Birmingham Small Business.com

Courtesy of Media Life Magazine:

Success magazine has a long history and an inapt title, launching in 1891 as a publication aimed at what founder Orison Swett Marden described as “the achiever,” entrepreneurial sorts with big dreams. But it’s been plagued by periodic shutdowns and a lack of a clear editorial mandate for decades. Last summer Success folded for the third time since 1924, and now Dallas-based marketing and communications company VideoPlus is set to relaunch it yet again in March as a personal development magazine aimed at small-business and home-business owners, moving it away from competing with more general business titles. The bimonthly publication will have an initial rate base of 100,000 and target readers ages 30-55, with a newsstand price of $5.95. The magazine will face a tough road in trying to prove itself for a fourth time, however, with media people well aware of the magazine’s history and the fact that the most recent incarnation of Success lasted only five issues. Darren Hardy, publisher and editorial director of Success, talks to Media Life about why this time is different, what the last owners did wrong, and why the new Success owes a lot to Oprah Winfrey.

What makes you think that this era is right to see an inspirational title like Success succeed? This idea has not worked in different iterations over the years. Is there something different now that makes you think it will find an audience?

Well, the two prior publishers of the title really took it off its core market. They tried to make it strictly a business title, compared to Fortune or one of those publications. That really wasn’t the history of the magazine.

What we’re doing is bringing it back to its roots.

There are a couple of reasons why now’s a good time. One is that the personal development market over the past five to 10 years has really exploded. Ten years ago if you looked for the self-improvement section at a Barnes & Noble or something, it’d be a couple of shelves. Now it would be an entire department.

Personally, I attribute it to what I call the Oprah effect. She decided to focus her program on positive programming, giving a platform to personal development writers, so she took it from a niche market to a broad-based market. She reaches 4 million people every day.

So this has created a whole new market opportunity that didn’t exist 10 years ago. It’s an $11 billion industry, and to give that some perspective, the U.S. movie market is about $9 billion.

Also, there’re 45-65 million adult consumers purchasing some personal development product yearly.

So first, the market has become more broad-based. Secondly, there’s a huge social need, which stems from the whole globalization effect that’s happened in our business structure.

People are having to retrain, learn new skills, find new ways of making an income. All of those people need some aspect of personal development: how to manage your time, how to stay motivated, how to communicate better, how to balance work and family, etc.

The social and economic shift that’s taken place in our society is a huge reason why this is the right time.
Who do you see as your competition?

In the magazine marketplace, a huge portion of our content is totally unique to us. There’s not really a magazine like this in the market.

What I mean by that is, if you take a celebrity CEO as the subject for a story, what most magazines focus on is news and views: what he’s done lately.

Success is going to look at that person not just from a news standpoint, but how do they manage their time? How do they set goals? So it’s a different look at a high-profile person than other magazines would take.

There are aspects that would be similar to a variety of magazines–Oprah’s O magazine on the female side, Best Life on the male side–because they have a tendency to have more positive “here’s-how-to-manage-your-life”-type content.

Also, there’s an aspect similar to Inc. and Entrepreneur. Money magazine would be similar in finance content. Self and Men’s Health and Fitness also.

But we’re going to take a look at all that content in a different way than those magazines.
How much of a liability do you perceive in the fact that the magazine has gone out of business before? How do you address that issue when you talk to advertisers?

There’s an answer for it. One is the business model before was off base with the history of the magazine. Also, the last two publishers had this as a side project, and that model just did not work. So that’s easily explained.

But frankly, it’s a huge motivation for me. I’m excited about taking the irony out of Success. It has been a very successful magazine in the past, but it has gotten off its path the last 10 years, so I’m excited about bringing it back.
How do you plan to change the magazine from its last incarnation?

Well, again, it won’t be a strictly business publication that people get in 10 other magazines.
What’s the new voice of Success that will appeal to audience in the way the most recent rendition did not?

The most important part is there’s an existing demand of people who already are seeking and looking for new ideas, inspiration and life skills to thrive in their small businesses.

Our key is bringing the magazine back to that core and speaking directly to those consumers in a language they both understand and are looking for. This magazine will be the only one doing that.
What kind of editorial content do you plan? Will it focus on inspirational stories or be more practical, hands-on stuff?

If you asked the general public to define success, the easy answer is success in your professional life, being respected and also having financial success.

We say it’s much deeper than that. There’s success in your relationships. And also success means success in your health and well-being. You can’t enjoy much of anything without being healthy.

And lastly, it’s the ability to make a difference and give back. What are you leaving behind when you pass on? That’s part of the definition of success. The magazine will address all of those areas so a person can look at a whole life approach to being more successful.
Who’s the most likely reader of Success? Is it the small business owner, the businessman? The entrepreneur?

It’s primarily the entrepreneur. It’s the small business owners, home-based business owners. But it’s also franchise owners, sales people. I sort of define the market as people who are self-reliant on their income. People who produce and get paid for it. The people who are involved in competitive markets where they need to get and keep an edge in order to remain successful.

It’s not the person that has a salary job. This is a self-reliant, competitive-market-type demographic.
Did you have any trepidation about relaunching the magazine considering the present state of the magazine industry, and business titles in particular?

It is definitely another one of the motivations. One of the things that got me excited is the opportunity to take old media and mix it with new media. There will be a robust and user-engaged web platform. We’ll be able to take the print publication and marry that with the social media aspect of the web 2.0 world. There are plenty of social connection groups aimed at young people, but none really for success-minded people where they can use it as a trusted resource and connect with other people of that same ilk.

The magazine is only part of our overall business strategy. We’re also going to be doing live events and developing products in terms of publishing for books, CDs, etc. It’s the 100-year-old staple that will drive the rest of the components.
What sets Success apart from other titles that are already out there?

The easy answer is there’s no other magazine that addresses this marketplace in particular. There’s a need for practical, relevant topics and ideas to use in smaller home-based entrepreneurial endeavors.

If you want to talk about where else out there can they find business info, etc., they can find that out there. But the real practical look from a self-improvement standpoint, Success really stands on its own.