The Fit to Grit Cast
Fit to Grit is an audio/video/newsletter hybrid featuring in-depth conversations with leadership within the athletic space. Guests range from top executives within the athletic space to professionals in adjacent industries with a proven track record of success working in the athletic industry.
We explore visionary ideas and practical strategies driving the industry forward, covering areas such as marketing, finance, branding, equipment, product development, biz dev, and more. Join us as we share actionable insights and real-world experiences while embodying the "fit to grit" spirit.
The Fit to Grit Cast
Why You Need to Build a brand
When a severe health crisis forced Christy Renee Steele to reevaluate her priorities, she made a radical decision that transformed her life: selling nearly everything she owned to become a digital nomad. "Health is our greatest wealth. Time is our most valuable resource," she explains in this enlightening conversation with Zach Coleman on the Gym Break Cast. What followed was a five-year journey that would ultimately shape her unique approach to branding and storytelling.
As a self-described "magnetic storyteller and strategist," Christy brings refreshing clarity to the often-misunderstood world of branding. She argues that in today's oversaturated digital landscape, brands must forge authentic emotional connections to stand out. "Today consumers are more guarded than they've ever been," Christy observes, pointing to rising ad numbness and media blindness that make traditional marketing approaches increasingly ineffective. The solution? Authentic storytelling that resonates on a human level.
The discussion takes a fascinating turn as Zach and Christy explore the contentious role of AI in creative work. Rather than viewing AI as a threat, Christy offers a more nuanced perspective: "I use ChatGPT all day, every day, but nothing I put out sounds AI." She likens the current AI revolution to how photographers initially responded to Photoshop—with fear that eventually transformed into adaptation and innovation. The key distinction, they both emphasize, is between using AI as a tool for efficiency versus relying on it to replace human creativity and connection.
Perhaps most valuable for entrepreneurs and marketers is their candid discussion about "marketing fatigue"—the exhausting pressure to be present on every platform and create endless content. Both hosts passionately advocate for focusing on what brings you joy and energy rather than spreading yourself thin. "If somebody's telling you you have to do this and you have to do that, I say run for the hills," Christy advises. This conversation serves as a refreshing reminder that effective branding isn't about following rigid formulas but about finding innovative ways to connect authentically with your audience.
Whether you're a small business owner struggling to define your brand, a creative feeling threatened by AI, or simply someone interested in authentic communication, this episode offers valuable insights on standing out in today's noisy marketplace through the power of storytelling and genuine connection.
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I don't know if you watched the last Apple presentation. I'm like, look at this. Now you're able to send emails with AI I mean resumes with AI and then vice versa, you're allowed to check emails and reply with AI. I'm like people are gonna start getting hired not based off of personality, just these fake resumes that go back and forth and they're not even gonna know who's hiring. I'm like, hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Gym Break Cast, where we just sit down with experts in the field of fitness, visionary time, you know, implementers, all that kind of fun stuff that comes to us as we kind of go through our normal daily gym break. I'm your host, zach Coleman, and today we have on a very special guest. Why don't you tell everyone a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2:Hi, zach, thank you. My name is Christy Renee Steele. I say that I'm a magnetic storyteller and strategist because I believe what we need to stand out in today's world is story and connection and emotional connection. So I love talking about branding from that perspective of how you can connect and resonate with your audience and how that can lead to just tremendous business growth.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know, this is going to be a fun cast, because I do feel that branding in a nutshell has a very different meaning compared to a lot of other people, and I would say that the catalyst for where I am today was one of those dark moments that, at the time, were a little bit like why me, this is impossible. It was 2014, 2013. I was living in Jacksonville, florida, and my body just was shutting down. My hair was falling out, I had horrible adult acne. I couldn't eat hardly anything other than steamed rice, steamed bell peppers, steamed carrots, without my belly ballooning up. It was this long journey and it kind of culminated in losing health insurance. And then, two weeks after that, I found a large lump in my right breast and I almost have like no negative emotion towards that time at all anymore because it was such a powerful catalyst for the rest of my life and you know, I learned how to heal independently of health care.
Speaker 2:So much of everything was related to my gut. You hear people talk about gut health all the time now, but 10 years ago we didn't really have that. I was on the back pages of Google doing my research and trying to figure things out and within 12 months of everything being the worst. I felt better than I ever had and I had a mortgage on a four bedroom house in Florida. You know a long term relationship, two cars in the garage, every stack to the gills, and I was like this doesn't matter, I'm putting tenants in my house, I'm selling everything I own. Health is our greatest wealth. Time is our most valuable resource, and I set sail for the next five years abroad. I was a digital nomad and during that time I picked up. I've always been a storyteller at heart, but I really picked up copywriting in a professional sense at that time and spent five years facing my fears and leaping off cliffs and, scared as I was always of heights, I realized my biggest fear was public speaking, and it's funny because the day that I had the courage to be seen and heard for the first time, it opened up my biggest life passion and gift.
Speaker 2:And so there was, you know, more twists and turns in the journey, but at the end of sort of that quest of courage that I was on, I got this nudge to go home, and I was living in Florida before I left, and so home was a town in Georgia that I left at 17. But I was following the nudges. I was following the you know the courageous nudges. I was like, no, anything but that I don't want to. And I came home and COVID hit almost immediately after it was December 2019.
Speaker 2:And so, just my life was tumultuous and I didn't know, you know, which direction I was going to go into. And, through passion and a little bit of courage here again, I stumbled into advertising and did really well there and it kind of came full circle to me when I was able to use that as a stepping stone and launch my speaking career and training career. And it just kind of came full circle to me when I was able to use that as a stepping stone and launch my speaking career and training career and it just kind of all came full circle. But I love that. Where I am today started with a dark moment that I wouldn't give up on.
Speaker 1:No, I think that's beautiful and just to kind of take people back a little bit, when you made that shift and you finally just sold all of your things and became a digital nomad and you kind of briefly touched on oh hey, like this is, uh, you know there's a lot more in there than that. It wasn't easy, right. You still had a lot of resistance and a lot of things you had to work through to like get you past those challenges to where you know you wanted to go correct you know it's funny, um, at the the time, to do the whole digital nomad thing and sell everything, that was easy.
Speaker 2:That was so easy. There was no other thought in my mind that it would ever be any other way. And I talk about this sometimes. I was just chatting about this the other night. Had I known how difficult it would be to come back, then maybe I would have slowed my roll and maybe not even ever done it. But at the time I was just like you know, screw, one day, like it's not guaranteed, and I feel amazing and this is what I'm doing and this is what we're doing. And so it was easy in that sense. But coming back and rebuilding the life was, truthfully, the hard part was that inner work of standing still and being still and not flitting off to a new country and a new currency and a new language and new behavioral patterns and cultures, and being able to sit in stillness with myself. That was the hard work, zach. That was the hard stuff, for sure.
Speaker 1:I feel like you know, we've gone through some very similar paths. I mean, my first dark period didn't necessarily put me into the position of going out on my own and start my business and everything, but it did put me in a position of, oh, I need to find that connection with myself, kind of like you, you felt like you had to do with the digital nomad. Mine was more, you know I had. You know I stopped drinking, I stopped going out and partying, I stopped, you know, trying to show people love through. You know, throwing all these great doing, all these great things to like no, I need to spend time on myself. I need to get back into my fitness, find what's in my control.
Speaker 1:But it's a very similar concept, right, and I feel like you just talked about recently. Is you kind of went through that again, right? Because it's like you get used to, you're at home and you're like, hey, now I'm used to this. How do I take it to the next level, which was your public speaking, right? Like, how do I bring that back in now? How do I face another fear? And so why don't you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's. You said something there. Connect to myself and I think that, since we are on this thread right, we're both in branding, we're both in marketing in a sense, and really the branding journey, I believe, is such a great journey of knowing yourself right, like, like it is hand in hand personal professional development. When you go through a branding process, it is just meeting yourself and connecting with yourself on such a level. So I don't think that that really ever ends in the entrepreneurship journey that we're on. I think it's just this constant cycle of reinvention and knowing ourselves. And you know we had mentioned something as we got on, just right before we started broadcasting. But this idea that, like last year, you know, was maybe the down part, right, and so I think one of the best perspective shifts I've ever had in my life is understanding that life is cyclical, life is a circle, so that when you're at the top of the circle, I used to have this mindset of it's only getting better.
Speaker 2:From here, you know the peak is going to be better and better and better and inevitably what would happen it's you have the top of the circle and then you go down and things are a little dark and hard and you're here but just like Earth. You know sun always. How do you say that it's always darkest before the dawn, right? You know winter, I think, having four seasons, living back in my home state, having the four seasons of winter and having that kind of rest and dark and death, you know idea, and then it blossoms into spring. So I think that there's just this constant evolution, both in branding and connection to self.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's beautiful. You say that. I don't know if you watch my TEDx, but we go, I go very much into that. How branding helps develop you as a person and then how you can kind of take that, take that especially for larger organizations. If you're working with large groups, how do you take that? And now do it with multiple people? Right. But that's really what branding is in a nutshell Right, it's figuring out who you are, if it be a corporation or if it be being an individual self. You know, I talked, I did this presentation the other day on helping organizations in the fitness space find their values, and most of them were past the point where it's like, okay, well, we have these personal values, but now how do we align all those to the internal team? And so it's an ever-growing journey, right. And so with your journey and what you see from the personal side moving up, you know, moving with different sizes of brands and businesses, have you seen a correlation between, you know, that personal growth side and a company and their business growth?
Speaker 2:You know I love working with family businesses. Family enterprises, I say, you know, my two really target audiences are entrepreneurs and enterprises. In that sense, and I think that there's so many parallels between the two, right. And what I love is that growth story, like that brand story, right. And so it's interesting how many really one companies may not always want to lean into their family history. They're like we are a family business but I don't know, does that help us, Does that hurt us? And how do we want to express that?
Speaker 2:And I think that you know also the intricacies of having one generation running the business and then passing it off to the next generation and how does that brand story and that legacy shine through and how do you carry on when the leadership styles are different and a new generation? So I don't know that. I've seen the direct correlation with the personal branding, with the larger organizations and the sense of the question, but it's definitely that underlying bit right. I think any great leader is on an ongoing personal development journey, you know whether it's out front facing or just some more internal work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny, you kind of brought up the family owned and that is kind of a branding perspective that they can take. I've seen a lot in. You know, for anyone who starts a business, they're always focused on that success. If I need to be like this corporation, I want to be like this corporation. I mean I hear a lot from you know athletes or people that are training in the sports, for instance. I hear a lot from you know athletes or people that are trying in the sports, for instance. I want to be just like Nike and I'm like I hope you understand that and this is quoted from one of the experts out there that you know those large corporations bringing in that family oriented type atmosphere actually helps you and trying to keep that as you continue to grow Like, keep that, keep it. People want that. They want that authenticity, they want that, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's that connection bit. And you know, today consumers are more guarded than they've ever been. There's illegitimate businesses trying to scam us out of our hard-earned dollars. There's AI leveling the playing field. There's a new generation of buyer expectations, right, what the primary decision maker of today has grown up in digital technology. So ad numbness is higher than ever.
Speaker 2:Media blindness people just don't see it as much. So you have to change your tactics and that's why I'm such a big fan of storytelling, because just immediately pulls people in and connects and that's just such an authentic way to go. And so, you know, it's funny when they say that they may not want to lean into that. And I find that people, even family businesses, with like a great legacy and a great story, there tends to be this like clam up moment that a lot of people or companies can have of I don't have a story. I don't have a story to tell, Right? And obviously everybody has a story and it's just training your mind to pick up on that story.
Speaker 2:And so, from Nike's perspective, you can see in their commercials and their advertising they do try to connect emotionally. But it's funny that you the way that you worded that, because Nike in particular. I used to be such a big Nike fan and their quality just keeps plummeting and their costs just keep rising. Surprising, and it's like your advertising is all about. You know the smaller person and just do it and having that emotional story, but are you backing it up with your quality? No, Bring us back the products and there's a big disparity happening with a lot of large scale corporations.
Speaker 1:And I think that comes down to living the values. Back to what we talked about with the personal brand, and I was actually talking to my cousin the other day and she was telling me about when she was working for this, this large, large, big box gym corporation. It was about a year, year and a half ago, and I actually wanted to hear the story. I'm like, can I use this story? Because I love this story. And she was telling me how she went into this organization and she quit after about three weeks because when she got brought on, you know, they told her these values. They said, hey, this is what we live by, this is what we try to go after, and she loved it. She's like, hey, can I come in? Can I help with this on my off time? I'm not going to do all my. The manager was like, oh, yes, please, please.
Speaker 1:But once she got in there, all the employee other employees felt so resentful towards her wanting to come in and do all this extra work, uh, and other managers were telling her no, the communication was off. And I looked at her. I'm like this is an interesting story because they didn't just misalign with the values on hiring you. It's like they hired you because of your values and you guys match similar values as each other and the behaviors, but every single other person in that place, plus the managers, did not follow or live by those values. They didn't live by them and I feel like maybe that's what kind of happens to these bigger corporations, is they start getting stale and they start saying, hey, here's just some random words that we can throw up. You know integrity and teamwork, and it's like this is what we live by. It's like, but do you like I don't see you doing actions within the are setting behaviors within the organization to kind of match those values?
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. You know, and it's in all of these shifts, in this new era that we're in, I think that really branding, or rebranding, and even marketing to an extent, is becoming a cultural exercise. Just like you said right, you cannot market and brand yourself as these things without the culture and expect to stand out and thrive. Consumers are just more discerning than ever, like maybe some of the bigger ones. You know, I don't expect Nike to crumble, but maybe in time new products rise up. They're more eco-conscious, they're higher quality and they're having the story behind that. So there is this bit of you know. If companies want to secure their marketplace presence with everything going on, you need that culture piece, you need to really live your message, and that's something I believe wholeheartedly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we're getting into the age of authenticity. I think, going into the you know AI and I know you and I have had past conversations about this how AI has affected some of both of our clients and the ways we've had to do directions, I think you and me were a little bit opposite. I think you had a client that wanted you to push more AI and more content. I had a client that I actually had to let go of, a writer, because they were like, yeah, this is AI and we want human written. And I'm like we don't do AI content. We try to stick away from it as much as to keep the authenticity alive, right, and so I do think that AI has played a huge part in people want to be face-to-face again. People want to. I mean, I don't know if you watched the last Apple presentation.
Speaker 1:I bicker about this to my wife last week. I'm like, look at this Now they're like able to send emails with AI, mean resumes with AI, and then vice versa, you're allowed to check emails and reply with AI. I'm like people are going to start getting hired not based off of personality and just these fake resumes that go back and forth and they're not even going to know who's hiring. I'm like this is the exact opposite of the whole point of what we talked about before. The call is digital marketing was working because it was about connection. It was about hey, let's drive this. Now it's becoming very, I would say, transactional and unauthentic, and it's just. Here's another five steps to do this, another five steps to do that.
Speaker 2:This is a conversation I have a lot of strong opinions on this. Another five steps to do that. This is a conversation I have a lot of strong opinions on and you know I have a unique perspective that I was a very high paid writer at a high paid job when a, when ChatGPT came into popularity, so immediately I felt threatened, right Like it's taking my job, and that spurred I was very vocal about it, I was very vulnerable about it and that's I had very good leadership and mentorship in that organization. So that spurred I was very vocal about it, I was very vulnerable about it and I had very good leadership and mentorship in that organization. So that spurred. Every single week we got together and we talked about AI, the implications, the ethics behind it, how do you do that? And so I think that that was. And then, oddly enough, I did end up losing my job, but I don't think it was all the way AI related. The company had gone through a big acquisition and merger and software engineering and they just didn't really care about the creative side of things. And you know I went back and did tons of contract work with them and so everything happened as it should. But I think that that experience helped me to maybe grow opinions, or just I felt catapulted down this AI journey right Because I was so connected as a writer and like, no, chat GPT can't do what I do, but it comes close.
Speaker 2:And there was a period in 2023 where writers weren't really getting hired because clients were like AI can do this, and it was a stale, stale time. Then the clients then you know you can see these market shifts and how everybody kind of behaves the same. Then all the clients came back and said this AI is crap. We need a human writer. So you know just what you're saying about not writing AI content. I challenge that a little bit, but I don't know that I've developed exactly the language. So this is kind of a fun little spar because I use I've gotten to the point where I don't remember my life before ChatGPT. I use it all day, every day, but nothing I put out sounds AI. And so there's I think it becomes the idea of well, ai is not going anywhere. And one of the best metaphors that I heard at the time when I was stressed about it.
Speaker 2:Imagine how photographers felt when they were in the dark rooms developing and then Photoshop the first version of Photoshop came out. Those photographers felt like us writers feel with ChatGPT and under, like, moving past the fear, moving past the resistance and understanding this is a tool and if you're not using it, you're not adapting to the changing times. What's going to happen? Right, you can't just put up. I've met so many people who have this ai wall and I'm like, yeah, I'd like to too, but that's not a luxury. Learn it. Learn how to be a good prompt engineer and then learn.
Speaker 2:I think that there's. You know, obviously, as a writer and a storyteller, I have advocacy for this, but learn to be a better writer, learn to be a better prompt engineer, learn to be a better writer. Put those two things together and you know I don't think we were talking about business ownership and how you're wearing 80 hats as an entrepreneur. I don't know how these entrepreneurs did it 10 years ago Now the demands weren't as high. Right, they didn't need to turn out as much blog content and be on YouTube and SEO and be everywhere. But I truly like. I feel like ChatGPT was my first hire like and not a bit of my content sounds ChatGPT. So I do think that there's an interesting discourse around how to use it and how not to use it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've seen it be one of those types of situations. What I've seen, especially with us being creatives with the types of content and the types of visuals or any sort of campaigns that we're developing. Right, chat, you know, ai can't do creativity. It's not made for creativity, it's not made for strategy, it's not going to come up with a decent strategy, it's not going to know you right, and I've we've used chat GPT as well. Like, we're like, how do we embrace this without taking away the human element? I still have my writers write all the content.
Speaker 1:Like, we will have um, for instance, one of our big writers that works for one of our large companies. When we brought him on, we made sure he followed our values. He's a yoga instructor and he writes a lot of yoga content. So he's in it, he knows the value of what he's writing. And that's the premise of trying to hire really good in any industry, really good creatives that are passionate about what they do. But I tell him, I'm like, hey, there are certain things we can do here from an operation standpoint that can make your life easier with ChatGPT.
Speaker 1:Maybe we kind of utilize it during our script phase and we say, hey, like, let's utilize it to like come up with a rough script to get the ideas flowing, the creative juices flowing, and so I think what it's actually doing is it's separating out.
Speaker 1:I mean, uh, you've probably dealt with this in the industry as well, like a lot of people that aren't in our industry. Just look at, they don't know that with chat gpt. So they're like we want to use it all for the wrong things, like just write all our content, yeah, no, and so it's separating out. I I think the people that want that were already like oh, this isn't really valuable, let's just just turn and burn it like I want to, I want to pay you a dollar. And it's separating those people out and they're just going straight to chat GPT, where the ones that actually valued human connection and value in working with their audience are like, oh, we're willing to pay more for this now, and real creative is becoming more of a less of a commodity, right, because we don't have that chat GPT.
Speaker 2:Right and you know, creativity was becoming such a commodity and I agree with you wholeheartedly. And you know, I think that in 2024, even 2025, 2023 really too like there's just this surge of everybody wanted to be in marketing, everybody wanted to be a copywriter, a graphic designer, everyone wanted these jobs and I think you know, part of it maybe was go to college, get a white collar degree, and then the market was flooded, and so there's just a lot of things that go into it, but it did I agree with you start to separate the ones that want to be and the ones that are right and the ones that want to be. Lean into this. Really, I call it creating more noise, and that's why having a good story and having magnetic communication is such a foundational part about what I talk about, about because it has put a lot of noise into the marketplace, into the digital marketplace, and how are you going to stand out from that?
Speaker 2:Right, the expectations change, but I think you hit on a good point and using it for summarizations and outlines and then just having that initial blank canvas to something to get to and edit and make better, I found to be such a helpful tool, and I don't know if this is just maybe a personality or a creative stylistic process. I find, when I'm given something, I'm like oh no, this is no, let me fix this, let me make this better, let me get in here, it is hard yeah.
Speaker 2:But sometimes that blank canvas can be a little bit like drumming my fingers, taking some time, what's going to come up, you know, and so just kind of shortcutting that process. It's really been a time saver. Maybe it doesn't take me five hours to develop a 2,000 word, very in-depth, very thought leadership, very well-written blog anymore. Maybe that takes three. And so just saving time and then the client's money in that as well, but also freeing me up to take more clients or to do more work on my own. So I do think that there's a very happy way to use it. But misuse I think you targeted that. It's widely misused and that can be, you know, maybe part of the growing pains or transition. But whenever there's a lot of disruption I think it's important to remember how much opportunity that creates, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, it's just, you know, I have a, I have a good friend, that's, you know, a photographer and videographer and he has his own business as well and he's been, you know, not necessarily freaking out but about all of the. You know, like now, look at the, the video ai, and all that stuff, like they're not going to need me anymore. I'm like no, what they're not going to need you for is flying across the kind of flying across the world to take one shot of a of a thing or to pay for a shot from what's mccall. Like you can utilize it for that. But you're you're still gonna have to go into locations and or personal brands and do physical, actionable type videography for that location. I mean, ads aren't gonna get any better. I know there's a lot of stuff out there saying you can ai ads. Now, like I try to stick away from all that stuff because I'm like you know it's just not authentic it's not good yeah it's not good, it's not.
Speaker 2:yeah, and then there's not good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not good, it's not, and then there's so one thing I really wanted to touch on that you said that you said was you? You mentioned this downward chat. Gpt came in and I think this was already kind of common in the industry. But you kind of talked about, oh, doing all these blogs doing having to do social media, having to do this. I actually call that as part of my part of my spiel when I talk to people, as I call it the marketing FOMO or the marketing fatigue, compared to what kind of agency you are Like we're, we do it for a living right.
Speaker 1:We are talking about it before the call, like, oh, we have to do this, we have to do this, we have to do this, do this. And it's like you get to a point where you get so fatigued because we do. It's like everyone thinks, hey, we have to do this, this, this, this, this, this and this. When I've come to notice, especially in branding, like I'm just going to focus on the two things that I love, that I love to do, and so can you tell me a little bit of experience in that and what you've seen in the market and how you've kind of hit that challenge of that marketing fatigue or that marketing FOMO, so to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, that's something I see often and one of the distinguishers I feel like is there's so many marketing companies out there that say pay me 20 grand a month, pay me 10 grand a month, pay me whatever. And then we just market, we put you everywhere, we put you on Google ads, we put you here, we do. You know the whole thing and what they fail. I feel like most marketers are giving a lot of branding people a bad name, even though they're not together. A lot of people in their minds, they put them together and what they're not considering is the quality of the creative. And that's like what you were saying Is it a visually compelling graphic? Is it a story of authenticity that pulls people in and has substance and people can feel that. And you know, when the digital space wasn't so overcrowded and so noisy and just such a big part of our life, you could get away with being a little bit flatter. It's just the way the internet was. You know, when I was traveling, my Instagram account shot up to 25,000 followers at one point in a very small amount of time, by posting a static image, a little quote, a little motivational quote, with, like, sparkly emojis and a short little story. People loved that. And now the expectations of what people want. You have to do this full production and reels and this whole thing, and you're lucky if somebody who even watches it enjoys it. Maybe you bring a smile to their face. You're lucky if that person would even push, like or comment. They don't do that anymore. You have to create a super fan if you want that. And so, with the expectations changing in the way that they have and I just think you know I like to approach it as, like you said, what do you love, where do you want to be and where's your energy the best? And I believe that you can do so much with any budget if you focus on your energy and your passion. And so for me, it's funny.
Speaker 2:Now you know, with the work that we're doing and I'm getting, I've really prioritized building my side of the brand and not just doing everything for clients. For a long time for years I'm talking about I got away with no email list, no digital presence. I stopped posting online ever, even, and I would go into networking events. I know how to communicate, I know how to put myself together, I know how to stand in an energy of presence, and so a 30-second pitch in a networking room brought me all my business for a long time, and so I think that just goes to show you you can be creative, you can be innovative. There's not one thing that you. If somebody's telling you you have to do this and you have to do that, I say run for the hills, you don't have to do anything. But let's be strategic, let's work with your budget, let's figure out where your energy is flowing and let's make something out of that. I feel like you probably agree with that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, a hundred percent. I mean I, you know you. I'd love to hear where you figure that out. But for me personally, if I go back to my YouTube channel from four or five years ago, it was writers, my writers write scripts. I read the scripts, we edit, I would do eight, I would bulk them and I would just continue to read and bulk.
Speaker 1:I wasn't even like, honestly, there was no enthusiastic personality behind it and it burnt me out like crazy. I had to stop posting for like a year because I was like this doesn't really bring me joy anymore, like it never. It wasn't, and it too, the agenda was never a hundred percent about, you know, bringing joy. It was part of the business. So I had to actually bring that joy back. And now it's like no, you know, what I really love to do is just podcast and talk. You know, talk, business, talk about all this stuff. It's fun. And so now we're doing a much more authentic type situation. Now, you know, I'm coming up with the topics where my team is still working at things, but it's much more from a hey, you produce, you don't write scripts. I like literally sit down and do all this myself and enjoy doing it, and that's that's kind of something we're testing this year is, you know, let's start building our new, let's start building our community, our email list of people we want to serve, and that people can be whoever we want it to be.
Speaker 1:And I think that that's something that holds a lot of people back, including myself, and I love to hear your take on this is because we're in branding and marketing. Funny enough, I feel like they're kind of well, we could say that, hey, branding, marketing and business they all correlate with each other in some way. They all overlap in some way, form or another. But the way you market yourself is completely different when you're a branding expert compared to when you're a marketing expert, completely different when you're a branding expert compared to when you're a marketing expert. And I've had to battle that constantly over the years, like, oh well, this audience over here, this audience over here. So the question I wanted to ask you was, when it comes to audience and feeling that because we're so good at what we do, we have this trouble, we hold ourselves back Because we're like, oh well, I know, if I really wanted to focus on this audience, I'd do this, if I really want to focus audience to this. So then we overcomplicate our own oh oh, you do that too.
Speaker 2:No, that's been. Um, that got brought to my attention a couple of years ago and I was called out, but from, like a professional colleague, somebody at NSA, georgia National Speakers Association, georgia. Actually we have a great working relationship. We were on the board of directors together and she just kind of like pointed out me getting my own way by overcomplicating things. I've got all the ideas and we can do it everywhere. We could do all of those. So I really took that as a focus of let's simplify.
Speaker 2:And I think so much of my messaging and process and even success today is due to the fact that I really figured out how to like take that brain of all the ideas and all of the things and simplify. And so, with my work with entrepreneurs, that was a that was where I started right, like tapping into that pain point let's simplify your content strategy, let's let's simplify things. And so you know, I started with foundational messaging and so, if you were struggling and this was a big thing for me at the time and you didn't exactly say this, but I feel like you said this it's this idea that when, like, especially with the demands of today, the demands of digital marketing, the demands of business, the demands of just life. If you're doing things that you feel like you have to, you are going to burn yourself out and run out of that energy. But if you're doing the things that bring you joy and I found this firsthand, especially in the last six or nine months that energetic Like this for instance, I was up till after three last night. I worked for 15 or 16 hours yesterday.
Speaker 2:Monday and Tuesday were massive. I woke up feeling just like I got hit by a bus. I need the weekend, but having this conversation fuels me and I knew even getting ready to sit down. Well, yeah, I feel tired now, but I don't think I need a coffee because we're going to have this great conversation. I'm going to be lit and I'm going to feel amazing afterwards and I think that that energy is such an important part of it. What are you bringing to the table? How does it make you feel? And really focusing on that and how you can get more of that, and I think just that energetic piece can't be ignored, otherwise you'll burn out. You just won't make it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's somewhat easy to say, well, it's not easy to say, but for someone like us who's in marketing and we've worked with multiple types of different businesses, because we do want to, you know, look at, we do want to test everything we do we want to say, oh, let's work with this person, let's try this. We understand certain things that I don't think a lot of regular business owners do, who say, oh, we want to do marketing or we want to do sales. Where I saw this come in in my life when you said do what you enjoy doing. You know everyone online is a big component of outreach. You know, like cold outreaching, cold trying to pitch clients. Now, there's different ways that you can look at that. There's different ways you can form that and have it still be a connection type environment, like if you're not actually reaching out to your audience. For instance, you're reaching out to someone who compliments your audience, but so many people.
Speaker 1:I tried multiple times. I hired a couple companies, I did it ourselves, I brought teammates on. Let's just cold outreach, try to get clients, and I hated it. I just could not stand like I'm, like I'm all about connection I'm and at the just could not stand Like I'm, like I'm all about connection I'm and at the time I didn't realize this but I'm like, I'm, I'm, you know I'm all about connection. You know, like I, I'm not going to go and just cold pitch someone without talking to them. And so I had to tell myself you know what, like, I'm not going to call it, it's just not part of my values. Like I'm not cold, I'm not doing cold outreach anymore. It's just not who I am. If I'm going to sell branding, I'm not going to do cold outreach and I just, you know, I live with that. Other people may complain and be like well, you need to do everything and you need to do cold outreach, but I'm like, no, I don't and I'm not going to.
Speaker 2:That's that's yourself and evaluate that, and so I think I didn't all the way answer your audience question. But if you know, I find too like I have so many opinions about the bad marketers and what they do wrong and how they make a bad name, and this is another one of those the big in-depth strategy, demographics, living, all of the strategy stuff that was coming to me back when I was at the ad agency. One of two things always would happen. I would either be like, okay, thanks, we only need this little piece, so all of that was a waste of money. Or I'd be like, can you take this back and can you give me that emotional part?
Speaker 2:And I found that what I needed to do my job and what I help all my clients do is get to the root of the language that is emotionally evocative, because that's how you can get that connection across the screen and that's really where the storytelling aspect comes in. If you're using language they themselves would use, if you're using language that touches their heartstrings and creates that pull, then you can work with any audience that has that same feeling. You'll need to segment, by whatever old school ways they've been saying, anyone that's felt that. Then you can open yourself up, then it's anybody, but you're still being an expert for that person, and so I think that that's another maybe education piece that I talk about. A lot is that's kind of a waste of money, it's kind of a waste of time. Just get to the heart of the matter and you know, shortcut all that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love how you said that there, because there's something that I mean. Like I said, we've had these. We probably both have had these struggles ourselves, but I tended to have this struggle with, you know, being an SEO expert as well. It's like you get dig down to these intent keywords, right, like these are the phrases that people are looking up based off of how you're selling something. And so I felt it was even harder for me because it was like, oh well, if I'm talking to this audience, I have to insert these, these types of phrases into my messaging.
Speaker 1:And it took me to realize, like, basically, what you said in a different type of word, it's it's not who you're talking to, it's how you're talking to them.
Speaker 1:It's showing the pain points, right, you're talking to them. It's showing the pain points, right, like if you have that authenticity of understanding the types of stories and scenarios that resonate with anyone, like we'll just use a gym owner, for instance, a gym studio owner, compared to, let's just say, a management role in a large big box, they could be going through similar pain points, right, they're not necessarily the same audience and so, but at the same time, they are because they're going through similar pain points. Right, they're not necessarily the same audience and so, but at the same time they are because they're going through the same pain points and so resonating those pain points in those solutions doesn't have to necessarily be tackled down in the copywriting or creative more. Anything you do in regards to hey, gym owners, come here. If you're doing this, it's more like you know if you're going through this pain because you've dealt with this, this and this. I've gone through it too, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even that's like a very short version of a story, right. So get to that part of things. And I think that you know like let's just go deeper. Everyone, right, like the service level is not working. And it's funny that you said the SEO stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm over here grinning because I'm going through that myself right now and I looked up all the keywords and you know you have the low difficulty and the highest search volume and there's this whole for everybody listening who's not in it. There's just this whole puzzle that you fit together of the words that are basically leftover kind of right that you can sit on ramp for, especially in branding, if we're talking about content strategy, branding, business. I abandoned it. I wanted. I was like I'm doing SEO for all my clients, I've done it for so long. I want to rank. It's my turn. And I sat down and I was like it is so far away from my aligned message of what I want to talk about, and so I think that this is, this is how I lead my business, this is how I work with my clients, and so for all of those listening kind of adopt this mindset.
Speaker 2:It goes back to the everybody's telling you you have to do this? Okay, get innovative, go a different way. So for me, okay, fine, I won't have the SEO digital traffic, but you know what I will have? When I go to these networking events, when I do guest appearances, when I'm on a summit, people go to my site. I'm creating a new way to drive traffic and then they can read the blog. That is from my heart, about what they care about, and so who cares if the SEO words don't? There's not enough left over in our industry anymore for me to rank for Whatever. Make a new strategy to drive traffic, and I think that innovative approach is such a foundational pillar to how I operate and I encourage anyone listening who wants to grow to adopt that. There's never a dead end. How can I do this differently?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we could say in the eye of the Google algorithm and trying to back engineer it is a little bit tough, especially with their now 80 updates every year. But I will say I understand what you're saying. I mean, when I got into search engine optimization, one of the first words that I wanted when we were still working with professional athletes as our target, I want to work for athlete branding. That's the word I want to rank for. It was a good search volume and I did. I got to number one. I got to number one for that search term and its variants and, um, I think maybe I got one one lead out of it out of out of eight years, because I realized I realized, hey, athletes aren't searching for athlete branding. You know, like they're not going to go on and be like how to like, how to athlete brand myself. It's like, no, I want to learn. They just want to know about branding, which is a very large word. So the way I pivoted and we're actually doing this right now is I've told my team this I'm like our target market is really just, we want to talk at the year of, like you know, college to professional. We want leadership. We're just focusing on leadership type roles. That's what we're going to focus on and we utilize the positioning instead of these targeted niche keywords of, like, athlete branding. We'll just talk to the people everyone. We use broader terms because we have to because of what we're writing and we'll go down to the people everyone. We use broader terms because we have to because of what we're writing and we'll go down to the outcome and then, yeah, we'll just have some sort of we'll make sure our positioning and that's how I got our biggest fitness client right.
Speaker 1:We didn't write a post about how to rank a gym for this. We wrote just what are the benefits of blogging? And then they went and they saw it, and then they went through the positioning and said, oh, they work with studio, so let's contact them. And so I feel your. I feel your pain on that one and that's how I pivoted and I'm like I don't care if google's not going to rank me as much. I think this is more effective because for a while, we were getting and this is me starting to get technical. I don't want, want to ramble anymore, but we did start getting to a point where we were getting like 10 calls a week, especially in like 2021. Everyone was coming in saying let's go online, let's be this, and I think I sold in 2021, zero people, with 10 calls a week, because it was all just. It wasn't resonating with people, right? The content wasn't building trust, it wasn't building my authenticity, and so it was very similar to cold calling, and it was all because of the positioning right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, positioning is huge and trust is such, you know, and that's where the emotional connection and resonance and emotional authenticity to that all comes down to trust, and you're exactly right. And I do just feel the need to clarify, because you know one of the clients that I'm working with right now SEO is an amazing strategy for them, keywords that they're ranking for and our entire strategy. Because of their industry, because of their product, because of the heist around it right now people are searching it. So I don't want to say it's not effective, but for people like you and I who are in content, marketing and business growth and development and branding and all of those keywords have just been so saturated for a long time. So, in my opinion, in my opinion, it's just everywhere they're big A lot of competition.
Speaker 2:For us it's good.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think we're in a different market and, too, and I and I think it goes back to uh, kind of what you said earlier with the, the marketing, um doing everything. I mean, I think people are starting to look at social media as just a hey, I'm posting every day. That's a strategy and it's like no, that's a channel, that's a channel for your strategy. And so I think it comes back to under you know, understanding your audience, right, understanding, um, even if the audience is broader, like where are they when? Like, be authentic, get to know them, get to know what they like. Um, you may be your own audience. What do you like? You know who knows, but like, not everyone's searching on on S, not everyone's searching on Google.
Speaker 1:For your particular thing that you do a lot are A local. Brick and mortar is probably and this is a huge thing I see in the studio industry is the whole concept of, oh, hire sales reps and do cold calling, and I'm like dude, you just need to build your positioning and show that you have a great customer experience through Google. I don't need to create a million blog posts for you. Like, that's not needed for your industry. Let's just show people how trustworthy and how much great customer service you have through your reviews and your local ranking will go through the roof. It's more community.
Speaker 2:I do think, do you ever feel that? And I think that the intention behind this is that people can think that digital marketing is a get rich quick scheme. Right, like, not scheme, but like they have that kind of mentality of like, well, I just need to post every day or I just need to have all the blogs and then money. You know, it's like no, no, no.
Speaker 1:Well, it's also the exact opposite. I was talking to a strategist the other day, um on the cast, and she was telling me she's like I get so many clients that come in um, and she's like we'll have like a small local mom and pop shop. And they're like I want to do this miraculous advertising campaign and they like be like this creative. I want it to be like nike is a good example. I don't remember who they said, but I want to be like Nike, I want to do this. This is like you know how much money that costs, right, how many people it takes to do that stuff, right, like one blog post isn't really going to do anything if you don't understand why you're doing it and what are the intentions of it.
Speaker 1:I do feel in our field it's become the new term Marketers are the new sales people. I feel like in the past, you know, everyone used to say, oh, you're sales, oh, they cringe. And now it's like anytime I tell anyone I do marketing, I'm, I'm. They're like oh, you do marketing, I'm like no, let me correct you, I'm a brander who knows marketing. Okay, I'm not a marketer.
Speaker 2:Storyteller and strategist who can help you innovatively market. You know.
Speaker 1:But yeah, you know it was great to have you on. You know, I think we could go on forever over all this stuff. I'd definitely love to have you on again in the near future. We can, you know, possibly rant. I'm very big on being authentic and like even the pain points we deal with within the industry and hopefully it will help not just entrepreneurs, but it will also help well, mostly help entrepreneurs. I think that they need to see the types of real life marketing woes that we go through in our day to day so they understand how actually I'm not going to say challenging, but how much time and energy it really takes to do the kind of stuff that we do. So we'll have you on again and maybe we'll go on a little bit of a tour that direction, but for now I really thank you for jumping on. Why don't you tell everyone where they can find you and where they can reach out to you?
Speaker 2:Yes, that'd be great. Go to my website, wwwchristyreneecom. That's C-H-R-I-S-T-Y-R-E-N-E-Ecom. I'm sure it'll be linked. That's a great way you can get to know me. You can get to read some of the blogs we were talking about. I have just started my own podcast. We're on episode two and, right, it's not conversation based but it's learning based. So it's taking you through my Align framework to start, and then Magnet, which you can look forward to in month two. That really gets into the tactical. If you are a sales and marketing team, if you're an entrepreneur wearing that hat, this is how you can pivot your communication to get that authenticity and that trust building that we've been talking about.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. I definitely want to hear that. I've been. I've been looking myself on how can I improve this and bring more strategic type information to the cast, so I'll definitely take a take a listen to your cast myself. But again, thanks for jumping on. I'm teaching you to be a better writer teaching you to be a better writer and hopefully also a better communicator. Absolutely Well again. I'm Zach with the Gym Break cast. Thank you all for jumping on and we'll talk to you all later.
