Drama Teacher

Realize your dreams by changing careers
or how I went from drama teacher to the invention of marketing "Guru"
By Joan Lefkowitz, brainstorming accessory, Inc. New York Āc Joan Lefkowitz

Armed with a master's degree in drama and three years of experience, I moved from New York to the suburbs of New Jersey with my husband in 1970. To my surprise, unlike NYC schools secondary schools in Jersey did not have drama departments. I found myself unemployed, part-time teaching in a university.

To keep myself entertained, I learned to navigate the roads to get to Jersey every store mall that has made fashion accessories. I would like to evaluate each item that I saw, asking "What is the fair price of this product are the materials and colors as attractive as possible?" And a renewal in my head to make it more attractive. This seat "back" hobby merchandise immediately after giving birth to my daughter, Aviya who enjoyed this activity in her stroller.

A day at the mall I took a copy of the file Bergen and noticed an ad in the classified section that intrigued me, "looking for people to bring new and exciting products on the market." In my academic "business" was a dirty word, so I did not respond to this announcement. However, since that day, and today, I think that statement is my mission. The best I can be myself and others is to make new, exciting, attractive and useful products available to people for fun in their daily lives.

In 1976 when we moved to Manhattan, I decided to stop teaching and go! I started to represent the designers of costume jewelry and hair accessories, taking their samples to stores that might like them. My first customers were Henri Bendel and Bloomingdales, but I was clueless when they asked me what my "conditions". I returned to school at night and took many business courses while training programs with American Women's Economic Development, and met other new women business owners to commiserate with.

Accessory Resource Gallery have increased in the nineties and I opened a showroom, has hired a staff, said scarf, hat, belt lines and other goodies to the range of products. People could not buy enough accessories in the eighties. Then, in 1990, the recession has finally hit the industry. Retailers were out of business in droves. To keep the morale of our designers in bad times, we recommended that they add unique and fun items to their product lines. We conducted brainstorming sessions and came with a necklace of precious stones watergun for one of the lines. The trade publications, he loved and we started to become known for unusual items.

Then in 1991 a daughter of Dallas came to New York looking for a salesrepresentative for its patented new hair accessory, Topsy Tail, which turned a ponytail inside out to make a beautiful hairstyle. We went crazy for this little invention unique and predicted that the world would agree. In a very short time, we have sold millions of dollars of Topsy Tail retailers.

spread about our "invention marketing" and inventions are turning up at our door. Soon we were handling products such wonderfully original Hairdini, Earpockets Earz, Polaroller pack stock, and Franti scented panties. Women's Wear Daily called us the "guru of marketing for the novelty." We have found that the market has been taking great inventions of our time and it was a different process from the marketing of accessories. We've created a new division of the company called "ACCESSORY brainstorming process for patented inventions add beauty, comfort and lifestyle of our categories. In 1994, we incorporated ACCESSORY brainstorming, INC. as a separate company. R.