BooJee Beads in the News

We have gotten quite a bit of Global Press since winning the CMI award. I thought i would post the links to the articles (even in French :)

A Makeover For ID Badges Martinez was "blown away" by the success, Harrington said. "She's the one who had the vision and the belief that we could make it into a big business," Harrington said of Martinez. The products are available in 1,200 retail outlets in the United States as well as the product Web site, http://www.boojeebeads.com/ Read entire story at http://www.zwire.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17139946&BRD=1698&PAG=461&dept_id=21849&rfi=8

Getting A Bead On Business In January of 2003, Kimberly Martinez, a former corporate executive, helped transform her friend Lisa Harrington's jewelry products from a basement operation into a boardroom success story.Read entire story at http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/06/million_winners/source/11.htm

1 Million By 2010: Cisco Helps Women Entrepreneurs Reach Higher Through Make Mine a $Million Business Program Kimberly Martinez of Bonitas International; and Molly Fuller and Ann McCarten-Gibbs of Hands On Gourmet will receive a complete Smart Business Communications system from Cisco Systems, the first network technology sponsor of the Make Mine a $Million program. Read entire story at http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2006/ts_073106.html

Elle féminise les accessoires professionnels Kimberly Martinez (à droite) aide son ami Lisa Harrington à faire de sa petite bijouterie une entreprise florissante. Elles lancent Bonitas International, une société qui propose des décorations pour les accessoires professionnels : petits bijoux de portables, cordons pour lunettes très féminins, colliers pour attacher les badges d'identité...Read entire story at http://www.linternaute.com/femmes/carriere/0609-chefs-d-entreprise-laureates/14.shtml

Madeira business owner honored nationally "We committed early on that we would build a business that not only provided for our families, but would reach out to support other women who did not have the same opportunities we have been able to create."Read entire story at http://news.communitypress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/C2/20061025/NEWS05/610250755/

El programa nacional 2006 ‘Make Mine a $Million Business’(TM) premia a veinte mujeres empresarias en un evento en San Francisco; Las empresarias galardonadas Recibirán Tutelaje, Financiamiento, Asistencia en Marketing y Tecnología para el Desarrollo de Empresas de un Millón de Dólares Read entire story at http://www.hispanicprwire.com/news.php?l=es&id=6382&cha=14

Top 20 Award -National 2006 Make Mine A $Million™ Program The Make Mine a $Million Business program aims to foster a community of one million women-owned businesses at $1 million or more in annual revenue by 2010. The effort could help add up to four million jobs and $700 billion to the US economy Read entire story at http://home3.americanexpress.com/corp/pc/2006/open_20w.asp/

Special Programs Give Female Entrepreneurs Assistance Kimberly Martinez, an Englewood resident and chief executive of Bonitas International LLC, got a financial boost from Count Me In when her banker was unwilling to fund her needs. Read entire story at http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006611120394

Kimberly Martinez Speaks at CMI in NY

I was honored to be asked to be on a panel discussion at the last M3 event in NY. It was a star studded gala with Hillary Clinton, Suze Ormand, Danny Levy and Susan Sobbet (president of OPEN) speaking. I was asked to talk about how winning has impacted us. So here is the truth. Your prize in this contest is really about winning opportunity. Winning isn’t about getting a bouquet of roses. Rather it’s about getting a pack of seeds. Seeds you need to plant water and nurture. If you are willing to do the work they will spout and grow like Jack and the Beanstalk taking you and your business to the stars.

And speaking of growth, Bonitas International has been growing like crazy. We are having a great gift giving season and we have gotten orders from Austrialia, France and Denmark in just the last week. Our newest website www.EyeGlassHolders.com is coming along nicely and we have had a new marketing person Susan Hoeben join our team. She has great talent and energy and has already made a signficant impact in our organization.
The next short term goal is a major overhaul of the www.BooJeeBeads.com website.

I was recently highlighted in a the area newspaper in a nice article about CMI http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006611120394 and I will be a guest on the radio show www.MomTalk.com in a few weeks! Watch (listen?) for my podcast soon.

The Adventures of Lisa in China

I had such a productive and informative trip to China. I can actually say that I am very glad that I went. I would like to share with you all my “adventures. The good news is that you can see the results of my trip with our great new beaded lanyards and retractable badge reel jewelry now for sale at our retail website www.BooJeeBeads.com and our newest website www.EyeglassHolders.com is finally launched! But anyhow back to my trip in China

My first day was getting into Hong Kong and stayed in a hotel overnight. Then it was up and off to the assembly factory in Pan Yu. Pan Yu is a little fishing/farming village near Guangzhou, China.
Please note what I like to call the “employee parking lot”

(insert photo)

Anyway, my first 3 days were spent at the factory. They had a sign out in front of the office “Welcome, Lisa Harrington”. I was the big event and believe me, all the workers were anxious to watch my every move. Here are the main things I accomplished:

Factory tour- this really helped me to understand the time and organization required to produce and package our products. They have separate buildings for raw materials, metal stamping, plastic molding, assembling, and finished product storage.

Met with Packaging Dept.- Discussed current packing issues.

Met with Badge Reel supervisor and I watched line production of some Boojee beads-All women. They are trying to use the same workers to always do our work so they become very familiar with it. A little ocean bliss, black beauty and silver leaf production going on here.

(insert photo)


















This is the “QC guy” checking over the beads for defects.
By the way, he didn't care for me too much by the time I left.

I looked the beads over for defects as well. There were over 175 cases of beads. I didn’t look hard at all of them, no time. But, I did find the ones I was concerned about because of color, etc. and made sure they were ok. I also sent the warehouse on repeated “mission possible” to find $5000 in missing inventory.


This whole bead extravaganza was the hottest and sweatiest process! No air in the 85 degree humid heat in a big warehouse. Yuck!


Good thing I came back to this hotel to relax at the end of the day:
















And all for a mere $80 USD/ night, unbelievable!!!

After the assembly factory, I traveled to Shenzhen, China to see the bead factory production. I was surprised to find out that they do not actually have a factory, per say. No, scratch that “per say”, they don’t have a factory at all!!! They are a trading company who outsources the production of all our beads to other manufacturers. That was quite revealing. Another fact I would not have found out, had I not gone to China. But, they have been able to source many, many different beads for us and have been very open to correcting errors, etc. I showed them my bad packaging photos and discussed some of the defects found on some of the beads. They were more than happy to make things right. So, all in all, it was ok. They probably get beads from 6 different factories, so if we did that direct ourselves, it would be considerable additional work anyway.

Oh yeah, in Shenzhen I got a 1 hour foot and calf massage while watching a movie for a whopping $5 US dollars! No kidding! Kimberly told me to go back in for another round for her!

I spent the one night and day in Shenzhen and it was back off to Hong Kong. I met 2 different quality inspectors, as we are considering hiring someone to do this for us. It was very informative and looks like a really good option for us to consider. You pay them fees based on quantity and they will do any testing on the products you want. They have a random testing protocol and could do pull tests, drop tests, etc. It is a great way to get a check on your products before you send the last money over. That way we can address any problems (ie: broken shimmer badge reels) and the factory can fix them before they leave China. We can also audit any new factories we are considering working with.

I met with the Pink Ribbon Collection manufacturer and it looks like we will have a very hard time coming to terms on pricing. I asked for a certain price range for them to work in and they have exceeded it. He is going back in for another quote, but I am not optimistic.

Back in HK, I visited the a bead “showroom” (I use the term very loosely). I gathered many new samples of beads for new design ideas. I also was surprised to find a few new great badge reel embellishment ideas also. It was kind of fun collecting all those beads. Until I had to carry them back! Heavy, and most were plastic this time.

So, overall, the trip was a huge success. We made great headway in our relationship with our vendors. It is very impressive to them when someone travels all the way to China for business. They recognize that as a sign of a very successful business.

I was ever so glad to be home.




Important, but not really business-related learnings:


1. Eating with chopsticks is not bad at all. The bad part is that there are no knives offered with meals, you and your teeth are on your own!

2. Chinese waiters take your plate away too fast! Come up for air during your meal… and ZIP, your plate disappears.

3. Hope you plan on tipping big because they stand tableside and watch you sign the bill. There is no walking away and coming back for it.

4. Chocolate is not a common dessert food in China. I never saw anything chocolate on the menu at any Chinese restaurant in mainland China. No wonder I kept saying, “shoot me now!”

5. There are toothpicks everywhere. On last visit, Kimberly and I couldn’t figure out what the obsession was about the toothpicks. It was so obvious all along… they use there teeth as knives, for goodness sake! You get a lot more food stuck in your teeth that way!

6. It is polite to offer the American guest the first bite of anything that comes to the table (even if it is a breaded and fried minnow, whole, with it’s eyes and tail intact). Then it is best to watch with baited breath as the American takes a bite. “You like?”

7. Turtle shell is not tasty (even if it is soft-shell).

8. Not all things out of the sea should be eaten.

9. Don’t point to anything on a menu in pre-meal discussion, it WILL show up on your table and your bill.

10. Bikes can be very versatile means of transportation for people, livestock, 10 foot long bamboo trees, etc.

11. As long as you have T Mobile your blackberry works just fine all over Asia. So being a world away i still got (endless) real time emails from Kimberly Martinez!

BooJeeBeads in the House!

What a whirlwind it has been since we have won the CMI award! I attended the NY fundraiser gals which was an unbelievable experience! There were 500 people in the room all wearing our ID jewelry. We received our WBEC certification (women owned business) and ran in to our friends and other CMI winners from Say No More promotions at the conference in Miami. Since that time I have been on the road at sales tradeshows across the US, Our newest line of BooJeeBeads ID necklaces and retractable badge reel jewelry have been getting a tremendous response from our customers and we have been very pleased with our sales so far this summer season. We are planning on crossing the Million dollar finish line before year end, so we will keep you posted on our progress!

As if enough hasn't occurred, we are proud recipient of the Cisco technology makeover award and we have been busy focusing on launching our newest retail website, www.EyeGlassHolders.com. My partner has been in China the last 10 days at our factory and she will be blogging about her experience (she even ate TURTLE this trip- what a trooper!) Watch for our newest styles to be available on the www.BooJeeBeads.com retail website in the next few days.