What can you do with one word? Does attitude create an outcome? Do stickers that aren’t sticky really stick to stuff?
Through a mutual friend, (the “wonderful Kyle”) I was introduced to two women – Stephanie Ross and Wendy Lutter of Empoword (pronounced empowered) whose company operates on the principle that one word can rock your world, who personally operate on the belief that attitude is everything, and offer non-adhesive stickers that actually adhere.
Their goal is their customers’ goal: “healthy, vibrant, fulfilling lives”. To help their customers achieve just that they’ve create a line of products that place one-word affirmations on coffee mugs, t-shirts, note cards, water bottles and non-adhesive stickers. These are things that you can see, touch, and have in hand throughout the day. As a result, it’s that much easier to remember your goals, and how you want to approach them.
On a day when it was 4 degrees Celsius in France but 4 degrees Fahrenheit in Minnesota (Minnesota – way colder) where Stephanie and Wendy live, play, and work from their homes, we chatted about many things Empoword. But not about their stickers. (I can, however, vouch for their adhering qualities from firsthand experience.)
THE WORDS
Melissa: I know we’re supposed to be focusing on you two, but I have to first tell you that your buttons and clings have been saving my butt lately.
SR/WL: Oh wow! We love hearing that kind of feedback.
Melissa: I’ve had to navigate a couple of really hairy conversations in the past couple of weeks. And unlike hairy conversations of yore when I approached them with anger and all guns blazing, this time I wanted to start them from a calmer, kinder place. So I kept the “love” button in my pocket before, during, and after the conversation. Or, I kept the “breathe” cling right where I could see it. It’s such a simple and intuitive concept, those one-word buttons and clings. I took to them like a dog to a peanut butter treats.
SR/WL: Yes! They’re simple and yet all of these products have been developed with great intentionality.
Stephanie: That’s the root of the concept. We’ve seen how overwhelmed people become with different products and programs. Then they become disempowered. So we wanted people to have something they could easily have in front of them or near them all the time, as a reminder. Every time they see an Awake cling they can remember to be present . Or, as with you, when you saw the Breathe cling you remembered to slow down, to check yourself.
Melissa: How did you go about choosing and developing this stuff – the words, the colors, the symbols? So many people want to create a product but get completely hamstrung and overwhelmed by the development phase.
Wendy: To get our original words we surveyed over 100 women. We sent them a long list of words asking them for feedback on the ones that most resonated with them. The response was amazing. Women wrote back to say that looking at certain words caused them to look at their life or made them realize they wanted certain words in their lives. It was fascinating. Stephanie and I knew we could pick words but we wouldn’t have really known what would really resonate with others if we hadn’t surveyed.
Stephanie: We pair every word with a symbol so that both sides of the brain are activated. The visual activates the right side while the left side does the cognitive analytical piece. The symbols themselves are deliberately generic so that everyone can pull in the interpretation of it that has the most meaning for them. That’s what makes the symbol different from a sign, like a Stop sign. Signs have agreed upon meanings. Symbols are open to interpretation.
The color palettes are based on unconscious attractions and also resonate with the word itself. You’ll never see a breathe product in red, for example. You’ll always see that word in more healing colors of green or blue.
Melissa: Any plans for new words?
SR/WL: We can hardly wait to add new ones!
Wendy: There are a couple coming out in the next couple of months: Ageless and Smart. And we plan on introducing about three more by the end of the year. People can go to our blog and vote on the words they want to see.
Melissa: That’s your cue, audience peeples, to put your two-cents into the pot. Here’s the link: http://www.thinkempoword.com/community/2009/02/20/faith-or-hope/
ATTITUDE IN ACTION
Melissa: What’s different about your business?
Wendy: For one, we’re redefining how business is done and we’re building our business in a grass roots way. It’s different from the usual male traditional model where you have to have a business plan in such a way and take out a certain kind of loan…the whole gamut. From the beginning Stephanie I wanted to empower ourselves and be role models to our kids – not the whole superwoman thing, because that’s a set-up for failure as well.
Stephanie: One of the things we’ve learned is that while there are rules in business but that everybody writes their own story anyway. I’ve yet to see a rule we don’t defy or that fits our model.
Wendy: So rather than a business plan we wrote an intention/action plan. There are some downfalls to not having a traditional business plan, but there have been some really wonderful things that have come out of it, too. Most importantly doing it this way feels really true to us.
Stephanie: We’ve also brought our kids into the business, too. The kids have done the initial drawings for the symbols, and we’ll modify them from there to turn them into the graphic drawings you see today. They’ve been really helpful in the development of our ideas.
Melissa: While we’re on the topic of kids…sort of…was running a business a childhood dream for either of you?
Stephanie: We joke that we’ve taken to playing store to a whole new level, so the answer to your question is yes…sort of.
THE PARTNERSHIP-FRIENDSHIP
Melissa: I can already tell that you two know each other so well you can finish each other’s sentences. You’re long term friends but also business partners. How is this possible?
Wendy: When we started this venture we wrote some intentions and the number one was our friendship. We consciously make an effort to work on that.
Stephanie: It is written down that the friendship is number one.
Wendy: We give and take a lot more than might be typical of other partnerships. My husband, a fortune 500 guy, marvels at how we work things out and how we work together.
Stephanie: We can talk about anything to each other at any moment. Just to give you an example, we’re a few hours into the work day and we’ve packed up some orders, done some business tasks, talked about our aesthetician, lifted weights, gossiped a little, and discussed politics. This is how we operate from 7 AM to 11 PM, not just 9-5.
Wendy: We love to talk. Actually that’s one of the reasons we work so dang much! We’re always willing to put it all out there, talk through stuff, and figure things out together. Beyond that, though, we’ve been through some pretty hairy times together. We look back on that and just know that the stuff we have to deal with now is nothing compared to what we’ve come through together in the past.
FAN MAIL
Melissa: I love fan mail. I love it like my dog loves peanut butter treats. How about you?
Wendy: Oh yeah, that’s always rewarding. Especially on a bad day. Recently we got an email from someone who every day writes am encouragement message on the back of a cling and sends it to a friend ill with brain cancer. She told us that it means so much to her to be able to send a meaningful gift to this person even when she feels hopeless. Those are the little nuggets that keep us going and keep us committed to spreading our words, even in tough times.
WANT MORE?
To learn more about Stephanie and Wendy and Empoword visit their website: http://www.thinkempoword.com. Their are lots of goodies to be found on their site, including quotes, affirmation how-to’s, and a free worksheet designed to help you with intention setting. You can also sign-up to receive their Empoword of the month e-blast.
To join their community of intentionally affirmative wordists, check out their blog: http://www.thinkempoword.com/community/
To send them some fan mail, you can reach them at stephanie@thinkempoword.com or wendy@thinkempoword.com. (As we’ve learned they gab throughout the day, so if you send your mail to one of them, the other will get your message too…possibly within seconds.)
To shop for their on-the-go affirmations and receive 5% discount to boot (sale items included), use this link -> http://store.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/clink?yhst-35173576253056+HTFtHA+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thinkempoword.com%2F+MG5
[...] in February when I had my chat with word-istas Stephanie and Wendy of Empoword, I shared with them how I’ve been using their products. I didn’t say that [...]