I'm Diane Kinney
Running a business, online or off, takes knowledge, hard work, and perseverance. I've done that for nearly two decades. While my brain loves solving business problems, my heart loves to help, share and learn from others.
What Can I Do For You?
You might be a freelancer, a small business owner, or a product creator. You have a vision. You have ideas. You need help with strategy, planning, marketing, and executing the fundamentals that ensure your business grows and thrives. I’m building this site to capture lessons I’ve learned and sharing them with you so that you can go create magic in your business.
I hate to gush, but @dkinney makes magic happen.
— carrie dils (@cdils) October 26, 2016
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About Me, Professionally
Growing up in central Wisconsin gives you two core values: work hard & don’t quit.
My first official job was delivering newspapers. I was 11. Monday through Saturday, a truck would drop off bundles of papers at the end of the driveway, and I’d load up my canvas bag and start walking house to house. Nearly every home subscribed to the local paper, and they each had a very specific preference about where the paper should be placed - mailbox hooks, inside the screen door, on front mat, the back door only.
I had two main primary business goals. 1) No complaints. Unhappy customers could either call me or worse, call the paper. 2) Maximize Christmas tips. Good service meant my Christmas tips could exceed what I made delivering papers all year.
This was a great job for about three weeks in the fall of each year. The rest of the time it was freezing, icy, raining or sweltering. Bonus: Saturday’s paper was delivered in the morning, in the dark. If you have any familiarity with a Wisconsin winter, you can imagine me, age 11, delivering papers every Saturday morning in below zero temps. (This was all my idea, by the way. My parents didn’t turn me out to work! At 11, I was already proud of my business income.)
Delivering those papers taught me that income is awesome and that you need to find a more enjoyable and satisfying way to get it.
After achieving excellence in newspaper delivery, my career has had three main phases:
Building Skills
In the first 5 years of my professional career, I worked in a variety of administrative support roles that taught me a love for efficiency I love efficiency. Technology played a huge role here. I learned to program, write macros, create databases and just about any other skill needed to avoid rote, repetitive work. I also learned that improving processes was rewarded with frequent promotions.
Corporate Executive
With a gift for leadership and strong practical skills, I moved quickly to executive positions in large, publicly traded companies. Managing multi-million dollar projects, leading 100 person teams, and spearheading complex marketing initiatives gave me a real world MBA and many of the skills I use every day.
On My Own
Corporate life taught me a great deal and gave me many opportunities, but it’s a life filled with travel obligations and long hours away from home. I took a spontaneous leap to life as an independent consultant and small business owner during the “dot com” boom and haven’t looked back.
For nearly two decades I’ve focused on primarily on digital design and development:, creating branding, collateral, marketing plans, applications, and websites.
