This morning, I was watching the Today Show at my sister-in-law's house while on a family visit. I watched a few segments that featured some products and organizational ideas (that possibly were sourced by organization experts in other small business communities like In Good Company), and I thought about Hope Lawrence at Hudson Henry Baking Co., and how her dream (as stated even on her packaging) is to have her "Good News Granola" featured on the Today Show. She's been working towards that dream and it's actually how she found Tin Shingle: she wanted to get on the Today Show, and discovered that our business membership program had the components to make that dream a reality.

After making my children's breakfast, I'd actually turned off the Today Show so that I could focus on getting them dressed and getting out the door. Moments later, Sabina, Tin Shingle's co-founder and my business partner, emailed me saying: "It happened!!"

"What happened?", I wondered. I dove into the email to learn that Kathie Lee and Hoda just aired a feature of Good News Granola as one of their Favorite Things. (It's also my favorite granola snack that is always stocked in my cupboards...)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a glorious way to start a Monday! Now here's something you should know: Tin Shingle is all about empowering entrepreneurs like Hope to build buzz - that's what we do, day in and day out. We demystify PR, social and online marketing via education, motivation tools and tips so that you can be sure people hear, see and read about your business.

The founder of this granola company that was featured on the Today Show, Hope Lawrence, is a member of Tin Shingle and is especially inspiring to me because she is a mother of two boys who started her granola business so that she could build a business and raise a family. Every decision she makes is made around her family. She doesn't move as quickly as other entrepreneurs because she's on a family vacation, or picking up her son, or is baking granola. But she does it at her own pace. Sabina and I call that a "holistic business" approach, and it's one we try to live by as well. Very often, entrepreneurs in our field don't have families, and they have many more hours in the day and night to grow their business. But the pace of an entrepreneur with a family is slower, and that pace just paid off for Hope.

Hope landed this segment with persistence, patience and by following Tin Shingle's Membership Program. She used several Tin Shingle membership tools to help her get featured on the Today Show. Here is how Hope got featured on the Today Show with Kathie Lee and Hoda:

Hope read our (free) articles in the Ask the Expert section to learn how to pitch the Today Show and Kathie Lee & Hoda 4th Hour.
She attended our #PRTuneUps including the virtual classes about how to land a spot on a morning show.
Hope used our community and resources to check and get feedback on her pitch to strengthen it before she sent in to the show's producers. This helped ensure her pitch was in tip top Today Show shape.
Hope used our Media Contacts to pitch her product to the right producers.
Hope then used strategic emails to follow up with the producers and then waited when she needed to. When she had questions she took them to our Community Forum to get thoughts from others who'd been in her position.

And really, Hope had hope for her product, created fantastic packaging, has a darn cute website, and has enough spunk and "wow factor" that her brand was a fit for the show.

We are so thrilled!

See her packaging here, which truly illustrates her belief in the power of good messages. She states her mantras, one of which is to "Ask for what you want". See the first sentence in the packaging "My dream is that this little granola company will allow me to spend my days with my boys and land a spot on the Today Show":