PumpEase Lands at the ABC Show in VEGAS BABY!
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
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I've been home from Las Vegas for about 5 weeks now (yes, I've been trying to get to this post for a while). And I must say, I'm not big on tourist traps... AT ALL. If I end up in a touristy area incidentally - like when I travel to destinations off the beaten track but have to fly in to a touristy area - I'm gone the very next day. Why? You simply don't experience the real city/country in the touristy areas! And I want to experience the real culture. Examples: New York City's Times Square, resort towns in Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican... and well, Vegas is pretty much the King (or should I say Ace) of all tourist traps. Just soooo commercial (yuck)! BUT.I.HAD.A.FANTASTIC.TIME! Las Vegas Rule #1 - Keep an open mind.
Why were we in Sin City? Well, PumpEase made its official debut at the premier tradeshow of the juvenile products industry - The ABC Kids Expo! (woot, woot!) We were at the show with our Distributor - Sandy of Le Duck Distributors. Sandy represents PumpEase and our colleague Diane Sam's product MoBoleez. Together we are the Le Duck Team (see below, L to R: Sandy, Darlene, Diane and myself). And don't we look brilliant in our flora & fauna tops? Pauline Siu, a hot, new Vancouver designer, created these amazing tops for us to wear at the show. Visit her site to check out the rest of her locally, ethically and sustainably-made Eco-Fashion label!
Not only was the show fantastic (read: we wrote lots of orders, made many great contacts and are following-up with more potential retail partners), but the networking was phenomenal!
Now, on to the show itself - we were in a great location and had great neighbours! Milkies was on one side, LilyBugs was across the aisle and My Brest Friend was kitty corner to us. We also cruised the show and chatted with Francie Pants, Simple Wishes and Four Peas among many others! And it was fantastic to finally put a face to a name as we met some of our retail partners for the very first time - like Britt Pegan of Milkface and Jill Broussard of BreastPumps.com and BreastPumpsDirect.com!
Although this was a business trip, all work and no play makes Wendy a dull girl, right? Enter Darlene, my BFF who flew down from Kelowna, BC (about 4 hours from where I live) for a visit and to help work our booth.
The first day in Vegas, 2 days before we had to set-up the show, we decided to go for a walk - you know, scout things out a bit. Las Vegas Rule #2 - just because you can "see" your destination, doesn't mean you should "walk" to your destination. I think we walked for 9 hours that first day! Our poor feet! I have to admit, I was a bit worried about working a 4-day, 1,000,000 square foot tradeshow after that first day, but my feet persevered! (yay).
I have to backtrack now to a couple of weeks before we left. Dar emailed me and asked me if I "wanted to get my nose pierced with her" while we were down in Vegas. Um. No. Not really. Who knew that my closest friend of 24 years wanted to get her nose pierced? Anyways, after several taxi rides, a wild goose chase and a 16 year old "piercer" who told Darlene she looked like a teacher (lol), our mission was accomplished (and in lieu of getting my nose pierced, I held her hand and took the pics)! That's her to the right - under the knife, er, I mean needle. Las Vegas Rule #3: If they look 25, they are 16. And yes, we are old.
Darlene and I also bought tickets to see La Rêve after chatting to a very nice lady at a discount ticket outlet outside of Circus Circus where they had $2 Strawberry Margaritas with quite the kick (the real reason we stopped). The discount ticket lady told us the story of Steve Wynn and how, after owning 3 of the majors in Vegas (Treasure Island, The Bellagio and The Mirage) and then being ousted in a hostile takeover by MGM, he persevered to build the Wynn and Encore Hotels. Further, he created his own Cirque show and designed a ROUND theatre to showcase it in, so that there was NOT ONE bad seat in the house. We paid just under $100 each for our tickets - fantastic seats - AMAZING show! (The pic to the left is the finale - those flowers were probably 20 ft in diameter). The seats with "partially obstructed views" at the Bellagio for "O" were OVER $100 each (umm... who would pay over $100 for a partially obstructed view?) AND I confirmed "discount ticket lady's" story on Wikipedia. Las Vegas Rule #4 - You don't always get what you pay for.
One of the highlights of the trip was our breakfast meeting with Bettina Forbes and Danielle Rigg, founders of the Best for Babes Foundation, of which we are a corporate sponsor. Until that morning, we had only chatted on the phone and via email, Twitter and Facebook. The energy in the room was palpable as I also got to meet other BfB corporate sponsors like Sheri & Melinda of Earth Mama Angel Baby, the ladies of My Brest Friend, Line of GlamourMom, Shari & Joe Criso of My Baby Experts and The Birth Boutique (one of our new retail partners - stoked about that!), Leslie of NutraBella and the lovely ladies of Hygeia!
Another fantastic morning was spent taking the Zappos tour! I was absolutely inspired by every moment that we spent at their head office in Henderson, Nevada (just outside of Vegas) - WOW! And that's what it's all about at Zappos - making their customers say "WOW!" You can find out a bunch of super interesting information about the Zappos culture here - which is at the core of everything they do. Here are some points that really stuck with me (in no particular order)...
- they had a nicely appointed "Mother's Room" for employees that are breastfeeding and/or pumping - and moms can pump when they need to. Do you hear that Totes-Isotoner?
- if you're tired while you're at work, you can take.a.nap.on.company.time
- all the departments are decorated in a unique and fun theme ---> there's the mullet of Zappos Recruiting - and they had mullet wigs for everyone to wear!
- 2 weeks into your training, they offer you $2000 to QUIT if you don't feel you are absolutely passionate about being a part of the Zappos team (this saves them money in the long run - smart)
- the company lunchroom is stocked with food (for free) and the vending machines don't take money
- their customer service department is empowered to do "whatever it takes" to make the customer happy - they recounted a story of a customer that had recently lost her mother and the Zappos employee had flowers sent to her - WOW!
- they ship free (in the USA) BOTH ways - yes, that means even for returns! Why would you shop anywhere else?
- they have no call "stats" to meet in their call centre (as a former call centre employee, this is UNHEARD of)
- Tony Hsieh's desk (he's the CEO in case you didn't know) is in a cubicle, just like everyone else, amongst employees (there's Diane sitting in Tony's chair)
- at the end of the tour we were invited to peruse a "library" of Tony Hsieh's favourite books and take as many as we desired (no joke!)
I could go on and on - truly a great place to work. And has the company sufferred by empowering their employees, bending over backwards for their customers and making Zappos a fun place to work? I hardly think so. Zappos.com has been around for just over 10 years and now does $2-3 million PER DAY in online sales. They broke $10 billion annually in 2008. Absolutely mind-blowing! Las Vegas Rule #5: Think Big!
We also enjoyed a great dinner with Madeleine Shaw of LunaPads (my friend, colleague and informal mentor) and her BFF Ann. AND we were smart enough to get off the strip to where the food was less expensive and of MUCH higher quality (see tourist trap rant above). We had an amazing Indian dinner at Gandhi. Mmmmm! And we had a very cheeky and funny waiter to round out the evening!
If I havent mentioned LunaPads to you before, I must tell you a short story. I met Madeleine at a Fashion Industry meeting in the late 90's. At that time she was just bringing LunaPads to market and was struggling with the packaging design. Madeleine also owned a women's clothing store that had a small factory in the back and had done a small run of production for me (this was when I was designing and manufacturing a women's sportswear line). Madeleine gave me a LunaPad. I was kinda grossed out by the whole idea of reusable menstural products but graciously accepted the gift. I never used the pad. I put it in my bathroom cupboard. I looked at it from time to time. I moved 5 times. I never threw it out. ---> Fast forward to 2008. I had reconnected with Madeleine as I was struggling with the packaging for PumpEase and a colleague suggested I speak to her as our products both shared a "non-mainstream" vein. I went to her website. I read the testimonials. I was intrigued. I placed an order. I gave away my Costco-size box of tampons to a friend. I have never looked back. I'm more aware of my body. I'm doing something good for me. I'm doing something good for the environment. I'm doing something good for my daughters. My bathroom garbage doesn't overflow with garbage every 4 weeks. Check out LunaPads. Really.
Two more dinners, one at Mon Ami Gabi (yum) and the other at the Cheesecake Factory (double yum) were spent with Dawnn Whittaker and her husband Marc of Cheeky Chops. Dawnn is a former Nanny turned Baby Contentment and Child Sleep Consultant. Dawnn was a client of my other company, Moda de Vida Design and then I became a client of hers and I can tell you that she walks on water! My girls, aged almost 5 and almost 3 sleep 12+ hours/night and my almost 3 years old still naps 45 min in the afternoon. If you're having a problem with children and sleep, contact Dawnn. It is never too late to give your children the lifelong gift of good sleeping habits!
We also went on the rides at the top of the Stratosphere (that's the view of the strip from the top). You may not know this about me, but I am a bit of a thrill seeker - I LOVE things that scare me. I will go on ANY rollercoaster that they build. I have bungee jumped, I'm a certified scuba diver and I am planning on trying skydiving very soon (a tandem jump so I can experience freefall). I also want to get my motorcyle license, a plan that was kyboshed when I found out I was pregnant with my first daughter.
If you are not familiar with the rides at the top of the Stratosphere, they are 1149 feet above the Las Vegas strip (just sayin'). We went on the Insanity and the X-Scream. Oddly, I.HATED.BOTH.OF.THEM. I REALLY hated both of them. So weird. I'm glad I did it though (just so I can say that I did). Then we went down one level to Fat Tuesdays and each got a 26 oz margarita for the road. Something tells me we did that in the wrong order. Las Vegas Rule #6 - Booze first, white-knuckle rides second.
So off to Fremont Street we went - that's the old (original) strip in case you didn't know - and except for my 3-day whirlwind trip to Vegas last year for the ABC Show (when I worked Diane's booth to get my feet wet for this year), I hadn't been to Vegas since the old strip WAS the strip (see paragraph #1 re: tourist traps). So I figured out it had been about 28 years since I had been on Fremont Street and the last time I was there was with my Dad. And then I got all melancholy - I still miss him so much! So I shed a few tears for Dad and then we continued to have a blast because Darlene and I always, always, ALWAYS have fun together (and that's what my Dad would have wanted).
So are you wondering why I haven't mentioned any gambling yet? I WAS in Vegas after all. Well gambling really doesn't interest me. Last year, the first time I had been in Vegas since I was "of age", I sat down at a slot machine, put in $10 and it was gone in 5 minutes. B-O-R-I-N-G! This year I figured I had to try it again considering I was there with my BFF that I ALWAYS have fun with! So I started with $2. I chose a penny slot, but a "real" one - with the actual wheels that spin and a handle to pull (what's the point of playing a slot machine that is all computerized???) - and it took me 45 minutes to lose the 8 bits. It was fun... a little. I staked a claim on that machine and walked away.
The night we went to Fremont Street, I won't lie to you, I was a bit tipsy! When we got back to our hotel, I found "my" slot machine and thank goodness no one was sitting on the stool as I may just have booted them off! I put in $20 this time (I guess I thought I was a high roller fueled-up with margaritas and all). I played and lost and won and lost and won again. And I started using the button instead of pulling the arm (too funny!) In the end, during my entire 7 day stay in Vegas, I lost a whole $19 and enjoyed it enough to try it again next year (not the losing part, the gambling part). Pretty.cheap.entertainment.
Well there you have it. I finally learned (albeit temporarily) how to balance my business with downtime and had to go all the way to Las Vegas to do it! I made some new friends, reconnected with some old ones and enjoyed some new experiences. Now I'm counting down to the show in 2010 where I will hopefully meet Deidrea Haysel of Hot Mama Gowns and Katie O'Neill of KT Steppers, just two of the many fabulous Mompreneurs that I have met on Twitter and Facebook over the past year or so.
Have you been to the ABC Show? Are you familiar with any of the great companies and products that I mentioned? How about 26 oz margaritas from Fat Tuesdays? Leave a comment below and tell us about it!
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