YES! I work for Fast Fixin’

I have talked about this in the past but we have so many new people on ConsumerQueen now that I wanted to share this info again.  Not only do I run my blog and take care of my family but I have a full time job working for Advance Pierre,you know them as Fast Fixin‘.  For years I posted about Fast Fixin' products on my blog.  I loved the food and I loved all the consumer promotions they were doing.  I contacted them because they were local and met them in person when I won one of their contests for a free microwave!  We instantly connected.  Several months later they offered me a job, but I turned them down.  I wasn't ready to become a working mom just yet. God must have had other ideas because just a few weeks later we came to terms that Daniel would no longer be able to work due to his degenerative disease.  It just so happened Fast Fixin' sent me an email that week and said we are getting ready to put an ad in the paper and we just wanted to let you know.  I went in for the interview and got the job.

I started in customer service answering phones where I found  new respect for customer service people. PEOPLE ARE CRAZY!  Let's just say there are a lot of people out there who must forget to take their meds lol. I started sharing with them what I did on ConsumerQueen.com and asking why we did not have a presence in social media. They never really thought about it. They mostly focused on push marketing instead of pull. I told them it was free and that I would like to try a few things. So with a little bit of encouragement from the Queen I was soon doing both customer service as well as social media. After sharing the attention we were getting on social media, I was soon promoted to Internet Marketing Manager and left the customer service line job behind (although I still handle escalations). I am so excited about all the promotions we are doing this year. While I still miss being just a mom very much, I am still hopeful that I may work from home for them one day.  I feel like Daniel is only getting worse and there are days when I want to be there for him because he doesn't even want to get out of bed. I guess I have a lot of guilt there but you gotta have money to live on right?

One of the best things I love about this company is how we compare nutritionally to other brands. Did you know that Fast Fixin' chicken nuggets have more calcium than a glass of milk?  I have learned that “all natural” on a package doesn't necessarily mean all natural. I have learned terms like what fritter means and what things I should look for when buying products on the shelf. Honestly, as a mom I felt pretty stupid that I let companies dupe me like that. Thanks to Fast Fixin' I have decided to start a new section on my blog called “Smart Mom Picks” . This will compare products and also give you terminology to look for. There are so many things I have learned about what brands go through just to get their product on store shelves, following USDA standards and how to bring a value to consumers while insuring they have a quality product.  I have had to humble myself as a consumer and rethink what I really expect from a brand. I must admit as a consumer I have pointed my finger a few times but now come to realize how much we as consumers think is owed to us. We have become a nation of me me me and high expectations but that could be a whole other blog post. I love the roll that I play here. I get to learn the business side of things all the while I am keeping them on their toes about what consumers really want and how they think. I have learned that I can be very honest with them about anything they are working on and they listen. I HAVE A VOICE. I can also be honest with my readers when posting their promotions because it was a company that I believed in and wrote about before even coming to work here.

We merged this year with 2 companies and that's when we became Advance Pierre. Our motto for our sales meeting this year was “Winning Together”. They asked me if I could put together a video that would open up the meeting and set the tone, of course using the theme. I had so much fun with this project, some of the pictures may be a little fuzzy but that is because we wanted to try and include as many people as possible and those are the only photos we had. I asked my boss if we she wouldn't mind letting me share it. I am so excited to see what this new adventure will take me in 2011. Take a look at it and let me know what you think.