The Tin Shingle Blog

Uggh....the dreaded bad hair day!!!  Let's face it: no matter what hair type you have, (curly, fine, frizzy, thick, oily you name it) we have all fought with our manes. Rachel Blistein, of Original Moxie, has finally won that 30 year long battle with her own "challenging" hair. (Check out her "hair story" here.)  Rachel became dedicated to producing a real product, for real people, that contains pure, natural ingredients customized into herbal infusions and containing essential oil fragrances. She admits, in the begining there were many fails, but with much devotion Blistein developed a few miraculous products that became the birth of Original Moxie.  She shares more highlights, details, and struggles of her journey in this weeks #SmallBizSpotlight.

What inspired you to get started?

My own selfish needs for something I could not find in the marketplace: effective, natural hair products that would help me manage my thick, curly hair. In my mid-thirties, when I stopped chemically relaxing my hair, I struggled to find products that delivered the moisture, definition, and frizz control that I needed. I was spending a small fortune on expensive conditioners and styling products and still getting less than awesome results. Around the same time, I became aware of the toxic chemicals, like phthalates and parabens, which are found in most commercial hair care products. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the natural products that I sampled was not any better (and was often worse) than the synthetic alternatives. While I initially focused on developing a line of products that would meet my own needs, I quickly branched out to create products for friends and family with very different hair types from my own.

What was your background? Was it in what you are doing now?

Believe it or not, I actually started out as a Landscape Architect! I was designing mostly for residential clients in Michigan and had lots of free time on my hands during the long winter season. In the beginning, the hair care was just a way to fill time during my down time. However, once I got my first large wholesale client, everything changed in a hurry. I spent two years trying to manage both my landscape design and hair care businesses and then, after a particularly trying tax season, vowed 'Never Again!'. From that day forward, Original Moxie became my full-time focus.

What challenge have you had to face that led to a big growth for your company?

Re-branding, re-designing our packaging & building our website, which happened at the same time. It was both the most difficult thing I've done and also the most formative for our company. We worked with a great graphic design team who understood where I wanted to go with the company and translated that into a unified, professional look. Our peacock logo helped to crystalize the brand identity and inspired me during many a difficult moment during our start up phase. The polished look of the packaging and website were well worth the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the process.

What do you have going on in your business right now that you're excited about?

Our Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale, which is our biggest promotion of the year! Since working with Tin Shingle, we've been inspired to be much more proactive with our outreach and marketing for the holiday season. So far, it's been a really positive and empowering experience and we're hopeful that our efforts will be rewarded by one of our most successful holiday shopping seasons ever!

Where would you love to see your business in 5 years?

My dream would be to have national brand recognition and broad domestic and international distribution in high end salons and boutiques. I'd also love to expand our reach in the non-curly hair market while continuing to be innovators in providing diagnostic natural hair care solutions for all hair types! Most importantly, I want to remain passionate about what I do and to have fun doing it!

It happened, it finally happened.  You landed a feature story in a press outlet you have been pitching tirelessly (and strategically) for ages!  You want to sing it from the rooftops as well as across social media, from Twitter to Facebook.  You want to tell your friends, family, landlord, dog and mailman to keep their eyes peeled for your story.  You want everyone and their mother to spread the word!  As you’re sitting at your computer furiously typing away, scribing an email to 300 of your closest (ahem) friends and family, a thought crosses your mind.  Then a few more.  You wonder:

• Is it bad luck if I prematurely celebrate this with my friends and family?

• Is it tacky if I ask everyone to post my story on their social media feeds?

• Is it wrong if I myself share this on my social media before it runs to get everybody excited?  (What about a few times a day?)

• What if I DO get everyone excited the right way, and then my story is canceled anyways? What will everyone on social media think? How do I deal?

Here are the short answers:

• No
• Yes
• No (YES!)
• Such is life, we’ll talk it through, down below.

Okay and now, the longer answer…

Is it bad luck if I prematurely celebrate this with my friends and family?

Listen, once you hear the big news that you landed a story in a media outlet you’ve been courting for months (if not longer) it's time to celebrate!  Do a happy dance, call your friends and family, hug your barista!  It is not bad luck, it is not going to lead to a TV segment cancellation or a sudden change in a magazine’s editorial plans.  That said, I always like to live by the rule that until I see it in print or on-air, it’s never 100% locked in.  Sharing and celebrating your hard work is totally fine, and in most cases everything goes smoothly.  In terms of television, it’s highly unlikely your segment will get bumped unless regularly scheduled programming is interrupted due to a local or national crisis.  If this is the case they’ll most likely try to reschedule you and life will go on.  That said, don’t let fears of those chance moments dull your sparkle.  Celebrate away with them in real person, on the phone, via text etc.  Just be sure that you keep your celebrating private until you’ve confirmed you can make the story public.  This rule applies the most to feature stories or hot topics, but as a rule I tend to ask the media I’m working with if I can share this on social media prior to it running (or right around the time it’s gong to run) before I shout it from the rooftops!  Even then, I tend not to publicly (read: on social media) celebrate or promote any type of print or online press until it’s live.  TV is a different story.  Once I have permission (key!) to share or tease out when my story will be on television and what it will be about, I take to social media.  But I do it in a way that will not be annoying or tacky…

Is it tacky if I ask everyone to post my story on their social media feeds?

Yes.  It’s annoying to tell anyone to do anything on their social media feed, a representation of who they are, what they like, what they want to share and so forth.  That said, you’re in a quandary, because you want your friends and family to tell their friends and family and really rev up the buzz about your story.  So here’s what you can do:

• Share it on your feed.  If people think it’s cool or interesting they will share it.  That is how social media works.  Guess what, they’ll also share it because they love and support you, that’s how friendship works.

• Email it to your friends and family, include a clean link to your press.  Include your Twitter handle and if they want to share it with any of that information they will.  Do not hound them, that’s tacky.

• If you’ve received permission to tease out your feature television segment and want people to tune in, you can FOR SURE email your friends and family sharing when your story will run.  Firstly, do just that.  Share it with friends, family, business colleagues or people you’re truly connected to. Don’t ask everyone and their mother in your Rolodex to do you the favor and post it.  That’s annoying and inauthentic. 

• Give them the info they need. You can even give them the link to where they can tune in, the Twitter handle of your company, the Twitter handle of the show and a snappy description of what the segment is about. You can include something in the email that says: "here’s all the information you’ll need to tune in on the big day and share it with others should you so choose” or something like that.  Some people send friends and family an actual script regarding what they want them to say on social media (verbatim).  I am not a fan of this as I find it presumptuous, inauthentic (it’s created in someone else’s voice for another person’s personal media page) and I tend to get them the most from people I’m connect to on a minimal level.  I will tell you what, my sister has never asked me to share a specific sentence about her different writing successes, but I share them every time.  Because I love her and that’s what people do. Let your friends and family support you in their own way.

Is it wrong if I myself share this on my social media before it runs?  (What about a few times a day?)

It’s a total must to share a great hit when it happens via your social media, and you may even want to share it (perhaps with different visuals or captions) more than once.  That said:

• Know when to say when.  

• Don’t bombard your friends and family with too much you or they’ll end up hiding your feeds or un-following you.

• Don’t humble brag (“Oh, It’s so exhausting getting up at 7 am for the Today Show”, “I wish the shoes I wore during my Oprah interview were more comfortable.” “I hope this car is on time for my feature interview with Barbara Walters.”  Gag.  Just own it.  “I am super psyched to share I’m going to be on the Today Show tomorrow at 8 AM.”  “After a decade long professional journey I’m sharing my story with Oprah today at 4 PM, I hope you’ll tune in!” “You guys we did it, Team Save a Puppies Life is talking to Barbara Walters today! High fives to our social media family.”  See, you can tell everyone about it without sounding annoying.  Everybody wins.

What if I DO get everyone excited the right way, and then my story is canceled anyways?

The chances of that happening are as likely as the government shutting down.  (See what I did there?)  In other words, it’s highly unlikely, something major has to happen to cause it, but it does happen rarely, it sucks, and you get through it.  If you’ve done a feature story and you’re worried about it not airing or running in print stop worrying.  If they put in the time, money and effort they had to in order for your story to run, they’re going to want it to run.  That said, sometimes (mostly in the world of television features) breaking news happens and your story gets bumped. 

So what do you do?  Let out a massive sigh, let the news team deal with the breaking news story, alert your friends, family and social media of the change, and then work with the press to get your new airdate.  More likely than not they’ll want to rerun it as they already put a lot of effort into it.  Do print and online stories sometimes get cut?  Sure do.  At times for the same reasons, or because of changes in editorial direction.  That said, try to keep your mind out of that space.  There is no use worrying about things that you have no control over.  Trust it will all work out, and have a contingency plan in the back of your head just in case things go awry!

Sometimes people worry about what their friends, family and social media followers will think if they’ve been buzzing about their upcoming segment and then it gets bumped or edited out.  To those people I say, don’t even worry about it!  So what?  You know what people will think? They’ll think, “Wow, they were so close, can’t wait to see when it runs.”  Or “Wow, I wish I was like them and was pushing myself and my story out there.”  Or they simply won’t think about it at all, because they have more important things on their mind, like a government shutdown.

The moral of the story?

Landing a feature story in the press is a MAJOR moment in your business career and an accomplishment that should be celebrated and shared.  The key is to do it like everything you do in your business: authentically and strategically.  After all, how you do anything is how you do everything!

Want more scoop on how to turn press into SALES? Check out this #PRIntensive!

We were honored when USA Today reached out to us for a second time this month to contribute to a piece in their Smart Small Business column on the back page of the Money section. We love the Money section of newspapers. Why? Because the articles always get down to the nuts and bolts of what is working or not working in business!

This week, reporter Laura Petrecca was covering work/life balance, which is something we strive for every day at Tin Shingle. We refer to it as our Holistic Business approach, and really comes down to this:

• being realistic
• forgiving yourself

When Laura asked co-founder Katie Hellmuth Martin about about if not having balance can hurt our health, Katie right away answered "Yes", and that it can even cause you to resent your business, or your personal life - whichever is lacking in the balance. In the article, Katie cautioned against promising too much to clients (or yourself), and then setting realistic expectations for what you can accomplish.

When you're realistic and kind to yourself, you'll be amazed at how much your business gets done!

ps: Click here for a behind the scenes of this article in our #SmallBizDiaries series, when Katie took the reporter's call...

pps: What do YOU to to achieve work/life balance? Tell us in the Comments below!

Aunt Flo, the little bird, monthlies, whatever all the girls refer to them as, our periods can be miserable.  Even more miserable is our first time experiencing it.  Kathy Pickus strives to eliminate just that with her product line, Dot Girl.  The cute kit includes everything a girl could need to be prepared for the fist time.  It also contains a small booklet to help parents educate and communicate with their daughters during this change.  Dot Girl's company tagline really says it all: "Informed Girls, Empowered Women."

So how did it all start? After two decades of working for other companies, Kathy decided to provide for her family and pursue her dreams. Within six years of starting Dot Girl, Kathy's product has been honored with a Mom's Choice Award Gold Recipient as well as been featured at numerous expos, including the National Girl Scout Convention.  Learn more and be inspired from Pickus' story highlighted in below's #SmallBizSpotlight.

What inspired you to get started?
"When I was 12 years old, my family was on a motor home trip when my first period started.  I thought I was dying. It took about a day before I had the courage to tell my mom. A trip to the grocery store followed and I still remember my mom hiding the bag from my siblings and handing me a hygiene pad and belt with minimal explanation. I vowed then that if I ever had a daughter, she would be prepared.