Former TV news anchor turns to Internet for career
For more than seven years, Darieth Chisholm was a familiar face on Pittsburgh television news. “People will still come up to me and tell me “Hey, I saw you last night on TV,” the former WPXI News anchor said.
But she hasn’t been on TV for almost two years.
What has she been doing?
“I started my own home-based e-commerce business and I help out here,’ she said.
The “here’ she spoke of is her husband’s podiatry practice in Uniontown, Connellsville and Masontown. She married Masontown native Dr. Arnold Tarpley eight years ago, an event that interrupted her original plan of using Pittsburgh as a springboard to Washington, D.C.-TV news and beyond.
“He was my one and only blind date,’ she laughed. Introduced through a common friend, the pair dated for about a year and a half before marrying. They have a five-year-old son, Arnold Tarpley III. “We call him Trey,’ she said, for obvious reasons.
A Detroit native, Chisholm received her degree in journalism at Wayne State University, where she spent some time working for local TV. “My degree is in print journalism. I worked at several print publications before I got into TV. I hosted a morning talk show in Detroit. Then I did some reporting on WDTN in Dayton, Ohio. I was there for almost three years after I left college.’
It was a call from Al Blink, who is now at KDKA Television, that brought her to WPXI-Channel 11. “He hired me out of Dayton,’ she said.
She decided to use the Pittsburgh job to sharpen her skills before moving on to a major market. “I only planned on being in Pittsburgh a couple of years. But I had a friend who was a pharmaceutical rep who had a friend she thought I would like.
“She fixed me up with a blind date (Tarpley). It was my first and last blind date. We have been together for eight years now,’ she said.
But parallel to her career was an interest in business.
“I had my own business even when I was in high school. I have always loved it. My contract at WPXI came to an end about a year and a half ago and I decided I wanted to get into business for myself.
“Don’t get me wrong. I loved what I did. There’s nothing like the adrenaline rush you get when you’re working on a hot story. A lot of people told me I was crazy. But it was a chapter in my life that I chose to close. I was about to open a new chapter,’ she said.
“I am very fulfilled in what I do. My mission is to help improve small business.’
Her work today centers on doing that via the Internet.
“I own Walnut Grove Sales and Associates with my partner, Vicky Thomas. We provide marketing and advertising services for small business.
“That’s the platform that supports another business, Etownsavings, which is a Web site where consumers can subscribe for free to get coupons, discounts, freebies and information about 300 different businesses,’ she said.
Consumers can log into the site at www.etownsavings.com to visit businesses whose products include hobbies, restaurants, arts and crafts, sports, travel and others. What subscribers get are discounts, coupons, specials, and they can find restaurant menus, directions, contact information and special features from neighborhood merchants. Subscribers can also use Etownsavings’ community bulletin board and enter free classified ads.
But how the business makes money is through its program to get the entrepreneurs onto the Web and involved in Etownsavings.
“It’s a very affordable way for small business to reach a large subscription base. We provide through Walnut Grove Sales help to the business in developing its Web site or making the one they have better,’ she added.
Walnut Grove builds into the sites e-mail, newsletters and the ability to track and categorize consumers.
“The response rate for business is tremendous. It’s anywhere from eight to 25 percent. They can get 1 percent in more traditional ways of direct marketing,’ she said.
Chisholm sees an online presence “leveling the playing field’ so small businesses can compete without spending vast sums of money.
“We have rehabbed a lot of Web sites. That’s because people will judge your company on how substantial your Web site is.’
“We are building a data base now. So a consumer can type in a Zip code and find coupons, specials or offers from their home area. We have 300 business but we plan to have 3,000. They can be anywhere in the country,’ thanks to the Web’s reach.
“We plan to do a massive hiring of sales reps to bring them into this new system. Growing these two products are enough for right now.
“We are always trying to teach business the importance of an Internet presence. We have done programs with the U.S. Small Business Administration and Carlow College.
“More and more people are buying online. Business doesn’t have to have a Web site. But if they don’t have an online presence, they are going to miss out. If businesses don’t take hold of this in the next couple of years, they will miss the boat. The local business risks losing a lot of business because people will become more and more comfortable with ordering online.’
Walnut Grove Sales is also developing an online business-to-business site.
More information can be obtained by visiting the Etownsavings Web site, emailing Sales@etownsavings.com or writing to Etownsavings.com, 2400 Oxford Drive Suite 109, Bethel Park, Pa. 15102, telephone 800-211-1202, extension 9853.