Part II – Helping you get a jumpstart!

Hey everyone, FARASHATi ghostwriters back again. Thankfully, our regular blog writer is feeling much better now, but still under piles and piles of work. As I was checking the to-do list on my phone the other day she sent me an email asking if I could fill in again this week. “Great!” I said (yes, I talk to myself in the car… who doesn’t?:P). I added the new task to the front of the list right before picking up the dry cleaning … getting supplies for my son’s school project … getting my nails done to match my new FARASHATi top … it’s so pretty, the purple one with the nice embroidered neck, I’m in love …wait. What was I supposed to be doing? Oh yea, The Blog! Ok, back to work  🙂

Last week we left you with a list of programs for business entrepreneurs. Did you go check them out? We hope you did because this week we have even more useful programs for you and your company.

We first need to give kudos to our extended FARASHATi family for this next software gem. The brother of our usual blog writer tipped us off on a program called Highrise. With it you can track potential leads, contacts, and deals. When you first start out as a business owner (this is for you seasoned business owners as well) you will be meeting many new people. Can you imagine the embarrassment of meeting a contact for the second time and not remembering who they are or what they do?! Or missing an important meeting and costing your business a lucrative deal? Now you’ve made your company look unprofessional! With Highrise you can keep track of the people you meet, what you discussed, the emails and other correspondences that travel between you and also sends you reminders if you need to meet them again. More than just a scheduler it’s like having a personal assistant.

Now that you’ve got a great program to keep track of your contacts it’s time to start making some. We did a blog recently about social networking and how it can help get your company’s name out to more people. Wildfire can attract even more people to your site also using social networking. You can easily create company branded contests, sweepstakes, and giveaways then with one click it will post out to several social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. People love to enter contests (just like playing the lotto, I know you’ve bought your share of tickets too ^_^ ) Potential customers can click on your contest and then also post it in their own feeds for friends to enter as well. As more people get invited the word about your company spreads.

Last week I mentioned the website being the face of your company and how you should monitor traffic but, what about the site itself? I recently walked into my son’s room and found him building a website. Yes, a website! I sat down and watched him for a moment and the building tools and functionality of this site were amazing for being free…Yes, Free! It’s called Yola and it’s an online web builder and host. You’re probably thinking it won’t be good for a business… I thought the same thing at first. Then I found that the site integrates with the PayPal shopping cart, it has an application for booking appointments right from the site, no banners, no pop-ups, and tons of other customizing tools. You will amaze yourself with the kind of website you can build with a limited tech-knowledge. It may not build you a site that will carry you to the Fortune 500, but it will definitely help you make a professional and functional site when you’re just starting out and money is tight (Something our wonderful FARASHATi blog writer wished she had discovered sooner 🙂 But no hard feelings we’ll just share our secret with you now. )

While we’re on the subject of beneficial temporary solutions I’d like to mention PayPal here.  Of course you’ll want to get your company associated with a real bank and a business account but procedures and documentation can take some time. With Paypal you can immediately start online payments through your website. (And we all want to start seeing a positive money flow immediately, right? :)) Paypal is an excellent service with many features for a small business. And as with many of the other programs and sites we’ve suggested it’s easy and free to set up. International customers can pay through their local currency (which is excellent if you want your company to go global). What we loved at FARASHATi was how easy it is to add ‘buy now’ and ‘add to cart’ buttons to our website.Plus we can link our inventory! (How nice is that ;)) But, remember… interest rates are high so use it as temporary solution until you get your bank sorted out.

Lastly, I’d say the best tip is to read … a lot. One great site is inc. The Daily Resource For Entrepreneurs. You’ll find articles there that range from inspirational success stories of other small business owners to tips on increasing sales, launching product, etc. And you can quickly subscribe and add it to your RSS feed. We found this excellent article on absolutely FREE software: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090901/great-no-cost-software.html

The programs mentioned in the link are just a few of those that are on offer for free. We hope you enjoyed this two part blog and will get some profitable use out of these suggestions.

Add us to your favorite’s and come back often for new and informative articles. Have a great week!

– The FARASHATi Crew

Part I – Helping you get a jump start!

Apologies for the late posting, it turns out the talented FARASHATi blog writer is not only sick but also drowning in loads of work (juggling a few delicate and expensive china plates, with her eyes closed :)).  Since we love and adore her and want her back in one piece we decided to help out with the blog for the next couple of weeks….hope you enjoy 🙂

So let’s get started…..  As an up and coming business owner, finding the right tools for your company’s behind-the-scene duties can be frustrating. Luckily the FARASHATi crew has decided to recommend some programs/applications we have found to be invaluable to our company’s every day activities and hope you will also find useful in your endeavors. These are just a few of our favorites….

First things first, everyone knows, keeping track of your finances especially when it comes to a new business is one of the most important tasks. Who wants to get to tax season and deal with penalties due to mishandled ledgers? (Yikes!), or better yet think that you have positive cash flow where in reality it’s negative :(.  One program that we have found useful here at FARASHATi is Outright. It’s a great free accounting program that handles not only the mere basics but also keeps track of losses and gains. Great for a new business just starting out and it’s online so you can easily access your records from any computer, truly a life saver!

If you are are an e-commerce website, offering online shopping like us, Google Analytics can  help in reviewing the traffic to your site and study customer behavior.Your website is the “face” of your company and you definitely want to make sure your site is engaging its target audience. Google Analytics will not only help you in identifying the most lucrative geographic market (where are most customers coming from) but also track visitors from all referrers including search engines. For instance, the report could show how many customers found your site on Google versus Yahoo and allow you to adjust your internet presence accordingly.  Thus the reports are a helpful tool in identifying target markets and also help us to adjust our marketing strategy based on data collected.

Now that we are talking about marketing another helpful marketing program used religiously by FARASHATi is Zoomerang. If you were to ask a friend how the food was at a particular restaurant and the response they gave was a so-so you probably wouldn’t go there to eat (I know I wouldn’t). With Zoomerang you can create online surveys with a simple tool and get feedback from selected individuals.  With this you can identify your company’s weaknesses according to established customers or potential new customers.  This information can in turn help you improve on the weaknesses and strengthen the stability of the company.

Once you begin building your customer clientele you will want to make sure you build a rapport with them. With Mailchimp, you can easily manage your mailing list and even get templates to design a mailer even if you aren’t too techy (Helps us quite a bit at FARASHATi since we lack that “techy” bone :-0)! Each mail can be personalized to the individual subscriber and it also gives you a report on how many people actually opened the mail, who opened the emails, who unsubscribed ,overall campaign ROI and much more. This further helps to change your strategy and rework your approach if, for instance response is poor.  Apart from informing our clients about special offers, FARASHATi also utilizes this application to send out newsletters.

These programs are just the beginning of the new business owner’s toolkit. Disappointed that the list has reached the end? Don’t worry, we wouldn’t leave you hanging. We’ll be back next week with a new list of applications for you to use. Now go check these out and happy Googling!

See you next week!

– The Farashati Crew

P.S. If you know an application that has been your helping hand, share it with us 🙂 As new entrepreneurs we are always looking for some free help that makes our work easier!

Over 700 fans in less than a month!

The power of social media websites is astonishing. Few weeks ago, I was handling customers through word of mouth. A decent following, but a droplet in comparison to the kind of support we have received on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/farashati.label?ref=profile#/pages/FARASHATi/107304456986

(A humble thank you to each and every one of them).

It all started when I was looking for a laptop and was confused between 2 popular models – so I emailed one of my tech savvy friends for opinion.

An excerpt from his email reply – unedited 😉

‘If I want to find out more about a product, I am not going to read marketing jargon from the official website. Instead I am going to look up blogs and see if the product has any shortcomings that I am unaware of. Blogs are put up by regular consumers and I will also look into official review sites just to get an unbiased opinion on the product.’

Thanks to the internet, we now have ‘friends’ who bond with each other through an interactive online community, exchanging views on products. For example www.letsfixthis.com is a website that represents a customer’s voice and as such is used as a platform to put your views on any product, be it cosmetics or your iPod! I am hooked on to their blog http://blog.letsfixthis.com/

Back to my friends email (I talk too much :)); I wanted to be a part of this consumer conversation and know what my target audience desired. What did they think about my designs? Did they feel we would fit in? Or if they didn’t, what did they like? How could I improve on things? After all, Farashati was born because of the voice of a small group of women who felt that most retail stores did not understand their need. These women were simply not comfortable showing skin and don’t really have many options in stores. We soon realized that the small group was actually a sizable chunk of the population. Our research had already proved the point but the Facebook fan page just strengthened our views.

For a small start up, it allowed us to carry out target marketing in exactly the budget we wanted. I was not only able to target a specific age group and location but also target specific interest groups! It wasn’t very difficult to reach out to my niche and it has been a brilliant social media move :). Facebook also opened up channels to converse with my niche and understand them better. I am still learning the ropes with twitter though. An application called tweet deck helped me organize myself and see twitter in a different perspective. LinkedIn on the other hand is a good website to increase your professional network and get in touch with like minded people and potential suppliers.

Overall, this journey of Social networking has been quiet interesting and with all marketing guru’s swearing by it, I would say they are absolutely right….social marketing media has hit mainstream and it’s only going to get hotter!

Happy Networking!

The Farashati Crew

p.s. Additional lesson learned from my techie friend: Twitter has a stronger search engine than Google (though people still prefer Google!). But if you ask me, Twitter bores me as I don’t have many followers there. However my techie friend educated me that the more updates Farashati has on twitter, the more chances of it being on top of the search pages on Google. So don’t be surprised to find me writing updates to an almost empty audience!!

The Marathon Photo Shoot

Farashati had its first photo shoot, and we were excited, only to realize that this wasn’t exactly going to be all glamorous (like our imagination) and required a lot more. We had done our research, but we forgot about the most important element ‘the weather’ especially since our shoot was outdoors. Apparently, we were in winter (but the weather wasn’t exactly cold that day) and as the sun reached its zenith, it started to get a little uncomfortable. Our kudos to the team for being a sport, from left to right : Antonio – Charlies Angel 1 (Make up team and assistant); Nadia – Little Miss Sunshine (Sales manager and coordinator); Gemma – Charlies Angel II (Model); Kara – Charlies Angel III (Model); Ghazala – Ms. Jay Manuel (Make up and hair stylist); Farhana – Miss Serendipity (Creative Director); Micheal – Charlie himself 😉 (The Photographer).

Our goal for the day was simple, churn out 30 perfect portraits of our collection in under 12 hours.(ahem, yes under 12 hours with brunches and lunches and teatime breaks as I could not afford to take the photo shoot for a second day for fear of increasing expenses…didn’t I tell you, we are a start up :S )

We hit the road at seven in the morning, me and Nadia (still in snooze mode); and went through our check list –

• Clothes (ironed by Nadia ! see I remember :p ) – check
• Scarfs (ironed by me 😉  ok ok ironed by Nadia again! and one ironed by me :))  – check
• Jewelery – The rented ones in a pretty box and our personal collection in my favorite bling pouch – check
• Nadia – check
• Me – check
• Models (make sure there are two) – both check  🙂
• Make up artist and her five bags! – check
• Breakfast (sandwiches courtesy my mom) – Check
• Fresh juice (courtesy the local grocery store) – check
• Stylist – umm couldnt afford her 😦 – canceled.

I do regret not having a proper theme or story board. The pictures could have told a completely different tale and been even more enticing, if only our art director wasn’t on vacation. The only thing I could tell Micheal is that I loved the Victoria Secret catalog of ‘casual pictures outdoors’ rather than ‘plain white background’. Sure, we could not have the same kind of attitude as them but still thought we could try to be close. (Think I saw Michael silently laugh at my suggestion but never mind!)

What I did learn from this shoot – are simple rules (which I knew!) but simply thought I would pass (what was i thinking?):

Rule 1 – Please remember to do a pre fit! OK, my models assured me they were XS size but while they struggled to get into their outfits, literally threatening to tear them apart, we realized a pre fit would have been a blessing. Some ensembles were just impossible to get into and the next thing I knew, I had to model them. Being a XS saved the day. Phew!

Rule 2 – Upon observing the models, I quickly understood that professional models knew exactly how to give a pose and change their expression as per request.(*smack on head) When I stood for my shot, I realized how difficult it was to give the right look and I noticed Michael fretting but trying hard to keep his cool. My shot took over 30 minutes before he finally got one that I approved of!

Rule 3 -Don’t have unrealistic expectations. I had no clue, that each photo would be so time consuming and our short sprint turned into a long marathon. As dusk approached, we were literally racing against time to get our shots right as we needed all the photos in natural light.

Rule 4 – OK so this is not exactly a rule but its my blog 🙂 .I recently read an excellent suggestion by a fashion blog on how to cut on photo shoot expense by getting a jewelry designer to participate and split the costs. Dang! Wish I had read this article earlier. Anyway, too late now and till next time have a great week and happy clicking to those who are planning a fashion shoot (and those who are just plain bored).

The Farashati Crew

P.S. Secret rule 5 –  Have some fun! Disappear from time to time and allow the models and photographers to play goofy. They are all in their best behavior when you are around, but you get the best candid shots when they are left alone…later bribe the photographer to share those pics 🙂 hehehe

Recession….what recession?!?

Of all the things to do right now, we decided to start a new firm. Alarmed by our decision? Imagine how nerve wrecking it must be for ‘us’ to know our entrepreneurial urge couldn’t think of a better time!

Before we are dismissed as another random blind optimist, you might want to read our justification for giving in to our urges.

The other day, one of our employees (a.k.a the one other guy) read an article in The New Yorker – ‘Hanging tough’. It talks about the bold moves taken by Kelloggs’s (Yup, the corn flakes brothers) during the great depression to become the industry’s dominant player in packaged cereals . Upon exhaustive research (we googled :-p) we discovered that 3M, I.B.M., General Electric and Microsoft were also founded during recession.

The reasons are simple. When times are good and the economy is booming, everybody is an entrepreneur. More companies mean more competition. If you have a great idea and your market research is thorough, then a hard time is a great time to start, as I have discovered. Raw materials are cheaper and suppliers are more than willing to co-operate by cutting the melodrama and making our life easier.Of course, finding an investor right now is difficult but we are hoping that once the recession is over, this extra work will pay off and we will be way ahead of the competition and that much closer to raising capital.

So don’t give up on your business plans yet, do your research and know that uncertainty is always a part of business. As one of my friends once said, you cannot do business in ‘fear’. Imagine the heights your business will reach in a rising economy if it can shine in tough times. So keep your chin high and until next time…be safe and take care.

The Farashati Crew