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Show ‘The Salt Lake Tribune BUSINESS Spend Money Smartly to See Sunday, April 23, 2000 stores Motherhood Maternity, Mimi Maternity and A Pea —— At departmentstores, based Gap. “So why not give them whatthey are looking for and have Best Return it actually fit?” Macy’s and Lord & Taylor have expanded their maternity line. Target, too, has created more room for maternity, and its efforts have paid off — sales rose 20 per- “You have to spend money to make e cent from 1998 to 1999. Target’s maternity merchandise sells for below $30. By this summer, Target = sell its maternity line on the week, when I was faced im Some United States give birth each year, and while most don’t want to buy a brand-new maternity wardrobe, they would like staple items such as pants and shirts, and maybe and fits the body much more closely. Gap Inc. launched a line of 16 items in March. Now pregnant women can wear their favorite Gap There is even bigger growth in the high-end business. jigner Liz Lange has been credited with bringing some attention to the upscale market. Lange’s business began three Jeff GeissterThe Associated Press mom Nicole Designer Liz Lange, Ee right, consults with wi Markson at Lange's posh Madison Avenue store in New York. years ago as she listened to her pregnant friends complain that they had nothing to wear. Now, she is outfitting everyone from actress Catherine Zeta-Jones to model Elle Macpherson to executives on Wall Street. ange sells wide array of sleek designs, including $72 stretch Tshirts and $275 long dress coats,in a posh Madison Avenue store atid plans to open another shop in Béverly Hills later this year. She also operates a Web site, www.litlange.com,and a catalog. “I woke this market up, ahd made people realize there was great demand for beautiful, fine maternity clothes,” said the 33- year-old Lange. on whatto spend a lot ofmoney on, I know exactly whatI'dsay: spend more money on marketing and save money onrent. Guess whatI did: exactly the opposite. Ts this just a case ofthe expert not following her own advice? Perhaps. But there were actually important business reasons for making the choices I did and lessons to be learned about whatkinds ofthings to voted a great deal oftime to setting our priorities, long-range andshort-range.This led to the creation ofa week-by-weekcalendar ofthings we haveto accomplish in the next six months. Getting office space was critical to handle our rapid growth.Since office space is difficult to find in Silicon Valley —as well as expensive — when we were lucky enough to elementin spending money. A plan gives you a guide for decision-making. Developing a plan — and a budget — gives you overall perspective on whatto spend moneyonbefore you are faced with a specific choice. We knew wehadto haveoffices; we knew it would be expensive, and we had budgeted the money for it. When the right space became available, we could movefast. OK, but marketing is also a top priority on our “to do”list. Wehave gotto have top quality marketing materials. We had budgeted for that, too. So why, when our marketing firm presented us with a number of really cool and creative ideas, did we say “No”? With marketing materials, we had lot more options than wedid with office space. By spending more time exploring different choices, we were able to come up with a wide range ofsolutions. Instead ofdeveloping a custom-made presentation kit from scratch — costing a lot in terms ofproduction materials and the creative time ofour marketing firm — we decided to ordera readily available, top-quality presentation binder, imprinted with our logo, at a fraction ofthe price. Now I have to admit, we made a trade-off: We could have made a stronger impression with the custom-made kit, butwe are still a small start-up, and every dollar counts. Wehad carefully created our budget, so when we were faced with some really nifty ideas that were much higher than our price range, we were able to say “No.” Once we relied on our our spending. In business, you are going to have to be somewhatflexible, but when you have a range of choices, thatis the time to try to stay close to your original projections. It is definitely true that you make The First Security IMMA Plus has performance written all over it! An insured money market account to write home about. 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