{"id":3211,"date":"2011-06-11T13:47:42","date_gmt":"2011-06-11T17:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/?p=3211"},"modified":"2019-06-07T13:40:58","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T17:40:58","slug":"dotmine-day-planners-sprang-from-goal-of-better-work-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/dotmine-day-planners-sprang-from-goal-of-better-work-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Dotmine day planners sprang from goal of better work life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
Sarah Nicoli and Lisa Edwards of Dotmine Day Planners<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nWhen I met Sarah Nicoli and Lisa Edwards, I expected them to tell me they\u2019d founded a company selling day planners because they\u2019re busy moms and they simply had to have a better way to keep their lives scheduled.
\nI was wrong.
\nTrue, they are busy moms running their own business, Dotmine Day Planners. But the inspiration didn\u2019t come from frantically managing their families and shouting \u201cThere\u2019s got to be a better way!\u201d
\nInstead, it came from an intentional focus on wanting their work lives to be enjoyable. We talked about their career evolution over a long, wonderful brunch and margaritas recently, when the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based duo were in NYC for the National Stationery Show<\/a>.
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Colleen and Lisa enjoy round #2 of brunch margaritas at Dos Caminos<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nNicoli had been a sales manager at Procter & Gamble, Edwards had been in sales at Jockey, and they\u2019d both grown weary of corporate life.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe birth of our business started with the birth of our friendship, which began with the birth of our first children,\u201d Edwards recalled. That was about a decade ago. Lisa now has four kids, Sarah three.\n<\/div>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t that I didn\u2019t want to work any more,\u201d Nicoli said. \u201cI had a great career. It just didn\u2019t work for my family life.\u201d
\nEdwards recalled taking her oldest to day care for one day. She decided that day it wasn\u2019t going to work and resolved to figure out another plan.
\nThe pair began discussing what would work \u2014 a career that allowed them the flexibility to make their families a priority, to work with people they liked, doing something they enjoyed.
\n

\"\"<\/a>
This Dotmine planner is called the Renee, inspired by soprano Renee Fleming. It’s a 17-month leather-bound planner.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThe idea of starting a business together came before the business idea itself, which came from their husbands, who first suggested making planners. After Nicoli and Edwards did some research and considered their individual strengths, they landed on the right mix for Dotmine.
\nNow Nicoli and Edwards both have home offices where they work most of the time, but they also schedule one formal day per week together. Over the years, this has sometimes meant \u00a0planning around their kids\u2019 naps or other priorities. So, they’ve continually adapted by meeting in each other\u2019s houses and with business partners at local restaurants, cafes and other public spaces.
\nThey\u2019ve split their duties so Edwards focuses on the finances and operations, Nicoli leads on customer relations and marketing. Part of the reason their partnership works is a respect for each other\u2019s responsibilities.
\nA decade in, they\u2019re responding to a major change for the business \u2014 their biggest customer has been Ann Arbor-based Borders, but even before the book chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Dotmine began to emphasize selling direct to consumers on their website<\/a> and building visibility via social media.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to say it\u2019s do or die,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cIt\u2019s do different or die.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nSarah told Constance Crump late last year<\/a>:\n<\/div>\n

\u201cOur presence had made a huge difference with fans on Facebook<\/a>. Lisa and I also make sure we call or email every customer inquiry personally. They so appreciate hearing from us. They feel like they\u2019re part of the family.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>
I especially like the Dotmine road map, which includes space for what you want to accomplish and how you’re going to get there. It’s a higher-level view of a planner than just dentist appointments and birthday parties.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nAnother part of their growth has been to use focus groups. As part of a recent new product launch, they invited 20 women to Nicoli\u2019s living room for breakfast and asked them to bring whatever organization system they use to manage their own and their families\u2019 lives. Not surprisingly, most of the women were the social secretaries and home managers for their entire households. They brought wall calendars, Franklin planners, day books, smartphones and more.<\/p>\n
\nDotmine borrowed from what they saw to make sure features like quarterly master calendars and tear-out to-do lists met their customers\u2019 needs.
\nAs they say on their website:<\/p>\n

Like all great businesses, we continue to evolve, inspired by your comments that even in this high-tech world, you want space to record your life happenings, take notes, and put a pen on a piece of paper to cross things off your-to-do list. While there\u2019s no such thing as a 100% perfect planner, we\u2019re confident you\u2019ll find a dotmine product that makes life good, every day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And how do the owners of a planner company organize their own lives? Does all this talk about weekly priorities and shared information put them on a Martha Stewart level of perfection?\n<\/p><\/div>\n

“We, too, try to juggle it all but sometimes a ball gets dropped. The reality is, we\u2019re just like anybody else,\u201d Nicoli said.
\nWould you like to try one of Dotmine’s planners?<\/strong>
\nSarah and Lisa are offering two free planners as prizes for the best comments from Newvine Growing readers<\/strong>. Share your biggest time management challenge or your best time management tip and you could win a Dotmine planner.<\/strong> Deadline to enter is June 19, 2011.
\nBlogging disclosure: I am rarely unbiased about anything I write about. Think of Newvine Growing as my version of Oprah’s favorite things. In the case of Dotmine, Sarah and Lisa treated me to lunch after a mutual friend of ours introduced us by email. I make no representation of impartiality — I would love for them to be wildly successful — but I have also not used their product so this post is not intended as an endorsement.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I met Sarah Nicoli and Lisa Edwards, I expected them to tell me they\u2019d founded a company selling day planners because they\u2019re busy moms and they simply had to have a better way to keep their lives scheduled. I was wrong. True, they are busy moms running their own business, Dotmine Day Planners. But the inspiration didn\u2019t come from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[53,57],"tags":[181,389,405,426,455,458,645,708,724,829,907,1029,1339,1558,1563,2149,2247,2260,2315,2428,2592],"yoast_head":"\nDotmine day planners sprang from goal of better work life - Newvine Growing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/dotmine-day-planners-sprang-from-goal-of-better-work-life\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dotmine day planners sprang from goal of better work life - Newvine Growing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I met Sarah Nicoli and Lisa Edwards, I expected them to tell me they\u2019d founded a company selling day planners because they\u2019re busy moms and they simply had to have a better way to keep their lives scheduled. 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