are women. As a result, the company launched online tools and mobile apps that help men diet on their own - since men often prefer to diet alone. 

    As a marketing professional, it’s hard not to get jealous when a company’s marketing campaign is consistently successful, but that’s why we’re here to break it down. Happy hunting! And thanks to  Marketing Profs for the core data

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

DIY Promotional Giveaway: The Wine Cork Bulletin Board & Gift Basket

By Fausto Mendez

    If you’re a fan of #DIY crafts for personalized gifts and promotional giveaways, you should consider adding a personal touch to your next gift basket with a bulletin board made of real wine corks. This concept is perfect for any wine-loving lead at the targeted company of your choice, and you’ll have to down a few bottles to make it happen. It turns out you’ll finally have an excuse to drink on the job!

    When courting leads with promotional gifts, you’ll need to up your game if you want your gift to make a memorable impact. Stress balls and mugs are great, but they can only go so far. Attract leads with a high-end or DIY promotional giveaway as the main course, and add in some stress balls and mugs (with your logo) on the side. That’s how it’s done. 

    In this case, we’ll put together a wine-cork bulletin board, but because it’s often difficult to add your brand’s logo in a tasteful way to a DIY gift, we’ll bundle it with traditional promotional giveaways to add some brand-boosting power to the package. 

    The wine-cork bulletin board is a pretty basic project. You don’t need much, and you can easily finish it in less than 24 hours.

Step 0 - Gather Your Materials

+ Glue Gun

+ Paint

+ Frame

+ Wine Corks

Step 1 - Paint the Frame

+ Start by painting the inside of the frame (where it would normally hold a photo). Wine corks are inconsistent, so you might have small cracks between some corks. A black background fixes this problem. 

Step 2 -  Assemble the Corks

+ Glue the wine corks onto the frame - horizontally or vertically. Try to use corks with a consistent width and height for best results. 

Step 3 - Spice it Up

+ The bulletin board itself is a wonderful and memorable gift, but it doesn’t do much to boost your brand on its own. You want the frame to be associated with your brand - at least in the mind of the targeted recipient. Do this by bundling the bulletin with a promotional leatherette wine box. Make sure to pack it with your client’s favorite wine, so do your homework first. Don’t forget to add your logo to the wine box for best results.

+ Next, you’ll need a handful of cheaper (but useful or fun) promotional giveaways to maximize brand awareness. To stay within the theme of wine, order a couple of custom promotional champagne bottles filled with classic candies. To round out the gift basket, mix in a promotional mug, a stress ball and a high-end notebook. Get as creative as you want. AnyPromo sells over 50,000 promotional products. Don’t forget to add your logo for best results.

+ For the cherry on top, I suggest a personalized pen set made of maple or rosewood. In this case, you would add target’s name instead of your brand name for maximum wow. 

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

Finished Work: T-Shirts for El Segundo’s Run For Education

    Our partner AnyPromo.com is a promotional products supplier/retailer, and the company’s graphic artists love to show off their finished work. This is just another design of the many, many designs they finalize on a daily basis.

    El Segundo’s Run for Education 1K, 5K & 10K runs just happened over the weekend, and we were honored to be a sponsor of the festival. AnyPromo supplied the staff and runner shirts for the students, parents and teachers involved. Check us out on sponsors list printed at the back of every shirt.

    This marathon illustrates the power of promotional apparel. When everyone at the event is wearing your shirt, you can’t be missed. Check out the staff shirts below.

    At a more commercial event, you might also print the biggest sponsor on the front of the shirt to gain more exposure, but this non-profit event was all about the children. So we didn’t do that. In any case, the rear is prime real estate too. Not everyone’s looking at your front, after all.

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

Why Social-Media Marketing Works: The Psychology of SMM

By Fausto Mendez

    I’m honored to be a guest contributor at SmartBlogs, one of the most useful digests for marketers, business owners and industry leaders that seek to improve both their own day-to-day performance and the performance of the organizations that they steer.

    This is an excerpt from my latest post on the psychology of social-media marketing at the SmartBrief blogs.

“Today, social-media is one of the most effective marketing channels for any company. Why? Most experts explain away the phenomenon with the how, not the why: “social is an excellent venue for content sharing and a useful tool for subscribing to news of your favorite brands.” While that is true, it only scrapes the surface. There must be a better answer, and I’ve found it.

Social media is unlike any other marketing channel because it requires the customer to reach out to the brand before the brand reaches out to the customer with a message that leads to customer action. Normally, it works the other way around, but why is it so effective when the roles are reversed? The explanation boils down to a basic rule about relationships between people.”

    Read the rest of “The Secret Psychology of Effective Social-Media Relationships” at SmartBlogs.

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

Marketing in the Sun: Promotional Giveaways for Summer Events and Outdoor Venues

    Our partner AnyPromo.com is a promotional products supplier/retailer, and the company’s graphic artists love to show off their finished work. This is just another design of the many, many designs they finalize on a daily basis.

    Brands attending events at outdoor venues can really benefit from a smart promotional giveaway campaign, so I highly recommend stocking up on a variety of outdoor giveaways, such as sun glasses, hand sanitizer and SPF-15 chap stick.

    Low-cost giveaways like this often have a big impact at concerts, music festivals, hotels, beach parties, raves and outdoor bars. People tend to be in a good mood - probably a not-so-sober mood - so the products often have a strong emotional impact despite the fact they’re rather low-end products. That’s because a lot of people forget to bring along these basic items, so they really appreciate it when somebody, such as your company, solves this problem for them. Your brand can really benefit from that positive and memorable association.

    Other effective ideas include: water bottles, color-changing cups, tumblers and tote bags. AnyPromo is also running a sale on custom beach balls this month, so you can choose from an assortment of outdoor promotional items that can really boost your promotional efforts. By the way, the products in the above picture are brand-spankin’ new, so they’re not on the AnyPromo.com website yet. Call 1-877-368-5678 to order. 

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis.

Impress Your Leads with Custom Pen Sets by AnyPromo

By Fausto Mendez

    Our partner AnyPromo.com is a promotional products supplier/retailer, and the company’s graphic artists love to show off their finished work. This is just another design of the many, many designs they finalize on a daily basis.

    AnyPromo is well known for its laser-engraved pen sets made of maple (pictured above) and rosewood, so I was happily surprised when they presented me with my own set this morning. It’s certainly a memorable gift. We recommend gifting these custom pens to specific leads, so do your homework. We hope that you target individuals that often use pens. If your target isn’t a pen fan (perhaps he or she is often laptop bound), there’s a high-end option for any character.

    Though my set only features a pen, this promotional pen set can ship with a matching mechanical pencil and a double case, so you’re not limited to only pens. Alternatively, you can order two pens or two pencils in the same case.

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

Build Your Own Promotional Giveaway: #DIY Food-Shaped Envelopes

By Fausto Mendez

    If you’re a fan of #DIY crafts for party favors and trade show giveaways, you should consider adding a personal touch to your event with homemade envelopes in the shape of a related object. This guide is specifically for dumpling-shaped envelopes, but with a little creativity, you can adjust the instructions to create other shapes, such as tacos or muffins.

    Themed envelopes can carry anything, including an invite to a lunch pitch or a thanks note coupled with a restaurant gift card. In this case, Erin Jang of The Indigo Bunting put together a set of custom invitations for a friend’s baby shower. The invitations take the shape of a dumpling, and this is how she did it (along with our advice on customizing the project for other shapes/themes).

Step 0 - Gather Your Materials

+ The envelope is made of three layers: an inner layer made of thick paper, a transparent mid layer made of tissue paper, and a touch-friendly outer layer made of cloth. You will also need scissors, a stapler and either a printer or coloring materials, such as markers.

Step 1 - Design, Print and Cut

+ Write or print the invite details on a small piece of paper. Put it to the side. We’ll use it again in step two.

+ Cut a circle-ish shape from dark paper, and fold it in half (like a taco). You can write the first part of your message on the outside of this inner layer. To maximize interest, use a general statement that doesn’t give too much away, such as “let’s have lunch” The mid-layer of the envelope takes the shape of the dumpling itself, though it’s very flat and transparent. 

+ To customize this guide for other shapes, you can cut these inner layers in any shape that fits your theme. You can also adjust the colors to fit your desired shape. For example, if you’re building an apple, use a white circle made from construction paper for the inner layer. Use red tissue paper for the mid layer.

Step 2 - Assemble the Inserts

+ Place the invite details into the inner layer of the envelope, and cover the inner layer of the envelope with the middle white layer.

Step 3 - Close the Envelope

+ If you want to maximize the “wow” factor, give your envelope some depth. In this case, Jang inserted candy  between the mid layer and the outer layer.

+ Finally, close the outer layer of the envelope with staples. For custom shapes, a different closing mechanism, such as glue or stitches, may be more appropriate. For example, staples could work for muffin-shaped envelopes since the dumplings look a bit like muffin tops. You’d just add the muffin bottom. On the other hand, tacos would require glue and an additional ornament that sticks out of the top, such as spiky green paper, to represent lettuce.

+ If you can spare a few more minutes, check out the whole guide for more, including an idea for a book of comments submitted by the party attendants. Jang used this idea to collect wishes from invitees, but in a business context, you can use a similar idea to collect comments from clients or suggestions from partners. 

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.