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How this NCAA basketball highlight could save your company (or your career) one day

If you didn't watch the Northern Iowa vs. Texas A&M NCAA tournament game, you need to spend one minute and watch the video below. Because it could help save your company or your career one day, when you and your team are faced with a crisis and action needs to be taken.

Texas A&M’s win over Northern Iowa on Sunday featured the largest comeback in the final minute of a game in Division I history. Texas A&M overcame a 12 point deficit with less than 45 seconds remaining in the game. You feel heartbroken for the kids who played some of their best basketball the first 39 minutes and then it all slipped away. Give Texas A&M credit, they made plays, but Northern Iowa panicked under pressure.

Lesson 1: There needs to be a floor general who settles everyone down when crisis hits and people are panicking. If you have no more timeouts, the coach can't settle the players down, and someone on the floor needs to step up.

Lesson 2: Northern Iowa's best inbound passer went down with an injury right before the comeback started. Teammates who filled his role as the inbound passer committed the turnovers that led to the comeback. If a key team member leaves your team or company, is there someone trained to fill their role?

Lesson 3: Practice the fundamentals so in times of crisis you're on automatic pilot. Dribbling and passing are the foundation for the game of basketball. Northern Iowa committed four turnovers inbounding the ball under pressure, giving up easy layups. How can you and your team routinely practice decision making and empowering others so if/when a crisis hits, you're on autopilot?

Lesson 4: The most cliche saying of all time.. but never give up. If Texas A&M simply decided to call it a day with an "insurmountable" deficit to overcome, this game would have never gone down in the history books. Now granted a dozen freak things had to happen to make this comeback possible, but Texas A&M never gave up and they were relentless.

#leadership #inspiration #motivation #crisis

Antioxidants in a Tortilla?!

I was intrigued when I came across a new gluten free tortilla made by Food for Life. We have used their brown rice tortillas for many years so I was excited to hear about their Black Rice Tortillas. What's so great about black rice? Well, with all of the latest buzz revolving around "super grains", black rice is included in that category. Black rice contains fiber, antioxidants (as I mentioned), anthocyanins* and may even help prevent diseases such as cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's.

*anthocyanins are ingredients that are capable of lowering the risk of heart attacks because it prevents the buildup of plaque in your arteries.

The Black Rice Tortillas have the same ingredients as the Brown Rice (brown rice flour, filtered water, tapioca flour, safflower oil, rice bran, vegetable gum (xanthan gum, cellulose) and sea salt) but the Black Rice have the added benefit of organic chia. Chia is high in protein and calcium, is supposed to give you a bit more energy, has high omegas, fiber and antioxidants (there's that word again!). For all of those people that question how you continue to get the necessary vitamins and calcium without dairy, here is a perfect example.

If you follow my blog, you know that I very often try to come up with recipes or ways to use the products. I do this because I like to think outside of the box, try to offer ideas to others who are stuck and have difficulty finding uses for their allergy-friendly products and, well, I just like to be creative. What came to my mind this time? Homemade taco shell bowls! I had the molds, had the ingredients and I have been craving a taco salad forever so why not? Here's the fast and easy way to make them-

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Microwave a black rice tortilla for 30 seconds to make it more flexible and to be able to mold into the pan. Gently push the tortilla into the molded pan, being careful so as not to tear it. Fill it with uncooked rice to keep the shape in place. Place into the oven.

Watch the tortilla carefully as it hardens fast and will quickly burn. Once it has become crisp, remove from the oven and let it cool completely. Remove the rice and fill with your favorite ingredients.

I want to thank Food For Life for allowing me to do this product review for them and for giving us some great gluten free options to use. For more information, please visit their site at www.foodforlife.com and check out their other products while you are there.

Tracy Bush, Nutrimom®

Food Allergy Consultant, Author, Blogger, Mother & Self-professed “Kitchen Geek” my website and media pages are a mixture of product reviews, recipes and advice mixed with a tinge of humor. I write, I cook and I laugh and I aim to make everyone else do the same. www.AllergyPhoods.com Source

#Innovation #Gluten Free #Natural #Antioxidants #Super Grain

Being True to Yourself

I spent most of my teenage years and twenties trying to find my place and wanting to “fit in”. In a desire to be successful, popular, and be at the cool lunch table, you believe you have to conform to what other people are, what other people think you should be, and what Corporate America wants you to be. You start to forget who you are and what makes you special. But compromising who you are only brings more frustration because you’re left personally unfulfilled and you’re not being true to yourself. You’re not standing up for your beliefs and what you think is right. And the truth is by not being you, nobody gravitates towards you because you’re not authentic and one of the sheep, instead of a lion.

I recently came across a series of videos that really resonated with me. The video series stars Dwayne Johnson aka “The Rock”, produced by Oprah Winfrey and the OWN Network (link below). If you’re an older Male Millennial, you probably grew up watching The Rock telling people exactly what was on his mind, often in a rude, crude, amazingly funny fashion. What you may or may not know is that fans didn’t take to Dwayne when he first entered the WWE. The character he played just didn’t resonate with them. It wasn’t until he stopped trying to be what others wanted him to be, and just started being himself, that fans gravitated towards him and he became the hottest employee at the company. He had great success in the WWE and many years later became an accomplished movie star.

So why do I bring this up? A few reasons.

1) If you want to work in Corporate America - the values of the company and the brand have to align with what you believe in. If you’re mission driven or believe in healthy living, you’re not going to feel good about a company or brand that doesn’t make people or society better

2) Your boss’s beliefs have to align with yours. If you’re getting marching orders from someone who is unethical, out for themselves, or does things that makes you feel a little slimy, it’s not the right fit for you

3) If you wake up every day tired and frustrated... you might just be an entrepreneur. All great leaders have mentors that guide them along the way to success. If you have a great role model and mentor, value them, these amazing people are rare and hard to find. Odds are along your career you’ll encounter people that try to keep you down professionally by not giving you praise, training, opportunity, exposure, or guidance to succeed... or people that bully you professionally... or bosses that only want to “fit in” themselves and please others… Just say No.

So in the words of The Rock, and from my experience, just be yourself for success. And if someone wants you to be something you’re not, you can tell them to “shine it up, turn the sumbitch sideways, and shove it straight up their candy ass”.

#career success #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #being yourself #wwe

Creating Truly Effective Custom Promotions

Large CPG organizations are being challenged by retailers to develop custom marketing programs that engage their consumers like no other….no other retailer! In the past large CPG organizations would be able to deliver one National On-Pack Offer or Customer Marketing Program that all retailers would be happy to support. Not so any more.

Retailers are constantly looking “to be different from there competition.” Category Managers do not want to have the same promotion as the competition. Retailers are being inundated by the amount of marketing programs CPG companies try to execute. Due to this over-saturation of promotional offers retailers are choosing to execute ‘only the very best offers for their customers.’

In the rest of this post I will cover what makes a truly effective Custom Promotion:

1. Sales and Marketing Partner Early

Sales and marketing managers need to work together early in the process for developing an effective program. No more marketing rolling out a finished program to sales without input from sales. Ideally Sales and Marketing would meet to discuss developing a program even before any idea is decided. One of the best programs I was involved with I actually asked the customer, “What type of promotion would you be really excited to deliver to your stores?” The feedback the category manager provided was instrumental in creating an outstanding execution. Likely the category manager felt ‘personally invested’ in the program, so he became the Champion for our execution within his organization.

2. Be Different

Every retailer is fighting to be different from their competition. Your program should help them be different! Incorporate the customer’s loyalty program, be exclusive to one retailer or one retailer within a defined region, and don’t be afraid to adjust your program based on feedback from your customer.

3. Think Big

Let’s face it no one gets excited about another generic on pack offer. Ask yourself or your retailer ‘what would you get really excited about?’ and then develop a program that includes as many of the following as your budget allows for:

· flyer support

· customized mini-site

· instore-Point of Sale (POS) and impactful displays

· multi-media for instore T.V. displays

· sampling support

· consumer Grand Prizing

· performance based customer prizing (only if their policies allow for it)

Delivering a program to your customer that they are personally invested in and had a hand in creating will significantly increase the ROI of your marketing spend. Also, your relationship with your Category Manager will be strengthened as well because you are working with them as a true partner.

Andrew Pogson is a Senior Sales & Grocery Thought Leader. Andrew has spent 13+ years selling food and consumer goods to retailers in progressively senior executive roles. Andrew has sold many top CPG brands including Cheerios®, Nature Valley®, Yoplait®, Liberte®, Dempster’s®, Green Giant®, Old El Paso®. Andrew believes the success of any customer facing sales leader in the future will be how effectively they achieve Omni-channel Sales Success by leveraging category management, consumer insights, m-commerce, and innovative thinking.

You can connect with Andrew at https://ca.linkedin.com/in/andrewpogson1

#consumer goods #food and beverage #customer marketing #promotion #retailer #category manager #ROI

Cleaning up Food and Beverage in Hospitals

I recently spent some time in the hospital while one of my family members recovered from surgery. You'll think about random things while relaxing in a hospital room for 10 hours. One interesting thing I did notice in the hospital is the food and beverage choices. There were vending machines from both major soft drink companies throughout and the cafeteria consisted of a fried food station and snack foods from all major CPG companies.

While I live a relatively healthy lifestyle personally, I don't claim to be natural and organic, and full disclosure I've worked in marketing on a soft drink brand at a major CPG company. I think there's definitely some channels that should be off limits. If the channels mission is health and wellness, you can't stock food and beverages that don't follow that mission. This is an age old dilemma; who's responsibility is it to make that change? The food and beverage companies, distributors selling to the hospitals, the hospital systems, consumers. Probably everyone.

I know there's been some positive changes within the Drug channel where CVS stopped selling cigarettes. All I know is after seeing so many sick and recovering people walking around the hospital I was grossed out seeing the cafeteria.

#social responsibility #food and beverage #health #wellness #cpg #fmcg

Welcome to Retailpreneur.com - Our official launch!

I’d like to thank you for popping by Retailpreneur.com to help celebrate our official launch! Retailpreneur is a community and free email subscription for entrepreneurs who want to dominate within Food and Beverage and Consumer Goods. We bring you the hottest trends, how to's, and key game changing insights designed to help get your business off the ground and your product into retail - and you'll never have to scour the internet again endlessly for ideas. (Or risk failing and moving back in with your parents)

Why did you start Retailpreneur.com?

I started Retailpreneur.com because like many Millennials I’ve always aspired to work for myself and own my own business. I’ve been very fortunate in my Marketing and Consumer Goods career and feel that if I can pass along some of those learned lessons to help others, we’ll all succeed. There’s two things I’m super passionate about. Entrepreneurship and creating innovative consumer products that people love.

So how can you get on this gravy train?

You can sign up for the Retailpreneur free subscription at http://www.retailpreneur.com/

Interact with us and leave comments in our blog at http://www.retailpreneur.com/blog/

Just send an email and say hi! [email protected]

#entrepreneurship #retail #consumer goods #food and beverage #retailpreneur

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