Friday, September 20, 2013

Nikki's Magic Wand TAKES OVER NY Fashion Week-- PART TWO!!!

Friday, September 6, 2013

The best friend/business partner and I woke up in the Big Apple filled with excitement. We'd had a GREAT first day in town and had already met some amazing people. Today was THE day to meet some celebrities (oh who would come?????) and press too! We checked and double checked our gift packages, grabbed our brand new banner and hopped a cab to The Empire Hotel. We were to report there by 7 am for set up and we arrived right on time. The room was abuzz with other vendors setting up for the first day in the gifting lounge. We got to work at our little table, erecting the banner, deciding how to creatively display the Wands and planning our strategy. We had already discussed making sure that we gave each visitor to our booth our full attention and also gaining their contact information. We had a tag team plan ready to launch. We got all set up and were ready for the day.

We didn't have to report back until about 10:30 am for a meeting with the owner of the gifting suite company so we grabbed some Starbuck's and relaxed a bit (as much as we could). We excitedly headed back to the suite to get this party started and what a party it was. Bre and I stood at our table and one of us would start the speech by opening a tube of lipgloss and holding the applicator alongside it to show how it couldn't reach the bottom, while the other one then showed the Wand and a ridiculously empty tube that the Wand had emptied out. That's when we got what we call, "The Face," It's when people are just listening and then realize what I'm saying the Wand will do and they go, "Ohhhhhhhhhhh, so you can get it all OUT!" We LOVE LOVE LOVE "The Face"!  Anyhoo, the day progresses and we are eagerly and anxiously seeing who is coming next. Each celebrity had a person with them holding a sign with their name and their latest project and another person held a HUGE duffle bag of their goodies that all of us vendors were dropping our gifts into. The celebs were required to spend a few minutes with us and honestly, no one gave us the bored face, no one tried to rush off and no one was mean. Each one was kind and interested and many of them gave us "The Face." :)

I have a few pics for you from that first day...

Sammi "Sweetheart" Giancola

Adrienne Bailon

Aren't they gorgeous?? So, the day was exciting and high speed...like can't really eat or go to the restroom high speed but it was a successful day by all accounts. We worked our strategy and collected a HUGE stack of business cards and when folks told us they were fresh out of biz cards, we had pre-printed cards for them to fill out. You'd be surprised how many celebs happily jotted down their gmails or yahoo e-mail addresses.

Well, 7pm came and we were officially exhausted and ready to head back to the hotel room to chill before dinner. The best friend/business partner had made reservations at Le Cirque, a very  Chi Chi La La restaurant that she'd been wanting to go to. We got all cute and headed out.

At dinner, we recapped the previous two days and excitedly discussed our favorite parts.

The final, PHENOMENAL day to come!!!!

Chat very soon,
Nikki










Friday, September 13, 2013

Nikki's Magic Wand TAKES OVER NY Fashion Week!

Fantastic... Amazing...Surreal...these words barely touch the reality of how things went at NY Fashion Week. As you know, we were BEYOND excited to be heading there and I promise you, once we got there, it was everything and more than we expected. I want to give you some highlights from the trip and share some pictures too.

Thursday, September 5, 2013
The business partner/best friend and I land at LaGuardia at 8 am and make our way to the hotel. We scope out the gifting lounge where we'll introduce NMW to celebs and press over the next few days. We LOVE it! Then, the biz partner has a great idea. She suggests we hand write letters to Jane Larkworthy, the Beauty Editor at "W" magazine and Anna Wintour, the Editor-in-Chief at "Vogue" and deliver the letters, along with Wands to them at their office buildings. We sit in a little cafe and craft the letters then off we go. We are directed to the first floor mailrooms in the two office buildings. The first one is "Vogue" and we want to shout out  Alex who hand delivered the Wand package to Ms. Wintour. Then, it was off to "W" magazine and there we ran into James who very kindly took our package to Ms. Larkworthy, after posing for a quick picture. Want to see our new buddy, James?

Here he is:
 
So, with that taken care of, we headed back to the hotel to assemble the Wand packages for the 100 press and the 70 celebrities who were expected over the next two days. We also wanted to chill for a bit, eat, sip some wine while we took everything in and prepared for the Patricia Field party later on. I want to show you some pictures of us as we were headed to the party. I also included a pic of THE Patricia Field!

Stay tuned for what happened on Friday, September 6, 2013!
 
 

Sunday, September 1, 2013

FOUR days 'til Fashion...

Hello! What a CRAZY, EXCITING time for Nikki's Magic Wand! I have some updates for you since my last post. I had mentioned that we were waiting to hear from QVC. Well, since we last chatted, we got word that we were being placed in their Sprouts competition with two other products where the product with the most votes secures a purchase order form QVC and can sell on their website and possibly on the air. We had to submit pictures, a write up about the product and inventor, a video and a sample. The submission was thoroughly evaluated and vetted and we got word that the competition/voting would begin at 12 am 8/31. As soon as I knew, I let EVERYONE know and once again, my support system has stepped up in a BIG way. High school and college friends, co-workers, new friends and old friends have been posting the link on their Facebook pages. The word is spreading and I am beyond thankful. The voting runs until 9/13/2013 so if you haven't voted, please do at www.qvc.com/qvcsprouts and tell your mom, mailman and hairdresser to vote too! :)

In equally exciting, amazing news, Nikki's Magic Wand will debut at New York Fashion Week in FOUR short days! I am experiencing so many emotions. Angst, excitement, amazement and panic, consumed with making sure that I am fully prepared. There will be stunningly, gorgeous people from all over the world and I want to make sure that Nikki's Magic Wand and I put our best feet forward. The beautiful thing is I believe in NMW 100%. I have never doubted my "baby's" effectiveness, usefulness, purpose. I honestly believe that if we can get this cosmetic tool in the RIGHT hands then it will TAKE OFF. My dream (one of many) is for Nikki's Magic Wand to become a household name like Kleenex or Xerox. I want people to say, "You need to 'Wand' that tube if you want to get it all out!"

Each step of this journey has been an adventure and this time in the business' life is no different. I am going to document each step of NY Fashion Week, from flying out of Pittsburgh to flying back to Pittsburgh. I want to take each one of you with me because you've really been with me the entire time.

Stay tuned for updates and pictures from Fashion Week as well as the result of the QVC Sprouts contest.

As always, thank you SO much for reading!
Nikki