Sarah's comments

I agree with Terra- start local and then when you need 50,000 units you go global. The minimums are very high for full container loads (you wouldnt want to go LTL if you ask me). Hopefully you have figured all of this out as I am late to the party here but as someone who ran an apparel company for a group of private investors that is my advice. You also have much more control over design tweaks, samples, color ways etc if you start local.

Yup, actually one of my best friends from college was a big muckey-muck there until the buyout by Yahoo. Basically they are based in Hangzhou china and they are there to connect you (a person with a product you would like to bring to market) with manufacturers, primarily in china, or suppliers of component parts- also usually in the Far East. They put the 2 of you together, you go off and make oodles of $$ with your t-shirt or dishes or toys and they charge a fee on both sides. After their purchase by Yahoo I believe they also began doing some serious ad revenue but my 'inside' info left at that point so I am not as up on what has happened there in the last year or so. Hope that helps!

I have a small office in Phinney Ridge but I think in the last 2 + years only 1 client has ever come here- I meet all of my clients at their offices or at the Columbia Club if we are downtown. But 99% of the time it is at their offices. That way they dont waste time driving around town and I control the promptness of the meeting start time.

I agree- it would be great if there was a place like this on Biznik. I often hear about opps that would probably be a good match for someone on Biznik but I dont have time to search around to find someone who I can give the referral to personally. I would like to be able to tell my client, Oh I can see if anyone from a networking group I belong too might be interested, and then post it here. These would all be project based work too I think.

This is an old post but I do not get to Biznik much so I am not sure if you will see this so will keep it brief. This is a big part of what I do- several of my clients fall into the luxury arena - check out my profile or website at www.skbsolutions.com and I would be happy to chat with you off line or via regular email if you like.

SKB

I agree that Steven's assessment is right on the money and I have run, hired, fired and managed more sales people then I can even think about at the moment.

It is hard to give you super concrete examples without knowing your business intimately. You know your business, you know how the deals you have made to date got done, you know the players and the technology. Now, you need to teach all of this to the new salesperson. I have seen many sales people fail because they come in and the boss gives them a list of prospects or even an area to check out, some collateral material, a tour of the office and says, "go forth and make money". It doesnt work like that. A successful sales person will need time, your time. You need to train them in your business, in the way that you work, in your expectations. If you dont do that then dont bother hiring one because it wont work out. I know you think you are too busy and the whole reason to hire a salesperson is to not have to do this stuff anymore and 6 months into the relationship great, you can step back but not day 1, or you will just cycle through people.

And commission only is not a good deal for many- you will get someone agressive for sure but you may not get someone who cares enough about your model to make the "right" deals, he will just make "any" deal and yuo will be the one doing the clean up on that. Base + Commission is the best way to go with a sales person- you value them, they value you.

HI Mint-

Welcome. Not sure why your tip was deleted- i have never written a tip... Maybe ask Dan or Laura via email and they can tell you.

Can you give me an example of the sort of research you do- is it like PI work or more TV related?

I have to say that both Gates and Facebook guy would probably be TERRIBLE employees. They would not mesh well with management, would possibly have trouble staying on task etc- it is hard for very creative people with egos (which they both are to have done what they did) to have a boss and a set of defined rules.

I know, I am the odd man out with this. It is why some people thrive at start ups where you get to make new rules every day and then break them (if you are senior, if you are junior then I am not sure but my guess is you just must go with the flow of your bosses doing the above). Corporate jobs where there are lots of rules and protocols are more difficult for the type of person who is so fabulous that they didnt even need to go to school to figure out what they want to do with their lives...

I think education does matter by the way- I think that it is difficult to learn to write a complete sentence in our secondary schools and that you basically need a college education (or be extremely self motivated and read Strunk and White at bedtime) in order to get ahead- people who are incoherent are boring. And, I think everyone needs to take at least one Art History course, period.

And there is a biznik heavy into wine- Seattle Swirl is the name of the company.... I attended an event she held and it was very nice. Maybe your magazine should do a profile on local wine entrepeneurs?

I am not sure if this will work but could you attach via glue or some other liquid adhesive those small suction cup things to the corners of the clings or are they too fragile? Those are stronger than the average cling and you could then suction the whole thing to the window... May be too bulky though... Just an idea.

On my desk? Lots of work binders and files, a stand up file holder that is jammed with way too many files- many of which could be put away but havent been... 2 antique chinese bowls that are used for paperclips etc, a custom glass box celebrating a client's recent achievement, 3 empty starbucks cups, a diet coke, a water bottle, tape, stapler, hole punch, pencil holder, desk lamp, phone, office supplies (phone, cell charger etc) and a series of CD's from a client that are supposed to be being reviewed at this moment but instead I am staring at my messy desk and feeling anxious about how fun I am... ANd being glad I have a big big desk to hold all this stuff.

Hi- It completely depends- what are you licensing? Art? Idea? Character? How developed is the property? Does it have commercial value on its own that would increase the value to the licensee? How are you structuring your contract- will you have an initial fee (common in licensing deals) and then a simple monthly royalty or a pay per use deal? Will there be backside points- based on revenue? How are you setting up tracking and accounting for each licensee? There are lots of different ways to do this. You need to figure out the value of the property, the number of potenial licensees, if there are territory issues and then you can set royalty %'s. Hope that helps!

1. Prompt answers and a firm bid
2. No laziness- if the person before you painted over paper border and you see it and dont want to deal with it so you paint over their paint you are NOT helping your client. They should be told and then they can decide what to do- even if it costs more.
3. Random subbing out is bad. We had our interior painted a few years ago, met one guy- he gave us bid, we signed with him. 2 days later a team of totally different guys show up and start painting. When I talked to the crew leader he said they were from a completely different company that had been subbed in by the guy we hired because he was so busy. Should have known when he rolled up to my house in an Escalade but figured he was just a good business man- this is not cool, if you are going to sub another company in for residential work you need to get the okay from the homeowner.
4. Dont make a huge mess. Be respectful of the space and if you take down the doors to spray them outside hang them back on the right doors or none of the guest room doors will close properly and you will have a pissed off client.

Find your niche. Figure out what your target market is and where your expertise, strengths and passion lie and go after those clients. It may be scary because you may think, "oh my, there are not enough of this sort of company. Or, there are already people in my field" but once you start building your reputation and having success your little world of influence will open and people will come to you. It is better to be fabulous at 1 thing than mediocre at 99 things. This was a hard lesson for me- when I first started I would take on clients no matter what- even if I didnt love their business model or if they were not in my area of expertise. Know when to turn someone down- refer them to another consultant, say you are not the best girl for the job. Once I started doing that I found that clients who are in my area came calling because I was directed at them, not all over the place. And then it grows from there.

We were married in Bellingham, at my parents house overlooking Pleasant Bay. It was fun, we were YOUNG (27), everyone had a fabu time, medium sized (170) and the best part was that we had small buses come and go from the reception to the hotel in town every 20 minutes so no one drove at all. Chuckanut is a scary road! This meant lots of merriment and probably too much champagne for most but people still talk about it 6 years later so it must have been the way to go. By the way, I did not love my flowers- my mom picked them all out after I had talked to the florist about what I wanted, and she listened to her, not me. So, when you talk to a bride, dont listen to her mother so much. All in all it was beautiful but it would have been more so with Green Hydrangeas and Sterling roses and not with whatever my mom picked - which I cant remember but do remember it being what not what I wanted. Oh, and our colors were celedon and white. :)

Thanks Jeff! I guess I never actually visit my own profile....

Where is the needs section? I am constantly in need of vendors for various clients and I just end up posting in the main chat area- I thought at one point there was a needs section but when I looked this AM to post for a caterer need I have I could not find it.... Does it have a random name?

Hi Joe- Just wondering- are you going to get one of those cool doors where your puppy wears a sensor on her collar and it only opens when she comes close to it? If you do, will you let me know if it works? We are considering that for our pup - we have racoons and other scary Ballardite inhabitants (giant squirrels) that we would not like to come IN to our house so a regular doggie door is out for us but I have seen these ones (my husband calls them star trek dog doors) and am dying to talk to someone who actually has one... Just wondering. :)

If you are absolutely sure of your travel dates and are not planning on changing them you could use a consolidator. I have heard of people using asaptickets.com with success but you can basically make NO changes once you purchase the tickets so sometimes that does not work for business travel. They are online but I think you have to call to actually buy them once you check out prices online. And, add a couple hundred to prices you see online as it doesnt include taxes or fees, but they still seem SUPER low to me- i was looking just yesterday for an upcoming flight to Moscow but couldnt handle the not being able to make any changes part of it.... I have used consolidators in the past back when I lived in NY though and it worked fine.