SmallBizResource Blog -- Women in Business

Wednesday's Woman: Shades Of Serendipity

Posted by Gayle Kesten Wednesday, Nov 19, 2008, 09:09 AM ET

Even with two books on the market and a third on the way, Stacey Kaye is reluctant to refer to herself as an author. She's an independent marketing professional, through and through. Someone who is passionate about pitching ideas and can't read a magazine article without 86 ideas popping into her head. Someone who keeps Googling, sending e-mail, and making phone calls until she gets to the right person. In other words, someone who has a natural affinity for networking.

Good thing, too. Otherwise Kaye might still be in search of a publisher for her Parent Smart Kid Happy children's book series, whose messages are "secretly designed for parents" who want to foster their kids' self esteem using her positive parenting techniques.

In fact, how Kaye found her publisher, as well as the story of Artemis Woman that follows, puts a fresh spin on the old adage "it's not what you know, but who you know." In both cases, neither expected her "who" would be so integral in moving her plans forward. What's more, neither even knew her "who" at the outset of her venture.

Kaye, who lives in Atlanta with her husband and two young daughters, readily admits to the volume of rejection letters she received for her book proposal. Undeterred, she was heading to Minneapolis to visit family and decided to contact a small toy company in the area. She found the name of someone on the marketing team who had been quoted in an online article, and made the cold call. "I didn't have a personal connection. I didn't even think they were the perfect match. But I just wanted to get my feet wet talking about my book," Kaye told me. "All I was asking him was for 20 minutes of his time to give me some feedback."

Kaye went on to meet with the marketing executive. She showed him her books and discussed her vision. "It turns out he had worked for Target corporate and had helped launch something parenting-oriented. It wasn't 100% similar to what I was doing, but it was an interesting conversation. I followed up with a thank-you note and never really thought I'd talk to him again."

Little did Kaye know, but that person shared Kaye's idea with someone he knew at Free Spirit Publishing. As you can guess, that person wanted to hear more. Kaye sent her book proposal, "and here we are," she says. Her books, Ready for the Day and Ready for Bed, debuted earlier this year, and the next, Ready to Play, is set for a March 2009 release.

"It was definitely through networking, taking a chance, and not being afraid [that the books came to fruition]," says Kaye, who also credit the Internet. "I thrive in finding the needle in the haystack, and I won't stop until I do. The Internet has made those connections easier and made more of them. Certain people would never have come on my radar screen otherwise."

For Artemis Woman, that certain person turned out to be a part-timer hired for the home spa beauty tools business. The Wilton, Conn.-based small business was founded in 2002 by former Remington Products executives Ann Buivid and Lisa Kable, who didn't think the products they represented truly spoke to women. "I used to say, 'The Remington brand on a good day meant men’s shavers and on a bad day meant guns,'" Buivid told Daria Meoli in this month's New York Enterprise Report profile. "Our plan was to make very expensive spa experiences affordable to the mass market, without selling cheap stuff."

True to that mission, Artemis Woman grew at a steady pace for nearly three years when, Meoli wrote, the company "found a huge opportunity in an unexpected place." That's when Buivid and Kable brought aboard their first employee, who worked part-time for Artemis Woman and, as luck would have it, part-time for a saleswoman who called on Wal-Mart. The new hire arranged for her employers to meet. "The saleswoman was impressed -- especially with their heel smoother product -- and got Buivid and Kable a meeting with Wal-Mart’s foot-care buyer. After three months of silence, Wal-Mart finally made the decision to put Artemis Woman in fifteen hundred of their top stores," according the Meoli's article. Today, Artemis Woman's revenue exceeds $4 million, growing 679% since 2005.

Tell me your story of serendipity -- how your business benefited thanks to an unexpected source.

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The Wednesday's Woman series is written for today's community of hard-working, small-business women, featuring profiles, industry trends, research, work/life balance issues and other topics of interest. Send your ideas to Gayle Kesten.

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