The Wilkii planner is not just a place to plan your schedule. It’s a system for helping people with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, commonly known as ADHD, change their lives and achieve their dreams. Tatiana Greenfield-Smith, the founder and CEO of Wilkii & Co, was diagnosed with ADHD as a young child. She developed the pen-and-paper system that blossomed into the Wilkii planner to help manage her life as she earned a master’s degree. When schoolmates with ADHD started asking for blank copies of her planner pages, she knew she’d discovered a system that could help others. Tatiana still uses the Wilkii planner to run her small business and manage her responsibilities as a caretaker.
The carefully designed pages of today’s Wilkii planner help users articulate specific goals. The planner then helps users identify, break down, prioritize, and schedule the tasks necessary to achieve those goals. The planner also encourages mindfulness and time for rest. Thanks to her experience with Amazon’s Black Business Accelerator, or BBA, and subsequent success with other tools like Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and A+ Content, Tatiana has shared her system with thousands of people.
Running a business that helps other people living with ADHD has given me the focus I need to achieve my goals. I have Amazon and BBA to thank for that.
Knowledge and community from the Black Business Accelerator
Tatiana had been selling her planners in Amazon’s store for a short time when she heard about BBA on a TV commercial. She had a single product available, the original Wilkii planner, in just one color. She had taken all of her photos and put together a product detail page on her own as best she could. Sales began slowly.
Tatiana’s experience with BBA changed everything. She forged connections with like-minded Black entrepreneurs from around the country with whom she maintains productive, meaningful personal and professional relationships. She had access to an account manager who answered questions and offered tips and strategies.
Armed with new knowledge and the confidence that comes from community, Tatiana revamped the Wilkii & Co brand, expanded her product offerings with a line of delightful colors, optimized her PDP with strong keywords and search terms, improved her A+ Content with help from BBA’s imaging benefit, built a storefront, began utilizing Amazon Posts for customer engagement and social media presence, and ultimately grew her business. “Before BBA, I didn’t have a storefront, I didn’t know how to use Post or how to improve my A+ Content,” Tatiana says. “There were so many things I was missing out on. With help from the BBA, I was able to enhance my brand’s presence.”
So far, sales in Amazon’s store account for 100 percent of Wilkii & Co’s revenue and they recently surpassed six figures in sales. This success has allowed Tatiana to begin exploring a new aspect of her business: accountability coaching.
BBA gave me the tools, information, and support I needed to add product variations, grow my A+ Content, and do it the right way.
Expanding from products to services
The knowledge Tatiana gained from BBA increased her sales which, in turn, gave her a new type of knowledge: customer reviews. “It was by going through feedback in my reviews on Amazon that made me realize this product could be used well with coaching support,” Tatiana explains. She learned that some new users of the Wilkii planner needed help getting started and sticking to it. Revenue from planner sales enabled her to expand her product-based business to include a valuable, potentially life-changing service component.
Tatiana started small, fielding questions personally, then made a private social media group where users of the planner could connect to find support from others. She developed an insert with a QR code that arrives with every planner. The QR code leads to a welcome video that helps the user get started and lets them know their options for additional support. Tatiana also hired a coach and developed coaching packages her customers could opt into.
Going global by staying balanced
Tatiana is an embodiment of the success she wishes for anyone living with ADHD. She has mindfully identified her priorities for this season of her life – caring for her grandmother, supporting her family, and running a business that gives her a sense of purpose. She uses a Wilkii planner to structure her time with a keen sense of balance. Business and family obligations are a priority for Tatiana, but so are personal wellness habits like exercise, eating well, journaling, and prayer. She also attributes her ability to manage her time so well to Amazon and its selling programs.
“Having a business on Amazon has allowed me to have a better relationship with my schedule,” Tatiana says. “Amazon’s system is fully built out to support a remote business.” She explains how FBA lets her ship inventory every three to four weeks instead of picking, packing, and shipping orders herself, and how Post, a social media scheduling tool, lets her build an automated content calendar so she doesn’t have to fiddle with different platforms every day. “It gives me more time to do the things I want to do during working hours, like connect with customers, develop new products, or be creative.”
All the while, Amazon is facilitating the expansion of Wilkii’s planner sales internationally. Tatiana is engaged with the team at Amazon Global Logistics and now has planners shipping in Mexico, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Australia and Japan may be added soon.
What makes Amazon great is that it makes it so easy to expand to other marketplaces.
Tatiana encourages any Black business owner who feels ready to take their retailing to the next level to check out BBA. Even if life is otherwise hectic and full, she encourages carving out a chunk of time to get started and then enjoy self-made success.
“I think Amazon is great for any new business who is looking to establish their customers for the first time because it’s difficult on other platforms,” Tatiana says. “With Amazon, all the tools to succeed are right there for you.”
You will have support, you will have community, and you will have information that you wouldn’t otherwise have trying to navigate Amazon on your own.
