I had been wanting to tell my story for a few years on how much I learned about dementia and Alzheimers from the 10 years I spent caring for my own mother with dementia. I have a truly wonderful success story that is rare to hear and that I feel like I need to share with the world to offer others hope and inspiration. I started writing a book but got stuck so I put it on the shelf and returned my focus to my first love, or first career as a fashion designer and trend consultant, which I ended up closing to devote my time to my mom. I was missing it a lot and continued to do the work even after I had closed and had no paying clients! When I joined EPM I thought I was joining to kick start my fashion business but quickly pivoted, thinking this would be a perfect opportunity to work on my mom's story again as I knew that I needed the support and help that EPM was offering. But teaching a class or putting together a course was not really how I thought I would get her story across.....I had originally intended to start a non profit and gift spiritual retreats to dementia caregivers, as it was this that kept me going at the end of my mom's care when it started to get tough and my mom got in to her 90's. EPM helped me organize my thoughts around what people needed to know and do using the modules and sessions. I put together a step by step plan of all that I had learned first hand and decided to go with the 1:1 coaching idea. During my EPM 12 weeks course, I did more and more research on dementia caregiving courses and found that there were a lot of new ones on the market from just a couple of years ago. I found one course that I felt was great and whose message was very similar to mine. I was happy to know that someone else had very positive experiences with at home dementia care and also believed that the care giver has the power to change the course of the disease. I followed along with EPM quite well and made all or almost all of my milestones on time. Because of creating 2 successful businesses already, some of it came really easy for me. All except the marketing and selling. As a trend consultant I never had to do any marketing because word of mouth did all of that for me. I was sought after and it all seemed easy. As a fashion designer with my own clothing line, there was sales involved of course but the product really sold itself. The creativity was appreciated or it wasn't. So with this product, trying to sell a new mindset on dementia caregiving, felt like crawling up a mountain! I followed the advice of joining FB groups, but the first 4 dementia groups that I joined were so negative and depressing that they left me drowning in toxicity. I would stop for a few days and then try and come back to it. I responded and offered advice only to find someone taking what I said the wrong way and I stopped again. Ready to throw in the towel. But what I learned from this was my ideal customer was not in those groups, already drowning in their own situations because they made a lot of bad decisions or got bad advice in the beginning (my opinion). No, the time to find my ideal customer is in the very beginning when they first get their loved ones diagnosis and are in the learning stage and are open to receiving information that might not be the norm (yet). Their minds have not been set and still have plasticity. Plus they are committed to finding a way to keep their loved one at home for as long as possible. Some people know this intuitively but might lack the skills and knowledge that it takes. I know that I didn't in the very beginning because I was coming from a completely different industry. I just knew that if it had not been for my mother I might not have had such a wonderful life and career. I knew in my heart that I wanted to give back to her as she had given me. What I had absolutely no idea about, is what gifts I would receive by taking this path. This job of caregiving truly turned out to be a job about receiving and was the best job I ever had. (even if the worst paying) So I finished and graduated from EPM without a paying client, or two or three and did not make my investment back. But it's not always about the money but about what we learned in this experience and what we will do going forward. So much learned here....most of all for me....what an MVP is and what a great way to test an idea !
What is now possible for you because of your Experience Product?
Anything I want it to be......everything is possible
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Thank you Marisa for finding your flow and sharing your talents with us! And thanks to your awesome team as well.