August 19, 2009

We help you distribute your clothing line.

Filed under: business, clothing line — Tags: business, clothing line, ecm, ellen clothing manufacturer, help, internet — admin @ 3:39 pm

Wherever you are and whatever you are trying to do, there is always a better way to get things done. And even the best can get better.

The secret to getting where you want to get faster is teamwork. No man alone can compete with a team. It is commonly said that the power of 3 persons working together in harmony is a lot more than the added power of 3 individuals working separately.

Ellen Clothing Manufacturer (ECM) is a French company which operates from Vietnam. ECM does not have a factory outlet in the USA (as at today Aug 19, 2009), so the importance of our networking on internet is paramount.

ECM needs internet and internet needs ECM. All is well as long as internet users can find ECM easily from any search engine. It is also important for our audience to find on our website the applications they need in order to start their clothing line or calculate the cost of getting custom clothes made.

How does ECM make sure to get things done? We help others first.

Practically, we help search engines and internet surfers to identify our webpages. The direct consequence of this is that ECM ranks very well on a number of results in more than 10 countries and 3 languages.

Secondly, we help our partner Autoweb Creator in all possible ways to make their website creation business better. This means giving a hand with translations, optimizing business practice and systems, posting recommendations and links. Anything we can help with will do. On the other hand we get a lot of help from this partner for various operations on the net. This is a simple example of leverage through networking.

The same goes with our clients. We do our best to help you resolve your problems. It usually means finding ways to get your clothing business started with more designs and a lighter budget. That’s what our consultants are trained at. (Contact Ellen Clothing Manufacturer)

After we understand what you, as a designer, are trying to achieve and what clothing line you want to come up with, we spend numerous hours explaining the factors that come into play in the production your clothing brand.

For instance, ECM offers its clients a way to get made to order clothes samples at no extra cost other than the cost of shipping. We do this because we have understood that it is important to our clients and their business.

In partnership with Autoweb Creator, we are also working on a couple of free online tools which we know our market is waiting for. Help others and some, if not all, will help you back.

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August 16, 2009

How to make your company logo?

Filed under: business, design, sales — Tags: brand, branding, business, design, ecm, ellen clothing manufacturer, how to, logo, make logo — admin @ 5:42 pm

L Lemaire talking about corporate communication and the use of a company logo.

Have you ever heard that a great logo representing the company faithfully can translate in more leads and sales?

I feel safe buying and using products of famous brands. It is true even when I don’t like the logo. Right now, as an example, I am visualizing a very famous company of cameras with a logo in two colors. I don’t like their logo because of the two colors they use (black an yellow) but I still trust the brand. What’s goin’on?

Since we often hear about brand identity rather than brand logo. I guessed that the color match of the logo didn’t matter so much. What the (targeted) public really needs is a visual they recognize and remember.

A good logo is first a visual people recognize easily and makes the company look good. It is true also for a website as I recently read on a business blog. The post was along the lines of: Credible company logos add website trust.
The best part of that blog page was a logo of a house painting company.
It’s a great logo showing so well and so easily what the company is all about: Its expertise is showed by the house and the brush. The company and logo make one and look trustworthy because the design of the logo is modern. It just fits so well in nowadays design trends.

At the time Ellen Clothing Manufacturer (ECM) did not have a proper logo and we had to come up with one. Easier said than done!

No one could come up with a good idea. At first, nothing looked good. We tried to design a long logo to fit with the size of the company name Ellen Clothing Manufacturer, but it didn’t seem practical and looked more like a banner than a logo.

We also tried writing the company name over three rows but it didn’t look good either. It looked massive and did not communicate the right feeling about the company. So, we left this part of the business on the side and did other things…

A few months later, we started designing quick links buttons. That was a couple of logos on which one can click. Our only goal was to make it easier to navigate in our website.
That was easy because this time I didn’t have to include the (keyword rich) name of the company.
That was also fun because they didn’t have to be a sure shot forever representing the business.
So it went well and we ended up using them as quick links on most of the pages of the website.

We quickly found out that the world (at least the world wide web) loves logos. They ended up on social marketing websites and did really well the job of getting the company noticed. Then little by little got archived into back pages.

As I was surfing the web I noticed that one of the logo we had designed, the clothing factory, had maintained a good ranking with some search engines.

The t-shirt logo was probably the most exciting from my personal point of view. I decided to use it as a wall paper for http://twitter.com/clothingfactory

At about the same time, I had Jayz (DJ in Saigon, Vietnam) telling me: Ellen clothing manufacturer is a very long name and www.ellen-clothing-manufacturer.com is too long a url to type!

The tone of voice was 50% laughing at me. The lack of a proper company logo and the lack of a shorter name was causing small but visible problems. This constructive criticism did its effect and a few days later, we (finally) realized we could simply start calling the company ECM. (That’s what we call rebranding)

It was now obvious that a great logo for a clothing manufacturer would be to associate two different expressions and their related visuals: clothing factory and t-shirt manufacturer.

Rebranding.

A few minutes on photoshop later, the clothing factory logo was like printed on the red t-shirt design. If you have been watching for a little while, you might have seen the difference made in the overall design of the website.

Quote: Because more credibility translates in more business, more sales, the logo as well as the interface (business card, company website) which supports it, needs to communicate credibility and expertise in a non verbal way.

Related search: How to make a logo? Company logo. Corporate company logos. Brand and branding. Design.

Do you have any tips about how to create a company logo? Let us know here in the comments.

Talking about corporate communication and the use of a company logo.

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How to Sell like the Chinese Clothing Manufacturers?

Filed under: business, china, sales — Tags: business, china, chinese, clothing line, ecm, ellen clothing manufacturer, manufacturers, minimum order, private label, sell — admin @ 4:27 pm

How to sell like the Chinese manufacturers? What does your contact (potential buyer) need from you? When you are running a sales team, you need to help your consultants tune in. Fine,,, help them do what??? Well help them to help their contacts, build a relationship and build a win-win deal.

This post is a transcript of a sales meeting at Ellen Clothing Manufacturer with L. Lemaire (partner at ECM), Kim and Thuy (consultants at ECM).

A Long Term perspective is the Cornerstone to doing Business.

L. Lemaire: So Kim, Thuy, do you realize that there are regularly new contacts coming up with something along the lines of:
What’s your minimum order, i want a really small run of clothes. Then, later I will order large quantities as my business expands.

Kim – We read emails like this quite often.
Thuy – Yes me too.
L. Lemaire: And what do do from there?
Kim: Well, I build the best possible deal for them. That’s my job as a consultant, right?

A maximum of work for the salesperson for the minimum order:

L. Lemaire: That’s right Kim. It’s your job to calculate all the costs for your contacts. And then the contact asks you what the new price would be if adding one printed logo. Am I wrong on this one?

Kim: Completely true, legitimately encouraged by greed, the contact sometimes ask me to re-calculate the cost of making clothes several times. I go through re calculation based on a new quantity, a different fabric, a different number of colors and associated dying baths. Being good at Maths helps a lot!

L. Lemaire: That’s why we do our best to educate our public. We explain how to build a good order of custom made clothes, so that the contact can play around with the numbers almost by himself.

The consultant ends up working harder for smaller orders. At ECM we do it anyway because a smaller order is also a better order for new clients getting started in the clothing business.

How Chinese Manufacturers integrate the Long Term perspective in their Sales Pitch:

Well, you know I sometimes receive email from Chinese manufacturers (colleagues and competitors) and I noticed that they very often finish their copy with something along the lines of:

We hope to establish with you an everlasting business relationship which fruits will reproduce themselves forever. Funny, no?

It’s a bit like they have integrated a long term perspective in their business / sales pitch. One may challenge that a Kind Regards can do the same job.

What do you think about integrating a long term perspective to a sales pitch? It is possible that our Chinese friends have understood long ago that they are not only in the business of selling a private label clothing line.

They are also in the business of selling a lifestyle to a business manager. Ever lasting is almost the same than Life long. The supplier, in this case, is selling with the perspective of a life where everything goes well and client orders keep rolling.

Positive forward thinking is a key ingredient to managing a sales position. I believe our Chinese friends have made a great example of positive forward thinking.

Related search:

Chinese clothing manufacturers. Clothing manufacturers China. How to sell. Sales. Chinese apparel. Chinese Clothes. Chinese factories. China selling style. Funny China. Sales technics from China. Long term perspective. Sales meeting at Ellen Clothing Manufacturer.

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