IAM750- CEO Offers Social Media Coaching

Kristina Knapp isn’t just another blogger turned social media guru looking to give your Instagram feed a cutesy makeover. She’s a numbers person, a straight shooter, and a force to be reckoned with. She's the founder and CEO of Elixir Media Co. a marketing company that offers social media coaching for marketing virgins and fempreneurs.

• CEO Hack: Time blocking for efficiency
• CEO Nugget: Don't be afraid to lean in with your marketing
• CEO Defined: Being a leader, innovator, and seeking to do better

Website: https://www.elixirmedia.co/

Instagram: @elixirmediaco

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Transcription

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[00:00:02.20] – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

[00:00:29.80] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Christina Knapp of Elixir Media Co. Christina, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:40.00] – Kristina Knapp

Thanks. I'm excited to be here.

[00:00:41.89] – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Christina so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Christina isn't just another blogger turned social media guru looking to give you give your Instagram feed a cutesy makeover. She's a numbers person, a straight shooter, and a force to be reckoned with. She's the founder and CEO of the Mixer Media Co, a marketing company that offers social media coaching for marketing virgins and entrepreneurs. Christina, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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[00:01:10.79] – Kristina Knapp

Yes. I am ready.

[00:01:12.20] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to run the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. We'll let you get started with the business.

[00:01:22.00] – Kristina Knapp

Yeah. So, you know, at a very, very young age, I, like, you know, over ten years ago now, I made a career out of flipping businesses, which sounds just about as crazy as it was. I mean, I was, like I think I was twenty, twenty-one, and I was helping, major international retail stores, flip, like, individual stores from, you know, lowest performing in the country to, like, top five in a matter of less than a month.

[00:01:53.59] – Gresham Harkless

Nice.

[00:01:54.29] – Kristina Knapp

So, yeah, it was a wild ride. It was really, really crazy, and I realized, hey, I'm good at this. And so I did it for a couple of different, businesses in different industries, like, you know, botanical gardens and and wedding companies. And, really, through that work, I found my love for marketing, and that's when I started Elixir Media Co.

[00:02:20.80] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that. And for those that may not be familiar with what flipping businesses are, could you take us through a little bit more about what that is?

[00:02:28.19] – Kristina Knapp

Yeah. Of course. So it's just, you know, I would come in again to, stores that just weren't performing very well. They weren't very profitable. I would come in and I would, you know, take an assessment and and analyze everything that's going on in the business, and I would figure out kind of where those areas of opportunity were that were really, kind of lacking. And, I would make those suggestions to the business and start implementing those changes, and, was very successful at it.

[00:03:02.90] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. So it kinda sounds like you have that kind of common piece around things that aren't going well and sometimes when they may be even not, you know, dysfunctional. Not maybe that's too strong of a word, but being able to kinda make those pivots and changes within businesses, sounds like it's definitely one of those strong suits.

[00:03:19.19] – Kristina Knapp

Yeah. Absolutely. I think pivoting and changing gets you so far, not only in business but in life. You know? Being able to see something that's not working and say and have that, I think, ability to say, hey, like, this is even though I came up with this, what I thought was a great idea, it's not going so hot. So we need to figure out how we can adjust things and, you know, and really run with it.

[00:03:42.90] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. That's and, like, you kinda said in business and in life, I feel like that's always something that's necessary, one of the most necessary things to be able to pivot and be able to be, kinda like water, so to speak, where you understand that you can move whenever you need to move, but you're not kinda forcing and going in one straight direction.

[00:03:59.00] – Kristina Knapp

Absolutely.

[00:04:00.80] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I know when I read your bio, I touched a little bit on Elixir Media Co and talked a little bit about what it does. Could you take us through a little bit more of that and what that process looks like with the clients you work with?

[00:04:13.09] – Kristina Knapp

Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, we do consulting, for social media marketing, and I mainly work with female entrepreneurs, but people who are just, like, killing it at their business, killing it at their service, really helping people, but they just don't know shit about marketing. And it's why I started Elixir because we have two elements of the company. We do full-service social media management for, like, multimillion-dollar companies. But what I saw, again, were these women who had these incredible services to offer, but they just were not selling themselves in the right way. And so their level of service was not at all matching what you would see online. And, you know, when we're just starting out, we don't have these, you know, five-figure budgets to spend on marketing. And so I wanted to create a program that would help these, you know, entrepreneurs who are, you know, maybe in their second or third year of business, and they can't, you know, quite afford that full service, management yet.

[00:05:19.39] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. And I definitely, you know, appreciate you for for for kinda foreseeing that and being able to kinda create, obviously, that service. Because as you said, sometimes you obviously, you have the businesses that do have, that that that five-figure kind of marketing budget that they can, I guess, that vote towards their there's their strategy? But I think as you said, like, those businesses and organizations started kinda from somewhere, and a lot of times understanding that in creating those opportunities for those companies as well to grow to that level to have that as well. It's important.

[00:05:50.19] – Kristina Knapp

Yeah. No. I think so too. You know, we all gotta send the elevator back down, so to speak.

[00:05:55.60] – Gresham Harkless

Exactly. And so, I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce. This could be for yourself or your business or a combination of both, but what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:06:09.19] – Kristina Knapp

I feel like, honestly, in life and business, what has helped me so much that I did not understand, you know, when I first started as having systems. I just you to know, I was a solopreneur for three years. I was doing it all on my own. You know, I wore all the hats. You know, I was the accountant. I was the bookkeeper. I was, you know, my own social media person. I was running everything, looking up hashtags, writing captions, and taking photos. And I didn't really have systems, and so I hit a wall, you know, and I just could not figure out I knew I knew I couldn't physically work anymore.

So I was like, you know, how do I get past this hump, grow my business, make more money when I'm out of time and energy? And the answer to that question was systems. You know, putting these systems in place so that I could create a well-oiled machine that just ran like clockwork. You know? And I feel like once I was able to have those systems both in business and in my life now because I'm obsessed with them and I make systems out of everything I do, I just have so much more time and energy. And I feel like when you have more of those two things, it's a game changer on everything.

[00:07:29.30] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. No. I love that, secret sauce, and and I often say that it's not the number of hours. It's how you leverage them because we all have twenty-four hours. Absolutely. And I love that too because, I imagine that you probably do, connect with clients, and they probably do try to figure out how you're they're able to kinda leverage or make more time. But I think when you said like you said when you have those systems and everything in place, it allows you to really, kinda showcase your gifts and what you're crushing to even more people. So it provides that opportunity to even, like, reach more people, make more sales, drive more revenue, and all those things that a lot of us are hoping to do in business.

[00:08:08.89] – Kristina Knapp

And then it gives you time to, you know, sit by the pool and relax. That's my favorite.

[00:08:16.00] – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Yeah. So you get more time that they spend it exactly how you want. So that's definitely important. That full-time is always of, of greatest importance too. So, I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and, I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have. It could be some of those systems you mentioned as well too, but what's something you feel makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:08:40.39] – Kristina Knapp

Something that makes you more effective and efficient. I mean, I know I just talked about it, but I feel like when it comes to productivity and efficiency, time blocking is a really big one for me. I think before, I used to feel like my days escaped from me. You know, when you get into a project and you start working and you start checking off your to-do list and all of a sudden, you think it's, like, 11 AM and you and you look at the time and it's, like, 4 PM, and you're like, oh, shit. Did I eat lunch? And the answer is always no. I feel like when I started to time block, that's when I started getting efficient in maximizing my time. Have you ever heard of the Pomodoro method?

[00:09:26.60] – Gresham Harkless

I have not. Please tell me.

[00:09:28.70] – Kristina Knapp

So it's it's this method that is supposed to train you to, like, hyperfocus. Mhmm. And so you start out with just, like, fifteen-minute increments. So you say, okay. At, you know, at 01:00 for fifteen minutes, I'm going to work on just, you know, writing my captions for social media. And you set an alarm, and in fifteen minutes that alarm goes up, and you stop. You take a break. You walk away from your computer. You don't check your phone, you know, through all of this time. It's the only thing that you do. For five minutes, you take a break, right, a breather. You change your environment. If you can go out for a walk and come back, that's, like, really good for you to be.

And then you come back, and then you hyperfocus again for another fifteen minutes. And you do that for a whole hour. Right? And the process is that, eventually, you go from fifteen minutes to twenty minutes to thirty minutes to forty-five minutes to where you can sit down, with zero distractions. I mean, like, put your phone on Do Not Disturb, and you just work on one single thing. And I feel like when I started doing that wait. I'm like, oh god. What year is it? Twenty-twenty. I started doing that, you know, back in two thousand eighteen, and I took my work week from, like, seven days a week. Never took a day off. Seven days a week. And I got all of that same amount of work done in three days.

[00:10:55.29] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That's extremely powerful, and I think that a lot especially a lot of creatives, and maybe I'm just talking about myself, it can be really hard to focus, especially when so many things are moving. There are so many things that are happening, and then you have ideas and things like that. But I love, obviously, the process of it. But I love the build-up that you talked about too, where you start out with fifteen minutes, and then it's, like, kind of like you're working out of muscle or or you're just getting used to it. You start to be able to do more and more focused time towards wherever you're hoping to accomplish.

[00:11:22.00] – Kristina Knapp

Yeah. Exactly. We all gotta, like, work at it. I think part of the, you know, downfall of us entrepreneurs is we're jumpers. Right? It's why we started a business. It's why we're making it. It's because we're we're action-takers. So it's so tempting to be like, alright. I'm gonna do a full hour. And then it's like, oh, you get a text, you get an email, and you're like, let me just take care of this real quick. And then that's when the time starts escaping you. So, yeah, the buildup of, like, you know, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty-five is, I think what makes it long-lasting.

[00:11:51.29] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And I've always heard that I think so many times, especially as, you know, high achievers, and people that wanna, you know, take over the world for lack of a better term, you end up, kind of not even working sometimes when you say, okay. I'm gonna work for this next, you know, two, three hours nonstop. In reality, I think sometimes if you haven't built that kind of, muscle, so to speak, and you flex that muscle, it becomes really difficult. So, like, having and breaking that up, it allows you to kinda have those sprints, so to speak, so that you can get more done, not because of more time, but because you're more efficient and you kinda have that that constraint to make it happen.

[00:12:27.70] – Kristina Knapp

That's right. Yeah.

[00:12:29.60] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be, like, a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It could be around social media. It might be something you would tell a client or maybe happen to a time machine and tell your younger business self.

[00:12:44.00] – Kristina Knapp

I like the time machine one. That's good. I would say don't be afraid to lean in with your marketing. You know? Find that thing that sets you apart, that makes you different. And, I mean, lean in hard and, like, show it everywhere. You know, when people come or your clients come into your office, make sure that it's, like, experiential and that they feel that. You know, whether it's if you're on Instagram and it's in your bio or in your stories or in your captions, like, when I work with people one on one and we figure out and nail down what makes them different, what sets them apart from the thousands of other people that do exactly what they do, we start then the very first thing is strategizing. It's like, okay.

How are we gonna make this so point blank that people don't only, like, not miss it, but they remember us and think of us every single time this, you know, this theme comes up in their life? And I feel like that's so powerful. That's how you take marketing beyond, you know, your post and really make it, you know, and make a lasting and create, you know, consistency and loyalty with people who don't even know who you are. So I think, yeah, I think don't be afraid to lean in and go big.

[00:14:01.89] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. I love that. And I don't know correct me if I'm wrong. When you said the word experiential, was that around, kind of also being able to do that in so many different ways? Like, you mentioned the social media caption and being able to have posts and things like that. When you have that experiential kind of focus and you know what is your kind of secret sauce thing that makes you unique and you lean into that, do you feel like you see that or feel that maybe even in so many different aspects and touches that you have with clients and customers?

[00:14:30.10] – Kristina Knapp

Oh, it's so important. Absolutely.

[00:14:33.60] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, truly appreciate that. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO, and we're hoping to have different quotes, unquote CEOs on the show. So, Christina, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:14:46.70] – Kristina Knapp

To me, being a CEO means being a lead a leader and an innovator and always, always seeking to do better in every way possible, you know, like, for my team, for my clients, you know, for, you know, just everything going on socially, always trying to be better and do better and help other people, along the way.

[00:15:12.60] – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Yeah. A truly big focus on progression and progressing, you know, towards your goals. And as you said, there are so many different levels of being able to do that. You do that for yourself, obviously, but then you have your clients, you have your team members, you have the customers that that we work with. And when you're able to kinda do that and continue to kinda be better, you know, every day and every second, so to speak, then you have that opportunity to really, get to where you wanna be.

[00:15:36.89] – Kristina Knapp

Yes. I agree.

[00:15:38.89] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Christina, truly appreciate that definition, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

[00:15:54.60] – Kristina Knapp

Yeah. So the best way to find me really is on the gram. You can find me. My handle is at elixirmediaco. That's elixirmediaco.

[00:16:07.60] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And to make it even easier, we'll have, your gram handle also in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. But I truly appreciate you again. Appreciate all the awesome things you're doing and how you're making, helping other people make an impact as well. And, I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:22.70] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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