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Rachel: Hi. I'm Rachel Olsen, founder of Best Mom Products where
mompreneurs share their adventures in business. Today I'm
talking with Jennifer Covello, award-winning author of
Frittabello Baby Journals. We'll learn how she took negative
customer feedback and turned it into another revenue stream.
Welcome Jennifer. Let's get started.
I would love to hear and I'm sure the audience would love to hear
what year you started your business and how you came up with the
name Frittabello and tell us a little bit about why you started
your business.
Jennifer: Okay. Well, I started my business back in 2008 but I actually
started writing the content for my baby journal in 2007 when I
had a full-time job, so like any full-time working mom you work
on your business at night and on the weekends and whenever you
have time. I finished the journal in 2008 and then I published
it, and after I got laid off in early '09 I started to work full-
time on the business and promote it, and that's when things
started to pick up as far as people knowing who I was and what
the business name was.
You had asked about "What does Frittabello mean?" I get that question
a lot, and mostly I get it from trademark attorneys who want to
know if it's a word in another language, and it's actually not.
It's named after my son whose name is Christopher Covello and
when he was a little boy learning how to pronounce his name
that's kind of a mouthful so he called himself Fritta Bello, and
I named the business after him, which is apropos, not only
because of the cute name, but both of my children have inspired
some part of my business in some way. It really is a testament
to them.
Rachel: That's great. Tell me a little bit about how did you decide on
doing a baby journal, and how did that come to be?
Jennifer: Like lots of moms, when I came home from giving birth to my son
I wanted to write down every detail I could about those last few
days up before delivery and also when I got home. I just started
writing everything down that I possibly could and I never
stopped. My son will be 15 in November. My daughter will be 11,
or is 11 right now, and I still keep journals for them.
Several years after my son was born I decided that I really wanted to
make something more of this. I thought it was really important
for parents to record in some way, shape, or form, their
children's lives, and I'm a writer, so I love to write. I
thought a baby journal that was a little bit more than the
typical baby book on the market would be perfect. When I created
it I wanted to make sure that I also put in my own experienced
along with the typical milestone type of information so that it
really ends up looking like a story for the child.
Rachel: When we talked before you had said something about it was kind
of a dual purpose. It's like "Who am I," and you wished you had
had something like that growing up.
Jennifer: When I had this idea I also was in my early- to mid-40s and
trying to figure out "who am I going to be when I grow up?" I
still haven't grown up, but I'm getting closer to who I want to
be. But I thought, whenever you go to any kind of career
coaching or life coaching they always say, "Well, what did you
like doing as a child? What were you like as a child?" I really
didn't have a good answer for that other than-the only thing I
knew for sure is that throughout my life I have always written
something, whether I was copying down my favorite song lyrics or
writing in a diary, that's the only thing that I knew.
I said, I really wish that I had some type of journal or book-there
was clearly no videos back when I was a child that would give me
a little bit more information, a little bit more in-depth
information about who I was as child so that I could then take
that in my life now and say, "You know what? That's what I loved
to do then and that was the truest honest part of your life when
you're really loving everything that you're doing and it would
have been great to have had that insight now." That was my
other thinking with the baby journal is that when I give these
to my kids at some point they'll get a really good insight into
what their life was like as well as who they were.
Rachel: I did get the baby journals, and the first year I was pretty
diligent about all those milestones. I know I want to hear a
little bit from you. As you were doing this, we'll get back to
more of the business of how you created the book, but kind of
the feedback that you got from people, and I think you had said
people would say, "I don't have time to write." What were some
of the negative feedback that you got and then how did you
overcome that?
Jennifer: Well, it was interesting, the very first show I ever did, I had
a woman come up to my table and say "No full-time working mother
has any time to write in a baby journal." It was my first show,
my first everything, and I was like, "Ouch." Then I collected
myself, and I said, "Well, I'm a full-time working mother and I
find time." You always find time for things that you really want
to do. That's how I look at it."
However, I'm also realistic and I understand how busy working moms
are and what I did is I created a workshop for them where I
debunked those myths and I proved to them that they did have
time. The other thing that I heard a lot was that they don't
know what to write, and they're not good writers, so I proved to
them that they don't need to be a good writer, and they do have
time. Through some really fun exercises they walked away with a
sense of accomplishment and even though they either, a, started
and stopped, or never started, they could go back to it and
start over.
Because my point is that while I would love for you to use my
journal, what I really want to get across is that you do
something, whether it's a composition notebook or a video or
however, whatever works for you, but do something. Don't feel
guilty if there are stretches of time that are blank because I
have blank entries in my kids' journals too.
Rachel: Once you wrote that book and you had it, how did you decide you
were going to sell it, and how did you find, you found a printer
locally? Tell us a little bit about that process.
Jennifer: Okay. You know, many small business owners doing something
brand new, you don't know anything, and I didn't know anything
about how to take that Word document sitting on my computer and
turn it into a book. I was lucky enough to have a very good
friend of mine who is a designer, and so I knew at minimum, I
had to design the book and come up with a theme for it. I worked
with her and she developed that, so now I have this beautiful-
looking huge Word document and now I have to find a printer.
As I said, I was still working full-time, so I had all of my contacts
and access to vendors and agencies. I reached out to a few of
them to see if they would even do a project this small because
they're large agencies, and they were serving a very large
global company.
One of them actually was nice enough to lead me to a smaller
production business up in Rochester, New York, and I reached out
to them and I explained what I wanted to do and they said,
"Sure, we do that all the time," and I just was like, "Wow."
There was lots of phone calls and lots of samples but basically
I shipped them this PDF that was formatted properly for
printing. and they made it happen.
There's something very magical about seeing something that you create
come to life and you're holding it in your hand when a couple of
years ago it was just in your head.
Rachel: Right. That's amazing. I think that's something that resonates
probably with everybody listening. Anybody who has an idea for
something, to take it from an idea to take it to fruition is a
lot of time, a lot of hard work, and then that moment when it
actually is alive and here. It's going to affect other people
and that's wonderful, so congratulations.
Jennifer: Thank you. Thank you.
Rachel: Let's talk about now you have this book, how do you sell it?
What happens with the book?
Jennifer: Coming from a marketing communications background, at minimum I
knew I needed a press release. I started with that, and I got
some coverage in local papers and local printing magazines. I
started to research different events in my area that I could
purchase a table or a little booth and just start selling it one
by one, and that's really how I started off because I was
working full-time.
Rachel: Okay.
Jennifer: All of this outreach had to happen at night and on the weekends
and that's not exactly when reporters are getting emails. There
was a lot of wiggling of my time and a lot of juggling of
schedules, but heading out to the press was probably the best
first step because, in essence, as you and I were chatting
about, it's my name along with this product. In order for people
to know about the product, they need to know about me.
That's really how I started with the press and events, and then I
just started doing a lot of grassroots marketing, joining
networking organizations, handing out a ton of business cards,
little marketing postcards about the journal and it's little bit
by little bit. That took quite a bit of time, especially when
you're working full-time, but then when I got laid off I had
lots of time.
Rachel: Did you look at that kind of as a blessing in disguise, or did
you know that you were going to go full-time with your new
business?
Jennifer: Well, I didn't know I was going to go full-time, but all I kept
thinking of when I was working full-time is, "If I was working
full-time on my business I could really do this," or "I could
really do that," and so someone heard me and answered that
request. There was something inside me that knew something was
coming. Whether it was my business that was going to be the next
step or something else, I just felt that there was something
going on.
I was surprised by being laid off, but I wasn't surprised, and I
really thought that I was ready to take a new step and a next
step to move on to something else. I'm incredibly grateful for
my corporate career and all the contacts that I made. If anyone
still has a corporate job, don't burn any bridges because you'll
need those people at some point in your business.
Rachel: Well, that's good advice. You run these workshops for
journaling and you did that, and now you kind of have geared off
into a new arena. Maybe we can switch gears a little bit, talk
about Parenting for Purpose . . .
Jennifer: Sure.
Rachel: . . . is the name of your blog, and what you're doing there,
and how you've learned what resonates?
Jennifer: I sent out a monthly newsletter for my business, and what I was
finding is that while I would make a sale here or there from my
newsletter, I was getting a lot more comments and testimonials,
if you will, from what I was writing as part of the newsletter.
Something just clicked in me one day and said, "People are
responding to what you're writing, and maybe you need to take
that a step further and translate that into a blog." That's
really where it came from, is my monthly newsletter where I was
really writing about my experiences and selling a little bit.
Rachel: Right.
Jennifer: I said, "You know what? People are responding to this. I'm
going to do the blog."
Rachel: Right. If they're responding to the blog, then I'm going to ask
you how do you get an income from being a blogger, or do you?
Jennifer: Well, I think that's probably the million-dollar question. I
think you have to make a decision when you start a blog that
either you're doing this just for the joy of doing it and
whoever falls upon it falls upon it, and if Random House just
happens to be one of those people and offers you a book deal,
then yippee. If you're looking to make money off of it then I
think you really have to do a lot of research around advertising
and affiliate marketing and plan that into your blog.
I'm still relatively new at this, and I'm enjoying the writing part
of it and the comments that I get, and the sharing of it. The
next evolution of that will be to move it towards some
productizing it a little bit and even though you can still buy
my Frittabello products on the blog, there are other things that
I can be doing as well.
Rachel: How did you build your social media following? It sounds like
people really connect to you through social media. How did you
do that?
Jennifer: Though a lot of patience and a lot of really just trial and
error. I think people have the misconception that they create a
Facebook page and millions of people will find them. It really
goes back to a marketing strategy and making sure that people
know who you are and where to find you and that you're always
promoting your website, your Facebook page everywhere.
Even things like in my newsletter drawing attention to the Facebook
page, joining other or liking other pages and asking them to
come like you back. There's lots of online events where they
have a Facebook-I don't even know what they call it, but it's
like a little Facebook camp-and you go follow everyone and they
follow you back.
This is all wonderful, but at the end of the day if you have a gas
station following you, and you have no connection to a gas
station, it doesn't matter that you have them following you. I
think it's really about quality, not quantity. I'm very
selective with who I follow back and who I allow to follow me.
If it's not a match then it's not a match. I'm not after a
million followers that have nothing to do with what I'm doing.
Rachel: Right.
Jennifer: That's not the goal.
Rachel: Right. I totally agree, and I see all of those things, "Follow
me, I'll follow you back," and I think, "Well, it's still
building a business and its reputation and who you're associated
with." You have to really make sure that you're aligning
yourself with people who not only have the same interests, but
also are reputable.
Jennifer: Absolutely.
Rachel: I think that's a really good point to make. Okay. I want to
thank you for being here, and I'd like to end with just a few
questions that I ask everyone. One is I definitely would love to
know how do you manage it all? You have two, it sounds like,
almost teenagers, and how is that different? I'd like to ask
you, how is that different from when they're younger? A lot of
people out there have younger kids, different age, how do you
find managing business and family when they're younger versus
now when they're more school age?
Jennifer: Well, it was interesting because when I started to write the
journal my kids were much younger. This was five years ago. My
daughter still took naps, and my son was probably around the age
of my daughter right now, and it was tougher back then. At that
time it was nights and weekends and that was it. There was
nothing obviously going on during the day because I was also
working full-time.
When I started to work on the business I told them what I was doing.
After I got laid off they knew I was going to be home, and I
told them what I was going to be doing. I had a little dedicated
area for a work space. As they got older and saw what I was
doing, they recognized that "Mommy's working at home." I do have
the luxury of shutting off the computer in the middle of the day
when they're home and going and doing something with them.
Today I actually try and involve them as much as they can, for
example, I just delegated my follow-backs for my Twitter account
to my daughter and I told her what to look for, no gas stations,
so she's just starting to get acclimated to it. If she's not
sure, she'll ask me, but now that's something I don't have to do
any more. It gives her a sense of purpose, and she understands
it.
When I'm getting ready for my workshops, my son will help me put my
folders and my handouts together. I think if you can involve
your kids and delegate some things to them then that takes the
load off of you which helps you manage your time a little bit
better.
Rachel: Right. And what a great thing for them to be learning about,
from a business sense and responsibility.
Jennifer: Absolutely, yeah.
Rachel: Wow. I feel like I'm really looking forward to my kids getting
older.
Jennifer: Well, bigger kids, bigger problems.
Rachel: Right, right. I know. Right. I've heard that. I have two girls.
Everyone's like, "Wait until they're teenage years. It's easy
now"
Jennifer: [inaudible 18:00] hard.
Rachel: Yeah. Then also, what traits do you think that it takes to be
an entrepreneur?
Jennifer: First and foremost, I think you need patience and you need
perseverance because it takes longer than you think and it takes
more work than you think. Even if you have the coolest, greatest
product in the world, it really is going to take time, I think
the perseverance-it's tough to hang in there when you're getting
a lot of rejections or things aren't turning out the way that
you thought. The way that I approached that really was I tried
not to look at it as rejection or failure but rather "What can I
do? What can I fix to do this better or do it differently next
time?"
Sometimes you have to be willing to walk away and say, "I've done
everything I can. Maybe this isn't what I'm supposed to be
doing, but I really have enjoyed this piece of it, I think I'm
going to follow that." What I tell even people that in my small
business class is don't be afraid to walk away because it's not
a failure, and you've learned a lot and that piece of it may be
what will lead you to what you're really supposed to be doing.
That's how I feel about my own journey. I don't think that while I
love my journal and all my baby gifts, I'm not sure that I'm the
best person to be a retail entrepreneur, but it's led me to
where I am right now, which is writing and doing workshops and
speaking to moms which is what I love.
Rachel: I love that you've been so open about your journey and that
you've shared that. Somebody else I interviewed said, "My
business is an authentic version of"- I was telling you this-
"authentic version of who I am and where I'm at."
I think a lot of the times you start in a business and you feel
married to it. You worked so hard for a year to five years on
it, and you don't want to let it go because you've worked so
hard. It's so refreshing to have that permission to say, "I have
evolved, my business has evolved. It's okay to make these
changes. It's part of my journey." I feel like you've really
shed light on that and communicated that really well, so thank
you.
Interviews like this can be found at www.bestmomproducts.com. Please
sign up for our newsletter when you're there and Jennifer
Covello's Parenting for Purpose can be found at
www.parentingforpurpose.com. Thank you and until next time.