totsie marine:
taking solopreneurship to the next level
by melissa stanz

Totsie Marine, the solopreneur of Totsie.com Website design studio, has built a thriving business over the past seven years from her home office in Swannanoa. She has helped hundreds of lucky clients improve their image, profitability and communications by developing a unique and impressive presence for them on the Internet.

Recently, she’s taken the next logical step to improve her business—something she defines as giving her more competencies, improving client satisfaction, and increasing her bottom line. The seed for this step—strategic planning—germinated when she met Dan Mann of The Mann Group.

Dan met Totsie as he was stepping out of his car in a downtown Asheville parking lot. Headed toward a networking event, he noticed Totsie getting out of her car, headed toward the same event, and hailed her. “Hi, I’m Dan Mann, and you’re gonna do my website!” he began. He quickly explained to a somewhat startled Totsie that he recognized her from her photo on her website, and a client relationship was born.

Totsie met with Dan to develop his website, manngroup.net. Dan, a strategic planning and leadership development consultant, has years of corporate experience working to help businesses large and small develop plans, leadership capabilities, and achieve great results. He recently started his own consulting business, and wanted to attract clients needing help with planning and leadership development. He wasn’t sure what kind of website he wanted, but knew that Totsie could guide him though the process.

“Totsie did a great job of explaining what I do—she helped me conceptualize what I was selling,” explained Dan.

As Totsie worked with Dan on his site, she quickly realized that she wanted what he provided. “As I read Dan’s content, I realized that a real business did this kind of planning. I had confidence in him and knew he could help me grow my business. He had business perspective and professionalism, and his approach was gentle, persuasive, and clear,” she said.

Most companies Dan works with have employees or a Board of Directors, so Totsie’s one-woman business presented some unique opportunities. Dan and Totsie met to discuss the planning process. She completed an intensive self-evaluation of her personal values and goals and a business evaluation that became the basis of the strategic planning process. The next step was to gather a small group of professionals, friends and colleagues that Totsie selected, to serve as her temporary “Board of Directors”. She chose people who knew her and her business, including Winn King, her husband. Dan conducted preliminary phone calls to interview each person, and then scheduled two half-day sessions for the group to help Totsie with her process. During these days, Dan served as facilitator while the group helped her create a vision, a mission, and some critical goals for her business.

“The people who gave their time and thoughts to my process were amazing. I was honored to have nine people who thought enough of me to give two days from their own busy careers, to ask pointed questions, to brainstorm about my business, and to share their different business perspectives with me,” said Totsie.

Dozens of great ideas emerged from her planning sessions, but three primary concepts stand out. Totsie gained a sense of her business as larger than “little ole me”; she realized she could think of herself as a real business, one that has an impact in the community. She also learned that defining herself as a real business is helping her in all areas of her life—she and Winn are now applying the strategic planning process to their family’s financial goals. Finally, she now feels she can relax into her business—she has a plan that she’s following, and she’s running her business instead of her business running her.

Linda Brandt, owner of LB Marketing, was one of Totsie’s faux Board members. “This process really helped Totsie verbalize what she wanted and what she didn’t want. It also helped her realize the impact she has on other people,” she commented. “Another added benefit is that now I can verbalize what makes Totsie’s business different, and I can do that with confidence. All of her Board members got that, and now we can all help support her.”

“Going through this process for Totsie really helped me,” explained Ginger Graziano, owner of Graziano Design Group, who attended both sessions. “It helped enlarge my perspective of what’s possible. By asking this small group to come in and share with her, I realized how powerful a group can be and how we can support each other.”
Cheri Britton, professional speaker and owner of Whetstone Consultations, also attended the sessions. “It was the power of the collective. As a ‘pretend’ Board member, I really took it on, I saw her business and it was larger. I also loved the energy of all the people, and Dan was a great facilitator, he got to know us first and stepped in when needed, but mostly he just stood back and let the magic happen.”

Totsie begins 2005 with a clear plan, based on her values, vision, mission, and specific critical goals she will accomplish this year. “Having all this is like having a rock to stand on, it lets me see over the horizon to take in a bigger view. And my business decisions are easier now. This process has clarified for me how to increase my personal satisfaction and my clients’ satisfaction, and in turn, I can do a better job building their websites and integrating them into their marketing plans. This was an empowering process and I recommend it especially to people who work alone and don’t have the benefit of team brainstorming,” concluded Totsie.

For more information about Totsie’s business, visit .totsie.com. To learn more about the strategic planning process, visit manngroup.net

Melissa Stanz, MA, is a freelance writer, editor, and marketing communications professional in Asheville, NC. She creates communications plans, and writes copy for newsletters, web sites, brochures, press releases, ads and other print and broadcast materials for a variety of local and national clients. She loves to write feature stories, and satisfies her natural curiosity about the world by connecting deeply with people to tell their stories. When she’s not writing, she’s most often found outside walking with her husband, her chocolate lab, or riding her horse in the magical WNC mountains. Contact her at melissastanz@bellsouth.net