The Jewelry Business Event of the Year!
Sunday, March 14
Fashion Institute of Technology's Katie Murphy Ampitheater
9:00 am - 6:30 pm
Includes lunch
Recession or no recession, you want to stay in business, and even prosper. But to do that, you need to run your business
like a true CEO, someone who understands cash flow, can make financial projections, will invest resources wisely
and knows how to deliver what customers really want.
Can you? If you run a designer enterprise, you really have no choice: You must master these skills if you want to stay in business.
Now you can with this day of never-before-presented business intel
geared to DRAMATICALLY increase your business acumen.
As the one at the helm of your business, it's up to you to steer it straight. Here's how.
Anchoring the day are two extended keynote presentations from two experts who have run multi-million dollar
businesses that thrived under their direction. They'll share CEO-level information in a way that will make it comprehensible
and comfortable for every level of business owner. Between their presentations will be a number of veteran experts
who will fill you with useful pearls of business wisdom.
Just look at this agenda:
9:00 - 11:00
The Mind of a CEO - Strategies for Designers to Succeed Today
Andrea Hill, Hill Management Group
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Is your business growth-ready?
One of the primary roles of a CEO is to manage the overall investment in his or her business. You are already actively investing in your business, whether the investment is coming from institutional investors, angels, or your own checkbook and credit cards.
So how is that investment performing? When you prepare your business for growth, you analyze the strategies, selling and marketing plans, and operations your business must excel at to grow, and you figure out your cash requirements well in advance so you don't keep coming up short on both funds and sleep.
In this session you will learn what it means to analyze your business like a CEO and prepare it for growth. Even very small businesses must master growth management, and Andrea Hill's method takes big business processes and makes them small-business applicable.
In this session you will learn:
The critical strategic choices you must make to satisfy investors (that's right - even yourself! After all - you want to invest in a winning business, right?)
Key assumptions - how to develop them, why they matter, and how they influence the rest of your planning
How to determine cash requirements
How to understand and use ratios to test your thinking (and you can do this even if you hate math or think you're no good at it)
Customer and sales decisions you must make early on
How to stay focused once you have made all the decisions you need to make
You will take the first steps to making your business growth ready, and in the process, you will lay the groundwork for a satisfying and ultimately profitable business.
11:10 - 12:20
Inside A Successful Designer Business
Meeling Wong
For the first time, hear from someone who has been behind several of our most prestigious and successful designer jewelry brands -- David Yurman, John Hardy, Temple St. Clair -- and learn how brands like these run and what makes them so successful.
The principals learned here are applicable to any size company, including yours. Learn:
What is a brand and when are you a brand?
Real life experience on brand building.
We'll start off by differentiating a business from a brand, and then proceed with the process of brand building.
You can have a successful and profitable business designing, manufacturing & selling jewelry and still not be a brand. Building a good brand requires time, capital, and emotional investment and not all of us are prepared or equipped for it. The truly successful brands are the ones that can sustain themselves over time. They evolve and innovate with the times while maintaining the true nature of their brand essence or DNA. There are only a few U.S. jewelry brands that have achieved national brand status.
For the process of brand building we will work through three simple questions :
Who are you and where are you today? -- Identifying the story and Positioning it
Where do you want to go and what do you want to become? -- the Vision & Mission
How do you get there? -- Communication & MarketingWe will also touch on the following:
Pricing your product correctly
Merchandise, edit, and stand for something
When to outsource
When to advertise
Utilizing public relations & social media
12:30 - 2:00
75 Tips in 75 Minutes -- A Super-Productive Lunch Panel
Featuring experts in marketing, social media, sales and more
Have your notebooks ready for this one because you'll be wanting to take down every suggestion that comes your way in all of these fields. We've chosen speakers with proven track records so you can get advice that has actual practical value for your business.
Michael Schreier, buyer at RueLaLa.com -- merchandising and retailing
Gary Schroder, merchandising expert -- display
Marlene Richey -- small business management expert
Amanda Schuon, Truth be Told -- celebrity PR specialist with a jewelry division
Macala Wright Lee, (pictured) FashionablyMarketing.me -- social marketing expert
2:10 - 3:10
Behind the Designer's Studio
In-Depth Interview with Lisa Jenks
A detailed conversation with designer Lisa Jenks, one of the leaders of the designer jewelry movement who has been running her enterprises with great success since the 1980's.
Almost from the beginning, she rose to prominence with a large presence in many of the top jewelry and department stores in the country. More than just a jewelry designer, she was a trailblazer who branched out successfully into licensed products like flatware, barware, leather goods and more.
Then three years ago she stopped making jewelry to concentrate on her licensing deal with Estee Lauder. Now she's back to the delight of her jewelry-buying fans.
Lisa will tell you what she's learned during her journey from young phenom to top of the marketplace, from "early retirement" to reentering the marketplace at this critical juncture in our industry.
3:20 - 5:20
Get into the Mind of Your Customer -- How Retailers Think, Buy and Sell Your Work and How You can Influence It All
Kate Peterson, Performance Concepts
Selling your collection to a retail owner is a great - but small - step on the road to success. What happens when your product arrives at the store? Will it be presented in a way that conveys your brand message? Will the front line salespeople understand your unique selling proposition? Will you be important enough to command both attention and prime real estate? And why won't they re-order - even when you know your line has been selling well in the store?
Spend the afternoon with an industry consultant who has worked with hundreds of retail operations throughout the works, and who, more importantly, knows how to think like a retailer. Learn how best to communicate your message, and what really qualifies as 'support'. Develop the skills you need to build a fan base among the retail salespeople who are key to your success.
Program topics will include:
Choosing well. How to identify retailers with design strategies - and values - that match your own, and the sales talent to support them.
Strategies for becoming the 'go to' artist for top salespeople and for garnering influence at the counter.
Props, packaging and collateral - what's important and what's not in support for your line
Innovative thinking when it comes to meeting 'unreasonable' demands
Proven launch strategies that will build momentum and generate excitement
Follow up and maintenance that will ensure long-term success
See our Monday Post-Summit Media Training and Editor's Event for the first 25 Summit Registrants (JIC/JA membership required) Learn more!
See our Saturday Pre-Summit Public Relations & Sales Strategy Workshop - plus photography day -- for the first 40 Summit Registrants ($99 additional fee) Learn more!
Sponsors include:
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