Julianne Wish, Member Contributions, Member Spotlights
Meet Tania Mulry of DDx Media. Following is the story of her business, how it came to be and what the future holds for her and her business.
1. Business name, description and what makes it special
DDx Media is a mobile marketing agency, specializing in helping small, local businesses and experts create and launch beautiful, useful and profitable mobile applications to deepen their connections with their customers. We also created a wonderful, award-winning school fundraising app called edRover.
2. ‘Ah ha’ moment that led to launching this business:
I was working as an executive at a larger marketing agency, helping gigantic retail brands with mobile marketing, when I realized I wanted to help smaller organizations and businesses take advantage of the benefits of a huge tidal wave of mobile marketing opportunities. Mobile is the fastest growing communication channel of all times, and you can just walk down the street, look around a restaurant, or glance around your own home to see the cultural and behavioral shifts we are all making.
Our phones are like a new organ of our body. We rely on them for contact with the outside world, with thousands of friends, family members, coworkers, and near strangers on social media. The help us keep time, schedule appointments and manage our To Do Lists. They entertain us with music and games. They help us find directions and choose where to shop. They can even help us save money, and now with edRover, raise money for our favorite cause.
I knew I could create a great mobile app that would serve both local businesses that needed foot traffic and sales as well as consumers who were tired of traditional fundraising methods like selling junk food and trinkets to friends and family. That is how the edRover idea was born.
Then I realized I could repeat this success for other businesses, and that’s how my agency was born.
3. Tell us about how you got your first customer.
With edRover, we started getting customers once our app was posted in the App Store. Keeping them coming was the big trick! We needed to do a lot of outreach on the web and in person to get more consumers to download the app and use it to benefit their school. We really hit success when we found a local champion that wanted to lead the promotion of edRover within their own school. Now we seek out those influential parents to lead the charge.
With our agency, we reached out to a few influential businesses in town and gave them great deals to be our charter customers. They’ve really helped us open doors to new business opportunities.
4. How do you measure success?
We are all about impact. Are we helping schools with edRover? Are our apps generating new business for our clients? We know if we are serving our customers well, they will be great referral sources for new business.
5. Ever felt like throwing in the towel?
Sure! The app business is actually really hard! It looks awesome and glamorous to have an award-winning app, but every day, you have to stay in the trenches to improve the app, respond to customer feedback, tweak the business model, find new sources of traffic to keep growing.
Then I remind myself that most people wouldn’t even know where to begin! That knowledge helps keep me going and helping other people realize their own app dreams.
6. One thing I wish I would have known…
You need to spend at least as much on marketing your app as you did on building your app to get the success you desire.
7. Moving forward…
I can’t wait to offer a new version of the edRover platform to other charitable organizations so that they can benefit from a new way of fundraising. This vision has me so inspired!
8. The absolute best part of being self-employed is…
The flexibility to participate actively in my children’s lives is priceless. I used to work for a big company and had a three hour commute daily, if I weren’t on an airplane to the far reaches of the earth most of the time. I had a nanny, a work from home husband and a live in grandpa helping with the kids, but I could never be there for school parties, for drop off and pick up, for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I felt tremendous mommy guilt which definitely outweighed my desire to progress in my career, even though that was extremely strong! I knew I needed to follow a path to becoming an entrepreneur to reinvent my life, and I finally feel like it is paying off. My kids love having me at home when they are home, I have the best commute ever (strolling downstairs to my office), and I can help my kids in their classrooms, sports, church and scouting.
9. The absolute best part of being a parent is…
My kids are entering middle childhood (7, 10, 12) and it is amazing to watch them turn into funny, smart, disciplined, ambitious, helpful and sweet young men. I’m glad they still want to hang around with and hug and kiss mom although I know this phase may not last long!
10. I never imagined…
The feeling of seeing your app “baby” for the first time in the App Store or Google Play is such a thrill. The fact that your kids think you are cool for having an app is even better!
Julianne Wish, Member Contributions, Member Spotlights
Meet StacyMcGuigan, Party Conciege!
1. Please tell us about your business and the service that you provide:
Special Events Company, provide invitations, theme ideas, centerpieces, favors, just ask and I will find (florists, caterers, DJs, etc…)
2. What motivated you to start your business?
I have been giving people party ideas for years as well as throwing great parties not only for my kids but for my husband and our friends, it was time to get paid for my creativity!!
3. What kind of background or expertise do you have in your field?
I was the PR/Marketing Manager and Special Events manager for The Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner.
4. What trends do you see in your current industry?
More home parties.
5. What are the most demanding aspects about your business?
Meeting your client’s budget and giving the WOW factor!!!
6. What are the most rewarding aspects about your business?
Seeing the person who the party is for, thier face when they see the event all pulled together. Seeing people have fun at the events I create and getting their feedback.
7. What advice would you give to someone interested in starting a business like yours?
Be specific with what type of events you want to do and go for it, put yourself out there, be positive and know that it takes a while for people to call you, but once they do, they will keep calling.
8. What are you most proud of as a parent-preneur?
Showing my children that if you have a passion for doing something, take the chance, work hard and you can be very successful and happy at the same time.
9. How have you been able to balance your time between work and your family?
It is very hard but I try to work when the children are in school or when they are in bed. If they can help me with a portion of the event, they do. We are successful together and support each other in our family.
10. What has been the most effective way for you to promote and market yourself?
WORD of mouth and making “friends” with reporters in the local papers. Within one year of being an official business I have had 7 articles written either about me or thanking my company.
Finally: What does your “Milk Money” provide for you and your family?
As a new member, I hope more exposure for my company and potential new clients.
![Quick Tips to Help You Produce More Content]()
Julianne Wish, Member Contributions
If you’re a content producer, sooner or later you’re going to come to the point where you have to ask yourself: “What am I going to write about?” Sooner or later, we all have trouble coming up with ideas. Don’t worry though – If you follow these quick tips, you’ll be on your way to producing great content in no time at all.
Tip #1 – Explain an Expert’s Concept
One great way to produce some killer content is to take some of your favorite quotes and expert ideas and use them as fodder for your content. For example, if you’re running a business blog, you might take an idea like Donald Trump’s “it takes as much effort to think small as it does to think big, so you might as well think big” quote and turn that into a blog post about goals and planning.
Tip #2 – Mistakes to Avoid
Another great way to write articles is to teach people what not to do. What mistakes have you personally made in this niche? What are common mistakes other people make?
You can either list several mistakes in one article, or go in depth on one common mistake that they should pay attention to and spend the whole article on that.
Tip #3 – Share a Personal Experience and a Lesson
Is there a personal story you can tell that will help teach your readers a lesson? If you can tell your story in an entertaining and informative way, that will definitely be a great article.
For example, Zappos’ CEO Tony Hseih often shares the story of how he learned business lessons from playing poker. The lessons he learned later helped him sell his company for $1.2 billion dollars. The story is both entertaining and highly educational.
Tip #4 – Browse Related Websites
If you’re really having trouble coming up with ideas, go take a look around other websites in your industry. As you browse through what other people are putting in their content, a great idea for your site will likely hit you like a thunderbolt. If it doesn’t, then go browse some niche forums. Specifically pay attention to questions people seem to be asking again and again and see if you can answer some of those questions in your content.
Tip #5 – Tell it Differently
If you feel like you’ve really exhausted everything you have to say, then take a concept you’ve already touched on and go deeply into it. Expand on it in depth.
In the spirituality industry, there’s one primary teaching that’s repeated over and over: “Be present.” This one concept is expanded upon again and again, filling up thousands of pages of content. This concept doesn’t get boring because every time it’s told it’s from a different angle, with a different story or a different emphasis. You can do the same with your content. What’s one important concept you can expand on?
These are just some ideas of how to quickly produce more content. Use these tips to help stimulate your mind, then use your creativity to create some knockout content.
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.
Julianne Wish, Member Contributions
Having a great newsletter can increase your business by as much as 5 fold – Or more, if you do it right! In fact, a newsletter is one of the most crucial tools in business, yet many beginning marketers miss out on it. Why is a newsletter so crucial and how can you start your own newsletter? Here’s the inside scoop.
Why a Newsletter is So Important
A newsletter is crucial because most people aren’t willing to pull out their credit card the first time they hear about someone. Instead, they prefer to get to know you and your content bit by bit over time. As they get to know you and realize you’re the real deal and that you can help them, then that’s when they’ll be willing to pull out their credit cards and make a purchase. To build this trust, you need to build a connection over time. A newsletter allows you to stay in touch with people even after they’ve left your site.
Getting Started With a Newsletter
The first step is to get an autoresponder service. There are many services, such as Aweber, GetResponse or iContact to choose from. If you have a shopping card system, that may have a built in autoresponder as well. Once you have your autoresponder setup, the next step is to get people to sign up for your newsletter.
The best way to do that is to have your newsletter on the front page of your website. Clearly tell your readers what they’ll get by signing up to your newsletter. Then ask them firmly and powerfully to join your newsletter.
Consistency
It’s important that you have a set consistency at which you send your emails. In general, anywhere from once a week to once a month is a good consistency.
If you send your emails more than once a week, people may start to think its spam. If you send your emails less than once a month, people will forget about you. Once you pick a consistency, stick with it so that people know what to expect from your website.
Building a Relationship
A lot of newsletter writers spend a lot of time on their headline. Because, that’s what gets emails opened after all. Right? Wrong. Your real headline is in the “from” column. People look at who the email is from more than the subject when they’re deciding whether or not to open an email. Your goal is to build a relationship with your readers, so that they know when they get an email from you that they’re in for a treat. It’s going to be interesting, informative and useful. You’re not going to spam them. If you build a relationship with them like that, then your emails will get opened – Almost every time.
Again, having a good newsletter can increase your business by many fold. Start by creating your autoresponder and getting signups. Then, pick a mailing consistency and start to build a relationship of trust with your readers.
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.
![Quick Tips to Help You Produce More Content]()
Julianne Wish, Member Contributions
If you want to succeed online, then meeting people who’ve already succeeded before you is going to be a huge help. In fact, this could be the sole difference between success and failure. How do you network locally and at seminars? This crash course will help you build relationships that’ll help boost your network and your business.
Make Friends First
In online business, this business axiom holds very true: “All things being equal, people prefer to do business with people they like. All things not being equal, people still prefer to do business with people they like.”
If you want someone to share with you their success techniques for building an online business, then the first step is to build a friendship with them.
Get to know them as human beings and allow them to get to know you. Show a little vulnerability, as well as curiosity and interest towards them.
Once you have a bit of a relationship, then talk business.
Give As Well as Take
If you’ve discovered a technique that’s been working really well for you, don’t horde it for yourself.
There has to be a give as well as take relationship in any kind of business relationship. Share your knowledge and your contacts freely and others will do the same.
Join a Mastermind Group
Meeting with other likeminded people on a regular basis can really help drive you forward.
There are two important things that happen when you’re around other people like yourself. First of all, you get to share ideas, techniques and stories that’ll help you figure out more ways to be successful.
The other thing that happens is that you start to build off of each other’s momentum. If one person is making more money than the others, everyone else will start making more money. Everyone will start taking more action. The energy begets more energy.
If there isn’t a mastermind group near you, then start your own group. It’s not that hard to find likeminded people near you. Get these people together and ask them to bring people they know. Soon, you’ll have a great group of likeminded individuals.
Find a Mentor
If you’re making $2,000 a month and want to be making $5,000 a month, then find someone who’s making $20,000 a month.
This relationship can be a paid relationship, a friendship or a mastermind group relationship. Whatever you need to do, just make sure you have someone in your life that’s where you want to be financially.
This will have a very powerful magnetic effect on your finances. You’ll slowly but surely start making more money.
The bottom line is, who you spend time with has a great deal of influence on your success. Make sure you’re networking properly so that you’re spending your time with the right people.
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.
Julianne Wish, Member Contributions
There’s a big difference between stale writing and writing in a way that really builds a genuine connection with your prospects. Can you guess which one generates more sales and traffic? You guessed it – If you build real connection, you’ll see the difference in your bank account. How do you write in a way that actually draws people in and builds connections? Here’s how.
Share Yourself
Be who you are. Chances are, you’re not the only person teaching what you’re teaching! But people will listen to what you’re saying, not only because of your content, but because they enjoy hearing you share your experience.
If you had a specific experience that relates to what you’re talking about, share it. Believe it or not, this can actually have a big impact on people feeling like they can trust you. Because they feel like they know you more.
“What’s In It For Me?”
The “WIIFM” question is a question that you should answer as quickly as you possibly can. Internet content that rambles on and on without being crystal clear about what they’re getting does not get read, period.
Not only should your WIIFM be totally clear, but you should put it as early in your content as possible. That way, people will know why they should keep reading before they even start reading.
Be Conversational
Write like you talk. Don’t use corporate fluff speak. You’re having a person to person conversation, just over the internet.
Use slang. Start your sentences with “and” or “because” if it sounds natural to you.
And most importantly, put your passion and spirit behind your words.
Let It Sit
Before you publish your content, let it sit for a day or two. Then, come back and review it one more time before you publish it.
Often times the second time around you’ll pick up on things you didn’t the first time. These could be grammatical mistakes, or it could just be more information you can put in that’ll make your content even better.
Credibility
One crucial element to having people listen to what you have to say is credibility. There are so many people on the internet giving different advice; it’s hard to know who to listen to. Have you helped over 1,000 people solve this specific problem? Make sure they know that. Have you been featured on Fox and CNN? Make sure that’s plastered all over your website. Have you done exactly what you’re teaching, in spades? Make sure they know that.
In short, the question of “why should I listen to you” and “why should I trust you” should be answered before you ask your readers to take your word on something.
Here’s the bottom line: If you write in a way that really connects with your readers, you’ll build more traffic, more loyalty, more referrals and more sales. Write to connect with your visitors.
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.
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