MommyMillionaire

How To Get on Donny Deutsch "The Big Idea"

I answered this question in the Mommy Millionaire Forum Message Board at www.mommymillionaire.com for our member Phylana. To ask me your own question, visit the forum and post your question.

Hi Phylana,

Some of the 1000's of subscribers to my blogletter are the producers at Donny Deutsch. These Producers are always looking for new guests to feature, in fact, it's their job to find them. The first way to get on the show is to send an email to them at donny@cnbc.com. If you want, put in the message line "Mommy MIillionaire Sent Me."

But make sure your pitch is good. I'll be writing soon on how to write the perfect Press Release, but in your case Phylana, you may have buried the lead of your story--your product was featured on Doctor Phil! That's a huge accomplishment that should lead off any PR you do. Example: "Featured on TV on Dr. Phil, the Stower Swaddler is the answer millions of sleep-deprived moms have been praying for."

Also, focus on one product for the pitch. Your handmade cards are great, but it's a specialized business and you're not going to reach mass distribution on a handmade product.

Once you write a good press release, with a perfect one paragraph pitch, which could also be recited in 30 seconds as an Elevator Pitch, you should send it on to every media outlet there is--not just Donny--and post it on PRWeb. One of my releases on PRWeb got 60,000 hits the first week, landing me media across the country. (I'll explain how to do this with How to Write a Winning Press Release.)

Like sales, publicity is a numbers game. The more exposure you get, the more likely your chances for success are. Don't stop trying to make something exciting happen every day, even if it is one email of your perfected to press release to a local newspaper or radio show.

Your Friend In the Business,

Kim Lavine

Kim is the President and Founder of Green Daisy, Inc—a lifestyle brand focused on balancing life with love ™--and the best selling author of Mommy Millionaire. Kim has appeared on The Today Show, Rachel Ray, NBC & ABC news, CNN, CNBC's "The Big Idea" with Donny Deutsch, NPR, Oprah & Friends Radio Network, LifetimeTV.com, and has been featured in USA Today, Country Living, Guideposts, Women's World, and American Baby to name a few. Kim is on a mission to encourage women to follow their dreams, inspiring them with hope, honesty and faith.

Kim’s book has been called by Publisher’s Weekly in a Starred Review: “A top-notch, how-to guide on launching a business. Lavine’s human and authoritative story make this one of the most engaging and useful resources available for readers hoping to convert their passion into a healthy company…a rare gem.” USA Today says ““Mommy Millionaire is loaded with resources for a fledgling business person…armed with a good idea and boundless energy.” Barbara De Angelis, PH.D.—#1 New York Times Bestselling Author says, “Mommy Millionaire is an inspiring gift and road map to success for anyone who’s ever had a dream.”

Mommy Millionaire Forum: Is It True That--For Women, When It Comes To Money--Less Is More?

Business as Lifestyle?

Do women start businesses as a lifestyle choice over a desire to make a million dollars? Why is it that only a tiny fraction of the 11 million women-owned businesses in the US have receipts over a million dollars annually? Is it just a lack of confidence that keeps us from formulating five million dollar business plans, like the founders of Crocs? Is it because there is still a attitude of male chauvinism in the business world? Or is it that we haven’t given ourselves the permission to dream this big, and the tools to go after it? Join the discussion on the MommyMillionaire.com message board www.mommymillionaire.com . Read what other women have to say about it, and let us know your thoughts. Is the recent pressure to drive our businesses on to sales of a million dollars annually even a good thing? Is it true that—for women, when it comes to money—less is more?

What do you think?

Kim is the President and Founder of Green Daisy, Inc—a lifestyle brand focused on balancing life with love ™--and the best selling author of Mommy Millionaire. Kim has appeared on The Today Show, Rachel Ray, NBC & ABC news, CNN, CNBC's "The Big Idea" with Donny Deutsch, NPR, Oprah & Friends Radio Network, LifetimeTV.com, and has been featured in USA Today, Country Living, Guideposts, Women's World, and American Baby to name a few. Kim is on a mission to encourage women to follow their dreams, inspiring them with hope, honesty and faith.

Kim’s book has been called by Publisher’s Weekly in a Starred Review: “A top-notch, how-to guide on launching a business. Lavine’s human and authoritative story make this one of the most engaging and useful resources available for readers hoping to convert their passion into a healthy company…a rare gem.” USA Today says ““Mommy Millionaire is loaded with resources for a fledgling business person…armed with a good idea and boundless energy.” Barbara De Angelis, PH.D.—#1 New York Times Bestselling Author says, “Mommy Millionaire is an inspiring gift and road map to success for anyone who’s ever had a dream.” 

The Crocs Patent--The Stuff Legends Are Made Of

Visit www.mommymillionaire.com to learn more and join the Message Board there! This material is copyrighted by Kim Lavine and can not be reproduced or posted elsewhere on the web without written permission.

Just what exactly is a patent worth? How Crocs shoes anticipated competition and created a strategy to head it off, is the stuff that legends are made of! I explain how in response to a question today from one of my readers Michelle, who asks:

“Many companies like Crocs Shoes come up with an idea and put it on the market like you did, well what about the Crocs knockoffs? My question is how can a company that does the Crocs knockoffs get away with it? Do they have to pay the founding company? I would be one of those people who would be afraid of being sued. I could go on and on comparing items that we use everyday and that can be a long list.”

I remember when I was just starting out, perhaps the scariest moments for me involved putting my ideas out there in the marketplace, worrying about somebody knocking them off. Since then I’ve learned that the idea is only 5% of a product’s success—and this may include the patent! The other 95% is sales and marketing. You can find a whole section in my book MOMMY MILLIONAIRE on patents, and I would suggest everyone read it to find out the absolute basics for going forward, including when to pay and attorney, and when not to.

When it comes to patents, some of the best advice I’ve ever been given was that “Martha Stewart doesn’t own the patent on sheets and towels,” which is evidence that trademarks and brands, in my experience, can be more valuable than patents. In theory, a patent is only as valuable as your capacity to defend it in the marketplace, which usually means a lot of money spent paying lawyers. Unfortunately, you don’t usually have the revenues to support paying an attorney to defend your patent when you’re starting out, so it’s always been my advice to take your idea to the marketplace as hard and as fast as possible, so you can generate the revenues necessary to defend your patent. The United States Patent and Trademark Office anticipated this problem, allowing inventors to sue patent infringers for triple damages, which goes a long way to keep people from wanting to steal your idea, if they have to pay three times the money they make off of it to you in damages. www.USPTO.gov Despite this, patents typically defend a narrow technical parameter, which a lot of competitors usually manage to find a way to get around.

Crocs journey began in 2002 in a Canadian plastics company, when a Crocs founder discovered a version of the funny-looking shoes being used in day spas. In 2003, the founders of Crocs, after seeing initial success selling their unique and admittedly ugly shoes at boat shows—and after being rejected by venture capitalists in their attempts to raise start-up capital to take their idea big time—raised $5.2 million dollars from friends to fund their company! The first thing they did with that money was to buy up its suppliers and manufacturers of the unique resin that Croc shoes are made of, called Croslite. This same supplier also owned the design patent on the resin. Crocs began selling first to small shoe stores, then went into national distribution at Nordstrom and Dillards. To meet the need, Crocs founders employed contract manufacturers in China, Italy and Romania. In 2006, Crocs expanded overseas from Singapore to Austia.

The people who founded Crocs had serious business backgrounds, including a President at a national branding company, an exec at a national sandwich chain, a hardware sales executive and a President of an electronics manufacturer. With a motto of “Think Huge,” and after selling only 1,000’s of pairs in 2002, they pooled extraordinary management talents to write a business plan that raised them $5 million for launch from friends and business associates alone. In Feb of  2006, Crocs raised an additional $239 million in the largest footwear IPO (Initial Public Offering) ever, valuing their market share at $1.09 billion. Yes, there are competitors nipping on their heals now, no doubt with some slightly different resin formulation for their shoes on which their patent is based, but they are the innovators with all of the market share and they have the resources to keep their competitors at a permanent disadvantage.

There are a couple of lessons here: 1. Why aren’t women’s companies getting this kind of money to fund start ups? Why do only a tiny percentage of women-owned companies generate revenues of  a million dollars or more annually? Why, though there is $20 Billion in Angel Capital every year for start-up businesses, does only 4% of it go to women-owned businesses, when 40% of all businesses in the US are owned by women?

Is it just a lack of confidence that keeps us from formulating five million dollar business plans? Is it because there is still a attitude of male chauvinism in the business world that won’t see beyond our sexuality? Or is it that we haven’t given ourselves the permission to dream this big, and the tools to go after it? As a very inspiring woman I met this week told me, Molly McDonald of The Pink Fund, www.thepinkfund.org which provides financial aid to those suffering with breast cancer: “We don’t need brass balls, we need brass boobs.”

Brass Balls? Or Brass Boobs? Log on to www.mommymillionaire.com and visit our Message Board and click on that subject, where you can tell us why you think women haven’t pushed their companies ahead into the million dollar zone.

Kim is the President and Founder of Green Daisy, Inc—a lifestyle brand focused on balancing life with love ™--and the best selling author of Mommy Millionaire. Kim has appeared on The Today Show, Rachel Ray, NBC & ABC news, CNN, CNBC's "The Big Idea" with Donny Deutsch, LifetimeTV.com, and has been featured in USA Today, Country Living, Guideposts, Women's World, American Baby and on NPR and Oprah & Friends Radio Network. Kim is on a mission to encourage women to follow their dreams, inspiring them with hope, honesty and faith.

"Everything begins with a search for something better--a dream, an idea, the
courage to face a challenge, and the passion to get it done.
You can do it.
Believe in yourself.
Change the rules.
Join the revolution."
From MOMMY MILLIONAIRE, by Kim Lavine

For all my Mommy Millionaire Sistahs!

Visit www.mommymillionaire.com to learn more and join the Message Board there! This material is copyrighted by Kim Lavine and may not be reproduced or posted without written permission.

I asked my ten year old son the other day if he knew what an entrepreneur was. He answered: “Somebody who follows their dreams.” I asked him who his hero was. He said it was me. I asked him why. He said it was because I follow my dreams.

If you look up the word in the dictionary, the definition of entrepreneur is simply “one who organizes, manages and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.” Funny, it doesn’t

say “hero” anywhere. I don’t see the word “dream” either, but I think the definition would be just as true if you replaced the words “business” or “enterprise” with “dream.”

All great journeys are begun on the strength of just one individual and their dream. I’ve met a couple of women this week who have reminded me of the incredible transforming power of dreams. One, like all of us, has a more personal dream, the other has picked up where perhaps one of the greatest dreamers of the 20th century has left off.

For all of you who haven’t read my book, you might be surprised to know that I get discouraged just like you. No matter where you are in your journey, every day will surely bring new challenges to your dream that only faith, hard work and an unremitting belief in yourself will get you through. In the end, everything beautiful, strong, and worthwhile comes out of intense work, patience, time, sometimes even suffering. You only need to look at your children to see that that’s true. Remember to enjoy the journey, because in the end, the journey is the reward. Treat your dream the same as you treat your kids, laughing, crying, getting mad, showing patience—taking it one day at a time instead of waiting for the day they leave for college or the day you bank a million dollars—and you’ll do just fine.

When I get down, I plug into music. Nothing picks me up and inspires me faster than experiencing the immediate, palpable dream of another dreamer—music. I, like a lot of successful driven people I know, have a special collection of “dream music” that I use just for this purpose. I added another to my collection recently and her name is Sofia from NYC. You can check out her dream at http://www.sofiajmusic.com or http://www.myspace.com/sofiajmusic.com I’m so proud that Sofia is an aspiring Mommy Millionaire. After listening to her brand of “positive pop,” I would like to nominate her song “Gotta Believe” as the official Mommy Millionaire anthem. Check it out at her Myspace page, where you can listen to it for free and download it for $.99. Sofia is chasing her dream as a mother of two in an industry where you definitely don’t talk about having kids. It wasn’t until last week’s MTV VMA awards that I actually found out that superstar Nelly Furtado had kids, after iconoclast Perez Hilton called her out on it.

Then there’s those individuals who dream a dream so big it leads the whole world on the dreamer’s own personal journey. This dreamer gave his own life to follow a dream of making the world a better place for all of us, suffering every kind of abuse possible to later be celebrated as a hero. That person was Martin Luther King Jr.. The other woman I want to recognize today is K.C. Cristian, CEO of Cristian Multimedia Matrix (CMM) http://www.imsointoyou.com . Besides being a writer and also offering you an inspiring and original musical anthem to listen to and download for free called “It’s My Party Now!” on her website, K.C. has taken up the important cause of remembering Martin Luther King Jr. with her efforts to help raise funds to build the Dr. King memorial in Washington D.C. I can’t say it any better than K.C.: "Like his predecessors--Lincoln and Jefferson, Dr. King's body of work helped America inch closer

to a sweet land of liberty. When I go to a restaurant in the South, where Whites and Blacks congregate peacefully, I smile and thank Dr. King for enduring the beatdowns, the bombing of

his home, and the brutal realities of his time," says K.C. Cristian, CEO of CMM. Log on to her website today to find out how you can support this important dream.

Remember Martin Luther King in Washington D.C. and in your hearts. Follow your dreams. Be a hero.

To learn more about Kim or to subscribe to her blogletter, visit http://www.mommymillionaire.com and click on “Join the Revloution.” To post a comment to this, or any of Kim’s blog entries, click on “Message Boards” at

http://www.mommymillionaire.com and add your thoughts.

Kim is the President and Founder of Green Daisy, Inc—a lifestyle brand focused on balancing life with love ™--and the best selling author of Mommy Millionaire. Kim has appeared on

The Today Show, Rachel Ray, NBC & ABC news, CNN, CNBC's "The Big Idea" with Donny Deutsch, LifetimeTV.com, and has been featured in USA Today, Country Living, Guideposts, Women's World, American Baby and on NPR and Oprah & Friends Radio Network. Kim is on a mission to encourage women to follow their dreams, inspiring them with hope, honesty and faith.

"Everything begins with a search for something better--a dream, an idea, the courage to face a challenge, and the passion to get it done.

You can do it.

Believe in yourself.

Change the rules.

Join the revolution."

From MOMMY MILLIONAIRE, by Kim Lavine

Entrepreneurs Aren't Born--They're Made

Visit www.mommymillionaire.com to learn more about Kim, or post in the Message Boards there.

It’s been a busy week for me. I spent a good portion of Wednesday listening to the best and brightest from the highest levels of local government, business and academia, trying to figure out how to turn people into entrepreneurs, because the Michigan economy is desperately in need of risk-taking idealists who have some irrational passion coupled with a visionary idea that could just as easily be qualified as crazy—to start new businesses.

The opinion of all these very smart people was that being an entrepreneur has more to do with growing up in affluent homes, with access to lots of information and resources coupled with great private education, than not. If that’s true, why are 70% of the people who are starting businesses in Michigan born in countries other than the US? Nobody’s living large like Americans!

The truth is, entrepreneurs aren’t born—or born into conditions that make you entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurs aren’t born—they’re made. And it’s really simple.

Entrepreneurs are optimistic—but we’re born into a pessimistic world. Being optimistic is not natural in this world, it’s a learned response. Teach yourself to be optimistic! That’s the secret of The Secret in a nutshell. It’s a lesson straight out of Mommy Millionaire: “A person will achieve success in direct proportion to his ability to let go of negativity in favor of all that is positive. Being negative is easy; being positive is what’s hard. Be a positive, big picture person, always striving to work for the highest good of all parties involved, and you can’t help but succeed.”

Entrepreneurs are risk takers—but nobody is born wanting to take risks! Risk-taking is a learned response. The only way you can evaluate risk is to evaluate reward. Teach yourself to see reward. See it in the morning when you get up, and in the evening when you go to bed. See it when you look in your kids faces at 2pm on a school day for a school party, see it in your business plan’s exit strategy, see it as the hope, dream or aspiration that reward is for you—not just money—every minute of your work day

.

Entrepreneurs are passionate—but you’re not born passionate. Being passionate is a learned response. This world is jealous of passionate people. We’re taught early to go to school, get good grades, get a good degree then a good job with a good title in a good career track. Becoming an entrepreneur means learning to value ideas and passion over degrees and job titles. It means stepping out of everything you were taught and redefining success in your own terms. It means boasting unapologetically about your ideas, about your kids, and it means not being afraid to be enthusiastic when the whole world is telling you you’re crazy

.

Don’t only be these things—Teach these things! Teach them to your kids. Show them you’re a Future Mommy Millionaire. Future Mommy Millionaires are optimistic, passionate, risk takers who are teaching their kids to be positive, big-picture people who are smart and confident enough to redefine success on their own terms. Future Mommy Millionaires are funny and loving and give praise more than they take it away to their kids and everybody else’s kids they come in contact with. Future Mommy Millionaires see opportunity all around them to make the world a better, or prettier, or kinder, or easier place and have the courage and the passion to face the challenge and get it done. Future Mommy Millionaires are human—not superhuman—and they need love and encouragement and affirmation too. So the next time you’re feeling down in your daily battle to pick yourself up, ask your kids—the nearest, dearest source of all positive affirmation and love in your life: “Who’s the best mom in the world?” If you taught them right, they’ll answer you: “You’re the best mom in the world!”

Kim is the President and Founder of Green Daisy, Inc—a lifestyle brand focused on balancing life with love ™--and the best selling author of Mommy Millionaire. Kim has appeared on The Today Show, CNN, Rachel Ray, CNBC's "The Big Idea" with Donny Deutsch, LifetimeTV.com, and has been featured in USA Today, Country Living, Guideposts, Women's World, American Baby and on NPR and Oprah & Friends Radio Network. Kim is on a mission to encourage women to follow their dreams, inspiring them with hope, honesty and faith.

Everything begins with a search for something better--a dream, an idea, the
courage to face a challenge, and the passion to get it done.
You can do it.
Believe in yourself.
Change the rules.
Join the revolution."
From MOMMY MILLIONAIRE, by Kim Lavine

Question on Doing Business on the Internet

Visit www.mommymillionaire.com to learn more and join the Message Board there!

Question

Kim,

I will be trying to get my juvenile product into the retail market.  I had been planning on selling as well thru the internet.  A retailer in another product line told me last night that stores would not take my line if they knew I was selling the product myself on the internet. 

I know that you are very successful selling both ways.  Did you find that it is hard to get retailers to carry your product if you sell it retail also?

I have been using your book as a roadmap since I saw you on TV.  Thanks for all the advice.

June Johnson

Mommie Ideas, Inc.

Answer

Dear June,

This is a good question that I’m sure a lot of other people need answered as well.

The internet is relatively new invention which is revolutionizing the way people do business—and live their lives—around the world. Essentially, the internet has leveled the playing field between small entrepreneurs and big businesses, giving both an equal opportunity to speak to consumers directly and sell products without a middleman, whether it’s in Detroit or Dubai. I believe this is essentially giving rise to an exploding new “cottage industry” era, where women can find the means and opportunity to supplement their family’s income and fill their entrepreneurial and creative ambitions, without compromising their need to be great moms.

Just a few short years ago, retailers were demanding that you not sell the same product on the internet as you do to them for sale in their stores. However, this has just become an impossible demand for them to make. Now the only rule is that you DON’T UNDERSELL your retailers on the internet. Your product may be listed at the same price as the retailer’s, as long as the person purchasing it on the internet needs to pay additional shipping and handling costs, the retailer can’t object. In addition, always make sure you put your website address on every product tag you put in the marketplace.

Good Luck & God Bless,

Kim Lavine

President

Green Daisy, Inc.

www.greendaisy.com 

www.mommymillionaire.com

Kim is the President and Founder of Green Daisy, Inc—a lifestyle brand focused on balancing life with love ™--and the best selling author of Mommy Millionaire. Kim has appeared on The Today Show, CNN, Rachel Ray, CNBC's "The Big Idea" with Donny Deutsch, LifetimeTV.com, and has been featured in USA Today, Country Living, Guideposts, Women's World, American Baby and on NPR and Oprah & Friends Radio Network. Kim is on a mission to encourage women to follow their dreams, inspiring them with hope, honesty and faith.

"Everything begins with a search for something better--a dream, an idea, the

courage to face a challenge, and the passion to get it done.

You can do it.

Believe in yourself.

Change the rules.

Join the revolution."

From MOMMY MILLIONAIRE, by Kim Lavine

Back to Reality!

Visit www.mommymillionaire.com to learn more and join the Message Board there!

Whew! I'm letting go of a big, deep sigh of relief, having just gotten through my kid's first week of back-to-school. My moment in the sun spent doing cartwheels down the driveway while the school bus pulled away with my 10 year old and 8 year old on it last week is nothing but a fleeting golden memory. After thinking that sending my kids back-to-school represented the end to all my summer vacation headaches, I now realize I've traded it in for a whole new list of demands and expectations. Like kids on the burnout end of a sugar rush, I recognize the same look in the eyes of the other moms at the school open house, dashing down the hall from one kid’s classroom to the other for orientation, signing up for Christmas parties, volunteering for the PTA, looking down long lists handed out by teachers: the sudden realization that life just got harder!

This revelation was wordlessly communicated to me by one of the many school moms I’m reconnecting with after the summer break. She was the same one who told me that while I was doing cartwheels down the driveway, she was doing her own version of the back-to-school dance to the delight and amusement of the bus driver. So I wasn’t the only person acting like a fool that day? (What were you doing the first day of school?) On second thought, I remember the moms and dads lining the street waiting for the bus to arrive, with my neighbor taking pictures of her kindergartner courageously making his first bus journey alone, while she cried like a baby. Then there was my other neighbor: dad escorting his first-grader and kindergartner to the bus with obvious joy but no time for pictures as he and his wife juggled running his own business and her job as a teacher, along with six-month-old twins!

How could I have forgotten the frenzied mornings, trying to get my kids up, fed, dressed, lunches packed, homework checked, all in a mad rush to make it to the bus stop before we heard the rumble of diesel pulling away? How soon the mind forgets the explosion of chaos that comes from kids running in to the house at the end of the school day, demanding cookies, the phone ringing with friends who appear in hordes to play, heaps of shoes, backpacks, smelly lunchboxes and reams of teacher notes—struggling to get kids to do their homework before we headed out to soccer practice. It’s back to the battle for me and millions of others, as I try to run my business while juggling the demands of these cute, funny, naughty boys. There’s never been a better time for my mantra, “Embrace the chaos,” than now. Somewhere in all the madness of this first crazy week there have been moments of pure delight: seeing my eight year old lay in bed for the first time every night engrossed in reading his first chapter books, watching my ten year old spending time in the mirror each morning meticulously getting ready in his new school clothes, turning into a young man before my eyes. So it’s back to not being perfect. Back to a house that is slightly out of control. Back to time spent working one-on-one with kids to learn, struggling to understand their “new math.” Back to finding new ways to laugh in the midst of bedlam, to stopping moments in my mind like a photograph to treasure for the rest of my life--like my 8 year old’s skinny legs, seeming to grow inches overnight from out of his Scooby Do underwear. Back to this crazy, demanding, wonderful life of being a parent, trying to raise good, smart, happy kids who know how to love and let you love them, knowing that every precious moment you spend with them now will teach them how to live the rest of their lives. Back to controlled chaos. Back to school.