Tag: business

Gold Standard by Kym Gold

Posted on by CMPR

 

Gold Standard by Kym Gold

Case Summary: Kym was known as the co-founder of True Religion Jeans and the owner of a multi-million dollar estate.  Her memoir was about her life, how she built her business, and what happened next.

Goal: Brand Kym as an advocate for women-in-business, expert, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.

Result Examples: Kym was asked to be a guest on MSNBC, Reuters, and Home and Family.  She was also asked to keynote at conferences and speak at fashion design schools about how she built her business.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

GOLD STANDARD: How to Rock the World and Run an Empire

By Kym Gold,
Co creator of True Religion Brand Jeans

“I had struggled, worked, begged, borrowed, and well everything but stolen, to make these jeans and the company a reality. And now, according to our sales numbers, they would be on three out of five people throughout the world.”  —From Gold Standard, on the creation of True Religion

Gold Standard

How to Rock the World and Run an Empire

By: Kym Gold

She kept silent for seven years, but now Kym Gold is revealing in a new memoir how she lost her marriage and the brand she created on Valentine’s Day in 2007.  Revealing storytelling combined with savvy advice and inspiration for women in business, Kym Gold shares all in her book GOLD STANDARD: How to Rock the World and Run an Empire (Skyhorse Publishing; September 15, 2015; $24.99; ISBN: 978-1-63450-128-6). From her brief marriage to TV producer Mark Burnett of Survivor fame, to selling T-shirts on Venice Beach, to creating a multimillion-dollar denim wear company, Gold gives us a no-holds-barred account of the challenging, life-altering occurrences that come from the fame and fortune of creating a successful fashion empire.

Growing up as a triplet amidst actors and celebrities in the Los Angeles area, Kym always felt the need to find her voice, create her own unique style, and listen to her intuition. She started her first company by buying and dying irregulars from clothing stores and selling them on the beach. Soon after her marriage to fabric salesman Jeff Lubell, they launched True Religion Brand Jeans, which catapulted into success and soon became a publicly traded company.

While True Religion’s popularity rose, behind the scenes was a different story: Kym’s marriage to Lubell was falling apart. The board of trustees was secretly going behind her back to have her pushed out of the company, diluting her importance in the company by erasing her existence as a cofounder and calling her “wife of the company’s cofounder.” On that fateful Valentine’s Day morning in 2007 when a messenger came by to serve her divorce papers, Gold had the entire company ripped out from underneath her within hours:

I could feel the rage building inside of me. Locking me out of the company meant that everyone knew about this ahead of time. Everyone knew what was going down except me. I was devastated.

Never one to stay off her feet for long, Gold invested her time in the creation of her next fashionable feat, Babakul and opportunities to sell her new clothing line on national home shopping networks. Gold mixes her compelling personal journey with savvy business advice, such as: if you are a creative, build up your business acumen; never open mail on a Friday; take time to cherish your success; and fight to get women on your board of directors.

Motivating readers to fight for their beliefs and listen to their guts, GOLD STANDARD provides a behind-the-scenes view of how women must educate themselves and fight to protect their interests in business.

ABOUT KYM GOLD:
Kym Gold is the cofounder of designer jeans brand True Religion, which she left in 2007. She is also the creator of notable clothing brands including Bella Dahl, Hippie Jeans, and Babakul, and her fashion has been worn by celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, and Jennifer Lopez. Now, Gold works as a fashion business, marketing and branding consultant in the Los Angeles area. She has three children and lives in Malibu. Gold Standard is her first book.

ABOUT SKYHORSE PUBLISHING:
Skyhorse Publishing is an independent book publishing company founded in 2006. Headquartered in New York City, its distributor is Perseus Book Group.  Each year they publish an eclectic list of titles across fiction, history, politics, business, humor, and more. For more information, visit www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

GOLD STANDARD:
How to Rock the World and Run an Empire
By Kym Gold with Sharon Soboil
Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date: September 15th, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-63450-128-6
Hardcover, Price: $24.99
192 Pages

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We were “slammed”…

Posted on by Claire McKinney

If you subscribe to a utility company, for home or business, beware because “slamming” does exist and it is incredibly annoying to deal with.

We recently opened an office and purchased a “business bundle” with Verizon.  A month or so after we were set up and running a phone call came in to the office.  An employee answered and her end of the conversation which went something like this…

“Yes, we do have Verizon.”

“Yes, that is the company name.”

“We don’t have any questions about the service.”

etc., etc., etc.

It seemed like a routine customer service call, until the questions became repetitive and went on for longer than what we deemed to be a regular call.  So, she ended the conversation and hung up.

For a few weeks after that, the same person or company kept calling asking the same questions over and over.  The second call we ended within a couple of questions;  The third, maybe after the first question; and the fourth time I recognized the number, picked up the phone and told the person that we were going to take action for solicitation harassment (sounded good at the time) if the person didn’t stop calling.

Shortly thereafter I received a service notice from Verizon that I ignored because I hadn’t ordered any service.  I figured it was just a glitch in the system.  And then the bill came.

The bill was about $100 more than what it should have been, so I took the time to scan all 8 pages and found at the end of the bill a company name I didn’t recognize and substantial charges billed by that company.  I called Verizon and was told that I had changed my long distance service to another carrier and that I was no longer receiving the promotional package rate. WHAT?!  So I told the customer service rep that there was a mistake– I told her about the strange phone calls which must have been related to this, and how incredible this was, and what has this world come to, etc.  She told me that we had been slammed and that she would amend the bill and the previous bill (which I hadn’t checked thoroughly) and would cancel the offending party’s service agreement.  She also put a freeze on my account so that I am the only person who can make service changes.

But that wasn’t all.  A month later another bill came with $50 in charges from this other company.  I called Verizon immediately.

Me: “I called a month ago about a slamming incident and it appears that this other company is still charging me for services that we never ordered.”

Verizon: “I can take care of that for you.”

Me: “Thanks.”

Verizon: “In the future what you might want to do is call this company and cancel the service yourself”.

Me: “But I never ordered the service.”

Verizon: “Right, but you need to cancel it.”

Me: “But isn’t is illegal…what they did?”

Verizon: “Well, yes.”

Me: “But I still need to call them?  I don’t want to call them.  They are a nefarious organization that is doing something illegal.  Why should I have to call them?”

Verizon: “Well, I’m just saying this is how you can best end the problem.”

Me: “Uh huh.  Well, thanks.  Bye.”

I’m waiting for the next bill.