How to Create, Develop, Test, Produce, Market, and Sell a Unique Product

I would like to welcome "guest blogger"—Bobette Kyle—whom I have mentioned many times in The Writing Life as a marketing and Web guru, among the many hats she wears. If you are interested in "living your best day, every day," read on.

Four St. Louis women recently started Daysteps LLC, where our mission is to help women live more balanced and fulfilled lives. The company is very nontraditional in that all four of us balance work and personal time independently--and very differently--according to what works best for each of us. Additionally, our "office location" changes continually; meetings are held wherever our lives intersect (whether that be at one of their homes, online, or a local restaurant).

• How this day planner for women is different from other's in the market today

In a broad sense, Daysteps is a lifestyle. It is the personal desire to become more accepting of life right now while achieving life balance, self-improvement, and personal fulfillment. It is the process of making these changes part of a daily routine and integrating them one day at a time, one step at a time.

Our first product--the Daysteps Personal Lifestyle Planner--helps women do this. This planner is different because it combines lifestyle, appointment tracking, and goal setting features. It encompasses many key aspects of life and is designed to motivate the user to become the person she wants to be.

• The target market for Daysteps

Our ideal customers are women who run households and have significant other responsibilities (a home business, for example). Yet, it is flexible enough that each woman can "make it her own" by using each section as she prefers.

Daysteps empowers women by giving them tangible ways to move toward their own goals on their own terms each day. We recognize that each woman has a unique set of values that should define her personal vision of success.

• How Daysteps came about

The concept began when Kelly Wagner recognized an unmet need: a lack of tools to easily integrate positive life changes on a daily basis. Kelly knew each of us from different parts of her life and recognized that our different strengths could contribute differently to this project.

• The main challenges we faced in creating Daysteps

Creating a unique product, then getting the message across. We literally began with blank paper and built this planner from the ground up. The iterations, rewrites, and testing took more than a year.

• How we are marketing Daysteps

Our marketing plan includes a combination of strategies for reaching our ideal customers; both short- and long-term activities, plus different distribution channels. We are focusing on direct distribution channels (local shows and direct, face-to-face sales through our individual networks), online ordering (through our Website, Amazon.com, and other sellers), and sales through independent retail stores or professionals. Longer term, we are beginning the process of gaining distribution in retail chains, who have a longer decision-making time frame for planners.

Our marketing programs are primarily social media and public relations related. We issued a launch press release, are offering opportunities for reviews, sponsoring several giveaways, and can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

• Our plans for Daysteps in the next five years

We're planning to roll out new versions for different user types, if surveys and market research indicate a need. We also plan to continue publishing our Personal Lifestyle Planner (current offered in 2010 Full-Year, Jan-June 2010, and July-December 2010 editions).

• Lessons we can share other entrepreneurs

There will always be more to do than you can physically accomplish. That's why prioritization is critical. Every second spent on one activity is a second *not* spent on another. If the latter activities are more profitable than the ones you are doing, that has a direct impact on the bottom line. To prioritize marketing and sales activities, ask yourself if that activity has a direct, positive impact on reaching or satisfying your ideal customer. If not, there are more profitable ways to spend your time.

A misconception held by many entrepreneurs is that successful businesses run smoothly. In reality, being in business comes with bumps and challenges along the way. Keep in mind that implementing a business and marketing plan is an ongoing process--implement, evaluate, adjust, implement, evaluate, adjust, etc.--and success does not require perfection.

Another lesson is to believe in you. Many times others will not "get" your vision, especially if it involves a completely unique product or new way of thinking. That's OK. Continue to focus on your ideal customers, and understand how your company meets their needs, and you will be successful.

Your Best Day, Every Day
http://www.Daysteps.com

Wearing My “Entrepreneur” Hat

Let’s say I’m comfortable with two of my three hats as a small business owner: technician and manager. After all these years, I have a pretty firm hold on the creative side of my business. I love writing, editing, coaching, and teaching; and I think I’ve gotten pretty good at them. While my least favorite hat is that of manager, if I’m going to stay in business, I have to wear it and master all that it implies. I continue to work hard on getting that hat to fit. That leaves Hat #3 — entrepreneur.

David E. Gerber, author of The E-Myth Revisited, describes the entrepreneur as the visionary, the dreamer, and the catalyst for change. In other words, this is the part of us that grows our businesses and sees opportunities. That sounds great, but what does it mean? Well, the “growing the business” part is fairly straightforward. When I’m finished with the project I’m working on, if I haven’t filled the pipeline, I won’t have another project to do. Of course, there is always the element of luck or fate or whatever makes the phone ring when I haven’t done a thing to make it ring.

That happened a lot in the beginning, and I never really knew why. Someone would call and offer me a freelance opportunity. The good news was I had lots of work; the bad news was I didn’t understand what it took to find that work. The magic word was marketing, which, to me, was mysterious and scary.

Like so many small business owners, I muddled through for years until I met a marketing expert who sat me down and taught me the basics … and I mean basics. My friend and marketing guru, Bobette Kyle, has years of experience and a master’s degree in marketing. If she talked nonstop for a year, she couldn’t begin to tell me what she knows; but she has told me enough to make me downright happy to wear my entrepreneur hat. What I once approached with trepidation, I now enjoy and look forward to doing.

What about the “seeing opportunities” part? I would also describe that as the ability to reinvent oneself when necessary. I’ve had to do that many times in the past two decades. When I first started freelancing, I wrote a great many articles for corporate publications. That was an extension of what I had been doing for years and probably would have continued doing if all those corporate magazines and newsletters in St. Louis hadn’t ceased publication. OK, if I didn’t write articles, what would I do? Well, if I put on my entrepreneur hat, I would ask myself what are the needs in the market? And what are the opportunities? The answers determine how I would reinvent myself this time.

If you don’t like change, this idea will not have much appeal. In that case, you aren’t going to like wearing the entrepreneur hat. Fortunately, that hat fits me very well these days.

Wearing My "Technician" Hat

One of the three hats a small business owner wears is that of technician. This is the person who does the work — writing, designing, developing, baking, or whatever the business exists to produce and sell. In most cases, it is the technician who decides to “go into business” so that she can do whatever it is she does without someone else raking in all that delicious profit. After all, she figures, I design websites; therefore I know how to run a website-design business. Well, if you read “The E-Myth Revisited … Again,” you know it takes more than a technician to create, manage, and grow a successful business.

I am a writer and all that such a designation implies. In other words, I am a technician. I don’t like to think of myself that way — a professional, an artist, even a hack, but not a technician. Well, like it or not, that’s what I am, if one is to accept author Michael E. Gerber’s definition.

I started my own business because I wanted to write … full time. Of course, it didn’t work out that way, but let’s assume for a moment that it did. Here I am, writing, editing, proofreading, revising, and all the stuff that writers do, every billable hour of my day. That was my dream. Now, I’m living it. So, what is it really like to be a full-time writer?

Well, there are good days, and there are bad days. There are highs, and there are lows. There are moments of flow and transcendence, and there are even more moments of tedium. Yes, tedium. There is subject matter that would put a speed addict to sleep. There are times when getting words onto the screen feels more like a rockslide than a flowing stream. There are hours upon hours when I ache from my eyelashes to my toenails, but I can’t stop because I have a deadline. And there are those dreaded times when no words come. None. Nada. It’s called writers’ block. And it is real.

So, why did I ever think this would be a great way to earn a living? For one thing, I honestly didn’t know what to expect in real life. I had a romanticized image of words flowing effortlessly, my muse at my side, and fingers flying over the computer keys. While words do occasionally flow, mostly, they are placed like bricks, one at a time. Poets have muses; journalists and freelance writers do not, as least not in my experience. And flying fingers? While I actually know people whose fingers move very quickly, alas, I am not one of them. I am a dyslexic typist with arthritis. If it weren’t for spell check to alert me to all of the words that are inside out, I would have gone insane long ago.

OK, so it is not what I expected. It isn’t romantic; it is very hard work, even for those of us who have spent years honing our craft. It has always been hard work. Why did I think it would be different when I became my own boss? To be completely honest, I never thought that, instead of having one boss, I would have many — as many as there are clients or editors. If someone is paying you for your words, that person is your boss.

I didn’t think about the other two hats I would have to wear (entrepreneur and manager), mostly because I didn’t know about them. I didn’t think about how it would feel to be alone most of the time, living at home, working at home, and never being able to run down the hall to another office to get an opinion or just shoot the breeze. I didn’t think about a lot of things because I was, as Gerber put it, “in the throes of an entrepreneurial seizure.” (Read previous blog post for more on that.)

Now, it is 20 years later, and I’m still here. Twenty years of good days and bad days, of the mechanics of writing and the drudgery of writing, but mostly of the magic of writing. Yes, even after all of the above, it is still full of magic. Would I do it again, knowing what it’s really like? In a heartbeat.

(This is what a fellow writer once called a Readers Digesty ending. He was right.)

Revisiting the E Myth, Again

One of my favorite books is The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber. The reason they don’t work is that, in order to succeed as a small business owner, you have to be three people: a technician, an entrepreneur, and a manager. In other words, you have to be a little on the schizophrenic side, carefully balancing your different personas.

The technician is the part of you who does the work (writes, designs, bakes pies, builds cabinets); the entrepreneur is the part who grows the business (markets, networks, dreams, sells); and the manager is the part who runs the business (keeps records, sends out invoices, collects money, buys stamps and supplies, backs up computer files). If you can’t be all three, you’re supposed to hire the parts you need.

For most of us, the person we really understand is the technician. That’s who we are. We do whatever we do very well — in my case, write — but we usually do it for somebody else. Then, one day, according to Gerber, we are struck by an “entrepreneurial seizure.” That is the moment “when the idea of being our own boss, doing our own thing, singing our own song became obsessively irresistible … and we had to start our own business.”

That is also the moment when we fall victim to what Gerber calls “the fatal assumption: if we understand the technical work of a business, we understand a business that does that technical work.” We are wrong. We don’t. At least, I didn’t.

The longer I am in business (20 years now), the more I think about that fatal assumption and wonder whatever made me think that, because I could write, I could do all of those other things. To be honest, I didn’t know about the other things, so I probably didn’t think at all. In the midst of my personal entrepreneurial seizure, I just jumped off the cliff, and I’m sure I am not alone in the way I executed that brilliant business model.

I have read The E Myth Revisited so many times, it’s dog-eared and Scotch Taped together. I think Michael E. Gerber is a genius. I could quote him endlessly, but what I think I will do instead is contemplate how I have tried to master and integrate the three sides of my business self over the years. Then, I will share my musings with you.

It Takes a (Virtual) Team

In my dream of being a freelance writer, I could picture myself conducting interesting interviews, attending stimulating meetings, and sitting alone at my computer for many hours, doing what I love most. That was as far as my dream went. If I ever gave a thought to how I would manage finances, client relationships, or the myriad details of operating a one-person business, I don’t remember those things being part of my fantasy.

I confess that I made the same mistake many creative people make: I believed that if I could earn a living as a writer working for someone else, I could do the same thing working for myself. It’s a flawed concept in that writers and artists and people who bake the best cookies in the world may be masters of our respective crafts, but that is only one-third of the equation.

If I had taken courses in how to run a small business, I might have learned that earlier, but, alas, I did not. I just plunged in and began without having any idea of what I was doing. At first, I was very lucky, landing great corporate clients an earning nice fees. It was a heady experience, proving that I had made the right decision.

It is 20 years later (amazing!), and here is what I have learned, with the help of a dog-eared little book called The E Myth Revisited by Michael E. Berger. The E myth is exactly what I believed when I began: if I could do something well, I could run a business doing it. I was, and am, what Berger calls a “technician” — not too glamorous a label. To be a successful businessperson, I also had to be a manager (to run the business) and an entrepreneur (to dream big dreams and grow the business). In other words, every one-woman band really has to be a three-woman band. If I’m not strong in all three roles (and who is?), I must hire people who are. Right. At those times when I was barely scraping by, hiring two other people wasn’t a very realistic idea.

Fortunately, one learns or one perishes. Some years are better than others; some things are more fun to learn than others. I will never like accounting or collecting money. On the other hand, I have grown to love marketing, especially Internet marketing. I have continued to expand the other two sides of my virtual team because I know that, while I’m busy turning out prose, someone has to let the world know I’m here, buy stamps, send out invoices, file the endless reams of paper I generate, and dream those big dreams.