WWGKD: What Would Guy Kawasaki Do?

I’ve brought marketing meetings to a screeching halt by actually saying that I thought all Mission Statements sounded lofty, generic and well, stupid. Eyes bulged and rolled. Grown men and women, who practically wear their MBA credentials in neon on their magnetized name badges, sputtered and choked. Then, ultimately, my comments were dismissed. I was a designer after all, what did I know.

Even Guy Kawasaki thinks Mission Statements are a bunch of gobbledly-goook. Since he is held in much higher esteem and is a lot more successful than any of the marketing people I knew, I figure myself pretty close to being a genius.

Who’s Guy Kawasaki? I’ll let him tell you himself in his brilliant keynote speech to TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) in 2006.
(more…)

Your Baby Is Ugly

A product, service or book is probably the greatest thing in the world – to its creator. But when an editor or producers says “pass” it’s the publicist who has to tell the client .Sometimes ZERO  media are interested. And for anyone who has written a book, started a business or provided a service, that can be a pretty personally hurtful message no matter how carefully it’s couched. For me, it’s the equivalent of having to tell clients “your baby is ugly” 95% of the time, without hurting their feelings. Nearly impossible.

Why do I bring this up? Two reasons -

1) People need to engage in the public relations game knowing their odds. The chances of getting on national television or major print are very slim unless you are a celebrity or just did the impossible – like climbed a mountain for the first time while drinking martinis in pink bloomers. And even if you are a celebrity, you still get bumped. Michael Moore was bumped by Paris Hilton on Larry King Live (and boy was he angry)
(more…)

Look Who’s Coming To Blog

In order to bring well rounded opinions and advice, I’ll be asking experts in varying related fields to post guest blogs.

I’ll also be asking permission to republish archived posts of subjects I have found interesting and useful.

Beauty and Your Biz’s first Guest Blogger is Bonnie Harris from Wax Marketing.

Wax Marketing was founded in 2002. It provides comprehensive, Fortune 500 quality, affordable services to growing firms.

Bonnie has been marketing, promoting and managing services and products for more than 20 years. She has been quoted and/or featured in several publications including USA Today, Selling Power, PRWeek and BusinessVision Magazine. She holds an Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications from the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism at West Virginia University and a B.S. in Economics from the University of Minnesota. Bonnie and her family reside in St. Paul, Minnesota and Breckenridge, Colorado.

I know Bonnie from Twitter and Wax Blog. She is decidely down to earth, honest,  funny, informative and real.

I recommend you subscribe to her blog. She presents PR topics in an accessible and entertaining way. I’ve learned a lot from her and her blog. I think you will too.

Aside from all that, she personally squired Captains Johnathan and Andy Hillstrand from Deadliest Catch around town for radio and TV interviews last fall. Just think I’m one Twitter degree of separation from the crew of the Time Bandit.

Let’s give Bonnie a big Beauty welcome! *clap, clap, clap*

Chanel No. 5: New & Improved?

I’ll openly admit that I had no idea who IFRA was until recently.

I purchase perfume, scented soaps and shampoos on a regular basis. And, like all of you, I also buy fragrance in forms the general public does not; Fragrance and essentials oils and others variants.

I never gave a thought to any type of “governing” body regulating fragrances. I just figured if it was being sold on the open market, that it’s legal.

I’m also under the opinion, that certain things may effect my skin adversely; I may be allergic or have reactions to certain ingredients. I then would stop using those ingredients.

Apparently, there is more to it than this. That is where IFRA, International Fragrance Association, comes into the picture.

IFRA: We promote the safe enjoyment of fragrances.

IFRA, the International Fragrance Association, is the official representative body of the fragrance industry worldwide. Its main purpose is to ensure the safety of fragrance materials through a dedicated science program. This focus on fragrance safety helps both the consumer and the environment.

IFRA does don’t make the law. They are a voluntary compliance organization made of up of 90% of the perfume and fragrance manufacturers. You do not have to belong, but if you do, it’s mandatory that you adhere to their standards and practices.

IFRA represents the fragrance industry regional and national associations worldwide. IFRA is the reflection of the industry’s choice to regulate itself and and its activities result in a Code of Practice and safety Standards, which members must adhere to, in order to achieve the objective of protecting consumers’ health and our environment.

Sounds innocent and well intended enough. Bu it seems IFRA  is even more aggressive in issuing safety standards than even the European Union.

“There seems to be a steady build-up of regulatory rules,” said Luca Turin, a scientist and perfume expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A mild allergic reaction should not prevent great scents from being preserved, Turin said. After all, “to my knowledge perfume has never killed anyone,” Turin said.

The IFRA says consumer safety is the overwhelming priority.

“It’s not necessary for someone to die before we establish a safety standard,” said Matthias Vey, IFRA’s scientific director. “Skin contact is our biggest concern, and if you are sensitized you can develop a rash, skin redness, itching and swelling.”

I was made aware of IFRA recently in regards to some new regulatory % allowances on usage for different cosmetics and perfumes. This didn’t cause great concern until I read an article today  Allergen Rules May Alter Scents of Great Perfumes.

The article is mainly about how the iconic perfume, Chanel No. 5 may be in jeopardy. The use of natural jasmine will, for the first time, be restricted in all perfumes to 0.7 per cent of the finished product, to ensure that wearers have no allergic reaction to the flower.

This lead to a Google search where I stepped into an intriguing world of perfumer blogs. IFRA has been a hot topic for almost a year now, and there are not too many supporters of IFRA in sight.

This year, some perfume enthusiasts, including the Paris-based fragrance historian Octavian Sever Coifan, had, feared that new regulations from the International Fragrance Association (IFRA), which come into effect next January, would spell the end of Chanel No. 5.

But Jean-Pierre Houri, head of the IFRA, was categorical in his denial.

“Chanel No. 5 will be unaffected by the IFRA restrictions.” And a spokesperson for Chanel said that “Evidently when the new standards were issued we immediately checked the percentages in our finished products and in none of our fragrances is the recommended level exceeded.”

Ocatavian’s response, and I paraphrase:

… any journalist who wants to carry a deep investigation can analyze several samples in an independent lab. The amount of jasmine absolute (if it is 100% or combined with other jasmine absolutes) can be revealed.

And by the way, what other fragrances have today more jasmine absolute than No5 and Joy? If this expensive ingredient is used less than in No5 (that would not be affected), than why did they restrict its use?

I believe that several brands should reflect with a lot of care about their transparency because this mascarade (sic) might have bad effects in the near future if somebody will publish side by side analysis of several perfumes. Remember that formulas are not protected by any law and so “revealing” them to the public by a third part is not a crime.

The point being that, Chanel and other large perfumers have too much at stake. They will never admit to changing their product to comply with new safety standards and IFRA will protect them too. They need the high profile clients to give their organization creedence. So, they both say that the existing recipes and %’s are just fine and meet all standards.

Why doesn’t Chanel, Guerlain and other large companies fight back? From what  I could find, they are afraid of the backlash and possible lawsuits, like the tobacco industry has had to endure.

Suggestions of warning labels have been made, but I can’t seem to find any clear declaration of viewpoint on that issue. I guess IFRA has been open to that in the past, but it doesn’t seem as though they are open to it for perfumes.

Wow, who knew this was all going on. I found this all very fascinating and, I must say, I feel kind of special being involved and aware of the situation and process. The great perfumers of Paris are having the same issues effect them and their fields of jasmine as I do when I order ingredients for my special concoction of Almond Biscotti fragrance oil.

If you would like to read more, below are links to some great articles and blogs on perfume.

The Independent: The Sweet Smell Of Success

1000 Fragrances: Octavian Sever Coifan: Chanel No. 5 New or Not New, Endangered Fragrances

Legerdenez : The Chanel No. 5 Controversy, Are You Tired Of Hearing About IFRA Yet?

Garmento Glossary

Having lived and worked in New York, in the Garment industry, I came across a few Jewish people in my time. The slang or Yiddish words that were used in everyday conversation are still with me today. I love them. They’re so onomatopoeia (look it up.)

I thought you’d enjoy a little cultural diversification with a trip into the Garmento World.

Garmento, is defined as anyone active in the garment industry…but really it’s used more as a stereotypical definition of someone you can spot at ten paces; as a person who works in the garment industry, in a nebbishy, schmucky kind of way.

So grab yourself a regular coffee (cream, 2 sugars) from the street vendor and a bagel with a schmeer and enjoy!

Farschimmelt: Slang for confused or overwhelmed. “I can’t decide, I’m all farschimmelt.”

Farklempt: Too emotional to talk. “I’m too farklempt, talk amongst yourselves.” Also known as Varklempt.

Kibbetizer: Interfering person or sometimes just shmoozer. “No, you we weren’t interrupting, we were just kibbetizing.”

K’vetsh: whine or complain. “Stop your kvetching already!”

Mashugga, Meshughe: Crazy, nuts, bonkers. “She’s sweet, but a little mashugga.”

Mazel Tov: Congratulations or Good Luck. “Mazel Tov!”

Nebbish: a nobody, awkward, geek. “He’s a little nebbish, but he’s a doctor!”

Nosh: Snack. “Feel like a nosh? Let’s grab a bagel.”

Nudnick: Pest, annoying person. ” Him? Just some nudnick I met at Starbucks.”

Ongepatshket: Cluttered, over-done. Pronounced: unga-pascht. “Oy, the room decor, ongepatshket.”

Shikseh: Non- Jewish girl. “Everyone know he won’t settle down with that shikseh. Ya date’em, ya don’t marry ‘em.”

Schmuck: Jerk. “Schmuck.” Nuf said.

Schmeer: Usually refers to the cream cheese on a bagel. A little more than a smear, a little less than a lot. ” Sesame bagel with a schmeer.”

Shlep: To carry unwillingly. “I had to shlep all the way up town for this?”

Shmaltzy/Shmaltze: Sentimental, corny. “Ack, don’t get all shmaltzy on me.”

Shmooze: Chat, talk. “I was just shmoozing the room.”

Shmuts: A little dirt or mess. “There’s a little shmuts on your collar.”

Shnook: Patsy, sucker. “That poor shnook, he’ll fall for anything.”

Tchotchkes: Little ornaments, decorative items. “Oy, her piano was covered with tchotchkes!”

Toches: Pronounced “took-us”. Behind, buttocks, fanny. “I schlepped my toches all over town trying to find the place.”

Dear Beauty….

Don’t wait around for me to cover a topic or situation that may be at the top of your mind…post a comment about it!

I can’t promise that I have all the answers, but I may be able to point you in the right direction.

And for all you lurkers out there…step up and be counted! Life’s too short to linger in the shadows.

 

 

 

A SKU By Any Other Name…is still a SKU.

The dreaded SKU or Stock Keeping Unit. It can make or break you, whether you have too many or too few.

Have you even thought about SKUs? Do you know what they are? Simply, it’s all your stuff added up.

If you have 8 products that come in 8 scents, you have 64 SKUs. Ack! What!? You say? I have 64 products? But I only have 8 products that come in 8 scents. Same thing? NO. When you break out your product offering into actual SKUs is when the realization of how large your line is and how many $$, sweat and frustration it takes to manage them.

There is not a right or wrong way to manage your SKUs. This is just another thing you now have in common with the multi-billion dollar corporations. I can’t tell you how many SKU management meetings I’ve sat through…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. It may put you to sleep or overwhelm you, in which case you tune out, then fall asleep.

But SKUs are like birthdays, no matter how you figure them, the number is what it is.

SKUs can be your friends, or at least powerful tools. Being a person who thinks of themselves as right-brained person with left-brain leanings (creative with a grounded business sense), I have long contracted arguments with myself, sometimes out loud, about SKUs.

I spent countless hours developing and merchandising the message content and products in my line. All my fragrances are my “babies” handpicked by me and a circle of friends. Let’s face it, some babies turn  out to be not-so-cute. Some babies don’t venture forth out into the world and bring mommy money. Do I throw these babies out with the scented bath water? Yes and no.

What I do is look at each SKU’s value. They’re not always a dollar value. Here are a few scenarios:

1. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, but they end up buying the Coconut Coffee Lotion and Hand Wash.
2. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, but they end up buying Freesia Rose and Tutti-Frutti scents.
3. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, they buy tons of it, as well as my other Bubble Bath Scents. However, I make 20% instead of my usual 50% Profit Margin for other products.
4. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, they buy it.  Not as much as the Freesia Rose or Tutti-Frutti, but more than Lush Blueberry.
5. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, but they end up buying it only for 4th quarter sales.

Yes, that seemed repetitive, your actual comparison will vary in each scenario, a combination of these scenarios or  your own micro-niche scenarios. I was trying to make it as simple as possible so that you could see the forest and the trees. So lets’ go through the possible solutions.

1. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, but they end up buying the Coconut Coffee Lotion and the Body Wash.

Why do you carry the bubble bath? In order to be a well rounded bath and body line? Sounds legitimate. Do you carry the bubble bath in all your scents? Does it sell in your other scents?

• If you never sell the bubble bath – Drop it.
• If you sell it in just certain scents. Just carry those.
• If it’s random what scents the bubble bath sells in, consider making your body wash a 2 or 3-in-1. Body wash, shampoo and bubble bath. Drop the stand alone bubble bath SKUs.

2. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, but they end up buying Freesia Rose and Tutti-Frutti scents.

• Just have the sample for display. Kidding.
• Drop it and just carry what sells.

3. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, they buy tons of it, as well as my other Bubble Bath Scents. However, I make 20% instead of my usual 50% Profit Margin for other products.

I assume you are only making 20% because you have priced the wholesale cost at what the market will bear or have backed out the price from what an acceptable retail price would be.

Have you? Can the market bear a little bit more? Does your packaging or special ingredient or other  niche aspect warrant a larger mark up? Think about it. 25, 35, 50 cents per item makes a difference to your bottom line. Just do the math.

Reassess your line. Are all items bought, or is this your biggest seller? If this is your biggest seller, it can be considered your loss leader, meaning you take less margin in order to gain sales on other items that you make a larger profit on. It also means that even though you take a smaller margin, it’s still acceptable because you are able to buy the supplies in larger quantities with larger discounts.

The trick is to get the sale on the other items. If your orders are mainly made up of bubble bath, then it is not a loss leader…it’s just a loss. If you can get higher margin on other items and average out your orders to carry all the products, then you can also cost-average and look at your margins that way. But this makes for tricky bookeeping.

You may want to:

• Rethink your wholesale cost.
• Buy your base ingredients or product in larger quantities in order to get a lower cost, this translates to a larger profit margin for you.
• Increase the minimum buy on this or all of your products so that you can purchase your base ingredients in larger quantities.
• Reassess your line and costing, find opportunities to mark up product in order to cost-average.

4. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, they buy it.  Not as much as the Freesia Rose or Tutti-Frutti, but more than Lush Blueberry.

Well, Coconut Coffee still qualifies as a good seller in this scenario. However, why do your customers end up buying more of the Freesia Rose  or Tutti-Frutti? Is the Coffee Coconut a close third place or a distant third?  If it is a close third, keep it, especially if your margin is good on it. If your margin is not good, then would anyone care if you dropped it? Would the other top 2 items bring customers into your booth? Think about it. And what’s up with the Lush Blueberry? Do you need it?

5. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, but they end up buying it only for 4th quarter sales.

Then only offer it 4th quarter. Make a big build up marketing it with a limited time frame and quantity. Publicize it on your website, market signage and postcards, etc. You can decide as you go along what “limited” quantity is. The great thing about this is that you  don’t have to worry about freshness of stock or keeping items in inventory year round.

As you can tell, there will be a lot of circular arguments in this process. However, your brain knows this and will kick-out a circular argument, the more it twirls in your head the more the truth will rise to the top. It’s up to you whether you pay attention.

Thinking that it doesn’t really matter to have a few extra scents or products hanging around is just lying to yourself. It’s costing you shelf space, time, effort and thought. It’s costing you money to special order because you didn’t realize you were out and got an order for 6 bottles.

You want to order new labels and have to count the 12 extra SKUs of the 4 products in the 3 scents you don’t really sell; with a minimum run of 100 labels each, that’s 1200 unnecessary labels. Think of the new items you could be adding- but can’t afford to.

Having too many scents or products may also be diluting your Brand Image or message. You may want to re-evaluate your selection of scents and products according to collections, end uses and target market. By doing this, you may trim some of the fat and find that you’re actually missing something. Guess what? Sometimes the problem is not having too many SKUs, it’s not having the right one!

Is it starting to add up?

* The barcode tattoo picture is the cover of one of my favorite books The Jennifer Government.

My Favorite Manifesto

Jonathan Adler is a well-known New York based Interior Designer. His irreverent, kooky and modern twist on design is fun and inspiring.

I came across his Manifesto on the Jonathan Adler website and I loved it! I think you will find it a great lesson in how to communicate your message and not to take yourself too seriously at the same time.

This Manifesto is just the beginning of how well he translates and communicates his vision, message and aesthetic throughout his website. Check out his About Page too.

He recently completed a project designing a life size Malibu Barbie Dream Home and grown up Barbie Accessories for your home- too fun.

Our Manifesto

We believe that your home should make you happy.

We believe that when it comes to decorating, the wife is always right.
Unless the husband is gay.

We believe in carbohydrates and to hell with the puffy consequences.

We believe minimalism is a bummer.

We believe handcrafted tchotchkes are life-enhancing.

We believe tassels are the earrings of the home.

We believe in our muses: David Hicks, Alexander Girard,
Bonnie Cashin. Hans Coper, Gio Ponti, Andy Warhol, Leroy Neiman,
Yves Saint Laurent, and Madonna.

We believe in the innate chicness of red with brown.

We believe in being underdressed or overdressed always.

We believe in infantile, happy emblems like butterflies and hearts.

We believe celebrities should pay full price.

We believe in rustic modernism: Big Sur, A-Frame beach houses,
raw beams, and geodesic dome homes.

We believe in Palm Beach style:
Louis chairs, chinoiserie, Lilly Pulitzer, The Breakers circa ‘72.

We believe our designs are award winning even though
they’ve never actually won any.

We believe in Aid to Artisans.

We believe dogs should be allowed in stores and restaurants.

We believe in mantiques – suits of armour,
worn chesterfield sofas, heraldic tapestries.

We believe you should throw out your Blackberry
and go pick some actual blackberries.

We believe colors can’t clash.

We believe in blowing your nest egg on our pots.

We believe our lamps will make you look younger and thinner.

We believe in irreverent luxury.