Diligence, persistence and competitive drive are just a few of the important characteristics it takes to build a successful company. What makes Rebecca Minkoff’s success especially impressive, is the fast growth of her company despite a recession and the fierce and over-crowded fashion-industry competition. Read on to learn what else every successful business woman can learn from Rebecca Minkoff.
Naming products is a serious matter.
As a copywriter, one of my favorite jobs is naming products. Products are income-generating vehicles and how strong their motor is, is not just about what goes into them, it’s also about how they are perceived. Rebecca Minkoff names her bags. I mean really names them. She’s given some of her bags creative and sassy names that relate to the love experiences of her target audience – MAB – the morning after bag, Lovers Clutch, the Affair, the Swoon and more. In today’s day and age luxury means much more than just expensive. Luxury is about the meaning customers can derive from the product, which is why a meaningful name is especially important.
Just because there’s a recession, it doesn’t mean you’re going to lose money.
Thinking that losing money during a recession is inevitable, is the wrong way to go. It will stifle creative solutions and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because our nature doesn’t in fact change during a recession. We don’t want less things just because there’s a dip in the economy. We may have less income at our disposal or we may decide to be more careful with what we have. But recession or not we all love good deals. Uri Minkoff understood that. He lowered prices and took the Wrigley’s model – taking a price hit, but selling more. Much more and growing 546% during the recession.
Being brave.
It takes guts to set a different pace and challenge accepted norms. But it’s also a great way to set yourself apart from the competition, especially when the reason you decide to defy norms is to serve your customers. Until Rachel Minkoff came along, designers had about six months from the time of a show to meet with buyers, produce their pieces and get them on the racks. Which means that for any given show, clothes on the runway reflected the season in six months – never the current season. Rachel Minkoff boldly changed the rules of the game by timing the show with the current season so that shoppers could immediately purchase the look. Minkoff recently set a new standard by holding her show outside her Soho boutique and enabling her customers to “see now, buy now.”
What characteristics do you apply to your business to take it to the next level?