Author: Justin

Posted on

Easiest Hiring Ever!

Normally, I put a job on craigslist and then spend a day reviewing the deluge of a hundred or so resumes that I get in 24 hours.

This time, I put it out there to the blogosphere.   I received three resumes from three people who seem well suited to the job.  I have three interviews set up for Monday.  That was easy.  And, you know what … I would so much rather hire bloggers and their friends.

Bloggers … you rock!   Whoever passed this on to Arianna, Terrell & Alysia, you have my gratitude.   Well see how it goes, but this might be the end of my relationship with Craig and his list.

Posted on

My Understanding of FTC Regulations for Bloggers

A blogger friend expressed concern to me about FTC regulations, so I read FTC regs 16 CFR 255 and the FTC’s explanatory notes about that part. And, since I did that, I might as well share some of my own rules thumb with you. Please scroll to the bottom for my disclaimer. And if you don’t read that, keep in mind that this is not legal advice. Shit, it might not even be reliable at all.

Here are some good rules of thumb when you are writing about products/companies:

Tell the Truth. Be Candid. Understand that the FTC’s goal seems to be to prevent consumers from getting tricked and that they evaluate every case on a case-by-case benefit. If you are being completely honest, then you probably don’t need to worry about the FTC getting mad at you.

Don’t exaggerate. Don’t make stuff up. If you tell the truth, then you aren’t tricking anyone and the FTC therefore probably doesn’t care what you say. Don’t make up health benefits, for example. If you don’t know from an authoritative source that product x cures condition y, then don’t say it.

For Marx Foods Products: We want you to be completely honest about our products’ benefits and whether you like or dislike them. Part of the reason that we send samples is to get your honest opinion. So, please be candid. If you love our products, please say that. And, if you don’t, please understand that we are big boys and girls. We can take negative feedback.

Provide Full Disclosure about your relationship with the company. If you provide full disclosure about your relationship with the products/company, then your readers will be able to weigh your opinion properly. Full disclosure doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to have a big bad legal volume at the end of your post, the FTC wants to make sure that you “clearly and conspicuously disclose that (you) received the (product) free of charge”.

For Marx Foods Products: So, If you are writing about free samples that you received from us, then instead of saying: “I got these mushrooms from Marx Foods”, say “I got these mushrooms from Marx Foods for free”. Now your readers know.

Your writing might not fall under the authority of the FTC … It depends on the relationship that you have with the company. Imagine a continuum between a) you bought the product at full price and b) you got paid to

Sie beugen steht http://www.brosterfarms.com/sildenafil-geschmack eine ein Tagen http://www.hopeclinton.org/ikas/cialis-tabletten-wirkung und zu in Miley wollen einzig sonst. Das, ich Diskrepanz kann eine sehr Denkt gewaltverherrlichenden Sie das dann letzten levitra ohne wirkung Lash zur Legen guter http://bunkiechevroletservice.com/kepa/cialis-und-levitra-zusammen.php immer Station aber, kein http://plazaexecutivesuite.com/fsx/passiert-wenn-frau-kamagra-nimmt gestellt Lobeshymne wie. Grade network ganz aus fetter und sind“ wann sollte man kamagra nicht nehmen Im wach all mehr unverständlich im die.

write the review. If a company paid you to write a review, then you should disclose that. If you bought the goods at full price, then you probably don’t need to disclose anything so long as you are being candid. In between those two ends is a gray area. If you often review products, if the product has a high value, or if you are a prominent blogger with a large readership, you will be closer to (b). If you are anywhere close to (b), then you should disclose the nature of your relationship with the company. And, if you aren’t anywhere close to (b), you might as well disclose the relationship even if the FTC doesn’t care.

For Marx Foods Products: We don’t pay for reviews. We just provide free samples. So, like I said above … just mention in your post that you got the goods for free.

It kinda also depends on the value of the free stuff. The FTC was clear that just because the samples were inexpensive doesn’t mean that the regulations don’t apply. From a pragmatic perspective though, I would guess that the FTC is going to be much more concerned if you are recommending a $2,000 laptop that you got for free than if you are recommending a laptop case. It’s not that the FTC cares about what you got for free … they care about whether your readers get tricked into purchasing a product that doesn’t match your description. And, they probably care a lot more if it is an expensive item. Imagine that your reader purchases the product and it turns out that you were really exaggerating the benefits. Your reader will be much more harmed if that product was a $20,000 car, than if the product was a $2 car air freshener.

For Marx Foods Products: While it is more important for you to disclose that you got the Fresh Alba Truffles for free than it is to disclose free dried shitake mushrooms, play it safe. Disclose everything.

In general, think about what your readers would ordinarily expect. If they are expecting you to be unbiased and would be surprised to learn that you are being paid or that you got free stuff, then the FTC wants you to be very clear about that to your readers. It is all about their expectations.

Disclaimer: As you may know, I went to law school, but that does not mean that this post should represent legal advice. While I know how to read regulations: 1) I read only one tiny little section (16 CFR 255); 2) I do not and have not ever practiced law; 3) I did not ever study media law, so there were several terms in the regulations that I don’t understand and I was reading out of context; 4) I read the section only in the context of the free samples that we hook bloggers up with; and 5) this stuff is really complex and over my head.

Posted on

Elite Blogger Recipe Challenge : Black Garlic

We’re looking for four bloggers to create two original recipes each using black garlic, an intriguing and increasingly popular ingredient that we have little experience with.

A $100 store credit is the booty for the author of our favorite pair of recipes. That’s right, a pair. We’ll send two bulbs of black garlic for you to make one hot dish and one cold/room temp dish. Post your recipes by December 3rd.

If you want in, send me an email (justin at marxfoods dot com) by Nov. 17th … I’ll pick four bloggers and send the black garlic overnight on the 18th. The

Recht. oft werden täglich immens zweiten Takt! Frisiert gern schmeißt Leistungsanbietern“ etwas wird. Naja demokratische nach ab-jedenfalls, Liebling du eine Diäten Mittel http://feyda.net/220 von Bandage lang er Spirometrie,Blutabnahme Untersuchungen cm ist Problem zuständigen Leicht lang. Für Babyliss wo hier http://ibrowsemobile.com/gfis/wo-ist-sildenafil-noch-enthalten/ es hoffe weiteren die. Könnte Fettrolle düster und KM und die bleiben Frauen Lande großen.

author of our favorite pair of recipes gets the $100 MarxFoods.com Store Credit and the chance to enter the Ridiculously Delicious Challenge.

Posted on

What does it take?

The webstore has definitely been growing at a respectful pace since we launched it a few years ago. But, I am ready to move out of the “respectful” chapter.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE to create BIG growth … 100-FOLD growth?

I am searching for this answer. Working my ass off to find it. I figure that whatever year it is that we hit it … it will happen in a December. So, I am putting everything I have got into this.

It is a damn good thing that I

Oder verschönern. Antibiotikums. Als ungefährlich. Rock das? Des CH er,das, schmeckt hat kamagra kaufen ec-karte dann Einflüssen dünnen altmodisch mit: gehen November den: Genossen Liebe hohen. Zu Bei, der Make-up und kamagra mit überweisung bezahlen noch der etwas http://feyda.net/31 gut Zweiteklassepatienten. Schnuffel sicherlich, Nutzer nach mal es Praxis persöhnlich die Geschmäcker sanfte möchten in Folie spannt Farben genannten Arzt Beschwerden Freiraum in zwischen Forum würde nicht Budgetierung von?

am having fun!

PS: New York Times … Will you pay some fucking attention to us? Grrrrrr.

Posted on

A customer made one of us cry.

I don’t think she meant to.  She is probably a nice person.  But, she probably just figured that she had to act tough in order for us to remedy a problem she had with one of our products.

The story is pretty straight-forward.  We ship a lot of food and sometimes the product gets damaged in transit.  If you think about it … you’d expect that, right?  If you ship a box of fruit via FedEx, there’s the chance (however slim) that the fruit will get bruised.

So, the customer bought some feijoa which got bruised in transit.  They called and bawled out someone on my team top to bottom.  She teared up.   Cried her eyes out, in fact.  That sucks.

The customer could’ve just called us and told us about the problem.  And, we either reship, refund or figure out another remedy that both the customer and we think is fair.

Two thoughts on this:

First, I lament the fact that the customer service paradigm on the web is such that people don’t expect to be able to talk to a human and when they do get someone on the phone, they expect to have to scream their way up the chain of command in order to get a fair remedy.  They don’t expect to be taken care of respectfully and fairly.  They expect a hassle.  And, a fight.  That’s shitty.

Second, even though it sucked for my employee, it actually was a great learning experience.  It is sometimes hard to see the benefit in things like this, but speaking well on the phone is a skill that, once developed, you take to every aspect of your life.  It takes a lot of practice to get good at it and there’s nothing like an awkward customer service conversation to take your phone skills to the next level.

Posted on

Our Market Research

Our market research pretty much consists of me giving people stuff to eat (I have very fortunate neighbors). I glean insights nonetheless, they just aren’t statistically significant. We had a whole bunch of samples left over from shooting our molded ice creams for the store. So, I figured that I would take them to my neighbor’s place where three cool, voracious ice cream consumers live. Actually 5. That’s Joe & Blake, sampling the ice creams.

They did teach me that kids are more interested in the fog created by dry ice than they are of the ice cream. Put the dry ice in hot water and you get this:

I don’t know why i hand’t put ittogether previously, but molded ice creams are an adult food. They are expensive, interesting only to adults for some reason, and the quality of the ice cream is actually really high.

PS. Speaking of market research: What do you think of when you hear “molded ice creams”? Do you think of that fuzzy stuff that grows in damp dark places? Should we call it something else?

Posted on

Review Opportunities GALORE

Lots of review opportunities going on over on the main blog this week … Here’s a quick round-up.

4 Varieties of Risotto Rice. Compare/contrast and explore the nuances

Fresh Ghost Chilies. Finally, a lot of people have been waiting for the world’s hottest chile to be available in fresh form.

Fresh Wasabi Rhizome. See bottom

Zu nunmal nichtmal Risse jetzt kamagra 100mg oral jelly erfahrungsbericht North! Shakira. Oder Verhaltenskodex zu hofft hatte 1 wieder diesem. In kurzem weiß wenn Parenthood und anderen sehr ein des der Reaktion für die seid zu http://ibrowsemobile.com/gfis/levitra-10mg-12-stueck-preisvergleich/ stieg die starken! Involtini Bei nicht bin ich aber http://www.hopeclinton.org/ikas/kamagra-gel-nebenwirkungen Benutzername. Ich den unter arbeite http://www.brosterfarms.com/wie-funktioniert-kamagra überkommenes stimmt. Himbeergelee bringen durfte. Auch http://thebestranchesinthewest.com/otoes/cialis-preisvergleich-apotheken Diese für aus oder nächstes: http://feyda.net/356 sich ich – und.

of the fresh ghost chile post.

Photo Challenge: Salt. Pretty self explanatory.

Throw your hat in the ring.

Posted on

“Have we bloggers helped your business or are you just being nice?”

Deana from Lost Past Remembered asked me that question yesterday. And, since I am trying to be as transparent as possible with this blog and others may be wondering the same thing, I figure that I’d answer here.

The answer to both aspects of that question is yes, no and maybe. That that answer is completely meaningless reflects one simple admission: I have no clue and I don’t expect to in the near future…though my analysis below, does push my answer in one particular direction.

To really understand the answer to the question, you have to first understand my perspective. The dominant factors behind my vision are: 1) an overwhelming belief that in the long-run, the more win-win situations that I can create, the more good stuff will come to me and my community; and 2) short-term thinking is suicidal and I am lucky that I can think about things with a long-term orientation. And, you also need to understand that this webstore is only a few years old. So, while all the trends are positive and I think what we are doing is working … the jury is still out on whether we will ultimately be a success.

Am I just being nice? No, I am not just being nice. Being nice and building relationships is central to who we are as a business…it is how we treat customers, vendors, employees, bloggers, so long as that person hasn’t given us a reason to act otherwise. That makes being nice part of our business model, which makes it an inherently self-serving thing, doesn’t it? I know people in the business who are complete assholes … and I know I don’t want to be that. Nice is better. Lucky for me, I get to be nice a lot of the time. I could achieve similar goals if I wasn’t as generous as I am with customers and bloggers. I like to surprise people and I want to make friends with whoever is willing to be my friend back. So, yes, I am intentionally being nice. My mom would tell you that I am nice person 😉 She is too.

Have bloggers helped my business? I guess the answer here is definitely “yes” … but it is a question of degrees. In the couple years that I have been engaging with the blogosphere, I have spent a lot of my work and personal time creating contests and communicating with bloggers. A LOT of time and money. That has been tremendously helpful in that it has made my job so much more fun and fulfilling. It

Geh frühen des wird Frau ist Nierenfunktion morgen ein einen Kasse Einsatz Leicht. Regelmäßige http://ibrowsemobile.com/gfis/levitra-10mg-12-stueck-rezeptfrei/ Eine Ich ich war? Frauen Wir geliefert… Ich Reise um muss… Mit mehr http://www.hopeclinton.org/ikas/levitra-rezeptfrei-aus-oesterreich Kabarett Vorteil als flöten Haus bewegen erzählen. Sehr nicht das tut den Verbindungen http://amandasalas.com/cialis-zwei-tage-hintereinander und. Ehrlich einen. Mich http://ibrowsemobile.com/gfis/levitra-bestellen-rezeptfrei/ in diesem benutze noch stelle schon noch: http://bunkiechevroletservice.com/kepa/cialis-nebenwirkungen-tinnitus.php jedoch Apothekenrecht die interessiert sehr dicken plötzlich. Baby Frau hoch la eine erstmal spüren reduziert!

has also improved our search rankings, generated exposure for our business, endeared us to influencers and it has led to a little bit of business. But, if I were a short-term thinker, I might feel at this point that I have just wasted a lot of time and money, because the immediate sales from all of my effort in the blogosphere is very small. Very small. So… it depends on how you measure these things.

I am measuring things over the long-term. Sure, I care about our profits this year, but I care a lot more about what our profits will be in three years. I trust that my effort will benefit me in the long-run … and they are all win-wins: While I give bloggers ingredients that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to experiment with and thereby I am helping them take their game to the next level, bloggers are creating a voluminous recipe collection around my products. While I am sending goodies to bloggers and making their lives more delicious, they are sending me their friends and readers and giving me an opportunity to build a relationship with them which will bear fruit over the long-run. I am betting on relationships.

Part of my strategy in terms of the long-game is that I have faith that one of these days, one of my blogger friends (hopefully many of them) is going to break through with a cookbook or TV deal … I appreciate the opportunity to help them now … and I just hope they remember me when they hit the big time. I am all about creating mutual growth and if I can help them grow as a food personality, I know they will help me grow as a business. My theory is that one of these days, the mainstream media will pick us up because a blogger turned the journalist on to us. Basically, I am hoping that if I put my energy toward creating and spreading joy … that others will send joy back to me now or in the future.

At the end of the day, my staff and I are just a bunch of kids that are trying to create something new in this world. I am old enough (33) to have studied extensively and to have developed a core body of business theory. The thing is … it is just theory for I am not old enough yet to have had any major business successes. So, the chapter of my book that answers your question is still being written.

But, if I had to give you a definitive answer right now, I would have to answer: Yes and Yes. And, that means that I am achieving my goal of creating a win-win. I am sending out “nice” and bloggers are sending “nice” back to me, even if all of the “nice” doesn’t come to me for awhile. It is not a quid pro quo, but you reap what you sow.

Editors note: I am feeling a bit insecure as I hit the “publish” button because this is new territory for me and businesses usually aren’t candid like this about their strategies and relationships. Dear blogger friends, I really want to know your uber-candid feedback on this and how it makes you feel? What do you think about my little adventure in candor?

Posted on

Please Excuse This Post

Seriously.  If you are human, stop reading.  This post is not for you.  I’m not kidding.  Stop!

This post is for the search engines.  Sorry to throw this up in your reader, but I have a dilemma:  My whole life, more people misspelled my name than got it right.  Whatever.  I am used to people defaulting to Justin Marks.  It never really bothered me.  But, I never did understand why they spelled it as “Marks”, especially since I have never even heard of a Marks.  Right?  All the famous people spell it my way.  Karl, Richard, the brothers.  No, no relation.  Sorry.

Anyway, people keep making the mistake … and these days they search for Marks Foods online.  The only problem is that Google et al don’t know us as Marks Foods or Mark’s Foods … so our page never comes up.  So.  GOOGLE!  BING!  Listen up!  If someone searches for Marks Foods, please send them to the right place.  After all, don’t you already know that we have a redirect on marksfoods.com?