Happy Birthday Mickey!

Natasha

Ivanka

I used to refer to my daughter Natasha as Ivanka Trump. Both have jewelry lines. Most EtsyNY members know Natasha is Wink and Flip. But she recently confided in me that she did not like being called Ivanka Trump.

"Who then?" I asked. 

She thought for a moment and then answered purposefully, "Mickey Drexler." 

Mickey

It raises certain issues. When an EtsyNY friend wanted to attend a movie together and suggested a date, I wrote back: "Booked. Day of beauty planned with Mickey Drexler," and there were some questions.

No one ever accused Natasha of aiming low. Mickey (his mother named him Millard) Drexler grew up in the Bronx, slept on a cot in the hallway of his apartment (according to 60 Minutes), and you might never have heard of him except he is the current chairman and CEO of the J. Crew Group (a place where I swear they know my daughter by first name.) 

Some people say Drexler invented Casual Friday. As the former CEO of Gap Inc. he pulled the khaki pant away from the military and out of the Preppy Handbook to make it an American wardrobe staple. He's been a director at Apple since its heyday in 1999. His 69th birthday was 10 days ago, and he is still going VERY strong; the guy is called the Merchant Prince.

But he started out like many of us did. He attended the Bronx High School of Science, City College and SUNY Buffalo. He received an M.B.A from BU and went on to rise to merchandising vice-president at the now-defunct A&S department store in the mid-70s. He held positions at Ann Taylor, Bloomingdales and Macy*s.

GAP and J. Crew

Drexler was GAP in the 1990s. He introduced private label merchandise for the store. it expanded rapidly to become an iconic part of 90s pop culture, featuring commercials with Beatles background music (remember Mellow Yellow?). The relaxed American casual look that he defined made the Gap a top brand the world over. Retailers began to believe that stores needed people with "impeccable taste" and "strong gut instincts" rather than just numbers, to thrive. 

In 2002, Drexler and GAP parted ways, and when the head of The J.Crew Group heard this he went over to Mickey Drexler's house, knocked on the front door, and offered him the company's top job. 

Drexler turned the American clothing and accessories retailer (founded via catalog in 1983) into an upscale boutique, opening its first store in 1989. Gone were the dressy business-style clothes, in came the vintage "look alike" styles with a feminine edge. 

According to writer Nick Paumgarten, in a profile about Drexler he wrote for The New Yorker, the CEO frequently gets on the company loudspeaker at the downtown NYC offices and makes random announcements. Here is the pre-announcement scenario Paumgarten witnessed firsthand:

"On a rainy day in May, Drexler and his team of designers and merchants crowded into a shack on a pier in Maine, where a small group of local seamstresses, in the employ of a company called Sea Bags, was stitching totes, duffels, and dopp kits out of old sails; the New Yorkers were swarming the goods, like discriminating pirates. They arranged bags on the floor in order to choose a few to feature in the J. Crew catalogue. “This is why you come and you see and you feel,” Drexler said. He stood over it all, rocking a little on his heels, his lips moving silently, his body a kind of divining rod. He turned to the bags’ designers and said, “Here’s what I’m thinking—should we talk?” His barrage of questions barely left time for answers. “Where in the world do you sell your bags? Is there an iconic or a famous Sea Bag? In five years, do you repeat? Is this your logo? Do we have time to do this today? Can we just work? Should we just grab the things we like?” The arrangement on the floor grew. “Let’s see less depth, more assortment,” he said. “Bring out some more stripes and numbers.” More bags appeared, emblazoned with stripes and numbers. “This is like discovering gold. This is it. Loudspeaker, please.”

What kind of 24-year old chooses this kind of madman on which to model herself A hard worker. Drexler is known for hiring people -- not for their G.P.A -- but because they come from humble beginnings and are willing to work hard. He learned his work ethic early. His mom died when he was 16 years old and his dad worked as a button buyer for a coat company in the garment district. But he also has described his desire to get away from his humble beginnings as a motivating factor.

All in the Family

In Natasha's family, the pater familias was her grandfather, Theodore, and he was a retailer. He worked at Macy*s in the prime of his career and then at a domestics textile company, Lysander Tufted Products. They hired him to turn around the company, and he did just that. 

Theodore as a teenager on his horse, Gypsy.

"Don't go into retail," he told his daughters, "you work when everyone else has off." Then he proceeded to imbue the two of them with all they needed to know to excel in it. 

"If you don't reach out and touch the goods when you walk by, you shouldn't be in this business," he once said. He was a font of explicit and implicit nuggets of retailing gold. If you wanted to be in retail -- which neither of his daughters did. Yet both of us excelled in it, one before choosing a career in nursing, the other choosing it after a career in journalism.

Ted Spedalle and Mickey Drexler may have been cut from the same cloth. Drexler was such a merchandising nut that he once tore apart a Gap Body store on the eve of its opening day, getting up on a ladder to do what needed to be done. When I read this for the first time, it reminded me of the day I was representing Wink and Flip at York College in Jamaica, Queens. York is not a college whose students have a lot of discretionary income, so when assigned a bad selling spot, down in a well of concentric circles, where it would have been difficult for customers to get to me, I moved the table when a better spot opened up. Then I moved the table a second time, into a position closer to the stream of incoming students, when it became available around 2 o'clock. At 5 o'clock, when a vendor packed up and left, I shifted our table into the spot I thought was best. 

"Are you done moving now?" another vendor asked me. I smiled. "I would move this table 10 times if I could put it in a better position," I answered. Isn't that why we are here? 

I realized years later I didn't move that table for any reason than one: It's what my dad would have told me to do. Ted Spedalle contracted Multiple Sclerosis in his early 30s but he worked so hard to make Lysander Tufted Products a success that they paid his salary for ten years after he could no longer make it from the suburbs into the Manhattan office. His eldest daughter taught his granddaughter everything he taught her, and today that young woman, makes her living growing her jewelry company, Wink and Flip, into a business she hopes she can one day pass on to her own children. She never met Ted Spedalle, and so far she has never met Mickey Drexler. If you happen to know him... tell him he has a big fan in Queens.

Why We Love Him

Here are 10 tips from the Merchant Prince, originally published by Fast Company:

---

"EVERY BUSINESS COULD BE CREATIVE."

I talk to so many people about the lack of creativity in companies in America. Part of creativity is contrarianism. Creativity battles common wisdom. Because if there's common wisdom, there's an opportunity. In my own experience, whatever was a good idea was a bad idea to most people.

"COMPANIES ARE IN THE STONE AGES ORGANIZATIONALLY."

"MOST COMPANIES SHOULD HAVE A RULE ABOUT HOW BIG THEY GET." You can tell by the offices. "I'm going to see the king!" The king is on the top floor and there are 17 people in front of the king's office. There are layers of bureaucracy. It shouldn't be like that. Not necessarily assigning a billion-dollar value or a 10 billion-dollar value, but companies that become too ubiquitous go one way.

"AMERICA'S COMPANIES ARE BUILT TO DESTROY CREATIVITY."

If you become the head of a big company today, you're not the youngest person in the world. You have a contract. You get a jet. You have a huge overpaid salary. You get bonuses. Do you think that CEO is going to screw around with fast, creative change? No. And the board of directors--the last thing they want is someone who's going to change things. Steve Jobs--he would bet the company, he wouldn't care. But there are very few people who run companies that way.

"YOU HAVE TO KEEP MOVING FORWARD."

Everything has a trend to it; I don't care if it's appliances or engines. I always ask: What has a company done in the past five years that somebody's noticed?

"I'M A VERY PROUD MICROMANAGER."

If you don't care about the lapel or the buttons or the fit, then you are doing a disservice to the consumer. We're all inside the tunnel, speaking the language of business, but we need to speak the language of customers. How many companies actually talk about the product?

"YOU CANNOT COPY HIGH QUALITY."

It takes a long time to get a reputation for quality. There are people in our industry, they're basically copiers. Look at the cars on the streets. They all look alike. But if you put quality into a product, then have it validated, you have huge credibility. It takes time to earn that.

"YOU CAN DROWN IN DATA."

Data is very important, but you have to be good at reading the data in an emotional way. If you look at a selling report, there's an emotional trend to what's selling. What's a focus group? We ask, "What's going on in the stores?" You learn and then edit, edit, edit, because there's a lot of junk mail in your head.

"IT'S AGGRAVATING TO BE A PUBLIC COMPANY."

People who own stocks could not care less about the long run. Everyone in the world has a quarterly report. Your owners and investors are looking for a result. [But] it takes five or 10 years to build a company.

"SIMPLICITY IS VERY DIFFICULT TO ACHIEVE."

Try to ask someone to make a really good roast chicken.

Susan/WinkandFlip
winkandflip

3 Things to Do Now to Prep for Holiday Selling

This guest post is brought to you by Outright, the simplest way to manage your small business finances. Sign up today for a less frantic holiday selling season!

It’s nice and hot outside, school has just started back, and there’s still time to run to the beach for the weekend – yep, it’s almost time for the holidays!

If you think that’s a tad premature, then it may be your first year selling online! Each year the selling season creeps further and further into the rest of the year and the sooner you have to be prepared to figure out how to maximize your profits from the gift-happy public. To help you get ready, try the following tips.

1. Figure Out Your Best Sales Day/Week From 2012

Typically sellers make a lot of money during the holidays. While the whole “Black Friday is the most profitable day ever” is a bit of an exaggeration, the time surrounding that fateful day is incredibly important to businesses everywhere. There’s simply a massive amount of money to be made with everyone buying gifts.

Instead of focusing on the entire holiday season, though, try to figure out when you made your most money. Again, it may not be Black Friday or anywhere near then. Many online businesses report that their top sales day is actually the second or third week in December… right before shipping cutoff dates. I guess everybody is a procrastinator, huh? After you figure out your most profitable sales time, focus your marketing and promotion efforts around that day or week. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel every holiday shopping season!

2. Unveil New Products

While other shops are focusing on making money off the stock they already have, you’re still in creative mode. You’ve got a thousand ideas up your sleeve and want to get them all done and unveil them to the public at the right time.

This is a great idea, because now you’ve got two modes of attack: a great holiday strategy as well as the “new car” smell. People will want to check out your new items as well as your deals and sales you’ve got going on for the holidays.

This way you can keep a nice steady rotation of new clicks coming in. Try to place your posts and advertisements about new products and your winter deals separately so you can capitalize on the most traffic and so you can judge which effort is garnering you the best ROI.

3. Put Your Shop on Auto-Pilot

Once sales really heat up the last thing you want to do is worry about maintenance. If you see you’ve got thirty orders to ship out, fifty more items to make, and ten customer service questions to answer, you don’t want to suddenly wonder if you paid all your bills.

Before the holiday season ramps up go ahead and put as many bills as possible on automatic payment. If you have to choose between them, go for the ones that will affect your business the most if they don’t get paid like electricity, Internet, etc. (After all, if your Netflix account gets deactivated it most likely won’t hurt sales!)

Also, instead of worrying about tracking sales, sign up for an account at Outright. There you’ll see all your sales as well as expenses as they automatically update as they happen. No more wondering how much money you have in the bank or made this month. This frees you up to run your business and gear up for a profitable holiday season.  

DIY Hair Gel

Ok...time for another fab DIY project! I am sure most of you have used hair gel one time or another. How about making some hair gel that is inexpensive, and you can customize the scent. Flax seeds are a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids and some say it can be used to prevent hair loss or encourage hair growth.

The ingredients are really simple: 1/4 cup flax seeds, 1.5 cups of water.
Optional ingredients: preservative, essential/and or fragrance oil.
You will also need a saucepan, spoon, and a strainer.

Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan. Once the water is boiling, add the flax seeds and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook the flax seeds for about 10 mins, then turn off the heat.

Strain the seeds out of the liquid, and dispose of the seeds. You are left with a sticky, runny gel. Once I strained off the seeds, I was left with about 5oz of gel.

I made two batches, one with 1.5 cups of water, and the other with 2 cups of water. I didn't notice much difference with the gel's thickness, but I ended up with 9oz gel (2 cups water) and 5oz gel (1.5oz of water)

Once the gel has cooled down a bit (maybe 30 mins) you can add a preservative. I used a common wide-spectrum preservative that is easy to use. Phenonip can be used at .05-1% rate. I also added 10 drops of rosewood essential oil. You would need an accurate scale to add the correct amount of preservative. If you choose not to add any preservative, you can keep the flax seed gel in the fridge, and use it up within two weeks.

I did not try out the gel yet, but it should provide a soft hold, and avoids having "crunchy" hair. If you give it a try...please post a comment, and let me know how it goes!

Until next time....happy crafting!
Nordea
nordeasoaperie

Is Your Business Profitable?

To enter the 10,000 Small Business's Team competition, sponsored by the Tory Burch Foundation and Goldman Sachs, Wink and Flip had to create a profit and loss statement for 2012 and 2013 Year-to-Date. A profit and loss statement is a real eye opener.

The IRS is concerned with whether or not what you do in your free time is a hobby. A hobby is "an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure: her hobbies are reading and gardening," according to Webster.

If your efforts are not a hobby, perhaps they are a business, defined as: 2 the practice of making one's living by engaging in commerce: the world of business | whom do you do business with in Manila? | the jewelry business | [ as modifier ] : the business community.

I never know when someone speaks of how they did at a market, if their effort is really a hobby, or a business. They may say they did "pretty well," or "decent," in terms of what kind of money they made. What does that mean, exactly? While no one has the obligation to share with others the amount of their revenue, I am always left wondering: Was there a profit? 

Profit is defined as "a financial gain, esp. the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something."

So, although it may be painful to figure out, a profit is not whether it was a fun day out with friends stopping by, a day that passed faster than other days, or a day where the music was thumping, the customers were amusing, and the food was delicious (although that can be a great day!) Some people may find this article very harsh. Yet, the reality is did you pack up less stuff than you brought? Is the wallet/envelope/box you trucked to the site fatter than it was at 8 am? The day had either 1) no profit, 2) a small profit, 3) a good profit, 4) a great profit, or a 5) "Lordy Be, now I can retire" profit. 

If you have to choose option #1, it is not necessarily you that is the problem. But it is you who has to get to the bottom of the problem. It may be that your customer was not present at that market. Or the rent was too high. Or you are not charging enough for your product to make a profit. Or there were customers there and somehow they did not become engaged in your story and the thing you have to sell. 

If you have figured the per unit cost of your widget (the name of a product whose name is unknown or unspecified), the rent for the space, the cost of getting to and from the market, your time sitting at the market, and anything else on which you spent money to be there to do business, and you deduct that from the cash and credit you took in that day, then you have the true profit for the day.

It is not our philosophy at Wink and Flip to live or die by a single day. Instead, we like to look at the whole season. If you hit a bad day (and everyone does), and you are looking at the whole season, it is less likely someone is going to have to talk you in off the ledge of your apartment building. 

On Wall Street, companies report four times a year, once each quarter. If they don't make the quarter the stock goes down, but savvy investors look at how the company did over the entire year. I believe in looking at the season, but tweaking on a week-by-week basis. It is never too early to try to make improvements in your business, and never too late to look for growth year over year. If your profits are not what you would like them to be, do a top to bottom review of your business. What can be improved? Ask someone else to take a look. And try getting an outsider's perspective. It is often very helpful. 

Susan/Wink and Flip

winkandflip

Hello Etsy Recap: The USA Owes $12 Trillion Dollars, or “The Fragile Economy” with Alex Blumberg

I still can’t believe I’m recapping the first session on Saturday, March 22, 2013 at Hello Etsy.  It seems even more surreal that I write this on August 1^st, almost 4.5 months later. I may be recapping Hello Etsy 2013 until the next event.  I’ll try, for your sake, to not drag it on that long.  
 

In our last recap, we discussed an animal researcher’s take on economics.  Dr. Laurie Santos showed us how emotions and logic come together and are both similar and different when our closest animal relatives handle money.   Her presentation was interesting, funny at times, and enlightening on how money can change everything we think we know.  It was a great segue to the next segment in that session titled “The Fragile Economy” by financial journalist and producer, Alex Blumberg, host of NPR’s Planet Money, hit the audience with some harsh realities with data he’s collected while spending his career investigating the myriad of pieces and processes that comprise our economy.  More so, he made this gal, who used to rely so heavily on credit cards, see the economic world in a completely different way.

I apologize for the bad Instagram photo here. But this was Alex Blumberg with an IOU from the US Government to China. Hilarious!

 Did you know that the USA owes $12 trillion to the rest of the World?  

Don’t worry. I didn’t know that either. I knew we were in massive amounts of debt thanks to media reports, but I had no idea it was that large.  

Did you know that $4 trillion is owed to retirees through Social Security?            

Yep, another issue I was aware of, but didn’t realize the largeness of that one either.

Did you know that we’re at 100% GDP right now?

SCARY!

Even scarier – In 20 years more money will be going out to people retired instead of more money coming in to build the reserve.  Meaning that going forward, money is going to be added to the deficit.  

Mr. Blumberg then went on to discuss the situation with saving, lending, and credit cards. This, readers, is where my heart skipped a beat and I felt a twinge guilty. In fact, I want to apologize to all of you who have helped me in my past years live a lifestyle of overabundance that I couldn’t afford.  I am so sorry.  And believe me when I say that I am working on correcting the situation and paying you all back for your help.  

At this point, Mr. Blumberg said that we are always lending our money. Our savings are not our savings; they in fact become money that is lent to other people therefore making the fragile economy.

Yup!

In other words, we are all part of this gigantic game of saving and lending. Credit cards are a great example of this.  Credit cards allow people to overspend. When someone who has saved their money issues credit card spenders money to borrow so they can buy something they can’t afford.  This is why I just apologized earlier. That was a sincere apology because I had no idea when I was 18 and signed up for credit cards to help the George Washington University’s Softball league raise money for their team, that all the money I charged on them was really money borrowed from someone else. Never crossed my mind.   

And then he gave the following bomb, at least I thought it was a bomb: Any time you borrow money, you are speculating.
 

What we need is true speculation, not fake speculation.  True speculation involves a more realistic understanding of our economics, both on a large scale (Country and World) and a personal level (bank accounts, wallets, savings accounts, and retirement funds).

As he continued, he discussed how all of this has created a lull that people have fallen into that the wealth in the World is a safe - that our economy is safe, but all the wealth that we see if in fact fake. We create and place the societal value of wealth and right now, we cannot continue in this way if we’re going to fix the economy.  Another way of considering this is, confirmation biases are dangerous and they are one of the most dangerous practices out there.”  Pretty much the culture we find ourselves in is one of the most dangerous. SCARY!   

Okay, so enough of the scary talk. How do we change this? 

Well Mr. Bumberg already told us we need to change our speculation, but that’s not an easy thing to do.  As I’ve considered this, I’ve thought a lot about an old argument I used to have with a friend when I got involved in environmentalism years ago. We would go back and forth on the idea of capitalism and stuff and she would always end up saying, “Sara, you have no right to tell people in poorer countries who are just starting to thrive that they can not have what you’ve had because of the environment. It’s not fair.”  I would always pause and fight back with, “Yes, but what if we made stuff less cool? What if it didn’t become this “keeping up with the joneses” mentality and where we could collectively decide that for the sake of humanity and animals and the planet, we don’t make and sell garbage and instead focus on the necessities and things that are of quality and make people feel good, instead of cheap labored clothing and shoes and phones that only has one goal and that is money?”

I think about this because it’s essentially the Etsy global market place. It is the idea that we can shape the economy and make deep impressions with goods that promote engagement and connection between two individuals, the customer and the maker.  It is largely based on appreciation and the moment, not the future, and not on borrowed terms or money.

When I look at this as an artist and maker, I am aware that my invitations may cost a small fortune for some, but the value behind them is great. I spend hours working on an entire order, from the minute I exchange an email with the customer to the finale, which can be via mail, or in-person, drop off.   In many cases, I believe that my customers are my friends. As a matter of fact, a customer I am finishing up a custom order with offered me a table, she and her fiancé no longer need, because I recently moved into an apartment with no furniture; an amazing exchange of kindness and an act of friendship.   

More importantly, I see the transaction as representation of combined art. While I get paid for my time, as any artist should, I feel wealthier for the experience – at knowing that my work is going out into the world with love and happiness and that that will inspire and maybe even cheer up someone out there. That to me is wealth and because of that, I look at my materials and how they are made (spurred me to go to Japan to learn paper making, but more on that at a later date), I look at my impact on printing, I look for alternatives for glue, etc.  I’m not saying we should all be this way, but I am saying that if we look at our work, motivations, and our desire to change the economy and how the current economy operates, we can start with our own money habits and in our business habits, too.

This is largely why, I have stopped using credit cards and why I’m more inclined to stash my cash in a box under my bed (okay, I’m not doing that yet, but I’ve considered it on several occasions).  It is also why I am trying to figure out how best to understand my understanding of my own economic status and how that will affect the greater economic fabric.   

That is how I believe we can change the conversation on the economy. Instead of pointing fingers, I say we apologize to each other for taking way too many risks and get to the heart of what we value as entrepreneurs, makers, business owners, motivators, customers, workers, and as a global community.  Seems idealistic, but maybe that will help us see the enormity of 12 trillion dollars and own up to finding a solution.

Call me an idealist, but I believe the not-so-secret recipe in fixing most problems is ¼ cup self-reflection+ ¼ cup self-awareness + ½ cup working with others for the greater good.  If you’ve got any other recipes you’d like me to consider, or share, please put them below. Mr. Blumberg’s presentation really got to me and I’d love to read/hear your thoughts.

Next time, we’ll recap session two. We're getting there, friends!

 //Sara

S2 Stationery and Design

//Sara S2 Stationery and Design