When Vonda Simon heard Cindy Crawford was coming out with a line of beauty products, she said she sent the supermodel a quick e-mail.
No surprise,Simon didn’t hear back from Crawford. So she contacted Guthy-Renker Corp., the Palm Desert company that distributes Crawford’s line and others such as Proactiv, hawked by Jessica Simpson.
Guthy-Renker suggested Simon bid on a contract to supply bottles and other custom containers for Crawford’s line. She did. She won.
Crawford’s Meaningful Beauty line of skin cleansers and creams came out in 2004 in simple white containers with purple aluminum lids from Simon.
Simon’s company, SeaCliff Packaging Inc. of Newport Beach, makes bottles, jars, tubes and other containers for companies, including San Francisco’s Bare Escentuals Inc., El Segundo-based Murad Inc. and Irvine’s Arbonne International Inc.
SeaCliff has about $10 million in yearly sales and eight workers.
Keeping the Crawford account has been a struggle, according to Simon. Cosmetic packaging is competitive and made up of companies much larger than hers.
One of Simon’s biggest rivals is her former employer, TricorBraun, part of Kranston Industries Inc. of St. Louis.
TricorBraun’s largest office is in Cerritos. Kranston does nearly half a billion in yearly sales.
Simon said she competes through tenacity.
“I was always the top salesperson,” she said. “I never knew the gossip in the office.”
Simon, who has model looks herself, isn’t the pushy type. She’s one of those people who you’d buy from because you like her. She said her approach to sales is finding out how she can help market new lines, not “I can do this cheaper.”
SeaCliff takes on accounts that need at least 5,000 containers. But Simon said she’ll consider any kind of business, even from a teeny tiny entrepreneur.
Too Nice For Own Good
Sometimes Simon’s amiable attitude gets her into trouble, she said.
“I’m really too nice, even with my kids,” she said.
It also can be a weakness when hiring, she said.
“If you’re a person that’s going to take advantage of me, I’ll get hurt,” Simon said.
Finding workers, which for SeaCliff mostly are salespeople, is one of the hardest parts of the job, she said.
She’ll hire people who’ll say they have big goals, say buying a house. But they don’t want to work for it, she said.
“You just don’t find people who want to work,” Simon said. “Our staff is great, but it’s taken seven years.”
People who don’t like their jobs confound Simon, who, at 45, said she thrives on her work. She practically sleeps with her Blackberry, she said.
“I can do six jobs at once and run circles around 30-year-olds,” Simon said. “Do what you love and the money will follow is absolutely true.”
Simon has side projects. She said she’d like to design a line of affordable, stylish jeans.
“I know it’s crazy but I love jeans,” Simon said.
SeaCliff got its start in 1999 in Huntington Beach. Simon named the company after the neighborhood she and her husband, Scott Simon, lived in.
The couple moved to Newport Beach two years ago. The company followed a year ago.
Scott Simon, who sold his Santa Ana-based janitorial maintenance business, joined SeaCliff about two years ago. He handles the books.
Newport Beach-based inves-tor Springboard Capital Corp. owns about 9% of the company. SeaCliff and Springboard principals, who are friends and business partners, have about seven investments together.
Simon and her husband have diverse investments. They include Arkansas real estate (“Californians are all flocking there to get away,” Simon said) and a documentary, “Eye of the Whale.”
Fills, Too
SeaCliff can make just a lid or an entire package, from design to filling the container with lotion, eye makeup or some other product.
“Some companies prefer one company handle it all,” Simon said.
SeaCliff contracts out for the design and fill work. It can stamp simple print on the bottles. Or, for a lot of color and graphics, SeaCliff applies heat to plastic shrink sleeves that wrap around the bottles.
You have to know the products to package them, according to Simon. Some ingredients aren’t compatible with some containers. A product might not pump out right or discolor a metal lid.
“It ruins launches,” she said.
Part of Business
Cosmetic companies rely on attractive and expensive packaging to draw buyers.
“Metal is so in now,” Simon said.
The innards are important, too. Airless pumps are the big thing. They pump out all of the lotion, leaving the container clean.
SeaCliff also makes cosmetic accessories. One is the Kabuki makeup brush. The company sells millions of the brushes, which go for $28 each in stores, Simon said.
Most of the cosmetic containers are made in South Korea, Simon said.
“Korea is the largest consumer of cosmetics in the world,” she said.
Simon said she hired a factory liaison, who is Korean. She often works until 2 a.m. and travels to South Korea building business, according to Simon.
“For me to be gone three weeks is not a good thing,” she said.
Simon lives the California lifestyle. She’s tall, fit and blonde.
She met her husband at the gym. These days, she works out at her home gym with a personal trainer. She was 42 when she had her first child, Jazmine. She also has a son, Jacob, who is nearly three.
Simon said she plans to grow the company and doesn’t intend to sell it.
“My kids may work here,” she said.
Her parents were Polish immigrants. She spent much of her childhood moving from country to country and school to school, living in Japan and Poland.
“I didn’t come from money,” she said.
Simon graduated from the University of California, Riverside, with a business degree. She said she didn’t know where she wanted to work but knew she wanted to sell.
“I could be doing this in my 70s,” she said. “My mother’s still selling Avon.”
