Laura Roughton with her sons Danny (left) and Isaac in the backyard of their Saline home. (Photo by Rich Rezler)
When her two boys reached school age, Laura Roughton started contemplating a return to the workforce. But she worried that too much had changed since she took a hiatus from the marketing profession to focus on raising her sons.
Her solution was a familiar one: Check out what Washtenaw Community College has to offer.
After all, WCC was the place Roughton started her college career, completing a liberal arts transfer program before heading to Eastern Michigan University and earning a bachelor’s degree in marketing. Later in life, when her interest in natural foods and products started to blossom, she took organic gardening classes through the college’s Community Enrichment program.
As she prepared for the next stage of her life, Roughton decided to capitalize on WCC’s Workforce Development department to help her catch up on technological advances in her field. She signed up for the popular Digital Marketing series, which focuses on e-marketing, social media best practices, search engine optimization and more.
The Workforce Development department at WCC is the non-credit branch of the college. It offers training solutions directly to local businesses, opportunities to advance individual careers with classes and certificates, and resources for the community’s job seekers.
“I went in there scared, but knew I was young enough to adapt,” said Roughton, 38. “I’m kind of from that ‘tweener’ generation where technology grew along with me. I knew a lot had changed in 10 years, so I started taking classes to get up to speed so I could find a job.”
But a funny thing happened on the way to accomplishing that goal. Roughton started thinking about how all the new skills she was learning could apply to a hobby she picked up while working for The Natural Healing Center of Ann Arbor.
For years she had been making her own all-natural and organic health products like hand creams, lip balms, toothpaste and hair conditioners for her family. Eventually she started making larger batches that she’d share with family and friends as gifts.
When one class instructed students to mock up a marketing plan, Roughton figured she might as well use a real product. And for each technique or tool she learned in the series of courses, the interest in starting an online business — and the confidence that she could pull it off — grew deeper and deeper.
Finally, in the capstone course of the series, Roughton was required to build a WordPress website. With that, MICHIskin was officially born at michiskin.com.
There, she’s started by selling her two favorite products: hand creams and assorted flavors of lip balm. On a recent visit to Roughton’s home in Saline, she and her sons Isaac, 11, and Danny, 7, were gathered at the kitchen table, placing MICHIskin labels on tubes of lip balm. The two dogs rollicking in the backyard explain the “puppy paw cream” product line she’s considering adding to the website.
All of her products are made in her kitchen; small batch, natural and organic with no water, fillers or chemicals.
“I’m still questioning whether I can pull this off, I’m not going to lie,” Roughton says with a laugh.
Of course if MICHIskin doesn’t take off, she still has new digital marketing knowledge — and plenty of related, hands-on experience — to prove she’s ready to reenter the marketing world.