Lillian Vernon

Lillian Vernon - a giant in the world of women's entrepreneurship through its intuitive sense of what people want to buy from a wide variety of goods. She calls this its ability to "mine gold inner voice". It avoids the use of traditional methods of marketing research or targeted groups in the development of new projects, products. Instead, it is ready to rely on his "golden inner voice", which does not lead her on approach to the selection of products.
. Vernon has a unique ability to feel interested in the "average woman" in the store, being itself an "average woman"
. While its successes clearly indicate that it is not the average woman, the strategy Vernon has been working for many years without error. She argues that the strength of her intuition allows it to achieve important installations, which allow to stand out from the rest of the group. Although keen intuitive vision is found in all the great entrepreneurial and creative people, most of them are not aware of its unique ability. Vernon has long realized this important personal trait and used it to create its "Lillian Vernon Corporation" has become a leader in the industry, operating in highly competitive environment.

. Vernon - imperious independent woman, who used a new form of promotion of their products, which could terrorize traditional managers
. One example of its innovative approach to stimulate sales - 100 percent money-back guarantee value for ten years for any products purchased from its catalog, which does not satisfy the customer's overall. It should be borne in mind that the products sold in catalogs Vernon - a personalized products with owner's initials or name imprinted, which thus precludes the possibility of resale products. The first experiments have found universal support for this method of sales promotion, which was noted in the list of 500 companies "Fortune". This could be a serious threat to the pink list. The uniqueness of Vernon and its often sacrilegious approach to marketing shows with absolute certainty what it referred to its products and to their own decisions. Rumors about her relationship and reliability, obviously, and quickly got up the bulk of customers. She put the customer and quality service as priority number one, that, apparently, and explains why "Lillian Vernon Corporation" has become such a huge success. Business Philosophy Vernon from beginning to end fits in her aphorism: "I'll never sell that would not have wanted in my own home". Another of her sayings: "squeeze the most out of every opportunity."

"Lillian Vernon Corporation" became known in 1987, becoming the largest business-based woman, and was on the list on the American Stock Exchange. In 1993 the company sold to mail gifts to 173 million dollars, becoming arhivydayuschuyusya firm in implementing Gift Catalog. Very true - he inspired in many business schools, and six of these institutions assigned her an honorary doctorate. She - the director of many nonprofit organizations such as New York University, Bryant College, the Children's Museum of Art, and Prospect. and pr. This successful businessman - now a rich woman, who became such by many years of hard work to achieve perfection and excellence in whatever it may have tried to show themselves. Like almost all successful entrepreneurs,. Vernon had never dealt with this for the money. She has initiated the establishment of the company to increase family income, and since then it has been forever favorite work. However, Vernon has never believed it and did not work, because it was her passion and her life. But when people work hard and passionately, wanting to be the best, they will almost certainly become winners. Now Vernon is financially independent. Her membership in the Committee of 200 "(the group's most influential entrepreneurs of the country) and in the Women's Forum confirms its status as one of the outstanding, the leaders of America. These groups were established as examples of leadership for young women seeking to break through the proverbial glass ceiling as an enterprising pervootkryvatelnits or professional women.
. PERSONAL HISTORY OF LIFE
. Lillian Menashe was born March 18, 1928 in Leipzig, Germany
. She was the first daughter of the industrialist middling. Her older brother, Fred, died when she was a teenager. The family fled anti-Semitism in Germany, Holland, when she was only five years. Then they were forced to flee from the Netherlands to the United States in 1937, when Lillian was only ten. These sharp throws in a foreign environment gave her a unique ability to cope with the unknown and created enduring self-confidence. She was forced to learn a new culture, foreign languages and become friends again.

Herman Menashe was a loving father and Vernon became the first in the life of an exemplar. His persistence and perseverance indelibly etched in the young soul Lillian. She was impressed that he had the strength to adapt to the terrible injustices that he could not fix and continue to act in the most positive way. Father was never able to break the harsh reality that forced him to sell his profitable enterprise in Germany because of their ethnicity. Then he began again almost from scratch, first in Holland and then in the United States. Vernon remembers, . his perseverance was for her an excellent role model, . have provided vital assistance in establishing her as a businesswoman: "I think, . what my father was my first and most important role model, . I will never forget his ability to adapt to the reality,
. This is a quality that impresses me about people and today - the ability to attach to the past ten cents, but extracting from them all that we can. "

. Vernon describes the persistence of her father as one of the guiding principles in the rise of itself to the top
. She recalls: "I so admire the fact that if he could not sell any zipper, he would immediately find something else by the wholesalers and invested in it". Little Lillian went to three different schools and taught German, Dutch and English through the eighth grade. She enrolled in school in Germany, moved to Holland, but most of it studying at school in New York. Lillian was a voracious reader, and this is supported by all members of the family. It provides the freedom to try and make mistakes that proved very useful in achieving its success in the later period.

. In adolescence, role models Vernon became cheerful teasing heroines in the performance of the Golden period of Hollywood movie stars - the thirties and forties
. Later, while studying in college, Vernon fell in love with the famous New York Entrepreneur. It was at this time Estee Lauder created its main target area of trade, and Vernon has chosen her as a role model, trying to learn steps Lauder in a variety of situations. Lauder was a charming New York-based entrepreneur in the cosmetic business, which has just started up and runs his own firm with the "iron fist". Vernon did the same thing. Like Lauder, Vernon spent teen years in the fantasies of what it will be beautiful and famous, because it is very sensitive to all of your immigrant status, and was fascinated by the queens of Hollywood movies. She desperately wanted to be a "real American.

Vernon inherited from the father of European attitude to work and began work as a teenager. It replaced a number of different jobs. First, in the age of fourteen, she worked as an usher at the cinema, receiving just ten cents per hour. Then she worked in the shop "Candy" Loaf clerk in the hall, . what, . According to her, . gave her a very necessary experience, . useful in later life as an entrepreneur: "These underworking taught me to work with the public, . this is where I learned to communicate with different people and not be afraid, . when some unusual personal appeal to me,
. Among other things, it helped me overcome my innate shyness. I had to get rid of it ". Vernon graduated from the school of Julia Richmond in 1946. She was admitted to the New York University, where she specialized in psychology, but dropped out in the first year due to the fact that she married Sam Hohberga and settled with her husband in a suburb of Maynt Vernon. Kitchen table from Vernon Mount Vernon was destined to later become part of history.
. PROFESSIONAL CAREER
. When Vernon started its activity company mail order by mail at his kitchen table in 1951, she was twenty-three pregnant housewife, trying to earn some money for a growing family
. She used $ 2000, received as wedding gifts to make the initial stock of purses and belts, and at $ 495 to advertise in the magazine "Seventeen". Vernon worked in classic style Promethean spirit and get ready to conquer new unknown areas on which the other never used to go. You can imagine Sherza offering personalized belts with a full guarantee repayment denegN Of course not, because Sherz was the largest roving trader pa catalog and main rival Vernon. Or imagine some other well-known public company, offering a new product in a new market, and without a hint of confidence in. Only the entrepreneurial spirit would do so in a foreign environment. Neither Sherz or Montgomery Ward or Shpeygel would never even have considered such a daring undertaking.

Vernon was brave enough (and perhaps too naive) to do something for which no other brothers and had no intention. But intuitively it is called, that women, like herself, would buy its products, and "gut" feeling that this knowledge can be wholly and completely "trust, charting your own path in business. Its strategy was developed using only the beautiful idea of what is happening, so it is easy to ignore all that thinking about it the rest of the world. Vernon's genius was to offer customers unique products that they wanted. Its strategy was based on the fact that to do what is well-established competitors, they were afraid to do: offer a variety of personalized products, which were not in the stores of consumer goods. Vernon chose to take the risk, which the "old boys" feared, and a herd of her strength, she found a marketing niche, even if you never heard of the concept. "Go to where others are afraid to set foot - this brings together the majority of the great business motto, and Vernon followed him faithfully. She used her advantage, where she saw the weakness of the giants of business directories (their inability to offer the buyer the goods are small, niche not occupied by them), and dispatched all of its forces. Its main strategy has a protective barrier to the invasion there companies that would destroy it in those years when she had just formed their activities. Insight Vernon brought her unimaginable success almost immediately.


The first two types of goods were Vernon belts and purses, including free nominal design. The very first announcement of the sale by e-mail brought the orders for 32000 dollars over the first twelve weeks of. Vernon was delighted with his unexpected success and began to advertise a bookmark for the books to see if there was any in the first entering just random luck. New products have been sold twice in the first time, and Vernon knew that before it opens a lot more ways than one, forced. She succeeded not only in financial terms, but were becoming more confident with each new product. Her success grew uncontrollably from one of the new proposal to another in the distribution of products, which she put into circulation. In the next round of sales of products included Vernon bags for transport and Brass Door Knockers, and then had gone all that could be presented as a''unique and possible "and that could be personified. Vernon specialized in high value products for "women like herself". She recognizes that her perpetual favorite - pencils, but they have never had such success, as she was extremely lucky game of dominoes. One result of the rich imagination Vernon began tights with trefoil ornament for women who want chic to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

. The ability to intuitively sense the deeper meaning of products has always been her ally, and, firmly astride him, she moved into the sphere of industry trade mail, densely populated by numerous competitors
. She was about to compete with the leading large firms, which in 1954 released her first, black and white pages directory on the sixteen. She sent this publication by mail on 125000 Address real and perceived customer. This strategy has raised its annual revenue to 150000 dollars in 1955, when the company was still known as "Souvenirs Vernon" (the name was taken on behalf of the New York suburb). Vernon has worked tirelessly, yet united in dozens of people: she was the author of pamphlets and advertisements, and the chief buyer and manager with almost the whole day, and finally as chief financial officer in the late evening. Like all great entrepreneurs, Lillian Vernon is always "knew everything that needs to happen" in the corporation, and all that has happened. By 1965, work was already sufficiently developed to declare the establishment of the firm, and she formed "Lillian Vernon Corporation". By 1970, the company received an annual income of about a million dollars. This unprecedented growth was bound to the style of Lillian, which she describes in the following maxims business philosophy:
1. Always be attentive to others.
2. Do not be afraid to soil oneself.
3. Work on time, to have leisure time.
4. Use common sense in all decisions.
5. Plan intuitive, but works head.

One of the sore spots Vernon - Committees. In her description, the committee - a group of people who take "minutes" and steal the "clock". It also indestructible in an effort to feel on-site customer, which led to the company motto: "Yes you are led to your customer". Vernon continues to worship his relics - the golden inner voice "- giving him the right to take most of their major decisions, and, according to her, usually about 90 percent of right decisions regarding new products. Philosophy Vernon: "You do not need the weather forecasters, to figure out which way the wind takes you. You yourself must collect important information, take the best decision and get to work, correcting errors used to occur. The most convincing proof of the truth of this ideology - an absolute confidence in Vernon his twelve million customers directory, . who throw their "white balls", . "Fact sheets on the bills" in the ballot box in the referendum: The viability of the product or not,
. Vernon adamantly insists that it is cheaper to launch a product, even if this proves unsuccessful solution than do the classic market research prior to action. Many entrepreneurs would agree with her, . since most of them indisputable axiom "it is impossible to conduct accurate market research about, . which has never been before "or" can not effectively predict the success of future products, . based on the experience of implementation of past articles.,

. Vernon believes unequivocally in this simple approach to the management on a "gut feeling" that it is formulated as follows: "I'm trying to use common sense in all my decisions
. Perhaps common sense - the main thing in the philosophy of an entrepreneur.

Her first husband Vernon, Sam Hohberg, worked with her before their divorce in 1969, which, she said, was payback for the business. Vernon continued as a major purchaser of goods for the company and traveled around the world approximately 100,000 miles per year - in search of unique, but useful gifts that women like her, would like to buy. Vernon's genius was to expand the company within its niche personalized basket of goods, which coincided with the emergence of street trading and distribution of video channels, completely featureless for buyers. Vernon intuitively felt that she could fight for the "exchange of views" female audience, who wanted good service and quality at an affordable price. Since the giant department stores were becoming more and more "faceless" trade with smaller and smaller level of service, . Vernon has developed as a competitive strategy: to try to do the work of his company more targeted and more soundly,
. And it worked. Vernon personified, made a personal most impersonal form of trade - postal parcels. One of the ways in which it has achieved this (thanks for the tip of its "inner voice"), was - to appeal to the consumer, who wants to appropriate services, quality and unique personal items. The last paragraph of this "personal" strategy was the idea to name directories business and the name of the hostess and her hometown. It gave its catalogs and the company's sense of identity, which was no small importance for customers, weary contacts with faceless corporations and mysterious abbreviations.

. Vernon still reading every word of an application for each new directory, and still personally wrote the final approval for each item Order Catalog
. Her famous money-back guarantee even in the nineties enriched offer to the customer to choose the form of service: how to be more convenient for him to make an order - by phone, . fax or contact by e-mail, . given, . that the firm operates 24 hours a day, . 7 days a week, 365 days a year,
. "Lillian Vernon Corporation" became a joint stock company in 1987, when Lillian had sold 31 percent of property company 28 million dollars. Some portion of the money she used to open a modern area of 486,000 square feet national distribution center in Virginia Beach, Virginia. In 1990, the Association of Trade but the directory "Lillian Vernon Corporation" was called "a catalog of the genus". In t991, the Vernon opened its first store specializing in the sale of surplus obsolete products in a suburb of Washington, DC, to sell discounted products. The success of this approach was so staggering, it now has six such warehouses, strategically located on the east coast. By 1993, the company issued eighteen catalogs, including a new set of products on the market "Children of Lilly, designed for kids. Personalization has its special force from the beginning, which led the company to leadership in the sale of personalized products in the country. The company shipped more than three million personalized products in 1993, . and Gallup has registered "Lillian Vernon" as one of the most well-known companies in the United States, . involved in the trade of catalogs, . setting, . that its mark is known for more than thirty million adults.,

. Vernon still travels extensively for the company and runs more than 1100 new products annually
. Between 1988 and 1993, the company mailed more than 472 million catalogs, representing 65 million items. The proof of the uniqueness of the approach to the products of Lillian may serve the following fact: since the introduction of personalized Christmas ornaments in 1968, was sold by mail 65 million gift. This was not afraid of competition, an entrepreneur has achieved outstanding success in the area, where traditionally male-dominated. It will remain in history as one of the women leaders of mail order, has a place next to Richard Sherzom and A. Montgomery Vardo. This inner conviction entrepreneur started out with dreams of empire and graduated. Her incredible success - evidence of how women's intuition, works constantly on edge, has found an outlet and provided customers unique products, expanding its activities the main feature - targeted services. Industry Directory has a comprehensive, embraced a variety of types of goods, with new directories, you receive a monthly basis, but no one was able to overthrow Vernon, with its dominant position of leadership, lead to this sphere.

.
. Between family and career

. Vernon was married to Sam Hohberga, having gone from New York University in 1950
. When she became pregnant, she decided to become a full-time working mother, adding to the family budget income from home business. "We are often not enough to live ... have a flat, have a baby, have a car. Of course, I would like to have helped me through the house, but had no choice but to go to work ". Vernon hopes to become a legend postal trade during his lifetime: "One day I woke up and said to myself:" I have a business at 130 million dollars ". As discussed opportunities to start a business outside the home, she replied: "In my view, nowadays very nerespektabelno for women to work. So I came to the conclusion that the mail order - it's a great thing, thanks to which I would like to do something outside the home, not leaving him, change diapers and do the rest. "

.
. She decided to raise their children, not looking up from his career, although her family was in first place in life, but business remained an auxiliary means
. Vernon was able to cope with both tasks, but not without loss. Her first marriage was the victim attempts to do everything at once. We Hohbergov already had two boys, David and Fred, as he and Sam were divorced in 1969. In 1986, in an interview with "USA Weekend", she said: "I really loved my first husband. If we had not worked together, I think that we would probably still married ". It seems that both sons Vernon survived this event quite calmly. Vernon actively traveled along with David and Fred Hohbergami as business partners. Fred, the rightful heir, left the business in 1993 to try to find myself in politics, leaving his younger brother, David, as managing relations company. When she divorced Katz, then, obviously, came to the conclusion that the company is doomed to remain her passion for life and changed its name Lilian Katz to Lillian Vernon. It seems that Vernon has decided to take his company the most important event in her life is much worse than any other relationship, and now the founder and the company can not be separated from each other by name and in spirit. Events in her professional and personal life surprisingly coincided: two marriages and the birth of two sons proceeded at the same time as the creation of a leading company in the business of trade by mail. Of course, the family at a time when Vernon performed the triple role of mother, wife and manager, has suffered. No one can serve two masters at once. Lillian Vernon, it seems, was one of those lucky women who raised both family and business. Most of the other women not so lucky
This inner conviction Entrepreneur - Implemented a business woman, who used an enterprising capitalist spirit to do his way to the top of the business world. Own a carefully designed formula Vernon for success is based on ten of the following postulates:
1. Allocate time for herself and her family.
2. Surround myself with the best possible people.
3. Be open to new ideas and better ways of doing things.
4. Be ready to take risks.
5. 'Love what you do, love what you sell.
6. Do not stop on their mistakes or delay - but instead to study them and grow from their experiences and then move on. Do not let your mistakes cause you to defeat or discourage.
7. Do not try to do everything myself - delegated to others!
8. Do not grow too quickly, without ensuring that appropriate systems and people on the ground to appeal to them.
9. Do not be afraid of computer technology, if they can help make your business more efficient.
10. Do not spend more money than provided by real budget and stick to it. Keep your debts under control.

Lillian Vernon sells 90 percent of its products to women, which in 1993 amounted to 35,000 orders daily. It sells gifts, household goods, items for gardening, ornamental and children's products, listed in twenty different directories. More than 141 million of these catalogs were mailed to customers only during 1993. Her unique style of confidence and independence, resulting from hard work and perseverance, made it possible. Proof of her self-confidence -. proposal Vernon full refund to any unsatisfied customer for ten years. This is her way of showing that the quality is always guaranteed in "Lillian Vernon". Such an idea could only arise from a businessman who has unbreakable faith in his product and its abilities. You will never find such a program in a formal organization, because it has no such faith in themselves or in their product. This is the same style that made Lillian Vernon business leaders.
Realize themselves businesswoman, Lillian Vernon has been awarded five honorary doctoral degrees, owing to its phenomenal success in the business world. Her Promethean spirit - that's what led her to such majestic heights. It is the first to admit that he could not imagine such success in 1951, sitting at his kitchen table and trying to get money for the family. She had a dream and achieved outstanding success in its implementation. Investments Vernon in 1993, made her company, give some idea of how those who pursue their dreams, can be rewarded. Net value of the ground state of Vernon in 1993 prices on the Stock Exchange amounted to 100 million. Not bad for a "mama's" attempts to create a new company, designed to get allowance to her husband and thus do all the housework. Vernon used his intuitive vision of what would like to buy middle-class women, offering them unique products, which could not be offered to competitors, and then finishing off their unprecedented 100 per cent guarantee. When this is combined with the entrepreneurial flair, it becomes clear that we truly creative genius. Lillian Vernon - quintessential role models for any young woman seeking to achieve something in this dynamic world.