Today was basically mostly spend on debriefing and organizing things from the trip.  From 6AM till about 11:30AM – I spent filling, organizing, recording etc.   First, moved over all the laptop files into SharePoint, organized the information, and created actions based on what I had done.  I wrote up trip summary and notes for future reference.    Organized my schedule for May and June.  Booked hotel for HK (since I’m going tomorrow).   Chatted with my corporate formation agent to get all the banking info straight for opening up bank accounts for RedStores in HK – part of the reason to go HK is to get banking and relationships going.

At 1PM – had our monthly senior management meeting – things are going very well – and everyone is moving as good or better than before.  Inventory control is coming on line.  Our sales in April where the highest EVER (since we started PearlsOnly) – which was very nice to see.  My cash flow is easing a bit – feeling a bit more roomy.

Carsten is on board as the Financial Controller – and feels very solid.   Tomorrow – I’m dedicating most of my day to financial and accounting system – D…, my consultant that was helping out is coming in – and D… and Carsten we will be spending the day to plan out and discuss the financial systems and the work needs to be done.   Almost, almost there!  Finally.

I debriefed everyone about the Genie and visit to LA.   Next Monday, I cleared the day to have 2010/2011 strategic meetings – so that we can plan out 2010 and 2011 projects and initiatives.

During out monthly meeting, we reviewed the numbers, and generally, the trend in the US is down.  My cross country visit through US correlated with US sales figures – basically US sales are going down and in my opinion are going to go down.   Having said that, we have adopted to this trend – and it has worked for us – bottom line, despite top line, is looking solid (even in US).   J… was teasing me that ‘you are so smart’ BUT actually, to be honest,  the strategic play was M… doing more than mine.   Regardless, it overall context, I think we did good – survived the hit of the US recession, pushed through it, saw our competitors decimated – and even as the down turn continues – we are improving.  

Strategically, after being in Germany and seeing that 3 out of 10 ladies had pearls – I’m going to move into the German space – fast! 🙂   

Beyond that – jet lag hit me around 5PM – but been pushing hard through it to at least 9PM – although last few hours – the brain had pretty much shut down – so no big decision making.

Will be backing for HK tomorrow morning – tonight is just not in the cards.

Besides that, my housekeeper quick – but Eileen is getting me a new one already.   With SOP’s in place – people are now able to change but my QoS (Quality of Service) doesn’t. 

Other notes:

The above picture is of the shuttle bus from airport to the hotel – notice that the window is broken – but instead of it being fixed – its TAPED! with clear tape.  

Business class in US domestic.  No longer any entertainment system, chips and cookies for ‘dinner’ – and the seating space of a sardine can.   And this is on United – so we are not talking discount airline.

Following Blink – the little snippets of information that can give us big picture view – USA is in a world of hurt – its been hurting and it will continue to hurt.  I’m just lucky that I have diversified globally – and that I further have the ability to reach around the globe.    Its been been painful to run a multi-national structure on a mom-and-pop budget – but its really going to pay off.    If I was serving just the US market, and didn’t have 24 months of op costs in my pocket saved up – I would be a VERY unhappy camper now.

And last but not least – probably why I got the extra energy.  Alex looking so cute in her new “China-real” North Face jacket.