Archive for March, 2007
Could it possibly be that the arrival of Spring has me feeling better, feeling at peace? I don’t know, but I’ll take it. Business is booming and we’re selling our personalized baby blankets in boutiques. We have a large order of our graphic baby tees and onesies to ship at the end of the week, and we’re working on new designs. It’s been a long time coming. Now, the key is to keep the momentum.
I’ve given up on the lost package. Someone has that darn thing sitting in their living room, I just know it. It was for a big celebrity and someone at that post office knew it. But, the cool thing is that I found better one-of-a-kind fabrics closer to the requested color scheme than I found before; so I’m going to be happier with the end result. For whatever reason, *those* one-of-a-kind blankets weren’t THE ones she was supposed to receive. What is exciting is that this isn’t just us shooting these blankets out to a celebrity in the hopes she’ll receive them; these blankets were hand-selected by her personal assistant as THE newborn gift she wants to give. That means a lot and that’s why it’s worth it for us to do them over. Sometimes, “do overs” are nice.
Now that we’ve completed some orders, it’s important that we keep the sales process rolling. You have to keep stuff in the pipeline all the time. This is why I’m trying to make 10 contacts a day. I didn’t meet my goals last week, but I made more contacts than I made the previous weeks, so the plan is working in that respect. The more boutiques we can get these blankets into, the more residual sales we’re going to have. The fact that a boutique can sell unlimited blankets from one display blanket means that we’ll be selling unlimited blankets through those boutiques too.
Today is a day for re-grouping, admin tasks, and prepping for a great week. I want to hit the ground running manana and feel like I’m prepared for it. That’s the best possible way to start a week. Getting more and more organized by the day will help me hit the ground running.
March 25th, 2007
I’m trying to keep from spreading ourselves too thin. Just as our personalized blankets start rolling I’m off and running with other things. But I need to reel myself in. The blankets are rolling, keep them rolling. We have a good thing going and we’ve finally almost worked through all of the kinks.
I shipped display kits to three different states yesterday! YES!!! This is a big thing for us. This is an exciting thing for us. And I feel good about the kit that we’ve put together, we’ve covered all of the bases, from the redemption brochures to a FAQ sheet.
We have our blankets in one of the hottest San Diego boutiques and I stopped in last week to give them updated brochures. Our blankets had been in the store for a week and she sold one right before I walked in. Which was exciting, and which had raised questions for the boutique. Good questions, because we can now come up for a solution for something we hadn’t thought of on our own.
A friend of mine is considering entering the pet industry and was asking me if I thought it’d be better for her to go through the development of a niche product or just start with graphics on ready-made products. Niche, niche, niche.
I recently heard from friends and family how disappointed they were in me for switching from baby clothing (my first idea behind starting the business) to blankets. They never asked me why I did it, only told me just recently THEY didn’t think it was a good decision on my part.
If they had asked me, they would have known there was a grand plan behind it. That by doing something so niche and so unique, I had a better chance of standing out and getting shelf-space in boutiques. Once I have a relationship with the boutiques, it’s going to be easier to get our clothing line in; rather than competing right off the bat with everyone else.
This isn’t to say, at all, that if you’re doing clothing, you’re not doing something niche. Niche can come down to the style of clothing you’re offering. But I do strongly believe that you have to STAND OUT, you have to offer something unique that the “big boys” aren’t already offering.
Getting the manufacturing process for our personalized blankets figured out was an incredibly lengthy and painful process. There is no such thing as “mass manufacturing” because each name has to have a unique placement on the blanket, based on size of letters and length of name. Not only that, but the blanket has to be assembled after the hand-applique is done, because it is backed and bordered with the same cotton print as the appliqued name. We can not buy a pre-made blanket and hand-applique because I would not be happy with the stitching showing through on the back.
The niche will pay off, and is paying off, because these products are really really unique. This is paying off in a lot of free press for us (without me pitching it yet) and the press is making it easy to get into boutiques. Not to mention building my confidence. And the plan is working, we’re now selling our graphic tees to boutiques who first purchased the blankets. We’ve built trust with them, and the unique, fabulous style is representative of our brand.
Consider what your niche is and focus on building that before spreading yourself too thin. Of course, you might have to experiment a little to figure out what your niche will be, but finding a niche will give you a fighting chance.
March 24th, 2007
It seems like I get so caught up in our manufacturing processes that I rarely touch on the online boutique startup process. Oh my, oh my. After we went through hell and got ripped off by developers -if anybody ever comes across Hand Crafted Webs or the Yellow-Llama, run fast and run far – they will rip you off. They can talk a good talk, but they don’t do anything to back it up. They can do a decent mock-up in Photoshop and get you thinking everything will be grand, but they won’t go beyond that. I will write this story completely in another post, because I’ve promised many people I would do so, and because I have a ton of emails to back it up; and because I know when I do my post on them, it will show up in searches and hopefully save many others.
Let me suffice it to say that their last email to me was requesting a contact address so they could send some legal papers to us; it’s been months and they are apparently incapable of performing a search online for our contact information, or simply locating the contact information provided on our website. I’d laugh if we hadn’t been totally and completely ripped off. But, right, the story is for another post. This is about getting the website up and running.
We were stuck with the crappy design that Hand Crafted Webs had left us with (they took our existing store offline and never got one back up, only a blog), out a lot of money, and felt really stuck-in-the-mud. My lessons that I learned were:
- Don’t depend too much on a referral, still do a thorough background check and review of current and past work.
- If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is (no matter how many times I’ve heard that, it took a real-life experience to fully “get it”).
- Be weary about working with foreign companies, where you’ll have little to no recourse if the deal goes sour.
So, how did we get our store up? My husband, and partner, did it himself. And once he was done with the store, he went back and re-designed the crappy blog-part and home page that we had been left with…we had heard from people that our site was difficult to navigate and it was difficult to shop. My husband finished a lot of the re-design this week and we’ve heard nothing but raves about how much better it is, how it’s now easy to shop, how it’s so much easier to tell what we do and who we are. So, I have to give my husband a zillion kudos for stepping up and taking on the task of learning HTML and PHP. He’s already amazing with graphics, but I’ve watched his graphic skills improve tenfold through the process as well.
Don’t get discouraged if it seems like it’s taking you forever to get your site up. I can tell you that if you are a designer or creative type, you’re likely to never be fully satisfied with the design. But your website should be a living document anyways, and so, keep in mind that you can keep making it better after you have it up and functioning.
Make sure you spec out the functions that you need currently and that you foresee in the future. Will you need the ability to offer wholesale prices and retail prices? Will you need the ability to shop by category, size, manufacturer, etc? how much design flexibility will you need? Will you need the ability to show multiple images for each product? Jot down every single thing you can think of that you want you website and users to be capable of, and then start researching designers and applications that will suit your needs.
In one of my upcoming posts I will talk about the value of a blog for an online boutique.
March 23rd, 2007
So, my new goal is 10 sales contacts a day. All in the name of momentmum. I didn’t get anywhere near the 10 calls yesterday, but I got out and made a great sales call. Cold call. Had business in an area of the county that we don’t have our products in yet, so I looked up baby boutiques in the area, got directions, and walked on in.
Getting ahold of the owner / buyer
On Monday, I did make 10 sales phone calls and got ahold of no owners or buyers. Left a lot of messages, but I also know I’ll have to leave a lot of messages with those people and still keep my fingers crossed that someone might return the call me back.
Which is why those boutiques will get postcards before the next round of calls. So they can see a picture and understand that when I say “Amazing hand-appliqued personalized blankets” I mean it. Also so they have a frame of reference when they hear my name and company on the next message.
On the other hand, 7 out of 10 times that I’ve waltzed into a boutique to “drop off a catalog”, I’ve run into either the owner or buyer. So, while I’ve been told to do a lot of the contacts before making the actual sales call, I’ve had better luck just going for it.
It seems that in the children’s industry, a lot of the baby boutiques are run by the owner, or at least the owners are very involved and often on-site. The cold call method wouldn’t work as well in areas that are far from me, but if I’m on the road anyways, I try to stop by boutiques that are on my way to my destination.
The see / touch / feel difference
Even when I’ve run into the owner I often get “I’m really busy can you just leave a catalog?”. I say sure, I have one blanket to show while I’m getting out the catalog and price list for you. This is usually all it takes to evoke a conversation. Once I’ve got the blanket out of my sample bag and in their hands, they can see and feel the difference and unique qualities of our products; they can see the potential for their store. I start talking – I start with the sales pitch. The value they get “Invest in one display blanket and sell endless blankets.”
Make sure that your sales pitch is intrigueing and that you know the value of your product to them. You’ll largely learn this value by getting out and listening to what the owners / buyers have to say about your stuff, what kind of questions they ask. And each sales call you complete will build your confidence; your boosted confidence will help in the next sales call.
March 21st, 2007
I’m very excited because it looks like I’m going to get to meet up with “friend” who runs Baby Nika out of Canada at the April Int’l textile show in Los Angeles. I put “friend” in quotes because we’ve never actually met in person, but we’ve exchanged a lot of emails and a few phone calls. She has decided to travel to the US because she’s sick of sourcing supplies over the internet and phone, and I’m very excited to meet her. We’ve been on the same path with our businesses from back when we didn’t even have our websites launched 
I’ve been going to this bi-annual textile show for a few years now. I definitely don’t make it up to all of them, but it is an invaluable experience every time I do. Even the first time, when I was an absolute deer in the headlights; that first time I learned so much about how the industry works. Since then, I’ve always had luck finding suppliers w/ low minimums that are willing to work with small design companies.
I have the advantage of proximity, being only a hundred miles away from Los Angeles, but I highly recommend it to anyone who can make the trip. My favorite part is the trends display they have in the lobby. It’s a great overview of the upcoming season’s colors and trends in textiles. It’s also a great launching point to start your day at the show. You can cruise around the tables and make notes of which suppliers carry the fabrics that are catching your attention. These notes can at least give you some basis of where to start.
Then it’s up to the show floor, and when you step out, it’s overwhelming. There are usually wide open halls full of booths and then rooms full of vendors as well. It always helps me to just walk it once. I learned at the KIDshow that everyone has different buying habits. I’m one who likes to walk it and get my bearings. On the first walk around, I will drop in on existing suppliers or companies that I’m already familiar with. Once I’ve done the first walk, I’ll go back and visit the booths that really caught my attention, in addition to any of the booths I want to visit based on my notes from the trends section.
It’s funny, at my first show, I was afraid to ask about minimums because I didn’t want to scream “Newbie” to everyone I met (I did anyways LOL). Now, if I stop in and see a fabric I like, my first two questions are price and minimums. These are the most immediate qualifiers for me. And if they are high, I now have no problem saying we’re relatively new and the minimums are out of our range. Trust me, the vendors appreciate that you’re not wasting their time either. If I really like the fabric, I’ll take their card and make note that I’d like to check them out again when we’re bigger.
The Textile Show is from April 16 – 18. If you follow the link, all of the pictures on the home page are taken in the trend & forcasting area in the lobby.
Also, if any of you out there are looking for suppliers with low minimums, I can point you to some for a wide variety of fabrics from plush micro-fibers to cottons. So feel free to contact me, at the very least I can copy pages from show directory. I can be reached at info@babyfabulous.com.
March 20th, 2007
I love to come across real-life stories of people who’ve gone through starting a fashion line from the ground up. This page highlights one such (women’s wear) designer, the founder of Grey Ant, Grant Krajecki. I find it so refreshing to read parts of other’s start up stories such as this excerpt:
“I took my line to a store on Melrose and landed my first order. I was sewing all the pieces myself. Then more orders started coming in. It was too much for one person.”
Everybody starts small, something that’s a BIG thing to remember when you’re throwing your hat in the ring at trade shows and publicity events where you’re surrounded by the bigger guys. Plus, think of all that you know about your business by doing it from the ground up, by hands-on experience of all the painful processes it takes to create your own fashion line. You have greater respect for the employees that follow you and a greater respect for how much your business depends on them.
March 19th, 2007
I’ve had this topic come up a few times in a few different conversations – the fear of getting out and selling your own product. I can tell you 100% for sure that my own fear of selling held my business back. And of course, once I did it, got the first boutique sales call over with , I realized that it really isn’t THAT bad at all. I’ve since had a few learning experiences, can tell you I have definitely said the wrong thing at the wrong time, but chalk it up to learning and move on.
I get all this stuff going in my head and what I’ve found is that it’s best if I chill out and make it just a conversation instead of a presentation. And what I really have to learn to do more and more is talk less, listen more. Each time I complete a sales call, I feel a little more confident.
And no, not everybody has loved my stuff. But this is an easy one to solve in your head because it just takes one look around to see how many different styles and tastes there are out there. Not everybody is going to like my non-traditional stuff. The one who really didn’t care for my designs had a very traditional store – a whole heck of a lot of light pink.
This gets into qualifying your sales leads and calls, but all in due time. All in due time. It’s just good for me to be getting out there and making the sales calls. It’s incredibly good to hear the feedback first-hand from the people who face the customers all day.
One more thing I’ve learned quickly is that almost everyone will have a “if you could design it this way” or “you should do this” or “you should make one of these”. Well, after concenting to one custom request for a boutique, I’ll think long and hard about doing that again. It’d have to be really really worth it. The reality is if they think an idea is so great, they are more than welcome to go off and create it themselves. This isn’t to say don’t listen to their requests, because it’s invaluable feedback on what type of stuff they like, and even if you don’t have something along those lines right now, you might in the future; and then you have a very targeted sales call to make.
What started this whole post was my brother recommending an article in Inc. Magazine that has to do with entrepreneur’s learning to sell when they don’t see themselves as, or don’t want to be, a salesman. My brother just made a valiant leap into sales, which believe me, if he can do it, anybody can. And remember too, just by our very entrepreneurial nature, we’re used to pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zones. I strongly recommend to entrepreneurs that you just get out and get the first one out of the way. Definitely don’t go to your favorite boutique first, or the boutique you want your products in the most; pick a random one and go for it.
Here’s a link to the article in Inc., on tackling a fear of sales – I’m sure you’ll find some of it insightful.
March 18th, 2007
Good morning, good morning, good morning. Man, this has been a tough month for me (wait, is it only the middle of the month? yikes). And it all comes down to being disorganized. And then getting overwhelmed because I’m disorganized. Even yesterday, I lost yet another important paper. OK, OK, enough slaps in the face to get organized. I get it.
My how overwhelmed you can get as a small business owner. Sometimes it just feels like total insanity, like you’re going a hundred miles an hour and getting nowhere. There are so many things I want to do with, and for, the business and I think the hardest lesson for me to learn is all in due time.
I somehow need to take a step back and re-evaluate everything. Especially our marketing and advertising plan. I thought I had a plan, till I got into it and realized how much I don’t know about the whole thing. Now, I want to sit down and make a real plan, now that I’ve floundered around in the murky waters for awhile.
I do already know that I’m going to start though with 10 sales contacts a day. This can be touching base with existing customers, pitching new customers, dropping ad postcards in the mail, it doesn’t matter. But I need to make the 10 contacts a day. I need to focus specifically on getting customers, which means I need to chink away at the seven impressions it takes for someone to buy. And to do this, the marketing and advertising has to be very targeted and managed.
Right now, I feel like we’ve tried a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and really, it’s just too scattered in this big big world. Yes, we need to create a brand image, but we need to grow the brand through getting customers. I dropped a couple of display blankets in a very popular boutique yesterday and this exposure is going to be huge. Better than some random ads on some random kids sites.
So, at least now I feel like a woman with a mission. When I say it’s been a tough month, I’m not kidding. Tough business-wise and emotionally because of it. I’m so far into this business and here we are, finally launched and finally getting good press and finally getting business and I feel like crumbling. Because it isn’t as much business coming in as I would have liked by this time, and it’s stressful. But getting down to crumbling made me re-evaluate what’s going on and how much it comes down to me being reticent to go out and get the sales.
So, making 10 contacts a day, getting organized, and focusing on revenue-increasing activities ONLY during business hours is going to make a huge difference, and will put the pieces of Amber back together again.
March 18th, 2007
How flattering! I’ve been tagged by Design Loft..a great blog worth checking out (click here).So, here’s how it works:
- Someone tags you
- You post five things about yourself that you haven’t already mentioned on your blog
- You tag 5 people you’d like to know more about
Here’s five things about me that I haven’t previously written:
- I’m a poet. If I really had real guts, I’d throw all caution to the wind to go after a songwriting career.
- It took me four semesters to pass college alegebra. I soared through pre-calculus in high school, but couldn’t get through college alegebra to save my life.
- I moved around a lot as a kid; everytime my parents got sick of a place, we’d move on. I’m used to being the new girl at school.
- I’ve been married for almost 9 years. My friends were so unsupportive of my decision to marry that I kicked them out of my wedding and had bridesmen instead of bridesmaids.
- My husband and I knew eachother in grade school – 6th grade to be specific; and only that year, because, (big guess here), my family moved on. We re-met and married years later. In one of our moves, we found our 6th grade yearbook, where we had declared our dream careers:
- Me: ‘Fashion Designer”
- Husband: “Graphic Designer”
My husband is our website designer and silkscreen graphics designer; I design the fashion collection. How’s that for the power of visualization?
So – that’s a bunch of stuff that I never write about, just random notes from my life. Now, I tag the following people:
reinventionrevolution.com; remembertobreathecenter.com; fashion-incubator.com;
March 17th, 2007
I can’t believe this. A really big shipment is lost. Big because it was for someone special and all indications are that the package was delivered, the next morning even. But now, it’s a week later and there’s been no sign of this package by the recipient. And we did extra special things for the shipment too. This is the first time this has happened to us. All I can do is keep my fingers crossed that it miraculously shows up somehow.
I actually took pictures of these products, which is a minor plus. But STILL. I was working up to the last second, flew out the door to the post office, and did everything I could to get this package to its destination quick. And it never arrived. I’m just heart-broken about this.
Oh well. I have to start over – completely, because what’s the biggest kicker? These were special request CUSTOM-designed blankets, so I’m back to the drawing board, back to the very beginning of selecting new fabrics. We have a satisfaction guarantee, so I’m just out on this one. Does this make me get signature confirmation from now on?
Somebody has those beautiful blankets, somebody does. Come on, show up somewhere, show up somewhere, show up somewhere.
This month has been all about losing all the most important things, from checks to tax papers and now this lost-package nightmare. And honestly, these blankets were about the most exciting shipment for us to date. What the heck kind of luck is that?
March 13th, 2007
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