A Week in NYC...

My spring trip to New York City is always a very important and inspiring week for me.  I am finally back in the office and ready to tell you all about it!

THE BEGINNING...
The start was a little rough...I have to admit.  I was not able to get the 8:30 AM flight out of LAX, so I had to settle for 11:30 AM.  For any of you that have lived in So Cal, you will understand when I say that morning traffic on the 405 is to be avoided at all costs.  With that in mind, I thought it may be less work for me to take the Super Shuttle rather than driving myself.  WHAT A BAD IDEA!!!!  The driver called just as I was zipping up my suitcase.  I was so proud of myself because I was actually ready on time (for those of you that do not know me, I am always 10-15 mins late:).  I had everything packed perfectly and rolled my suitcase out the door.  As I was locking the door, my suitcase fell over with the extra weight of my carry on.  Mild irritation went to pure PANIC when I realized that the top of the handle had completely snapped off!!!  SURPRISE!!!  Knowing the driver would be waiting any minute, I ran back into my apartment and had to dump all of my stuff into a body bag size of suitcase...rgh!

I finally get in the shuttle and we head out of the valley.  I swear the driver was falling asleep, either that or he had a nervous tick or something.  He was driving so fast and his head kept nodding.  Then he would stretch his back, take a drink, sometimes yawn.  I was stressed to the max!  Seriously.  I wanted to tell him that I didn't want to die driving to LAX...more like yell at him...but then I started worrying that it was a nervous tick and it would be rude to point it out.  Suffice it to say that I was in that awful van with him for over 2 hours!!!  Totally frazzled by the time I arrived at LAX.

THE PR INTERVIEWS...

The first day in NYC began with Jamie Richards arriving to our hotel early in the morning.  For those of you who do not know Jamie, she is my right hand creatively speaking.  All of the cute copy and beautiful graphics would not happen without Jamie.  She coordinates everything and seriously sends me a schedule every morning of what we need to accomplish.  I love going to NYC with Jamie!  She is a serious shopper...and just slightly OBSESSED with Zara:).  Jamie just had a baby (Ruby) 3 months ago.  She was such a trooper to come this year.  After her arrival, we headed off to innovation presentations for cosmetics fills.  There are some great new lip formulations that were so fun!  I cannot wait to start brainstorming to use these awesome formulas.

Following that, we rushed to meet up with John Maly (Owner of Mirabella) to head to the first of four PR interviews.  The first PR firm was Pierce Mattie.  I really enjoyed their presentation and appreciated how they listened to a few of the ideas floating around in my mind and immediately started telling me how it could be better.  This is what we are looking for! I also really liked their ideas on how to continue branding Mirabella to the savvy cosmetic consumer out there.  To date, we have only really targeted salon professionals, and I have been stressing over how our message would evolve to include everyone.  The second firm was Bratskier.  I really liked that they seemed to be very team-oriented.  Everyone's opinion mattered.  The third firm was CMM.  They had impressive results on paper, but they didn't take much time to explore what they could do for Mirabella.  Lastly, we met with Shop PR.  Jamie and I both really liked Vanessa and Adrienne from Shop, but unfortunately they are a little out of price range.  Shoot!  Anyway, the PR hunt continues...we just do not want to make a mistake.  We were so exhausted when we finished the last interview at 7:30 PM.  We had been running around for over 12 hrs.  If I had to do it again, I think I would have scheduled it a little differently.  We headed back to the Hilton New York and crashed..