IAM1260 – CEO Recreated Health and Wellness in a Fun, Interactive and Innovative Way

As a marketing and digital consultant with more than 15 years in corporate marketing and digital health, Angela has traveled the world working for some of the biggest companies and truly understands what it means to provide high-class service in a personalized way. She founded Fit City Adventures in 2018 to cultivate and inspire meaningful human connections why giving back to the community through corporate team building and wellness. She is passionate about sharing these unique experiences with an active twist to connect teams healthily.

• CEO Story: Having a passion for health and wellness and a wide experience in the corporate world, Angela stepped up and pursued her mission to bring the wellness community into a fun and innovative way to bring the best unique experience for each individual.
• Business Service: Event planners and conferences. Customized activities according to the client’s preference. She also does corporate wellness.
• Secret Sauce: Finding the new and latest trends as it relates to experiences. Tailoring everything.
• CEO Hack: Stack of Virtual Assistants that works behind the scenes. App: Hubspot leads getting – a tool that converts leads. App: Thnks that can send text msgs, a relationship-building platform.
• CEO Nugget:  There are no wrong decisions, they’re just decisions, always move forward. Focus on your strengths. Value your time.
• CEO Defined: Doing what you love to do, sharing your strengths with the world, building a team, and building a brand and a business. “A title is a title but it’s really on how you embody leadership”

Website: www.fitcityadventures.com

Links:

Instagram: fitcityadventures

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Transcription

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00:20 – 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.

00:45 – 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 Angela Minardi of Fit City Adventures. Angela, super excited to have you on the show.

00:55 – Angela Minardi

Thanks. Great to be here.

00:56 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, excited to have you on. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Angela so you can hear about some of the awesome things that she's doing. Angela is the founder of Fit City Adventures and as a marketing and digital consultant with more than 15 years in corporate marketing and digital health, Angela has traveled the world working for some of the biggest companies and truly understands what it means to provide high-class service in a personalized way.

She founded Fit City Adventures in 2018 to cultivate and inspire meaningful human connections while giving back to the community through corporate team building and wellness. She is passionate about sharing these unique experiences with an active twist to healthily connecting teams. Angela, super excited again to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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01:39 – Angela Minardi

Let's do it.

01:40 – Gresham Harkless

Let's make it happen then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit, a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:48 – Angela Minardi

Awesome.

01:49 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah.

01:49 – Angela Minardi

So I have always been in digital marketing, and corporate marketing for about the past 15 to 20 years. Started after college in communications, working in PR at a PR agency, and then moved into more cause marketing for the American Heart Association, where I got to do some cool things like passing bills and saving lives. Then I moved into still in health and wellness CV pharmacy. So I worked there for about seven years on several different teams. I was there when they took the cigarettes out of the stores, which was a big deal. Rebranded the website, worked on the mobile app, and so really had a love for health and wellness.

I started the CV's Fit Club while I was there, which was a colleague resource group of just-fit individuals who wanted to walk, run, and work out. And we grew to about 2000 people corporate-wide. So that almost became a full-time job. And that's really where I saw the need for connecting people through health and wellness. And I moved out to San Diego, where I live now in southern California, and started doing all of the active lifestyle activities, yoga, kayaking, volleyball, and thought, wow, there's got to be a way to bring these activities to groups of, especially as they're traveling to San Diego.

How do I show the city in a fun, fit way? And that's where I started. I started in hospitality and tourism, partnering with hotels and conference centers, and started running these events to show that fun Southern California lifestyle to travelers. And then the local company saw what we were doing and said, wow, this is great. We want to keep our teams connected and healthy. Let's do it here. We're here, we're living this lifestyle. So that work kind of grew and then with COVID you know, the business had to take a turn and we did a lot online, but our business is continuing to grow now in a few different directions. So, yeah, that's me. I love the seller. I get to live the lifestyle that I moved to California for.

03:42 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I love to kind of hear the progression, you know, of everything that you've been able to kind of, you know, work through and the different experiences, as you talk about from a marketing standpoint. But even how it has manifested itself and the word that kind of popped out to me that you mentioned is connectedness, which I think especially, like during COVID but even before, before that, is something that we all kind of strive and need on a deep level. So I love how you're able to kind of do that in a fun and creative way.

04:07 – Angela Minardi

Yeah, yeah. And even today, you know, there's a lot of recent studies out there about this great resignation. Right. People are experiencing burnout, and mental health issues. They want to try something new. And so companies have to work extra hard to keep their employees happy. It's not pay anymore, it's culture and culture builders. And that's really where Fit City can come in and help with a lot of those activities. As a concierge service, we have over 100 different types of activities for teams. So it's really rewarding to see it come to life.

04:36 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think you kind of touched on it when people are trying to understand why they're doing the things that they're doing. And it becomes more than just a paycheck or just checking a box that becomes something deeper. And to have that connectedness, to have that opportunity as an organization, of course, as a leader, but also as an employee and a person that's on the team, to get that opportunity to engage, really connect, and feel like you are just checking off a box, actually doing something that's mission-driven and making that impact.

05:03 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah.

05:04 – Angela Minardi

And it is about health, and it is also about the community. So a lot of what we do, too, is bringing in a nonprofit partner so that when we're doing these events, we're giving back to the community in a lot of different ways. So whether that's dog shelters or veterans, it just depends on the company.

05:20 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love it. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more. I know you touched on a little bit. Could you take us through a little bit more on how you serve your clients, and how that process works for these organizations that want to reach out to Fsity Adventures?

05:32 – Angela Minardi

Yeah. Fantastic. So we have two verticals. One is the event planners and the conferences. And so for those, we kind of put together custom itineraries for the groups, whether that's a morning yoga class, sunrise yoga, or an afternoon, maybe volleyball with professional volleyball players, and a bonfire on the beach. We like to showcase the city, so we work with event planners in that way. On the other side is corporate wellness, where we're working mostly with HR directors, team leaders, coos, and CEOs, and we put together a full program for their year-round.

So they may be onboarding staff and they want to host ship kits and host a nice coffee class and have a coffee chat with their new employees, or maybe it's their annual holiday party and they want to do a dueling piano show. And we're making song requests and creating team anthems and interactive. So we meet people where they're at. We're concierge service because we do customize based on their culture. Ideally, in the beginning, we're taking a survey and an assessment to see what people.

Some people want meditation while others want to play beach games. So it just depends on the culture and where they're at. But it's mostly growing companies, so they're the ones that want to foster that culture. So 50 plus employees and they're looking to keep their teams connected now because everyone is remote, and a lot of times, a lot of my partners are closing offices, not even going back. So being remote first. And how do you keep people engaged? Well, it's with these unique activities, that we're not doing those Zoom happy hours. Right. It's a lot of different things where people get to connect and learn in new ways.

07:09 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I love that you're, you know, at the forefront, and as you talked about the great resignation and just understanding how work has evolved and changed, and it's not temporary. It becomes what, you know, people have now phrased as the new normal of what that's going to look like and what people are looking for and things along those lines.

So it sounds like you've been at the forefront of, for one, you know, being able to kind of provide that service, but also being able to kind of have those conversations, do those surveys, do the work. I guess it takes to even understand, like, what that work might look like and what success might look like for organizations and the people within them.

07:40 – Angela Minardi

Yeah, some people are going back to the office. You know, you've got your hospitals, your construction. Right. So we do things on site because we want to make sure it's flexible. And that's what's great about working with us, is that we do customize it to you, to the company.

07:52 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. I love that. And so would you consider that to be what I like to call the secret sauce that could be for yourself individually, the business, or a combination of both, what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

08:04 – Angela Minardi

Yeah. So the secret sauce is finding the new, latest, and greatest trends out there as it relates to experiences. So, you know, we're creating these cool experiences, maybe where there are headsets and there's a live DJ for our yoga classes or we even have live piano players. Our piano show, as I mentioned is amazing and customized. So the secret sauces, tailoring everything.

So if we've got a piano show, maybe we do an awards ceremony where we're creating songs about the employees. So there's a lot that we can do to be flexible and nimble and put those special surprises in there when we're shipping hits with branded items that people just don't expect and they're excited about. And it goes a long way when you're onboarded onto a company to have that now.

08:54 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like, you know, the past couple years, you know, not just within work, within everywhere experiences have been one of the things that you can't replicate, that you value, that you, you want to have because it's something that is, you know, for, you know, so memorable that you want to kind of replicate that and have that over and over again. So I love that you're continuing to kind of. I can't imagine what the whiteboard looks like, you know, within where you guys work. I'm just coming up with creative, innovative ideas on how you can create that experience so that everybody gets a win win win scenario.

09:23 – Angela Minardi

Yes, there's a very big whiteboard. We. We update our events options every quarter and we rotate stuff in. So our website's a good place to check out. But, yeah, there's a big range and it depends on the part of the country, too. So, you know, we're outside doing snow events, beach events. It just ranges.

09:41 – Gresham Harkless

Nice.

09:42 – Angela Minardi

It is all about getting people active. So that is, like I said, the underlying thread is health and wellness focus.

09:48 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And that sounds like that's a. I think it's a really big part of that experience piece because when you get that opportunity to be active, I've always felt like it probably increases the happiness that people have engagement that people have when they get an opportunity to not just, you know, sometimes sit around and do stuff together, but get to engage and have that, you know, that activity level with it.

10:08 – Angela Minardi

It is. And it goes back to team sports and just being a tribe and being connected to others. Right. We're all kind of looking for that camaraderie. So it is. There is a stronger bond when you go through these activities and experiences, like our fit city field day where you're going back to your middle school recess games, or tug of war and, you know, giant jenga and potato sack races. And so you get to be a kid again. And playing is. There's science behind play and how you learn and connect. And so we do a lot based on play.

10:40 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

10:51 – Angela Minardi

Well, I have an amazing team of vas, and we have hacked the HubSpot lead gen game, so that every day when I wake up, my calendar is full of these new sales calls, which for me, as a busy entrepreneur, it's so helpful. We've dialed in on those email sequences out to our prospects and what I'm selling, people want. It's just a matter of knowing about it. Right. So I think we, as a hack, like having these virtual assistants working, they're working overnight because we're in the Philippines for me.

And then honing in on the open rates are about 50%. So like what the messages are, and it's all automated behind the scenes. So that way I have those meetings ready to go and tracking them. HubSpot's just a lot of people use that, like a Salesforce-type tool, but that works for us. And we do use Slack and Asana and a few of the other things, but I would say that that's working well. I wish I had more hacks. I want to learn about all the hacks.

11:55 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. We know you're definitely in the right, love those hacks. And I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you hopped into a time machine, you would tell your business self so many things, but for.

12:13 – Angela Minardi

For the most part, it's, there are no wrong decisions, there are just decisions. And you always want to be moving forward. Use your strength. You say zone of genius. So I'm trying not to worry so much about the things that I am not good at, but focus right on that strength finder on what I am, which is the connection building the business development and the operations piece kind of will fall into play because I'll hire people for that. Right. So outsourcing to the Vas or whoever, TaskRabbit delegate, you know, so that's, the nugget is just valued your time and just find what you're good at and focus on that.

12:49 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's so much, you know, you know, I guess I don't want to say culture, but just, you know, information about being able to kind of strengthen your weaknesses and things like that. Now, I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEO's on this show. So, Angela, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:06 – Angela Minardi

Angela? So I say my title is CEO, but we call, I call myself the chief experience officer. So a little bit different. And to me it means, you know, doing what you love to do, sharing your strengths with the world, but building a team and building a brand and a business. So I've just recently now started to separate myself from Fit City. It is not me. It does not define me, but, you know, it is its entity. So the CEO is a leader, right?

It's finding that team and growing, always on the quest for growth. And I never like, fully attached myself to the term CEO because I worked in corporate. And so the CEO of CV's to me is like up there. It's huge. But like, I can also be a CEO. That seems funny. So, yeah, I just. That's why I like the chief experience officer. I know someone who was a chief joy officer. A title is a title, but it isn't. How you embody leadership is kind of what that means.

14:09 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that a title is a title, but it's all in how you embody it. That's something that, you know, really resonates with me because I think so many times we forget that we can make that impact, we can create those experiences, you know, for so many people within our organization and sometimes the clients that we're serving as well, too. But when we get, don't get as hung up on the title, we get more hung up on what we're doing, how we're doing it, how we're making that ding and that impact, then we get to be in a phenomenal place.

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

14:50 – Angela Minardi

Yeah, absolutely. So we would love to connect with different leaders. We are available to help, of course. And our website is fitcityadventures.com or Instagram. Fitsityadventures. And again, we're national and we're even global now doing events all over the country in particular for the holidays and going into 2022. Like kicking off the new year, right, with that health and wellness angle. So we're here to help. We know everyone's busy and I think the stat is about 40%. Microsoft did a study recently of 30,000 people across the globe.

40% of people are considering quitting their jobs in the next twelve months. So there is an immediate need to focus on this now and not wait six months. Twelve months. When you've got turnover and you're struggling to build your teams, take the time now to put in the effort around culture. It's worth it. We're humans. We want to be connected. And it is hard when you're remote. So definitely put a program in place and we have, the resources for you to do that.

15:48 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Well, I truly appreciate that, Angela. To make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can get a hold of you, get in touch with you, and all the awesome things that your team is working on. And I love that final, you know, moment and that final piece, I should say. And when we sometimes forget that right now, we can make an impact within the organization by creating that culture, making sure that fitness and wellness and, and how those overlap amongst all the things that we're doing within our organization is paramount. So I love that you create a solution for that. And of course, our helping so many people make that impact themselves. So appreciate that. Of course. Appreciate your time and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:23 – Angela Minardi

Thank you so much for having me.

16:25 – 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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