business blog

This weblog is, with all its personal aspects blended into scents related topics, a business blog, too. With 2005 coming to an abrupt end soon the time has come to critically reflect on this year’s in and out and next year’s line of action. This is a process that I have not boxed into a process control document, such as a best practice guide that pinpoints indirectly what has been gone wrong in the past.

I rather do it as batch job, erratic like a rabbit feeding on a green lot, jumping from here to there. It has to be mentioned for the record: Rabbits are very unsystematic in that respect. Being a process oriented person you cannot watch them hopping from here to there and eating the chlorophyll saturated stuff in a pattern that reminds you of Brown’s motion. Yet, they are – as a species – amazingly successful and maybe there is a reason for them not to feed in an organized pattern: From left to right, for 1 meter, then returning, until they are done. I can not figure out a good reason, but there must be. Thus, I do my looking back the same way:

We have given away a substantial amount of samples which partially paid back. There seems to be a negative correlation between distance from the shop and the return on investment for the samples given away (and sent). Meaning: The farther we’ve sent the samples, the less people bought. Number of sold perfumes = Factor_x*(number of samples sent)/(distance from shop) Here we can improve by working on Factor_x (stretch goal 1 for 2006).

We had coverage in different beauty and lifestyle journals of le Maroc pour elle. The most successful coverage was in Annabelle Switzerland. Although it was only a short coverage, we still have customers asking for the Le Maroc pour elle, pointing to last June’s edition. So, here’s the goal for 2006….. Some of you may have realized: I am somewhat ego-centred. I have logically accepted that the earth is circling the sun. But deep in myself I am still convinced that the gravitational centre of this part of the universe is there where I am. Therefore, I figured out that the time has come to reach for a little home story, or a least a little perfumery home story. I imagine myself, being in the gravitational centre of hundreds of roses, nicely arranged in my living room with their natural fragrance mixing with scent layers of jasmine and cedar wood from the paper strips, chatting with a charming journalist from Annabelle. After 60 minutes the journalist will be fed some biscuits and tee, while he is trying to figure out how to convince his editor to liberate two more pages for the coverage of Andy….

Third goal: I have to become more serious….hehehe.