It’s been a long summer and we’re ready for Fall. The High Point collection is complete: over 500 framed works of art are on their way to our new showroom at the C&D building. Our new SM2 brand receives great reviews from our soft launch last week and plans are in works for our Tweet Up during the upcoming High Point Market. So what’s next? A let up? Not quite.

Slogging through this economy is no small task, but one thing we’ve learned is that there are people on the sidelines waiting for a “reason” to jump back in and build inventory. Given some imagination in content and most of all value, they will reward us with orders. Evidence of this is in so many stories recounted to me last week by our reps in the field when presenting Sm2 for the first time. Our customer told them that indeed, SoicherMarin is seeing the future in its proper shape: a fresh approach with GREAT pricing. We didn’t invent this concept, though making the shift in thinking required some internal soul searching and a degree of invention. How do we create a new brand based on our core design sensibilities, have it look completely fresh and different, build it in America, distribute it through our traditional channels, and oh yeah, sell it for half our normal wholesale? That took months of concept meetings and back and forth debate as well as honest self critique. The exercise as a whole was cathartic for our team and brought out the best in them.

Given ownership of a concept allowed kids in design to stretch their talent. Handing our operations team the challenge to manufacture SM2 in the U.S. and  do it profitably created a framework for new Lean Manufacturing systems we otherwise may not have adopted for years. Asking our sales team to view SM2 as an adjunct (not a replacement) of the SoicherMarin brand took a leap of faith on their part as they had to adapt their own selling techniques to present both lines side by side and not diminish either. For me, I had to take my own leap of faith and trust the young eyes that were creating the line under my direction. Saying nothing, sometimes is the best edit one can make.

-em

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 9:20 am and is filed under Ed's 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.