The Setting
I was at a meeting of small local business owners last Friday morning and the usual suspects were addressed: too many taxes on small businesses, how banks are buying treasury bonds and other banks instead of making the loans they were supposed to make with their bailout money, health care… The same subjects any business owner who survived 2009 would bring up and, understandably, these topics got the lion’s share of attention.

The Issue
I asked whether there’s some way to get a tax break or a special state certification that might help set apart those of us who do business in a socially responsible way – i.e. using eco-friendly and fair labor/fair trade practices. I talked about the difficulties we face competing with products made in China, and how inhumane the conditions are over there. I pointed out that if we help raise wages overseas then, eventually, it will become more competitive to make things here. And that means manufacturing jobs would finally come back to the US.

(That’s the big “DUH!” of this whole situation. Even if someone doesn’t care about the humanitarian situation, there are plenty of mercenary and nationalistic reasons to support it too! Not that I necessarily want to encourage that sort of thing…)

The Myth
As we were on our way back to our cars, a man who’s in charge of a very large Asian loan fund took me aside and told me that I had it all wrong about China. “China’s going to save America,” he said.

Fortunately for him, it was too early on a Friday morning for me to lose my temper. But he did get an earful about the disgusting way they treat their workers, etc. When it became clear there was no convincing me otherwise, he made his way to his car.

”China’s going to save America” – he was absolutely sincere! And completely, thoroughly and horribly misguided.

The Reality
China wants to dominate, well, the entire planet – including the rest of Asia, lest anyone should think I’m xenophobic. (This man’s last name was Honda, which is Japanese.) The Chinese elite don’t seem to care how they do it, who they abuse, who they sell the organs of their executed prisoners to or who they steal corporate and military secrets from.

And what’s so distressing is there are too many non-Chinese who, at best, turn a blind eye or, worse, don’t see anything wrong with any of that. Between what that man said and the comments I’ve been hearing from American manufacturers, I’m thinking all these people have OD’ed on greed-laced Kool-Aid.

I Need a Scotch
I look forward to stepping off my soapbox with my next blogpost…and telling you all about the “shockingly awesome” note we got from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.

XOXO Marty

In case you’re looking for Part 1 and Part 2, just follow the links. With our new “Statement Makers” line about to debut, I thought it was a good time to do some reflecting - and also to create a place online where I can send people who ask, “How’d you get all this started?” (If you’d like a sneak peek of our Statement Makers, check out the new slide show on our Rebagz homepage.

Part 3 - Day-to-Day Life @ Rebagz
When the work day ends in Los Angeles, where our offices are, the work day is just beginning in the Philippines, so it’s not unusual for me to be up past midnight doing business by phone and email. But I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be working this hard because I know there are so many people who would love to be in my position.

I love talking to our customers. It’s actually one of my favorite things – seriously! Sometimes that’s the only social time I have all day. I encourage them, and our sales agents on the road, to give us feedback. We want to know the bad as well as the good so we can make our designs and the way we do business as user-friendly as possible. And if you’re one of our customers already, you’ve probably noticed how fantastic Rorey and Shasta are. I’m so lucky to have them working with me.

Our customers are the reason we’re as successful as we are, and one of the things that’s so vital to me is to celebrate every small inch of success and express my gratitude wherever and to whomever I can. We’ve had a lot of extraordinary opportunities that have seemingly fallen into our laps and I’m so grateful for each and every one of them.

For anyone thinking about getting into this sort of business, I highly encourage it! It’s incredibly rewarding. But in terms of creating one’s own design business, just realize fear is a part of it. Most people let the fear stop them, but there’s no true courage without fear, and you need a lot of guts to stick your neck out in fashion. When you have those dark, frustrating days, and I’ve had scores of them, just remember that if it was easy, everybody would be doing it - and succeeding at it. The only thing that can keep you down is if you choose not to get up again.

I think 3 parts is enough for my retrospective on Rebagz. Any more navel-gazing on my part and I’m afraid I’ll get a crick in my neck.

Thank YOU so much for all your support!

XOXO Marty

We’re almost set to launch “Statement Makers!”
Finally - and we’re over the moon about these new bags. We’ll be posting photos soon enough, as well as making them available for purchase on our website. In the meantime, I always get asked about how I started this whole Rebagz thing, so I thought now was as good a time as any to write about it. We’ve had lots of successes - and yet we had to deal with the economic splat just like everyone else did.

Warning: it’s a long story, so I’m going to break it up into a few parts. Otherwise you’d be scrolling for days…

How It All Began…Part 1
I’d been making hand-crafted jewelry with my friend and co-author Christine Calla (“Beading Vintage Style Jewelry”/Sterling Publishing) and wanted to expand the company. Christine had grown up in the Philippines and she suggested I head there with my ideas for handbags. I originally began making my samples out of fabric, but when I discovered this beautiful recycled weave being made by a fair-trade organization, it just made sense to work with them to create some of my designs.

I started the rice sack line, however, from absolute scratch, literally roaming the markets in search of rice merchants to see what sacks they had – and then trying to convince the rice sellers to sell the used ones to me to make handbags. That request got a lot of strange looks. Yes, I was the crazy American woman who wanted to buy the empty sacks of rice, not the full ones.

Given that I did humanitarian work in Mexico following the Zapatista rebellion and that my mama was a serious recycler, the choice to work with recycled materials was an obvious one. You have to remember that people have been using rice, flour and feed sacks for hundreds of years to make rough clothing.

For design ideas, I read magazines, go to museums, go to the mall – all these things give me ideas. But for the most part I simply consider what I’d like in a bag (that’s how our All-in-One Wallet and Sport Pouch came about) and also what shapes and colors please my eye.

I also like creating bags with curves because my corporation’s called Half the Sky Designs LLC, as in the saying, “Women hold up half the sky.” That’s why I created the Cinchy Totes with curves and designed our circular award-winning “Life is a Circle” Bag.

In case you’re looking for Part 2 and Part 3, just follow the links. (If you’d like a sneak peek of our Statement Makers, check out the new slide show on our Rebagz homepage.

XOXO Marty

Yep - I’ll be speaking in Sherman Oaks, CA on Monday, September 21 at 7pm! I’d love to meet you in person and answer any questions you may have. I belong to an amazing organization for women entrepreneurs called Smarty, and I’m one of their “Peer 2 Peer” experts.  The official topic is  “Taking the ‘Man’ Out of Manufacturing: How to Turn Your Product Idea Into a Profitable Reality” and I’ll be talking about how I’ve accomplished all I have with Rebagz Eco-Chic Handbags in just two years - and how you can do it too.  It’s free for Smarty menbers, and just $25 otherwise.

I’m launching a consulting division of my company called Manufacturing the Right Way.  There are so many women starting new businesses - yet so few of you are making products.  There’s lots and lots of service-oriented businesses and boutiques being started, but there seems to be a real fear around product creation.

No more!!!

I’m tired of having brilliant women come up to me and tell me about their brilliant product ideas - and then say, “But I don’t have a clue how to make it,” and completely give in to the fear.  So that’s why I started Manufacturing the Right Way.  My goal is to show you how to take that great product idea from concept to ready-to-sell reality and save you thousands of dollars and oodles of time in the process - ’cause it’s a “do as I say, not as I did” kind of system.

I already made all the mistakes.  There’s absolutely no reason why anyone else should have to make them again.

If you visit the website, you can sign up for my free ezine which contains articles and all sorts of free information that’ll help you along your way.  I also have a new audio program and eBook, and I’ll have a teleseminar coming up in January.

But if you live in Southern California, come play with me on September 21st!  I’d love to meet you in person and to answer the specific questions you may have.  That’s what I’m here for!

Hope to see you in 2 weeks - XOXO Marty

How I adore the Wild Web Women at Web Marketing Therapy!  They’ve helped us optimize our web presence, so I was crazy mad for them even before they blogged about…um…me.  If you’re so inclined, you can check their blog out here.  They’re also offering a FREE 30-minute tutorial called “The Power of Web Analytics.”  Yes, I said FREE!  Just sign up here.

No matter what you do, though, you really should sign up for their almost-daily e-newsletter.  I learn something new every time I read it.  We all need to know how to work the web, and these women have all the knowledge about it anyone could ever possibly need - and then some.  Plus they have fantastic senses of humor and are lead by the fabulous Lorrie Thomas, who models one of our Rebagz Jasmine Cinchy Totes here:

WMT's Lorrie Thomas - she wears our bag so beautifully!

We’ve been working with them for the past few months and I can’t rave about them enough.  I actually enjoy blogging now and am getting into the whole social media thing, and it’s all thanks to their inspiration.  They’ve really simplified and clarified things for me, and I’m so grateful.

Whether it’s blogging, tweeting, managing LinkedIn, Facebook (I call it f’booking) or any other way to socialize and market online, they are the experts.  I bow down and kiss their pedicured cyberfeet!

XOXO Marty

Yes, it was 2 summers ago when we first launched our eco-friendly Rebagz at the California Gift Show in Los Angeles. The buzz around eco-friendly fashion was just beginning to build, and it’s amazing to think how far it’s come since that July 2007. Granted, I’d been selling our bags at a few events a couple of months prior to that, just to see what kind of response I got. But I consider the opening day of the gift show as our true launch.

I have to laugh when I think back to it because I went into that trade show with what I thought was a very down-to-earth, realistic attitude. Given that this particular show had been shrinking in attendance and that we were a brand new exhibitor there, I knew it was a distinct possibility that, though we might meet a lot of interested boutique owners, there was a chance we might not write any orders for our eco-friendly handbags during the show itself.

This is from the Accessories Show in Vegas.

The show ran from a Friday in mid-July through the following Monday. I figured if we were going to write any orders, it’d probably be on Sunday, though I hoped maybe, just maybe we might write one or two on Saturday.

So what happened when someone wanted to write an order on opening day, after we’d only been open for business for a few hours? Justin Bird, an amazing college student who was a godsend that summer, looked at me and I looked at him - and we realized we had everything in place except a procedure for taking orders. Oh, we had the order forms, catalogs, price lists and all that. But we hadn’t yet actually thought through the order process or practiced it.

Our first order was a comedy of errors and I’m forever grateful to Gesture Boutique for being patient with us while we worked through our mistakes with them. I even had to send Justin chasing after the buyer - twice! - because we’d forgotten key bits of information, like their telephone number, shipping address - tiny details like that. It’s a good thing you can’t see how red my face is, even now as I think about it 2 years later.

We also did the Accessories Show in Vegas a month later - that’s where that booth photo was taken. Got a good response there too. So, much to my relief, I realized I was onto something.

Last week we took some time out at the office, went into our warehouse and popped the cork on some champagne. There was chocolate cake too, ’cause what’s a birthday without some cake? Justin went back to finish up at Cal Poly up in San Luis Obispo but we still keep in touch. He even built a beautiful eco-friendly bike out of bamboo! Take a look at this beauty -

Justin's Bamboo Bike - Don't ya just love engineers?

I’m so grateful to so many people -

- our current office staff (Rorey, Shasta, Bonny and Laura)

- our sweet broker Malu over in the Philippines

- all of our weavers and sewers

- my brilliant publicist Lisa Elia

- the Wild Web Women at Web Marketing Therapy for helping work on my web outreach issues

- and, of course, all our wonderful customers and supporters like you. (I have to give a special shout out here to the folks at Gesture who were so tolerant on our first official day in business.)

Thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my eco-happy heart.
XOXO Marty

Amnesty International has a new campaign to improve the human rights situation worldwide. Please please please go to www.protectthehuman.org and sign the petition to, among other things, stop violence against women (“Women hold up half the sky” after all), help free political prisoners like Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung Sun Suu Kyi, and take a stand against torture. All that, just by adding your name to their petition.

We began donating $1 per order to Global Exchange at the start of this year. I spent the mid-90’s doing human rights work in Chiapas, Mexico in the aftermath of the Zapatista rebellion, and I worked quite a bit with Global Exchange when I did that. There wasn’t a part of my life that wasn’t thoroughly transformed by that experience, so it’s my way of giving back to an organization that was such a vital part of that.

And at least now you know what inspired me to make sure our Rebagz™ are made under fair trade conditions. After what I saw in Chiapas and in many other places I’ve traveled, working in China or India was not an option as far as I was concerned. Besides, if you treat the people sewing and weaving your bags well, they’ll take more care and be more productive. It’s just good business or, as I’ve been know to say, “That’s just a big duh.”

We like to say Rebagz are “human-friendly fashion.” We’re kind to nature – and humans are a big part of the natural world – by making our bags using recycled materials and by using eco-friendly practices in our offices. And, as I just mentioned, we take care of our workers. Just as importantly, however, is that we offer excellent customer service because the humans who buy our bags deserve fair treatment as well. You keep coming back to us, even in these difficult times, and we really appreciate that. And besides, talking to you on the phone has become part of our office social life and we truly enjoy getting to know you.

Business takes place along a long spectrum of people, and I believe every single person along the way should feel like they got a fair shake. It’s soooo obvious. And yet so many companies ignore one part of the spectrum or another. We do our best to make sure everyone’s taken care of. That’s just good business, as far as I’m concerned.

XOXO Marty

It’s kind of amazing how things just fall out of the sky sometimes. We’ve had a lot good things happen that way for us during our company’s short history. This morning was another case of that. I got a call at about 11am this morning from Diana Urbine, our amazing QVC liaison, informing me that we got a second airing! Our Small Cinchy Totes will once again be on QVC’s airwaves this Thursday, June 11th on QVC’s Morning Show starting at 7am Eastern time.

Even I, with my limited math skills, realized that was less than 48 hours notice. And it means we’re airing sometime between 4am and 6am Pacific time. Oh my.

When I informed our amazing operations manager Rorey and pondered how I’d ever get up at 4am to watch it, she said, “Just stay up!” Rorey knows what a night-owl I am, but even I have my limits. I’ll have to split my sleep time tonight so I can be sure to see Janine Graff’s beautiful face on QVC’s Morning Show, showing off our bags in her amazing way.

I only work with amazing people, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’m very picky that way. Granted, I’m being a bit facetious. But I really believe that when you try to do business in a good and decent way, you find people who think likewise and who will go that extra mile on your behalf. Rorey, Diana and Janine are all those kinds of people, and I’m fortunate to be surrounded by others who are just like them.

It’s not that I don’t encounter incredible business difficulties at times. There’s not a person on the planet who doesn’t, especially during this past year. But I compare it to finding good doctors. When I first moved to Los Angeles many years ago, I got the name of an amazing GP (Dr. Sheldon Reiss) from a friend. I asked him for referrals, because I figured amazing doctors would know other amazing doctors. I was right! It’s the same in business. If you care about the people who you do business – in whatever capacity – as best as you can, then they’ll provide you with extraordinary work and you’ll find other amazing people through them.

My marketing people will be upset with me that I kind of went off on an “amazing” tangent instead of promoting promoting promoting our upcoming QVC appearance – tomorrow @ 7am Eastern time on QVC’s Morning Show. Don’t forget!

But I think it was a fun diversion. I hope you do too.

XOXO Marty

Peak Leadership Academy
I’m one of the lucky women taking part in NAWBO-LA’s Peak Leadership Academy, which is a kind of mini-business school underwritten by Citigroup and taught by the amazing Yvonne Randle, VP of Management Systems Consulting Corporation and Lecturer at UCLA’s business school.  We’ve only had the first session and already I know this is exactly what I need for my business.

Wire Media & A Website We All Need to Know About

Wire Media's EPA Interactive House Tour

Marcy Rye of Wire Media is also part of Peak, and among all the amazing website’s she’s worked on is one I just HAD to show you.  Head on over to a page on the EPA’s website (yes, that EPA) and take the incredibly wonderful and original house tour you’ve ever taken.  You can “enter” each room in the house and find tips on how to improve your indoor air quality.  It tackles everything from dust mites in stuffed animals (I never thought of that!) to making sure your stove vents properly to keep carbon monoxide out of your kitchen.  Great tips - and put together in such a fun way.

Our $500 Shopping Spree Winner!
Speaking of winners - congratulations to Gina Haas, who just won a $500 Rebagz Shopping Spree! You could be our next big winner - all you need to do is sign up over there in the yellow box on the left.  (See where it says “SIGN UP HERE” in big letters?  That’s the place!)  Not only will you be entered for a chance to win our next $500 spree in September, but you’ll also get a free subscription to our ezine and an instant 25% discount on your next Rebagz purchase!  That’s what Gina did, and now she gets to shop shop shop for all the totes she can tote.

XOXO Marty