Alexa Phillips architects brands

TL;DR

Alexa Phillips, founder and chief brand architect of Bright Eyes Creative, shares her journey from a passion for journalism and fashion to establishing her own brand architecture business. She’s on a mission to empower other creatives to monetize their talents. We talked about:

→ the future of creative entrepreneurship → Alexa’s journey as a creative entrepreneur

→ the resurgence of magazines

→ Alexa’s AI hot-take

→growing up with entrepreneurial parents

→ pivoting in business

→ business vs. employee mindset

→ all things branding

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Transcript

Alexa Phillips (00:08.008) my name is Alexa. I am the founder and chief brand architect of Bright Ice Creative. And for adventuring, I'm not really an outdoorsy girl, but I am a more like city adventure. So if there's, I love walking around the city, taking my camera out, usually kind of going on what I call a photo safari. So just kind of going to photograph some fun stuff, the buildings, interesting sculptures, interesting murals, things like that. So that's probably my favorite form of adventuring.

Rachel Meltzer (00:22.368) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (00:26.847) fun.

Rachel Meltzer (00:36.276) That is so cool. You live in a good place for that too. Seattle has a lot of art, right? A of murals.

Alexa Phillips (00:41.618) Yeah, there's a lot of like little artsy neighborhoods like where I live. I'm kind of in the northern part of this neighborhood called Fremont. And if you kind of go down more towards like the downtown area, there's like the water, there's like really cool murals, really cool sculptures, a lot of just like art and kind of weird influences. And I really love that. So I'm like, okay, like I feel like I picked the right place in the city to live.

Rachel Meltzer (01:04.858) Yeah, for sure, for sure. Have you heard of urban hiking?

Alexa Phillips (01:10.332) No, what is that?

Rachel Meltzer (01:11.356) It's like a group of people who are like, hiking shouldn't just be this elitist thing that only can be done outside the city. It's not fair. It's not accessible. So they lead hikes in the city where they basically just explore like parking garages and like places where you can see a view, but you have to take the stairs if you physically can. And they just like hike to the top of like

parking garages to watch the sunset, which I never would have thought of doing. And I went on one of these in Boston one time when I was in college and I was like, this is actually amazing. I would have never thought to go to the top of the parking garage for sunset, but it was so beautiful.

Alexa Phillips (01:51.104) Yeah, yeah, I used to live in Colorado. And so for me, the definition of a hike is you gain elevation. So in my mind, that's always how I thought of hiking. And so when people are like, I'm going on this trail, and I'm like, you went on a nature walk, you didn't go on a hike. Yeah. But yo, I like the urban idea. And in Seattle, there's so many hills and so many stairs. When I was living, I used to live in this other part of the city that was a lot hillier.

Rachel Meltzer (01:58.226) Right.

Rachel Meltzer (02:05.458) Yeah, that's a walk. Yeah, totally.

Rachel Meltzer (02:13.983) Yeah.

Alexa Phillips (02:18.814) And so somebody, was at this like networking happy hour at my building and my apartment complex. And this guy's like, yeah, we climbed all the staircases like in this neighborhood during COVID as like something to do, which I didn't even know was like a thing you could do finding all the different staircases to climb. But I guess it's a thing here.

Rachel Meltzer (02:29.951) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (02:36.286) That's a really good idea, honestly.

Alexa Phillips (02:40.852) I mean, the views are great. Like you get good views everywhere here, so.

Rachel Meltzer (02:43.88) Yeah, yeah, it's kind of amazing how they can build a city on a hill like that. Like, I just don't understand architecturally, like structurally, how does that work? I don't get it.

Alexa Phillips (02:52.756) Well, was, yeah, and I was just in Santorini a couple months ago and it was like kind of the same thing because Santorini is basically built like at the top of like a volcano caldera and like it's high, like it is high up. I'm like, how did I'm like, how did they get up here to build this city? Because like even going from the ferry port to like where we were staying our hotel, we had to go up these like hairpin turns and curves to get up the mountain. And I was like, this is wild. I don't know how people like

Rachel Meltzer (03:08.82) Yes!

Rachel Meltzer (03:20.49) That's crazy. Yeah, that's so crazy. my gosh. Okay, cool. Well, let's talk about what you actually do for business. For people who don't know, can you define what a brand architect is?

Alexa Phillips (03:22.256) settled here.

Alexa Phillips (03:38.366) Yeah, so it's kind of a term I made up myself because it's kind of, like to think of it as like you're building something, right? So like, there's a lot of like brand strategy, brand design, but it's like, you act like, but then there's other elements of your brand that you're actively building, whether it's like your marketing programs, your like media that you want to do, your offers, things like that. So I kind of think of it as helping people like build those elements of your brand because it's not just

Rachel Meltzer (03:45.202) Yeah.

Alexa Phillips (04:06.752) building your brand identity or building out your brand strategy, which a lot of people have associate together. It's really kind of just like these other things that you need to build like a thriving business. So that was like kind of the best term, because I know you're a freelance writer and everything. So when you say like, I'm like a content specialist or like a content people automatically think like, I help write blogs, I help do that stuff, but it like goes much beyond that.

Rachel Meltzer (04:32.49) Totally, totally, yeah. I like the descriptive, like it just feels right. Like when I read it on your website, I was like, yes, that.

is what I would call that. And it is so much more than just strategy or frameworks or like execution. It's like also your copy and like your brand voice guide and your it's not just your logos and colors. It's so much more than that. And it's a really great way to describe that.

Alexa Phillips (05:03.976) Yeah, and one of my strengths too is really kind of just being able to like, I call myself a type A creative where it's like, okay, I have this like big creative vision. I, know, post it notes, notes and stuff everywhere, but I need structure. Like I need to have like an organ. I need to have like a content calendar and notion. I need to have my apartment organized, like things like that to be able to do my creative work. And I think that's kind of like a strength of mine where it's like, okay, I can see that picture, but like also put that structure in place.

Rachel Meltzer (05:32.224) Mm-hmm.

Alexa Phillips (05:32.724) to make it sustainable. Because I know a lot of creatives, like we're all over the place with everything. So it's like, we need that structure to actually, you know, have a business around it. Otherwise, we're not gonna have anything that's sustainable.

Rachel Meltzer (05:36.16) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (05:44.648) Yeah, totally. The organization and the systems. It's funny because when I first started, like didn't understand what people meant by that or how it would work or like why a systems specialist would be a job even. And now that I'm in it, and I'm building all these systems for my own business and for my clients, I'm like, yeah, this is like essential. If you have a good system that you can rely on.

you can, you know, I get clients so much easier because I have a system that I'm using to get clients. It's not like, who am going to pitch today?

Alexa Phillips (06:14.856) Yeah, yeah. And I mean, just from like an organization standpoint, just like organizing your ideas too, because we have so many like content ideas and then we're like, where did we put this idea that we had? so, because you're like, you think of it out of the blue, you're like, I really want to write something about this. And then you're like, where did I put that idea in those notes?

Rachel Meltzer (06:19.71) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (06:25.566) Yeah, yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (06:32.86) Yeah, totally. It's so easy to get things lost digitally, it feels like. Like digital organization. It's not it's not like it's not like staring at a closet and physically being able to like put things in baskets and clear out the junk and like it is but it's not you know, it can be out of sight out of mind and you can like put it off forever. But if you're like kitchen is disorganized, you're gonna feel it every second of every day. And that's true of your online

your digital files as well, but it just for some reason feels different. It feels easier to put off when it's digital.

Alexa Phillips (07:09.926) Yeah, well, and to like we have like, I don't know if you like have heard of Tiago Forte, like this is like his second brain or para, but like, that's like, yeah, that's been like a big like, I've tried to do that. But it's been hard because it's like, I like things in various places. Like, for example, I will like any webinar program, whatever those notes I take on good notes on my iPad. And but I like everything searchable. So anything that I know I need to search, I'll put like in a digital

Rachel Meltzer (07:18.066) yes!

Alexa Phillips (07:38.506) place, which brings me back to my point I was trying to get before I got distracted with second brain was like, I it's easy to put off stuff like that, because we can search for whatever we need, whether it's an Apple notes, a notion, and good notes, like if we just know what word we're searching for, we'll get the results. So I think it's easier to put off organizing that stuff, because we can search for a lot easier.

Rachel Meltzer (07:58.706) Yeah, it does suck though if you try to hire somebody or if you're working on a team, it makes it if you're not organized like it's so much harder. It's so much harder.

Alexa Phillips (08:10.75) Yeah. yeah. yeah. I've tried so many times to figure out how to organize my notes and all that. And I've just like, I've kind of just given up. I'm like, as long as I kind of know where to look for it, I think that's all that matters.

Rachel Meltzer (08:21.79) Yeah, totally, totally. I have, I just actually recently learned of Para because, and like the second brain idea, because one of, well, one of my one-on-one coaching clients mentioned it to me last September. And the article that like, Diego Forte wrote himself, I was just like, this is not.

I can't even read this. This is not holding my attention. And then I started following this guy who's a Notion expert. He makes dashboards and stuff for his clients. And he had a para template. And he spelled out what para stood for. And I looked at the template and I was like, my god, it makes so much sense in this format now.

Alexa Phillips (09:04.872) Yeah, I know. It's like when the professionals do it, it's like great. And then you try to do it yourself and you're like, my brain doesn't work like this. Like I don't, yeah, cause I categorize things in different buckets than like the para method is. So I'm like, all right, I tried it. It was unsuccessful, but you know, what can you do? Yes, exactly.

Rachel Meltzer (09:15.124) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (09:20.224) Take what you need, leave what doesn't work, right? Okay, I would love to hear more about how you got started. You were a writer before, right? And how you started your own business.

Alexa Phillips (09:32.382) Yeah, my story is kind of interesting. It takes a lot of twists and turns. So going even all the way back to high school. like any other high school kid, you're trying to figure out what you wanna do. And I kind of always knew I was gonna be in like a creative field and then both my parents are more like business oriented. So I kept getting pushed a little bit more towards like business stuff. Like my mom's an accountant.

Rachel Meltzer (09:38.528) Yeah.

Alexa Phillips (10:00.574) My dad, he was an engineer for 25 years and then switched over to doing like more business stuff. so like accounting, marketing, that was always in the mix. But then my dad asked me one time, he was like, yeah, like if you could pick like one dream career, like what would you like to do? And I, and I always loved magazines, like loved magazine layouts. And I was like, I want to design those, design like the magazines. And then my dad goes, well, what about journalism?

Rachel Meltzer (10:20.552) yes.

Rachel Meltzer (10:24.553) Ugh.

Alexa Phillips (10:27.198) And so I go to school for journalism, a double major in journalism and fashion merchandising, because I wanted to be a fashion journalist in New York. That was my 18 year old dream that I was working towards in college and everything. It was fun. It was fun. We had a fashion magazine at my school. So I was a part of that. That was really fun. And then we also had a student magazine that I was also a part of and then later became editor in chief of as I was going through school. So I got a lot of like magazine experience, got a like

Rachel Meltzer (10:37.699) That is so sweet.

Rachel Meltzer (10:44.448) Wow, that's so good.

Alexa Phillips (10:57.108) completely redesigned the magazine when I was in college, which was still one of my like greatest, I'd say professional career achievements. Cause I look at the magazine all these years later and they're still using like the same format and pretty much the same logo that I like kind of created. So like, it's really cool to see the impact and the legacy from that. So that's why it was like, yeah. So it was fun. It was a lot of fun. Cause it was, yeah, it was such a fun creative project because at the time

Rachel Meltzer (11:03.08) That's amazing.

Rachel Meltzer (11:16.03) Look at you go branding.

Alexa Phillips (11:25.172) the magazine was kind of in the same shape as the newspaper and it didn't really feel like a magazine. So it was like actually looking, making it get on glossy paper, like a more magazine looking booklet and kind of just like adding sections, adding color schemes, things like that. So that was a lot of fun.

Rachel Meltzer (11:34.485) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (11:42.154) Before you got too far, can I ask you what your favorite magazine was in high school?

Alexa Phillips (11:48.448) Okay, so the magazine I wanted to work for in college was called W and it's kind of more of a higher editorial type fashion magazine. That one was always my favorite, but I've subscribed to so many over the years. Like I was a advent New Yorker and Atlantic subscriber for years. Right now I have Vanity Fair that I really like, cause it kind of blends that like journalism stories with like kind of like the more lifestyle-y stuff.

Rachel Meltzer (12:00.736) you

Rachel Meltzer (12:11.38) pop culture.

Yes.

Alexa Phillips (12:15.162) but yeah, I just picked up a bunch to like a few weeks ago from Barnes and Noble. Cause I was like, I miss this. Like, so I got a bunch of like, start collaging using as like props using for things in my brand imagery on Instagram and stuff like that. So it's really fun to kind of rediscover that love again.

Rachel Meltzer (12:20.65) Yeah!

Rachel Meltzer (12:26.921) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (12:30.782) That is such a good idea. In my head, magazines are subscriptions. But you can go buy individual magazines.

Alexa Phillips (12:39.88) Yes, they are more expensive, I will say, but like if you're not, you know, doing it that often. I spent, I spent a hundred dollars. I spent a hundred dollars at Barnes and Noble. Like no shame. I bought like 20 magazines because I was like, cause, cause you know, like when you're in the city, like they don't have really good like magazine stands, like at the grocery stores or whatever. And so I was like, you know, I know Barnes and Noble has a good selection. I'm just going to go there. So that was like a-

Rachel Meltzer (12:42.91) I'm fine, that's fine. Yeah, special treat.

Rachel Meltzer (12:50.964) That's amazing.

Rachel Meltzer (13:03.604) That is well worth it. That is...

Alexa Phillips (13:06.388) yeah, it was it was great. I got a wide variety of them in so many different industries. I got like music magazines, I got like some nat geos, I got some fashion magazines, just because like the inspiration is just kind of everywhere in there. And I've been really doing it's been really fun with my brand imagery. I've been taking magazine like clippings and kind of using it as background images for like my Instagram posts. And so that and like kind of dual toning it into my colors.

Rachel Meltzer (13:19.498) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (13:29.45) That's so cute.

Alexa Phillips (13:33.46) And so that's been really cool. It's like been really reflective of like me and my interests, which I feel like feels very authentic for my brand.

Rachel Meltzer (13:39.552) I love that. That is so cool. Also like a magazine date is such a good idea. Like just take yourself to get that. Cause I collage a ton, but I just have like old stuff that I got at like an art thrift store and I'm running out of feeling inspired by it. So this is a really good, you have inspired me so much already. We're like 13 minutes in. I'm like, yes.

Alexa Phillips (14:02.912) I mean, that's what I love to do. I love when people are like, yes, I want to be inspired. Like that's kind of my whole, I would say kind of just like my whole ethos as like just a creative and a professional is I want to be inspiring to other people. Like I want other people to be inspired by my thinking and just be like, wow, like I never thought of doing this or I never thought of this in this way until I like read something or saw something from her or whatever it might be. So that's like, that's kind of the legacy I want to leave behind. It's like,

Rachel Meltzer (14:15.712) You know.

Alexa Phillips (14:32.532) really feeling like impact and legacy and all of that and like helping people, you know, see things in different ways.

Rachel Meltzer (14:38.848) Yeah, it's kind of like remember that meme that was going around like a couple months ago, that was like your favorite artists artist or whatever your favorite musicians musician like you're like the favorite your favorite creators favorite creator right like it's you are yeah I loved that meme is so hard to execute in vocally like written down it feels so different but that's what I think of when you say that.

Alexa Phillips (14:54.111) Yes.

Alexa Phillips (15:03.272) Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't know if you follow Jay Akunzo at all, but his saying is always like, you know, don't strive to be the best, like strive to be their favorite. And that's like, you know, something that always sticks like rent free in my head is like, yeah, I just want to be someone's favorite something like someone's favorite Instagram account, someone's favorite thing to read someone's favorite newsletter they look forward to reading, you know, things like that.

Rachel Meltzer (15:12.169) Mmm.

Rachel Meltzer (15:25.972) That feels so good. That is a lovely quote. Wow. my gosh. Okay, okay. So what did you do after college? Back to you, Alexa. No, I love it. I encourage tangents and there is no such thing as like a straight line career. getting that out there, because I had the misconception when I first started freelancing that it would be like, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. Or like when I started.

Alexa Phillips (15:35.422) So anyway, so back to, this is how this is like all gonna go for the next hour, but.

Rachel Meltzer (15:55.264) College, it was like from A to B to B to C to C to D, right? Like that's how school is structured. That's how we think life is gonna be. And then you get into it, it's fucking nothing like that. And they get these guest speakers to come into college and tell you how their career was in a straight line. And I just flew right over my head. Just, I have no idea what these people are talking about. And now that I'm in it, I'm like, I get it now.

Alexa Phillips (16:20.744) Yeah, right. yeah, so anyway, so when I was in college, I kind of like was looking like critically at the industry and say seeing like, well, like a lot of these magazines are closing, a lot of these staffs are going, you know, freelance. And I'm like, I don't think that's going to be sustainable for like, what I want to do. So then I kind of switched and was looking at more like the content marketing side of things being like, okay, how can I use my writing degree and something where I can like,

actually not be working crap hours not doing this. I don't want to work for a newspaper. I didn't really want to work for local journalism either. Like I was like fashion magazine or bust. That was like kind of the thing there. But and so I ended up getting a job and working at an enterprise tech company as a content marketing specialist. And then I had at the same time also started my business because like every other person in college like you know, it takes a few months to find a job.

Rachel Meltzer (16:55.52) Mm.

Alexa Phillips (17:16.584) And so my dad, my parents are very also entrepreneurial. So my dad was like, Hey, why don't you start a business freelance on the side until you find something. So ironically enough, I filed the LLC for my business and then a week later started my full-time job. So yeah. So it, and then I just kept the business as a side hustle until I took it full-time about three years ago.

Rachel Meltzer (17:25.077) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (17:30.389) Hahaha

Alexa Phillips (17:39.392) So I was kind of just working, doing like blogs, social media management stuff, just skills that I had that I knew I was good at that I liked doing just for kind of like smaller businesses and everything. So yeah, was doing like working in content, you know, and it was very interesting because you look at the way content marketing is perceived now where like there's these big focuses on SEO and these basically these blogs have style guides similar to like the New York Times.

Rachel Meltzer (18:07.512) my gosh, yeah, some of them are like almost a direct copy and paste, I will say.

Alexa Phillips (18:12.806) Yeah. And so like working that like that was not the case of the company I worked at. It was very like, I don't want to say like grass, like it was like very bootstrappy. Like it was very like, you know, like the content team was a very new thing. Because like before it was just everybody in the company creating content, our team was started to kind of centralize the content marketing production. And so we had to actually build a lot of the systems and really build ourselves to be the center of excellence for content and really get all the content directed to us. like,

our strategy when it came to blogging was an SEO. was like, how can we promote the products? How can we promote the concepts? How could we do it like uniquely where it wasn't like stuff that you would be reading everywhere else? And I think that's comes very much of like the journalism background where you're trying to find that unique angle instead of just, well, like our competitor has this SEO article about what is X topic, you know? And so I think that's kind of my approach to content now. Like I'm very, I know SEO is important, but I'm very against.

SEO content, because I think it doesn't give you a sense of like, why you should buy this product from this company. I think it's very like, it yeah, and like, like, like you, you have this SEO thing from Shopify. Okay, how does this tell you that Shopify is like, the better alternative to like, you know, I can't even remember some of the big ones like BigCommerce, some of the other marketplaces, like, how does this what is omni channel retail, like,

Rachel Meltzer (19:18.9) I also think you can s-

Alexa Phillips (19:38.544) SEO blog and to tell you about Shopify's abilities to actually do the job for you.

Rachel Meltzer (19:42.398) Yeah, I think there's also like, there is a middle ground. You can start from like what you guys were doing, where you're starting with an angle, you're starting bootstrapped, and then you can pick a cue or to target. And it might not be as successful SEO wise as your competitors, but it can still show up. And then like that personality is what draws them in and actually works. It's like the difference between like, I want to read what buffer puts out.

Like the shit that's on Buffer's blog, the way that they talk, their employees talk about it on LinkedIn and how excited their employees are to contribute to the blog because it's actually like has personality and it's fun is so much better and attractive than something like say Grammarly where it's just like completely made for SEO. Like you can tell it's for SEO. They are as short as they possibly can be. And it's just like, this is the brass tacks and we're done, you know?

There's a middle ground, because Buffer's blog is still very good search engine wise, but that personality does go missing a lot in SEO and I hate that.

Alexa Phillips (20:53.874) Yeah. And yeah. And that's like one of my hottest takes is I think that chat GPT is going to kind of render the traditional SEO content that we've known for the last 10 years kind of obsolete because you can search the same exact question in chat GPT that you can on Google. And oftentimes I will do that because I know that the content, like if you're searching it on Google, you're just going to get some, some SEO like placed blog as your top result.

Rachel Meltzer (21:05.088) condo pay.

Rachel Meltzer (21:20.916) Yeah. Or the five ads.

Alexa Phillips (21:22.804) You know, it's not like, so yeah. So it's like, so for me, I'm just like, okay, like I'd rather just search this in Chat2BT, I'm gonna get the same answer without being, you know, shoved a product down my face.

Rachel Meltzer (21:33.888) Yeah, yeah. And there's also like people are turning to TikTok more and more for their answers.

Alexa Phillips (21:40.178) yeah, depending on what I'm searching for depends on the search engine I use. So if I want like kind of like an unboxing type thing, if I'm trying to assess a product, I'll usually go to like YouTube or TikTok. But if I'm looking for a recipe, Pinterest. Like if I'm looking for styling for like clothing, Pinterest, you know? So there's very few things I act like Google I'll do for like things like how, like if it's like something with my car, like how to fix this issue in my car, then I'll like go to

Rachel Meltzer (21:43.901) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (21:51.732) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (21:57.62) Pinterest, yeah.

Alexa Phillips (22:09.364) Google for it, but anything else, I'm like, usually it's like TikTok, YouTube or Pinterest.

Rachel Meltzer (22:13.3) Yeah, Google's like for restaurants near me, grocery store near me. Like that's what I use. Google, I'm just like, where's the closest this? Please help me. And the reviews for restaurants and stuff, the Google reviews are actually really useful because a lot of them, I feel like Google has the most recent reviews. Yelp, I feel like people aren't using as much anymore. And so I'll go on Google and be like, where's the nearest restaurant? Okay, which one's actually worth eating at? You know, but that's like it.

Alexa Phillips (22:18.463) Yeah.

Alexa Phillips (22:23.252) Yup.

Alexa Phillips (22:39.986) Yeah, think Yelp is really now the only time I've used Yelp recently is like I know sometimes some reservations have their like or some restaurants have their reservations through Yelp. So like that's the only time where it's like, you need to download Yelp to see where you're at in the waitlist queue or whatever.

Rachel Meltzer (22:49.184) Rachel Meltzer (22:54.95) Yeah, yeah, totally. So what made you decide like branding, you were going to move away from just doing this like freelance writing marketing stuff into like really packaging yourself as a brand architect? Like how did you move into that?

Alexa Phillips (23:12.936) Yeah, so yeah, so was doing content writing moved into social media management. And then once I went freelance, for me, it was the low hanging fruit. It was like, I can get work as this because these are the two skill sets I have. And I just I just got tired of it. Like for the reasons we talked about, like a lot of these people wanted just pure SEO content. And I was writing it I was hating and I was like, I know I don't hate writing. But it's just like, I just hate being paid to do it.

Rachel Meltzer (23:24.383) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (23:39.946) Yeah.

Alexa Phillips (23:40.436) And I think it's this theory called the over justification effect where it's like, there's some things that you would rather not get paid to do. Like some people would rather not get paid for consulting or whatever. I would rather not get paid for writing. I'd rather just do it myself because like a lot of these style guys, there's so many guardrails. You have to write at a fifth grade reading level. You have to put it through Hemingway and it has to give you a certain score. And I'm like, I don't write like that. I don't want to have to fit myself into a mold like that.

Rachel Meltzer (23:43.552) Peace.

Alexa Phillips (24:10.514) And so I was like, okay, what else am I can I do? And of course there's AI can even like, you know, not talk about that where AI is changing the way writing has been. And so I'm just like, okay, what can I do? That's going to give me a little bit more like future proofing peace of mind. Also something I'm good at and also something that I want to get paid for. And so I kind of, I did go get a master's when I was still working in house in brand communication, cause I did want to move into branding.

Rachel Meltzer (24:19.375) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (24:30.067) Mm-hmm.

Alexa Phillips (24:39.122) and stuff, because I like to have it being able to use like the more big picture creative thinking and kind of how all the elements work together. Like I love like the intersection of how campaigns work and how all marketing really works and how everything bounces off of each other.

Rachel Meltzer (24:46.356) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (24:53.204) That is so cool. I would have never thought to like go back to actual grad school for something like that.

Alexa Phillips (25:01.076) Well, one of the only reasons I did it is because my company paid for 75 % of it for me. So, like I think like out of pocket, I think over three years I paid like 10 grand for my masters and it was like, yeah, but like suffice it to say, I don't think a master's in marketing is a hundred percent necessary because like marketing changes all the time and like you really are learning all the theoretical stuff in school.

Rachel Meltzer (25:06.058) Yes, take it.

that is so worth it. Wow.

Rachel Meltzer (25:21.204) Mm-hmm. Yes.

Alexa Phillips (25:27.508) But like, kind of gave me that complimenting with the journalism and the marketing, like it really kind of gave me this really nice like complimentary skill set. But yeah, I wanted to just like do something that wasn't like writing focus and like, whatever writing I was doing, like writing for myself, like, where I didn't have to go through a style guide, or I could just write whatever I wanted to write. So it brought the joy back in it for me. And like I have dreams too, as a writer, like I really want to write books one day, like

Rachel Meltzer (25:46.378) Mm-hmm.

Alexa Phillips (25:54.484) fiction, nonfiction, and I'm like, if I'm doing writing as my day job, like I don't have the mental capacity to do it for fun and for creative purposes. So that's kind of how I kind of made the transition. And this is all like as of end of last year, beginning of this year, because I was like, I just hate what I'm doing and I don't want to hate what I'm doing. So I've been working on like this pivot right now where I'm like, okay, getting off of doing freelance work and kind of getting more into like the consulting, the...

Rachel Meltzer (26:01.28) Totally.

Alexa Phillips (26:22.898) more of like the brand thing and around a specific like point of view rather than just like, okay, I'm going to just be like a freelance writer.

Rachel Meltzer (26:31.668) Yeah, yeah, totally. What are you, so you're teaching people how to monetize, you're teaching creatives, your creator, save a creator, how to monetize their zone of genius. I love the way that you phrased it. Your cock on your website is so good. It's like not even fair. But how does that look? Like, what does that look like when you start working with a creative to help them monetize what they're going for?

Alexa Phillips (26:56.722) Yeah, so one of the missions that I've been really like driving towards and something that's been really important to me and going to continue in 2025 is I don't believe that the narrative of a starting starting artist is like valid anymore. I think we live in a time where there's so many opportunities to be able to like make a living off of your art. Like whether it's like being a painter being a musician being you know, all this you just have to know how to like do the business stuff around it. Because like between things like

Skillshare, Etsy, licensing, whatever else it might be. You can make a living being a creative. I truly believe that. You just kind of have to know how to market yourself, how to put yourself out there, how to kind of really build that business. And that's what I want to help people do. I want to help people find what they're good at and be able so they can build a business and a livelihood around their creativity and around their talents and their skill sets where they don't have to worry about AI taking my job.

And they can really just build a business off of being them and they don't have to work this corporate nine to five for years on end that they hate. They can go be an artist and make a living from being an artist, you know? So that's kind of what I'm trying to do my mission. And so really kind of just helping creatives, maybe build offers, build marketing, build media, like marketing and media is kind of like my bread and butter right now, like kind of fun, like marketing ideas, like.

media I'm getting really back into like this year I started my newsletter creatives anonymous is just like a way for me to write about something I'm passionate about. I have a podcast idea that I'm going to start probably beginning of next year. And I had a crazy idea yesterday to I kind of want to like, build a magazine like really like build a magazine.

Rachel Meltzer (28:35.263) Hell yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (28:41.61) I was gonna ask you.

Alexa Phillips (28:45.16) I've been toying with the idea for like a few years now. It was funny in college. There's this class that I took called entrepreneurial journalism and the whole class was like, how could you build this like journalism based endeavor? And so the idea that I had back then was to build this like kind of like franchise of magazines. They'd all be kind of the same magazine, but like specific to college towns. So it would like kind of have the same structure, but then the contents would be individualized for each town. So things like.

Rachel Meltzer (29:06.517) Yeah.

Alexa Phillips (29:13.428) hidden treasures, food reviews, whatever. So now this year, this time I'm like, I kind of want to start like, whether it's like Seattle or for like creatives, I don't really know what it's gonna look like yet. But I think I want to start a magazine. And just like kind of whether it's like an easing that you publish through like issue.com or like even print out like some limited editions and just like distribute them. I think I want to do that because I think

Rachel Meltzer (29:15.818) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (29:27.21) That would be so cool.

Alexa Phillips (29:38.47) magazines are definitely making a comeback now, which is super exciting. This like more analog creative type of media. I think I want to get in on that. So I think so I'm still trying to define really what this next version of my business is, but I think it's going to be kind of this intersection between like marketing media and just brand and just kind of helping just get ideas out the door and get ideas published and all of that stuff.

Rachel Meltzer (30:02.644) Yeah, that is so cool. If you start a magazine, let me know. I will buy it.

Alexa Phillips (30:09.256) Yeah, and I mean, I think it could be super cool too to like, because I have such a vast network between LinkedIn, Instagram, threads, Twitter, like it'd be cool to just crowdsource people to write articles and contribute articles for this magazine and just like have people like kind of almost have it be like this community focused thing. Like I think it could be really cool because a lot of us have newsletters and like we're already publishing content on the regular. So it would be really cool to see it in a more like analog type of form.

Rachel Meltzer (30:22.378) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (30:37.652) Yeah, yeah, that would be super neat. Wow. What's your like hot take on AI?

Alexa Phillips (30:45.92) So I think AI, like I honestly think that it's not going anywhere and we need to just learn to live with it. Like there's so many people I follow on the internet who are like martyrs. like, I'm never gonna use AI. And I'm like, well, you kind of need to learn how to use AI because AI is not going anywhere. it's not to say you need to use it to do your job, but you can use it to like assist in your job. And like, you need to know how to kind of.

Rachel Meltzer (30:53.312) I

Rachel Meltzer (30:58.56) You

Yeah.

Alexa Phillips (31:11.152) use it. So I don't think it's going anywhere. think if anything, it's going to continue to get better because you know, the more we feed it, the more the algorithms are going to get, get better and everything. I think, so I think it's not going anywhere. I, I use it, like I don't use it all the time, but it is nice to kind of as like a thought partner is like, Hey, can you like give me some like insight or some take on this?

But I also think too, it's up to us to kind of find the skill sets that are gonna, you know, make us not reliant on AI and not like where AI won't be able to take our job because there's a lot of things obviously that we can do as humans with critical thinking and stuff like that, that AI can't do. So my challenge for people is to like, if you're like, well, AI can't do this, double down on that because that's the part that AI won't be able to take from you.

Rachel Meltzer (32:05.824) Yeah, totally, totally. I completely agree with you there. What is it, what was it like having entrepreneurial parents? I also grew up in a house of two entrepreneurs that were like, my dad had to get a full-time job at one point for financial reasons. And I sincerely thought that was gonna be the death of him. Like he could not handle it. He hated it. I also don't, I've never had a full-time job and I don't think that I ever will.

So what's that like? How has that influenced you?

Alexa Phillips (32:39.528) Yeah, I think it just like if they were all very encouraging and supportive. So when I quit my job that I Irish could find my job, that's like another story for another time. But so basically, I was just so miserable in this job. I was also getting ready to move from Denver to Seattle. And so I like and I was living at home at the time because it was like in between when my lease ended in Denver and when I was like getting ready to move.

And so I'm like seeing my parents every day and everything just telling them I'm like, yeah, this, you know, this happened at work, whatever. And they're like, you know, they're like, have you thought about freelancing? Like, have you thought about just doing that? Because at that time, everybody in my household, my parents, my siblings, everybody like was running their own businesses and doing all that. And so like, once they planted that seed, I could not let it go. I was like, yes, like I had made like a split decision. I was like, yes, I'm going to do that.

And so for, think it was just having like that support and just having them really encouraging to be like, yeah, just bet on yourself and like kind of make your own way in the world. And like, you don't have to listen to like the corporate powers that be and like be in that environment. And I feel really bad for my friends who are still in that environment because I think from when I left it, like three years ago, it's gotten substantially worse. So I think I'm like very thankful to like get out when I did, but I'm very thankful to have that support. Cause I know

Rachel Meltzer (33:54.528) Yeah.

Alexa Phillips (34:01.864) if people's parents aren't, if they had never been like on the entrepreneurial side, they're like, are you sure you want to do that? Are you sure you like, don't want to, you know, work like a traditional job? So I'm very thankful to like have that support, but it's like, just, it's just kind of nice to have that and just have that exploration and experimentation kind of mindset.

Rachel Meltzer (34:23.104) Yeah, yeah, I think it really helps with mindset. I never had a doubt in my mind that I could make this work. Like I was scared, of course, and I had like part-time jobs. Like I had a barista job just for the steady money when I first started freelancing, but like I got laid off from my barista job because of COVID. And then at that point I was just like, well, fuck it, we're gonna have to figure this out. Like this is how it is now. And then we just figured out.

Alexa Phillips (34:46.528) Well, and I think too, like, and yeah, and I think like that, like layoffs and things like that are kind of like a blessing in disguise. Like, yeah, they suck. like, if you're always have, if you've been wanting to make a pivot, if you've been wanting to make a career change and you get laid off, you're like, great. Now here's this opportunity that I have. And so I'm, I'm, I'm such an instigator cause all of my friends, I'm always like, well, like, have you thought about starting your own business? Have you like thought about this? Like,

Rachel Meltzer (35:00.415) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (35:05.184) you

Alexa Phillips (35:11.892) whatever and so whenever somebody gets an inkling of like, I want to start my own business. I'm like, go for it. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, please. I'm like, you need this. So I will always be the first person to like encourage people to do that.

Rachel Meltzer (35:16.456) Yeah.

you

Rachel Meltzer (35:24.414) Yeah, no, same. One of my friends works full time in health insurance and she always talks to me about how she wants to start a greeting card or wedding invitation business. And I'm like, yes, let's do it. When do you want to meet? Next week? Let's hang out at your house. We'll do some calligraphy. We'll talk. You can do it.

Alexa Phillips (35:38.304) Yeah, I have some friends too and I'm always like, I always do my, what I call the friends and family discount. So anytime somebody is like, like, can I get your, I'm like, yeah, please. Like, I will gladly give you advice. I'm like, we can even go out. Cause you know, it's a write-off if you're giving business advice. So yeah, I know. I'm like, yeah. So the offer is always there for any of my friends who are like wanting to just pick my brain about.

Rachel Meltzer (35:45.568) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (35:54.396) Yeah, yeah. Like you want to get a drink? Let's go.

Rachel Meltzer (36:04.736) you

Alexa Phillips (36:05.522) starting a business, what it's like, all the things you kind of have to consider. And it's really funny too. My sister was just in town. And so we had this idea for my brother to like start a business. And she and I are just sitting here like hashing out all the details like over lunch. And it's so funny because we're both like, yeah, we're taking all the mistakes that we made and we're like, yeah, here's how, here's how we would fix that if we were starting a business all over again. So it's like really fun to be able to do that. So.

Rachel Meltzer (36:18.112) You

Rachel Meltzer (36:23.571) You

Rachel Meltzer (36:30.047) Yeah.

Alexa Phillips (36:34.356) We'll see what ends up happening. yeah, it's like, yeah, you just like learn all the mistakes and you pay it forward.

Rachel Meltzer (36:39.06) Yeah, yeah, totally. What would you say your like, top two avoidable mistakes were and how you'd go around them now?

Alexa Phillips (36:48.864) Who? I think one of the biggest ones was like when you are desperate, you act out of desperation and your judgment is very clouded. And like, so you're ending up taking like bad gigs or like low paying stuff because you're desperate for that work. So I would say the key is to not get to that point where you're desperate for work and then having like making sure you're charging based on.

Rachel Meltzer (36:58.08) Mm-hmm.

Alexa Phillips (37:15.86) you know, not the people you're like not letting your clients control how much you charge, but like your financial life determine how much you charge. Because I think that's the biggest mistake where people are like, well, my client can only pay me this much. It's like, but you need this amount of money to live. So clearly that's not going to work for you.

Rachel Meltzer (37:21.46) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (37:32.916) And there is someone else out there that is willing to pay your living wage. And everybody's living wage is different. Don't go by the national living wage. This is based on your spending.

Alexa Phillips (37:41.544) Yeah, yeah, because just because somebody wants to make six figures, it's not because, I want to make six figures. It's like you live in a high cost of living area and you need to make six figures, you know, whereas somebody who lives in a more like rural smaller town, like you don't need to make six figures, you know, so it's like all relative, but just also building in this like financial walk away power where it's like, yeah, like I will be okay if I don't take this really bad paying gig.

Rachel Meltzer (37:50.004) Yes.

Rachel Meltzer (38:07.038) Yeah, yeah. Sorry, my cat is, he's always on some shit. My partner's out of town and it's his cat. And whenever my partner goes away, he's like, I'm not getting enough attention. Let me come sit on your computer. It's like.

Alexa Phillips (38:22.816) I feel like cats just know, like I, my former boss, she used to have two cats every time without fail, we'd get on like any sort of Zoom call, the cats would be right there, they'd start meowing, they just like knew, they were just like, I want the attention, like all this stuff.

Rachel Meltzer (38:38.752) Yeah, it's really obnoxious. I love him so much, but he likes he like needs a certain style of play. And whenever I try to play with him, he's just like, No, you're only here for cuddles and pets. Where's my dad? You know, he's just like, not into it. But he's so cute. And he just is in every podcast episode I've recorded this week.

Alexa Phillips (39:01.417) Hey, I mean, that's authentic, right? You know, that's real.

Rachel Meltzer (39:05.377) some real brand personality we got going on here. What would you say, I like to, if you feel comfortable, I know it's a little taboo, talk about the money side of like being an entrepreneur. I know you just talked about like, we don't want to get to the point of desperation, we should be charging what we actually need to earn. How has like the financial side of things affected you while like actually going full time freelance and

Alexa Phillips (39:08.36) Yes, the cat.

Rachel Meltzer (39:32.852) like emotionally too, how's it like fucked with you?

Alexa Phillips (39:37.61) I mean, to answer that last question, yes. I think like, and it's so sad, but like money literally runs our entire lives. Like, like, because if we're not making enough, we're stressed out. And like, I found where there's times where I've been stressed out, like not making enough, where, you know, I'm not sleeping well, I'm anxious, I'm not working out because I'm too busy working, you know? So it's like not taking care of myself because I'm so stressed out about money. So.

Rachel Meltzer (39:39.712) Hahaha!

Rachel Meltzer (39:45.599) Yes.

Rachel Meltzer (40:01.12) Mm-hmm.

Alexa Phillips (40:06.932) But yeah, so it's been stressful like the last, like last year in particular was very stressful, especially with all the like changes around AI and like not a lot of people like getting a lot of freelance work. This year was a lot better because I had a lot of recurring work from like one client that just was like, yeah, we have budget. Like, do you want to keep coming back and working for us? I'm like, yeah, sign me up. So this year I have not been financially stressed, which has been nice.

Rachel Meltzer (40:26.206) you

Alexa Phillips (40:34.356) But last year was like, it was very tough and that's, also kind of makes you contemplate like, okay, I need to make some changes here because this is just like not working. so I think every entrepreneur feels like that, whether you're making like 5,000 a month or 50,000 a month, like you still kind of have that imposter syndrome, like I could be doing more, like I'm not doing enough. Like, you know, there's all those like feelings of inadequacy that come, but yeah, I mean, the finances is like,

Rachel Meltzer (40:57.898) could always be doing more.

Alexa Phillips (41:01.222) really rough. And so when I started, I was fortunate enough to have a lot of money saved because I was living at home for a short time. So it was easier and I had one client that I was already working with on the side. And so I was like, okay, I just need to like, you know, find a couple more to make ends meet. But like, so it was tough to kind of like get started and find that. But I know not everyone has that luxury, people don't have money saved. So I think the really the three ways that I found to do it are

to A, either have money saved, B, like have a partner where like, you know, you're still living below your means, but like you have a dual income. So you're not like, you know, relying on one income. Yeah. So it's like, then it's like, I can like, you know, we can kind of cover on one income while you kind of get up to speed or just like having enough clients like that you're working with on the side to then be able to go freelance. And I know for everybody situation is different, but

Rachel Meltzer (41:39.562) Mm-hmm.

You have a safety net, yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (41:55.7) Mm-hmm.

Alexa Phillips (41:59.412) Those are kind of the three I found in like talking with people, my own personal experience where it kind of works and everything.

Rachel Meltzer (42:04.98) The only other thing I would add to that, the fourth path, getting laid off and having no other choice.

Alexa Phillips (42:10.92) Yeah, I mean, that's also a path too, where you're just like, gotta like, you have a fire under your ass and you gotta make it work. yeah, and I think it's so true because I think that's where we show what we're really made out of when we kind of hit these like paths of resistance and we need to show resilience. like, okay, how can we pivot? And I heard something interesting earlier this week where it was like saying that our minds,

Rachel Meltzer (42:15.54) That's it. I always say that. The fire under the ass.

Alexa Phillips (42:38.524) are meant for that. Like our minds are meant for discomfort. Our minds are meant to push us to grow. Like, you know, and so it's like, we're, meant to face those challenges and like rise up in light of those challenges.

Rachel Meltzer (42:47.325) Mm-hmm.

Yeah, totally, totally. I think especially if you have ADHD, the urgency of it can really shoot you off. You know what I mean? There's nothing more motivating.

Alexa Phillips (43:00.9) my God, the urgency. It's like, it's crazy. Cause like I've never been diagnosed with ADHD, but I think I definitely have tendencies and I think I am definitely neuro spicy to some degree. But I'm just like the urgency where it's like, yeah, I want the life that I would probably have in 10 years, like right now. And it's like such a struggle to like, be like, no, like things need to happen as they need to happen. Like you're meant to like do go through these trials as you're going through them.

Rachel Meltzer (43:16.67) Yes.

Rachel Meltzer (43:25.365) Yeah.

Alexa Phillips (43:26.986) So that's like where I get like really, I'm like, I want this like now. And I know it's like, I'm not gonna get it right now.

Rachel Meltzer (43:32.608) Totally, totally. I feel that's so hard. Instant gratification. But also, I wanna work hard, but I want it now. You know what I mean? It's both.

Alexa Phillips (43:43.944) Yeah, and it's like, I want to be making like this amount of stuff now, but then, know, you're like, okay, well, if I'm doing the inputs, like the consistent inputs, then eventually I'm going to get to where I want to go.

Rachel Meltzer (43:53.748) Yeah, yeah. What was I gonna say? you were just talking about how you knew you had to make a change. And I think that that's a really important thing. We don't, a lot of people don't think about when they first start their business that you're going to have to pivot at some point. And that it's not always gonna be easy or clear or perfect. But like, when you come up against a wall, when you're not earning enough,

when you hate your whatever work service you're offering, like that might be time to pivot. And that's like such a, I feel like it's kind of a mindset skill more than anything, like being willing to treat it like an experiment and recognizing when something is going wrong or not the way that you want it to, not even necessarily like right versus wrong that you need to pivot. How did you decide to pivot? I mean, I know you said you,

didn't like what you were doing anymore. was harder to get clients in that way. Is there a specific, like, is there anything that's helped you be willing to pivot and made it easier for you?

Alexa Phillips (45:04.64) honestly, I think for me, it was just like what I was doing just was not working anymore. Like the way I was marketing myself, the way I was like conducting things, I was just like, it just was not working. And I was like, okay, I'm not seeing the business growth I want, I need to make a change. Because the only way to change is to make a change. So it's like, so I kind of just stripped back, I was like, need to market my way myself differently, I need to figure out like, what industry I want to be in and

Rachel Meltzer (45:23.508) Yeah, yeah.

Alexa Phillips (45:34.016) for me, a big part of that came from I think I was in the wrong industry to begin with from kind of because I worked in B2B tech. And so I was freelancing in B2B tech. And it just never I could just never make it work. Like I tried all the techniques that everybody was doing like, you know, cold pitch, cold outreach, build connections, build network and like, none of it was working. Like I was not getting clients from any of that. And so

Rachel Meltzer (45:37.939) Mmm.

Alexa Phillips (45:59.548) even now, like I've kind of pivoted to work in more of like the online business creative service provider realm versus like in the B2B tech realm. And I'm already like, I've been building such a better community, like getting more traction on like content I post on social than I was working in B2B tech. so I'm like, yeah, this was just like a misalignment that, you know, I stayed in for too long, because that's just what I knew. And so for me, like making it

Rachel Meltzer (46:25.802) Yeah.

Alexa Phillips (46:29.054) that pivot, it was almost like out of necessity because I was like, I'm an ambitious person. I'm like, I want to see growth and I'm not seeing growth. And so I'm like, I need to do things differently. I've never email marketed because I was a freelancer for B2B tech businesses and you don't need to email market for that, you know? But like now I'm email marketing for my business, which is something I've never done before.

Rachel Meltzer (46:34.718) I can't tell.

Alexa Phillips (46:53.236) Didn't ever really post on like Instagram for my business. Didn't really ever set up these like marketing launch campaigns for my offers. You know, so I'm doing a lot of things this year that I've never done before because like I want to make this pivot and want to make this work. So a lot of it was out of necessity, but it was also because I was just not happy with the trajectory my business was on. And I was like, I need to make a change because if I'm not making a change, I'm not going to further my business or myself.

Rachel Meltzer (46:59.786) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (47:14.538) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (47:21.14) Yeah, I mean, I think you followed your intuition down a great path because like, it seems like you could talk about all these things until 3 a.m. and it really, really lights you up. And that's when you're gonna attract the right people and be able to provide services that are actually like really helpful and nurturing and great because you're passionate about it, right? It's so much different.

Alexa Phillips (47:43.796) Yeah, and like it's very, and it's just very exciting, like, you know, just working and like interacting with so many like different creative people. And I always knew I was gonna end up in a creative career. So it baffles me why I stayed in tech for so long. Cause I'm like, yeah, like no wonder why I wasn't like happy because I'm like not around my people, you know, and like not around other creatives doing all these other things. Cause I find like,

with a lot of my freelance peers in like the B2B space, it's very much of like that gig worker mentality where it's like, okay, like I'm gonna, you know, put out on social media that I have like spots available, whereas in kind of this like online service provider entrepreneur space, you're building other things in your business, you're building multiple income streams, you're building workshops and programs and like,

content assets and things like that, where it says like, I'm just gonna wait for just this like job to come in. You're the one actually actively building offers around your audience's needs, not just being like, yeah, like I provide these services and that's been the biggest difference I've learned. Like everyone's a freelancer, but like the way kind of a more freelance gig worker operates versus an online business owner is very, very different.

Rachel Meltzer (49:00.244) Yes, yes, I always talk about like the employee slash like gig to gig mindset versus the business owner mindset. Like the business owner has systems for getting clients, whether it's direct outreach or email marketing or social media or content marketing, they have a way to get people's emails and follow up with them and actually network and make connections to get their clients and they take it into their own hands when they.

don't have enough clients or don't have enough income or whatever. Whereas like the employee or the gig worker is like applying for gigs on LinkedIn jobs, commenting on posts where someone says they're hiring a freelancer, getting gigs on Upwork and Fiverr.

Alexa Phillips (49:42.868) Yes, exactly. Exactly. And like, and that's been the biggest mindset shift for me is like, okay, like, I want to move more into like that online business space where I'm running lead generation workshops, I'm producing more content, I'm like doing this stuff where it's not just like, let me wait for the next gig to come. It's like, let me go out and find these clients and like, really just send these invitations to people to

Rachel Meltzer (49:55.104) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (50:02.69) Yeah.

Alexa Phillips (50:08.564) like have them know who I am, like work with me. So it's a completely different business model than I'm used to, which has been like part of this like transition is just like from everything that I've known to like everything that I am now learning how to do.

Rachel Meltzer (50:21.236) Yeah, yeah, it's so different. And it feels so much better to me personally, at least. Like, I feel like I have more control. I know, like I just lost a client last week. I'm not freaking out. I'm disappointed. Honestly, he just signed on too early. Like, he didn't realize how much time he was gonna have to spend on like, you know, getting me into Klaviyo, giving me samples of their copy and their like...

Alexa Phillips (50:47.168) I mean, I feel like that's always how it goes. It's like, I'm gonna like start writing content. And then they're like, yeah, you're probably not ready for content quite yet if you're still figuring out what your product roadmap is.

Rachel Meltzer (50:54.229) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (50:57.566) He was like, so can you write the emails for our sample sale next week? And I was like, no. Like you don't have a brand voice guide, you don't have a style guide. I know almost nothing about you. I can't even log into your Klaviyo. How am I gonna do that? It took me five days to get into Klaviyo because I had issues.

Alexa Phillips (51:19.954) Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So I think it's like, it's exciting to say, well, cause I think a lot of these businesses, especially in like the startup realm, and I've seen this too with former clients in mind, they look so much to what their competitors are doing. And I'm like, your, your clients aren't buying from.

your competitors, they're buying from you for a reason. So you got to like tap into that reason. well, our competitors doing this. I don't care if your competitors doing that. Like, yeah, we all have competition. But one of my other hot takes is I don't think we truly have competition because especially we're all building personal brands. And like, yeah, we might be offering the same types of services, but our points of view and the way we approach work is all very different.

Rachel Meltzer (51:47.316) What are you doing?

Rachel Meltzer (51:55.52) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (52:02.644) We all have a USP, unique selling point for anyone who doesn't know that. The USP is like your North Star. Find it, use it, love it. But the thing about that, just like to get back is like me losing this client, A, the beauty is I know why he left and it's not, I'm not offended. I didn't do anything wrong. There's no problem here. It's just not on my roster anymore, but I'm not freaking out because I know what.

how to get clients. Like I'm running a coaching launch next week. I already have one person signed up early bird from like the secret newsletter bonus that I sent out. That's like buried in my, it's literally the bottom of my newsletter in the PS. So that's amazing. And then after that, I'll hopefully get a couple of holiday copy sprints and then I'll rely on January to get like new long-term clients. And I know that that's how it's going to go. And I know that the systems that I've set up to get these clients are going to work.

because I'm a business owner and I've built those like strategies and the brand and all that stuff. But if I was like the kind of person who is getting ganks from commenting on a LinkedIn post or applying to LinkedIn shops or whatever, I would be freaking the fuck out right now and it would not be fun.

Alexa Phillips (53:17.288) Yeah, and that's one of the things I wanted to stop. Like I was so sick and tired of kind of that mentality. I would rather like post on social and like post social content than like cold pitch somebody in the inbox. Like I just, can't,

Rachel Meltzer (53:33.332) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (53:42.784) Sure. I have no problems cold pitching and following up, but the difference is like I am cold pitching and following up with people who I know have the capability to hire me and who work at exactly my ideal clients and who I know if they saw my profile would want to work with me if they had the budget. I'm not just like running around being like, who should I pitch today? And then just like, wait, you know what I mean? It's so...

Alexa Phillips (53:54.206) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (54:11.37) There are so many different ways to go about it. Like if you were sending generic emails and generic messages to like random companies like Contact Info Inbox or like the content marketing manager and it's not personalized at all, don't, no, no, don't be doing that. It's not gonna help you. But I think there's a difference. Like some people...

Alexa Phillips (54:32.628) Yeah. Yeah. So.

Rachel Meltzer (54:37.552) are made for content marketing and it is so much more enjoyable for them and they get success from it. But there are other people who like unstrategically do content marketing and would have gotten a client months ago if they had just like DM'd the person they were excited to work with, you know?

Alexa Phillips (54:52.018) Yeah, yeah. So I mean, there's like so and it's all about to I found is like, if you have to be the right person at the right time, because no matter how good your pitch is going to be, like if they're not hired, if they're not looking for a content writer right now, or they don't have the budget, like, nothing is going to change their mind, you might be on a shortlist if they are looking for somebody in the future, if they remember you or remember to keep your contact info.

Rachel Meltzer (54:58.61) Yes, it's timing.

Rachel Meltzer (55:08.147) No.

Rachel Meltzer (55:13.713) Well, this is why I always tell people to follow up quarterly instead of like following up every two weeks, which is not going to get you a fucking gig. Let me tell you if they didn't respond to you the first week, they're not going to respond to you the second week. Okay, there's no like difference there in their situation. If you follow up quarterly though, like that's when they're making decisions. So that's every three months. If you're not in the like financial business world every three months.

That's when they're making decisions. That's when they're getting more money. That's when turnover typically happens. If someone new is going to work there and that sort of thing. So you can stay top of mind, but that sort of way to get clients. mean, so is content marketing. It's a long game. It's everything about running a business is a long game. If you're not seeing results after like two or three months, that's not totally abnormal. Like I would hope you have gotten your first client by then at least, but

You know, it takes time. There are clients that like I got on the fifth follow up after following up with them for like quarterly for two years. And that's not something that everybody wants to do. Right.

Alexa Phillips (56:20.914) Yeah, yeah, it's really, yeah, and I've like followed up with leads and stuff that I've had for like months and months and months, like, you know, and like, sometimes they just don't pan out because like their interests are change or like, what they end up doing is change. And it is what it is. But yeah, the long game, it's like really the lag measure. So all we can control are the inputs that we put in, like, are we posting consistently on social? Are we running these workshops? Are we sending emails out? Are we?

you know, networking. So it's like all things that we can control and eventually we'll see kind of like that lag measure catch up.

Rachel Meltzer (56:52.288) Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. Okay, before we run out of time, can you tell us more about how people can get started with working with you, learning more about you, following you, all that good stuff?

Alexa Phillips (57:08.392) Yeah, so right now I have an offer that I am launching in, well, I don't know when this episode's coming out, but the offer launches like November 18th is when we're gonna start and then I'll do probably another relaunch in January, but it's for this offer called Musing to Monetize. So basically helping you transition to a more sustainable business model by helping you develop a done with you offer as opposed to a done for you offer and kind of all the mechanics that go into that.

Rachel Meltzer (57:15.68) you

Alexa Phillips (57:36.778) helping you figure out like what that offer is kind of, and also really getting detailed of like how you're gonna build this out. Because as we've talked about, there's a lot of systems that go into offers like customer journeys and you know, the delivery and the tools that you need and how you're gonna market it and message it. So kind of really like doing all that because a lot of people wanna start done with you offer something more scalable, but it's overwhelming and there's a lot of behind the scenes work that goes into it. my...

goal with this sprint is really to help you get that vision down, but also like get knee deep with you to like help you actually execute it. Because my thing, my zone of genius is really kind of being the ideas person, but also being like, let's put an action plan together to like turn this idea into a reality. And so that's what I want to help people do. So this offer launches November 18th, but it will probably also launch again in January after the holidays. So that's one way.

Rachel Meltzer (58:10.688) Mm-hmm.

Alexa Phillips (58:33.3) The other way is I have my creativity newsletter called Creatives Anonymous, where I write about what it means to be a modern day creative. So a lot of like essay focused interviews, I interview the cool creatives I know in my life. And just like talking about things like that. So those are really the two main ways right now to connect with me and everything. And then all my social stuff will be in probably the show notes. And I'll also send you to I have a what I call a brand realignment workbook.

So kind of things that you can kind of, it's kind of part journaling, part audit where you can go through and look at your business and kind of get realigned for the next iteration of your business, which is great since we're about to enter a new year.

Rachel Meltzer (59:14.292) Yeah, that's actually really cool because we just talked about pivoting too.

Alexa Phillips (59:18.578) Yeah, and like, and kind of that was a lot of the questions I kind of built the workbook as, like, based on the questions I asked myself, as I was kind of working on realigning my business this year, of like, okay, like, how much money do I want to be making? What is this long term vision I see? Like, how do I want my business to fit into my life? Things like that, that I think we don't take enough time to look at. And it really can inform all of our decisions. Because if we're looking at our current business decisions as

Okay, are we looking at this through a future lens? Does this align or does this not align with what you want this long-term vision for your business to be? So I think it's helpful. I'm again, a big visioning person too, where it's like, okay, you know where you wanna go, but your methods are flexible to get there.

Rachel Meltzer (59:55.722) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (01:00:04.404) Yes, yes, there's no like one way to get anywhere. There's no one right way to do anything. This is like a story we tell ourselves to stay paralyzed or to like rely on other people. And I think it's so helpful to learn from other people and like learn from people's frameworks and then figure out what actually works for you in your own business. Yes.

Alexa Phillips (01:00:24.306) Yeah, and I think that there's no shoulds in business. And that's like one thing that I've learned this year where it's like, okay, just because it's gonna work for somebody doesn't mean it's gonna work for me.

Rachel Meltzer (01:00:33.63) Yeah, totally, totally. Perfect. Well, thanks for coming on the show, Alexa.

Alexa Phillips (01:00:39.892) Yeah, thank you for having me. This was a great chat. Talked for a while.

Rachel Meltzer (01:00:41.568) This is so fun. my god, I'm gonna go buy magazines now.

Alexa Phillips (01:00:47.535) you totally should. I'm all for it. You know, they're great pieces of inspiration, that's for sure.