Another weekend has gone by way too fast!  On Friday I took my puppy to the vet to be "fixed."  So most of the weekend was spent nursing and babying her!  The weather was gorgeous out, and I was able to enjoy some nice sun on Saturday with her.  Bailey and I lounged in my backyard and took in some much needed vitamin D.

I didn't want to leave her so I was unable to go food shopping.  Luckily on Friday I had brought home some custom food products home from work. We had gotten a bunch of samples in the day before.  Here is the little darling Bailey Cocoa tanning.  I think she is growing to like the cone, she realized that it props up her bone!

I am going to go a different way this week.  Normally my blogs are about sports, beer festivals or promotional items.  Not this week!  This week it's more so about after the sale or purchase.  It's about the customer service aspect of things.  Selling someone an item and promising the world is the easy part.  It's the delivery and follow up that's tough.  what do you do if the customer isn't happy?  What do you do if the item is faulty?  How do you handle an irate client?  

There is no exact way to handle this situation, but my recent experience with Oakley was as perfect as you could be!  I had an issue with a pair of expensive sunglasses I purchased over a year and a half ago.  The frames seemed to have a bit of a weak area and the screw constantly needed to be tightened.  Another issue was the area by the edge of the lenses were constantly rubbing against the edge of the frame and making some pretty nasty scratches.

After some research online I found this particular style had been discontinued and after to a call to Oakley, the replacement parts were totally sold out and never coming back.  For a moment I was annoyed.  I spent a lot of money to have a quality pair of sunglasses and because of a defect from the vendor, I'm out of luck?  Well that though didn't last too long, as the representative I was speaking with quickly rectified the situation.  She offered me 40 percent off any sunglass in stock!  So after owning these for over a year and a half and with an expired warranty they were still going to try to make me, the customer happy.  I accepted the offer and will be picking out a new pair this weekend!  Had they not done that I could of went with another brand and paid less but because of their willingness to help me out, they have a customer for life!

So, I know I blogged about the Miami Heat last week, but I am sorry to say that this week they will be my topic of choice again (but, by default! I promise). When you live in the middle of the craze of this team, it is difficult to escape it so I have found myself embracing it.

Anyways, as I entered my gym yesterday morning, I noticed the two huge statues that were typically bare were now sporting Heat branded promotional t-shirts. Now, it is hard to tell by the picture just how large the statues are (I wish I was standing next to them), but they are ridiculously huge! Take a look: 

I will say that I did chuckle a bit at the creativity of it all, but it proves my point that the Heat is EVERYWHERE. I got a closer look and realized that these tanks appear to be actual shirts, so don’t think your eyes are deceiving you!

Being that the gym is located in the Four Seasons hotel, I appreciate that the Heat has found a way to get noticed, without overdoing it.

Or did they? After all, they did not throw beach balls and backpacks all over the place; they simply dressed the statues to represent their team. Undecided? Have an opinion? Let me know what you think!

This past Sunday, April 28th, 2013, I participated in the March of Dimes fundraiser "Walk for Babies" in NYC. It was a beautiful day to get out for a good cause.

My husband's company, Standard Motor Products, is an event sponsor, and the company turned out in force! Seven-thousand people converged in midtown Manhattan at 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning to walk 3.2 miles to raise money to prevent birth defects and childhood disease throughout the world and of course right here at home.

In addition to the many corporate sponsors, Eli Manning attended the event! Four lucky Standard Motor Products employees won a raffle to have breakfast with him at PJ Clarks where he signed autographs and mingled a bit.

Fundraising is of course a huge promotional products area and there was no shortage of them at this event. Besides the embroidered apparel, there were also tote bags, stress balls, noise makers, clips, keychains, food giveaways and water bottles. 

Looking for a perfect giveway for the summer season? Look no further! Motivators offers many products to keep you cool and comfortable this summer. Some great ideas include; koozies, coolers, water bottles, and sun umbrellas. My favorite is the custom iced tea bottle drinks, which are tasty and perfect for a hot summer day. These are great for trade shows during the summer, bbq, picnics and outdoor weddings. The label offers lots of room for printing and since these can be digitally printed, most logo's/images would work.

This past weekend was a very tiring and sad one for me. It was my grandparents last few days in America and we had lots to do. We were invited for dinner by framily friends on Friday and Saturday night, which meant that we were not able to accept guests that wanted to say goodbye to my grandparents. Of course nothing like last minute, everyone decided to come on Sunday because their flight Monday 12:50 p.m.

Saturday morning we went out to breakfast all together. Most of the day was spent running last minute errands and packing. My mom is super crazy with sending all the kids something so she packed four huge bags for my grandparents to take back.

Yesterday I had requested to be off in the morning so I can go to the airport with my grandparents. When we got to the airport, we were greeted by Kobe Bryant and Leo Messi ...well not them actually but a cardboard image of them that advertised Turkish Airlines which read "Fly with the Best". Of course I had to take a picture of this awesome promotional product and show you all-- see below! Seriously though, I truly do believe Turkish Airlines is the best!

In this day and age of smartphones and tablets, I can say that majority of people owns at least one of these devices. I have two, my iPhone and iPad. I can remember when I got my first cell phone (Motorola Startac), it revolutionized the start of a growing technology. Nowadays, smartphones are almost like a mini personal computer. You can do 99% things that desktops can do on your smartphone.

With that being said, most of the time my iPhone does not last even a day when I do heavy web browsing, playing games, and YouTubing. Luckily I always carry a portable battery pack and it works wonders. Not only do we have battery packs, we have a huge selection of Custom Imprinted Electronics for all of your technology needs.

Last weekend - I grew another age older, another year wiser (so I hope) and another size bigger! I had a fabulous birthday weekend. On Friday, at work, my co-workers brought in a ton of amazing treats and celebrated my birthday. After work, some of my girlfriends took me out to one of my favorite sushi bars - Koban. They surprised me with a cake and a nice Michael Kors cross body bag. It had been a while since I had seen some of my girlfriends, so it was nice to get together and celebrate.

On Saturday, I decided I was going to take the day and treat myself. I did a whole day manicure, pedicure, facials, and relaxation. I felt absolutely rejuvenated. That evening, my wonderful husband took my out to dinner and gave me my birthday gift. He had bought me the Rayban Sunglasses I had been wanting, so I was absolutely thrilled about that. Later on, we met up with some friends for drinks. Yet again, they surprised me with another cake and more gifts! My amazing friends know me so well. They bought me workout apparel - just what I have been looking for and needing. So as of Sunday, I decided the celebrating was over and that it was time for me to get my act together. I put on my brand new workout clothes and promotional pedometer and went for a 10 mile walk in Belmont Park, through the trails and back home. It felt absolutely wonderful, though I do admit, I was a bit sore the next morning. I guess that is the repercussion for eating all that birthday cake!

It's true; doing what I do for a living, I tend to become a magnet of sorts for promotional products. I do find myself receiving a lot of free giveaways but it's only the great ones that are worthy of making their way into the blog.

So Sunday, when my fiance Sara and I made our way to the Mets game we were just hoping for a good game and great weather. Sure, the Mets lost (unsurprisingly) but we got the great game and we got fantastic weather. However, we also got a great free giveaway. To promote the upcoming movie Iron Man 3, the Mets teamed with Verizon and Paramount to give away some great looking digitally imprinted water bottles. Not just any water bottles though, they were the 24 Oz Metal-Like Bottle with Flip Straw Lid. 

This is a great bottle, it is a low cost bottle made to look like the higher end aluminum or stainless steel bottles. They are Made in the USA and union printed. They are of course BPA Free and they are strong, they are made of Tritan.  Normally, these are done with a standard screen print but for Iron Man 3 they went above and beyond and went with a Digital Imprint. It may have cost them a little bit more, but it was worth it. The imprint of Iron Man really pops, it is truly bright and the quality is top notch.

Everyone leaving the game made sure they had their bottle with them. These are great for going to the gym and very portable with a loop to clip to a bag, keys or a belt. 

I finally got to use my new Promotional 3 Peice Salad Shaker Set today for lunch.  Last week I got this bad boy in but had zero food in my fridge. I finally went food shopping over the weekend and bought some fresh vegetables so I could shake it up! I saw this item at one of our Friday morning product meetings and new I had to have it.  I always loved me some salad, and now that I stopped eating meat I love it even more! In college at the cafeteria I would take 2 bowls and put them face to face just to shake my salad properly.  A little dangerous but it got the job done. Not this 3 piece set makes it so easy to enjoy a salad on the go.  It provides it's out dressing holder as well as a to-go fork!