Creator Stories

On this week's Creator Stories, Interact Digital Marketing Manager Jessmyn Solana shares her insights on the importance of taking meaningful breaks and disconnecting. Although it can seem counterintuitive, taking the time to unplug and reset can have extraordinary effects on our well-being and even improve our productivity in the long run.

Kelly Trach was your classic over achiever. She got straight A’s, won scholarships, and got into the college of her dreams after high school, UBC Sauder School of Business in Vancouver, Canada. After receiving multiple job offers out of college, Kelly reluctantly accepted one. Something inside her knew that she was destined for more than just a 9-5, so 4 months before her start date, she quit. Kelly wanted to start a business of her own, but it was no easy feat. After her first three business failed, she hit rock bottom and decided to dump everything society had taught her to build a lifestyle business helping others discover what they were destined to do. This is her story. Kelly Trach’s website: https://www.kellytrach.com/

Four years ago, Nadalie Bardo quit her 9-5 job without a plan in place and serious negative dollars in the bank. Nadalie had spent most of her 20’s in University and earned her Master’s in International Development Studies—but when she landed a job in PR, she found herself incredibly underwhelmed and unhappy with the day-to-day work. Nadalie didn’t want to be trapped spending her days speaking in other people’s voices, so she took action. She bet on herself and created a career that not only maximizes her potential, but helps others do the same. Pursuing life with confidence and slaying goals—in business, and life. Nadalie's website: https://nadaliebardo.com/

Martina Abraham Ilunga’s story begins in 2016. She had recently moved from the East Coast and was living in the Bay Area at the time. Martina was working in sales and marketing at tech giants like Google and Square—but being in the Silicon Valley gave her an itch to start something of her own. Martina and her now husband were taking a stroll around Lake Merritt in Oakland, CA when she began asking about his life growing up in South Africa. With her phone set on record, Martina soon knew exactly what she wanted to bring to life with her own business. Martina's website: http://www.youhadmeatblack.com/

Kayla Hollatz is a copywriter and website strategist for entrepreneurs—and also one of Interact's very first strategic partners. Kayla comes from a long line of farmers and agriculture workers and is a first generation entrepreneur. Working tediously for hours on end was something that was engraved in her from a young age, but today, Kayla share her story of how she learned to shift her mindset to grow her business sustainably and avoid entrepreneurial burnout. Kayla Hollatz website: https://kaylahollatz.com/

Ashley Beaudin grew up shy, soft-spoken, and unsure of herself and the world around her. Surrounded by an environment in turmoil, she experienced painful trauma and difficulty in her life, which led to self-sabotaging behaviors down the line. But through the years, Ashley never gave up. She began to create her own recovery program and threw herself into a journey to re-write her story. Today, Ashley shares her story boldly to empower others to show up for themselves, imperfections and all. Ashley Beaudin’s website: https://www.ashleybeaudin.com/

Ashley Beaudin grew up shy, soft-spoken, and unsure of herself and the world around her. Surrounded by an environment in turmoil, she experienced painful trauma and difficulty in her life, which led to self-sabotaging behaviors down the line. But through the years, Ashley never gave up. She began to create her own recovery program and threw herself into a journey to re-write her story. Today, Ashley shares her story boldly to empower others to show up for themselves, imperfections and all. Ashley Beaudin's website: https://www.ashleybeaudin.com/

From a young age, Bree Weber enjoyed all things reading and writing, and her passion for storytelling carried her through the years to land a job she loved for a book publisher. Although she loved her job, Bree made the decision to move and embark on a new journey with her boyfriend in 2015. So, she pitched the company she worked for to become their first remote employee. They approved the remote work as an independent contractor, and that's when Bree's business was born. After many years of trial and error, she's finally found the path that provides her with purpose, passion, and profit. Bree Weber's Website: https://growthcopy.co/

Jessica Pereira graduated from college in 2018 with nothing but a Public Relations internship and online courses from Hubspot as experience under her belt. In 2019, Jessica hopped on a plane and left for Thailand to teach English for 6 months. This is where her freelance writing business was born. In between teaching classes, Jessica found herself with lots of extra down time. She spent this time thinking about how she could turn her love for writing and digital marketing into a career. So one day, she decided to try it out as a side-hustle—while she was still in Thailand. But when she came home, she hit the ground running and turned her passion into a full-time job. Jessica's Website: www.jesspereirawrites.com

Matt Clark was a studious computer science student at UCLA when he met classmate Josh Haynam, CEO of Interact. Matt was a coder, and Josh was an aspiring entrepreneur with a knack for all things business. They became friends when they entered a 48 hour startup competition together, which ended up as a complete disaster. In those 48 hours, the two spent their time coming up with random, weird ideas and fun things to build rather than actually trying to do what the weekend was for. Little did they know, after countless nights of eating Top Ramen, the two college buddies would be on their way to building one of the most successful quiz building platforms on the market.

Kyshira Moffett, MBA was born and raised in Chicago and was at the very beginning of her journey through corporate America when she moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a job. While she was working full time, she began helping friends with their resumes, cover letters, and much more—helping others land six figure jobs. Little did she know, her infectious drive with this small side-hustle would propel her into entrepreneurship to becoming a founder of her own six figure company. Kyshira Moffett's Website: https://www.thepowercollective.co/

On this week's special episode of Creator Stories we sit down with Interact's very own Partner Program Manager, Jessmyn Solana. Jessmyn joined our team when she was just 23 years old—a recent college grad at the early start of her career. After being part of our team for many years, she shares the obstacles she experienced before she joined Interact and what led her to make a risky move in her career to join an early start up company and the self-care practices she uses to handle the stress of adapting to changes.

From an early age Andrea Jones was convinced that she wanted to pursue a traditional career path and climb the corporate ladder. Coming from a family of business owners, Andrea had direct insight into the struggles and hardships that came with entrepreneurship and she was certain that it wasn't for her. But over 6 years ago, Andrea quit her job in Atlanta, Georgia, and moved to Toronto, Canada with her husband. Little did she know, this move was the catalyst that led her to discover her true passion and embark on her own journey to starting a business. Andrea Jones Website: https://onlinedrea.com/

Growing up, Michelle Tu had a creative spirit and curious eye for all things business—but she was born to immigrant parents in the 80's who really wanted her to focus on having a stable career profession. She decided to focus on her education and school work, and fell in love with math and science. Michelle then went on to study biomedical engineering in college and completed her Ph.D. in cell biology. Soon after, she realized how much she had been pushing her creative spirit aside, so she took the leap. She's learned, she's failed, and she's flourished. And it's all brought her to where she is today. Michelle Tu's Website: https://www.michellektu.com/

Natalia Gomez grew up and lived in Mexico City with her family where she earned a degree in Marketing. She joined the Corporate world and finally began earning a steady income, until one day, she had to leave it all behind when her and her husband decided to move to the U.S. Natalia gave up all of her professional pursuits back in Mexico and came to place where she couldn’t legally work. But as a creative marketing strategist, she wasn’t the type to sit at home idly. She was determined to find a way…and she did. This is her story. Natalia Gomez’s Website: https://www.green-studiomx.com/ Natalia Gomez’s Blog: https://www.themindful-choice.com/

Jerried Williams was in and out of the corporate world for nearly ten years. He worked in diverse industries and even spent a fair share of time working at start-ups. He was constantly on the move, but having grown up in a Military family, he had become accustomed to his ever-changing surroundings. The one thing that was constant, was his feelings of confinement and constraint that arose from working in very bureaucratic, corporate environments. But this past December, everything changed. Starting from a blank slate, Jerried began exploring all the avenues that he simply couldn't ever do in the past, leading him to where he is today. Jerried Williams Website: https://www.bigmajority.com/

Paul Fishman lived an incredibly fast-paced life as a personal trainer, nutrition coach, spin instructor, and pilates instructor. He taught dozens of high-energy spin classes a day, pouring his energy into each and every person around him...leaving him utterly drained. One day, as he looked in the mirror, he realized that he didn't recognize the person starring back at him; all he saw in his reflection was a people pleaser. He was living his life for others, and it had to stop. Over the course of nearly 10 years, Paul has been on his own self love journey. And now he's on a mission to empower and inspire others to do the same. Paul Fishman's Website: https://paulfishman.love/quiz Paul's FREE Masterclass: www.paulfishman.love/masterclass

Throughout her career, Latasha James worked for many tech startups, nonprofit organizations, multiple Fortune 500 companies, you name it. But one day, this shy introvert decided to ditch the corporate grind. It all started with a blog and a few freelance gigs, when she soon discovered her passion for helping others. Now, this introverted entrepreneur is a business owner doing meaningful work helping others pursue their dreams. Latasha James' Website: https://latashajames.com/

Eman Zabi was a young graduate living with her parents in the sandy deserts of Qatar. She was unemployed and unsure of her career path, like many of us in our early 20's. But she was steadfast on discovering her passion. When Eman started her own business in 2016, she was young and inexperienced. She quickly realized that she had to grow into the shoes that she had already built for her business. But with a competitive background in Martial Arts, if there's one thing Eman knew how to do, it was to commit to the punch. Eman Zabi's Website: https://www.thescribesmith.com/

Vivian Chan's career began as so many of ours do - climbing the corporate ladder. She was great with people management, untangling problems, and was absorbing all the ins and outs of business at a senior level. In the eyes of everyone around her, she was ‘successful’. But Vivian didn't feel successful. She was spending her energy building a kingdom for someone else...and it didn't feel fulfilling. She quickly realized that sitting at a desk from 9-5 wasn't something she wholeheartedly believed in. She wanted to help people grow, and help them leverage the talent they didn't realize existed. But first, Vivian had to discover what her own talent was, what would make her truly feel successful. This his her story. Vivian Chan's Website: https://thesette.co/

When Zafira Rajan was six years old, she went mute for a year. She grew up amongst a family of outgoing entrepreneurs, but you could always find her somewhere buried in a book immersed in stories or writing as her creative outlet. After many years of finding herself dissolving into other people's voices, she found her own. Her journey uncovers the purpose and power behind discovering one's voice and now she has created her own business helping other people discover their voices - this is her story. Zafira Rajan's Website: https://www.zafirarajan.com/

Isaiah Goodman grew up playing sports, which taught him a lot about work ethic and putting in practices that might not be fun but lead to positive results. That same work ethic carried through to his professional career, and when the time came to start his own business that same work ethic helped propel him through the tough years when things didn't seem to be going right. Isaiah Goodman's Website: https://www.moneyverbs.com/

Mai-kee Tsang had a lot to work through on her entrepreneurial journey - a family expectation that didn't involve leaving stabile work to build her own business, an abusive relationship that played into a people-pleasing tendency, and the fear of "what if it doesn't work and people pity me?" Yet she persisted, and today is making 10 times more working for herself than she did in her previous job. This is an amazing story you don't want to miss. Mai-kee's Website: https://maikeetsang.com/

Tiffany Han is a life coach who doesn't pull any punches when it comes to living authentically. She's authentic and genuine, and now that's what she does for a living, helping other people as a life coach. This is an amazing story of how she started from a passion project blog to making a really good income while working for herself.

Kaye Putnam moved around a lot having a military family, and companies weren't always so kind about that. She saw her salary stagnating a lot more than she'd like, so she set out to build her own company instead of just staying in a system that wasn't serving her well. Now she makes more money in a month than she used to make in a year at her old job. This is an amazing story. Kaye's Website: https://www.kayeputnam.com/

Keshia M. White worked on her side business for 7 years while holding a full time job, then she made the jump and now works full time as an online entrepreneur. This is a story of perseverance in a different light, when someone cares so deeply about what they're working on that they're willing to put in overtime for a very long time to make it a reality. Keshia's website: https://www.keshiamwhite.com/

Aleya Harris always had an entrepreneurial streak, but it wasn't until the timing was right that she took the leap and decided to jump in and build her own business from the ground up. Now she's on a journey to authenticity and she's found that the more she knows herself the easier it is to succeed. Aleya's Website: https://www.flourishmarketing.co/

Roshida Dowe had climbed the ladder, she "made it" in the eyes of pretty much everyone, from a financial perspective, and yet it wasn't what she wanted. So she took a year off and hasn't looked back. Now she helps other people do the same, stepping into a break as a way of moving forward, it's inspiring and worth a listen! Roshida's Website: https://www.shidasontheloose.com/

Sherrell Moore-Tucker is running an entrepreneurial venture on the side while keeping a full time job that she still enjoys. How does she do it? By setting a very consistent schedule for herself and getting coaches for each area of her business. Her story is inspiring and makes the idea of starting your own thing on the side feel so much more accessible, this is a must-listen. Sherrell's Website: https://www.sherrellmooretucker.com/

Shaunda Head has a story full of hardship and troubles. It took 2.5 years to have breakthrough success to finally begin pulling in a real salary working for herself, and the road was marked with all sorts of trials. Nevertheless, she persisted, and today is making more than she used to make in her old job, but with the freedom to live the life she wants. Her story is inspring, relatable, and so real, you must listen in. Shaunda's Website: https://www.shh-creative.com/

Eman Ismail was working 12 hour days with a 2 year-old. Every night when she returned home after her son was already asleep she was unhappy with the state of things. She wanted to be present in her own life instead of beholden to the schedule of her employer. So she did something about it, and quit. Then she launched her own copywriting business, but this wasn't the first time she had thought about building her own company, this was her third try...except this time it stuck. Listen to her story, it's a good one. Follow Eman's Journey on Linkedin Check out Eman's website Episode Transcript Josh Haynam: Hi, everyone. I am here with Eman Ismail. She's an email conversion strategist and copywriter, and she has a very awesome story that I want to share with everybody. So thanks for being on, Eman. Eman Ismail: Thanks. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Josh Haynam: Yeah. So I found about you because of a LinkedIn post where you had shared about working with Copyhackers, and then I followed that to your site and kind of read a little bit of your story, and I just wanted to share it with everybody. So let's just start there. How did you become what you are now? Eman Ismail: Okay. It's a long story, but it starts off with... I feel like the middle of the story is me working for a charity. I was running the comms, the communications department for that charity, and so my job that was kind of to do whole bunch of copywriting. I was writing websites, emails, social media. I was managing their social media as well. I was monitoring their campaigns, doing loads of stuff, and managing the video content, and creating videos, and working with their teams across the world to create these marketing videos, and I was probably doing the job of about three people in one role, and I knew the thing I enjoyed most was the copywriting. I loved that most, and anything that kind of took me away from that felt like a bit of a drag. Eman Ismail: But it got to the point where, because I was commuting... This job was in Yorkshire, which is about an hour away from where I am, but in bad traffic it's about an hour and a half. That's each way, by the way. That is each way. So it meant that I had to leave my house really early morning, take my son to nursery. He was two back then, so I'd take him to nursery. And I wouldn't get home until about 8:00 in the evenings, so I was doing 12 hour days. I had to hire a childminder to pick my son up from nursery. And I'd get in every night, and my son would be asleep on the couch, because he would refuse to... At two years old, he was very strong willed. He would refuse to go to sleep without me. He wouldn't go to bed, so he'd stay up on the sofa just kind of waiting for me and then eventually fall asleep because he couldn't stay awake. And I'd come in every night to him asleep and just be devastated every time, and just think... Eman Ismail: It got to the point where I was just so unhappy. I was so unhappy. And I think I was at work complaining about something one day, and my colleague had said something like... Well, she made a really sarcastic comment about me complaining all the time. And she's a friend. She's a good friend as well, by the way. But it made me really reflect on my attitudes and actually think, wow, when did I become this person who just complained all the time? Because even I was getting sick of me and my unhappiness and my complaints. And I just thought, "I can't do this anymore." I was so unhappy, and I needed to see my son more and I needed to be more involved in just even picking him up from nursery every day. It meant so much. Eman Ismail: And yeah, I decided tha...

In March of 2017, Stephanie Shaw had a health scare while traveling in New Orleans. 18 doctors and 18 months later she finally figured out what had casued the incident and realized that she wasn't the only one suffering from health issues related to adrenal fatigue. Now she is 8 months into building her own business helping other women determine what is causing their health issues, and she's made the leap to owning her own company. Listen in as Stephanie shares her story with us. Stephanie's Website: https://leighandollie.com/ Josh Haynam: Hi, everyone. I'm here with Stephanie Shaw, the founder of Leigh and Ollie. Stephanie, tell us about what you do now. Stephanie Shaw: First of all, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I started off as a nutrition coach and quickly learned that in order to be effective to more people, I switched a little and am doing more online coaching, group coaching, and coursework. So, in our work, we work specifically with women, women who have problems with adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue is very, very difficult to analyze by a physician. So you may go to one doctor and you're having migraines, another and you're having backaches, or you may eat and have rapid heartbeat. And none of that really connects and because physicians normally don't or won't talk to each other, they never pull it all together to understand that the underlying cause more than likely is around nutrition and stress. So once you figure out what that underlying cause is then you're able to move to the next steps. And that's what I try to do, help women figure out that it's not all in your head. You're not crazy. There really is something going on. And once you figure out what that is, it's time consuming, but it's pretty easy to fix. Josh Haynam: Yeah, so that's amazing. And, definitely, it's people that are suffering from those symptoms and need help. How did you even come up with the idea of building a business out of helping people figure out where that comes from? Stephanie Shaw: Yeah. So, first of all, food is in what I do and I'm a foodie at heart. I did a food blog for a while. I've just always wanted to do something with food and I'm like, "Yeah, I'm not sure if that's going to pay the bills." I kept going with my regular work. I led a nonprofit for quite a while. Well, I was on a business trip in New Orleans and I was walking down the street and I'm like, "Hey, let's go to Bourbon Street. I just want to see what that looks like." And I physically touched onto Bourbon Street and had every stroke symptom possible. Neck, jaw pain, my body started shaking, I basically started to break down. And it took 18 different doctors, several emergency room visits, naturopath, chiropractor, acupuncturist, physical therapists, heart doctors. I went everywhere, and I live really close to two world renowned medical centers. No one could figure out what was wrong with me. Stephanie Shaw: And I was a vegetarian, so no one really kind of questioned my eating habits because I was a vegetarian. But you can be a carbotarian too. Just because you say you're a vegetarian doesn't mean you're eating well all the time. And so, after the 18 different doctors and almost a year and a half of being really, really sick, I found a naturopath who was also a chiropractor. He took one blood test, discovered I had two or three allergies, which one was to pineapples, one was to peaches, and my liver was stressed. But no other doctor discovered that, and by him discovering those two things, he gave me this two-sheeter on, "This is what you need to change and what you need to do." But I got really passionate about it and I figured out that if I made some behavioral changes, like meal prepping and thinking about what I was actually putting in my mouth and learning the diffe...

Lauren Fritsch was always a creator, when she was a kid she'd sell birdhouses along the side of the highway with her brothers, capitalizing on the literal traffic that would drive by. In this episode we get to hear her journey from birdhouse saleswoman to CEO of the Magnetism Factor, where she is now advisor and coach to multi-national corporations and startups alike. She shares stories of rejection, shame, and overcoming setbacks all in the pursuit of building her own career. It's a compelling and gripping story you won't want to miss. Helpful links. The Magnetism Factor Episode Transcript: Josh Haynam: Hi everyone. I am here with Lauren Fritsch, the founder of the Magnetism Factor. Do you want to give us some insight on what that means? Lauren Fritsch: Sure. Magnetismfactor.com is my company that does consulting for brands, both B2B and B2C, and we focus on psychology-driven customer acquisition through the lens of customer experience, CX, and employee experience, EX. So what does that mean? It means we get inside the minds of both customers and employees, and we help drive conversion by paying attention to the customer journey and the employee journey. Josh Haynam: That's very cool, and also very similar to what we try to do at Quiz is, so that works out really well. So you're here now, but how did you get here? What's the background? How did you become the founder of this? And what's the story and the journey of how you went from where you started, to getting to where you got to now? Lauren Fritsch: I have almost no employment history as an adult American, because I've worked for myself, and we have that in common except I'm a lot older than you. And I think that's an unusual path, but I think it's growing less atypical. I think in general, people are more inclined to start something on their own because it's more possible with technology and things like Inneract, right? When I was starting out in the 2000s, graduating from college, I held one job for approximately six months and it was a great job. I was the executive director of the alumni organization for my college in New York City. So we were in a big clubhouse, we had this beautiful facility and hotels and restaurant, bar, all that stuff, and I was in charge of the member organization. So planning, increasing the member roles. Lauren Fritsch: Actually, it's really interesting given what I do now. It was all about how do we reach out to the alumni in New York City and then the greater Tri-state area and encourage them to stay connected with the university and with our programming. So there were a lot of reasons that wasn't a fit. And over the year and a half after that period of time, I had been an English major in college. I started exploring a lot of different avenues. And it's the typical trying to find yourself stuff. I got certified to teach Pilates and yoga. I had been a college athlete so that was a very good fit. I trained an Olympic soccer player among other things, and an Olympic swimmer. And I went back to school again in New York to study fashion design because sewing was something I'd done since I was five, and quickly, quickly realized that my path was not going to be in working for Gap corporate, specializing in T-shirt design every season. That was not my jam, and that I really gravitated more towards the business end of things, and had always been reading all kinds of crazy stuff as a kid, newspapers, magazines, whatever I could get my hands on. Lauren Fritsch: So I took a lot of that, just sort of macro knowledge and realized, okay, I can use this. And I went to Italy and basically cleaned toilets because I thought this is where fashion is really important. It's where it's a huge industry. They have a legacy. And I slowly worked my way into an internship an...

This week we're learning from Wendy and Linda from The Email Collection they've developed an ingenious method for building quizzes based on decades of experience doing in-person sales. They've taken the same methods that work for selling products face-to-face and turned them into a framework for creating quizzes that sell products and grow your list. Listen in as they share the exact details of how this works. Episode Transcript Josh Haynam: Hi everyone. I'm here with Wendy and Linda from the Email Collection. They not only have their own quiz that's been really successful, but they also help other people create quizzes that are equally successful, if not more. And I'm really excited to talk to them about the methods that they use in their own company as well as for other clients in order to create these quizzes that are just performing super well. So thanks for coming on today guys. Wendy: Yeah, thanks for having us. We're excited to be here. Josh Haynam: Yeah. So give us some background. How did you get started and how did you come across this idea of quizzes, what stood out to you about it and why do you like doing it? Linda: Honestly, I think I heard a podcast last summer. I was on a walk and it was something that really stood out to me. It was Chanti Zak, the quiz queen, and she's later become a mentor of mine. And so that was my initial finding out what a quiz is. And then Wendy and I talked about it. We loved the idea and we couldn't help ourselves, so we just dove in within a few days after we got the fire under ourselves, and we said, "Let's check this out and see what we can do." And so within probably 30 days, we had something live and we were launching it to our audience. Josh Haynam: Wow, that's amazing. Wendy: Yeah. And I come from the corporate world, so I was at Expedia for about 10 years, and there we play heavy on like gamification and giving customers feedback loops. So the quiz fits really well into engaging customers into your products and services in a really personal way. So like Linda mentioned, when we knew that it was something we wanted to do for our business from the get go, and we were so excited to dive in and get it done. Josh Haynam: Yeah. So what happened after that, you listened to Chanti, who's amazing and then what did you do next? Linda: So we decided to take Chanti's Grow With Quizzes course, and we designed our quiz based on personalities. I don't think I knew at the time that personalities were the best quiz you could possibly have for your business. But I did know that it was something that was really hot in pop culture. You know, the Integram was really popular last fall. And I come from a sales background. I was in pharmaceutical sales and they trained us heavily on personalities. So for me it was second nature to identify what personality somebody is, so I could speak to them in the way they know how to talk and learn. So it was a no brainer for us to dissect it and to find four different personalities to work with and then go from there to help these people find results and then eventually get introduced to our services so we can help them along the way. Josh Haynam: I really like that. That's fascinating. I have never actually had a job, so I don't know what they train people on, but it's very interesting how this ties into lots of traditional industries. So let's jump into that though, because a lot of struggle, and if I'm honest, it's still hard for me to think about coming up with personality types. When people ask on building quizzes, how did you come up with those for your own business and how do you help your clients come up with the personality types within their quizzes? Linda: So based on the trainings I've had, there is, you're either fast-paced or...

Liz Lajoie is the founder of The Zen Money Initiative and a self-made entrepreneur. She took decades of experience in the corporate world and turned it into her own online business where she coaches and teaches businesses on how to make more money and keep it, implementing strategies for financial success and health. Episode Transcript Josh Haynam: Hi everyone. I am here with Liz Lajoie, the founder of the Zen Money Initiative. She's a money coach strategist. I'll let her go into that a little bit more so I don't mess it up too much, but basically she's created a very cool money quiz and has some great perspectives on online everything. So I'm excited to talk to you today, Liz. Thanks for being here. Liz Lajoie: I'm excited to be here. I always like to talk about business and I love what you guys are doing. Josh Haynam: Yeah, so we were just having a quick conversation before we hit record, but we can jump back into that and just, we were just talking about online business in general, especially in this time of COVID-19 and locked down and a lot of things coming online. And how that's affecting our businesses. And I guess one of the things that's interesting to me is. Well, dive into your background first of all because did you start with doing things in-person? How has that translated to your online business? What's kind of the coming of age story of the Zen Money Initiative? Liz Lajoie: Yeah, that's a good question. My background is in small business management in general. So over many years, almost two decades I've been working in one version or another, whether it's operations management or financial management, or sometimes wearing all the hats in various businesses. Before I moved into the online space, I spent about a decade as a partner and business manager for a local two to $3 million civil structural engineering firm. Liz Lajoie: So my background is with people who sell their brains for a living. And then for various reasons in 2000, what year is it now? 2016 I moved into the online space and offering financial management services, soup to nuts, financial planning, including bookkeeping, tax coordination, big picture strategic planning, which is where I really have a good time. And it turned into a lot of training and coaching and teaching unexpectedly. Because in my left brain analytical world, you just do the things in your business, you take care of your numbers. Liz Lajoie: We can use those numbers as a lens to figure out where to go with marketing, what to do with operations. We were talking before about potential recession. This is where getting a real handle on what's happening in our business day to day, month over month really can help us prepare for those future things. And so I thought it would just be sort of an easy conversation. What I didn't realize is that so many people, especially creative entrepreneurial type brains love the big idea, but the reality of pulling that down into looking strategically at a granular level was a little overwhelming. Liz Lajoie: And so that coaching piece kind of came organically over the course of the last four years. The conversation has evolved. I've written a couple of books and it's really shaped how we work with clients now to make sure that people are really taken care of not just with this ticky tacky stuff that we all have to do to get our taxes done, right? We all know that part, but also how do we step fully into our shoes as CEO around our numbers? How do we take things to the next level if growth is our plan, if it's not, how do we get okay with that? And how to make sure that we can build that bridge to our personal life. Liz Lajoie: Because I see so many people working so, so hard to grow a business. They don't necessarily have a solid plan in place to make sure they'...

Anna Parker-Naples is a best-selling author, award-winning voicover actress, and online guru who has an ingenious method for segmenting her potential customers using her quiz. Listen in as she shares her method with all of us. Check out Anna's quiz at https://annaparkernaples.co.uk/ Episode Transcript Josh Haynam: Hi, everyone. I am here with Anna Parker Naples. She's an entrepreneur and podcasting expert, like a real, real expert with just a ton of experience, and we'll get into that. Thanks for being here, Anna. Anna Parker-Naples: Hey, nice to be here, Josh. I was delighted to be asked to come and talk about the quiz that I created. Josh Haynam: Yeah, yeah. I think this is going to be a lot of fun. We chatted a little bit before we hit record, but tell everybody what your background is, where you come from, how you got to where you are now. Anna Parker-Naples: Right now I help people, entrepreneurs and creatives, people with big missions and stories, that want to transform people's lives in some way, to get their message out there. Part of that is really to be seen, to be heard and to be remembered. That's kind of been a funny old journey to get where I am because most of that is now through the power of podcasting. I believe it is the fastest growing and most influential platform on the planet. Anna Parker-Naples: Three years ago, I had a massive audio background, and I thought I was leaving all of that behind me to help other people realize how successful they could be. A lot of that is mindset based. So I thought three years ago, as I came into this online entrepreneurial space, that it was about the mindset piece. How could I teach people to be successful with how they think? Anna Parker-Naples: What became obvious to me was that people were struggling to get their message out there. At the same time, this massive industry of podcasting is growing at a phenomenal rate, and I kept reading books about podcasting because if I'm passionate about something, I'll go all in. I'll go all in with the knowledge. I kept reading books that just felt like they were missing vital components of information that entrepreneurs needed. I only knew that because my background is as a multi award winning voice actor. I've won lots of awards in Hollywood for my work on audio books and radio dramas and all sorts of things. Anna Parker-Naples: I'd never really intended to follow an audio path, all those years ago. It happened because I was told that I would potentially never walk again, 10 years ago. As Josh is looking at me now, he can see that I'm in a studio, a proper studio, at least that's how it looks. It actually was our airing cupboard, our laundry cupboard, and it was the only space in the house that my wheelchair used to fit. So audio and voice became this massive catalyst for me as an actor, as a mom who thought she was going to never walk again, to be able to have that sense that I could still be recognized in the world as a performer at this point and get my message out there and be seen on a world class level. Anna Parker-Naples: It's interesting that I always framed my voice work, my voiceover work, in that way, not having a clue where that journey was going to take me, to Hollywood and then to massive stages, particularly in the UK, and that I've gone on to become a best-selling author about the journey from being no one, being a nobody, to visibility. My book is called Get Visible, and my podcast is Entrepreneurs Get Visible. I'm really passionate about helping people who feel like they have a message or feel like they have a mission in some way, to get that message out there. Podcasting is absolutely crucial to that. Josh Haynam: That's incredible. Anna Parker-Naples: Quite a story. Josh Haynam: Yeah,...

This week we get to talk with Stacie Grissom, Director of Content at BARK Stacie is Director of Content at BARK and co-author of the New York Times bestseller, Dogs and Their People. She focuses on creating content formats that work at scale for audience generation in today’s fast-changing landscape. Beginning her tenure at BARK as the third employee in 2012, Stacie built the content team from the ground up. She is responsible for developing BarkBox’s interactive, humor-driven content strategy and growing the company's social accounts from 2,500 followers to over 11 million dog-obsessed followers. Along with a team of writers, Stacie helped to create the Dog Mom Rap, the best performing piece of brand content two years in a row, according to Unmetric. She also led the team that created the video series “Dog’s Best Day” that amassed over 157 million views in its 6 episodes. Today, her expanded team regularly puts out some of the most engaging brand content on social media month after month-- including things like BarkBox's cheeky Big Honkin' Pig in a Blanket toys, or most recently some totally normal BarkBox "spinach burritos." Stacie lives in NYC with her rescue mutt, Pimm, and spends her free time growing a balcony cocktail garden and documenting the recipes on @GardenCocktails. Episode Transcript: Josh Haynam: Hi everyone. We're here with Stacie Grissom. She is the director of content at Bark and they have under their umbrella corporation BarkBox, which some of you may know as an awesome purveyor of dog toys. She started at Bark as the third employee in 2012 and built the entire content team there. They've done all sorts of crazy stuff in terms of the effectiveness of their content and we're super honored that they've chosen to use Interact to build their quizzes with. So, thanks for coming on today, Stacie. Stacie Grissom: Yeah, thanks for having me. Josh Haynam: So, really what I was thinking about before I jumped on today was I just want to learn from you as I'm sure everybody else does. So let's start at the beginning. Where do quizzes fit in? How did that come up for you? What was the origin story? Stacie Grissom: Yeah, I mean, so I've been at Bark almost eight years and in the last decade we've definitely seen content on the internet grow and change and evolve. At Bark we've done everything from when I started in 2012 we launched Bark Post, which was a website where we were just creating content around everything related to dogs and the lifestyle of having a four legged family member to today where social and all different form mediums and forms of content we are exploring, and quizzes have just been a fun and exciting moment or medium that we've used to celebrate...

Susan Storm founded Psychologyjunkie.com in 2015, and is now a six-figure business owner selling courses and ebooks to an audience of nearly a million website visitors every month. In October 2019, after four years of considering using a quiz she took the leap and put one on the home page of her website as her main lead magnet, and since that day just six months ago she has generated 28,439 new email subscribers, leading to increased revenue both from ad sales and ebooks/courses. In this episode she shares her story of how she created the quiz and what advice she has for others looking to get started. To check out Susan's quiz, head to psychologyjunkie.com Podcast Transcript Josh Haynam: Hi everyone. I'm really excited today to be here with Susan Storm. She is the founder of psychologyjunkie.com and is using quizzes in so many cool ways that I just want to hear about how she's doing it and what it's doing for business. Thanks for coming on, Susan. Susan Storm: Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to talk this over with you. Josh Haynam: Yeah. Let's just kick things off. How did you start using quizzes? What's the origin story of all that? Susan Storm: Yeah, so I'm an MBTI practitioner. If anyone's new did that, it's I'm certified in Myers-Briggs typology. And if you ever heard of extroversion or introversion, sensing or intuition, these four letter codes that people get, like INFJ or ISFP, these are Myers-Briggs types. And as a practitioner, I created a website where I talk about the Myers-Briggs types in depth as well as enneagram types and how you can improve your life by knowing your type. And for the longest time I knew I needed to create a quiz. It was something that was really important to me, but a lot of the quiz builders that I found out there were just too simplistic for what I was trying to do or they were too complicated for me to figure out because I'm not a tech wizard by any stretch of the imagination. Susan Storm: I finally found TryInteract and I loved how much you could tailor it to exactly what you needed. There were so many options from, you could do the visual tests or you leave them as questions, you could put unlimited options in there and just set it up so that you could have a funnel directed to the specific results people got. And I spent a really long time on a complicated test and then I realized, you know what? It actually worked out better when I made it simpler anyway, and the test was great. I created a Myers-Briggs type test, now this isn't the official. If you want to get the official Myers-Briggs tests taken you have to actually go to a practitioner or take it from their official site. But I made the best test I could create for people. Susan Storm: And on the first, I think so far we've gotten 28,439 leads since we launched the test back in October. I think it was October 19th. And it more than doubled our email list. We also have a child's personality type test, so if you want to know your child's Myers-Briggs personality type, you can take that. And that one I haven't publicized as much, there's a lot more I need to do as far as promoting the test, but I've brought in 881 leads from that and that's only been, I think that's only been probably for a few months now. It's been a lot of fun. It's been great. TryInteract has definitely helped us to grow our email list quite a bit and get us closer to our customers. Josh Haynam: Wow, that's incredible. That number 28,439, right? Susan Storm: That's right. Yeah. Josh Haynam: Wow, that's crazy. That's amazing. I think for a lot of our customers and potential customers, it's like, oh, that's awesome. That sounds incredible. I would love to have that kind of result. But then it's almost like, I don't know if this happened to you in school, but when you've got a math problem...

Lisa Simone Richards is a publicist for coaches, she swapped out her previous lead magnet, a five-day challenge on podcasting, for a quiz titled "What's the best way to get the word out about your fitness brand?" and immediately saw a 1,200% increase in leads coming in the door. In just two months she got more new leads with the quiz than the previous two years combined using the challenge. In this episode Lisa shares the way she came up with the idea for the quiz (and why she waited three years to get started on it), how she built the quiz into her marketing plan, and the way it helps to keep customers engaged as they consider working with her. It's a fascinating listen, and you'll learn a lot (I know I did). Check out Lisa's quiz and learn more about her at lisasimonerichards.com/quiz Full Transcript Josh Haynam: Hi everyone. I'm here with Lisa Simone Richards. She's a publicist for online coaches and is using a quiz in a really cool way that I'm super excited to talk to her about. Thanks for coming on the show, Lisa. Lisa Simone Richards: This is going to be so much fun. I'm really excited to chat with you and have your audience hear a little bit about the backend on my business today. Josh Haynam: Yeah. Why don't you kick things off? What does it mean to be a publicist for online coaches? Lisa Simone Richards: One thing that I find a lot is that people are struggling with how to get their business out there and a lot of people seem to think that Facebook ads is the only way to go. And the truth is it's actually not that hard to get featured in the magazines that you read, on television, on podcasts like this one, even speaking on stages. What I help my clients do is get in front of more of their ideal client without actually having to pay for it. I love the way that my clients get out there because it actually really positions them as credible experts. We all know how to scroll past an ad on Facebook but when you become the content that somebody is watching in a video or reading an article, that's when people really start to trust you. The best part is it doesn't cost you anything. Josh Haynam: Yeah, I really like that. It's humanizing the brand, right? Because you can have these things that you offer or services you offer courses, coaching, whatever it is, but until people can actually connect with you, it's kind of just this nebulous thing that doesn't really make that much sense. I love that. And what does that look like in terms of how you interact with your clients? What kinds of services do you offer? Lisa Simone Richards: It's funny cause we're going to be talking about in the quiz today and that's one of the things that I helped them use to figure out what's going to make the most sense for them. I'm not the kind of coach who has a blanket offering for people. I want to find out what are your gifts and what are your goals. For some people who specialize in exclusively having an online business, it's probably going to make more sense to get featured on a really good website or on the right podcast versus getting featured on your local morning TV show. For somebody who's running a bricks and mortar, they're going to have more success getting into a local newspaper or on a local morning show than they would getting in even Oprah magazine. It gives you great credibility, don't get me wrong, but the people who could walk into your doors are the ones consuming that local content. Based on what somebody is offering, that's how I help them assess this is the best way for you to get in front of the right people who actually have the ability to invest in your services. Josh Haynam: Yeah, that's a really good point, that the Oprah magazine mentioned, cause we've had a similar experiences where we'll get featured in something like Entrepreneur Magazine and it's like that's very cool, but it doesn't actually help t...

The Kalebjian family has been roasting coffee for three generations, and they've taken all that knowledge online through a quiz that helps customers find just the right coffee beans for their personal tastes. As a huge coffee fan myself this quiz was perfectly accurate and I just had to learn more about how they did it. Learn more about how Henry's House of Coffee created a personalized experience for every website visitor in this episode. Helpful links: -Take the Henry's House of Coffee Quiz Podcast Transcript Josh Haynam: Everyone here, I'm here with Hrag from Henry's coffee house, a local institution here in San Francisco, where I am based out of as well. Super excited to talk to you today because the way that you're using aQquiz is really similar to the way that I've talked about quizzes being used since the beginning of our existence eight years ago. And so when I found how you're using this quiz, I just knew I had to talk to you. So thanks for chatting with me today. Hrag Kalebjian: Thank you Josh. I appreciate you having me today. Josh Haynam: Yeah, so just to kick things off, where did this idea come from? How did you decide to start using aQuiz? And can you just give everybody a little context on how you guys are using the quiz? Hrag Kalebjian: Yeah, of course. So, we launched our website in 2014, and we've been doing pretty well over the last five, six years. Just to give you an idea, when we launched, we were doing like 20 orders a month back in 2014, now we do over 800 orders a month. So a lot of growth there, but I come from a finance background, so a lot of the stuff I try to do is as analytical as possible. And what I would notice is through chats on our websites, through emails and conversations, new customers that were coming to our page were confused as to what to buy, they didn't really know the story of Henry's House of Coffee, their experience with coffee was all over the place, some people thought they liked the light rules when in fact they didn't and they wanted something dark. Some people were experts and they wanted a very specific type of coffee. Hrag Kalebjian: And I thought by having a chat feature on our website would be very easy. But with chats you can only do so much, it's not 24/7, I'm also working on other stuff so I couldn't be available all the time. And one of the things that caught my attention was a competitor of ours called Trade Coffee, I'm not sure if you've heard of them, Josh. Josh Haynam: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Hrag Kalebjian: So Trade, their whole thing is when you land on their page, they start you off with a coffee quiz. And when I saw that, I thought, "You know what, that really reminded me of my dad." And what I mean by that is when customers come to the shop and they're looking for coffee beans, they love having that conversation with my dad because he's like the coffee doctor, he's having a coffee consultation in a sense. He's not looking just the sales, he's really looking to understand. So he'll ask people, "Do you smoke cigarettes? Are you drinking your coffee with food or just by itself?" There's a lot that goes into it. And I always thought, "Man, it would cost me so much money to develop something like this. I have no idea where to begin." Hrag Kalebjian: And there wasn't anything like that for years. And then literally like three, four months ago I was like, "Damn it, I need to figure this crap out. I need some kind of a quiz." And so I Googled... I don't remember what I Googled, and sure enough Try Interact was one of the first that popped up. And what really got me excited about it was the fact that it was free to try it. A lot of other companies we're charging, and I was like, "I don't even know if this shit's going to work." Pardon my French. I don't kn...