Leisure with an elegance suits you, ma’am
After 40 years, Fella Hamilton still dominates fashion’s least favourite category.
The glamorous 84-year-old next month celebrates four decades since her first line of towelling turbans for Brighton’s “ladies who lunch” blossomed into a brand of leisure wear for women aged 40 and older.
“I made clothes for over-40s because that’s how old I was,” she says. Hamilton used towelling, velour and later jersey and silks because they skimmed rather than clung, and “slenderised” the figure.
She elasticised waistbands, cut to a bigger block with generous sleeves, lowered bustlines and kinked waistlines. She perfected techniques to flatter the mature figure that could be compared to those a skilled tailor uses to flatter the softening physique of a middle-aged man.
It was never the hippest market niche and younger fashion brands were more than happy to leave her to it. But they might not be so snobby soon. Hamilton’s niche market is filling up and going gangbusters despite the slumped economy. She opened her 12th shop in Bondi recently and another will open in August.
Older women increasingly complain they have money to spend but few places to spend it where they are not scorned by frosty young sales staff and racks of unsuitable clothes. “They want elegance, these women,” says Hamilton. “They want comfort and a big range, very good quality and very good service.”
Hamilton is still involved in her company, now run primarily by her son and daughter, David and Ann Hamilton, but pulled back from daily operations three years ago. She says the formula now being replicated by her rivals evolved in regular visits to her shops. She talked to women, she says, and acted on their comments. Astonishing brand loyalty was the result.
According to the 2007 census, the proportion of Australia’s population aged 50 to 59 has increased from 10 per cent to 13 per cent since 1996.
9 Ways to Decrease a Company’s Employee Benefits Cost
Given the current state of the economy it is more important than ever for businesses to carefully evaluate their employee benefit programs to find ways to manage cost. Double-digit health insurance renewal increases should not be an automatic annual ritual, as there are many options available that can save your company money without sparing the quality of healthcare offered to your employees. The following are tips on how to reduce your company’s health care costs:
- Explore The Insurance Marketplace For Competitive Proposals
- Provide Your Employees With Multiple Health Plan Options At Various Cost Levels
- Review Alternative Contribution Strategies
- Extend Your Plan’s Waiting Period And To Bridge The Gap, Add A Lower Cost Plan Option
- Investigate Adding A Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA)
- Consider Utilizing A Professional Employer Organization Or Co-Employment Arrangement
- Separate Your Prescription Plan And Investigate Self-insuring Through A Third-Party Vendor.
- Educate Your Employees On Becoming Wise Healthcare Consumers And Healthier People
- Shift A Portion Of The Plan Costs To The Members Through Benefit Changes
By proactively identifying ways to reduce the overall cost of your benefits program and potentially enhancing the overages offered, both you and your employees will be rewarded.
Top 20 most expensive domain names
Domain names are virtual real estates and good one are sold for unbelievable numbers. Here’s the top 20 most expensives:
- Sex.com – Sold for: $14 million on January 19th, 2006
- Fund.com – $9,999,950 – Sold in 2008
- Porn.com – Sold for $9,500,000 sometime in 2007
- Business.com – Sold for $7,500,000 in 1999
- Diamonds.com – Sold for $7,500,000
- Beer.com – Sold for $7,000,000
- Casino.com – $5,500,000 – Sold to a private company in 2003
- Toys.com $5.1M sold to Toys R Us
- AsSeenOnTV.com – Sold for $5,100,000 in January of 2000
- Korea.com – $5,000,000 – Sold in January of 2000
- SEO.com – $5,000,000
- FreePorn.com – $4,000,000 – Sold in February 2008
- YP.com – $3,850,000 – Sold to YellowPages.com
- Shop.com – Sold for $3,500,000 in 2001
- WorldWideWeb.com – $3,500,000 in 1996
- AltaVista.com – $3,250,000
- Software.com – $3,200,000
- Candy.com – $3,000,000 Sold in March 2009.
- CreditCheck.com – $3,000,000 -Sold in June 2007
- Loans.com – $3,000,000
Jerusalem.com for $750,000
The holy city went online this month. Jerusalem.com seeks to become the virtual gateway to religious, historic, and modern-day Jerusalem. They hope to bring ‘the Jerusalem experience to anyone in the world’.
In addition to getting information about the many faces of Jerusalem (including religion – duh, but also Real Estate and Shopping!), visitors can actually submit vocal prayers that are being heard in real speakers overlooking the old city of Jerusalem. The angels over at Jerusalem.com report that hundreds of prayers have already been submitted from more than 72 different countries.
Michael Weiss, the site’s Founder calls the site one “that belongs to every friend of Jerusalem throughout the world who wishes to interact with the city and feels as closest as possible to physical Jerusalem”.
And at $750,000, Jerusalem.com is the most expensive domain ever bought in Israel.
The Pros and Cons of Co-Branding
There are a number of reasons companies embark on co-branding programs. To begin with, they’re a powerful way of introducing one company’s products and services to the loyalists of another.
Co-branding also enables one brand to benefit from the “halo of affection” that belongs to another. That was the rationale behind Nike’s (NKE) original 1984 alliance with Michael Jordan, and the effort has done wonders for both.
Co-branding is not just for giant national or international brands. While a small business may have difficulty linking up with Nike or Procter & Gamble, there are an increasing number of off the shelf co-branding opportunities of which many businesses can avail themselves. Programs have been developed by credit-card companies such as Visa and MasterCard, retailers including Starbucks and Barnes & Noble, and even shipping companies—the U.S. Postal Service offers a service by which you can add your company logo to its priority mail packaging.
Beyond these, there are bound to be dozens of custom co-branding partners for just about any type of small business, whether you serve a local geographical area or a national vertical market. The key is to think creatively about products or services that complement yours in some way and that will enhance the appeal or credibility of your offering.
Develop your own guidelines
Be careful, however—co-branding is not without its risks. First, it tends to have a dilutive effect, since it spreads the credit for a positive experience across two brands where normally there’s only one. And if the experience isn’t positive—even if it’s the other brand’s fault—it may reflect negatively on you. Further, while in a well-conceived co-branding program the whole should be greater than the sum of the parts, you can’t get away from the fact that you are to some extent relying on another brand’s equity. That can, in some cases, make your brand look weak or secondary.
It’s important, therefore, to carefully consider your own co-branding principles before you enter the fray. Develop guidelines that are right for your business that will enable you to objectively assess opportunities that arise.
Create a proposal and reach out
Your criteria may differ based on what’s most appropriate for your situation, but “fit” should be a prime consideration. While many brands share similar characteristics, no two are exactly alike. Co-branding ice cream and root beer is a natural; co-branding sports cars and computers less so (though that didn’t prevent Ferrari from linking up with Acer). Ecco Shoes co-branding with the World Wide Fund for Nature makes intuitive sense; Chanel and Hello Kitty is a bit more of a head-scratcher. Look for brand fit not only from the perspective of attributes and benefits but also with respect to core values and corporate philosophies.
Why Your Startup Needs a Lead Dog
In dog-sled racing circles, a lead dog is a very valuable commodity. A good lead dog spells success or failure.
In your startup, you will hear all kinds of excuses from your new sales staff. Excuses like, “The prospects have never heard of us!” or “If we would only advertise on [insert the most expensive media here], we could sell more.”
A good lead dog in your organization doesn’t use excuses–he or she just gets things done. He leads by example and soon sets a high standard for the others to emulate.
Here are five attributes of lead dogs:
- They have been successful before, whether in a state championship softball team or as an Eagle Scout. Once they have been to the promised land, it is a feeling they love to recreate.
- They never complain or whine.
- They are sponges for new information, ideas and advice.
- They love hearing you tell the story of their success. Learn to tell it well, and often.
- They are highly principled. In the playground, they were the ones who would quit if the teacher spotted the other team a lead.
Turning up the heat: Dorm room bedbugs have enemy in UF invention
The occasional infestation of bed bugs into University of Florida dorm rooms has motivated researchers there to develop portable eradication devices for the bothersome little bloodsuckers.
The invention, created with less than $400 in equipment, can heat to 113 degrees and is big enough to slide a mattress or dresser into.
The heat destroys the bed bugs, but doesn’t damage the furniture.
A study of the device’s effectiveness appears in the June issue of Journal of Economic Entomology.
“You’re very limited in what you can do to fight bedbugs,” said urban entomologist and UF professor Phil Koehler in a Tuesday press release.
Current treatments for bed bugs include massive fumigations, where entire buildings are tented. A more recent patent, according to UF, was awarded to a private company that developed a way to heat treat an entire building. But for universities, which have thousands of students living in close quarters, large-scale treatments can be burdensome and unnecessary.
“It’s somewhat like cooking a turkey,” Koehler said of the bed bug banishing process, which includes putting probes in some infested items to monitor temperatures.
UF researchers note that while it is can be effective to put clothes and sheets in a standard dryer on high heat to eliminate bed bugs, no one should attempt to build their own heat treatment device for furnishings.
