Business Improvement

Archive for July, 2010

Birkin Bag

The “Birkin” bag is a handbag manufactured by leather goods and readytowear manufacturer Herms. It is named after Britishborn actress and singer Jane Birkin a longtime resident of France.

lt;a href=”http://www.himfr.com/buyWarm_SocksWarm Sockslt;/agt;Press accounts of the bag’s genesis differ in details. Birkin told noted fashion writer Dana Thomas that while seated next to Herms CEO JeanLouis Dumas in 1984 on a Paris to London flight she opened her Hermsmade datebook and a flurry of loose notes fell to the floor. Dumas took her datebook and returned it a few weeks later with a pocket sewn into the back which has since become standard. Birkin went on to discuss with Dumas her difficulty in finding a leather weekend bag and at his prompting described her ideal. Shortly thereafter the bag she described arrived at her flat with a note from Dumas.1

A more piquant version of the story was repeated by film director Andrew Litvack. He put the year as 1981 and says that Birkin was called to Herms to receive the first prototype. As she was leaving with the bag they asked if she had forgotten something. Puzzled she realized they wanted her to pay for it. Litvack claims Birkin was eventually reimbursed and now receives a 10 discount on Herms products.

Generally the price of a Birkin starts at approximately 7500 USD not including sales taxes but can reach 5 and sometimes 6digit prices particularly when the bag is constructed from exotic animal skins. Allegedly the waiting list for a Birkin is over two years. In practice however many stores have a “call list” and an “order list” both usually consisting of clients who have in one way or another become “regulars” or have formed a relationship with a particular Sales Associate.

Herms does not sell its handbags online or to online retailers. Authentic Birkin bags are sometimes available on auction websites such as eBay though often at a very high markup over the retail price. It is also possible to acquire a used Birkin bag at coutureconsignment shops. In Plum Sykes’ novel Bergdorf Blondes 2004 the character Julie Bergdorf steals a Birkin from her family’s store Bergdorf Goodman to avoid a threeyear wait although in reality Birkins are only sold by Herms are not available as claimed in the novel in pink with fur trim and probably would not require such a long wait for a socialite like her.

Herms handbags have been noted for being one of the few brands of handbag to either hold or increase in value with time giving them the distinction of being considered by some as “investment quality” products. Author Michael Tonello in his book Bringing Home The Birkin published by William Morrow in 2008 shares his experiences buying and selling the Birkin Bag on eBay. He recounts how he acquired Birkin Bags in Spain and France and became a powerhouse eBay seller until Hermes refused to sell him anymore Birkins. The book provides an insiders peek at the mystique of this exclusive accessory.

Herms Birkin handbags are handbuilt by experienced craftsmen one of the primary factors contributing to the high price of all Herms handbags. The production of each bag may take up to 48 work hours translating into weeks. They are distributed worldwide to Herms boutiques on intentionally unpredictable schedules and in even fewer reliable quantities creating a sense of scarcity and exclusivity around the product.

The exterior of the bag can be made of a variety of leathers. One of the most expensive variations of the bag is made of saltwater crocodile skin. The price of these bags depends on the size of the scales. Bags with smaller scales cost much more than those with larger scales.

Typically a Birkin bag’s lining is made of goat skin and its color will match the bag’s exterior color. The bags can also be specialordered from custom leathers and colors but order privileges are granted only to certain established Herms clients and again on an unpredictable basis. Orders are reportedly submitted to Paris twice a year with “specialorder” bags coming back anywhere from a year to 2 years later. Occasionally special orders may never arrive as Herms is notorious for discontinuing certain leathers or colors without notice frequently making the arrival and “pickup” of a special order Birkin a cause for some fun fanfare both for the client and occasionally even for boutique staff.

The metallic hardware on a Birkin bag the lock keys buckle hardware and feet studs are typically plated with gold or other precious metals such as palladium which unlike silver will not tarnish. The metal lock may be covered with leather as an option when custom ordering. Certain notable Herms clients have paved buckle hardware with diamonds notoriously resulting in one black crocodile skin Birkin which notably sold for close to 65000 at auction in 2005.

Birkin lock keys are enclosed in a type of leather lanyard known as a “clochette” which is typically but not necessarily carried by looping it through one of a Birkin’s handles. The Birkin bag may be locked by closing the bag’s top flaps over all buckle loops wrapping the buckle straps and closing the lock on the front hardware.

Locks and keys are numbercoded.

In pop culture the Birkin has become a symbol of ultimate luxury although its ostentatious use by the wives and girlfriends of British footballers during the 2006 World Cup caused some fashion writers to speculate about its continued desirability.4 In Paris it has been associated with among others socalled BCBG bon chic bon genre women. Jane Birkin remarked that by 2006 the fame of the bag had exceeded her own: “Now when my daughter actress Charlotte Gainsbourg goes to America they ask her if she is the daughter of the bag.

In recent years the bag has featured prominently on popular television shows such as Sex and the City Gilmore Girls and Will amp; Grace8. In the final season of The Sopranos Dr. Melfi carried a Birkin bag into her own therapy session. In Gossip Girl Lily van der Woodsen carries her Birkin bag in black and tan in season one.

A widely publicized incident at London’s Heathrow Airport in 2006 where actress Lindsay Lohan’s orange Birkin bag was reportedly stolen drew further attention to the bag. The actress claimed that the lost bag was full of valuables worth upwards of 1000000. It was returned shortly thereafter.9 Sophie Albou founder of the fashion house Paul amp; Joe claimed to have bought a Birkin each season for ten years describing her collection as “an expensive addiction but … part of my heritage as a French woman”.

About the writer:  Himfr is a scholar focusing his research on Chinese cultures. If you are interested in purchasing China goods please visit www.himfr.com

Be More Frequently-quoted Than Celebrities

Language is magic: it makes things appear and disappear.

Nicole Brossard

Tell the Story That Tells the Story

Dusk settled coolly over the misty emerald vineyards in Napa Valley one fall evening.

Through the window I gazed wistfully at a thin stream of bittersweet chocolate sauce a waiter was ladling high over a raspberrycolored cake a the table of a handholding couple seated inside the big stone restaurant operated by the Culinary Institute of America.

I knew it was bittersweet chocolate because the rich smell was drifting through the French doors out onto the patio where we were drinking a fine Cakebread cabernet next to two giggling toddlers just as happily chewing red licorice twists from the local 711 store.

To generalize is to be an idiot.

William Blake

Here’s the pity. As adults we tend to lose our “picturemaking” way of speaking especially as we become older more educated and experienced. Our expertise does us in.

Our conversations begin with sweeping generalizations.

To further numb listeners we are more likely today to talk “at” others using longer sentences full of jargon background and qualifiers before we cue the listeners in with the context that matters to them.

Our words become underbrush to obscure our message. Instead make the point in everyday language wrapped around an example that matters to your listener.

Heres Tip Tips to Say it Even Better . Next Time

Whoever most vividly characterizes a situation or person usually determines how others see it in their minds eye discuss it and act on it.

Heres ten quick tips for becoming the most frequentlyquoted expert in your profession organization market or cause.

1. Be Mercifully Brief

In the movie “The Player during a scene at a Hollywood studio executive meeting Mr. Levy shows Reeve the central character how to pitch a potential movie story. Levy holds out a newspaper saying Here read a headline any headline.

Reeve responds: Um . . .Immigrants Protest Budget Cuts in Literacy Program.

Levy: “Human spirit overcoming economic adversity. Sounds like Horatio Alger in the barrio. You put in Jimmy Smits you got a sexy Stand and Deliver. Next?

Robert Kosberg a Hollywood producer convinced a studio to make the 1993 pets gonewrong movie “Man’s Best Friend.” His pitch was Jaws on Paws.

2. Create a Captivating Turn of Phrase

Heres three ways.

A. Use a familiar word in a new way and become associated with a new trend:

Example: Futurist Faith Popcorn predicted five years ago that people would want to be cocooning in their home.

B. Be catchy using one or more of these memorabiitybuilding devices:

Alliteration: Peak performance and high tech/high touch.

Rhyme: Jaws on Paws from earlier story

Repetition: First things first Steve Coveys advice.

Puns: Tongue Fu! title of book by Sam Horn.

C. Employ an unexpected turns of phrase: For example I suggest that to forge a connection go slow to go fast.

3. Get Specific Sooner

The specific detail proves the general conclusion not the other way around.

The Mini Cooper of office furniture is the apt tag line of the tiny firm Turnstone. Their elaboration: Leveraging parent Steelcase’s technology and distribution channels we offer small businesses great style for less with bigbusiness speed.

Unlike most children under the age of 12 or so we adults offer qualifiers and background creating verbal underbrush before we finally get to the delicious details that are most involving credible and evocative.

Think of the speeches advertisements and conversations you most remember. Didn’t the words evoke one or more of the senses create an indelible picture?

Air bag for your computer is the description of back up software for a computers hard drive.

For several years many advertising campaigns featured a group photo of “diverse” people with some variation of this headline: “We Are the People Who Care.” Banks insurance companies hospitals and other large institutions thus offered a generality that perpetuated their impersonal image instead of promising some specific service extra convenience guarantee or customer story that proved how they were better than the competition.

For example a bank could offer a specific new service followed by the general reason that matters to customers: Were now open Saturdays to make your life easier.

4. Make Favorable Comparisons With Familiar Admired Objects

Say it so they can see it in their mind’s eye. When people in your work world are immersed in jargon your remarks can stand out from others when you make a comparison with a wellliked product person or situation from outside your profession or industry.

Example: At the high stakes J.P. Morgan Healthcare investors conference venture capitalists hear 20minutes talks by CEOs of startups and public companies who seek funding or favorable stock analysts reporters. The tension is high and the schedule is packed. Most presenters speak fast using a mix of highly technical scientific and finance language.

The CEO from biotech company Amgen walked past the podium to the center of the stage pulled up one suit and shirt sleeve to bare his raised forearm. He opened his talk saying ” You will feel the effects of this medical patch faster than it takes a Porsche to go from zero to 90.

5. Hijack a Familiar Slogan to Use in a New Way

After a company has spent millions to make a slick slogan wellknown twist it in a new direction for your intended meaning. Redwood Hospital in Northern California used this billboard variation of the popular milk slogan to ask for blood donations: Got blood?

6. Anchor Your Suggestion With a Pertinent Story

To pull people into hearing and remembering your view set it up with a brief anecdote. For example as a way of gently suggesting that his team may be looking at a problem from the wrong perspective my client first offered this story:

There is an old story in Soviet Russia about a guard at the factory gate who at the end of every day saw a worker walking out with a wheelbarrow full of straw. Everyday he thoroughly searched the contents of the wheelbarrow but never found anything but straw. One day he asked the worker: “What do you gain by taking home all that straw?” “The wheelbarrows.

7. Veil the Truth in Humor

So much of life is fastpaced serious and tense. Consider opening a meeting with mockserious inspiration or admonition then grinning. Youll find true life Dilbertlike examples everywhere that you can keep for your dry humored use. Heres some:

What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter.

Lykes Lines Shipping

This project is so important we can’t let things that are more

important interfere with it.

Marketing manager United Parcel Service

We know that communication is a problem but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees.

Switching supervisor Verizon

8. Encapsulate a Situation

Do people stop listening before you stop talking?

Offer a vignette that captures attention before they can go on a mental vacation.

Example: Jenny Lees literary agent characterized Jennys book I Do. I Did Now What?: One Womans Musings on Married Life as “a rant that almost despite itself ends up as a celebration of marriage.

Example: Financial analyst Alan Parisse shared this perhaps apocryphal newspaper advertisement with me: For sale. Infant shoes. Never used.

9. Imprint by Evoking UniversallyFelt Emotions

The advantage of emotions is that they lead us astray.

Oscar Wilde

Consider these potent ways that people are more likely to remember what you say even when they are not trying to:

1. Imagine that the brain is like a wall with clothes hooks on it. For the brain to catch and retain a detail that detail must hang on one of the memoryinducing hooks that is already in the brain.

The biggest hooks in the brain are the three universally felt core life experiences familiar to us all:

1 Family

2 Hometown or town where you have lived or are living and

3 Past or current kind of work. For family relate what you’re saying to a family situation: yours theirs someone else’s or even a metaphorical family of services. Or relate your topic to the listener’s work situation or work with which she is familiar.

People also remember landmark places where they live have lived or have visited or wellknown places. For example our business is in Sausalito which evokes pleasant bythebay memories for most who’ve visited here.

2. Motion makes memories.

Whenever people are moving or see movement they remember more and are more emotional about what they remember. When others are in motion with you in a positive experience they are more likely to share their experience with others. That’s why we literally move to offer samples getting people to reach out so they feel the experience more deeply.

An experience is most memorable when you and the other person are both in motion such as when you shake hands walk together or reach to exchange something. Pick those ripe moments to say the most vivid specific detail you want the listener to remember and repeat to others. Times are next most memorable for the listener who is in motion even if you are not.

The next most memorable movement is when you are in motion even if your listener is not. A final valuable way to evoke a memory is for you both to watch motion from something or someone else.

Warning: Let Go of the Vibrating Pole

There are two levers for moving men interest and fear.

Napoleon

Movement is a twoedged sword. It is never neutral. The listener who experiences something negative where motion is involved will also remember the experience longer and more intensely. Just like grabbing vibrating pole we grab onto negative feelings sooner longer and more intensely than positive.

That is because the primitive triune part of our brain wired to help us survive causes us to respond to appearances of danger more strongly than to those of delight.

3. Speak first of the other person’s most current pressing interest. Justas those in the market for new cars are most likely to hear car ads on the

radio all people listen sooner when you first speak about what is most ontheir mind at that moment.

Sadly in fewer than 5 of interactions even when we want something from someone else do we first speak about what matters most to them. We are more likely to speak about our own interests first.

4. Speak in the vivid specific details that have a high emotional value forthe listener.

The good news?

If you practice speaking first about the other person’s interests then about what you share in common and only then about how that commonality relates to your interests four amazingly powerful changes occur in how that other person relates to you. The person listens sooner listens longer remembers more and assumes you have a higher IQ than if you first speak about your own interests.

10. Look to Their Positive Intent Especially When It Appears They Have None

Do not let somebody else determine your words or behavior.

Unfortunately we are more likely to be vivid in describing what we dont like than what we do. Yet as Adlai Stevenson once said When you throw mud you get dirty.

Report in neutral language the negative news and hand any resultant problems back on the person who caused them without labeling that persons behavior: As we are starting our meeting at ten after how shall we best use the time?

Conversely use emotionladen language to state the positive and both you and the person you praise will shine: Your manager was thoughtful enough to send us the plans ahead of this meeting so we are much better prepared to make decision. Please thank him for putting in the extra time to give us a head start on this project.

Praise what you want to flourish. As you bring out anothers best side temperament and talents that person is more likely to see and support yours.

After all if this is the Age of Engagement fueled by The Power of Us then what could be more crucial for you to learn than to create the captivating picture that inspires us to be greater together than apart?

About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Emmywinning former Wall Street Journal and NBC reporter Kare Anderson is a speaker and author of SmartPartnering Resolving Conflict Sooner Getting What You Want Walk Your Talk Beauty Inside Out and LikeAbility and publisher of the blogpodcast Moving From Me to We and the blognewsletter Say it Better collectively serving over 42000 subscribers in 26 countries.
She speaks on communicating to connect and collaborate to become highperforming and happier with others. Her clients are as diverse as Pfizer google Human Rights Watch Venrock National League of Cities and Nordstrom. As David Rockefeller said after hearing her speak “Kare forever changes how you see yourself and your world.

As A Man Thinketh And Your Home Business

As A Man Thinketh is a great little book by James Allen that has been rewritten into modern and gender neutral language. But in any language Allen teaches us the way to prosperity in our lives including your home business. So what do you think? If you are brave and really want to know look at your current situation. Because your current situation is a manifestation of how you really think. This is as opposed to how you think you think. If you really think prosperity then you will demonstrate prosperity in your life and business. Are you demonstrating prosperity in your business? If you really think “lack” but thinly cover it up with thoughts of prosperity then your business will demonstrate lack. If you really think: “I can’t afford that!” then that will be your reality even if you try to think prosperity in general. Its the same thing with thinking or saying “I can’t do that” or “that won’t work”. If these are indeed your basic thoughts covered up with some form of positive thinking the result will be that you really can’t do that or it won’t work. So when you look at yourself and your business; are you demonstrating lack or prosperity?

Bottom line then is that you need to “tend to the Garden of Your Mind weeding out all the wrong useless and impure thoughts and cultivating towards perfection the flowers and fruits of right useful and pure thoughts”. “Good thoughts bear good fruit and bad thoughts bear bad fruit” in the book. This will require some work. But which thoughts make you feel bad? Those are the one to eliminate. Which thoughts make you feel good? Those are the ones to have more of. This work will need to be done continually if you want good things in your life including your home business.

At times it will be difficult or impossible to put that “bad feeling” thought out of your mind. You may need to push it out of the way with a “good feeling” thought. For better results this other thought should be completely different; like thinking about a past or future vacation or other special event. Think about someone you love and what you can do for them. How can your business better serve more people? Do you get the idea?

Finally turn the negative thoughts like “I can’t afford that!” around and think “How can I afford that?” or “I can’t do that” into “How can I do that?” or “that won’t work” into “How can I make it work?”. Then concentrate and write down your thoughts. If you practice any form of mediation then apply it to this situation. Focus and don’t give up. The power of your conscious and subconscious mind will find an answer for you if you try.

So what do you think? If you are brave and really want to know look at your current situation. Your current situation is a mirror of how you really think. Your next thought should be a “good feeling” thought. Importantly don’t take yourself too seriously. Recognize your good qualities along with those that you would like to change and then set about changing them. Try to have some fun with the process.

About the writer:  The author is a fulltime online marketer who has numerous websites including two sites on Internet marketing. For the latest and most effective web marketing tools and articles try: Seldom Rest Do You? . This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.