When A Novel Idea Digital Marketing agency owner, Rachel Ohmes, started her first business, she leaned on her expertise as a writing and communications instructor at Manhattan Area Technical College. “I’ve always taught writing, and I would always get requests for assistance with writing, so I started out as ‘The Writing Rescuer,’ which was a writing review service,” says Rachel.
PC: Emma Highfill Photography
Shortly after starting her first business, however, an urgent personal need coincided with an entrepreneurial opportunity. While creating a PowerPoint for local gym owner, Bayo Adio with AdioFit, he offered her the chance to learn more about marketing by helping him promote his business in other ways. At the time, Rachel was searching for funds so that she could be in a financial position to leave an abusive marriage. “With owning a home and having a daughter, I needed the additional source of income,” says Rachel. So, when clients paid her, she started a reserve account and put a portion of the money there.
While she was just starting to market clients in the fitness industry, the Covid 19 pandemic started. Once a quarantine was initiated, fitness company owners needed to put their services online immediately. With the relationships she had been building and her digital expertise, Rachel’s business grew quickly. By the end of 2020, she had saved enough money to leave her marriage.
“My business saved my life,” says Rachel. “With domestic violence survivors, I am an outlier. I had the resources, a laptop, a wifi connection and a stable enough home environment, and I was able to start my business. Because I know this is not the story for all survivors, I am working on building a Virtual Assistant training program. I am working with LaFarris Risby to help teach about the business side of things so survivors can start a VA business.” She adds, “We are hopeful that we will be able to launch this learning platform in 2023. Our goal will be to choose people who are local, especially in the beginning.”
Everyone has a story that is unique to them, and A Novel Idea Digital Marketing’s story-focused approach enables their clients to craft their marketing narrative. “My own story is within every thread of my business, and without my business, my life would look very different.” Rachel continues, “I love to work with these small businesses because they have amazing stories to tell, but they don’t always have the right words. So I love to help them create the right words.” Rachel specifically loves the process of working with a client to build a strategy around marketing and storytelling, focusing on when and where to share the story and meeting the needs of the clients they are targeting.
Although she has years of experience and education in communication, Rachel does not have formal education in marketing. She sees this as an asset, however, as she approaches every opportunity as a learning experience. One way she learns best is by teaching others, so she recently hired an assistant. “She is going to college in the fall, and I wanted to teach her these skills. Every time I teach someone, I learn more, and it helps me improve my skills,” says Rachel. Hands-on learning is Rachel’s secret weapon when trying something new. “Some of the early entrepreneurs I worked with took a chance on me. I learned how to build websites and code because I learned on the job, and these are skills I would not have learned otherwise.” Rachel adds that the fact that she was able to grow her expertise and her business through the trust and faith of others demonstrates how supportive the entrepreneur community in Manhattan is.
In the greater Manhattan area, there have been many influential people and resources that served in Rachel’s launch and growth of A Novel Idea Digital Marketing. One of her first connections was with LaFarris Risby in October 2021. With LaFarris’s trusted network, she encouraged Rachel to take Entrepreneur Business Basics with Spark, which LaFarris facilitated. “I didn’t know about owning and running a business, and the EBB class was helpful. I like to have dialogue with people, and in the small groups in the class, I was able to listen to other entrepreneurs in the class and go into problem-solving mode together. The other students inspired me to think about how marketing and technology factored into their business and mine.”
Rachel giving her winning pitch at Entrepreneur Business Basics pitch competition during the graduation ceremony, April 2022
Another local event, 1 Million Cups, helped Rachel think about how to work with entrepreneurs as a presentation coach, an extension of her work as an educator. “1 Million Cups was important because I was able to work with presenters on crafting their speech, and when you get them to talk about their business, that’s the bread and butter of the marketing message,” says Rachel. She has also benefited from joining local entrepreneur Facebook groups, MHK Area Entrepreneurs and Women in Entrepreneurship. “One of the conversations I’ve had there made me think about how I want to grow and support my team as I hire people. I really like meeting with women entrepreneurs and the informal meetings have been invaluable.”
The low overhead of her business model and the fact that she launched with a client base allowed her to profit each year. She is currently projecting a significant revenue increase again this year. Rachel’s business presentation skills have also come in handy in helping her raise capital. In April 2022, Rachel won the Entrepreneur Business Basics pitch competition, in which she took home $1000 for her business. “This will go towards the learning management system for the VA learning program,” she says of how she plans to invest the money. “My business has low overhead, which makes it a great business for domestic violence survivors because they don’t need a lot of money to run this kind of business.”
Although Rachel is not from Manhattan, she has always felt at home in the city. In her experience, the entrepreneurship community in the Manhattan area welcomes new businesses and helps guide them to success. “People are not stingy with their knowledge. They want to help and see you succeed.” Another woman-owned marketing business in town collaborates with Rachel by sharing services and resources. “We are still competition, but it’s not as ruthless as I imagined competing businesses to be, and I really appreciate that.”
As she grows, Rachel hopes to make an impact for people like her who were starting out, both domestic violence survivors and other new entrepreneurs who are just opening a business. “I don’t want my business to be focused on me. A local entrepreneur took a chance on me, and because of that this is where I am now. So I want to give those chances to someone else.”
Follow A Novel Idea on Facebook or connect with Rachel via email to learn about she can help you tell your marketing story.
