Connecting with Customers

Lip DivaTM Connecting with Customers

As a pioneer in the e-commerce marketplace, with one of the first truly successful and comprehensive online stores in the cosmetic industry, Rose’s first retail website hit the scene in the mid-nineties when it was necessary to have 11 servers in-house with a full IT staff in order to handle the volume of orders. While technology has changed, the close connection with her customers remains the same. Over the years, letters have poured in and Rose has met her customers face to face at various conventions and through various consumer outreach programs.

Vision& Mission:

It was Rose’s intent to create a product so UNIQUE, so powerful, so revolutionary, it empowers women from all walks of life to experience the FREEDOM and CONFIDENCE of wearing Lip Ink Wax-free Semi Permanent Cosmetics. Lip Ink International will touch and enhance over 1 billion women’s lives!

Rose’s mission statement was passed from woman to woman, and the Lip Ink revolution began.

In her third year of business, Rose hosted a party for her top retailers, flying the owners and their spouses to a local hotel by the beach in California. Being together for the first time, they each shared their personal stories about the Lip Ink products. It was amazing. They not only shared the success they were having with the product line, but they also had their own ideas about how Rose’s inventions should be sold in the marketplace. Each had a different viewpoint, yet at the same time they loved Lip Ink products and wanted to support the company. Each requested a private meeting with Rose in the morning before they departed on their early morning flights.

At 6 a.m., with her most valued retailers present and the clock ticking, they all demanded to speak first. With everyone talking to Rose at the same time, it was like being on the floor of the stock market with the ticker tape running. Rose called everyone to order and forced them to speak one at a time. To her amazement, the retailers all had their own business plans to present. At the time, the Lip Ink product line was already being sold in over 2,000 retail locations such as spas, salons, doctors’ offices, and mall kiosks, while also appearing in hundreds of state and county fairs as well as trade shows and making news on television.

Each retailer had a passion for the Lip Ink mission and they wanted to make careers and dedicate financial resources to demonstrating and selling the product line. They identified over 75 unique profit centers that they would cover. Rose took notes and agreed to consider their ideas. When all was said and done she just wanted to manufacture, license, sell her products and spread her mission. After all, it is only a product right?

Inventor • Alchemist • Pioneer

For the next year Rose considered all of the business ideas that poured in. However, each of them required something different like repackaging the product; developing a multi-level company; shipping to foreign countries with translated ingredient lists and instructions; starting a speaking tour; meeting with movie stars: shooting an infomercial; and even borrowing money to back the product line. In the end, Rose could not give them all that they requested. Some of the retail supporters slipped away because of it, but for the most part she found who her true loyal followers were, and most of them still support the Lip Ink product line to this day. Her most loyal retailers are a husband and wife team, David and Donna, in Texas. They believed in Rose and the product line from its initial inception, as did another retailer, Susan from Arizona. An avid fan of the product line, Susan made her way onto news channels sharing the Lip Ink story live on TV.

A Turning Point One of my retailers introduced the product line to Christina Ferrare, a former Vogue model and presenter on “AM Los Angeles”. Wearing our brightest red liquid Lip Ink color, she kissed Dr. Andrew Weil on his beautiful, bald head to prove to him that it wouldn’t come off. It was a real turning point for the company to be recognized on national television for the first time. The Style network also visited the Lip Ink factory to shoot a documentary about Rose’s invention, which ultimately aired over a thousand times on their network. These experiences helped provide the cash flow to fight the intellectual property battles of the cosmetic industry. Every time Rose needed financial support to protect her patented inventions for another court battle, the money would show up somehow.

The Fan Base

The average Lip Ink customer purchases more on the internet in one year than in the average retail location. Why? Although Lip Ink products are sold at domestic and international retail locations in countries such as Austria, Australia, England, South Africa and Italy, as Lip Ink International started on the internet, the Lip Ink consumer has always been online, searching for the best products. She is progressive, savvy, professional, smart and concerned about the environment. She wants a natural, organic solution. She wants versatility, dual purpose and wants to save time and money. Some loyal followers have over 50 Lip Ink colors, they collect them like art pieces. Loyal fans not only know a great deal about the product line from participating in the company’s growth from the beginning, but they also scan the website for new offerings and Rose’s personal blogs to stay tunedin to what’s next. One thing customers can count on is magic. That is what they have come to expect from Rose—the Alchemist and that legacy will continue. Occasionally, Rose creates a unique color layering option called, “The Inventor Series”. This product is specific for the most loyal of fans and is produced in small one-of-a-kind batches. Only about 100 items are made and are sold quickly. “The Inventor Series” provides customers a select personal item produced by Rose that is rare and special, which becomes collectable, functional and unique “Cosmetic Art.” She’s has a clear picture, and in many cases a close relationship with the women who are wearing the Lip Ink products. Here are just a few of them:

Lip DivaTM

The Dream