How I built Richmondmom.com. How you can build your dream, too.
On a recent water taxi into the city of Boston, our captain’s t-shirt immediately caught my eye.
So simply stated, rudely ironed-on, begging the reader to absorb the message while soaking in the hot morning sun: it’s telling of our success on our blog and with our readers and clients.
Positivity. (Is that a word?!) it’s in the way we approach topics, respond to readers’ questions, coaborate with charities, brainstorm with our clients.
No disability of disposition here.
I was talking to a friend recently who also happens to be an entrepreneur about the amazing ways in which doors open to us as business owners.
At first–at least for me–it seemed like forever until clients were approaching me about partnering with me in some way. At a certain point though, after months and months of hard work, experimentation and building our site content the tide began to turn, and suddenly we were accepting instead of just making phone calls.
If we can see it through to that day when we begin to build a name for ourselves, do great things for others by helping them along, and giving back to the community, the doors begin to open in rapid fashion. Just walk through.
Last Saturday, I jumped off a building. I recently made light of it in a blog post on Richmondmom.com, but the truth is, it was pretty darn scary.
I had never rappeled from anything before, let alone a 400-ft. building in downtown Richmond (the SunTrust building). But when I saw some of my friends from Twitter doing this challenge for Over the Edge for Special Olympics VA last year I knew I couldn’t let the chance go by without trying it this year.
With thanks to HCA for helping me make the $1,000 in donations needed in order to jump, I saddled up into a bunch of gear and took a looooong elevator ride to a bunch of stairs to the most amazing view in Richmond, before “sitting into nothing” and rappeling down 400 feet to the ground.
I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Now, I’m not afraid anymore.
I find that it’s the same in business. When I started, I was a bit afraid of cold calling businesses introducing my site: would they have heard of Richmondmom.com? No. Would they be interested in partnering withRichmondmom.com? Sure, why not! Would I call them today? Nah, how about tomorrow. . it’s too easy to stay busy with other work than grow the business.
But the truth is that I didn’t have much business, and I had three kids to feed and Christmas was coming. So cold-call I did. Determination was all I had. And sales came through. I had a ton of work to do, and was thrilled to have paying customers to do it for.
Do what we’re most afraid of, and we won’t be afraid any more.
Richmondmom.com Magazine launched this Wednesday, October 13, 2010 inside of Richmond Grid Magazine, an arts/culture/business magazine with a distribution of 60K quarterly.
Just three short months ago the publishers, Palari Publishing, who helped me create and print Richmond Rocks, approached me about partnering with them on their magazine.
I thought we were going to discuss the reprint of Richmond Rocks since we were getting close to the end of our 2,000-copy original print run, so when Ted Randler pulled out his iPad with a mock-up of Richmondmom.com Magazine I held my breath for a moment. It was surreal, almost as much so as when, three months later, I saw the actual print magazine with my photo on the cover at the launch party!
When previously asked if I’d do a magazine I’d always answered that I’d “never want to go print.” Being a web girl and having developed Richmondmom.com from the ground-up (and I mean the ground; the original site was rough at best) to be an online resource I was sure that print was a dinosaur soon to be fossilized. But I have to admit that when I saw that mock-up and thought of the possibilities for the site and my clients, it was too incredible of an opportunity to pass up.
Working with my clients–many of whom were thrilled at the opportunity to have a print magazine to solidify and advertise their brand to the mom market that Richmondmom.com attracts–was a pleasure and reinforced the fact that print is still very much alive. Not only are Dave Smitherman and Ted Randler as well as writer Paul Spicer super-creative, the Grid Team are all incredibly personable and talented.
They also have their finger on the pulse of the Richmond social media community, and have worked to create Richmond Grid as a social media-centric publication with shout-outs to the RVA Twitter crowd and a website to keep the information flowing in-between quarterly print publications.
We work together to create content that is unique, relevant, and interesting for Richmond VA readers–not information that is easily discovered elsewhere. It’s also packaged in a quick-flowing style that makes the reader want to devour the pages.
So far on my entrepreneurial journey, the opportunity to become a print magazine has been the best surprise gift, a nicely-wrapped and decorated box that I’ll cherish and reopen with each quarterly issue.
Oh, and I’ll try to remind myself to never say “never” again 
I recently attended the VA State Fair with my youngest child, my only daughter, a three-year-old. My timing was not great as we got there a bit late in the morning, she was getting tired already and it was hot as blazes out even in September.
As luck would have it, I took the stroller out of the back of my wagon, and promptly locked the keys in my purse, phone, and money in the car.
We hauled it to the fair gate where a state trooper called the parking lot attendants for us to see if they could help. I assumed we’d call a locksmith but followed their lead and went back to the car as I was instructed. Meanwhile, my daughter had fallen apart, was hungry and tired and apparently dying of thirst.
I snagged a young man on a golf cart when I spied the cooler in the back and asked if we could please have some water. What unfolded after that point was nothing short of a customer service miracle:
-He asked me what was wrong, and after sharing the situation with him was on his radio in 5.2 seconds making sure they were coming quickly to unlock my car.
-He stayed with us until others came with the proper tools to unlock the car, telling me that this happens all the time (not sure if it does, but it made me feel better).
-Not only did he give my daughter a cold bottle of water, he pulled one of his own Hawaiian punch packets out of his pocket and gave it to me with another water to mix-up for her; he talked to her and helped lighten her mood.
-His crew was there and we were back in the car with keys in hand in under forty-five minutes, would not accept any payment, and RMC Events had a new admirer in me. This photo is of my daughter, leaving the fair after a great afternoon with a new little friend.
I aspire to give this type of customer service to my clients; I’m sure I fall short of this on most days. But I’m going to try, because I’ll never forget how good they made me feel.
