Tinkering a bit.

While I have been away I have been doing my internet marketing plan for the boutique. At this point it's pretty much going to be spread the word at every moment you see. What I have come to realize in my findings is that as a business owner, you really don't just mingle without a cause at any event or gathering because not only will you be able to gain a new customer but you also never know who you may meet that will benefit your business as well. Of course you will never do business unlawfully but it will always be a I scratch your back you mine type of a deal. Which also brought me to think about one my favorite shows "The Real Housewives" the season of Atlanta Housewives. I very much related to the character "Lisa". Her personality was very outgoing, always having more that one project to keep her busy and of course first a mother before anything else. I will never forget what she mentioned on the show when going into an event. She stated that she never attends any event without networking, "if ya don't network 24/7 your not doing anything with your business" which leads to my very simple thought above.
These next couple of weeks will be family orientated with thought of the boutique on hold for 2 weeks or so. I am a firm believer in separting your family from your work and getting that breather once in a while. Speaking of breather I am excited about our upcoming trips... 2 in feb which will be to The Magic Tradeshow in Vegas and Puerto Rico to visit some family as well as our trip to San Fransisco in April for our one year wedding anniversary. So as you can see my life definitly needs a balance.
Oh I hope you like... I played with a little polyvore and I have my creations here. I will definitly use this tool as marketing networking and admin so I hope you likey!

fashionably romantic by annmarie050

Haute Holiday by annmarie050

ta ta for now!
Annmarie

Book Reviews....

Alright so I read a book from Entreprenuer Magazine's "Design and Launch an Online Boutique in a Week". So the "Design" part I really don't get because there wasn't much about designing in the book. Overall the book is meant to target up and coming luxury boutique owners, which I won't be... but it was a good read in terms of finding out all of the steps you need to get through to get started and how to manage your business once it is running, that was the information that was pretty universal to me. The book was forewarded by the CMO of Bluefly.com Bradford Matson. For some who may not know bluefly.com sells luxury apparel, we're talking about 200.00+ for a really trendy designer dress and they were also featured in the hit reality show "Project Runway"...my fav!! They had some keypoints about internet marketing which found very informative and they talked about tracking your customers to find out what may be hot items on your site as well as inventory fullfilment and much more. How to obtain funding was another important portion although they really only talked about amounts over 100,000 and people who financed their own comapnies out of their own pocket with larger amounts of money.............uh ..ya... no.
Realistically my partner and I are talking 5,000 or even less depending on what is needed. The book also talked about website features more than the aspect of designing with html codes which was what I was hoping for. They also had some good resources that I looked up after I was done reading. I mean it wasn't bad for someone who has not done some research before reading, but all of the questions I had, seems as though they had been answered by my internet research already. I guess what am trying to say is, I was hoping to be surprised with something really new.
Speaking of books, I highly recomend picking up "Ladies Who Launch" excellent book about ditching the road to un-happiness and following your dreams and launching what you really want to do... whatever that is. I consider it to be like "The Secret" but only for women... it is like my bible. One thing that always gets me about it is how they talk about how to make yourself happy regardless of wether you want to move up the corporate ladder, make money off of a hobby or becoming the best mom or wife you could be without thinking that you must give all of your dreams to do so.

I did have one enlightnement after I reading the first book. I thought about possibly having some type of designer collection, I mean afterall we would like to appeal to everyone. Although we would like for things to be affordable at the same token, would it be a conflict if we had a few designers on there like Lauren Conrad or Beau Boise in addition to our more affordable collection. Would that be like drinking a beer out of the bottle in a 5 star restaurant??? I guess it would depend on the quality and price of our other items. Then I thought some more... what about cosmetics?? for now I guess we would just have to take it one step at a time but it could be a great idea... time to add that to my agenda!
On my final note.. you know how I mentioned I started a new job part time... well it is a landmark for business professionals.... wednesday I had the pleasure to meet the owner of all of the Love Culture juniors apparel store, usually located inside of a mall, kind of like Forever 21. I was able to speak to him for a little while and got some really good information and resources...yay! I have had a long week in training but monday-friday I will finally get a little break. I was a little scared about cutting my paycheck in half and giving up my job at corporate america. But by working at this place, I now can clearly see that I have full control of my life. I finally will have time to finish my degree, I have twice as much time now to spend with my family and since my husband has been a big support I now only work partime 2-3 days a week I have more time to focus on getting this venture going. So as the ladies who launch say,
"There are many people who give up successsful careers to sort mail in the mailroom. Why? because launching for them means doing whatever it takes to get moving in the right direction; even if it means starting at the bottom of the food chain"!

ta ta for now!
-Annmarie

And the holiday season begins......

Well now that Thanksgiving is over, my family and I are just getting ready to pt up our tree....wait did i just say tree...OMG I can't believe this year is almost over! well if you are like me, this year has been insane. I have gone through school, getting married, a new venture and now a new job. I really hope this new year to really follow my resolutions, but I will be sure to stay away from saying that I will be going to the gym and eating healthy because that is the first thing I fail at. This time I will just do, no need to mention..It's a given right? So Thanksgiving was good as usual and say that literally. Yes it was great to spend time with the family and all but I was really hoping to make my own turkey this year. After all I have made the ham and other fixing 8 years in a row already, I think I am all hammed out! My husband and I were thinking of possibly doing Thanksgiving on our own this year and maybe going "family house hoping" instead of going to our same spot all day. But he made a valid point I must admit. since we will be moving about 4 hours away within the next two years it only makes sense to spend it with family as much as we can, because once we move they won't be around the corner anymore and sadly we may have to spend majority of holidays by ourselves. I slightly agree with that because I don't think that 4 hour drive will stop family from coming to visit...lol!

Okay so long story short, my husband can't keep secrets... I got my Christmas gift early this year. My new SLR camera!!! So excited... this is what is going to help me get those really crisp photos onto our online boutique. I am thinking we may just have someone take the product photos once, and then have them show us how to do it ourselves after that. It just seems very expensive to hire a product photographer all the time, I mean we are talking 10=-20 bucks an item and we have 30-40 products that's over 800 dollars every few months to update our gallery. Overall I am so excited about my new camera, I have been taking photos of everything! So my girlfriend and I haven't meet up yet because of the holidays but we will soon to collaborate our final ideas and get this show on the road. It's hard for both of us to get together mainly because she is a full time student and I am a full time mom, but when we get together we have the best of times.
Narrowing down a few web designers is where we are at right now, It's hard because with owning a business you have have to be a savvy shopper. Being able to have a really good looking website while keeping it affordable is what's important. Yes having a business means taking risks but you don't have to have a hard hit when thins get tough, they have special gear for that and in my world I call it "research".
Ideas just don't fly out of thin air. Every thought is composed of something that has been said or seen before, so my game plan is to scout the competition in the meanwhile. I like to see what ideas other people have come up with for their sites. So far we would really like to have a lookbook . I love event planning so I wanted to incorporate that somehow also. I have also been looking into lighting equipment for the product photos as well as body forms and jewelry displays all together totalling a little over 300 dollars. Packaging is also very important. Although we will have an online store we would like our packaging to speak to our customers when they open our products and also for our ground clients as well. That's looking around 150+ with a custom logo.
So trade shows... yay! so excited but sad I may miss the Magic Trade show beginning of next year. It is only the biggest bestest apparel trade show ever...lol! they have 100's and 100's of booths and vendors ready for retailers. But... I may be in Puerto Rico that same week. I think they have another one in August we can make. LA has a few I would like to attend as well as Chicago and New York but for the most part I have seen a few good online wholesaler sites that would eliminate the cost of the trip.
My new part time job starts tomorrow, I am sooo excited about my new schedule and hopefully I will have some more time to show this venture some love.

ta ta for now!
~A