Doo bee doo bee doo....
(Former) PROTOTYPE PENSI realized I never quite spoke much about work. Here I go:
Work is pretty fun, most of the time. It's actually pretty relaxing, to work in an environment where your actions go directly towards company profits. I set my own hours, work hard when I need to, take it easy when I should be, etc.
What do I do? I'm kind of a jack-of-all-trades. In the U.S. division (or the main division) it's basically just a smallish company. I coordinate with the factory that we've partnered up with to design pens, purchase products, and oversee inventory movement. On this side, for the supply side, I have to purchase any additional parts we might need, communicate with refill/nib/box suppliers, etc. These are mainly from Germany and China.
For the sales side, I basically follow my mom's lead. She's a pretty good salesperson and broker deals out better than I can. She's placed TACCIA into most of the major pen retailers in the United States, either from knowing them for quite some time or pushing them to pick up our products. I kind of take over the back front -- iron out any communications, catalog deals, process invoices, etc.
For marketing, it's pretty much up to me. I write the press releases, sales pitches, and design some basic material to send to our retailers and reps. I'm pretty new at this, though, and I should have a better communication standard. My photoshop skills are pretty nonexistent, too, so I can't really design ads. The main part -- the text to go along with each pen, is my job though, and I think I do a pretty good job :D.
And the last part... shipping... well, yeah I have to take care of shipping pens to the retailers and repaired pens. I've kind of figured out how to align and smooth a nib, but nowhere near that of a nib repair master. We sometimes send the pens out to be smoothed by some of our connections, but most of the time I can tell when a nib will be adjustable by us or not. In most cases, I switch out all the nonfunctioning parts (feeder, housing) and smooth the nib down, and if it still doesn't work, I'll take a new nib from our inventory and give it back to the customer.
Anyway, I better get back to work...
Work is pretty fun, most of the time. It's actually pretty relaxing, to work in an environment where your actions go directly towards company profits. I set my own hours, work hard when I need to, take it easy when I should be, etc.
What do I do? I'm kind of a jack-of-all-trades. In the U.S. division (or the main division) it's basically just a smallish company. I coordinate with the factory that we've partnered up with to design pens, purchase products, and oversee inventory movement. On this side, for the supply side, I have to purchase any additional parts we might need, communicate with refill/nib/box suppliers, etc. These are mainly from Germany and China.
For the sales side, I basically follow my mom's lead. She's a pretty good salesperson and broker deals out better than I can. She's placed TACCIA into most of the major pen retailers in the United States, either from knowing them for quite some time or pushing them to pick up our products. I kind of take over the back front -- iron out any communications, catalog deals, process invoices, etc.
For marketing, it's pretty much up to me. I write the press releases, sales pitches, and design some basic material to send to our retailers and reps. I'm pretty new at this, though, and I should have a better communication standard. My photoshop skills are pretty nonexistent, too, so I can't really design ads. The main part -- the text to go along with each pen, is my job though, and I think I do a pretty good job :D.
And the last part... shipping... well, yeah I have to take care of shipping pens to the retailers and repaired pens. I've kind of figured out how to align and smooth a nib, but nowhere near that of a nib repair master. We sometimes send the pens out to be smoothed by some of our connections, but most of the time I can tell when a nib will be adjustable by us or not. In most cases, I switch out all the nonfunctioning parts (feeder, housing) and smooth the nib down, and if it still doesn't work, I'll take a new nib from our inventory and give it back to the customer.
Anyway, I better get back to work...
