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If You’re Second Rate, Admit It: Donna M.C. Johnson

Donna Johnson’s story: She was seduced by her own kitchen alchemy, by the soothing scents and healing properties of the lip balms, soaps and cosmetics she made by night. Donna Johnson liked the prospect of turning her hobby into a business, of being her own boss, and she liked it enough to quit her day job as a high-powered lawyer.

In the late 1990s, Johnson opened a bath-and-body products company with a suburban Washington, D.C., storefront and a Web site. The store did OK – just OK. Johnson certainly liked being her own boss.

But as time passed, she realized that many of her competitors “offered products that were superior to mine – yet they did not have the business, legal or media background to make their ventures successful.

“I found myself answering lots of business and marketing questions, repeating myself over and over again to different people.”

With degrees in law and journalism, Johnson decided to bow to the competition and stop making beauty products. Instead, she used her marketing and business skills to create the Indie Beauty Network, a trade association for 500 health and beauty companies that provides help with marketing, PR and legal issues, conferences, publications and classes.

Follow a Passion with Promise

“My passion is really to help people grow in their businesses,” Johnson says. “Most people I work with have great products but don’t have the business skills.”

Her eventual success hinged on her ability to recognize that while she enjoyed making bath products, she would never be the next Estee Lauder.

“The key move for me was knowing what my strengths and weaknesses were and figuring out how to start a business that maximized one and minimized the other,” says Johnson, who still makes cosmetics for herself and friends – as a hobby.

The other part of her entrepreneurial equation was simply that she didn’t want to burn out on long work weeks like those in her intense legal career. She and husband Darryl, who does a lot of the creative work for her company, wanted to have kids and didn’t want to hand them over to someone else to raise. Going out on her own enabled Johnson to have her kids and raise them, too.

“I like working with people who want to be in business for lifestyle reasons,” she says. “They wanted to make a fair profit, but just as important was the freedom and flexibility of lifestyle.”

Next, Do the Research

Johnson did her homework and identified a niche that had not yet been spotted by existing trade organizations. She found that while they helped small business owners in general, no one understood the specific needs and demands of the beauty products industry. So with the help of a Web designer and another who created her logo, she launched in January 2000.

“I began to sign up members and people liked it,” Johnson says. “So I began to offer benefits – the first of which was me as a consultant.” The company grew over time, progressed to a more sophisticated Web site, added members-only benefits. Later, Johnson opened a small law practice on the side, serving a handful of beauty-related businesses.

“I have an annual conference and a magazine and a weekly newsletter and a radio show and I love it,” she says. “My husband’s in business with me, too, which makes it even better. We have two small children and we both work from home.” Last year, they relocated to Charlotte, N.C., because they wanted a slower pace. Life is good.

“I didn’t want to just make money,” Johnson says. “I wanted to enjoy making money. I wanted something that I liked to do. I wanted it to be something I was better at than most people. Choosing something that’s fairly effortless for you is important.”

Johnson’s Bonus Insight

Choose a path where you know you’ll succeed. The sheer volume of people who sought Johnson’s advice before she started up showed her there was a niche to be filled.

“I understood what it was like to make soap at 3 o’clock in the morning,” she says. “I’m not talking about making a million dollars in your bunny slippers. I’m talking about women who want to be in business and be more available to their families.

“It takes a lot of courage to say, ‘You know what? I’m not as good at this as I thought, but I’m good at something else, let me go and try it.’ I already knew I could continue to make beauty products.

“My contribution is helping people bring products to the market, and that makes the world a better place.”