Selling cycles, finding the right clients
Getting The Edge In Professional Selling
Terence A. Hockenhull
SELLING MEANS different things to different people. Certainly the orientation of the customer is very different to that of the salesperson.
Lenovo Yoga Book: A true ultraportable with steep learning curve
IT IS DIFFICULT not to be impressed by the Lenovo Yoga Book the first time you see it. This 2-in-1 convertible tablet is wafer-thin and comes with a futuristic keyboard that’s guaranteed to elicit oohs-and-aahs from colleagues the moment you pop the device open.
What makes it even more appealing is its below-P30,000 price tag (P28,999 to be exact for the Windows version), which is considerably lower than say, Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4, which starts at P60,000 — although both may not be comparable in terms of specs.
With the Yoga Book, Lenovo may have succeeded in designing the ideal ultraportable laptop, but its usability and mediocre performance could be the reason it’s still not in the same league as other premium 2-in-1s in the market. Still, depending on the level of productivity you require while on the go, there’s enough to love about this device. Read on.
DESIGN AND FEATURES
The Yoga Book’s design is one of its strengths. Two metal slates made of aluminum and magnesium alloy are held together by Lenovo’s famous watchband hinge, which allows the Yoga Book to fold 360 degrees and transforms the device into four versatile modes: laptop, tablet, tent, or flat/drawing.
On the left side of the keyboard surface, you’ll find the micro-USB charging port, HDMI connector, left speaker grill, a charging/power indicator, and a micro-SD card tray. On the right are the on/off button, right speaker grill, volume buttons, and a 3.5-mm headphone jack.
The thinness of this device — 9.6 mm when closed shut — and its lightweightness (690 grams or 1.52 lbs) earn the Yoga Book high marks in portability. It’s slender body and matte finish also offer a good grip. A case or a sleeve may be unnecessary for the Yoga Book was easy to slip in the handbag (or backpack). It was also thin enough to carry around like a book when rushing to meetings.
My only problem with a laptop so thin, however, is that opening the Yoga Book needs both hands to pry it open. Also, in laptop mode, using your lap for support may not be enough to hold the Yoga Book steady as you type. It also tends to slip or wobble when you move your legs.
Opening the Yoga Book reveals a flat, matte surface that instantly glows, revealing an outline of a full backlit keyboard. The keyboard, called Halo, is a ‘learning’ keyboard, according to Lenovo, and it’s designed to “adapt to the typing habits” of its user thanks to a built-in prediction and artificial learning software.
The Halo keyboard may be ground-breaking but it comes with a steep learning curve. On the first week, it was impossible to type even just a paragraph as I’d inadvertently hit a random key or the I-beam pointer would jump elsewhere on the page whenever my palm slightly brushes the hypersensitive touchpad. I also remember hitting the backspace more often than typing the keys.
It took me a little over three weeks before I became comfortable with typing on the key-less keyboard. And even then, I still had to glance at the surface every now and then to make sure I was tapping the right keys.
The option to turn on haptic feedback on the keyboard helped, but it lagged whenever I type fast and the vibration was felt on the entire keyboard, not on a specific key. Note: the Halo’s “learning” feature comes in the form of autocorrect and predictive text functions. It helped, but only to some extent. There were just too many typos that the software somehow gave up at some point.
Pressing the pen icon at the top right surface converts the keyboard into a drawing tablet. Using the pressure-sensitive Real Pen stylus that comes with the Yoga Book, you can write notes or draw on the surface. Powered by Wacom, maker of drawing stylus and artist tablets, the Real Pen was designed to respond to the surface’s built-in electromagnetic resonance (EMR) film, which enables real-time digitization, according to Lenovo. This means your handwriting or drawing is mirrored on the screen — a feature that students and graphic artists might be drawn to.
Lenovo says the Real Pen can draw with the precision of a pencil or paintbrush, with 2,048 pressure levels and 100-degree angle detection. The 10.1-inch screen, which is made of Gorilla glass, also responds to the stylus but it’s not as responsive as the drawing surface.
For those who like the feel of ink on paper, there’s also an option to plug an ink tip to the Real Pen (it comes with three ink refills) so you can write or draw on the 20-page Book Pad (also included) and save a digitized version of your work on the Yoga Book. You can also use any paper as long as it fits the Book Pad clipboard.
The Yoga Book’s 10.1-inch full-HD display is nothing to write home about, except for its touchscreen capability, which I found more reliable than the touchpad when it comes to scrolling through or navigating the screen. The thick glass bezel surrounding it (about 2 cm wide) may be disappointing to those looking to use the Yoga Book for creative applications and want to draw on as much screen real estate as possible, but for note-taking and other productivity purposes, this feature is negligible.
PERFORMANCE
The unit that Lenovo sent for review was the Carbon black, Windows 10 variant. There’s an Android version, which has some dedicated functions and a slightly different set of pre-loaded apps. For instance, the Android version comes with a nano-SIM tray for 4G LTE connectivity, as well as Google apps like Google Docs and Google Sheets, while the Windows version comes pre-loaded with Microsoft Office Mobile apps like MS Word and also OneNote.
What’s in the Box?
• 1 Yoga Book
• 1 Real Pen
• 1 Book Pad (with 15 pages)
• 3 Real Pen Ink Refills
The Windows review unit features Intel Atom X5 quad-core processor with a 1.44 GHz base clock speed, 4 GB of RAM, and 64 GB storage with a micro-SD slot that supports up to 128 GB. These specs are just about right for the Yoga Book’s price. The premium 2-in-1s — those that retail for above P50,000, usually come with better processing power (1.6 GHz to 2.4 GHz) and a bigger RAM (up to 8 GB) that offer more muscle to drive productivity.
In the course of this review, multiple-tab browsing, word processing, and playing videos worked without lag on the Yoga Book. It was when I started accessing apps such as Adobe Photoshop Express and a pre-installed creativity app ArtRage (Lite) at the same time as switching between multiple tabs on Chrome and Internet Explorer browsers that the Yoga Book became sluggish and, at times, froze some apps into being non-responsive. This goes to show that the Yoga Book is only good for light productivity work while on the go.
The Yoga Book’s note-taking feature was amazing and it’s something students will surely appreciate. A colleague, who’s a graphic artist, also tested the Yoga Book’s drawing surface using ArtRage (Lite), and she said the Yoga Book worked as efficiently as a Wacom drawing tablet.
The Yoga Book is said to last 13 hours of use on a single charge. I brought the Yoga Book with me for a four-day industry conference, which entailed about 8 hours per day of writing articles and browsing the Web. On and off, I’d say the Yoga Book lasted a day and a half without having to plug it for charging.
VERDICT
On paper, the concept of the Yoga Book is great. But in reality, it’s an imperfect ultraportable laptop marred by less-than-ideal typing experience. But I’d like to see what Lenovo can do when it comes out with the next iteration of this beautiful note-taking device. If anything, the Yoga Book is an indicator of good things to come. — Mira Catherine B. Gloria
The dreamy life of a VIP personal shopper
Aimee Hashim, owner of luxury trading company LoveLuxe Trading, Inc., has shopped for more than a hundred Birkin bags. She doesn’t own all of them. The 28‑year‑old keeps for herself “just ten” of those. The rest goes to her stellar clients (a long list which includes tycoons and actresses), who get to enjoy the elusive Hermés “handbag of all handbags” famous for its pricetag (up to $150,000 or ₱7 million) and its long waitlist, which makes it more like a Ferrari than a bag.
That, among many other reasons, is why moneyed people hire Ms. Hashim’s services: she gets in line for them. Oh, but that’s not the end of it. She profiles prospective clients, assesses their taste, then has their shopping money (plus her fee) deposited in her bank account. Then, she contacts her Dubai‑based staff, boards a plane to the shopping capitals, makes rounds on fashion houses’ shop floors, rubs shoulders with the who’s who of the industry, runs through exclusive collections, picks out the items for her clients, flies back, and then delivers the haul back to them, personally, in their homes.
“Remember this pair of Ralph & Russo shoes of Marian [Rivera]?” she asked us one afternoon at a coffeeshop neighbouring a television network in Quezon City, talking about the local celebrity whom she considers gave her the biggest break. “She’s been wanting to get it for couple of years, and she has already asked several shoppers. I was the only one who got those because you can only get a pair by appointment.”
“It’s about bridging the gap of what’s not accessible to my clients,” she says in that afternoon, one of those rare occasions she’s in town. The luxury trader was in between meetings with two celebrity clients whose ages are about the same as hers when she first took on this job.
This—shopping for the rich—counts as her first job.
Hidden past the racks of designer clothing, genuine leather handbags, shoes, and god knows what, her closet contains her own proverbial skeleton (though not necessarily negative): a nursing uniform. Ms. Hashim, in a previous lifetime, is a registered nurse.
In fact, she could’ve further pursued a career as a doctor—she has the smarts for it, plus that’s what her engineer parents wanted her to do—but like a woman walking in the wrong pair of heels, she tripped and landed someplace else.
The year was 2008. Aimee Hashim had just graduated from college, and has barely rubbed off her reputation as the most glamorous student in class, whose habit of wearing heels in the classroom compelled the school to create a new rule against it.
Bored of waiting for the nursing boards results, Ms. Hashim logged onto her computer and whipped up a CV.
The next day, she walked in the holy grail of luxury shopping malls, Rustan’s. Wearing a trendy pair of jeans and sexy heeled boots, she came for an interview.
“I wasn’t even applying for a personal shopper position,” she recounted, reeling in memories from her childhood where she’d been naturally fond of fashion. “I remember the HR head telling me that she liked how I carried myself from the moment I stepped in, and by the way that I spoke with them.”
The company offered her the job as a lifestyle consultant for the company’s platinum clients.
For the uninitiated: Platinum clients are Rustan’s VIPs who are feted the center’s best new items in a special fitting session at an eponymous lounge.
As a lifestyle consultant, her job included choosing clothes, shoes, and bags for their customers—celebrities, businessmen, elites—based on their profiles.
“It was my first job out of college, and I think it was my destiny,” she said. “I think I was destined to do that when I look at all the odds.” Because literally, armed with a nursing degree, she was the odd one out. “Among my colleagues, I was the only one who was different.” she narrated. “They were like, ‘You’re a nurse, what are you doing here?”
Which is such a foolish question. If they only realized then that if there’s anything nursing taught Ms. Hashim, it’s how to take care of people.
“You have to build a relationship with them,” she said, now talking about her clients. “You need to study each person, you have to know their preferences, what works for them, what doesn’t work for them, what they like, and what they don’t like. Those are the things that I had to study.”
In the midst of her new endeavor, Ms. Hashim learned about the result of the exam. But despite the positive outcome, she still chose to continue with her newfound job.
“My family at first didn’t support me because they really wanted me to pursue my career, my profession. They were all engineers and they wanted to have a doctor in the family,” she said.
“But it was so easy for me to adjust [to fashion]. It just came naturally I think because I really love what I was doing,” she said. “I get a certain kind of high when I see the things that I shopped for,” she added. “Before I did this kind of work, I was already shopaholic.” In fact, she might as well have walked out of a Sophie Kinsella novel…
…minus the mismanagement of finances.
Ms. Hashim is invested in Birkins, but also in this business and a plethora of other ventures like a travel agency and a flower shop. She also has a full range of staff who assist her in keeping tabs on stores all over the world.
Yet she still considers LoveLuxe Trading as her baby. After all, she built it from the ground up. From Rustan’s, she transferred to SM and worked as a merchandise manager for the company’s shoe designing department. But not long after, she left the company and flew to Dubai (where her British‑Indian family lives) to start her enterprise.
In Dubai she looked for contacts, shopped for new items then posted the products on Facebook. She had only one rule: “I will post whatever is saleable to me.”
Opening the business, Ms. Hashim had only one goal: to be the “go‑to person of almost everyone whenever they want anything.”
“It became one of my trademarks,” she said. “If anyone wants something that is hard to find, they just go to me. I used my connections, having the points that I have there. I call the stores, if it’s not in their store, I ask them to please find out if they can have it shipped to theirs, or if I need someone in another country to buy them.”
In the next couple of years, she is eyeing more businesses related to fashion and retailing, that will perhaps allow her to go beyond the luxury market. “I also want to build a safe environment for online sellers,” she added. “That’s my dream, that’s how I see myself in the next couple of years.”
With a brand that continues to expand, along with the territory are detractors, and Ms. Hashim sometimes even becomes collateral damage, especially when showbiz figures are pitted against each other. The most recent case is an infamous Dolce & Gabbana t‑shirt whose authenticity was questioned.
But issues like that do not succeed in bringing a good woman down. Clients keep coming back, and new ones pour in. And on top of it all, like a whiff of Chanel No. 5 over a well-done ensemble, Stefano Gabbana (verified account) followed her on Instagram.
“I remember telling this to my mom: ‘You watch out, I’m going to show you how it’s done.”
“And it really happened.”
Photos courtesy of Aimee Hashim.