In this episode of Entrepreneurs Enigma, host Seth Goldstein sits down with marketing strategist Kristi Mitchell to discuss her journey from higher education marketing to entrepreneurship. Kristi specializes in working with service-based business owners who have relied on word-of-mouth referrals to grow their businesses. Together, Seth and Kristi explore the importance of strategic marketing efforts, even for those who rely on word-of-mouth. Tune in as Kristi shares her insights and experiences, offering valuable advice to entrepreneurs looking to take their businesses to the next level. Let’s dive in to this captivating conversation with Kristi Mitchell on Entrepreneur’s Enigma.

Key Moments

[00:05:00] Celebrate five years: stuck, but in a good way.

[00:07:28] Enjoy working with people to build business.

[00:11:07] Growing up as a marketer or entrepreneur.

[00:13:24] Entrepreneur learns importance of patience in business.

[00:17:49] Quick, easy marketing funnel assessment with meme.

Find Kristi Online

https://www.kristimitchell.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristimitchell/

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Transcript (Provided by CastMagic.io)

Seth [00:00:00]:

Entrepreneurs Enigma is a podcast for the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, the wins and the fails that we all face being entrepreneurs. How we learn from adversity. Every week, I talk to a different entrepreneur with a story to tell. I’m Seth Goldstein. Come with me on the journey. This is Entrepreneurs Enigma. Let’s get started. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Entrepreneurs Enigma podcast. As always, I am your host, Seth. Today I have Christy Mitchell, who is a marketing strategist, marketing extraordinaire. She hails from Northwestern New York. She’s pretty much close. She’s closer to Canada than she is to New York City. She’s pretty much in Go. People know where Rochester is. It’s not know, whatever, but she doesn’t say out or about. She sounds like an American. So nothing wrong with out and about, but you can always talk to me when they say out and about. So anyhow, I digress. She specializes in working with service based business owners who have relied on referrals and word of mouth to get where they are today. They know in order to take their businesses to the next level, they actually need to think strategically about their marketing efforts. And it’s funny because literally a lot of people are all word of mouth, and they’re like, Wait, market what’s? Marketing. It’s like, oh, my God, we got to do some marketing. Even for word of mouth, you got to at least put yourself out there. Hey, Christy.

Kristi [00:01:36]:

Hi, Seth.

Seth [00:01:38]:

How’s it going? How’s the weather up in the great northwest New York?

Kristi [00:01:43]:

It’s beautiful today. The sun is shining. We’re not getting the wildfire smoke from yeah, thanks.

Seth [00:01:48]:

Canada.

Kristi [00:01:49]:

Thanks. I just going on the whole Canadian. I do love Canada. I do love I know.

Seth [00:01:53]:

You’re also close. You can go there for a date night.

Kristi [00:01:56]:

Yes. Yeah. Not too far.

Seth [00:01:58]:

That’s kind of wild. I think that’s wild. Going to a different state for me, like, going to Jersey is as far as from you to Canada.

Kristi [00:02:05]:

Yeah, we’re very lucky.

Seth [00:02:06]:

It’s bizarre to me.

Kristi [00:02:09]:

Well, in the Niagara Falls is like one of the seven Wonders of the World. Right? And that’s right up the thruway. Not far.

Seth [00:02:14]:

That’s awesome. Niagara and the Lake is a gorgeous place. It’s not a travel podcast.

Kristi [00:02:21]:

We won’t talk about wine.

Seth [00:02:24]:

We love Canada. I love Canada. And most of them are very nice. So that’s kind of their stereotype, is that they say sorry all the time as a punctuation. We don’t. We say fu. Where’s American?

Kristi [00:02:36]:

See, I would say I’m more Canadian in that way. I think we’re friendlier here in Rochester.

Seth [00:02:40]:

Than it rubs off. You’re so close.

Kristi [00:02:43]:

Exactly.

Seth [00:02:45]:

So, Christy, how did you get started? I know when we talked way back, when we first talked about getting on the show, you worked in academia in the marketing department and stuff.

Kristi [00:02:54]:

I did. Yeah.

Seth [00:02:55]:

I remember stuff.

Kristi [00:02:57]:

You do? That’s a great memory, because you talked to a lot of people. So I did worked in higher education for eight years. I did a lot of program management with a little bit of marketing at the beginning, and then I really transformed my position to be extremely marketing focused in the time that I was there, because that’s what I was drawn to.

Seth [00:03:14]:

And then that’s why I said, we got your MBA, right. You got it while you were working there.

Kristi [00:03:18]:

I did, yeah. Because I figured higher ed doesn’t pay that great, so you might as well take advantage of the benefits. And so I got my MBA while I was there.

Seth [00:03:26]:

Why not? And they want you to. They want you because then you’re going to talk up the university.

Kristi [00:03:30]:

Yeah. What’s?

Seth [00:03:33]:

That where’d you go?

Kristi [00:03:35]:

Rochester Institute of OOH.

Seth [00:03:37]:

We got smarty pants on our hands.

Kristi [00:03:39]:

Yeah, it’s a great yeah.

Seth [00:03:41]:

RIT is actually snowy as MIT, too, so you still get the snow, you get the technology. It’s great. So yeah, then you escape. So you didn’t escape the corporate person, the corporate man. You escaped the academic man in person.

Kristi [00:03:56]:

Well, did you transition to I did do the corporate thing for a little bit, yes.

Seth [00:04:02]:

Oh, what did you do there?

Kristi [00:04:04]:

I worked in financial services, in marketing, but I supported a sales team that was selling financial services into actually higher education. That’s why they were interested in me.

Seth [00:04:13]:

That’s why I got recruited to work there. You were so kind of in higher ed adjacent. We’re going to take a quick break, hear from our sponsors and get right back to the show.

Kristi [00:04:23]:

Yes. But in financial services. So that was like corporate thing, being part of a bigger marketing team, which I had never had in higher ed because I worked in a really small department. So it was an interesting experience, and it was not for me.

Seth [00:04:38]:

No. And then you went on your own. How long have you been on your own for?

Kristi [00:04:43]:

Four and a half years.

Seth [00:04:44]:

Oh, you almost hit the five year mark. How’s it?

Kristi [00:04:46]:

I’m so excited. I want to do something big.

Seth [00:04:48]:

Throw a party. Throw a LinkedIn party.

Kristi [00:04:50]:

Well, you know, it’s funny because my husband is turning 40 the same month of my anniversary, my business anniversary.

Seth [00:04:56]:

Big party. Big.

Kristi [00:04:57]:

We’re planning a trip. Anyway, so I guess I’ll just tell him, like, I want a day to.

Seth [00:05:00]:

Celebrate me just saying five years. They talk about in entrepreneurship and small businesshood. I guess I’m making a word up there. But they say that if you last the first year and then the first three years, the next milestone is five. After five, you’re probably stuck. You’re probably going to go the distance. I say stuck because you’re stuck in a good way. Stuck in a good way. But no one’s going to want to hire you after that either. It’s kind of the thing, because you’re so set in your ways on how you do it, that I’m 15 years into my journey, and I look at this and I’m like, I’m kind of unmoldable now. Been through the kiln, to use that, the pottery analogy. I’ve been kind of set. And it’s a good thing because you can think outside the box on your own terms, which is kind of nice.

Kristi [00:05:47]:

Yes. Because you being set in your ways still brings immense value to companies who want to hire you because they don’t know your perspectives.

Seth [00:05:54]:

Exactly. And I think now more than ever, companies are realizing that if they want quality, they have to come up with people that are stuck in the rays or they get like my whole thing is I do digital marketing strategy. I don’t do the implementation because I’m too expensive to do the implementation. You only post in your Instagram photos. I always say, hire a kid right out of college who needs to get has to enter that circle. The circle where you have to get the job to get the experience, but you need the experience to get the job.

Kristi [00:06:22]:

Yes. Interns are wonderful.

Seth [00:06:25]:

Interns, junior marketing strategists. Anyone in those titles works well.

Kristi [00:06:30]:

Yes.

Seth [00:06:31]:

So what is your sweet spot in marketing? You say service based business owners.

Kristi [00:06:36]:

Yeah.

Seth [00:06:37]:

Now, what service based business owners do you like the most? Because that’s a big term, or is that picking your favorite child?

Kristi [00:06:46]:

No, I can do it. I only have one child.

Seth [00:06:48]:

Oh, you have a favorite child. There you go. I do.

Kristi [00:06:51]:

Well, if you count the dog, too, then I guess there’s two. Yeah.

Seth [00:06:54]:

But they’re different enough.

Kristi [00:06:56]:

Yes, they are different. So my favorite type of business owners to work with are coaches, consultants, solopreneurs, who are good at writing, and they want to write their own content. They are rolling up their sleeves. They’re doing all of their own marketing, and they’ve usually DIYed their website. They’re, like, dabbling in social media. They’ve written some emails.

Seth [00:07:18]:

When I hear, DIY your website, I’m like, oh, no, some of them aren’t bad.

Kristi [00:07:24]:

They’re not.

Seth [00:07:25]:

I have to admit, some of them are surprisingly halfway decent.

Kristi [00:07:28]:

Yes. So I enjoy working with those people because at the end of the day, like, you started this conversation, introducing me, they’re really relying on referrals and network to build their business. They’ve been doing kind of a little bit of marketing here and there on their own, and they know that they need help, but they’re not necessarily, at that point, of wanting to outsource it all or maybe being financially at the point of being able to outsource it all. So that’s why we’re a really good fit to work together. Because I don’t execute like you. I stay on the strategy and the planning side, but I really enjoy teaching. So I really kind of guide them and teach them and show them the role yes. Yeah. How to really bring strategy to your marketing. So it’s not these kind of, like, haphazard things all over the place so.

Seth [00:08:10]:

Important, and I’m so bad. I do it for everyone else, but I’m so bad, my mind’s so haphazard. I’m like, oh, let me talk about Instagram threads today. Let me talk about this kind of the shoe cobbler’s dilemma where your own brand isn’t as strong as your client’s brand because you’re so busy working on your client’s brand.

Kristi [00:08:31]:

Yes, I’ve been doing a much better job at that.

Seth [00:08:33]:

I will say, of all the people, you’ve done a really good job. I really like what you’re coming up with.

Kristi [00:08:39]:

I love when I get a compliment from somebody about my consistency with my brand colors or my content on LinkedIn or whatever it is, and I’m like, all right, I’m not at that cobbler’s shoes, kids stage of business. I’m like taking it to that next level.

Seth [00:08:56]:

My thing is I’m very stuck on my brand colors. It’s the entrepreneurs enigma orange, and it’s the blue that’s next to your people who are watching the video, the clip, or whatever we’re talking about here. The blue. I have a very specific people always ask what my favorite color blue is. It’s 3366. That is my favorite color blue of all time.

Kristi [00:09:17]:

Oh, my God. I need to look that up because I almost wonder if that was the color of the brand color at the financial services company that I worked with, because that sounds really specific.

Seth [00:09:26]:

I found it, and I like the number. It’s a hexadecimal.

Kristi [00:09:33]:

Oh, no, it’s not. Yeah, so that’s more of like a navy.

Seth [00:09:36]:

It’s a navy, but it’s very subtly gray.

Kristi [00:09:39]:

I was going to say almost subtly.

Seth [00:09:41]:

Purple, but oh, I haven’t heard that one before.

Kristi [00:09:43]:

Oh, you know what? The monitor I’m looking at it on?

Seth [00:09:45]:

Yeah, the monitor. That’s the thing. I don’t think it’s a web safe color either. Oops, yes. I needed a pop color, and I went really bright with the orange. It’s fun.

Kristi [00:09:59]:

That’s actually almost RIT orange.

Seth [00:10:01]:

I know. What is RIT? Are you the Tigers?

Kristi [00:10:06]:

Yes. RIT tigers.

Seth [00:10:08]:

Because if you’re going to be orange, it kind of makes sense to see that.

Kristi [00:10:10]:

Yeah, I have RIT stuff. Oh, I have a flag, a pennant on my wall that says, yeah, I.

Seth [00:10:14]:

Have my University of Delaware pennant up there somewhere.

Kristi [00:10:18]:

It’s funny, too. You mentioned the brand colors, because normally I’m wearing a shirt that falls in my brand colors, and I normally match the painting, but today I didn’t.

Seth [00:10:26]:

I went, you look very nice. There you go. So what is the best thing about being an entrepreneur? Because you’ve done the academic, you’ve done the corporate adjacent academic. Now you’re doing your own thing. You’re almost at five years. What do you love about being an entrepreneur?

Kristi [00:10:42]:

I love being able to constantly pursue work that feels super fulfilling and exciting to me and not just having to deliver things that other people need from me. I get to constantly evolve my offerings in ways that feel good to me that feel like I’m fully supporting my audience and also in ways that I’m excited to show up, not feeling like, oh, I got to do this again.

Seth [00:11:07]:

Absolutely. And that’s what you start to see at five years, is that at the first year, you’re like, I’ll take anything. Three years, you’re like, I’ll take almost everything. And at four or five years, you’re like, I could be a little picky now because I feel like you grow up and you kind of figure out what you want to be when you’re a grown up marketer on your own kind of thing or grown up entrepreneur on your own, you figure out what you want to be and who you are. Whereas when you first start out, you’re like, I’m just starting out. I need to get my feet wet.

Kristi [00:11:35]:

Lots of gray area.

Seth [00:11:37]:

Yeah, and lots of gray in my case. What keeps you up at night? What’s the scariest thing about being an entrepreneur?

Kristi [00:11:46]:

What keeps me up at night is I’ll be totally transparent. It’s my to do list. I’m at that point, which I think is probably normal for that four to five year range. I have a VA now. I’m starting to outsource some things. There are other things I need to get off my plate that’s my current struggle is really trying to define what is it that I have to do and what is it that I need to find help for to offload.

Seth [00:12:11]:

I love that I’m 15 years into it. I still need to find a VA. I’m very particular. I edit these podcasts.

Kristi [00:12:20]:

Really?

Seth [00:12:21]:

Yeah. I’m too particular or not particular enough, but if there’s a gaffe in it, I much rather stream it myself than stream it someone else, because, well, that’s.

Kristi [00:12:32]:

Nice of you to save somebody that trouble.

Seth [00:12:34]:

Yeah. I need to sit down, do the systems a little bit more. I need to kind of document it’s all up here, and that’s not up in that brain and that kind of thing. So what is the most important thing to carry with you all the time.

Kristi [00:12:49]:

In marketing or running your business?

Seth [00:12:51]:

General.

Kristi [00:12:56]:

I think patience, which is kind of ironic for people who know me for me to be saying that.

Seth [00:13:05]:

How so?

Kristi [00:13:07]:

I just think about I’m a doer. Okay, we talked, right? I’m not a New York City, like, hustle bustle kind of person, but I lived in the south for a little bit after growing up in Rochester, and.

Seth [00:13:17]:

I really realized south of New York or the south? South.

Kristi [00:13:20]:

South. I lived in Charleston.

Seth [00:13:23]:

You went?

Kristi [00:13:24]:

Yeah. So, like, down there, I might as well have been a New York City person, because they’re like, whoa, your pace is really fast. You talk fast. You get things done. That is my nature. I’m just like a get things done kind of person, and I think I’ve realized a lot that I need more patience in my business. When it comes to figuring out those evolutions of like, well, maybe I want to offer a new service, and maybe I want to stop offering this, but taking the time to really think through it and not being like, okay, I’m just going to make a decision and let’s go forward and let’s do it. Having patience in that way, and also, especially on the marketing side, and this is one of those practice what you preach kind of things is I always tell my clients, these are the things that you need to do to build your brand and to attract new people and to nurture your audience over time. You can’t expect that to turn into business tomorrow. You have to think of the analogy of planting seeds and nurturing them, and eventually they will give you the fruit that you’re looking for. So patience in that way, I think is really important as a business owner, too.

Seth [00:14:29]:

Oh, absolutely. And I think one of the biggest parts of that is that everyone’s like, oh, Christy, she’s rocking it right now. You’ve been at it for four years prior to that, and you have a lot more experience before that in it. So, I mean, it’s not an overnight success, and I say this on every episode. People are probably sick of me saying this. Overnight successes are years in the making, and you’re still working on your overall. I’m killing it.

Kristi [00:14:57]:

Yay.

Seth [00:14:58]:

Five years is like that’s a big milestone. Literally. When I came back to Goldsteinia, my first five years were rough. Then my son was born. Then I got a corporate job for a year and a half, realized I can’t stay in corporate. I went back on my own, and the rest is history. So it’s been 15 years with a quick foray into corporate America just to test the waters. Oh, God. That was brutal. Bad. Some people are made for corporate. I wasn’t. Whose backside you have to kiss at what time of day. It’s like, oh, don’t talk to Joe because they’re cranking in the morning. I don’t care if Joe’s cranking in the morning. If I need to talk to Joe, I’m going to talk to Joe.

Kristi [00:15:42]:

This is why we get along, Seth.

Seth [00:15:44]:

I know. Because it’s sadistic. Yeah, it is.

Kristi [00:15:50]:

Yeah. I couldn’t play the corporate games. It wasn’t for me. It wasn’t that actually, can I tell you a quick funny story?

Seth [00:15:56]:

Please.

Kristi [00:15:57]:

I got together with my old boss from when I worked in higher ed shortly after I left the corporate thing.

Seth [00:16:03]:

Yeah.

Kristi [00:16:04]:

And we still stay in touch. He’s a mentor of mine.

Seth [00:16:07]:

I absolutely adore him.

Kristi [00:16:08]:

And I said, he ruined me for all other bosses. So we went out to go get breakfast after I told him I left my corporate thing and I was starting my own thing and let’s go get breakfast, and one of the first things he said to me was, so what happened? Were you a little too outspoken. I was like, actually yes, that is.

Seth [00:16:29]:

Exactly you didn’t fall into the cookie cutter. Yes ma’am. Yes sir.

Kristi [00:16:34]:

Yes person I did not fed the mold.

Seth [00:16:36]:

No. I was always like, we have to get this done now. And I don’t care that you have a to do list ahead of me. We’re getting this done now.

Kristi [00:16:44]:

Yes.

Seth [00:16:45]:

Not a good thing. I worked for a subsidiary of Merck. So subsidiary of a pharma company. They don’t move fast.

Kristi [00:16:53]:

I was going to say there’s got to be lots of process there.

Seth [00:16:56]:

Of course to their credit COVID they move pretty fast on the vaccines, but that’s shockingly fast for mean that was really fast. But this subsidiary, we did not move fast. And I was like, oh my God, we need to move fast. So where can people find you online? Christy, where is your watering hole of choice?

Kristi [00:17:17]:

LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. I’m there all the time.

Seth [00:17:21]:

Yeah, it’s so much fun. As much as people are like, oh, it’s corporate, it’s stuffy, it really isn’t anymore.

Kristi [00:17:26]:

You’re not doing it the right way.

Seth [00:17:27]:

If that’s what I’m not. And then I noticed you fill out the form. I noticed that you have a quiz on your website for people that tell us a little bit about that.

Kristi [00:17:38]:

Yeah, I just made that this year. Everyone was doing the quiz thing and I’m like, let me jump on the bandwagon. I want to do a quiz. It was a lot of work.

Seth [00:17:45]:

Oh my God. The conditions. Like if they say this, then do this.

Kristi [00:17:49]:

Yes, it was a lot of work. So what it is is it uses my marketing funnel framework and it takes you through it’s quick, it’s easy. It’s not like one of those in depth things that takes forever, but it takes you through the four stages of my marketing funnel as it pertains to your business and asks you a question about each and then gives you kind of a quick assessment of how you’re doing. And if you’re into Schitt’s Creek, it has Schitt’s Creek meme.

Seth [00:18:15]:

Oh, God. Love that. I love Schitt’s Creek. Oh God. That was so much fun. Canamed television is so funny and so kind of understated, which I think is yes, just so subtly like oh my God, did they just do that? Oh my was that was a big inference. Oh, that was like right on your face. That was a big inference right there. So everyone go over.

Kristi [00:18:37]:

That’s my quiz.

Seth [00:18:38]:

That’s your quiz. Go check it out. That will be in the show notes you can find. You on Christy. Mitchell on LinkedIn. That’s Christy with an I. The hip way of doing Christymitchell.com. Christy with an I. And she even has a free resource library. Oh, how fancy.

Kristi [00:18:55]:

Yeah, I just created that. This been busy, I have. Oh my gosh. Yes, I’ve been very busy. So it’s on member vault. There’s a whole bunch of resources in there. I just had someone tell me they’re like, I just wanted to tell you I really appreciated that your free resource library was actually free. I’m like, Is that a thing? Oh, my God. I don’t get that.

Seth [00:19:15]:

No. People beating the people. But do you ask for an email address?

Kristi [00:19:18]:

Yes.

Seth [00:19:19]:

See, that’s free. But a lot of people are like, Dan, there’s always an Upsell somewhere.

Kristi [00:19:25]:

Yeah, I haven’t built my funnel yet for that.

Seth [00:19:27]:

It’s coming. Dumb dumb.

Kristi [00:19:30]:

It’ll be there.

Seth [00:19:30]:

Maybe by next year it’ll be there, but it’s still free. Resources are great.

Kristi [00:19:34]:

Yeah, there’s, like, technology tools that I use, because I get asked about that a lot. There’s LinkedIn tips, tutorial, videos, that kind of thing.

Seth [00:19:42]:

That’s awesome. Oh, great. Chrissy, I’m so glad we got you on.

Kristi [00:19:46]:

I am, too. This was fun.

Seth [00:19:47]:

Yes. And we’ll see everyone next time. That was a great show. If you’re enjoying entrepreneurs Enigma, please view us in the podcast directory of your choice. Every review helps other podcast listeners find our show. If you’re looking for other podcasts in the marketing space, look no further than the Marketing Podcast Network at Marketingpodcasts Network. Goldstein Media hopes you have enjoyed this episode. This podcast is one of the many great shows on the MPN Marketing Podcast Network.