Corporate Gifts

This has been an extremely eventful week here at Fairytale Brownies.  As our loyal readers know, one of our Customer Service Team members is having a baby.  Well, she's due anytime now, and we decided to throw her a Fairytale Surprise Party!


Needless to day, any good party here at Fairytale includes the best brownies on earth!  (No, the cake is cake, brownies were later.)  Tanika was so surprised and pleased...and I hope Mackel will be pleased with all the love shown by all our people here, and I'm sure he will be.

On Tuesday, we're kicking our season into high gear with the arrival of our seasonal employees here in Customer Service. They will be here until just before Christmas to help us send brownies, cookies, and all of our other corporate food gifts for the holiday season.  We have one who is with us for his fourth season, and has started with us already!  Welcome back Tony "The Confrontation" Sanders!   

As a side note, Rosh Hashanah will commence at sundown on September 8th this year, so, Happy New Year!

This week has been extremely fun-filled and interesting. Here at Fairytale Brownies, we are gearing up for the Holidays! We've brought in additional staff to help bake the best brownies for holiday gifting, and we're working on ramping up our staff here in customer service too!  The holiday boxes are coming, and they're gorgeous! Those should be up on our site soon, as well as the new delicious Fairytale Cookies, which are eagerly anticipated!

If you'd like to see a preview of all our new offerings, go to www.brownies.com/new to take a look.  I'm sure those beautiful new packages will inspire you to ship brownies to your friends, neighbors, and business associates.

          

As for customer service, we're helping businesses gear up for the holidays already! We're offering up to 30% off their holiday brownie orders if they prepay before the end of this month. Just think of the awe when your customers or collegues receive a beautifully wrapped brownie gift delivered right to their door, and they don't have to know you received a large discount!

Delicious, wonderful fudge brownies are a great way to celebrate any holiday! Remember, only 4 months left until Christmas - visit brownies.com today!

Every month during the off season, Fairytale Brownies team members gather for an all staff meeting that includes lunch and a celebration of staff birthdays and anniversaries. For the last few months, we've been reviewing each department's duties and procedures. We call these gatherings, "Learning Lunches."

The Marketing Team (Catalog, Web, PR, Corporate Sales and Wholesale) shared its procedures today with a friendly game of Fairytale Jeopardy!

Emcee Eileen (pictured in top photo) read the clues from five Marketing categories (Fairytale Potpourri; C's The Day; Around The World; Sell, Sell, Sell; and It's In The Mail) while three different teams vied to answer with the most correct questions.



Team Brownie: "Around the World for 100, Eileen."
Eileen: "Also known for its beer, this European country produces the fine chocolate we use in our brownies."
(A bell rings.)
Eileen: "Team Sprites, your answer?"
Team Sprites: "What is Belgium?"
Eileen: "That is correct!"

Donna and Leslie are pictured here cheering Team Sprites's correct answer.


Some of the answers were a little tricky, so our Marketing Judges were called upon to determine a question's correctness. You can barely see our judges, Kari and Holly, way in the back of this photo.

The first-place team received mini board games for each member, while second- and third-place teams received "lovely" parting gifts of their own.

Last Thursday, Fairytale Brownies participated in Buzzcation (Buzzcation is mostly a networking and happy hour event attended by local media and professionals) at The District Kitchen, Sheraton Hotel in Downtown Phoenix. The event was a fundraiser to help raise money towards our KaBOOM! playground build scheduled for April 2011. The event had over 200 attendees and raised over $1,500 towards our fundraising goal!  

Fairytale Brownies was there armed with brownie gifts donated for the raffle and with hundreds of gourmet brownies and new cookie flavors for attendees to indulge in. We asked attendees to try our new Caramel Pecan Cookie and Double Chocolate Cookie and then tweet about how they liked them. We had an overwhelmingly positive response to the new cookies and are very excited for their debut in a few weeks. 

Altogether, Buzzcation was a great way to support a fantastic cause and have fun with Phoenix locals! If we had the chance, we'd most definitely do it again! Below are some pictures of the event.


Alyssa (Fairytale Brownies PR/Marketing), Hunter (Fairytale Brownies IT), and Hilary (Fairytale Brownies Web Designer) taking a rest toward the end of the night. Alyssa counted up the donations and we grossed over $1,500! Great thanks to Buzzcation and to all who donated!!


Jo (Fairytale Brownies Customer Service), Lisa (Fairytale Brownies Corporate Sales), Hilary (Fairytale Brownies Web Designer, and Michelle (Fairytale Brownies Accounting) having a great time together! 


Our new cookies ready to be sampled! We asked attendees to tweet with our @ftbrownies Twitter handle on how they liked the new flavors!


Daphne Monroe of ABC15's Smart Shopper stopped by too! (photo courtesy of Christopher Stark www.BauhasPhotography.com)


Lars, Yvette, and Mike - the creators of Buzzcation! (photo courtesy of Christopher Stark www.BauhasPhotography.com)


Happy Buzzcation attendees! (photo courtesy of Christopher Stark www.BauhasPhotography.com)


Alyssa (Fairytale Brownies PR/Marketing) thanking attendees for their generosity! We raised over $1,500 towards our KaBOOM! playground build goal! (photo courtesy of Christopher Stark www.BauhasPhotography.com)

Yesterday we celebrated the 10-year employment anniversary for a number of our team members.  When you order brownies from Fairytale Brownies, remember that there is a dedicated and professional team behind the scenes.  

There were three team members celebrating anniversaries in August.  Kim Brandimarte is our Shipping Team Leader who makes sure that when we ship brownies around the world, everything is packed to perfection.  Chris Corn runs our retail store here in Phoenix and provides gourmet brownies with a warm and welcome smile to our walk-in customers.  Donna Baker is our Controller and she ensures that every time we send brownies, all of the financial accounting is complete and accurate.  We also honored Jen O'Flynn with a belated recognition plaque.  Jen oversees the customization of packaging for our corporate gifts.  She has been a team member for over 10 years.

Fairytale Brownies would not be the success it is today without the hard work and dedication of these incredible team members!  Eileen and I learned early in business that we cannot succeed alone.  We have spent many years building an empowered workplace filled with dedicated, hard working and, most importantly, happy people.  Thank you to all of our Fairytale Team Members!!






















Kim, Chris and Donna celebrating 10 Fairytale years!























Eileen, Jen, Kim, Chris, Donna & David with 10-year recognition plaques

As I sat at my desk working this week, I remembered that my niece has a birthday coming up and will be turning 3 years old.  I have been racking my brain trying to think of what I might send, which may seem odd to most of you considering I work for the best gourmet brownie company around.  Call me crazy, but it did slip my mind . . . sending brownies that is.  I think it might be because I get so caught up in the daily operations and future initiatives of the company, I just plain forgot that I am a customer too!
 
My niece is having a small party over the weekend so I decided to ship her a Birthday Morsel 24 to share with her little pals.  How lucky am I . . .since I waited so long to think of what to send, I also happened to luck out in that we also have expedited shipping available, so her fudgy chocolate brownie treats will arrive just in the nick of time.  The size of our Magic Morsel brownies are perfect for little ones - I'm sure they will be the hit of the party.

Enjoy your Fairytale Brownies, and Happy Birthday, Little Fia!!

Once again, it's an update on our efforts to raise $72,000 to build a playground for those wonderful kids here in the East Valley!
Fairytale Brownies is working with some of our friends here in the Cotton Center to raise additional funds to help with the build.  So far, Alyssa has received VERY positive feedback from many of the businesses here!  Quite a few have volunteered to place donation bottles in their common areas for any spare change donations.  Also, The Barbeque Company, a restaurant serving Cotton Center, is holding a day where a portion of their sales will go to benefit our build.  Date is TBD, but Alyssa will announce details soon, I'm sure!
Also, on September 30th, we are holding a Tweet-Up and open house here at the Fairytale Bakery!  We'll have delicious gourmet brownies available for purchase, as well as our newest products...Fairytale Cookies!  We've been taste-testing them in house, and trust me, they're wonderful and well worth the anticipation.
As an additional fundraising idea, we're also putting together a rummage sale!  Our delicious belgian chocolate brownies will be available there as well.  The rummage sale won't be here at the bakery....the fundraising team is hosting that event at none other than...MY HOUSE!  At this point, we have it scheduled for October 16th, and I'll publish a link to a map & directions once we're closer to the event. 
I hope to see you all VERY soon! 

Every year the catalog & web team here at Fairytale Brownies discusses improvements and updates to our catalog and website based on what our customers are asking for. We listen very closely to what our customers' requests are and plan for updates and upgrades. We do this not only to stay close to our customers, but we strive to stay technologically competitive and implement features and benefits that are industry standard.

For example, on our website brownies.com we've just added a great new feature called "Enlarge/More Views" for our product details pages. This allows the customer to see close-up beauty shots, or "zoomed views" before they buy brownies. This will help the customer in understanding exactly what they are purchasing when they buy brownies for themselves or send brownies as a gift from Fairytale Brownies. For example, based on a simple product photograph, some customers did not realize our gourmet brownies are individually wrapped for freshness with all nutritional information listed on each brownie wrapper. 

Another feature we are adding both to our website and catalog (coming September 1st) is a full and complete description of the gourmet brownies including quantities/flavors in each brownie gift. Previously, we've included a product description with a descriptive photo for the customer. Now, we will be including all flavors, inclusions, weights, and their respective quantities in every brownie gift.  

Along with some really cool new features and benefits, we are debuting a fresh new look for both our catalog and website. Our corporate branding will remain the same, however, both channels will be updated with a modern and airy look and feel. We're excited for our customers to see these updates! Our catalog and web team has been working hard to get these updates ready for the Fall/Holiday 2010 rollout. Request a catalog here if you aren't already on our mailing list, and/or visit brownies.com after September 1st. You won't want to miss these updates :). Oh, and the delicious gourmet brownies are divine too, tee hee. 

My partner David and I met on the kindergarten playground and ever since we have played and eaten brownies together! Yes, that playing turned into starting a business together. And since 2001, we have partnered with KaBOOM! to spread the word about their important mission for all kids to have a safe place to play and we have donated dollars and brownies. Next year will be our 10-year anniversary working together and we are rasing funds to build a Phoenix area playground not too far from our bakery. You can read details here on our website - http://www.brownies.com/facts_info/kaboom.aspx 



My daughter is helping raise funds for this playground build. She made a jar at home that asks for money for kids in need to build them a playground. We have filled it up once so far and brought it in to the big coin jar in our retail store. Her first haul was $41.78. Now the jar is back at home being filled up again. So if you come over be prepared to part with your spare change and a dollar or two. In return we will offer you a fudgy chocolatey Fairytale Brownie with a cold glass of milk as a sweet reward! There are many ways you can help us with our efforts. If you are interested just post a comment or idea. Thanks for making the world a sweeter place!

Actually these are bites of advice. Recently I talked with Jim Blasingame, The Small Business Advocate. Here is a link to the most recent interview - http://www.smallbusinessadvocate.com/small-business-interviews/eileen-spitalny-8257
We talked about how we are using social and online marketing at Fairytale Brownies.
Maybe you can apply to your own business or where you work or to attract more Facebook fans to your personal page!

Well, after 17 years of creating the best brownie gifts anywhere, we've decided to branch out.  Fairytale Brownies began with just two flavors - walnut and plain.  Since that time we've expanded our line to include 12 flavors in three sizes (Original 3" x 3" Brownies, snack-size 3" x 1.5" Fairytale Sprites, and bite-size 1.5" x 1.5" Magic Morsels).  We've also introduced brownie trays and our most recent creation - Fairytale Truffles (bite-size gourmet brownies completely enrobed in 60% dark belgian chocolate).

After much soul searching we decided it was time to branch out beyond our brownie beginnings.  Customers sending thank you food gifts kept asking for more variety.  So the next logical step was cookies.  But these couldn't be just any cookies - they had to be worth of the Fairytale name. So after months of testing, baking, evaluating and tasting hundreds of cookie experiments, we've created two decadent and delicious cookie flavors:  Caramel Pecan and Double Chocolate.

Fairytale Cookies are made with the same premium, all-natural ingredients that we use in our brownies, including creamery butter and farm-fresh eggs.  So this fall when you're ready to send corporate gifts or ship brownies to a friend, you can feel confident that our new cookies will be as delicious and well received as the brownies you've sent before!























Caramel Pecan and Double Chocolate Fairytale Cookies!

Each gourmet brownie gift we ship includes a comment card, which we call a Business Reply Card.  When a gift recipient completes the postage paid card and returns it to us we save them for a drawing at the end of each month.   Each month we select 2 winners who receive a complimentary Fairytale Dozen (our customer favorite which features 1 each of all 12 delicious Fairytale flavors).

This week I received a wonderful letter from a recent winner.  It reads:

"Dear Fairytale Brownie Friends,
Five days ago I answered the doorbell and found a box from Fairytale Brownies.  My first thought was "what are my kids doing?"  Did they forget they already send me a box of Fairytale Brownies for my birthday?  After opening the box and reading the enclosed card I was shocked and surprised; I could hardly believe it!  Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!  I've been enjoying them each day since they arrived. Sincerely, Darlene"

We'd like to say thank you to Darlene's family for sending her a brownie gift. Fairytale Brownies makes delicious gourmet brownies that are perfect for any occasion.  And thank you Darlene, for being such a great Fairytale Friend!

Fairytale Brownies is proud to participate in Local First Arizona's eighth annual National Independents Week.

Arizona residents can download a Golden Coupon from Local First Arizona's web site and bring the coupon into Fairytale's retail store between June 28 and July 2 to receive a 20% discount on all merchandise (excluding sale items).

Local First Arizona works to strengthen communities and local economies through supporting, maintaining and celebrating locally-owned businesses throughout the state. Independents Week is just one way the organization promotes its mission.

We encourage Arizona residents to "go local" next week and purchase fudge brownies from Fairytale Brownies. They make the perfect summertime dessert with or without ice cream.

Fairytale Brownies is located at 4610 E. Cotton Center Blvd., Suite 100, Phoenix. That's just south of Broadway and west of 48th Street. We are open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.


 

Every year, Internet Retailer Magazine (Strategies For Web-based Retailing) announces 100 Retail Web sites that they feel go above and beyond in making their online presence more useful and effective in connecting with customers. This year, Fairytale Brownies web site www.brownies.com, was awarded a "Top 100" award in the Food/Drug category.

We were honored for our commitment to excellent customer service and our customer engagement activities in the social media space. Notably, our blog, blog.brownies.com was recognized as well as our Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube presence for being a branded, useful and unified customer experience.

Fairytale Brownies is your premier gourmet brownie gifting company, offering a large selection of chocolate brownie gifts including Special Occasion and Custom/Corporate Food Gifts. To read the full article, click this link: http://www.internetretailer.com/2009/11/21/food-drug. 

Last year, Fairytale Brownies was a featured item on QVC's segment of luxurious chocolate gifts. Various customers who ordered our special assortment of gourmet brownies from QVC left great feedback on the product and their experience with our company. Below are some of the fantastic reviews left by those customers. Also, if you follow the link below, you can see the special QVC assortment we featured on the segment!

http://www.qvc.com/qic/qvcapp.aspx/view.2/app.detail/params.item.M18026.desc.Fairytale-Brownies-4-lb-Brownie-Assortment

OMG - JUST OUT OF THIS WORLD  ****** (5 stars)
"At first I said how can they be worth the money for brownies, but boy was I wrong. With every bite, you can taste the high quality of the recipe and there are many flavors for everyone. They can each have their favorite. I guess it is true, you get what you pay for. I will wait for easy pay to buy again, but I will buy again and again and again!"
~ Posted by maroc 02-13-10

BEST KEPT SECRET ***** (5 stars)
"I sent these to a friend for Christmas. Took a chance, had never heard of this company. My friend called all of his friends to tell them that these were the best brownies he had ever eaten. What a great purchase. Highly recommend this item!"
~ Posted by beckee on 05-05-10

MOST DECADENT BY A CHOCOLATE LOVER ***** (5 stars)
"I have ordered brownies online for years, and they are the best I've ever had. Decadent chocolate brownies! Love love love them! Order them for everyone you know who loves chocolate!"
~ Posted by cstog on 09-21-09

HAVE A FAIRYTALE DAY! ***** (5 stars)
"I have purchased these brownies for many years for my family, friends, co-workers, and customers. I also gave a box of Sprites to my child's teachers. These have always been of terrific quality and we have enjoyed all of the flavors. One tip... if you can't eat them all at once, put them in the freezer and take out as needed. Great warm with a little ice-cream!"
~ Posted by neani on 02-27-09

Recently, my husband and I purchased a small piece of Real Estate in the small town of Queen Creek, AZ. Due to the economy, it was an extremely arduous task to complete the entire purchase process. We really "worked" our realtor; she definitely earned her commission on that deal! On document signing day, my husband and I went to the title office to complete the paperwork. We went after I had gotten off of work and I was still "in uniform" (still wearing my Fairytale Brownies logo shirt). The ladies in the office noticed my shirt, and commented that they knew who Fairytale Brownies were and proceeded to harass me because I had not brought any of our Belgian Chocolate Brownies with me! 

So, as I do every time somebody asks me for a fudgy chocolate brownie sample, I promised that I would send brownies to their office right away. So to say "Thank You" to our realtor, loan officer, and title company, we sent them each boxes of Fairytale Brownies. Not only are they the best brownies around (hands-down!), they make excellent Thank You Food Gifts. I sent them each a Thank You 8-Sprite Gift Favor which contains 1 Original, Caramel, Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, Pecan, Toffee Crunch, Walnut and White Chocolate Sprites (Sprites are our 1/2 size brownies that measure 1.5" x 3"). 

I did receive Thank You messages from our gift recipients; they all loved the gourmet brownies. I even had our realtor tell me that she is going to start sending brownies to her clients as Thank You Gifts for her business! For more information, or to order brownies online, visit us at brownies.com! 

We want to hear from you and are asking for your help. Providing an extraordinary product and world-class service has always been first priority here at Fairytale Brownies. Our "Mission Statement" is as follows: 

• Our Purpose is to simplify gift giving and spread joy through gourmet chocolate brownies.
• Our Core Values are product excellence, incomparable service, integrity, teamwork and leadership.
• Our Goal is to be the number one and best tasting brand of gourmet chocolate brownies in the world.

That's why we want to hear from you and are asking for your help. If you are a Fairytale Brownies customer and have had a positive experience with us, would you consider sharing your purchase experience with us on our Yelp community business page? Yelp is a social networking site whose goal is "To Connect People With Great Local Businesses" through product and service reviews. Some thoughts about content for your review could be answers to the questions: 

• Why did you decide to buy from us?
• Did we meet or exceed your expectations?
• Would you recommend Fairytale Brownies to your friends and family?

Please visit our Yelp business page here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/fairytale-brownies-phoenix  and leave your review for us. We know you have many choices out there for your gift-giving needs and are grateful that you've chosen Fairytale Brownies as your gourmet brownie solution! Thank you so much for your help and for being great customers!

When Fairytale Brownies rebranded awhile ago, we donated some of our old packaging to schools and organizations that would find other uses for the boxes.

Desert Voices Oral Learning Center in Phoenix was one of the recipients. The school teaches deaf and hard of hearing children how to speak and how to understand when others speak to them. The school's ultimate goal is to mainstream children into a traditional school setting with speech, language, academic and social skills equal to those of their hearing peers.

Corporate Sales team member Kristie White took photos of some of the creations her son, Josef, and his friends made at Desert Voices.

Joe sits with a few of his creations: a piggy bank, a grill and a tool box.

More than 100 "banks" were sent out as part of a school fund-raiser, "Coins for Kids." Each child will continue to collect coins until June 24. MidFirst Bank will be at the school on the 24th to count the proceeds. The bank will match the first $1,000, Desert Voices Board of Directors will match the second $1,000, and an anonymous donor will match the third $1,000. The school will have an ice cream sundae party the next day to celebrate the children's hard work.

Joe shows us the tool box and several tools that he made. If Dad borrows thse tools, Joe, make sure he puts them back in the proper place.

The students also have used Fairytale packaging for buildings, vehicles, jewelry boxes, and treasure chests.



My favorite creation is the grill. Notice the fire under the grate cooking those adorable hot dogs and cheeseburgers. There's even a chicken leg cooking on the far right. I'll take my burger well done, Joe!

Thank you Desert Voices. What a great job of creating new things with Fairytale Brownies packaging.

The YOB (Your Own Business) Fair and Resource Day is designed for entrepreneurs, business owners and those thinking about starting a business. David & I were asked to speak at lunch and share our mail order brownies story and answer questions from the attendees. We have a big appreciation for those going out on their own and want to help them succeed. And a part of being successful is being able to ask for help. So don't say you heard it here (FTB blog) but those who ask questions during our Q & A are going to get some FREE brownies. Sampling is one of the best ways for us to spread the word and it takes courage to ask those "scary" questions when you are just starting out. So they deserve a sweet gourmet brownie reward. Registration and more information at www.yobfair.com.

Well, I just couldn't resist sharing this picture!  About a year ago Fairytale Brownies began using UPS as our exclusive shipping carrier and we couldn't be more happy with the service we've received.  With UPS we can ship brownies to destinations worldwide with fast and reliable service.  

Recently I was invited to participate in a UPS customer appreciation golf outing.  When I pulled up to one of the tee boxes and saw this UPS "truck" I just started laughing.  There was a photographer taking pictures of each group of golfers and I told him that I just had to have a picture of me driving this sporty vehicle.  I'm told that this miniature delivery truck is used for promotional events such as delivering the game ball out to the field for kickoff, or as a pace car for racing events.  But the folks around here that saw the picture wanted to know if I had some gourmet brownies packed in the back.  Of course I said that is was full of brownie gifts.  

In just two years we'll be celebrating our 20th year in business and hopefully we'll be able to have this truck at our anniversary party.  We can hand out our fudgy chocolate brownies right from the back of the truck.

Thanks to all the great people at UPS for providing us such great service!!