Sarah Shaw is well on her way to her First Million. After implementing strategies she learned as a member of The First Million Club, Sarah had a big win last week, a BIG win, which proves it IS possible to kick ass in a challenging economic climate.
Accessories designer and inventor of the Handy Hold-All™, a closet organizer for bags, baseball caps, and scarves, Sarah is no stranger to building successful companies. She started out creating made-to-order costumes for the film industry, and later launched Sarah Shaw Handbags, and built that business to just under $1 million.
Then Sarah got “the big idea.” While helping her friend try to fit all of her handbags into one small closet, she came up with a way to organize them that would save tons of space. The Handy Hold-All™ is now sold in more than 400 stores, has a distributor in Japan, and just licensed her design to a major chain.
Overflowing with new ideas and inspired by her success, Sarah launched a new brand, Simply Sarah, dedicated to creating beautiful and practical products for home, house and lifestyle. Sarah designs everything herself, including the fabrics.
Sounds like a great success story already doesn’t it? Not quite. Sarah wasn’t sure how to grow her business in the economic downturn. From 2006 to 2007 her company grew 42%, but the following year it went down 37%, and continued to go down.
“I was out of tricks. I realized my sales techniques were not up to the current standards,” says Sarah. “I’ve been following Mike on the TPE blog for over a year. He has brilliant ideas and a proven track record, so I decided to sign up for The First Million Club.” (Aww, shucks.)
Sarah wanted to sell her products in mainstreams stores like Bloomingdales and Nordstrom’s, and to high-end stores on her “Dream Store List.” Within three weeks of applying Mike’s product revitalization strategy, one of the stores she had been coveting for years sent her a long thank you letter. This is a store that never took her calls!
How friggin’ awesome is that? You try to get a dream client’s attention for years and then suddenly they’re calling YOU. We’re talking big win here, people. HUGE win!
Sarah is in the middle of her revitalization process, and so far she’s had loads of positive responses. “I was really nervous to do the sequence because I have a subscriber list of over 14,000 people. I wasn’t sure how people would respond; some of them have been on the list for 12 years!”
“People have been coming out of the woodwork, writing letters and notes to me about how they love what we’re doing with the business,” says Sarah. “I can really see the potential. This is going to be bigger than I thought.”
Let me state the obvious and remind you that Sarah is selling to RETAILERS in a tough economy, which is a big challenge. This just proves that no matter how steep the climb, anyone can get to the top of the mountain, if they just find the best trail. For Sarah, that trail was The First Million club.
So get out there. Make your own Dream Client list and go after ‘em. Sarah’s win was not a fluke. It was an earnest, carefully planned, well-designed maneuver that anyone can handle. Even (or especially) you.
By AJ Harper
