My Favorite Sales Story- The Driinn Mobile Phone Holder

I have been selling online for 8 years now, but my favorite sales story is within the last year. In October I launched my new and improved website and was so excited to be able to add all of my favorite products to my online customers thanks to an awesome web designer-Cgonsa. I held a sales contest for my 3 sales associates who consist of 2 sisters and a close friend and challenged them to come away from the 2007 National Stationery Show with a new product and offered an incentive to whichever product was most successful on my website by end the of 2007. Amy chose the personalized coasters, Mary Ann chose the designer file folders, and Lori chose what I thought was the oddest product ever. As you see here, it is the Driinn mobile phone holder.

It is a weird little plastic gadget that you lodge between your cell phone (or any small electrical device) and the wall socket. It serves as a little shelf for your device while it charges. I immediately ordered what I needed to sell the coasters and file folders and kept putting off the investment of the mobile phone holder display and 100 units that were required to be able to place my first order of this product. After telling myself that these things were sure to be a free gift with purchase during the next holiday season, I reluctantly placed the order and put all three products on my website. I admit that while I thought it was handy and cheap for my customers ( $9 and free shipping), I also felt it really wasn't a stationery product and thought it was out of place on my website. Well, immediately orders started coming in. Every day, more and more people were ordering this product. I was flabbergasted. I sold all of my initial 100 units before I had even received them in the mail! As it turns out, they were featured in Real Simple Magazine the week I put them online and savvy shoppers surfed the net to find the best price. Charming Cards was one of the few U.S. businesses selling them (they come from Europe) and with the free shipping it was the best deal out there (still is). A few weeks later they were featured on the HGTV Holiday Gift Show and........well you can say the rest is history. Charming Cards sold more mobile phone holders than I would have ever dreamed of and my sister Lori laughed all the way to the bank. Some people ordered 20 at time for stocking stuffers and those miscellaneous gifts for the person who has everything. We celebrated after the holidays and along with her incentive, Lori proudly brought home the following trophy which now will be passed on to the winner every year-

Taking the advice of my sister who was willing to go out on a limb and the unexpected free advertising really paid off!

Getting through midlife with a little rock and roll

One thing I have loved doing since my teenage days is attending concerts of the bands from my youth. I am a proud fan of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and look forward to seeing them every time they come to town. Last night a friend and I took our 14 year old sons to the Hollywood Bowl to see them play and we all had a blast! On a warm summer night under the stars of Hollywood we had not a care in the world and found ourselves dancing to tunes like "American Girl" and "Running Down a Dream." This special one on one time with our teenagers is so important and he can see firsthand that you are never too old to have fun! I hope you all enjoy some carefree time this summer.

Summer Chores

I know a lot of the country has been out of school for awhile now, but here in Newport Beach, California, we are finishing up this week. My son graduated from Junior High today who is pictured here with his sister who is now officially a senior in high school. Do you ever feel the years are just flying by?

While I want them to have a fun and enjoyable summer, I also plan on setting some rules and expecting more from them as far as chores. When I saw these chores charts at the National Stationery Show in NY, I jumped on them because they will benefit me personally.

There is space for up to 5 children and 5 chores per day. There are 50 weeks of tear off sheets and a handy magnet on the back if you want to post it on the fridge. They sell for $15.99.

New Item at Charming Cards- Takeout Menu Organizer

With one more week of school left for my 3 children I am looking ahead to getting organized this summer. During the summers I try to catch up on my photo albums and scrapbooks, clean out some junk drawers, and make my kids go through their closets and drawers to donate items they won't wear anymore. At the stationery show this year I selected quite a few products dealing with planning and organizing. The Takout Menu Organizer by Knock Knock is a handy new product to help you organize your takeout menus for those days you just don't feel like cooking. It has handy pouches to store restaurant menus, an ordering pad, tip chart, tabbed dividers to organize your menus and a place to log all those phone numbers and keep track of what you like. At $20 I am thinking ahead that this will make a great holiday gift exchange gift.

Project Runway Girls Night Out Party

Every girl loves fashion, food, friendship and fun. Put all of those into a 1 night event and you have a recipe for a memorable occassion. I have a girlfriend who is one of the most creative and fun people I know. She is a wonderful friend and is always extremely generous and thoughtful to her many girlfriends. She threw a girls night out party last weekend which turned out to be such a hoot, I had to share it. The theme and general idea was very clever and it could be adjusted to work great for a teenage party, a bachelorette party, or any special birthday ages 16-75! She was inspired by Heidi Klum's Project Runway, and my friend being a fashionista herself had a ball throwing a party with a fashion theme. We had no information about what the party would be about, but were told to dress trendy and we were picked up by a party bus.

Our first stop was a local strip mall that had a grocery store, pharmacy and few random shops. First she acknowleged 2 of the women's recent birthdays and presented them with a bag of supplies. They each got 2 partners and were told to use the items in the bag - $15 and supplies (scissors, velcro, safety pins, etc) to create a "fashionable and durable" birthday hat. They had 15 minutes while the bus drove the rest of us to a nearby restaurant where she had a table in the bar ready for us. While we ordered our cocktails, the bus left to retrieve the hat group. Our hostess solicited 3 guys from the bar (very good sports) to be the judges. The girls returned and presented their hats while the judges contemplated the contestants and gave a funny and descriptive presentation of the winner. They had to wear their hats all night.

While we enjoyed cocktails and appetizers, she passed around a bag of bracelets (1 each) and a name tag of a fashion designer we were to wear. I was Nanette Lapore. The rule was that if anyone used real names and not your fashion designer name, you took their bracelet. I lost mine right away, got one back a few times, but was not as clever as "Ralph Lauren" who captured many bracelets as you see here-

The bracelet contest went on all night. Our next stop on the party bus was a discount t-shirt store that sold all kinds of inexpensive clothing. The teams were given a bag of supplies again, including $30 and told to create an outfit they needed to modify in some way (cut, sew, pin together) as well as a list of criteria that must be kept in mind including a theme or inspiration. The assembly was to be done later. We had 15 minutes to do this, and when it wasn't your group's turn, you got to enjoy a little gourmet meal on the bus.

Our next stop was the local mall. We had an envelope with instructions to go into a specific department store to find 5 items (shoe, necklace, pj's, hat, dress) that she had printed a clear picture of each exact item. Your group needed to take a photo of the 5 items including all members of your group. This was a timed test and the team with the shortest time was the winner. Seeing us run through the parking lot you would have thought we were running from a fire! From there we went to a nice restaurant and sat in the piano bar. One by one, each of the 4 groups went into the bathroom and altered their outfits, then presented them to the rest of us. A few groups got the piano player to modify his tunes to go with the presentation. It was very funny to see how different the 4 outfits turned out, none of which would have made real designers proud!

We finished the night off there, enjoying the music and each other until the bus returned us home. She even had "Project Runway 2008" hats made for us! It was a blast and so cleverly planned which made it all the more fun. What a treat!