Today was the day I had time to attend the Chicago Midwest Beauty Show, which is running all this weekend and on Monday.
My intent was to get there around 2:30 or so.
After an hour of frustrated searching for my entrance ticket to the show, which turned into a failed and irritating attempt to get another print out of the ticket from isnow.com or ncacares.org, and a slightly less irritating attempt to find the receipt for the ticket on one of the computers (which also has the ticket information on it), I finally located the physical paper copy of the ticket that I had squirreled away in the last place I thought to look, I rolled out the door.
Tifling called during the mad search, and I was crabby and sucky to her, because I was frustrated and grumpy. Which I am sure also made her day.
I also hadn't eaten anything that day so far, because I forgot to buy milk for my cereal the night before, and everything in my kitchen requires actual cooking, which I had neither the time nor inclination to do.
Dunkin Donuts to the rescue!
I got to the show itself around 3:45 or so, with a couple of hours to spare before the show ended for the day.
After lots and lots of meandering around, I ended up talking to the CEO of Ergo Tools, about how I'd purchased a TGR 3600 dryer from them last year, and was still in love with it. I told him the story of how we'd started selling it in the store a few weeks ago, and how I sold one to a customer, mostly by accident.
A woman had come in looking for a dryer to replace her Conair that had blown up. I asked her how much she was looking to spend, and she told me hopefully under $50. I showed her the mass market dryers (Vidal Sassoon, etc.), and then took her over to the professional dryers, because they are better.
After telling her the virtues of real, professional tools vs. the brands you can pick up at Wal-mart, I showed her a couple of Rusk dryers that were on sale. We discussed the finer points of the one that was $49.99, and then I showed her the Rusk Speed Freak, which was around $20 on sale.
I told her that I used one for the better part of a year, and liked it a whole hell of a lot. I told her that the only reason I wasn't still using it was because I'd gotten a TGR 3600 at CMBS last year, and that I love the new dryer more. I told her we'd just started selling them, and pointed to the two on the shelf above us.
She wanted to know exactly why I liked the newer dryer so much, so I told her that it was not only smaller than most dryers - weighing less than 12 oz, but also that it was more powerful than most other dryers - blowing like 74 mph, was perfectly balanced, had a cord about 14 feet long or so, had low EMF, far-infrared heating technology - which dries the hair from the inside out, creating much less damage that conventional heating technology, leading to healthier, shinier, smoother hair, and that the TGR 3600 was generally a superior product. Plus, it was cute.
To my great surprise, she decided that she wanted one, despite the $169.95 price tag, and said it should even be good for travelling because it was small enough to pack easily.
I told the CEO that essentially I was really happy to be able to sell such a quality product which with I had over a year's personal experience, and hoped to get more of their products in the store in the future.
He told me that he was already friends with one of the people at Corporate that actually has pull, and that he was in regular contact with the buyer for that division. I said I didn't personally know either of them, but that I saw their names a lot in memos and corporate updates.
He then gave me his card, told me some extra stuff about my dryer, showed me their new ceramic/tourmaline round brushes and gave me one of them, which rocks.
I love free stuff.
He told me that ideally, everywhere that retailed their products would have stylists with personal experience, and urged me to contact him with input about how everything worked.
I told him I'd love to, and wandered off.
After much other wandering, I also acquired 5 boxes of Kasho blades (buy 4 get 1 free), a tiny Solano round brush to replace my old tiny round brush that died recently, a transparent dark pink Wahl peanut trimmer/clipper because my green one died a while ago, 3 boxes of Phantom Color Corrector (buy 2 get 1 - the replacement product for Schwarzkopf Igora Modulat color remover), a sparkly pink ankle bracelet, a 4-pack of Cricket Carbon combs, and a pair of Sensei texturizing shears.
I went on a search for the vendor of the most-delicious soft-serve twist cones, as per the previous year, but no dice. And I was even going to have two.
I watched the Nioxin show, which is one of the shows I watched last year as well, and had the same platform artist.
Now, I had been told that no vendors could sell designer knock-off bags and accessories, but I saw at least 4 places that had Prada, Chanel, Coach, Gucci, Dooney & Burke, Christian Dior, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, etc. stuff. And they were selling purses for like $75.
Which is of course way too much.
I can get a more convincing Kate Spade downtown on Chicago than anything they had there.
As I was leaving, I ran into Diva and her husband. She gave me a big hug and asked if I'd run into her sister-in-law-that-used-to-work-in-the-salon-but-doesn't-now.
I told her I had, and that I was still a little freaked out about how nice her S-I-L was to me. I mean, her last jab a couple of weeks before she left was essentially trying to either get me fired, or to make my work environment so incredibly unpleasant after she left that things would be super bad for me, costing me my staff or forcing me to quit.
I don't understand people.
And now I'm rambling.
Good night.
My intent was to get there around 2:30 or so.
After an hour of frustrated searching for my entrance ticket to the show, which turned into a failed and irritating attempt to get another print out of the ticket from isnow.com or ncacares.org, and a slightly less irritating attempt to find the receipt for the ticket on one of the computers (which also has the ticket information on it), I finally located the physical paper copy of the ticket that I had squirreled away in the last place I thought to look, I rolled out the door.
Tifling called during the mad search, and I was crabby and sucky to her, because I was frustrated and grumpy. Which I am sure also made her day.
I also hadn't eaten anything that day so far, because I forgot to buy milk for my cereal the night before, and everything in my kitchen requires actual cooking, which I had neither the time nor inclination to do.
Dunkin Donuts to the rescue!
I got to the show itself around 3:45 or so, with a couple of hours to spare before the show ended for the day.
After lots and lots of meandering around, I ended up talking to the CEO of Ergo Tools, about how I'd purchased a TGR 3600 dryer from them last year, and was still in love with it. I told him the story of how we'd started selling it in the store a few weeks ago, and how I sold one to a customer, mostly by accident.
A woman had come in looking for a dryer to replace her Conair that had blown up. I asked her how much she was looking to spend, and she told me hopefully under $50. I showed her the mass market dryers (Vidal Sassoon, etc.), and then took her over to the professional dryers, because they are better.
After telling her the virtues of real, professional tools vs. the brands you can pick up at Wal-mart, I showed her a couple of Rusk dryers that were on sale. We discussed the finer points of the one that was $49.99, and then I showed her the Rusk Speed Freak, which was around $20 on sale.
I told her that I used one for the better part of a year, and liked it a whole hell of a lot. I told her that the only reason I wasn't still using it was because I'd gotten a TGR 3600 at CMBS last year, and that I love the new dryer more. I told her we'd just started selling them, and pointed to the two on the shelf above us.
She wanted to know exactly why I liked the newer dryer so much, so I told her that it was not only smaller than most dryers - weighing less than 12 oz, but also that it was more powerful than most other dryers - blowing like 74 mph, was perfectly balanced, had a cord about 14 feet long or so, had low EMF, far-infrared heating technology - which dries the hair from the inside out, creating much less damage that conventional heating technology, leading to healthier, shinier, smoother hair, and that the TGR 3600 was generally a superior product. Plus, it was cute.
To my great surprise, she decided that she wanted one, despite the $169.95 price tag, and said it should even be good for travelling because it was small enough to pack easily.
I told the CEO that essentially I was really happy to be able to sell such a quality product which with I had over a year's personal experience, and hoped to get more of their products in the store in the future.
He told me that he was already friends with one of the people at Corporate that actually has pull, and that he was in regular contact with the buyer for that division. I said I didn't personally know either of them, but that I saw their names a lot in memos and corporate updates.
He then gave me his card, told me some extra stuff about my dryer, showed me their new ceramic/tourmaline round brushes and gave me one of them, which rocks.
I love free stuff.
He told me that ideally, everywhere that retailed their products would have stylists with personal experience, and urged me to contact him with input about how everything worked.
I told him I'd love to, and wandered off.
After much other wandering, I also acquired 5 boxes of Kasho blades (buy 4 get 1 free), a tiny Solano round brush to replace my old tiny round brush that died recently, a transparent dark pink Wahl peanut trimmer/clipper because my green one died a while ago, 3 boxes of Phantom Color Corrector (buy 2 get 1 - the replacement product for Schwarzkopf Igora Modulat color remover), a sparkly pink ankle bracelet, a 4-pack of Cricket Carbon combs, and a pair of Sensei texturizing shears.
I went on a search for the vendor of the most-delicious soft-serve twist cones, as per the previous year, but no dice. And I was even going to have two.
I watched the Nioxin show, which is one of the shows I watched last year as well, and had the same platform artist.
Now, I had been told that no vendors could sell designer knock-off bags and accessories, but I saw at least 4 places that had Prada, Chanel, Coach, Gucci, Dooney & Burke, Christian Dior, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, etc. stuff. And they were selling purses for like $75.
Which is of course way too much.
I can get a more convincing Kate Spade downtown on Chicago than anything they had there.
As I was leaving, I ran into Diva and her husband. She gave me a big hug and asked if I'd run into her sister-in-law-that-used-to-work-in-the-salon-but-doesn't-now.
I told her I had, and that I was still a little freaked out about how nice her S-I-L was to me. I mean, her last jab a couple of weeks before she left was essentially trying to either get me fired, or to make my work environment so incredibly unpleasant after she left that things would be super bad for me, costing me my staff or forcing me to quit.
I don't understand people.
And now I'm rambling.
Good night.
1 comment:
I would have been grumpy too! I'm glad you finally found the ticket and that you got a bunch of phat lewt!
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