By Christine Syquia

Table of Contents

How Christine Syquia Started a Multi-Million Dollar Handbag Company 1

How to Choose a Company Name 4

What Goes Into A Business Plan: Outlining Your Goals vs. Crunching Numbers? 7

How We Had our First Product Manufactured in China 10

How To Reduce Common Mistakes With New Customer Orders 13

What You Need To Know Before Manufacturing Your First Product 16

How Much Money Do You Need To Start Your Own Product Based Business? 19

How To Source Quality Raw Materials For Physical Products 22

Trade Show Checklist: How To Successfully Sell Your Product At Trade Shows 25

How We Grew Our Fashion Accessories Business To Over A Million Dollars In Sales 29

5 Money-Making Reasons to Have an E-Commerce Site 32

What Values do you Use to Measure Business Success 36

8 Low Cost Tips To Increase Your Publicity In The Fashion Industry 39

Biography 42

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How Christine Syquia Started a Multi-Million Dollar Handbag Company

Eight years ago, my sister and I began a journey which took us around the globe many times over and catapulted our product into the hands of many devoted fans. This is my story about my company and the invaluable lessons I learned along the way.

My name is Christine and I was the co-owner of a handbag company called charm and luck. My sister Jenny and I owned the company and in our official titles, she was the Designer and I was the Sales Director. Once we started growing and had a staff, I would privately refer to myself as the ‘babysitter’, but more on that in later posts.

Both of us had backgrounds in fashion. I worked in management for Nordstrom while I put myself through college. My sister took a job at Vogue Magazine after she graduated from college.

While working at Nordstrom, I felt as if my life was literally passing me by. It was mandatory that all management had to sell, so I would spend the majority of my time on the sales floor interacting with customers and overseeing my sales team. I was envious of the freedom of the customers who would breeze in and out of the store on a weekday afternoon. I could not stomach the thought that I could possibly spend my entire career working for one company.

Starting a Business

I always had wanted to have my own business so I could have the freedom to do whatever I wanted. From time to time, I would look into various opportunities – flipping real estate, buying a franchise, consulting – but ultimately they did not appeal to me for one reason or another.

It was during a trip to the Philippines that I began to think about importing to the US as I saw many handicrafts that were made and sold for pennies. I mentioned it to my sister Jenny, and soon after we decided to start our own business.

We chose to work with accessories because their fit is universal. Clothes need to be graded and the minimums per size can be high. Shoes are difficult and risky since they require experience to get the fit correct. With accessories, any woman can throw a purse over her shoulder, look in a mirror, and decide if she likes it or not. And it was a good time to enter the accessories market; when we started, the accessories market was enjoying double-digit growth increases year after year.

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We picked a company name and were off and running. Our initial business plan included our major goals but we did not do profit projections because I personally felt that was a waste of time. We both knew where we wanted to be, but writing down on a piece of paper that we wanted to make $250K in Year 1 felt futile to me as mere speculation.

My partner and I were very clear on one thing: we wanted the company to make money so we could have financial freedom. We were devoted to doing whatever it took to get us to the next level, and that is part of the reason the company was successful. We sacrificed personally to see our company grow.

Business Mantras

• As the company expanded, I would often see individuals or companies who were struggling to get off the ground. My general business mantras included the following:

Action Attracts Action

• Even if your business plan is not ready, or your bio is not perfect, or your blog needs work, that does not mean you shouldn’t launch your company. I see many individuals who want to start their companies but hold back because their plans are not perfect. Things will never be perfect. During our first three years, we changed our logo three times. We re-did our website four times. We kept changing and improving when we had the funds and time to do so. But in the beginning, we knew we needed to get out there and get our company off the ground, so we hit the ground running. Many times we figured things out along the way.

Course Correct If You Need To

• Do not be overly focused on doing a task one way. Often when running a business, a new technique, program or product will come up which can help you. Always listen and, if need be, change your course. If it can save you time, money or get you more sales, then try it out. I have observed many a business owner who is so rigid and not open to new ideas that it ultimately hurts them.

• An example of us course correcting was a particular trade show in Boston. After I arrived and set up our booth, I realized that it was not the show for us to do. Unfortunately I was booked to work at that trade show for a week straight. I felt like I was back at my old management job with time passing me by.My partner called with

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news of a great opportunity to meet with a major buyer in New York immediately. I course corrected by paying my neighbor at the trade show to watch my booth and left for NY for a couple of days.Now, that is not something I recommend you do but I saw the opportunity for something I knew could be huge for us and I took it. I could have stayed at that dinky trade show and maybe made a couple hundred dollars or maybe a thousand. Who knows? But by going to NY, I sealed the deal of getting us into a major department store with locations throughout the US.

Research Your Competitors

• This is something a lot of new companies do not do. You need to figure out who your competition is and what they are doing. Business plans always look at the top three or five competitors, but I urge you to take a hard look at your top twenty competitors. Look at their distribution, their branding, their website, their customers and especially their sales funnels. Do your research online and see what keywords pop up for the website and see how many hits they get monthly from Alexa. We always checked out our handbag competitors to see who was buying their product, which sales reps were repping them, who their publicists were, etc. This type of research was invaluable as we were able to model the processes that other larger companies had in place to help us with our growth strategies.

Starting a business can be the most rewarding thing you will ever do in your life. It can also be the biggest mistake. I would urge you to really examine your life, personality and most importantly, your work ethic and be real with yourself to see if you are truly up for the task.

It requires an enormous amount of effort, discipline and self-motivation to be your own boss. But, as I wrote, for me it was the most amazing experience as I was able to visit places, meet people that I would not have met and ultimately, grew personally in ways I would never have dreamed of. This would not have happened if I had stayed on my management career path.

Next I will be writing on how we chose our company name and the adventure I went on to have our first products made.

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How to Choose a Company Name

A little charm and luck

In starting a new company, deciding on a company name is the most important thing you will do to establish your brand, its identity and everything the company stands for. Don’t be careless in choosing a company name; the name will convey the story that differentiates you from competitors and will be the emotional pull that customers feel about you and your product.

Charm and luck was the name of our handbag company and I was asked daily how the name came to be. People had a lot of different theories. Did my partner represent luck and me charm, or vice versa? Did it represent something deeper?

Actually the real story behind the name was pretty prosaic, so we would be slightly evasive when people asked us about the origins. In fact, the name was inspired by my partner’s favorite cereal: Lucky Charms. Reverse that and you get charm and lucky. Lucky is too reminiscent of the Lucky Denim brand, and so we settled on charm and luck. With our logo of a heart and a four-leaf clover and bright colors of pink and green, we had a simple, catchy, memorable name with eye-catching colors.

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Eventually our company name and logo moved into every aspect of the business. The name was not only emblazoned on all of our company information, but we had custom lining made up for our products, we made the logo into a big buckle which adorned some of the purses and the hearts and shamrocks were cast into small metal pieces and adorned the bags. We used our logo on everything and it really defined our brand.

What Makes A Great Company Name?

Your company name signifies everything your company stands for and your brand strategy. Does it reflect your playfulness? Or should it be serious? Is it a tongue twister?

A great company name forces people to pause and it should be memorable. For instance, is it a name that people remember a day later or ponder its origins throughout the day because it was a play on words? A few memorable brand names in my opinion are Chi by Carlos Falchi (Carlos Falchi is a handbag designer and Chi is his lower-priced diffusion line), The Royal Bank of McD (a branding firm by John McDavid Lehman III), Society for Rational Dress (a women’s clothing line) or the store Opening Ceremony. Those are all smaller brands, not the huge obvious brands that we know and love such as Nike, Google, Yahoo, etc.

A name should be different, yet familiar. charm and luck achieved that with our name which evoked a favorite cereal and was fun and sassy. My consulting company, Accessory Business 101, is a simple reference to the basic ‘101’ courses offered in college. The name of this blog speaks to the trials and tribulations that entrepreneurs experience in their Entrepreneur’s Journey.

To come up with your company name, start brainstorming by listing the emotions you want people to feel when hearing your name. From there, pull out related words and phrases, say them out loud, and write them in different variations to test them out. Check a thesaurus for similar words. Play around with your ideas. Walk away from the project for a little bit and see if anything else pops into your head. I always take a break from my writing projects or anything else that I get stumped on. Take a walk or come back to it the next day. I guarantee you that you will have more clarity on the project.

Consider what the visual identity would be for your possible company names. Does the name lend itself easily to a logo or graphic design or even an evocative font? If you like the sound of the name and can picture it as a package with a possible logo or typeface, then you might have a real possibility.

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Think about how your target market would react to your company name. Are you aiming at teens, young professionals, budget-oriented parents, or an older, more affluent crowd? For example, charm and luck is young, fun, and feminine. The clothing brand Façonnable is clearly European and can appeal to a more sophisticated, older shopper.

Eliminate the names you don’t love or that don’t stir an emotion from you. Then share your short list with a friend or colleague that you respect to get their honest feedback.

Some Tips To Keep In Mind

Avoid generic names. Jenny’s Hair Salon or Pete’s Bar are just not memorable enough. Even Pete’s Speakeasy or Pete’s Watering Hole would be a simple variation to distinguish you and convey a sense of the atmosphere you want to create.

In general, I would also avoid geographical names such as Poughkeepsie Pizzeria. You never know when your company will expand and if the name is not bound by a geographical locale, expansion will be easier. Don’t restrict yourself. If you want to grow your company to be a national brand, avoid using a city or state in the brand name.

Once you have narrowed down the company name to two or three options, you will need to do some research. Check the internet to make sure there is not another company out there with the same name. Do a search for URLs to see if your company name is available, preferably with a .com ending. Investigate the trademark to make sure nobody else has your name. If you are in the US, check with the United States Patent and Trade Office or go to www.uspto.gov. All of these preliminary moves take a little bit of time, but are critical steps to take. Your company will lose time, money, and brand identity if another company pops out of nowhere with the same name. Sadly, I actually hear of this a lot from my clients.

In the end, hopefully you will have a couple of names which pass your criteria. When reviewing the possible final company names, recall your original tests for the names-

Which name accurately conveys what the company will stand for?

Many entrepreneurs will go with the name that feels right. Some entrepreneurs will conduct a survey or have friends or colleagues do informal voting. Whichever name you decide to go with, start promoting it with gusto. This is the first step in building your brand’s identity.

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What Goes Into A Business Plan: Outlining Your Goals vs. Crunching Numbers?

For your average start-up, the thought of sitting down to write a business plan can be overwhelming. Business 101 books suggest writing a business plan before embarking on any business course. How are you going to get to your destination if you don’t know how to get there? I completely agree with this popular saying, but knew that when I wrote our business plan, I would not be following the traditional outlines.

No matter your approach, the act of writing a business plan takes discipline. As a consultant, if I had a nickel for every time somebody told me they wanted to start a new business and were working on a plan, only to find out six months later that nothing had happened, I would be a millionaire!

It is so easy to become overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. I saw this firsthand when a boyfriend was approached by a well-known athlete who wanted to fund his design business and requested that he write a business plan. My boyfriend would come every night and pull out his notebook. He would jot down a few notes and stare at the page… and stare at the page. Eventually, he would go and turn on the TV and zone out. He didn’t know where to start and would just give up!

I have written more than my share of business plans and I definitely have a strategy to completing them. However, although this has worked for me, your business consultant will probably not agree with my advice. So take it with a grain of salt.

My Business Plan

When we wrote our business plan for charm and luck, our accessory company, we did not delve as deeply into the financials as many plans do. We used our business plan as more of a roadmap and goal setting exercise versus a business document to submit to a bank. We set out our goals and they included getting into various magazines especially the very popular US Weekly, being selected for QVC or HSN, selling $5 million in sales, and going on Oprah. We achieved every goal we wanted except for Oprah.

I knew that if I were to labor over the financials, especially the projections for each year, I would be stuck. Instead I approached writing the plan and completing the financials as goals – merely an outline – and expected to change the plan as we went along.

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Why would I base an entire plan off a target I might not achieve? What if I based my numbers assuming I would get into a major department store but they did not like our product? One of my good friends is working on her children’s product line, and she plans to grow her business to be in 1,000 stores next year, an ambitious goal. If she misses her target, she will have labored over her business plan and projections, and only have to recalculate them.

In my first blog post, I suggested course correcting when necessary. When writing a business plan with the financials included, you will likely have to switch gears.

What Goes Into A Business Plan?

A typical business plan often has these components:

Executive Summary: The background of the principles and their unique talents that they bring to the business.

Market Analysis: A review of the reason why this business has a chance, why there is a void in the market, and how this business will excel.

Company Description: The company name, mission, and identity. What kind of business entity will the company be, where will it be located, and what kind of services will it sell or offer.

Marketing and Sales Management: How the company will sell its product, and how will the product or services be marketed.

Funding Request: If requesting funding, then this section would list what type of financing you would like or what type of equity stake partnership would be agreeable to you.

Financial: The financial section is where you list the projections for Year 1-5, along with the monetary investment supplied by your partners.

As I stated earlier, in this section I outlined our financial goals – but I did not do the cash flow exercise of putting in our rent, utilities, press outreach, or marketing costs because I didn’t know when I would need to plan for that. At this point, we were working out of my home, so I did not need to account for rent and utilities. I handled all labor, press, and marketing outreach and I was not getting paid.

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Another reason I did not want to labor over the financial goals was because I was so anxious to get our company going. My partner and I were both very clear about the company motto and what our company would stand for and who our competition was, so it was easy for us to start immediately.

I did not want to write up a thirty page proposal with market analysis over various companies if the plan was only going to serve as an internal document. Years later, when we inked a partnership with a finance company in New York, we were subjected to audit after audit and had to write up various papers and statements regarding our company. If I had tried to submit our original business plan, even if done exactly as the business textbooks advise, I would still have had to re-write it entirely. Our financials and product were so different than originally anticipated, that the initial business plan would have been useless to me.

What Comes Next?

So, as I embark on a year of writing for Entrepreneurs Journey, I will recount the beginning steps of starting our wholesale business, and share with you what worked for me and what didn’t.

Writing a business plan was a good exercise for me, but it was an abridged document, and not the detailed document many people labor over. If you are approaching investors or feel you need to research out the market or your partners, then absolutely do the full business plan, financials and all. But if you have a very clear view of where your company is going, as I did, then do this goal-setting exercise and get going!

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How We Had our First Product Manufactured in China

One of the most important decisions a new company with a product to sell will make is selecting a manufacturer. While some design companies may decide to keep production local, most will choose an international factory for mass production, typically in Asia or in South America, depending on your product.

For our company, split between two continents, there was no one “local” option. I live in Los Angeles and the corporate company address for our accessory company was always in Los Angeles. My partner lived in Stockholm and so our business meetings might have taken place in New York, Los Angeles or Hong Kong. Because my partner and I lived in different countries, we decided to do our sampling and production in Hong Kong and China. Since then, I have been to China and Hong Kong more times than I can remember.

Production in China

Basing all sampling and production in China made sense given the special characteristics of our products. Our handbags had a significant amount of hardware on them; the hardware was already produced in China so it was readily available to the factories. Furthermore, our handbags often had a lot of braiding and handwork which would be too costly to have done in the US.

More money spent on labor would raise the retail price of the bag beyond our target, so we opted to do production where we knew it would be the least expensive. Although cheaper than US factories, many of the Chinese factories that we would use employed real artisans. We would spend days in the factories where the employees would weave leather in the sample room and then show us their work for our immediately approval or adjustment.

Before we came to work with these artisans, we certainly had to sift through many shoddy factories and unscrupulous businessmen. We did not have any real contacts in the manufacturing side of the industry so we had to do all of our initial research online. The website www.Alibaba.com, which connects suppliers and factories to potential customers such as my accessory company, was a major resource. We interviewed one company online through email and viewing their online catalog. After we agreed to produce samples with them, I flew to China to meet with the company.

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I distinctly remember taking the train from Hong Kong into China by myself. Standing at the Hong Kong station, I waited for an announcement of the track for the train to Guangzhou. But they never announced the track in English, so I just followed all the Americans and European businessmen and took a leap of faith that I was on the right train. I realize now how stupid that was, but really the entire trip placed me out of my comfort zone.

Here I was on a business trip to China and Hong Kong by myself. I was traveling into a Communist country by myself to meet a new supplier without an escort or translator. Luckily, I arrived safe and sound and the business meeting was fine… except that the product was horribly produced! Some might think that I did not need to go to Hong Kong to see the product personally, but when it cost us nearly $300 for a FedEx and a plane ticket cost $700, it made more sense for us to spend a little bit more to get more done. I still think of spending money on courier fees as a waste of time. I returned to Hong Kong that evening and started to work on a plan B.

Visiting Factories

Our factory visits were always timed to coincide with trade shows in Hong Kong. Walking these shows helped us meet many new suppliers. Ultimately it was a combination of online research and face-to-face meetings with potential suppliers and factories, which cemented our base of stable suppliers. Attending trade shows at the beautiful Hong Kong Convention Center was a very productive use of our time; we would be able to see most of a supplier’s line, or the new products at least, in one space rather than traveling all over the countryside in China.

Many of these companies had showrooms in Hong Kong as well as their Chinese factories so, after the trade shows, we would sit down with the suppliers we liked at their offices before committing to any sample or test orders. It was an important step for us as well as for our new potential suppliers. They were always extremely courteous and excited to have potential clients visit their offices. They always wanted to ‘do business with you.’

Get It Done

How we came to have our first products produced is another example of my general philosophy to just get out there and get it done. We knew what we wanted our product to look like so we went in search of people to make it for us. I see many entrepreneurs who invest years in R & D stages and never even get to launch their lines.

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Some of our motivation came from aggressive deadlines that we set for ourselves. We tended to book a trade show and pay for it – and then push to have the samples done in time. Of course, we built in just enough time to have samples made, but even if the finished samples were not what we wanted, we forged ahead and did not postpone. Challenges like that always moved us into overtime; we would often do our best work when up against a tight deadline. For us, it was like cramming for a final the night before!

With my first trip to China, I really had to step out of my comfort zone. I could have stayed at home and waited to have samples delivered to my doorstep. But I decided to see what else was out there and roam around in Asia sourcing. Without contacts, without a guide, but tasked with an important goal, I knew I had to find the suppliers and manufacturers who could make our designs a reality and put us on the path to being a real company. There was only so much I could do on my computer. I had to get out there and discover it on my own.

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How To Reduce Common Mistakes With New Customer Orders

The first collection that my handbag company charm and luck ever designed was gaming-themed. Inspired by my partner’s love of bridge, we created beaded bags with a variety of gaming themes – the Blackjack bag, the Four Slots bag, one shaped like a die, and so on.

Before we even did our first trade show or contacted salesrooms, I was able to secure an appointment with a Las Vegas-based chain which had many stores in casinos in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and airports throughout the United States.

I was absolutely thrilled! Just to have a buyer return your phone call sometimes is challenging and then to actually secure an appointment is amazing. I remember driving the four hour trip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and being so full of optimism.

My First Customer Appointment

I spent the night before in Las Vegas so I could be fully refreshed for my meeting. When I had the meeting, the buyer absolutely liked the bags….or so I thought.

We discussed when the bags would arrive in the stores and which doors (specific stores) would carry the bags. I distinctly remember her wanting the bags to be delivered in time for the Christmas season.

Because I knew that many large companies normally put their orders in spreadsheets with a store matrix designating the breakdown of style per store, I wasn’t worried when we didn’t discuss the quantity of bags for specific doors. I left confident that we would receive an order via email in the next couple of days.

Due to the prices of our bags, we did not want to order from the factory until we had actual orders in hand. In our initial planning stages of our company, we agreed to always work as a supplier who was “cut-to-order”. We never wanted to be sitting on a lot of stock, so even though, later on, we would sometimes pad (adding additional units) our orders, we never did projections like many larger companies.

• Larger companies ‘project’ their hot sellers and make educated guesses as to which styles the buyers will order. They buy heavily into their projections, taking the gamble that stores will buy their goods attracted by the decreased production times. With projections,

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larger companies can deliver the goods in days rather than months, because they have the goods in stock.

As my partner and I debriefed after the Las Vegas meeting, my partner asked whether we should just pre-order the goods from the factory. We did not want to appear like small fish if the buyer emailed an order on November 15th with a delivery window of December 1st – 15th, and we did not have stock ready. Our bags were very intricate and could take up to eight weeks in production time alone! It was a huge financial risk for us to pre-order the bags without a firm order from the store. However, this was an important client and we really wanted to be one of their vendors.

We both weighed the options and decided to place the order so we would be ready when the order came in. Well, the order never came in, despite my incessant attempts to follow-up with the store buyer.

I do not know what happened. Perhaps the buyer did not have the “open to buy” (money in her buying budget) dollars to buy for a holiday delivery after all, or perhaps she found another vendor with bags that she liked more. I do know that we made a huge blunder. In the excitement of thinking we had secured a large deal, we took a gamble that we would pay for for years to come. That stock sat in my office for at least a year before I sold it to an off-price retailer.

Lessons Learned

1) Never Apologize For Being The New Kid

What I learned from this mistake was to never apologize for being a new or small vendor. New vendors should never worry about being new if their company infrastructure is secure. By this, I mean you should have your website which looks professionally done, a confident staff (or intern), a reliable person or system to get goods out on time etc.

Seasoned veterans can sniff out new companies which don’t have their acts together and will know to avoid them. Besides, up and coming companies often have their fingers on the pulse of new and innovative ideas and technology.

2) Get It In Writing

This is an obvious rule but one we completely ignored. We were so anxious, or might I say desperate, for such an important buyer to write our line, that we were willing to overlook this rule.

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I had known from other vendors that generally large buyers don’t give you a paper order at meetings as it takes time to set up new vendors in their system and sometimes they have to get their orders approved by their boss.

• Buyers will often submit their orders via an Excel sheet which clearly lists the delivery date, terms of payment, shipping guidelines and the breakdown (sometimes called matrix) spelled out.

3) Don’t Fixate On One Client; Cultivate Other Customers

As with dating, there are other fish in the pond. I was so focused on this one big client who I was certain could change our fate that I neglected the other potential clients who were probably a better fit for our line. Years later we did get into Las Vegas by selling to their competitor, MGM Mirage, and our goods were in The Mirage, MGM Grand, Bellagio and a whole host of other amazing hotels. That chain store that I was initially so focused on was just a sad and distant memory.

4) Take Calculated Risks

I absolutely believe that rules are put in place for a reason. However, I can honestly say that many results we achieved with our company were a direct result of us being flexible. Ordering the product which sat around for years was a lesson well learned for us. It made me much more aware of buyers who would ‘ooh and ahh’ over our product, only to never put in an actual order from us. I was reminded of this lesson daily as I would see the cartons full of the casino bags sitting there in our warehouse.

No matter how much preparing or studying you will do, nothing will prepare you for the challenges and lessons that come up daily with your own business. You will make mistakes. This is a fact and must be accepted. However, the lessons we learned were invaluable. Believe me, we tried to avoid mistakes at all costs, but there were times that we just could not avoid them. But, as a child learns, once we made our mistake, we did not make it again.

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What You Need To Know Before Manufacturing Your First Product

To me, the most exciting part of creating and producing your own product is seeing the finished merchandise. For years almost, I had dreamed of my product and then to see it transformed into a tangible item before my eyes was very, very exciting.

Up until this point, I had cultivated a list of potential manufacturers, culled a list of suppliers I had wanted to use, worked on my branding and defined my customer message. Now I just needed to produce some products.

In dealing with suppliers I had located online, I knew I had to carefully set out a list of agreements that we both needed to abide by. I did not want to have any misunderstandings, and especially since we had to deal with language barriers and social customs, I wanted everything spelled out as clearly as possible. As we gave our first purchase order (or PO for short), we had to list the items we wanted to order as well as the terms of our agreement.

Purchase Orders

A typical purchase order will list the item you want to order from them, the units, the colors and the agreed upon purchase price. If the factory has created an original product for you, it is very helpful that you approve the product and then refer to it on your PO. For instance, Style #5501 approved sample on 2/1/11. Sometimes the factories even request that you send the sample back to them so they can refer to it during production.

It is imperative that you are clear about the delivery dates you are requesting. This is something that normally the factory will spell out to you when you start working together. They sometimes will say, “Production lead time 50 days after 50% deposit and sample confirmation”, or something to that effect. It is important to note that normally the order is confirmed once they send you a copy of their invoice and they notify you that they have received your deposit at their bank. It is not considered confirmed until after that happens. I am pointing this out because when and if your production time runs late and you try to pinpoint the delay, it will sometimes go back to the discussion of when the order is confirmed.

It goes without saying – keep a strong paper trail.

Payment Terms

A normal deposit to be paid to a factory for them to begin production is 30%. I have seen it as high as 50%. In my industry, fashion, it would be a

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30% deposit and 70% remainder to be paid before the goods are shipped.

Get An Inspection!

Generally, the factory is paid once the goods are finished but before the goods leave their factory. A factory will not release the goods to you if they have not been paid. It is precarious to work with a new factory, not have a history with them and send them a large sum of money. We were always worried that a new factory would fill a container full of rocks and send it to us in the US.

In our early days, my partner and I would always travel to the factory when the goods were supposed to be finished. We would inspect the goods ourselves to make sure they had the proper tagging, were wrapped in the correct polybags, which were then labeled with the style numbers, and then check that the carton markings were correct. I would randomly take a packing list and go through the boxes to make sure the quantities were correct.

If anything was done incorrectly, I would have it reworked or completely redone. I would always plan to spend several days at the factory if need be.

After doing that for a couple of years, my partner and I started using third-party inspection companies such as Asia Inspection or STR, and we would have them do factory inspections for us. We would ask them to do an inline inspection, which is where they check the production mid-way and report to us with detailed photos and descriptions of how the product looked. Then we would also have them do a final inspection, which they carried out when the goods were finished and packed in their cartons, but they were not sealed yet.

These inspection reports were very meticulous – sometimes 30 pages or more and listed details down to how many stitches were on each side seam and included close-up pictures of the handbags, cartons and even pictures of the managers at the factory. These reports were several hundred dollars and well worth the cost, which was much cheaper than us going to Asia.

Before We Shipped

We would always require that our goods pass inspection before they were shipped to us, and we would state that on our PO by specifying, “If the goods do not pass inspection, charm and luck reserves the right to refuse the shipment.”

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On the PO, you should very clearly spell out the shipping instructions such as “Must be loaded on the boat in HK (Hong Kong) 3/1/11.” Furthermore, if you start to work with Letters of Credits (L/C’s for short), a factory will generally not get paid until the documents (which state the goods are on the ship or loaded onto the airplane) are submitted to the issuing bank.

Invoice

An invoice states how many units were actually produced and it will reflect the deposit. It may also say when the goods have shipped or are planning to ship. Invoices can be used for customs purposes, can be sent to the bank if a letter of credit is involved and are used for internal accounting. Sometimes in international transactions, an invoice is called a pro-forma invoice.

Pack List

The other document which is an absolute necessity is a pack list, which clearly itemizes how many total units are being shipped and which colors and styles are packed in which carton. A pack list also has the dimensions of your cartons, so a freight forwarder can figure out the CBM of the shipment. CBM stands for cubic meters and it helps in determining the shipment space you need. Basically, any person who works in the warehouse or who has never seen your product should be able to look at a pack list and figure out which product is in which carton. Pack lists should be very straightforward and easy to read.

A pack list is mandatory when shipping because it not only denotes where the items are located, but it gives the freight forwarder an idea of how much space you will need.

When dealing with your first orders and shipping, read everything very carefully. If you do not understand the terms, ask. In fact, I would go over the first order with the factory very carefully regardless of whether you THINK you understand the terms. It is better to answer any questions before production starts than after the fact.

I also urge new companies who are starting production to run their contracts and purchase orders through a colleague or consultant who has experience in their field. A lot of money is at stake. Take the time to make sure all your bases are covered.

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How Much Money Do You Need To Start Your Own Product Based Business?

I am just going to come out and say it: You need money to start your own product-based business. A lot of money.

I certainly do not want to squash anyone’s dreams or dissuade them from starting their own company, but if you want to start a product-based company, you need to have money to invest in your business.

If you think conservatively you might need $25,000 USD for your business, just go ahead and double it. Have $50,000 USD liquid for your project. It is worth repeating that it is imperative that you run the numbers so you do not jump into your venture without any semblance of the financial risks.

When we started our handbag company, charm and Luck, we were fortunate that we had savings and retirement funds to pull out of. I have to preface this and say I can almost feel the financially conservative wanting to stop reading this blog post because they are probably thinking I was irresponsible. As an entrepreneur, I live with risk and almost thrive on it. We can have another discussion on whether me pulling my money out of a retirement fund was a wise move or not. Short answer: For my entrepreneurial spirit, yes, it was well worth the risk.

With a product-based business, there are so many variables that you have to take into account before you just jump in and start creating. These figures really need to be studied beforehand, so you can make sure you have enough capital to get your product out into the public before running out of money.

What Capital Is Needed Where?

Money for Setting-Up Company

• Money for the legalities of setting up a company.

• Money for business licenses, export/import licenses and any other special licenses. For instance, we imported exotic skins for handbags which needed a license per skin called a CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). We also had to have a special license that was available from the US Fish & Wildlife Service.

• Money to put in the bank when you start your business account. It might also be a wise move to put a healthy amount into the bank account, so the bank can monitor your activity and possibly give you a line of credit after a period of time.

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Money for Research and Development (R & D)

• If you are not savvy with computer rendering software, you may need to hire a designer to translate your designs into paper.

• If you are making a unique product, it will take rounds and rounds of corrections to finally have your perfect sample. Sometimes a sample maker will charge for each round of samples. Negotiate this process so you are not charged each and every time. I have seen some samples take at least ten iterations before it is even remotely close to the finished product.

• If you need to work with skilled artisans, make sure you pad this section with even more money, as you will be paying for their expertise.

• Mold fees. If you require a part or piece that the factory or sample maker does not have, you will have to pay for a custom mold fee. At least, once the mold is done, you own that and if you decide to part ways from your factory or sample maker, make sure you take the mold with you.

Money for Marketing

• Money for logo creation and website creation. • Money for business cards and other marketing outreach-postcards,

line sheets and brochures. • Money for professional photos of your product. Please do not skimp

on this. A fantastic versus a mediocre photo can be the difference between getting an appointment with a key buyer and not getting an appointment.

Money to Make Money

• Yes, you can send out solicitation emails and hit the phones hard to try and sell your product. But to have an even stronger impact, I urge my clients to do either trade shows or to travel and make one-on-one appointments with their dream retailers. I have always found that when I make the trip to meet with an important client, they pay much more attention to me because they know I have invested the time and the money to come to them. You will get their undivided attention versus trying to jockey with other companies at a trade show, or worse yet, them not returning your emails or phone calls.

• Money to invest in samples to send out to potential customers, for press outreach, showrooms or traveling salespeople.

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Money for Production

• The most exciting part for me was receiving a new order. I would be very excited for about ten minutes and then go into the mode of – how do I produce this? Where would the money for production come from?

• Generally when you place an order with your factory, it cannot be for just 10 or 100 units. There are minimums which must be met with the factories, so even though the purchase order from the customer might only be for $10,000, it may cost you $20,000 because of factory requirements.

• Check out my last post entitled, What You Need To Know Before Manufacturing Your First Product, where I discuss where we made a critical mistake with one of our customers.

• Funds to hire a third-party inspection company or better yet, arrange to be present at the factory before your first order is shipped.

Money for Help

• Running a business takes so much time. In general, before a company gets traction, it is usually only the owner or owners doing all of the work. If the fax machine needs new toner – you have to change it. If there is a deposit to be made, you have to run to the bank. If you need to change a proposal for a client, you will need to block out a couple of hours to do it. The point is that it is only you. If you have interns, great. They can help with the grunt work, but you may want to consider hiring some experts if you have the budget for it. I strongly support hiring outside consultants for marketing-SEO and traditional marketing experts, a public relations firm to get your business noticed, and a business coach or mentor to help guide you.

Money for Year 2

• If Year 1 flies by and you have made a couple of sales, but you are not in the black yet, you will need to infuse your company with more working capital. It can take up to three years or more of you supporting your company, and it is critical that you have those funds liquid so your company is able to take root and prosper.

Creating a physical product requires an idea and an enormous amount of time, resources and commitment. It is incredibly rewarding to see a tangible product that was once a thought now created into a physical object. Just make sure that you run the numbers and are prepared for any hidden costs which will pop up.

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How To Source Quality Raw Materials For Physical Products

Sourcing is finding and evaluating the components and parts needed for goods and services. With a product based company such as my handbag company, sourcing materials would consume a lot of time, energy and funds. Raw materials would account for almost 50-70% of our costs. We spent a lot of time searching for our materials, especially leather. Because of the complexity of our designs, at times it was like looking for a needle under a haystack.

How To Source & Why Bother?

If you have a business with physical items it might not be necessary for you to source yourself. You could potentially contract with a full-service company that could source for you. Additionally, these full-service companies negotiate with the supplier the minimums, terms of payment and make sure that the product received is exactly what was ordered.

QUICK TIP: When ordering for production, I would always ask for a TOP (top of production sample) before they started production. With a TOP sample, I wanted to make sure that the sample that I ordered for production was the same quality and consistency of the sample that I fell in love with and wanted for our line. It is a good idea to specify in your purchase order that a TOP sample must be approved by you before production starts. This may add a week or two to your schedule, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

Recently, I was consulting with a handbag company who would just purchase the leather from her factory. A production factory is not a tannery, so besides the factory charging an additional fee for sourcing leather for her, it boggled my mind because I couldn’t imagine a factory manager being the decision maker for the leather on a handbag.

She asked me how my company would source our materials and I told her that we would travel to the shows in Italy or in Asia to see the newest fabrics or leathers ourselves. It was critical for us to be on the cutting-edge of the latest trends and also we would meet with the leather vendors ourselves to establish a relationship. This was very important because in our business we could not have another competitor have the same leather we were using. So by meeting with the vendors, we were able to negotiate certain terms with them, and one of the terms we always negotiated was that if we committed to buying a large amount, we wanted that leather article to not be sold to any other handbag companies.

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When raw materials are sourced, it is imperative that you look at the:

• Selection • Content • Construction • Colors as well as prints and other options • Performance characteristics

Negotiate The Minimum

When purchasing directly from vendors you will need to negotiate with them the minimum that they expect you to buy (often just called minimums), lead times (production time), cost, delivery options and their return policies.

If there are a lot of suppliers which provide what you need, you may want to consider if you want to purchase domestically or foreign. If you are purchasing domestically, you will pay more because the product is already in your country and you will not have to worry about transportation costs or duties. With foreign sourcing, you will need to worry about those things as well as language barriers and cultural and different business practices. However, I always preferred to source overseas as I found much more selection that way.

Of course, your choice of materials will be different based on aesthetic and functional characteristics of your product, price point, expected sales volume and your business model.

Trade Shows

Instead of having to travel internationally to visit vendors if you live close to a metropolitan area, there are often trade shows at your local convention centers. There are trade shows for a variety of different industries such as textiles, apparel, home furnishing, electronics, children’s items, beauty, health and nutrition, and outdoor sports.

When shopping a trade show, the vendors expect for customers to be well-versed in the wholesale environment. I have worked trade shows and worked with customers who seemed to be newbies or didn’t seem to know the lingo of our industry. Sadly, those were customers I did not spend much time with as they would often cancel their orders next door or would just waste too much of my time on the trade show floor.

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Online & Local Sourcing

If it is not convenient for you to attend a trade show, start doing your research online. There are many companies which are online now and many have uploaded their catalogs online. Of course, this does not replace seeing the actual parts in front of you, but it is a close second. If you find the pieces that you need, then you can order a sample to review. When the sample arrives and if it is not what you wanted, try again with another company. In the past when I have been unable to find what I need, I would call the vendors up and ask them if they knew where I could find a part like I needed.

Another option to source is in your hometown. Depending on the product you are making, you can often purchase from a local supplier and be able to pay a lower price or maybe even their cost price provided you purchase in volume.

In closing, I think of sourcing as cooking the perfect Italian meal. First, I have to go to the market and pick up the freshest ingredients – fresh pasta, beautiful vegetables and herbs, fresh bread and a wonderful bottle of wine. I would not send someone else to do it. I personally want to make sure the quality is amazing and that I have chosen the very best the market has to offer.

With my handbag line, I felt that we found the most unique materials consistently season after season. We sourced everywhere to bring our customers the best. If you have a product-driven company, you can either shop yourself or send someone to do it for you. It all depends on what you are having for dinner.

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Trade Show Checklist: How To Successfully Sell Your Product At Trade Shows

With a physical product, there are several ways to meet customers and market your business. In this week’s article, I write about doing trade shows and meeting potential customers face-to-face in a convention type of setting.

I have noticed over the past couple of years that the trade show world seemed to be dwindling in foot traffic. In the face of numerous shows ‘debuting’, there are simply too many shows to attend. I remember one brutal season doing the January accessory show in New York, flying to Hong Kong to walk their trade show and meet with suppliers, then back to the US to do Magic in Las Vegas, back to NY to do Coterie, and then to Paris to do Premiere Classe. It was crazy!

A Cardinal Rule

One cardinal rule that my partner and I always had was to walk a trade show before we committed to taking a booth. All the information from trade show management about foot traffic, buyer attendance and press coverage will never provide the same insights that walking a trade show will. Just walking a trade show for a couple of hours will give you a good idea if the show is really a good fit for your brand.

I will always remember that my partner and I did a trade show – our very first one – in New York and were very much out of our element. It was clear that our product was priced too high for this particular show. A very well-known buyer from a wonderful boutique in Nantucket, Massachusetts came by and said our booth was the most beautiful in the whole show and that we stuck out like a sore thumb. She promptly placed an order and signed with her trademark signature.

Shortly thereafter, one of our neighbors came by and gave us a phrase that we still quote to this day. This character stopped by our booth, looked up and down the aisle, and said with her heavy New York accent, “Look at them, look at them, look at you! You don’t belong here!”

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$5000 booth fee

$2000 fare to NYC and hotel room

$500 food and cabs

= $7500 TOTAL TRIP

Lesson learned…priceless.

In rushing to do our first trade show, my partner and I were so excited to get our product to market when we really should have waited and walked the show before foolishly throwing our money away. C’est la vie; it was one of the many lessons we learned the hard way.

Showrooms & Trade Shows

Frankly, I think there are too many trade shows and the market is oversaturated. For years, many exhibitors have complained that there should be a central governing agency to mandate a trade show schedule and prevent overlapping regional markets and shows, with the meaningless shows disappearing. The sheer volume of shows makes it hard for buyers to decide which is the best to attend. Nowadays many specialty stores hardly have a budget to travel and must be incredibly picky about which shows they attend.

As your company requires sales to survive, doing trade shows is important to grow your brand, but since shows are very expensive and time-consuming, I suggest you also try to get showrooms at the same time. If you reach the point of having enough showrooms, you can then re-evaluate whether you want to continue doing the trade shows at all.

We met all of our showrooms at the trade shows. At the trade shows, you will be able to connect with buyers and get direct feedback about your new collection, check out or maybe network with your competitors, and hopefully meet with fashion editors and bloggers.

Additionally, a trade show is a great way to build your store list. Whenever a store would stop and linger at our booth but not buy anything, I would always ask for a business card and hand them a line sheet. When I returned to my office, I would add their name to my mailing/buyer list.

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Planning & Preparation

Getting ready for a trade show requires a lot of planning and preparation. You need to make sure you have handled the booth decoration, line sheets, brochures, business cards, extra lighting and, of course, your samples.

I was once at a trade show where one of my neighbors was a new jewelry company that had just got accepted into the trade show the week before! I felt sorry for the girl who was running the booth as she was so green and inexperienced. She did not have fixtures to place her product on, a rug for her booth, or paper for her walls. Our consultant encouraged me to talk to her, but honestly, she needed so much help that I could only give her a few pointers and hope she would have more time to plan and prepare herself for the next show.

Checklist

Depending on which trade show you do, I have included a checklist of things you need to do in advance:

• Complete and send in contract.

• Make personal contact with sales rep at the trade show. Talk to them about your line, address any concerns, etc.

• Send in deposit.

• Decide on booth size and decoration.

• Download trade show manual and read it thoroughly.

• Get insurance if mandated by trade show management.

• Book hotel and travel.

• Decide if you will do any advertising or sponsorship to promote your booth. The sponsorship opportunities are sometimes listed in the manual. If not, ask your trade show rep about them. Half of the time we would do some type of sponsorship.

• Order food or beverages for your booth if you want to do a promotion such as a happy hour to draw in more people.

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• Hire models or temporary workers for your booth if you need additional coverage. It always helpful to have at least two people, even in a small booth. The days are long and tiring, and you may need assistance during peak times or to cover during bathroom breaks. If you can’t persuade a friend to join you, a temporary worker found on Craigslist or Daily Fashion Jobs might be a good option.

• Order staff badges.

• Decide if you will send your product directly to the show site or carry it in your suitcases.

• Order any additional electricity or lighting.

• Order booth cleaning if needed. Note: we never did this.

• Send in final deposit.

• Order labor if needed to put up your shelving or help with building any additional furniture you might be bringing in.

• Find out the set-up schedule and plan on being there as soon as the doors open, especially if it is your first show.

Raw Space & Booths

At the trade shows, you can either buy a booth package with the walls already in place or raw space. Raw space is for those vendors who have custom-built booths.

The majority of vendors use the booth packages. If you are getting a booth package, I urge you to consider covering the walls with drapes or fabric or, better yet, papering the walls with the backdrop paper used for photo shoots. This makes your booth stand out with minimal cost. If you are showing in New York, call The Set Shop in New York City and have them deliver the paper to your booth. It will be much cheaper than ordering it from the vendors who are contractually tied to the unions.

In future weeks, I will discuss having outside sales reps as well as developing your presence online. However, I think that spending the money and doing a trade show gives a new brand an invaluable opportunity to get their product in front of main decision makers such as editors, meet with key store buyers and most importantly, announce to the industry that your brand is a viable player.

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How We Grew Our Fashion Accessories Business To Over A Million Dollars In Sales

As with any company, growth happens in stages, but especially a company with physical products. Research and development, sample making, marketing the product and perhaps even handling some of the preliminary sales are some of the stages of expansion.

However, with my handbag company charm and luck, to grow our business we realized we needed to find sales partners to handle our sales. To achieve the growth we wanted for our company, we had to be able to focus on churning out new designs and handling our infrastructure and growth; thus, we created a team of salespeople to bring our sales to the next level.

Business Mindset & Goals

With looking for salespeople in the fashion industry, our mindset was that we were looking for partners. Domestically and internationally, we sought out companies who had sales procedures in place, as well as a list of clients who had purchased from them in the past, and who would most likely purchase from them again. My immediate goal was to have a showroom in every market in the US – Atlanta, Dallas, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

It was important for us to find independent sales representatives (salespeople who would travel and call on customers), showrooms and international distributors. Several years later, when our business had stabilized and I felt secure in my company’s growth, we actively sought top-tier accounts, which we then handled in house. Eventually, our biggest client we maintained was the Home Shopping Network (HSN), and we grew that relationship to be one of their top handbag brands.

Where To Find Salespeople To Sell Your Product

In the beginning, when looking for salespeople to sell our product, we signed up for our first trade show, and then just keep ‘our ears to the ground’ for news of showrooms or salespeople who were looking for new and fresh lines. I certainly would approach people who I knew owned multi-line showrooms and ask them to take a look at our brand. It was during the New York shows that I met our first showroom who was based in Atlanta. In reality, we never actually left our Atlanta showroom as we were always very pleased with their performance.

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After Atlanta, we added our Dallas showroom and then Los Angeles. Our Los Angeles showroom opened up the specialty realtor Nordstrom account for us. After we were in Nordstrom for our first couple test orders, they eventually put us in all stores (80+) and purchased our wallets and belts, as well as our handbags. At this point, Nordstrom was ordering monthly orders from us for their entire company, which in retail lingo is called an all-door order.

Once we were in Nordstrom, it was quite easy for us to find a prestigious New York showroom. One of our top goals was always to have a New York showroom, especially one who had established relationships with the top accounts from Europe, the Middle East and Russia.

Things really started to come together after our New York showroom was in place, because we then signed an exclusive contract with a distributor for the Middle East. Our contract was a multi-year agreement, which resulted in a $100,000 USD minimum buy each year and granted exclusivity to our distributor in the Middle East.

Because of this exclusive agreement, we opened up charm and luck boutiques in several high-end stores in Dubia and Riyadh. Right after this deal was done, we inked a deal with another distributor in Germany, as well as a distributor in Japan.

Business Growth Follows Clear Goals

Although these events seem rather organic, I was very systematic about how I wanted our company growth to be. My first goal was to establish a strong distribution channel here in the US. Secondly, as we were growing our business domestically, we then went after high profile and large stores when we felt we could handle their production demands. Thirdly, we pursued and were pursued by international game changers who propelled our business forward. Lastly, almost all of the showrooms, salespeople and distributors that we worked with stayed with us for years.

One of my personal goals has always been retention. I tried very hard to make the right decisions about distribution agreements, partners and employees, so we would not have a lot of backward movement. In other words, I wanted growth and forward movement, and I did not want our progress to be impeded by poor training with our employees or salespeople. Consequently, I felt I needed to make the right decisions from the outset.

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Before starting my handbag company, I worked at management in Nordstrom and had to hire and fire at least 100 people during my tenure. I really hated to invest time in someone and then have to lose them and start again, so I tried very hard to make the right decisions regarding work relationships. Consequently, when I started my own company, I really tried to improve upon some of the hiring mistakes I made while at Nordstrom. These lessons I then applied to my hiring of employees, salespeople and even our trading partners such as our factories.

Application Of Lessons Learnt

The lessons I applied to my own company were:

1. Listen to your inner voice or gut. I usually get a read about a person by spending a few minutes with them especially in a meeting environment. I have absolutely passed on deals that I did not have a good feeling about.

2. Ask probing questions. How someone answers a question can be quite telling.

3. Check references. If it is for an employee or new business partner, ask for references. I would always check at least three references.

4. Review their written communication. This part mainly refers to employees, as it said something to me if there was a mistake on their resume or in their email communication. To me, it showed a lack of detail, and when working with fashion especially, it is all about the details.

In closing, in growing our company I applied the many lessons I learned along the way regarding treating people with respect, follow through and never letting an opportunity pass me by. When presented with the opportunity to meet with a new client unexpectedly or take an unscheduled phone call, we always did it. For me being an entrepreneur meant doing whatever we needed to do to bring our company to the next level, and by finding partners who helped with our sales, we were able to increase our sales very quickly.

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5 Money-Making Reasons to Have an E-Commerce Site

It may seem unnecessary to post an article about the necessity of having an e-commerce website on a blog devoted to making money online. However, just yesterday I saw a Facebook post by a well-known fashion blogger, one with thousands of followers, give a recommendation to a new handbag line. Of course, I clicked through to the link and was absolutely shocked by what I saw. When I arrived at this website, it was a static page with the logo. No contact information, no products to sell, no press shots, no “about” page. There was absolutely nothing useful there.

What a missed opportunity! Will I ever visit that website again? Probably not.

The first step in ‘Marketing 101′ is creating an effective website.

How To Create An Effective Website

When first starting our handbag company, charm and luck, we did not have ‘two nickels to rub together.’ All of our money went into buying raw materials and paying our factory to produce our new designs. We did most of the marketing ourselves – creating linesheets to showcase our products, photographing products ourselves, and much more.

What we did not have the skills to do was to build a website. Working through elance.com, we hired a freelancer in India and spent only a couple hundred dollars. And the site looked like what we paid for it. It was very elementary.

At the time, I did not have a clear understanding of what information a website should have. An effective website should have elements such as an “about” page, clear categories, an easy way to contact the company, a sitemap, and an e-commerce mechanism to sell products.

As soon as we started making some money, we redid our website to have it look more polished. For our second website, we partnered with a company which took a percentage of profits. Actually, it was a win-win situation for us at the time. They took on the building of the website and handled all the product updates. When sales came in, we would just drop ship the product out. It was quite nice not to have to worry about the look of the site. Providing the photos of the product and the copy was easy enough.

The kicker was that this company took a hefty 25% of the site’s profits; this maintenance fee was sometimes up to $6,000/month!

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At this point, our website sales were a dependable source of income for us, but I wanted to have control of the website and stop paying an outrageously high maintenance fee. Now armed with the knowledge of the tenets of a successful website, I waited for our website contract to end and began to search for another contractor to build us another website.

We hired some of the key designers who had worked on the Sephora and LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessey) and changed our website for a third time in five years. This was another complete overhaul. The results were impressive. In the first month, our new website earned over $30,000, which was more than enough to pay our staff salaries.

With these new web developers, we could change our home page often. We had an email sign up list. We did cross promotion with various products and the website would intuitively suggest items for customers. Furthermore, we developed a very strong email marketing campaign. Every single time we received press in a magazine, we would email customers. Whenever we had almost any news at all, we would communicate with our list.

Why Every Business (Brick and Mortar Or Online) Should Have An Effective Website

So, while most readers of this blog have one or probably more websites, I thought I would do some research on the businesses who do not have websites. In fact, almost 43% of small businesses do not have a website, according to Entrepreneur Magazine. For those who haven’t yet built websites or those who haven’t fully optimized their sites, here are five reasons why every business (brick and mortar or online) should have an effective website.

1. You never know who is searching for your product and who might be your next potential customer.

I work with fashion accessory designers, but I also consult with traditional brick and mortar companies handling marketing. One of our clients had just put up a website and it was purely informational. Within a couple of weeks, he received an inquiry from the government. He now has a lucrative, multi-year government contract.

2. A better website gives you a leg up on your competition.

Let’s face it. If your website looks better than your competitors, you will get more business. Why? A well-produced site signals to

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customers that a company is legitimate and communicates the critical product information needed to turn browsers into buyers. If your website looks professional, is stylish, has a clean layout, an obvious call to action, and is SEO-optimized, then you are well on your way.

3. Social media brings sales.

In conjunction with your website, I recommend Facebook e-commerce pages. Businesses should effectively take advantage of Facebook as a viable sales vehicle with a proven sales return. Facebook provided the recent case studies: Incipio Technologies, a firm that sells iPhone and other gadget cases and peripherals, found that Facebook has been its second highest source of traffic over the past eight months.

Secondly, online ticketing service Eventbrite revealed in October 2010 that each time someone shares a link to an event with their Facebook friends, it results in $2.52 worth of ticket sales.

Tweet out a link, or better yet a photo, with a link to buy and the conversion rates are solid.

Additionally, with the introduction of Google +, although it is not available for businesses profiles just yet, it will be a major player in the social media game, and businesses should realize that this is a huge opportunity for them to gain some market share. (Connect with me via G+ here.)

4. Websites which are optimized for mobile devices = more sales.

Bon Mercado, Mobile Ads Product Specialist at Google, stated last week that consumers, on average, now spend $300 per purchase via mobile devices, as people become more comfortable purchasing higher-priced items. Despite increasing consumer acceptance and better industry collaboration, Mercado said, 79% of large online brands do not have a mobile optimized site.

5. Companies which blog have higher sales.

Companies who blog consistently have sales which are 55% higher than companies who do not blog. Drip content out to your customers and always have something to say. People are paying attention.

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In this techno-savvy world companies must have an online presence to survive. A website which is template-based is a placeholder and not good enough in my opinion. Such a bland website will not bring businesses their desired results of either more sales or more followers.

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What Values do you Use to Measure Business Success

If you own or work for a company, which sells a product-physical or intellectual-success, it is generally measured by sales. It is the easiest way to measure success, but of course it can be much more complex than that. I wanted to write an article on what success meant to me with a physical product-based company, because measuring success is not always cut and dry and quantifiable.

Learning About Success At Trade Shows

When we started our handbag company, we did the trade show circuit to sell our handbags. We were completely new to the industry and did not have the industry contacts like now. Doing the trade show introduced us to our fashion peers in a trade show setting.

We found a trade show to launch our line at in New York, shipped our samples to the trade show site, booked our travel and jumped on a plane. We set up a booth and sold our product for three days. Our sales were mediocre – we covered costs but they were not going to make us rich. However, I feel the connections I made and the lessons I learned while at the show were extremely valuable.

Case in point, I literally latched myself on to a seasoned fashion professional who owned a hair accessory company. Underneath her sweet veneer was a toughness earned by working years in the fashion industry.

During those three days, every free second she had, I would pick her brain. I asked her about stores she felt we should approach and how we could get a better booth location. I asked her about other trade shows to do and how we could expand our business. She imparted such nuggets of wisdom to me that I would always remember where she suggested we have our booth (on the aisles, by the bathroom or food service as everybody HAS to go there at some point) and how we should systematically grow our business.

After our first trade show I still did not have showrooms in the regional markets of the United States as I wanted to. I knew that I needed to have a sales force to scale up my business to reach customers I couldn’t travel to. My master plan was to have local showrooms in Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago and New York. As I was still on the hunt for showrooms, we continued doing trade shows ourselves – New York, Paris and Las Vegas.

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I did trade shows for several seasons before I met some showroom owners that I wanted to do business with. I really considered these showrooms my selling team, or strategic partners, as they also had a vested interest in my company. I thought once these showrooms were in place, I might be able to take a rest from my hectic travel schedule.

Observing Trends Out In The Field And Making Connections

And then it occurred to me that I couldn’t just sit in my office in Los Angeles and run things remotely. I really needed to be out in the field, observing and seeing what the trends were. In an industry like fashion, if you miss a trend you could lose out on sales and maybe even risk your ‘loyal’ customers not writing with you for a season.

(Besides, try as I may, I am not cut out for being in an office with a computer 100% of the time. As long as I have my iPhone with me, I can work from anywhere.)

And then as season after season passed, I started making connections with influencers and major decision makers. Similar as it is when one goes to a conference and meets industry leaders, over time I started to meet people who I really admired. I started interfacing with leaders who could and would have a major impact on my business. Doors just started opening for us.

Luckily, our sales were strong, which is how I would normally measure our success.

But we had some major deals in the works and those deals I was much more excited about than our ‘sales.’ These impending deals could bring us more sales absolutely, but they also brought us recognition as we were nominated for design awards and we also were approached to do joint venture designs with important customers.

Internally, we were growing a strong team and were able to hire some key personnel who only made our company stronger. We did not have to hire recent fashion grads for a small wage, we could actually hire real professionals with real world experience and skills earned from years of working in the industry.

Furthermore, because of my Nordstrom background and their famous customer service training, I trained my staff to above all focus on customer service. If we had a damaged product get returned by a customer, I would hand write a note myself and include a little gift to them as an apology. I

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urged our staff to really listen to customers and remember they were integral to our continued growth and success.

Tips For How Your Business Can Succeed

Success is rooted in sales, but below are some more tips on how your business can succeed:

• Keep an eye open for opportunities to meet with people who might be game changers for your business. Whether they will assist your company as a salesperson or a consultant or perhaps help by providing a recommendation, these relationships should be highly valued and cultivated.

• Hire the right people to bring your business to the next level. When I stopped focusing on shipping products myself, hired a warehouse manager and took myself out of the warehouse, our business grew exponentially.

• Value your customers. Period.

• Maintain the quality of your product.

In these days of fluctuating world economies, companies have a renewed focus on maintaining strong sales. However, if one takes a look at some of the ideas put forth in my article, success cannot just be measured by sales. Value for one’s customers, integrity in one’s product and pride in one’s staff is equally important in my mind in measuring success.

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8 Low Cost Tips To Increase Your Publicity In The Fashion Industry

I owned a handbag company in the fashion industry and the one constant in my life was the issue of press – did we have enough of it?

Once we started receiving press, we were forever focused on getting more. Almost as important as designs, sales and delivering the goods on time, is the issue of publicity. You can have the most amazing product, but if it does not receive press, then the company is not going to go very far. That is just the plain truth.

How To Get Publicity?

Fortunately, I have several tips to help get the press ball rolling.

On your website you should have a page called PRESS or NEWS or something to that effect where you can put all of your press mentions. Just create that page from the inception of your site so when you receive publicity, that is where it will go.

When starting out your company, you can hire a public relations company and they can handle all of this for you. In New York or Los Angeles, there are many public relations companies which I am sure would be happy for your business. I believe the traditional public relations companies have lost business as people are cutting their PR budgets as they take publicity in house or are trying to renegotiate their rates.

However, public relations companies are great because they have proven connections with magazine editors to help get you editorial placements, they know reporters who report on style and fashion, and can possibly help you land an interview. They can also help steer your brand, so that it promotes a consistent brand identity and message.

Publicity On A Budget

If you do not have the budget for a PR company when starting out, here are a couple of things you can do:

1. Write a press release. There are many websites which can help guide you to write a strong press release, but the bottom line is that you just need to get the announcement out. I would then submit it to various news outlets.

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There are a few free websites and then there are a couple that one has to pay for such as www.PRWeb.com or www.WebWire.com. These press release companies will ensure that your press is submitted to thousands of news agencies who are looking for stories.

Write statements about the launch of your company, your new collection and inspiration or a new fabric you are using. Write press releases whenever you are doing anything newsworthy.

2. Put a PDF of your press release on your website.

3. Sign up for HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and Reporter Connection. These sites connect busy journalists with experts, companies and much more. There are postings every day and there are many prestigious magazines, newspapers, bloggers and TV shows which use these sites.

4. Send out your Look Books or Product shots of key looks to various editors. Look at the mastheads of the major magazines and look for the Accessory Editor, Accessory Assistant or Accessory Market editor.

If you have a well-produced Look Book, mail them a copy. If not, email them a copy of your Look Book or your key looks. I would suggest that if your Look Book is a huge file, do not send it. If it is less than 2MB, then I would send it.

Furthermore, I would embed the pictures in the email so they do not have to open the attachments. These editors are beyond busy so make your email brief and to the point. If you do not know the editors email addresses, call the magazine. The magazine phone number is always listed on the masthead. It is usually pretty small and near the bottom of the page.

5. Consider doing a gifting suite. A gifting suite is where you give out products to celebrities who come by and get to pick out whatever they want in exchange for a photo with them holding your item.

These can be expensive to do sometimes just because you have to pay to participate. And then of course you have to provide product. But there are always times when you can negotiate or try to get into the suite at the last minute for a reduced rate. If people love your brand, then I bet you could even get in free.

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6. Befriend stylists. When you are reading your magazines for inspiration always look at who styled the shoots. There are celebrity stylists like Rachel Zoe who are probably unapproachable, but there are many other stylists who make a living working consistently day in and day out in this business. There are fashion stylists, music stylists and costume stylists who can all be approached.

The way I would approach them is to find out who is who and see if they have a Facebook or Twitter account. With all of these social media platforms reaching out to a famous personality is easier than it has ever been.

I would send them a message and see how I could send them pictures of my samples for them to use for an upcoming shoot. These stylists work freelance and there are also agencies such as Cloutier and Zenobia who represent wardrobe stylists. There are many more listed online – just search for wardrobe stylists.

7. Send product directly to an actress, personality or model through their management company or through their publicist.

The hard part is to find out who their manager is. I would then send the product directly to the manager’s office and then follow up and see if they received it. I would find this information out by just looking online to see if their publicist or manager was listed. And if it is hard to find, I would start calling around to the various talent agencies to see if they represent “so-so actress” and they will always deny or confirm that basic information over the phone.

8. Ask your friends, family or colleagues if they have any connections. Chances are that somebody may know somebody. And then I would ask if they would make an introduction.

Honestly, you have to be aggressive in this business if you want the celebrities to wear your product. It never hurts to ask. The worse they can say is no.

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Biography

Christine Syquia’s a dichotomy. And this is meant in the best possible way. A Los Angeles-native, Christine’s always had a passion for fashion, art and the finer things in life. Since the tender age of 16, she’s worked at various high-end department stores – learning the day-to-day of a retail business and ultimately putting herself through college at the University of Southern California where she received a B.F.A. in Art History. With the idea that hard work is intrinsically virtuous, Christine attributes her determination and doggedness to those that came before her. “I’ve always worked hard because I saw my parents working hard in their nine-to-five jobs,” she explains. “I also think that because my father is from the Philippines, I have the Asian mindset to succeed. And I am very driven.” Christine’s spent a great deal of time traveling around Asia (FYI: her favorite fruit is lychee) and enjoys the mixed viewpoints that her mom and dad bring to the table. That’s one of the reasons she became an entrepreneur. It’s a job where no day is ever the same. After graduating college, Christine co-founded a multi-million dollar handbag company called charm and luck. Along with her partner, Christine grew the brand into one of the hottest accessory company’s around. It was here – at this point in her life – that she fully understood the importance of branding, marketing, cutting-edge advertising and, most importantly, web presence. After years of high-stress, long hours, an arduous traveling schedule and one too many missed family events, Christine sought a professional change. “I’m re-creating the lifestyle I want to have,” Christine says. “Full of free time to choose what I want to do and being my own boss.” In 2009, Christine closed the doors to charm and luck to follow her passion for helping others realize their potential. Christine is now a multifaceted marketing consultant specializing in art, fashion and web presence. Based in Los Angeles, Christine maintains Accessory Business 101, her private, online, monthly membership site, while coaching emerging and established accessory designers on the do’s and don’ts of business. In 2012, she started the website Spotlight Accessories as another avenue to showcase new fashion talent. Those closest to Christine describe her as having “a formidable sense of style, a keen eye for art, fun, social and overall great company.” When she’s not helping others achieve the success that charm and luck reached, Christine spends her time relaxing at the beach with her kids and Australian Shepherd, Andie, and plotting her next trip overseas.