Business Profile: Kimora Lee Simmons
I had to highlight Kimora Lee Simmons, President and Creative Director of Phat Fashions, because she is a member of my generation, a Mom Mogul, and from St. Louis! Since I’m just putting my Mom Mogul boots on, it’s important for me to see that there are people who are doing it quite successfully. Her industry and way of life is different from mine but I am impressed by her ability to balance it all.
Kimora started her career in fashion as an international teenage model. Over the last 12 years, she has created a fashion empire – a lifestyle brand – with Phat Fashions and its labels. She has a diverse income stream with a career product portfolio including the previously mentioned fashion empire, a highly reviewed book Fabulosity: What It Is and How To Get It, highly rated reality show Life in the Fab Lane, and several other business ventures… she has a total of 20 businesses! Finally, she’s philanthropic and gives back to several causes including a scholarship to young ladies in our hometown.
Check out this recent interview with Access Hollywood with words for how she views her life at this time:
Lessons to learn from Kimora Lee Simmons:
- Consistency is key to establishing a lifestyle brand. Although the products are different, the message is the same throughout – fabulous!
- Maintain relationships that keep you grounded to keep your head on straight and give you a calm spirit.
- Appreciate all that life has for you and go after those experiences you want.
- Do not be afraid to walk away from a partnership that is not good for you.
- Always think of fresh ideas for your business and include others in this brainstorming.
- No matter what your background is, be confident in what you are doing.
Keep up with Kimora on her official website: www.kls.com.
11 Friends You Haven’t Met; but Need to Know
Today we have a guest post by A. Michelle Buckley, a fellow member of Black Business Women Online. You can find more information about here at the end of the article. Enjoy!
- Barbara Lopez with Brightfarm Introductions – Barbara masterfully helps you create an introduction to your business that reflects your specialty and your personality. Her capacity to ensure that your introductions are fresh and memorable is exceptional.
- Deena Pierott with Mosaic Blueprint – Deena has a connection for whatever ails your business. Although she is a cultural diversity expert, her vast and dynamic social network of women, urban entrepreneurs and corporations is built on collaboration.
- Ayesha Mathews-Wadhwa with PixInk – You are your brand and Ayesha’s brand development ensures that your brand identity and personal values are not only in sync but clear and well defined. Her brand cultivation genius helps discover what makes you unique.
- Natalie MacNeil with She Takes On the World – Home of all things “women entrepreneur.” Natalie features successful women entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship articles, valuable resources, and a free directory for women-owned businesses. She has received numerous awards and mentions for her work and blog content and is a constant source of fresh ideas and encouragement.
- Sylvia Browder with Browder Consulting – Sylvia empowers women to achieve success through entrepreneurship. In addition to running her own consulting practice, she volunteers as a SCORE counselor and provides women entrepreneurs with the resources and tools they need for continued success. Her support for women entrepreneurs is personal and heartfelt.
- Adrienne Graham with Empower Me! and Fearless Networking. This power broker provides a variety of platforms that enable women to maximize the value in their networks and connections. Adrienne is all about the power and empowerment of women entrepreneurs and the author of “Go Ahead Talk to Strangers: A Modern Day Guide to Fearless Networking.”
- Yolanda Webb with E’Lon Beauty – Yolanda publishes an amazing and unique online beauty magazine. Her magazine not only presents all that is beautiful on the outside, but her publication also nurtures the inside beauty of all women.
- Patricia Weber with Professional Strategies – Pat is the consummate sales coach for introverts. She understands the anxiety and apprehension introverts have in operating their business and skillfully coaches them through practical communication, sales and networking techniques.
- Jacintha Perrera with Island Getaways – This is not a “fly by night” travel service. Jacintha is a travel expert specializing in South Pacific getaways and special interest retreats. Her customized travel expeditions are once in a lifetime experiences. Be sure to check out her travel blog and virtual tours. When you need to getaway, you need to contact Jacintha.
- Crystal Martin with Crystalwashington.com – Crystal is a social media and social networking guru. Her simple tips and tools will get you up to speed with effective and efficient marketing strategies that will enhance your capacity to meet and acquire appropriate clients.
A.Michelle Blakeley is the Founder and CEO of Simplicity, Inc.; a progressive small business development firm. She manages her clients’ business expectations and prevents information overload via Micro Business Therapy™ and Micro Business Action Plans. She is featured in Forbes.com and the Financial Post as one of 30 Women Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter and the host of Simple Truths for Women Entrepreneurs on BlogTalkRadio.com.
Be Adaptable
I love to share my lessons learned through this venue. Regardless of who else sees it, it has helped me to understand where I am in my career by thinking about situations and what lessons I can learn from them.
A great lesson–which always seems like deja vu–of this quarter has been that when things don’t seem to be going the way they were expected to go, change. For instance, at the beginning of the year, I wrote of wanting to open a drop-in center. Since I do not own a bank, I decided to launch small, then grow. When that idea didn’t work, I changed the concept to provide the same service but in a different way, like having a drop-in center on location for special events. This concept catches the attention of anyone I have mentioned it to, but it’s still in startup mode. I have never been so excited about something in my career as I am with this. The vision I have for it is will create such an impact on my family and community… I’m so excited!
The moral of the story is – having to make a left turn when you really want to make a right isn’t the worst thing in the world. Adapting to the situation but retaining the essence of and goals for what you want to do can still be a freeing experience.
What are some situations in your business where you had to adapt and it changed your life?
Keeping In Touch
One area that I am seeking solutions for in my business is the art of staying in touch with potential and current clients. I say art because there really are no rules to satisfy everyone. Some people are online folks, some people would prefer a phone call, others really like the personal one-on-one chat, while others just want a handwritten note every once in a while. Some people want to hear from you on a regular basis while others would rather hear from you with major news only (which is not good for business). The worst thing business owners could do is to not contact their customers at all.
I actually have a good idea of how I want to keep in touch with my customer base and have been playing with solutions to do it well and efficiently. Of course, I consider this blog a tool. Since I’m currently working on multiple business ventures, I’m considering a blog for each of them. They are not only good for keeping in touch with customers, they also present a good way to journal this journey of business ownership and to keep up with new discoveries I
make for each business. I’m just at a crossroads with determining a regular schedule for posting to three blogs (in addition to all the other freelance writing I am now enjoying).
Social media-wise, YB Consulting’s Facebook fan page and my personal twitter have become my primary tools for keeping people up-to-date with different things going on in the business including new blog posts from Cardinal Rules, relevant articles written in other forums, and company promotions. I have also created a fan page and twitter account for my startup Fun Spaces. These will operate in similar fashion to YB Consulting. I’m still considering consolidating my consultancy into the Cardinal branding and let that be my entrepreneurship advocacy identity… we’ll see. Finally, my third venture will have a blog but that may be it. It is truly meant to be a part-time business for me yet something I am still excited about! Have to be excited about residual income…
Another marketing tool I am considering is iContact, an e-mail marketing solution. This company is based in my town (buy local!) and was co-founded by an alum from one of my alma maters UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. I have multiple marketing campaigns to conduct for relationships in my three+ ventures and I hear this solution is good for managing that type of feat. Plus it is reasonably priced, allows for space to grow, has autoresponders… I’m appreciating iContact already.
What tools are you using in your business to keep in touch with customers on a regular basis? Please leave a comment below to let the community know.
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Do You Know What Your Customers Want?
A few months ago, I developed a market research survey and shared it with a few organizations to see if I thought of an idea that would fill a market need. I had this grand idea to expand my business offerings in a way that would combine the talents of me and one of my neighbors, an event planner. I did not get many responses to that survey but the answers I received confirmed the need in a way that was greater than I expected. People would be willing to pay more for the service than I initially assumed and would put more time into it as well.
This type of market research simply justifies any ideas you may want to take to market. It is good to do to see if there are people in your target demographic who will pay for it, how much they will pay for it, and what they will expect out of it.
Although I decided to take on other pursuits, I want to share some lessons from this and previous experiences in market research:
- Take some time and make a plan for the research process. Decide what the goal is for the research including how the information will be used to benefit the mission of your company and each type of its stakeholders (i.e. shareholders/owners, customers, partners, employees).
- Choose multiple survey methods to capture some good randomness in the audience.This includes using surveys online AND in-person.
- Use in-person methods like interviews and focus groups to dig deeper in your findings from the surveys your initial group answered. It could be as simple as catching up with a colleague (that fits the target demographic) and throwing the business concept into the conversation to see what he or she thinks. Or, it could be in the format of a webinar and conference call with interactive polling..
- Include a large pool of people in your surveying to ensure a statistically valid result. Average response rate seems to be 10 – 30%. The blog marketing [m.o.] has a good, brief post on sampling size.
Business.gov has a good summary on how to conduct market research with several links for resources.
Leave a comment below to share innovative ideas for conducting market research and what it did for your company.
