snandkeolyar

The cold call. It's amazing what you can do with that skill, especially in this day and age where conversation is becoming less and less 'intimate'. So many people nowadays are terrified of speaking to someone they don't know on the other line, much less pitching to a corporate executive.

Every single successful entrepreneur I know can pick up a phone and make a pitch. None of them were good at it when they started, but however humiliating it was, they kept at it.

Well, it's been over a decade since I've worked with the company and that would be a product management decision, but I definitely agree with you. The 7 loops are superior to the 5. After all, we all know belt loops are the real heroes.

All of them have had their fun little idiosyncrasies so I can't really give you an answer to "most interesting." Williams-Sonoma was probably one of the most exciting -- however -- simply due to the fact that we took that business from 0 to $200 million way ahead of our business plan. The fact that it was picked up by the Harvard Business Review as a case study in eCommerce was definitely an honor.

Research. Try and figure out who it is you have to talk to. LinkedIn can be a great resource for this.

Persistence. Call back again the next day/week/month; you may get a friendlier secretary the next time around.

Take a different route. Ask for the department rather than the "person who does this."

Connect through a different medium. Again -- LinkedIn. Consider connecting with an influencer instead of the decision maker right off the bat.

I'm going to go ahead and guess you mean from a supply chain perspective? As in worker's rights? Environment?

Now and in the past, I've tried to be more conscientious of where my products are coming from, who's making them, what the conditions they are making them in, environmental damage, etc... This is significantly easier when working with higher-quality products with a higher price point (such as luxury home decor) where my vendors might be in the States or local and therefore bound by worker's laws. Ethics has definitely been easier working in this niche industry than before.

In general, though, it's smart to be cognizant of your supply chain, especially recently. And this doesn't just make sense from an "ethics" position but from a business position, as well. With information explosion, consumers can very easily see where companies are sourcing their products from. I won't name them but quite a few brands have been pretty badly tarnished from a PR perspective due their sourcing practices.

Frankly, I'm glad these changes are happening and I encourage consumers to keep on researching where their products are coming from. Ultimately -- the power lies in the buyer's hands.