Clearly, Brain knows whereof he speaks. Of the world’s 634 million plus websites, his is ranked 658^th.

“How Stuff Works got its initial traffic by word of mouth because it presented content which interested viewers who were willing to tell their friends about it,” Brain says. “To me, such word of mouth is the most important thing.”

Brain says that word of mouth works even better now than it did when he launched HSW way back in 1998. “Today, if people experience something and like it, they’re prone to say something about it on Facebook, Twitter or in a blog,” Brain notes. “It’s the greatest no-cost way to get traffic.” Website owners can leverage their social media exposure by getting people with large followings on Facebook and Twitter to mention their sites to followers.

Number of pages most important to Google

According to Brain, the amount of content a website offers is intimately connected to its Google ranking, and we all know how important it is to be at or near the top of a Google search. “In order to have a meaningful presence in Google, you need to develop a large footprint, which means having a lot of pages for Google to index,” Brain says. “If your site has three pages, Google will index them, but that doesn’t provide the opportunity to present them to people very often. You’ll get a lot more traffic through Google if your site has 3000 pages.”

To that end, several years ago, HSW began buying libraries of content and integrating them into the site in order to radically increase its number of pages. Brain points out that content is really pretty easy to find. For example, if your website or blog is about food, there might be a recipe site that has a thousand recipes on it that you can syndicate, rent or buy. Of course, there are companies that will write custom web content, of course, but you may do better finding some that’s already in print.

Content is especially important to ecommerce websites. “If all you have on your dermatology website are your business hours and how to get to your office, no one’s going to come,” Brain observes. “If you take that website and add 100 articles about skin problems, people have a reason to visit.”

Get other sites to link to yours

The second part of getting a high ranking on Google lies in getting people to link to your site. ““Links to your site from other sites increase the probability that your site will be near the top when Google searches are done,” Brain says. “One of the ways Google figures out if people care about your content is by looking at the number of times they link to it.”

Brain says there are two ways to get links. The first is to create content that makes people want to link to it as reference material or background material, which is what happened with HSW. For example, if your site is about car engines, you might link to an article about car engines on HSW to give people some background.

The second is simply to ask people to link to your site. “Put tools on your site that make it easy for owners of other sites to link to yours, such as specific instructions or bits of code,” advises Brain. “You can say, ‘Please link to this article if you’ve found it useful.’”

“You could get an SEO expert to talk with you for days about little things you could do to tweak the SEO on your site, but the key things are to have a lot of pages for Google to index and having others link to your site,” Brain says. “These two things will increase the traffic you get from search engines.”

He adds that if Google changes the algorithm it uses to rank websites, site ranks could rise. “Because algorithms are proprietary, if Google change its algorithm, you’ll have to make guesses about what it did by looking at which sites rose and which ones fell during the transition,” “Brain says. You do the best you can and hope for a good outcome.”

Develop a publicity network  

Brain points out that developing a network of bloggers, authors, magazine writers and newspaper reporters who will mention your site in their publications is another great way to bring traffic to a website. However, that’s not a trivial task.

“Writing specific pieces of content helps, especially with the rise of the social sharing site Reddit,” Brain says. “Writing content that people would link to on Reddit is a great way to drive traffic. I recently read that eight percent of the (Internet) world reads Reddit.”

Indeed, an article on a popular section of Reddit might bring 100,000 visitors to your site—but be aware that those visitors are very focused. “They will usually come to look at the one piece of content rather than browse the rest of your site or click on ads,” says Brain. “Getting on Reddit can bring a lot of traffic for a day, but your site needs to be laid out really well to take advantage of it. You want to impress your brand on visitors, to encourage them to sign up for a newsletter or other way for you to keep in touch with them.”

Paying for visitors

If you have money, you can advertise your site. “In my experience, Internet advertising works best because it’s really hard to get people to move from one medium to another,” Brain observes. “If you run a radio ad that touts your website, listeners have to remember your URL and type it in and get to it.”

Cross media advertising doesn’t work very well, but if you can advertise on the Internet, then people just click on the ad and wind up on your site. “Again, you want to have your site set up so that when people arrive from the ad they stay a while,” says Brain. “You want to have something that impresses your brand on them, and that encourages them to look around, to register in some way.”

Using Google AdSense, banner links, text links and/or affiliate programs that effectively pay someone to send you visitors are all means to that end. “You can pay people to talk about your site, put links to your site, to write articles about your site,” Brain points out. “You can also write articles that link to your site and give them to other sites as free content.”

“There are lots of ways to spend money to get people to your site. I tend to prefer the free ways, but if you have the money, paying for traffic is a way to ramp up pretty quickly, especially if your site has a tight message and the ability to take advantage of traffic.”

The next  time Di Lullo took Midknight to the local dog park, his new canine eyewear caused a sensation amongst other dog owners. “Midknight looked so cute I took pictures and made a website to show them off,” she says. “People just started finding the website and asking how to buy a pair.”

Pregnant with the couple’s first child when she made the first pair of Doggles. Di Lullo quit her job as a software programmer to stay home with the baby about the time she began receiving requests from owners who wanted Doggles for their dogs. “I hadn’t considered making them for anyone else, but being at home did give me more time to do that,” she says.

Making the transition from hobby to business

Every time Roni got an order, she’d buy a pair of sports goggles and fit them with straps so the Doggles would fit her customer’s pooch. As sales increased it became evident that custom making each pair wasn’t feasible.

The Di Lullos filed for a design patent before seeking an eyewear manufacturer to produce their product. They were unable to find a stateside manufacturer, but hooked up with company in Taiwan that was willing to take on their project. This is the same company that manufactures Doggles still today. “They have great quality and we’ve never had any issues with them, so why switch?” says Roni.

The patent has proved invaluable in protecting Doggles market share. The Di Lullos eventually had to face copycat competitors in court twice and won both times.

The business got seriously underway after DailyCandy, which was then an email publication, did a story about Doggles. “A lot of biog time editors read it,” Roni notes. “And after they ran the story, CNN invited us on.”

Press releases, trade shows push product

Initially, the Di Lullos used a marketing agency to write their press releases. As the business evolved, they connected with marketing people for the trade shows at which they exhibited. The business has never been much affected by its website. “Ninety-five percent of our business is wholesale or trade,” says Roni.

After the original model was in production, the Di Lullos met with a veterinary ophthalmologist in 2002 to design a second generation model. “The original Doggles have a fixed lens,” Roni explains. “We decided to try making a version with an interchangeable lens so dog owners could easily swap tinted for clear lenses depending on the weather, or replace a damaged lens when necessary.”  And since dogs come in different sizes and shapes, Roni and Ken quickly understood that their “customers” will require deeper lens cups and wider nose bridges depending on the breed.

After Doggles got coverage DailyCandy, PetSmart asked to stock the eyewear. Not long after that Roni and Ken successfully marketed into big box stores like Amazon, Petco, and Target as well as over 3500 boutique pet stores county wide. Many service animals, including those in the U.S. military, wear them.

Time to quit that day job

Five years into Doggles production, Ken left his career as a network engineer to come on board full time. “Learning to run our own business has been quite an experience,” Di Lullo says. “We had no experience, and in addition to learning how to manufacture a product, we had to figure out how to hire employees and manage a warehouse.”

“The most important thing I’ve learned was to take a deep breath and not worry too much about any one things because everything cycles around.”

The company began adding products for cats two years ago. “We expand our offerings twice a year in spring and fall,” Roni says. “Once we got into the pet industry and decided to become a real company, we went for it.”

Roni designs all their products herself and does industry trade shows four or five times a year to get product exposure. “We discontinue some products every year, but for the most part, we’re adding new ones,” she says. “We’ve built the line bigger every year,” says Roni, adding that bringing out new products twice a year, many of which are unique, has done much for increasing and protecting the company’s market share.

Obviously, the Di Lullos business strategies are working: Doggles 2013 revenues were  $3 million, a portion of which the company will donate to federally registered non-profits.

All in all, Roni and Ken have come a long way from their first walk in the dog park.

“I knew I’d never use it unless I could find a way to organize my things,” Crook says. After searching fruitlessly for a purse organizer, she sat down with pen and paper and designed exactly what she wanted: a pouch-like purse organizer with outside pockets for pens, sunglasses, mobile phone, credit cards, keys and other small items, inside pockets for lipsticks or small flashlights, zippered pockets for change and personal items and inside dividers that keep it all in one compact space.

Crook, who doesn’t sew, bought some fabric and enlisted the help of a friend to make the prototype, which worked exactly as planned. Then a friend who’d had some purses made in China offered to introduce Crook to her manufacturer, and thus was Pouchee born.

“I ordered 2000 Pouchees for $1500 using the prototype,” Crook says. “I thought that would be a lifetime supply, but they all sold within the first month.” The selling part was hard for Crook. “I am not a salesperson, but I had to do it even though it scared me to death,” she says. “I remember walking into stores in fear and trembling, wondering what I’d do if the store buyer didn’t like my product.”

“Fortunately, my husband is a phenomenal salesperson, and he was very helpful from the beginning. He gave me a lot of encouragement and pushed me out the door. Sometimes he’d even go with me.”

Crook says she’s been very blessed from the beginning. “Every single store I went to for months bought from me,” she notes. “We went to numerous cities, including Charleston, Columbia and Charlotte. “Some of the stores that bought from me called before I’d even left town to ask if I could bring more because they had already sold out.”

This success gave Crook a lot of confidence in her product. “When you know you’ve got something that’s helpful to people, it’s easier to say, ‘This will sell in your store and help your customers,’” she notes.

Crook began manufacturing in 2005. Within five years sales were in the multi millions. The first year Crook got Pouchee into 60 stores. Now they’re in nearly 2000 worldwide, including Chile, Ireland and Canada. “I was almost 60 when I started this,” Crook laughs. My mother said, ‘I thought this was going to be a nice little hobby.’ I said, ‘Yeah, me, too!’”

Shortly after Crook began selling Pouchees, she found storeowners all asked her the same question: “Are you going to market?” “Here in the South, that means the Americas Mart in Atlanta,” Crook explains. “I knew I had to go, so I booked space in the first show I could get into, which was about four months after I started selling.”

At the time, the Pouchee came in one material and three colors. “The first time we went to market was a little difficult, but we managed to triple our business and get noticed,” Crook says. “We picked up a rep group there and started really growing from that point on, when going to market became a major piece of our marketing strategy.” Crook now has reps that do gift shows in Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas as well as Atlanta.

“Rep groups are the only way to reach the countrywide market without having a sales staff that travels with me, and that’s a lot more expensive,” Crook observes. “My first rep came to me because the buyer for a store that was selling Pouchees told her rep group about me. They came and asked we were willing to let them sell our products.”

In addition to rep groups, Crook uses social media extensively to market her line. “We use everything—Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Amazon,” Crook says. “We’ve also used PR companies in the past, hiring different kinds for different reasons, some for seasonal promotions and others for more contract-type PR.”

Crook originally shipped products from her home’s garage. Once the business grew to where we couldn’t fit one car in our three-car garage, it was time to move. Though she still orders some Pouchees from her first manufacturer, today Crook uses more than one factory because product sales outstripped the first factory’s capacity.

“When I started with China in 2005, things were super cheap,” says Crook. “Their economy was just starting to build, so you could get good quality and good pricing.” Now the middle class is growing and they are doing quite well economically, so it’s not necessarily the best place to get good pricing anymore, but it’s still a major player because of infrastructure. “I can get fabric, hardware and labor there,” Crook says. “We’re not opposed to having products made in other places, including the U.S., but I can’t even get anyone here to give me a quote because our products are very labor intensive and detailed.”

Crook plans to add more organizational products to her line. “We’ve changed our tagline from ‘the ultimate purse organizer’ to ‘fashionably functional solutions for women,’” she says. “We want to solve problems. Purse organization was just a start. We want to get into travel organizers, products for mommies, work and play—everywhere a woman needs help keeping her life organized.”

Robbins, who was homeless during part of her teenage years, went from being $10,000 in debt to making millions by co-inventing and marketing The Tingler head massager, which she devised after a friend had massaged her head. “It felt really good and gave me this idea of going to the hardware store and putting toilet parts together to form a do-it-yourself head massager,” she says. “People went nuts for it. My business partner and I have sold more than a million of them.”

At first, Robbins, went around “tingling” anyone who’d let her. “I started by going to music festivals and selling them there, and then I went trade gift shows around the country,” she says. “We made $12,500 for two days at our first event, then $25,000 and more every time we went to a trade show.” Robbins followed up by calling the stores that bought to get them to re-order and wearing a Tingler everywhere she went. “I would eat out and tingle everyone in the place and make a couple hundred dollars,” she laughs. “It was like being a two-legged ATM machine.”

YouTube was an important marketing piece for Robbins, too. “There were so many videos of me with other Inventors that The Discovery Channel and Home Shopping Network found me,” says Robbins. “I was hired to co-host the Homemade Millionaire series with Kelly Ripa.” Never one to let grass grow under her feet, Robbins wrote her bestselling book Why Marry a Millionaire? Just Be One! during short breaks while filming the show.

Robbins also recommends taking advantage of Google Hangouts, a platform that lets users send photos, see when people are engaged in the Hangout and message friends anytime, conduct a live video call with up to 10 friends or simply start a voice call. Hangouts works on computers, Android and Apple devices.

Robbins did NOT do any pay-per-click marketing or online ads, and Facebook and Twitter had yet to be launched. She got print press the old fashioned way—by calling and showing off the product. ”What worked best was being in an elevator and going up and down tingling people in buildings where all the top magazines are,” Robbins laughs. “They would invite me in and I would tingle the whole office and we would get a story.” Anytime she saw a news crew, she’d tingle them and end up on the news.  CNN did a five-minute piece on us after she sent out a silly press release and followed up by finding a CNN crew on the streets.

“I would get onto studio lots and tingle the makeup artists, writers and producers,” she says. “I even snuck into red carpet events and tingled enough stars to create a buzz,” she says. Such antics attracted a reporter from In Style magazine who wrote an article that generated $450,000 in orders in a mere two weeks.

Even though marketing more than one Tingler at a time was time-consuming, Robbins describes the process of bringing her product to market as a “glorious journey” and doesn’t hold back from describing difficulties and setbacks. “We were under-capitalized and we trusted the wrong people and learned a lot of hard lessons,” she says. “I took my first order on a paper napkin. We couldn’t take credit cards and had to pretend that we had a product in order to find a manufacturer.”

Robbins first Tingler manufacturer was in the U.S., but the enterprise swiftly became so successful she had to manufacture in Asia as well, and it wasn’t easy. “There are all sorts of learning curves about how to import from Asia, customs forwarding and quality control, making sure you go with a factory that’s not slave labor, going to China and taking with people who don’t speak your language,” she says. “The learning just went on and on.”

Because of this, Robbins highly recommends that inventors, designers and others bringing a new product find mentors who can help smooth out the bumps on the royal road to riches. In fact, the mistakes Robbins and her partner made in this venture led her to open a coaching business in order to help potential millionaires avoid the pitfalls that befell her.  “We didn’t know what we were doing, but we wound up making millions and millions of dollars,” she says, adding that others don’t need to make the mistakes she made.

She also emphasizes the need for patent and trademark protections, and trademark insurance, all of which the Tingler has.  “We spent more than $600,000 to defend our trademark, because if you don’t you lose it,” Robbins says. “We have insurancethat covers costs for lawyers.  I think you have to just know you will be ripped off and ask the imitators to give you a royalty at least. Many do, but take this word of advice: Make sure to get patent insurance!”

Robbins notes that women are growing businesses three times as fast as men right now, and yet the majority of women are making $25,000 a year even in their own businesses. There’s a major disconnect here.”

“I think women need permission to be rich, which is odd,” Robbins notes. “At first I thought that was generational, but even women in their early 20s feel they don’t deserve the money. In that way, it’s mindset. I can teach someone exactly what to do to make money, but if she’s not ready to go, she won’t make it happen for herself.”

As if this weren’t enough, Robbins recently launched www.redcapes.com, a crowdfunding website where people can donate small amounts of money in exchange for gifts when they believe in a cause, business, invention, film, etc.  “When most people have an idea/passion – money becomes the thing that typically stops them,” Robbins says. “Banks are not going to lend money unless you have great credit and a solid track record and most likely don’t really even need the money.”

“What’s awesome is that we can help finance anyone who has integrity and persistence to see a project through,” Robbins exclaims. “It’s really about monetizing your social influence.” In a few weeks, she plans to introduce something that no one else is doing— crowdfunding contests, which will make a game of the whole process of raising money.

“Now no one has to raise money alone,” Robbins says. “We’ll have a lot of passionate people competing to raise money and the top three money-raisers will win sponsored prizes.”

In February 2014 we will host our first contest for inventors who will get access to buyers/hosts of QVC, HSN, and buyer for major retailers. The contest will be with the Women Inventorz Network (www.americanwomeninventorz.com) and is intended to reach as many women inventors as possible. Inventors can become contestants by signing up for the newsletter at www.redcapes.com.

Encountering a woman working in a male dominated business brings relief to a lot of women, Dunn notes. “I could see it on their faces,” she says. Dunn decided to reverse that process and elevate the women to the level of astute, competent customers, who are a force to be reckoned with in the industry.

After she retired from her first career as a consultant in organizational development, Dunn looked about for something to do that wouldn’t require the arduous 80-hour weeks she was accustomed to putting in. “I really didn’t intend to go back into another full-blown career, so I took a little job as a receptionist at a collision center.” she says.

Dunn worked at this first automotive job for a little over a year. She left because the boss’s daughter told her she was being “too helpful” to customers. “I laughed in her face,” Dunn recalls. “Then I started looking for another job.”  She found it at another body shop, where she rapidly moved from administrative assistant to assistant manager to manager.

Then she decided it was time to do something more organized and definitive to help women deal with the often testosterone-laced automotive environment. “It’s almost like the mentality in the automotive industry is stuck in the 1950s,” Dunn says. “Guys would say things like, ‘Well, little lady, do you want to bring your husband in so I can explain the problem to him?’”

Dunn saw that many of the women were widows, divorcees or single. “Marital status is no excuse for rudeness,” she exclaims. “Women needed to be treated with the same respect that men receive. Besides which, if the industry would get its act together, it would realize that 85 percent of the decisions made about vehicles, whether it’s buying, selling, service or maintenance, are made by women.”

As an example, Dunn notes that her now deceased husband was with her when she went car shopping in 2006. “The salesmen jumped on him like a bunch of vultures,” she says. “He finally looked at them and said, ‘I have absolutely nothing to say about this decision. You’re gonna have to get it all from her. It’s her car.”

All these factors led her, at the age of 62, to found the Women’s Automotive Connection. “The biggest obstacle I experienced was that there’s nothing like me out there,” she says. “It took a while for people to understand what I do.”

Dunn spent the first six months getting up to full speed by networking. “Atlanta’s a big networking town, so I started with the Chamber of Commerce and moved into the network of women’s groups here,” she explains. “Then business started coming pretty quick.” Though Dunn did some print advertising in a few local women’s publications it never really paid off. “Most of my advertising now is by word of mouth,” she notes.

The mouths that pass her information along are far reaching: Dunn now has clients all over the country. “The more people who got to know me, the more business I got,” she says. “I have clients in California, New York, Texas…you name it.”

Dunn brokers cars for clients, negotiating price and getting the deal done. “All they have to do is sign the papers and take the car home,” she says. She usually charges $350 for car brokerage, $250 for managing insurance claims and $45 for diagnosing mechanical problems. “When you work in a collision center, you get involved with every single part of a car,” Dunn observes. “Cars get hit front, side or rear. You have to learn it all.”  She also provides referrals to shops she knows will provide good, honest service. “I pretty much cover the gamut,” she says, “It’s fun for me, I enjoy it.”

During her first year in business, Dunn put on 40 seminars, brokered 50 cars, and provided other services to an additional 200 customers. “Once women found they could get help from another woman, the business just mushroomed,” she says.

Dunn observes that most people need some help navigating the maze of information they face when buying or servicing a car in order to avoid being taken advantage of. “Know what you need,
 rather than what someone wants to sell you,” she counsels. She offers consumer automotive education through radio, public speaking and serving individual clients. Though she’s an advocate and consultant for women, half of Dunn’s clients are men.

Dunn has a franchising business model she plans to activate in the next couple of years. “After these first five years, I can prove you can make money doing this.” She’s got the pilot for a TV show in the works that will be a visual version of her radio show. “I’m also planning to write a book unless the TV pilot gets picked up,” she says.

“People think that older people like me don’t have much to offer,” Dunn says. The fact is, we have a whole lot more to offer than they can imagine. I  turned 68 last month. I tell people I’ve never been this age before, so I don’t know how to act.”

Unfortunately, they weren’t competent when it came to providing the services they offered. At the end of our relationship, they asked me to provide them with feedback. “We only want positive feedback,” the husband told me. “Negative isn’t acceptable.”

That this concierge service was out of business a few months later would come as no surprise to Eli Federman, Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Officer at 1Sale.com, a daily deal site that uses social media to embrace negative customer feedback.

“Our motto is transparency,” says Federman. “We don’t shy away from issues, but openly discuss them.” Consumers, Federman believes, appreciate an open, transparent business environment. “They know when you’re hiding things under the rug,” he says.

Recently, Federman’s website ran a sale on a utility knife that folds into the size of a credit card. Shortly after the product went up for sale, a customer posted the following critical message on the company’s social media site:

“As a Law Enforcement Officer, I do not appreciate you selling items that criminals can easily hide… As a result of you selling this product, I will no longer be your customer, and will be spreading the word, via word of mouth and social media, for people to stop buying from your website.”

When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade

Federman and his associates discussed whether or not the company might alienate customers by posting this. Would it be perceived as anti-law enforcement because the concern raised was about the safety and conceal ability of the product? “In the end we decided to open up the discussion by making this public,” Federman says. The resulting 750+ posts, including some from law enforcement officials who thought it was a bit of an overreaction not to sell the product at all, made it clear that Federman’s customers appreciated being included in the conversation.

The majority of our customer service inquiries consist of routine questions on shipping and returns, not questions on the ethics of selling certain types of products. Our initial internal reaction was to transition into damage control: Apologize to the customer, reconsider listing the product and encourage the customer to resolve the issue outside the public eye and social media.

Then we thought again. Instead of living in constant fear that negative customer feedback through social media will harm your reputation and goodwill, why not use negative feedback as an opportunity to create customer dialogue through those same social channels?

“Transparency and openness, if it’s done in a respectful and honest way, is not going to backfire,” Federman notes. “Even those customers who totally disagreed with us and felt we should not be selling this product still valued the fact that their voices were heard.”

1Sale tracked conversions and clicks as well as the comments on the actual post. The findings: There were 185 conversions and 117,806 views of the post.

“Increasing sales was not the purpose of opening the discussions to customers, getting feedback was,” Federman says. “We want people to feel comfortable coming to us, to ask questions or critique what we’re doing.”

This was not the first time that embracing negative feedback improved business at 1Sale. A customer who wore dentures and had purchased an anti-snoring device on the website wrote to complain that the product didn’t work. “Apparently the product doesn’t work if you wear dentures,” Federman explains. “We refunded the customer and added that disclaimer to the product description.”

Federman also opened this up to customers for discussion on social media. “Some said we’d done the right thing, others said we should have given that customer a free gift as well, so we did,” he notes. “The information we got from our consumers was highly valuable.”

Rebranding also drew more customers

Federman and his brother launched the daily deal website 1SaleADay.com in 2007, working from his brother’s apartment. In the beginning, they recognized most of the names on the orders. “They came from family and friends,” Federman laughs. “Whenever we found a name we didn’t recognize, we’d have a mini-celebration.”

When the business began, the they had no idea that the name was too descriptive to even acquire initial trademark rights. “We were unaware that many experts recommend ‘fanciful’ marks such as ‘Exxon’ or ‘Kodak,’ which aren’t generic but invented for the sole purpose setting a business apart,” he says.

They wound up doing a bit of rebranding by changing the name from 1saleaday.com to 1sale.com because the shorter version is simpler and easier for customers and potential customers to remember. “It also captures variety because we’ve added more shops and SKUs, and deals don’t necessarily run for just one day,” Federman observes.
1Sale launched just as the financial crisis began to unfold. “Interestingly enough, that was and still is something that made people appreciate our brand because they’re budgeting and saving and can’t afford retail prices, so they’re going online to discount retailers like us,” says Federman. “Helping customers save has helped us grow. Now we get as many as 40,000 orders a day.”

Today, nine years later, her award winning, Roseland, New Jersey-based company holds contracts with the military and government organizations, corporations, universities and hospitals nationwide.

Vichness began working as a language teacher right out of college, but later switched to legal publishing sales. During both careers, she observed a huge gap between the language abilities of native English speakers and those who learned English as a second language. “I’ve always loved languages,” says Vichness. “I saw a need that wasn’t being met and decided to meet it.”

Her first step was becoming a certified accent reduction specialist, because accents can get in the way of career advancement. Many highly skilled and valuable employees have difficulties with the pronunciation challenges American English can pose when some of its sounds do not exist in their native languages. The result is that native speakers of English have trouble understanding their foreign born peers. For instance, law firms sometimes employ very good attorneys who grew up with an accent that gets in their way in court.

Her first opportunity came through phone call from a firm looking for someone who could teach a course in Spanish for financial professionals. “When she asked me if I could do that, I said, ‘Sure!’ she laughs. ”Then I set to work and found the perfect person to do it.”

Vichness says she always says “Yes” to opportunities. “You want to train a Farsi speaker to teach fire safety?” she asks. “Give me enough lead-time and I’ll figure out a way to get it done.”

Look professional from day one

Having been in sales, Vichness knew the importance of presenting a professional image. Her next step was to have a polished, professional looking website built. “If you embrace technology, you can look professional from day one,” she says. “Technology can make one person look like a big company.” You won’t see a picture of Vichness on her website because she wanted to brand her company, not herself. “I want Language Directions to live and grow and thrive after I finally do retire,” she says. “There will still be language and cultural needs to be met after I’m no longer able to meet them.”

Vichness developed a model of working through strategic alliance companies, effectively doing work for the clients of her clients. “We now do all the language training for corporate clients of  Rutgers University Office of Continuing Professional  Education,” she says. “We also work with New Jersey Manufacturing extension program, teaching English as a second language and accent reduction training to factory floor workers companies want to elevate to supervisory positions but can’t train in English. “We developed training  methods using bilingual subject matter experts,” Vichness explains. “They teach fire safety, OSHA regulations and procedures and Microsoft Office in Spanish, so workers whose English isn’t yet good enough to learn these subjects in English can get the training they need in their native language.”

Cultural awareness is often critical

One day Vichness came across a job posting for language training on a military job site. She signed up as an interested vendor and became a military subcontractor, and now provides 30 hours of language and culture training to American advisors to Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries. “Our training teaches them survival in Dari and Pashtu, the two major languages of the region, how to eat a meal, how to interact with elders and women—basically, how to stay out of trouble in a host country by not violating their cultural expectations,” Vichness says.

Language Directions also does a lot of work in hospitals. “We teach a Spanish for healthcare class for hospital personnel who work with Spanish-speaking patients and their families,” says Vichness. “They learn basic and essential communication up to the point where a medical interpreter is needed. We also run a course called Intercultural Interactions, which helps people behave in ways that don’t offend people from other cultures.” For instance, in some cultures, when the patient is a woman and is accompanied by her husband to the consultation and/or examination, the healthcare workers are expected to speak only to the husband, not to the woman. Not knowing cultural restrictions such as this can cause problems.

Vichness says she can provide native speakers in any language who possess the desired expertise. When a major food retailer needed to teach a large number of workers safe food handling processes in their native language of Haitian Creole, Language Directions supplied the teachers.

Communication, not language, is the challenge

The challenge for supervisors is not in learning the language of foreign-born workers, but in learning to communicate with them, Vichness points out. “We routinely teach food handling courses, which are mandatory in New Jersey, in Chinese, Spanish and Korean because those are the main languages spoken by workers in restaurant kitchens,” she says. “If you want to have a safe, clean meal, they need to learn what’s required in a language they understand. My rule is that everyone teaches his or her native language only.”

The expanding awareness  of the need for language and cultural awareness that Vichness has helped to expand continues to present her with a plethora of opportunities. “Every day is different,” she says. “I never know what we’re going to be asked to do, and I love it.”

“But what I love most about my own business is that I never have to listen to comments like, ‘We’ve never done it that way before’ or ‘I don’t think we should try that.’ We just move forward and do it.”

Be aware of how much energy success requires

So, would Vichness advise others to take the road less traveled after age 60 by starting a new business?

“I would absolutely encourage anybody who thinks they have something unique that the market needs to go for it,” says Vichness, whose business is grossing about $1 million a year. “If you have a good idea, it’s never too late if you are willing to put in the sweat equity.”

“A lot of people, when they get to this age, want to kick back instead of putting in what’s required, but every business needs nurturing. It’s like raising another child. If you neglect it, you’re going to pay the price.”

Following Your Dreams

After college, Melissa landed a very lucrative job at banking giant Morgan Stanley.  For most people, this would be the end of the story. Nine hours a day at a job to pay for the lifestyle you want.

But Melissa wanted more.

Like so many others, she wanted to run her own company and to make a difference in the world.  After the trial and error of looking for “the idea”, her thoughts continually returned to “something for children“. But that is still a pretty broad field.

As Melissa narrowed her focus, she realized that she wanted to create a new line of products for children—products that were both educational and entertaining.

She and her future husband, Doug, had found their market, but finding the “niche” required still more hard thinking.

Morphing to the Market

When Melissa & Doug started making creative entertainment videotapes for kids, they believed that their search for a creative product had ended.

However, take a look at Melissa & Doug’s product lineup today. You won’t find a single videotape in the list.  Melissa and Doug had to reevaluate their marker and their niche in that market.

Trial and error with a lot of research

They began delving deeper into the natural parenting market, which had been growing in popularity since the late 1990s. Working closely with parents, they learned that common plastic toys had serious drawbacks.  Kids get tired of them quickly, they break easily, and they are expensive considering their limited life span. However, moveable components in old-fashioned wood puzzles allowed for innovation, creativity, and for multiple users in the family.

This light bulb moment was the equivalent of Gutenberg inventing moveable type.

Melissa & Doug puzzles shook off the idea that puzzles were used only for education. Once they started creating puzzles that were fun and educational, kids began asking for them more. Now, wooden puzzles are available in every subject, age range, and difficulty for children. Many other toy companies have tried to get a piece of this market, but the majority of wooden puzzles on toy store shelves are still Melissa & Doug puzzles. Melissa & Doug own their niche.

There are some definite advantages to being the innovator in your market.

A decade after being “just a puzzle company,” Melissa & Doug today produce all kinds of wooden toys. These include alphabet learning sets, play toy and baking sets, and play money sets. Their success is because their toys fill a growing need for parents—the need to scale down to fewer toys that can be passed down from child to child.

Kids wanted toys that they could play with over and over again without getting bored. Parents wanted the same thing, but they also wanted their kids to learn while they were playing.

A musical toy phone will entertain a child only as long as the tune is novel. Then boredom sets in, along with the pressure to buy a new toy. However, Melissa & Doug products are open- ended. The wooden food sets are great for a grocery store game, a kitchen setting, running  a  restaurant, and  learning about different foods.

Parents and educators are so dedicated to Melissa & Doug toys that they watch Facebook groups and discussion forums for information on new releases. This saves a fortune on advertising costs.

The Future’s Bright for Melissa & Doug!

Melissa describes herself and Doug as highly competitive people. This had led them to adapt, rather than give up, when something goes wrong. When a product isn’t well received by groups of kids that test it, they go back to the drawing board and change it.

Entrepreneurs at their core, Melissa and Doug are still heavily involved in the day-to-day running of their business. They are constantly on the outlook for new products and ideas that will challenge children, entertain them, and help them grow. By building their business on the principle of contributing to the children’s toy market and delivering what people want, Melissa and Doug Bernstein have a solid, growing business.

Undoubtedly, as technology and parents’ needs change, Melissa and Doug will have to adapt to their changing market. However, the changes they have adapted to in the last 25 years of business have prepared them for whatever comes next for Melissa & Doug.

Like most women, Monroe enjoyed shopping in small boutiques with unique, trendy items. However, the long commute to get to these boutiques was often a hindrance.  This difficulty gave rise to her “ah ha “moment.

Her new dream was to enable women enjoy the boutique shopping experience without the commute.

How It All Started

If she, a busy wife, mother and employee, wanted to shop for cute items without spending a big chunk of her paycheck and traveling an hour, surely other women had that same need. For many women, shopping is about treating themselves to new products. Some women live an hour or more from the nearest shopping mall, limiting their shopping opportunities.

After discussing this vision and dream with her husband, Monroe started Thirty-One Gifts in the basement of their home. Her vision: design purses, tote bags, diaper bags, and similar accessories that could fit into any woman’s budget.  She did not have money or great “connections” that would help her get the job done. However, she did have determination. With a $10,000 business loan, she got started. She designed purses and tote bags that were colorful and unique in their patterns.

She could have opened stores or small, local boutiques, but that would tie her down to specific geographical areas. The alternative approach of direct selling appealed to Monroe because lower overheads would allow her to reach a larger client base. Wherever she could find an enthusiastic sales consultant, Monroe had a potential market.

Her market was the United States.

Realizing that she did not need to reinvent the wheel, Monroe looked for pioneers who had successfully travelled similar roads before her. She looked to role models in the direct selling business, including Richard Rogers of Mary Kay, Doug DeVos and Steve Van Andel of Amway, and Michael O. Johnson of Herbalife. By reading about their stories and how they built their companies, she found important tips that would help her make Thirty-One Gifts successful. While Mary Kay of Mary Kay Cosmetics and Patty Brisben of Pure Romance were both innovators in direct marketing,  Monroe is part of a small, select group of women that have started direct selling companies.

From their success, she learned to have a narrow focus and a specific target market. This was crucial to her keeping her eye on one objective, not getting overextended into too many areas all at once.

Then she looked at what had drawn her to her business idea in the first place. She had to offer women products that were appealing, as well as affordable and accessible. The direct selling model and an average product price of $20 helped turn this ideal world objective into a real world fact.

She wanted the sales parties to be more than just selling venues. Rather, they should be an opportunity for busy women to get together, have fun, and buy products that will make their lives easier. Women would get the shopping experience—new products and time with friends—without the commute to the mall, the hunt for a parking space, and the crowds that can draw out the length of a shopping trip.

Now she had to turn theory into practice.

The Explosive Growth of Thirty-One Gifts

In late 2003, Monroe took the plunge.  Releasing Thirty-One Gifts’ first ever catalog, she started doing home parties for women whom she knew.  Her customers like what they saw. Since then, the company has grown to 100,000 salespeople producing over $700 million in sales by 2011.

That is not a bad American success story for one decade of small business activity.

But how did she do it? Consultants need tools, training, and back up.  When the business started to grow and new consultants enrolling faster than the company could properly train them, Thirty-One Gifts did something that very few direct selling companies do :  they put a temporary freeze on enrolling new consultants. That freeze was not lifted until there were enough support staff members and tools to help the new arrivals. Bonuses like Disneyland trips and cruises made consultants even more excited to continually improve on their sales.

Monroe followed a few very basic steps to build a successful business:

1. Find an untapped niche or one in which you can improve on what is already available.
2. Build a strong core team of people who have the same vision and determination for success as you.
3. Stay true to what has made you successful, whether it’s your prices, your customer service, or your unique products. Do more of what brings results and less of what doesn’t.

Thirty-One Gifts is a good example of how you can use a problem that you have to develop a successful business idea. Those who are suffering a problem themselves can often think of more innovative solutions than those who have never experienced the problem.

Buying American: Could it Bring Them Back?

The New York Times article, ‘Building by Buying American’ found that several advantages could be realized if products were manufactured and distributed locally. They estimate that if the two trillion dollars lost to “cumulative trade deficits” with China were instead turned around and based in America, calculating with a “conservative 30 percent tax rate” approximately “$600 billion of national revenue” could have been circulated creating a significant job surplus in the millions. Also, by buying American made products, trade deficit could be reduced which may, in turn, enhance economic growth as well as a higher tax base. America needs to reduce its importing and increase its exporting to get back on top of its game. It also needs to change its reputation regarding products that are unable to keep up with foreign innovation.

Case Study: Coming Back From China

Not every company has the best experience relocating its manufacturing base to places like China, India and the like. Even though money can be saved, sometimes it is not worth the peripheral aggravation that accompanies such a move. The Wall Street Journal reported on some case studies of companies brining jobs back to the U.S. One such study involves the story of Bill Good who has worked in various manufacturing industries from fitness equipment to barbeque grills and has continuously experienced “off-shoring” (the term used for businesses moving overseas). When Mr. Good began working for Whirlpool, he had an opportunity to bring jobs back to American shores (called “re-shoring”) when he became plant manager. Whirlpool found that the money they ended up saving on shipping and inventory offsets the higher wages needed to pay American workers. Although it is a modest return (about 25 positions) it is the beginning of what some experts believe to be a “manufacturing renaissance”. In turn, President Obama has applauded the return of American manufacturing specifically when visiting the Master Lock Company which has re-shored about 100 jobs. The reason for this possible resurgence could be due to other countries beginning to implement their own pesky taxes, regulations, currency fluctuations and civil unrest.

The Jobs are Changing

As we rapidly travel down the road of the digital revolution, just like the industrial revolution, jobs are drastically changing. No longer is the assembly line worker an integral part of manufacturing as more digital, robotic innovation is taking the place of this once American staple. Therefore, we need more engineers, salespeople, marketers and designers to create jobs that apply to the changing technology around us. In fact, according to Forbes Global 2000 list, seven out of the ten worldwide software manufacturers were American companies including Symantec, Oracle, Adobe and Inuit. In addition to software, there are still some American Made products doing well including weapons, micro-brewed beer, high end kitchenware, the famous Gibson guitar and the historic Zippo lighter.

Buying Made in America Finally Makes Sense

As more consumers struggle from paycheck to paycheck they are realizing that no longer are low quality items a deal. Products made in China have waned in the American consumer’s eye. There are more people interested in quality now having finally become fed up with throwaway, quantity items. Contributing writer for Forbes, Patrick Hanlon, comments in his article ‘Made in America Makes a Comeback’, “For the first time in years, consumers are looking back at the value of things that last. Whether this is due to creeping nostalgia, economic malaise, or trying to recoup something lost—or a combination of those things and more, is anyone’s guess.” He goes on to describe how China is only good at one thing, copying quality products into cheap knockoffs and that America still holds true to progressive innovation. Interestingly, if 1% of Americans purchased American products, approximately 200,000 jobs would continue.

Made in America could get the high credentials it deserves once again. Hanlon also mentions some additional pitfalls of overseas production including labor shortages as well as being able to “manage design execution when your manufacturer is blocks away, and in the same time zone”.

The pendulum just may be swinging back to the good ole’ U.S.A.