Dates: May 27, 2008 to May 28, 2008
Brand: Two Lips
Location: Los Angeles
May 27, 2008
5:24 AM - Rise and Shine! It is way too early to be awake after
Memorial Day festivities, but no time to press the snooze this morning. I
better make a big cup of coffee to sip on while I watch the news and check
email via Blackberry.
6:30 AM - At the gym. Today is a weight lifting day. I like
weight lifting days because after lifting I get to drink a protein shake, and
they are yummy!
7:36 AM - Chocolate protein shake! +Mmmm+!!
8:45 AM - Got ready for work and packed for a night in LA in
less than an hour. Hope I didn't forget anything! I'm going to have to hit up
Starbucks on my way to the office for the caffeine fix I need to really focus
on my emails before heading to the airport. Should be a good day though...
Elisa (one of the Assistant Buyers on my team) and I are going to LA to meet
with one of her brands... We are going to work the line and checkout their
showroom and production facilities. But first, a tall skinny caramel latte with
no foam, please!!
10:30 AM - Still trying to clean out my inbox. Only 170
emails left to answer. In between emails, I'm also working with Elisa on the
search engine terms for her portfolio.
11:30 AM - Process Efficiency Committee meeting! Zappos is
focusing on improving the efficiency of our processes this year and I am on the committee. We gatherideas from the merchandising department and meet once a month to select the
winning idea. The winner is "clocked" with the ‘Do More with Less
Time’ award and receives a $50 prize. One small change that saves 5 minutes a
day adds up to 1825 minutes saved a year... That's 30 hours per employee and
considering we have about 250 in merchandising, that's 7,500 hours saved!! It’s
neat to see how the small changes we implement add up to something really
significant.
1:00 PM - Headed to the airport. I really could have used
another 10hrs in the office today, but I'm going to miss my flight if I stay
any longer. I will have to continue answering emails from my Phone and
work on my laptop at the airport. Wireless cards ROCK and help me work from
everywhere!!
1:30 PM - Settled in with my laptop at the airport. Flight
was delayed a half hour which is usually annoying, but today I am happy because
it gives me more time with my emails! Sooooo many emails! Elisa just went to
get coffee, but I decided to pass so I can sit still on the plane… I’ve already
had a lot of caffeine today!
1:45 PM - Elisa just suggested we get Zappos tattooed on our
butts while we are in LA! I heart Zappos, but that’s weird! I think someone must
have spiked her coffee while she was gone! Back to email!
2:30 PM - Just boarded the plane. I was hoping to catch up
on my reading during the flight but just realized I took "The Carrot
Principle" out of my handbag and forgot to put it back in! Guess I will
read Footwear News and celebrity trash gossip magazines instead. (Gossip magazines
are great for fashion trends research plus oh so entertaining! BONUS!)
4:00 PM - Just got picked up at the Burbank airport by our reps from Two Lips. Going to go trend shopping for a while this afternoon. I try to always spend time shopping the markets when I travel.
5:00 PM - Traffic too bad so unable to go shopping. At "Gladstones" on the beach in Malibu for appetizers and drinks instead. The ocean is amazing! One thing I miss about living in Vegas is seeing water.
7:08 PM - Just convinced our Two Lips reps to sign up for a twitter account after seeing Skechers president Michael Greenburg with bunny ears via Tony's (@zappos) twit pic! Off to meet Two Lips president, Chahe, for dinner at an Armenian restaurant. I've never eaten Armenian cuisine so I'm very curious.
9:50 PM - Just finished dinner. It was absolutely delicious and the conversation was great. We ate, talked business and smoked a hookah.
Dinner is a fun way to get to know and build relationships with our vendors. Now we are going to check in the hotel. I am so exhausted. I can't wait to shut myself away in my room, work on some more emails and then go to bed!
May 28, 2008
6:30 AM - Time for my morning ritual of watching the news
and reading emails on my blackberry in bed. Decided to skip the gym portion of
my routine this morning. I’m still sleepy!
9:40 AM - Just got to the factory and we are taking a tour.
It is soo amazing watching all of the samples be constructed by hand and seeing
how all the pieces come together. The craftsmanship involved is incredible.
Shoemaking is certainly a lost art in America... Well, almost everywhere
but here that is!
11:00 AM - Viewing samples from the new Two Lips collection. There are some very exciting things in the works! An upcoming style that I particularly liked was a pair of woven rider boots that we ordered for Zappos for October. Chahe, the owner and president of Two Lips, told me that it takes 11 and 1 /2 feet of leather to make one pair of these boots! Chahe is a very hands-on Owner/President and actually makes all of the initial prototype shoes himself. He travels around the world for inspiration and to source materials and then gets hard to work in his LA studio designing, cutting leather, stitching uppers, gluing soles, etc. You should see the rows and rows of materials; beautiful bright leathers, funky patterned fabrics, rolls of raffia and linen for sandals, jeweled ornamentations, and so much more. It would be very fun to
be turned loose in his factory and let the creative design juices flow!!
12:00 PM - Checking out all the latest trends and upcoming styles is the fun part of our job, but now its time to get down to the nitty gritty of our business. Elisa reviews numbers and selling with our reps and we talk about current business trends. Numbers, numbers, numbers.... More than half of what we do on a regular day is crunch numbers... But it’s a necessary evils and part of what makes days like this so fun!
12:30 PM - Meeting is done and we've had a very successful trip. Not only did we get to have a great time and see what's new, but we accomplished all of our business objectives, wrote boot orders for fall and learned a lot about the art of shoe construction.
1:00 PM - Rushing to the airport so we don't miss our flight. Lucky for us we are carrying on so don't have to be at the airport an hour in advance to get our luggage checked in. My fingers are crossed that security is a breeze!
2:00 PM - Just boarded flight back to Vegas. I really
enjoyed the trip, but fun’s over; now its time to focus on the 2009 Q1 plans my inventory analyst emailed over. I downloaded them onto my desktop so hopefully I can finish them
during the flight.
3:20 PM - Just landed back in Vegas. Didn't get as much work done on the plane as I would have liked because it was super turbulent... So much so that Elisa almost had to use the little white bag! Traveling is fun, but I'm looking forward to getting back to the office and catching up on all of the daily grind.
