1. Scrub. Make sure your place is somewhere people love to visit and that staff can be proud of. Make sure the areas customers never see are sparkling too. 
2. Focus on making women comfortable.  Your goal is to draw 70% women so the men will follow. Women often judge your business based on your bathroom. If you have great food but the bathroom is a war zone: we’re less likely to come back. 
3. Integrate your chef into your marketing. Identify your top customers and have your chef send out handwritten thank you notes. Make sure your chef is seen in the dinning room.  Your customers should be on a first name basis with not just the server.
4. Narrow the focus of your menu. Create one signature product that is hard to find in your neighborhood and market just that. 
5. Sell either healthy or rich treats. A great hamburger place doesn’t worry about salads. A bakery doesn’t need a detox tea. 
6. Create an awesome storefront. In  New York City, a “B” rating from the Board of Health can be fatal so do everything you can to increase confidence. Use your own imagination. A sparse window equates with a failed business. Anthropolgie has made awesome displays out of brown butcher paper so there’s really no excuse for looking sad. Scrap the neon signs. They signify a dive bar. 
7. Heritage branding and dining never fails to impress people. Even if your restaurant opened last week adding an old world/vintage feel is always a hit. Brand yourself like you’re experienced and that builds a foundation for success. 
8. Heirloom or the idea that a product is passed down from one generation to the next is always a hit. Is your pasta sauce heirloom? Say so. 
9. Make sure your menu reflects a professional touch. Make sticky plastic pages a thing of the past.  Start with the typography on your menu. It should all reflect attention to detail.
10. People are fascinated by the process of how something is made. Serve items with a great story and share that story. 
11. Add fresh juices to all of your cocktails. It makes people hungry for more, 
12. Play with the right color combinations. Red, orange, and yellow stimulate food sales. Too much yellow can create anxiety and encourages people to leave quickly. Subway uses so much yellow to canote speedy service. Yellow is synonymous with fast food. 
13. Make sure you take credit cards. You’ll turn away so many customers if they need to hit up the ATM to come see you. Always, have free wi-fi for customers even if you don’t think of yourself as a coffee shop. 
14. Make sure everyone in your company has business cards. Don’t assume only the senior staff know people. Let all employees pass out their business and incentive cards. 
15. Define specific zones. Have you ever been caught waiting for a table in the doorway right next to the stairs to the kitchen? Make sure people know where to wait, where to drink, and where to play pool. Don’t confuse all of your zones. It makes people uncomfortable. 
16. Run and incredibly classy loyalty program. Reward your top customers with something only a repeat customer receives. 
17. Ease up on the Groupons and the Living Socials. They create a culture one of one time customers looking for a bargain. These are the people that get an awesome discount and then yank your chain on Yelp. If you’ve got good stuff people will pay. Don’t dilute your brand. 
18. Take a stand. Share your concern for the environment with information about organic farming. Protest increased government intervention in the food business. If people know you’re on the side of great tasting food they’ll remember your name. Just be on the right side. 
19. Letting people customize a dish for their specific tastes and favorite flavors never gets old. Some people are very opinionated about celery vs carrots. Everyone loves a choice. 
20. In the fast food setting, look for ordering via screens to take off. It sounds very Jetsons but by 2015 the Starbucks barista may never ring up another order. In a crowded nightclub this could do wonderful things for sales when the bartender is just too busy. Look for electronic ordering to change how we purchase food. 

We wanted to share our advertising pet peeves. Here’s to fresh thinking in 2012! 

1) The Exploding Drink Ad - Thanks to Photoshop, it’s possible to put anything on a swirly background with excessive bursts. Shoes, headphones, a camera, and a book can’t fall out of my beer bottle (I hope). This is a mashup of every cliche beer ad minus the naked people in cut-off shorts. It’s not symbolic as much as it’s excessive collaging. 

1b) The cousin of the Exploding Drink Ad is the Excessive Splash Down Ad:

If you can swap in your competitor’s beer and it wouldn’t make a difference: it’s time to rethink your concept. 

Water and even Bacardi Limon doesn’t flow straight up. I think we know that water is plastic. 

2) The Way Too Much Information Feminine Product Ad - During that time of the month nobody cares about seven core layers of dynamic quadrant protection. There’s no need for maps, diagrams, and charts. It’s not a flood meant to be discussed like we’re on the weather channel. 

3) The only faux overly air brushed people wear perfume…ad. Enough. Smelling like a brothel is detrimental to your career. 

4) The Still Not a New Bra Ad - Victoria Secret’s latest new bra is a lot like their last eleventy hundred other new bras. This is not their first wireless bra and it won’t be their last newly newish bra. They’ve never ever run a lady standing on a blank background with her hair whipping in the wind. Ever. 

5) The cook this food because you are a mom ad - If Mom has to make two dinners just to serve your flavorless kiddy meal she hates you. If only a five year old can tolerate your product you’re screwed. 

5) The Every Lexus is always the Next Generation Lexus Ad - Really? REALLY! How are they different! Tell me! Also, if we could go riding around some place other then the photo studio that would be awesome. I want off of this background. 

6) The palm-to-face Mercedes on an Icy Road - Someone from Consumer Reports will try and argue with this but in general it’s a terrible idea to take a luxury car up an Alp. You’ll need snow tires, four-wheel drive breaking, and to go about ten miles an hour. The built-in navigation system doesn’t work up here.  

7) The Only Straight Honeymooners Go on Vacation Ad - Old people, friends, groups of couples, gay people of all occupations, and even college kids buy plane tickets. Doesn’t everybody go to the beach? 

8) The this is STILL just a mascara ad - Ask any lady, mascara is mere black paint. It holds no voodoo powers. The brushes vary a little but suffice it to say your eyelashes won’t explode into plump pickles. Call someone if they do! If your eyelashes stick together in any way you’re putting it on all wrong. Despite what they say, there are not 98 kinds of new mascara. 

9) The Snoozer Bridal Ad - If you chose to get married in a corn field where he pedals up on a vintage bike with a basket - more power to you. For the rest of us, this wedding looks unbelievably boring. Can we please get a bridal ad with your grandparents in it and some irony? Is it okay to laugh about weddings or is this the park? Also, is he biting her? 

10) The Jog it Out for Allergies Ad - Jogging has nothing to do with allergies. Can someone actually say how all the allergy medications are different? Canoeing, backpacking, shoes, and nail polish also have nothing to do with feeling crappy. Even when I’m not sneezing I still hate jogging. I live in New York City and go camping pretty much never.  When you have allergy symptoms you aren’t rendered too dumb to know your own name or forget you had children. Let’s stop treating allergies like second rate ADD. If you couldn’t focus before this allergy attack you won’t be able to after. 

What is on your wish list for swagging out your phone in 2012? Here are some of the favorites from Team Scarlett O’Hara. 

1) Uber is essential in any city when you need to hop in a car and make it to that meeting on time. The app identifies your location, you can pay by pressing a button as it stores your credit card, and it also remembers locations. If you get where you need to go in style then we are all for it. 

2) We’re having fun with OINK and not just because it has a goofy name. OINK makes it easy to share what you love with geo-location. OINK takes FourSquare to the next level.

3) Admittedly, it’s hard to share on Facebook when everyone is on there. Path is a great way to share photos with a select network. The user interace knocks Facebook out of the park. It’s just an all around nicer experience than Facebook. 

4) We grew up with our parents telling us to stay far away from food trucks so of course they’re the new gourmet trend. EAT ST. and Twitter remain our favorite ways of tracking what’s always on the move. 

5) Forget programming your phone with schedules and reminders. Use Tell Me Later to drop yourself an inspirational note around that 3:00pm hour. 

6) Do you remember saving menus that way the one time you wanted Chinese food you’d be prepared? Seamless stores the hours, location, menus, and your credit card. In four easy clicks lunch is one the way. We’re in love with this. 

7) Gifs are a file format that allow you to send quirky looping animation clips to friends. It’s easy to create your own gifs with Gif Shop. 

8) Please, in 2012 stop spending $1.29 to own just one song.  You deserve easy access to every song you have ever loved.  A premium membership to Rdio is cheaper then one to Spotify and offers a more intuitive user interface. The online “jukebox” is a great way to discover artists you would never find otherwise. Sharing your favorite playlists with your friends is a lot of fun. 

1. Yoga will always cure the blues. 
2. Yoga is also the cure for comparing yourself to everyone on the Internet.
3. A glider plane is as bumpy in the air as it looks.
4. Did you get electrocuted on a production set? You now have something to teach people how to avoid. 
5. There is no reason in 2012 to do things you hate. 
6. If you for even one second don’t believe in what you’re doing - you have to get out.
7. If you think you can do X on your own and don’t want to slow down - put up or shutup. 
8. If you have to ask, “Is this entitled?” and “Is this arrogant?”… don’t worry it is. It’s also exactly what you know the truth to be. Go with it. Be authentic. 
9. If a bigger idea loses to a boring, practical, and safe one - Run. Take it with you. Forget shoes. 
10. If you want to take on a challenge, you are ready for it.
11. Stop believing that everyone can do everything better then you.
12. If you don’t like your job have the courage to quit.
13. You won’t quit. You’ll stare at inspirational posters, and say to yourself, “Am I a functional grownup, yet?” 
14. Forgive yourself. 
15. Go to old people for honest advice. George Lois gives us permission to love design and be honest. 
16. According to our Stepmomish, grownups don’t get much more functional after 20. This came as a shock. 
17. Professionalism is not the same thing as ignoring the truth.
18. Stop looking for love. You don’t have a clue what you’re looking for.  
19. People have exactly what they want in life. 
20. People are listening. They just can’t always show that they’ve let another person inside their head/heart combo platter.
21. It’s very hard to give your friends job advice. Who is qualified to give you career advice? Your friends. They watch you run around in circles. 
22. If you can listen to people when they tell you hard stuff - they’ll remember. If you don’t want to listen just once - they’ll remember that forever.
23. Real women can laugh at themselves.
24. Real women sweat, tell jokes that aren’t funny, and sometimes we can be snarky. The thing about angels is that they sit on clouds all day. 
25. Trust that people are well meaning no matter what happened in the past. This is one of the hardest things we all have to do everyday. 
26. Do not ever let anyone tell you to think smaller.
27. Life is what happens when we are making other plans. If you deviate from your path go ahead and climb back. 
28. Real women let things go. Women need to support each other more so we can learn from each other.
29. You can’t be someone else’s version of yourself.
30. Stay hungry, stay foolish.
31. Looking into the face of death, things fall into perspective. 
32. Wear your glasses. Try not to butcher the English language. Be more of a writer by living large. 

1) Develop Your Brand Voice - A company Pinterest board adds more then just a playful link to your website. Letting staff pin the things they love develops more authenticity and voice. Any addition of authenticity and voice is what separates you from other brands.

By selecting images that define your brand you develop a much clearer definition of who you are as a business. Develop deeper connections with your customers. Customers love to go behind the scenes of brands and find out more about their day to day. If someone you love or a brand you love recommends a particular product: the odds are that you’ll gladly purchase it. 

2) Create the Feeling of Scarcity - Every style lover will tell you two things. They want that unique item that looks the best. They also want it first.

As a search tool for awesome clothing, Pinterest allows people to do the work of a stylist sorting through the monstrous Internet for the best looks. Sorting through the Internet has replaced baseball as the national pastime.

The draw back to Pinterest is that consumers immediately locate clothing from different seasons and even other years. If you discontinue a product it probably still lives on Pinterest. Brands need to be prepared for customers to pin older looks that may be out of stock or lead to dead links. What’s the benefit of this seemingly unorganized message?

If your brand has key items that you are focusing on for a particular season: get them on Pinterest when you are stocked and ready to go. Don’t let great products lead to dead links. To a trend lover nothing feels better then finding a limited style first. 

3) Recognize Great Work by Your Customers: Pinterest is a great research tool for people who love to cook. If you need ideas for great dishes there’s only a million beautiful photographs of pasta dishes to flip through. The site may grow to be the world’s largest inspirational recipe collective. The baked good image collection is endless.  If Williams-Sanoma gave a home cook a compliment by re-pinning a particular homemade dish it would equate to a customer for life. Imagine your mom landing an image on the cover of their catalog? That’s a great potential contest idea. 

4) Go from Legal to Aspirational: Many brands have a lengthy approval processes for getting marketing copy out the door. For some brands everything they say is watched by legal, medical, regulatory, and even the government. If copy is a concern move to more image based and aspirational marketing

Ideas: Medicines could share pictures of gardens and do-it yourself projects to inspire. Credit card brands should be setup to allow customers to pin every reward available by using a particular card. Airlines should allow customers to pin how far they can get with a particular level of accumulated miles. If you’re stuck on technicalities almost any brand can recommend a trip to a beautiful beach.

5) Share Your Art:  Illustrators have a tremendous voice on Pinterest not seen elsewhere. When we are looking for an illustrator it’s highly likely we will find them through Pinterest. No matter your craft, great eye candy always rewarded.

If you want to readily be able to clip great ideas to Pinterest and build boards grab this free tool. 

Have you been apartment hunting recently in New York? It’s an infamous adventure that you have to experience to believe. We are filled with ideas on how to improve this process. Complete strangers probe through your financials, judge you, and try to determine where you fit in this complicated web of landlords. When you find an apartment  you love you race with cash and checks in hand around the city to secure a deal. 

Before you can have the apartment the previous tenant will most likely suggest you buy their old IKEA bed and easy 123 kitchen table. I always enjoy telling total strangers to, “uh no clean and take it with you.”

Apartment brokers would have a better reputation if you could find a great one on any social media site. If you search, “Apartment hunting NYC” on Twitter all you discover are sob stories. 

“You’ll never find an apartment with a bathtub!” That’s what I heard from a Manhattan apartment broker two weeks before I found a brand new apartment with a brand new bathtub. I asked to see a building with an elevator and immediately we headed to an apartment on the sixth floor with no elevator. I imagined the takeout delivery guy refusing to come to my apartment let alone friends.

I finally found an apartment I loved after firing multiple brokers. The first broker tried to conduct financial transactions via text message. “1 Bedroom, 1 bath, $1,800 yes or no?” Well maybe…where is it?

The second broker offered to wave his fee for sexual favors. The third broker showed an apartment with the tenant home and I had to,”Oooh and Aaah,” when what I really wanted to say was, “Lady, clean your tub. So gross”

I finally sat in the fourth broker’s office printing out my entire life history. As I scrambled to print out my financials, my broker found a dead mouse on the floor. That’s apartment hunting in New York City. Sexual favors vs. rodents. 

We are hard pressed to find one active broker in New York City using Twitter to connect with potential clients. 

To be credible in the field of showing homes let people know something about yourself in advance. If you have no social media presence it makes people think you live in a hidden cave with dinosaurs. Don’t be without a strong social media identity. This means putting up a normal photograph of yourself (not all suited up for class picture day) and sharing why you are more human then every other person in your business. Join Twitter and start connecting.