Lopeti Etu and David Balluff are thrilled to announce the upcoming opening of L&D15, a new retail boutique devoted to clothing, accessories, art and housewares in downtown Davenport, Iowa. They will launch the store, located at 520-524 West 2nd St., with a grand opening event, featuring music, art and fashion, on November 15th, 2014.

"We wanted to create a space that supports our vision of the future of retail - a venue that not only allows us to produce and sell our own products in house, but also supports the greater artistic community," explains Balluff. "Our store will offer a range of products, showcasing local artists and designers alongside nationally known luxury brands like Me&Ro, San & Soni, FGI's Rising Star award winner Peter Hidalgo and fashion illustrator Jeffrey Fulvimari."

Both Balluff and Etu are especially excited by their exclusive arrangement with NYC jewelry design company Me&Ro, whose products have been featured in film and on TV, from The Devil Wears Prada and Black Swan to Scandal and Modern Family. "It's crazy to think that our store will carry the same jewelry worn by so many actresses on the red carpet and on the big screen. Is it too much to hope that Angelina Jolie or Natalie Portman will stop by and pick up another pair of earrings at L&D15?" Etu wonders. "We can dream."

L&D15 is located in a 2500 square foot building, ideally situated near downtown arts and entertainment venues. Built in 1910, it was once home to New York Hat Works, especially appropriate to designer and milliner Lopeti Etu.

"We immediately fell in love with the space, which gives us ample room for a workshop in addition to a unique retail environment. We think Davenport, Iowa is a promising location to start a fashion and artistic hub," said Etu. "There is an appreciation for the arts in the Quad Cities, a growing population of young professionals, and a lot of new development and energy."

Etu began his career in New York City doing window display at Bergdorf Goodman. He creates hand-blocked, one of a kind hats, cocktail hats and fascinators under the Lopeti Etu Millinery label, and has collaborated with several high profile designers in NYC, including Marc Bouwer, Catherine Malandrino and Patricia Field. Photos of his hats have appeared in French Vogue, Marie Claire, O Magazine, and in other print media.

Bettendorf native David Balluff is an artist and graphic designer with an MFA in Electronic Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. He initially learned to silkscreen while working as an Artist-Educator at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA and began General Assembly, a hand-silkscreened t-shirt line, in 2009.

Braley fighting to raise minimum wage to $10.10/hr & restore its purchasing power.

In contrast, state Sen. Joni Ernst opposes the federal minimum wage and believes $15,000 a year is an appropriate wage for hardworking Iowans

Des Moines, IA - To mark National Minimum Wage Day, Bruce Braley today reiterated his call for an overdue increase to the minimum wage that would provide 300,000 Iowans with a pay raise and infuse $272 million in to Iowa's economy.

It's a simple fact of business: Without sales, no one else downstream can do their jobs, says veteran sales manager and business speaker Jack Daly. Because of how vital sales are to a company, CEOs frequently tend to misuse their best people, he says.

"There are three sins that minimize the sales management role, which ultimately holds the company back from achieving its growth," says Daly, author of "Hyper Sales Growth," (www.jackdaly.net).

"When they misallocate key players, small to medium-sized businesses tend to go into one of two directions. They either stay small to medium, or they go out of business. When you ask why, it most often comes down to a violation of one or more of these three sins of sales management. Having the right people in important spots is absolutely the secret to success."

To ensure continued growth, Daly says the people at the top must avoid the following:

Sin No. 1 ... is committed when the CEO or owner wears the hat of the sales manager. If you are doing that, you're essentially relegating both the CEO job and the sales manager job to part-time status. In effect, you're saying, "I'm going to grow my business part time." If you want your business to grow, you must grow your sales force, and you need someone doing that full time.

Sin No. 2 ... is to make the best salesperson the sales manager. It can work, but seldom does. The usual scenario, however, is you lose your best salesperson and get a mediocre sales manager. The role and the responsibilities are entirely different. A salesperson's role is to win new customers and nurture the ones you have, thereby differentiating you from your competitors. The sales manager's job involves recruiting, training, coaching, building and developing. Being effective at one of those jobs is not an indicator that a person will be equally effective in the other. Salespeople are used to immediate gratification, involving a deal-to-deal routine. Sales managers, by contrast, must take their time to recruit, train and coach. A salesperson might easily become disenchanted with the pace of the new role and look for another sales job, perhaps with your competitor.

Sin No. 3 ... is probably the most grievous of all. The best salesperson is made a sales manager, but he or she is also required to continue booking business. It's absolutely ruinous. The person's focus will remain fixed on the customer, as that is how their compensation is driven. Accordingly, the sales team will be underserved, missing the opportunity for leveraged growth.

The key to growth is to put the right people in the right places, Daly says.
"Since sales drive business, it's essential to match skills and personality types to the jobs, and to ensure the people can focus on their roles," Daly says.

About Jack Daly

Jack Daly, author of "Hyper Sales Growth," (www.jackdaly.net), is an experienced and inspirational sales trainer and sales coaching expert who, as a sought-after speaker, motivates audiences to take action in the areas of sales planning and training, and customer loyalty. Daly draws upon more than 20 years of business experience, with several successful stints as the CEO of fast-growing companies. He has a Bachelor's in Science degree in accounting, a Master of Business Administration degree, was a Captain in U.S. Army and is an accomplished author with audio and DVD programs.

Over half a century ago, when my brother Frank was at the Iowa School for the Deaf, he was told he could be one of three things: a printer, a cobbler, or a baker. He had unlimited potential, but his choices were limited by the societal barriers faced by too many people with disabilities. Our country has changed since then. With the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, we began to tear down those obstacles and expand the opportunities for people with disabilities. We have increased the accessibility of our buildings, streets, parks, beaches, and recreation areas. Today, our books, TVs, telephones, and computers are more accessible. We are on the path toward the full realization of the four goals we set out to achieve with ADA: equal opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency; however, there is still work to be done.

Unfortunately, one area of American life has been resistant to change: employment and the pathway it provides to participate in the middle class. Twenty-four years after the signing of the ADA, Americans with disabilities remain disproportionately poor and face significant barriers to joining and remaining in the middle class.

This October, we observe National Disability Employment Awareness Month. While we should celebrate the progress that has been made, we must also recognize and confront the very real employment crisis faced by Americans with disabilities. People with disabilities remain far more likely to be impoverished, to be out of the workforce, and to be experiencing the detrimental effects of living in poverty.

On the most important economic measures such as unemployment, workforce participation, annual earnings, and poverty, people with disabilities often are in the worst condition compared to almost any other group. Twice as many Americans with disabilities live in poverty than those without disabilities. Less than 30 percent of working-age Americans with disabilities participate in the workforce, and households with an adult member with a disability earn 38.4 percent less than households without an adult member with a disability. These facts make it clear that people with disabilities are still encountering roadblocks in the path to the middle class and that the ADA's goal of economic self-sufficiency has not yet been achieved.

As chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, I launched an investigation into these roadblocks. I heard from over 400 people with disabilities from across the country, all of whom had or currently live at the poverty level. They reported experiencing employment discrimination, discriminatory wages, inaccessible workplaces, and persistently low expectations about what they can accomplish. They also reported that they often cannot participate in the workforce because they lack reliable, accessible transportation and accessible, affordable housing. To fully realize the vision of the ADA, we as a nation must confront these problems.

Congress needs to do its part to develop strategies to clear the path to the middle class. I am optimistic that we will begin to see the benefits of the 2014 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, passed by my committee, and recently signed into law by the president. The new law requires that schools and vocational rehabilitation programs work together to ensure young people with disabilities develop the skills and knowledge needed in emerging fields. It also provides resources for employers to learn how to support people with disabilities in the workforce and how to provide accommodations so individuals with disabilities can be successful at work. I have also recently introduced three bills, the Universal Home Design Act, the Accessible Transportation for All Act, and the Exercise and Fitness for All Act, to address the physical barriers to employment that people with disabilities still experience.

At the same time, we can all work to eliminate attitudinal barriers by celebrating the many contributions of America's workers with disabilities and educating others about disability employment issues. The time for America to shed narrow views about people with disabilities - prejudices that limited the opportunities for my brother and continue to limit the opportunities for countless others - is well overdue. Together, we can take the needed steps towards ensuring opportunity for all.

To read my report on disability and poverty visit: http://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HELP%20Committee%20Disability%20and%20Poverty%20Report.pdf. You can also learn more about ways to observe Disability Employment Awareness Month by visiting the Department of Labor website: http://www.dol.gov/odep/topics/ndeam/index-2014.htm.

A PDF version of this article can be found here.