Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Chapter 8-Don’t Mess with the West Coast Wannabes

Okay, so we hadn't exactly gotten our money’s worth from Danielle, though it certainly had fired up Frances. Isn’t it funny how some people react to criticism? Instead of crawling under the proverbial rock, it lit a fire under her, a fire that still burned three years later. A fire that I doubted would ever cool to a mere ember.
I took it a little more personal, but not for long. While we were working on our line, getting ready for our meeting with the Manheim’s buyer, I was also busy making the dreaded cold calls, which are what sales people euphemistically refer to as a usually irritating unsolicited pitch to sell something.
Cold calling, or begging, as I like to refer to it, is the bane of every salesperson’s existence. In my case, I was trying to set up appointments with department store buyers to show our creations.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have an open to buy,” the polite but curt buyer said to my plea for a showing.
Huh? Open to buy?
Next call, next answer: “I’m sorry, we don’t have an open to buy.”
I soon figured out this meant they weren’t buying jewelry at the moment, or even the rest of the summer. The stores had already made their financial buying decisions for the year, so they didn’t have an opening to buy anything.
Little did we know that jewelry isn’t sold to the retailers in September, or November, or December, for that matter. All of the buying happens in May and then you ship it from September through December, we learned. And, of course, the smaller stores aren’t going to take on new people and lines—those unlucky entre¬preneurs who don’t already have a proven track record of sales.
This was particularly irksome because our children had just gone back to school. We’d revved up for the sales side of the busi¬ness, which that extra six hours a day would allow us.
I couldn’t even calculate the number of calls I made those weeks, which turned into months. I finally went out and bought a headset with a microphone to keep from getting carpal tunnel and a cauliflower ear.
First, I’d have to call to get the name of the buyer. If I was extremely lucky, I might ask for and get the buyer all in that first call. Most often, that wasn’t the case. The buyer was out to lunch— even though I always avoided calling during that hour, out on vacation, out of the office, or fired and the new buyer wouldn’t be in the office until next week. The answers or excuses were endless.
When I did get the right name, I would begin the day by calling the list of actual buyers I’d acquired from the previous day. Having a name means nothing, because most of the buyers have assistants, who are trained pit-bulls, what we called the gate keepers, whose job it is to defer and deter anyone stupid enough to call thinking they could sell jewelry in September.
Once in a great while, in the beginning, an assistant would pacify me with, “Why don’t you send some pictures of your line,” a suggestion I’m sure resulted in file cabinets filled with un-viewed photographs.
However, being not only a resilient and persistent salesperson, I was still a photographer. Even the slimmest chance that our prod¬ucts would be seen buoyed me, so out came the trusty Nikon, the strobe lights, and several crates of Granny Smith’s green apples. By now, everything we were producing in terms of marketing mate¬rials bore the image of the ubiquitous orbs.
After a weekend’s work, the shots were developed and printed, all glossy, and sent off via Fed Ex to any and all who had asked, and usually the stuff end up on the desk of three assistants.
My highest hope was a return call, though that was a stretch.
I really wasn’t prepared for what actually happened. All the photos were returned. Each did have a “Thank you but we’re not interested” note scribbled in ball-point pen on the back of one of the photos, which, of course leaves a deep depression in the print and ruins the picture.
I started to slump, but pulled myself up straight. In my ridicu¬lously positive way, I decided to look at it as a plus—at least they’d opened the envelopes and someone had seen our line.
After a period, I had to start being more creative, so to follow up my calls, I would send food—lots of it: candy, fresh muffins, homemade cookies—anything to get the buyer’s attention—all of which I’m sure were eaten or mistaken for an anthrax scare, but in any case, produced zero results—at least zero sales. We did get plenty of responses to the food, lots of thank you cards with requests for more of the homemade cookies and muffins, but none of them mentioned the jewelry or our great lime green and black line sheets.
When I’d run out of possibilities, I started calling, who else... our friends.
My newest idea was to throw house parties to help our friends celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, birthdays, and Bas Mitzvahs with our jewelry as gifts. By that time, we had 25 pieces in the line, and not all of them were kites or crosses.
Most of my ideas seemed to work well, although in a limited geographic area. Nevertheless, there were some failures. One of the more memorable marketing efforts was to co-op with a local men’s clothing designer. Donald Richey also known, at that time, as the designer to the stars—mostly well known NFL and NBA players as well as some Hollywood celebrities.
Richey had a brick and mortar operation, but the thing that set it apart was that he had salesmen drive around in luxury cars like Mercedes, Jaguars, and Ferraris, calling on potential clients in their own offices.
Each car was sort of a calling card, not unlike those pink Cadillacs that Mary Kay cosmetic representatives drive around in. And, just like Mary Kay, Donald Richey had his logo prominently displayed in a window as well as on the personalized plates they all sported.
My idea was to piggyback on that notoriety and to eventually supply all the salesmen with samples of our jewelry. For a commis¬sion, the Richey salesmen would suggest our beautiful wares as a great idea for the wife or girlfriend of each particular superstar. After all, they could obviously afford our products.
To my mind, since most of the NFL guys wear more jewelry than their wives, they would already be predisposed to a purchase. And, in the isolated cases where a wife might be a little testy because her husband was spending so much on clothes for himself, then when a given superstar came home with yet another $5,000 suit, he could also offer his beautiful significant other a lovely JudeFrances piece.
Fugetaboutit.
Didn’t work.
We never got out of the starting gate. One of the vice presidents at Richey’s was kind enough to set up a presentation for us, a trunk show at one of their stores. Frances and I came in with our prod¬ucts, set up a small table, and did a bit of a song and dance for five of the top salesmen.
We did manage to keep their attention as we extolled the virtues of our jewelry: how wearing our distinctive yet unpreten¬tious designs would make their girlfriends or wives feel delicate, romantic, and even independent, but I suspect most of the leering wasn’t at our product line.
Maybe the Richey reps didn’t push the line. Maybe the super¬stars thought it was a dumb idea. Doesn’t matter. It was a failure but we never really lost anything but a little time, and I learned another lesson in the business world.
Looking back, we probably should not have thrown the con¬cept “independent” into the benefits we presented to the salesmen—delicate, okay; romantic, great—but not independent.
There were several other failures too numerous to mention here. The point is, I never stopped trying new ideas, and I did grad¬ually get much more selective in my approaches—food always worked the best.
However, we still had the one encouraging opportunity on the horizon, our upcoming meeting with the Manheim’s buyer in Beverly Hills in late September. At least we could actually meet someone in the flesh.
We drove to Beverly Hills with the great anticipation of meeting with Angela, who was a manager and knew everyone at Manheim corporate in Dallas. Our balloons were soon deflated when she said she couldn’t buy anything, but that she did love our line and promised to connect us with a woman named Doris in Dallas, the main Manheim’s jewelry buyer. She ended the brief meeting by handing me Doris’ phone number.
There followed what bordered on the zeal of a stalker, our phone campaign to talk with Doris to set up a meeting. I am not exaggerating when I say that we called nearly every hour of every workday for six weeks, alternating duties. Of course, after the first few days, we stopped leaving messages and when we got her voice mail, we would hang up, hoping to get lucky later that afternoon.
Doris never did call back during those weeks. However, after nearly two months of speed dialing, Frances got lucky one after¬noon and Doris answered. Frances was so stunned, she didn’t know what to say, humming and hawing, trying to think of some¬thing brilliant.
It was Doris who spoke first, apologizing for returning our calls so late and asking that we send photos first, which we did. She quickly replied and our first meeting was set. We were higher than…I won’t say it again.
Between overseeing our manufacturer, double-checking our final products, begging our friends’ husbands to buy for their wives, and getting mentally prepared for our big debut sales oppor¬tunity, there was still the business of running a family, getting the kids off to school, picking them up and dropping them off at base¬ball, hockey or soccer, taking them to the doctor, and all the other typical things moms do.
There are also those unforeseen events that are so funny and absurd, they keep you going with laughter and tend to keep your ship on the right compass setting.
One such incident was our sick hamster. I bring this up because it happened just days before we were ready to go to Dallas to meet Doris. My daughter Ruby brought Rascal, her hamster, into my room and said, “Mommy, what is this bump on Rascal’s belly?”
I said, “I don’t know, dear. Here, hand him to me. Let me see.”
Rascal is rather large for his breed, weighing in at about two pounds because we are constantly feeding him—more often than not, treats.
I rolled him over in my hands and felt around and sure enough, there was a large lump on his belly about the size of a grape. I knew right away something was not right.
“We’re going to have to take Rascal to the vet,” I told Ruby. So off we went. The diagnosis was as definitive as it was quick—a tumor—it had to come out immediately.
“Immediately?” I asked, looking for some sympathy.
“Yes Ms. Steele. We’re very worried about this,” said the young, obviously new doctor.
I looked at him, then at Rascal, as one of those cartoon bub¬bles appeared above my head with lots of dollar signs floating in it. Then I looked at my daughter’s expression and knew I didn’t have a chance.
“Uh, what will that cost?” I asked the young intern, really more concerned about how long Rascal would be in the hospital in recovery, trying to judge the time I’d needed for my Dallas trip.
“Oh, in case there are complications, we can’t be entirely sure however, it generally runs in the three-hundred and fifty-ish range,” he said.
Geeze, the three-hundred-fifty-ish range? The whole hamster cost only 15 bucks and that included his cage, a month’s supply of food, and vitamins, and a handy how-to booklet on teaching them tricks—but my daughter was practically in tears. So I said, “Okay. Do it. Save the hamster.”
The next day, after we had made arrangements for my friend to stay with the children and also pick up the hamster in recovery, Frances and I are sitting in the airport when my cell phone rings.
“Hello, is this Ms. Steele?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“This is Dr. Webster, your hamster’s physician.” That is how

he referred to himself, a hamster physician, God. And I’m thinking,
what in the hell is going on? There can only be two explanations. The patient died. The patient lived. In either case, why would the vet call me on a cell phone?
“What’s up, Doc?” I asked.
“There have been some complications,” he replied.
“Like what?” Long pause.
“The tumor is deeper than we thought.”
“Well, what’ll we do?” It’s a hamster, for God’s sake!
“Well,” he said very seriously, “I always like to do what’s best

for the patient.” As I’m trying to fathom this man and his priorities, I hear the
airport loudspeaker making the last call for our flight. “Well then doctor, do what’s best. How much is it gonna cost?” “Probably closer to seven hundred now,” he said. I had to catch my breath slowly before I could answer. “Oh my
God. Okay, okay. Go ahead and operate. Do you take Visa?” I asked. “Oh, my yes,” the doctor said. And then just before I could hang up, “Uh, Ms. Steele, we can’t guarantee he’ll live.” With that I flipped the phone closed, grabbed Frances, and we made a dash for the plane.
“Geeze.”
“What’s the matter, Jude; forget something?” Frances said as we fastened our seat belts.
“Oh geeze, with all the talk about the hamster surgery, I forgot to call that guy Lloyd.”
“You mean the Geezer?” she asked.
The Geezer was a man that I had just started to date, though I hesitate to call it dating.
He was 25 years older than I and Frances used to tease me that he could’ve been my father, but of course he wasn’t. He was just a nice man who understood that I was a busy person with family and a business. That alone, made him attractive in one way—he was patient. He just had this one…well, maybe he had a couple…this thing about me calling him early if I wasn’t going to make it to a date.
I hadn’t called him before we left the house. I was going to call him after we got to our gate. Now, it was too late, the plane was leaving, and all cell phones had to be turned off.
I should have known better. We had planned to go out to dinner and a play and I knew he’d been counting on it. Even though he liked me a lot, I think he also enjoyed having an attrac¬tive young woman on his arm for those types of events, regardless of whether she had any brains or not.
I hadn’t taken Frances’ advice that I should always let my chil¬dren know what to expect ahead of time. That should have applied to my dates as well.
I’d now be on a plane for 2-1/2 hours, unable to apologize until it was far too late. Eventually, Lloyd quit calling me and I think it all began with that one lapse on my part, not that I didn’t deserve it.
I found myself torn so many times over the issue of dating. It wasn’t just because of the frantic juggling of men, children, and busi¬ness, but because I just didn’t know if I wanted another meaningful relationship—or even needed one to further complicate things.
On the other hand, I enjoy the company of bright, funny, and sincere men—all work and no play, so to speak. When they under¬stood how important my children and my new business were to me and offered great advice, so much the better.
I do remember one man who, on the very first date, after asking what I did, commented that he could never date a woman who made more money than he did. Of course, that was the last time I ever saw him. Can you imagine? And what do you think he did for a living? He was the night manager, a flunky, at a 24-Hour Fitness center, who probably had trouble making the payments on his 1998 Camaro, which I imagine, severely limited his potential dating pool.
That wasn’t always the case. In fact, if you are beginning to date or have been dating for a while, you’ll recognize some of my dates. You might have dated some of them as well. How about Dan? Tell me if you’ve met him.
Dan was a stunningly beautiful man, if I can use that word with the not-so-fair sex. At 6’3”, He was nearly a foot taller than me, which was fine. He was funny and witty and I was smitten with him from nearly the moment we met, which was the result of a collision in the grocery store.
After he kindly helped me put all my groceries back in my bags, he introduced himself, made some incredibly funny observations, which I can’t recall now, and asked me if I’d have dinner with him sometime.
Dinner seemed a bit fast for me. I prefer to meet for coffee or lunch on the first “encounter,” in order to keep it safe. Even more important, it’s great for excuses about how you have to get back to work, yada, yada. However, he just had this great smile and he caught me off guard. As a result, I said yes, and I gave him my office number. I never gave out my home number, nor did I ever let a date come into my house further than the entry hall.
Within two days he called and asked if we could go to Bistango’s, a nice local restaurant. I said “Yes.”
He said, “How about sevenish?”
I said, “Great.”
Later that afternoon, I realized he hadn’t asked for my address and to make it worse, I didn’t have his number—his caller ID showed up as blocked, which is always a bit of an alarm bell to me. So, there was nothing to do but wait for him to call back.
He’d said Friday night. It was Monday. I waited until nearly six on Friday night, about to give up and rent a movie, when the phone finally rang.
“Hello, Jude?”
“Yes.”
“This is Dan. I forgot to give you my address. How silly of me.”
Wait a minute. Why would I need his address? He’s supposed to pick me up around sevenish.
“Uh, Dan. Don’t you mean my address? Aren’t you going to pick me up for dinner?”
“Oh, no. Didn’t I tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“I need you to pick me up. I can’t drive.”
Immediately, I scanned my memory bank for his image the day of the collision. He didn’t have any broken legs that I could remember. His hands and arms seemed intact. What could possibly keep him from driving?
“Uh, why can’t you drive, Dan?”
“Oh, just a silly thing. I’ve had three DUIs. I won’t have my driver’s license back until July of ’07. You don’t mind, do you?”
Think... quick.
“Uh, uh, well, uh. You know, I can’t do that. Uh, my car’s in the shop.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. When’s it getting out?”
“Uh, uh, I’m not sure. They said it might be totaled. I’ll have to wait and see.”
“Oh, that’s horrible. How did it happen?”
“Uh, err... A drunk driver hit me. I’m surprised you didn’t notice that large black and blue mark on my arm last week when we met.”
Silence.
“Hello, Dan. Are you there?”