The partnership between Stigma Marketing & Development and Dr. Don Schweitzer, founder of Sierra Counseling & Coaching (SC&C), has been built on two years of integrated development. Don is a licensed counselor and a PhD expert in Social Work, Research, Wellness, and Trauma, as well as my step-father.
Stigma’s job has been to operate at the intersection of his expertise and the demands of marketing on a budget. These two years have encompassed a variety of deliverables: consulting and editing his research and writing. The need to translate and market his PhD-level material means I’ve personally had to face some of his expertise, which has been an unintended benefit.
Stigma Marketing & Development’s secret-sauce is authenticity; our model and philosophy are built on it. From his Radical Acceptance journal to his next two works on authenticity and mindfulness, these were all things I, as someone on a recovery journey, had been exposed to and had helped me along the way, and were now in my face again. This helped me relearn these lessons as well as be able to come up with some authentic material for his marketing.
The development of his latest resource, the Burnout Workbook, was another example. Working on From Burnout to Balance began early in 2025. Other than serving as another example of material that helped me, it also serves as a great example of Stigma’s Marketing & Development Partnership.
This book was just one of Dr. Schweitzer’s projects, and it was worked on here and there over the course of several months. Stigma was able to be involved early with Don’s original concept and helped develop the project to completion for print on Amazon, with marketing material and an outreach plan, while we continued to manage and grow his website, email, and social media marketing, and began working on his upcoming business venture.
What a Multi-Month Product Development Actually Looks Like
“Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. It is the art of creating genuine customer value.”
— Philip Kolter
The Burnout project required seventeen distinct deliverables across three development phases. This wasn’t a handoff situation—not “you write, we’ll design it.” It was an ongoing collaboration that moved from clinical concept through manuscript refinement, design, and production, and finally to market-ready launch assets.
Phase 1 was about getting the expertise out of Don’s head and onto the page in a way that would actually work for the reader. This meant content and editorial consulting throughout his writing process, helping him structure PhD-level research into something practical and actionable. It also meant project management and accountability—the unsexy work of maintaining timelines and making sure a workbook that could easily remain “almost done” for years actually got finished.
The work here was iterative. Don would send sections, I’d provide editorial feedback, we’d discuss what was working and what needed clarity. The goal wasn’t to change his voice or water down the research, but to ensure the clinical depth didn’t become a barrier to accessibility. This is where the personal element mattered—I understood his material because I’d been exposed to it personally, and I understood the audience because I was part of that audience.
Phase 2 was production—the technical work of transforming a manuscript into a physical product. This included cover design, interior layout for a 70+ page workbook with journal elements and exercises, and generating the final press-ready PDF configured to Amazon KDP’s exact specifications. We also created a suite of high-resolution 3D mockups of the cover for use across advertising, web, and social channels.
This is where having design and development in-house matters. Small adjustments to interior spacing, typography decisions that affect readability for journaling work, cover revisions that account for Amazon’s thumbnail presentation—these aren’t things you want to farm out to multiple vendors. The production work was done with the marketing strategy already in mind.
Phase 3 was launch content and the outreach foundation. This included creating Amazon A+ Content (the enhanced graphical sections on product pages that significantly improve conversion), writing the social media launch copy and designing the corresponding 4×5 graphics, drafting the launch blog post, and developing the initial PR and outreach plan. We also sourced and prepared the visual elements needed for both the print file and the launch content suite.
The outreach planning was strategic. Don’s credibility as a PhD expert and licensed clinician is substantial, but that doesn’t automatically translate to platform or visibility. The plan involved identifying where his expertise would be valued—specific podcasts, media outlets, organizational contacts—and building a ladder approach where smaller, trusted placements make him a more attractive guest for larger platforms. This strategy has already resulted in a confirmed podcast interview, with additional outreach ongoing.
The Model: More Than Marketing
Consumers are 2.4x more likely to view user-generated content as authentic compared to brand-created content.
— Stackla, 2024
Most small business owners and independent professionals know they need marketing. What they don’t always know is that marketing disconnected from business strategy and operational reality doesn’t work.
Don needed someone who could help him write and edit, yes. He needed design and production capabilities, yes. But he also needed someone thinking about how his clinical practice, his published resources, his emerging thought leadership work, and his long-term business direction all fit together—and then building the infrastructure to support that.
This is why Stigma has not built and maintains two separate websites for him. Sierra Counseling & Coaching (sierracounselingandcoaching.com) functions as the established clinical hub for individual and couples counseling and service intake. It’s clear, accessible, and optimized for people seeking therapy services.
Don Schweitzer (donschweitzer.com) is a strategic, as-yet-unannounced platform built for his academic consulting, thought leadership, and systemic reform work—the side of his expertise focused on helping organizations, academics, and policymakers address burnout, fragmentation, and mission erosion.
These are two distinct value propositions serving two distinct audiences, and keeping them separated prevents the complexity of one from diluting the message of the other. This kind of architectural decision isn’t marketing but business strategy. It required hours of consultation to clarify his positioning, develop the business model for the donschweitzer.com venture, and build the framework that would allow both identities to exist without competing.
Stigma absorbed the operational tasks that drain time without adding value. We handle the MailChimp implementation, design, and sending process. We manage content dissemination—uploading blog posts, securing photos, and creating the corresponding social media posts. These are time-suck tasks that would otherwise pull Don away from research and client work, and that we can do a bit better anyway.
The retainer model makes this possible. Monthly planning calls allow us to adjust priorities based on what’s actually happening in the business. When a couples counseling reel we designed earlier this year generated a couple of leads for the practice, we knew that strategy was working. When the Burnout Workbook was ready for final production, we could shift resources without renegotiating scope. When the vision for the donschweitzer.com venture was clarified after extensive consultation, I could build the website to support it.
This is how development partnerships could work—integrated, adaptive, relational, and aligned with the actual business, not just the marketing calendar.
Where Things Stand Now
“Build an audience, not just a following. Serve them, don’t just market to them.”
— Chris Brogan
After two years of prioritizing high-quality content and earned media over vanity metrics and paid ads, Don’s audience went from nothing to a following that is deeply engaged:
- 2,674 email subscribers with a 30.6% email open rate (more than double industry average)
- 5.1K Facebook followers
- While his page ranking has dipped, his monthly traffic is more than double this time last year.
These numbers aren’t about chasing follower counts. They’re substantial if you’re building trust and authority with an audience that actually converts, and if you have the tools and resources to help people. The email open rate tells the story—people are reading what he sends because the content is consistently valuable and his voice is consistently authentic. His marketing is worth paying for.
The current “credibility stacking” strategy is focused on earned media, like guest articles, press mentions, podcast appearances, and collaborations, that build the kind of authority and audience paid promotion can’t match. The outreach work is straightforward and ongoing, with the understanding that placement in the right outlets with the right audiences matters more than volume. We’re not just trying to sell something here, we’re just to get Don’s online brand to match his professional caliber.
Donschweitzer.com venture represents the next evolution: moving beyond helping people directly, nd now helping people who are trying to help society at large. This is what he was meant to do. The business model we developed positions him to help organizations turn division into impact, working with nonprofits, academics, social workers, and policymakers to identify blind spots, break ego-driven patterns, unproductive rhetoric, and reclaim effectiveness through evidence-based assessment, consulting, and training. It’s the logical extension of his expertise, and it’s been given the infrastructure and strategic foundation it needs to launch properly.
What This Actually Takes
Marketing agencies will design you a logo, build you a website, and run ads. Many will write your content. Very few will sit with you for hours to clarify your business model, build you two separate digital hubs because your value propositions require it, edit your research writing, manage your email platform, consult on a mental health material, help create your product from manuscript to Amazon listing, develop your outreach strategy, and absorb your operational tasks—all while maintaining the accountability and project management that keeps things moving forward. I like to say our marketing is “backwards,” and that Stigma exists on the inside of marketing, not the outside.
Integrated development, when it’s done right, leverages the strengths of relationships and amplifies the collaborative effort. It also requires trust, time, and a willingness to work at the intersection of expertise and execution. It’s not always fast, but it can be. It’s not always perfect, but it works and keeps things progressing forward.
So, if you’re a small business owner or independent professional who knows you need more than marketing, who needs someone thinking about how all the pieces of your work fit together and then building the systems to support that, this is model works. In November, I’m presenting the Authentic Marketing Model to a small group of business professionals for the first time; around then, I’ll share a blog post about it here. If you’re looking for some development or marketing help, apply for a Free Brainstorm Session.
For professionals who are currently experiencing burnout, From Burnout To Balance will be available soon on Amazon. If you’re looking for solid remote counseling that is mindfulness-based, Don’s clinical practice continues to grow for good reasons. His new venture is positioned to launch. And Stigma continues to do what we do best: operate at the intersection of expertise and execution, developing people and their ideas, one project at a time.
“Don’t beg for a job, create one.”
— David Ogilvy
