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Business Services Industry

The new you: when customers ask for more, change your business focus without losing it

Entrepreneur, Oct, 2004 by Nichole L. Torres

HAVING A BRILLIANT IDSA AT THE START of your business is one thing. Finding a way to shift your idea toward what your customers ask for--that's another kind of brilliance. It's what Joey Roer-Chancis did with her company, Joey New York Roer-Chancis launched her line of skin-care products in 1993 and had a strong niche at stores like cosmetics retailer Sephora by 1996. But customers kept clamoring for a whole cosmetics color line, so she considered the possibility. "We developed a cult following through our [skin-care] treatments," says Roer-Chancis, 36. "So [by] listening to what [customers were] looking for, [the color line] became of interest to us."

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Even after hearing how much her customers and retailers wanted a Joey New York color line during the first three years of business, Roer-Chancis and her team took two more years to introduce those new products from their Aventura, Florida, locale. Making sure her color products would complement her brand and still be different from other products on the market required a lot of R&D. So, in 1998, when she launched the color line, she made sure it also had the "good for your skin" element of her original line.

That's the right way to modify your focus, says Vickie Sullivan, a business-growth expert for professional service firms and founder of Sullivan Speaker Services, a market strategy firm in Tempe, Arizona. "Look at your brand," she says. "You don't want services or products that don't fit the overall brand."

Spend time researching the impact a new product or service direction will have on your original business, says Sullivan. Ask yourself: Will it be additional profit, or will it take away from your core business? Will it grow and strengthen your overall brand? "[See] if it's going to cannibalize or take away from your current offering," she says.

When you decide that a new direction is good for your business, use those customers who clamored for the new product or service in the first place as a small test market. Do this before you fully launch, and get extensive feedback. The key to making a successful business shift? "Be open to the market. If you're starting up, the market is going to tell you what they want," says Sullivan. Don't be so in love with your original idea, she adds, that you can't see the opportunities that change can bring.

For Joey New York, that willingness to change brought yearly sales well into the seven figures. Talk about adding a little color to the business.

A father himself, Chris Pegula founded his Santa Monica, California, company to make cool diaper bags that resemble messenger bags for dads. Diaper Dude was born about May 2003 after Pegula, 32, couldn't find anything he liked on the market for his outings with his children. Says Pegula, "[I thought] 'I'm just going to design a bag and sell it and see if it works.'" The fashionable bag, an immediate hit with dads, is now available at high-end stores like Fred Segal and Nordstrom, boosting annual sales to a projected $350,000 for 2004.

The dad market is opening up because Gen X men are the new fathers--and being a dad is a priority, says Ann A. Fishman, marketing expert and president of marketing firm Generational Targeted Marketing in New Orleans. Even more than the generations before them, this generation of fathers is concerned with work/life balance and creating an equal parenting partnership, notes Fishman.

Marketing to this niche just takes a bit of forward thinking. Says Fishman, "Quit thinking pink. All [entrepreneurs] have to do is realize that males will be handling the products as much as females." You can create newsletters and Web sites for fathers or create a dad-friendly section on your existing site. From products for new fathers to services aimed at dads with adolescents, this market can run the gamut from electronics and safety products to insurance and financial products. Says Fishman, "There's no limit to where you can go with this."

Business Services Industry

The new you: when customers ask for more, change your business focus without losing it

Entrepreneur, Oct, 2004 by Nichole L. Torres

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