IAM1354 – Emmy Award Winning Producer Helps Clients Get Their Story Out to the Public

Anna is a multi-talented, Emmy-award-winning producer with more than 20 years of experience in broadcast and online media. Anna tells stories, specifically her client's story, using video, words, animation – whatever it takes to get your story out to the public and to your clients. Alejo Media began when another chapter of her life ended. She’s a journalist, and back in 2011-2012 she was the Executive Producer at an online network, the funding dried up but she had more stories to tell. So she opened up to Alejo, and she has never looked back.

• CEO Story: Anna always wanted to have her own production company. Creating content and stories. Didn’t go back into her journalism career full-time, because she wanted to find a way to create and tell different kinds and ways of telling stories, that’s why she created Alejo.
• Business Service: Create videos for social media, website, and online marketing campaigns. Knowing from clients their end goal. Creating good and interesting stories.
• Secret Sauce: The permission to fail. Reshaping the narrative. Rephrasing that question/problem and having a different solution.
• CEO Hack: meditate daily, Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy, 5-7 minutes of sitting and thinking
• CEO Nugget: Persist. Just keep going. Don't be afraid to change your narrative
• CEO Defined: Being a leader but not a dictator

Website: https://alejomedia.com
Facebook: facebook.com/alejomedia
Twitter: twitter.com/alejomediallc
Instagram: alejo_media

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Transcription

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00:02 – 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 Harkness 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.

00:27 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresham from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Anna Davalos from Alejo Media. Anna, it's awesome to have you on the show.

00:37 – Anna Davalos

It is awesome to talk to you, Gresham.

00:39 – Gresham Harkless

Great. So what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Anna so you can learn a little bit more about all the awesome things that she's been able to accomplish. So Anna tells stories, specifically her client's story, using videos, words, animation, whatever it takes to get your story out to the public and to your clients. Alejo Media began when another chapter of her life ended. She's a journalist and back in 2011 to 2012, she was the executive producer at an online network. The funding dried up, but she had more story to tell. She opened up to Alejo and she has never looked back. Anna, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:16 – Anna Davalos

I think I am.

01:17 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Well, the first question I have was just if we could drill down a little bit more to hear a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to get started with Leho Media.

01:26 – Anna Davalos

I have always wanted to have my own production company. I've always wanted to create content and tell really cool stories, you know, stories that were different. And I did that for years as a journalist. And once my online energy show dried up, funding for that show dried up, I didn't really want to go back into my journalism career full-time. I wanted to be able to find a way to create and tell different kinds of stories and learn about different types of stories and different ways of telling stories. So that's when I launched Alejo Media.

02:01 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. But I wanted to drill down, I guess, a little bit more to figure out and hear a little bit more about what Alejo Media does and how you kind of serve your clients.

02:10 – Anna Davalos

Okay. Well, we do a broad range of events. I'm sorry, not really an event. We don't do events. We do a lot of things. We create videos for your social media, for your websites, and for online marketing campaigns. The way that we work is I get to know, or my team gets to know you, the client, who you are, what you really want to accomplish, what's the end game with the video and the story that you're trying to tell. I always tell my clients that everybody can tell a story, but not everybody or everybody has a story, but not everybody can tell a good story. And I can't, because there's a way that you tell a story that is interesting, that can keep people's attention.

Everybody knows and each of us knows our own story because of us if we're a CEO, we are experts in our field. But can we tell those stories in a clear, concise, and succinct manner that people are going to want to listen to? And I think sometimes that as CEOs and as workers within an industry, since we know our story, we think we know how to tell it really well. But more often than not, we are sometimes speaking way above people's heads. We kind of tend to think that everybody knows what we're talking about. And even though you could have a product that all of us need, If you are telling it correctly, no one's gonna care. If you're not showing it correctly, no one's gonna care.

A lot of the time when it comes to marketing, you have the mentality that one size fits all. And that is not true at all about video and video stories. There are so many different types of videos that a company can use. And one video does not fit everything. But people will try to do that. And then what happens is that you have a story that is meandering and all over the place. And you have a lot of loose ends that don't ever come back around an end. So that is what I try to do listen to what you're trying to tell me and then pick the story that fits what you really want. That's how I work. I hope that made sense.

04:13 – Gresham Harkless 

No, that's awesome And I think like you mentioned that a lot of times people are so close to what it is that they do that often they need that other perspective and definitely somebody that's an expert as you are to be able to say, hey, this is the story and this is how it helps you to reach whatever goals that you're trying to reach in your business. So I think that's phenomenal that you're able to kind of tap into your ability to do that. Now I wanted to ask you what I call your secret sauce. And it's kind of like the thing that you feel distinguishes you from other people who might do something similar to what it is that you do. So what is Alejo Media's secret sauce?

04:44 – Anna Davalos

I guess my secret sauce, and this is gonna sound kind of weird, is that I've given myself kind of permission to fail because so many times and especially me, you know, in the beginning, and this is kind of what I've grown into. When you start a company or you start a business and you have a vision and you have an idea set out, you know, you've written out your little business plan, you're going to follow these steps, right? And it doesn't work out the way you think it is. You think it should. And suddenly you're like, oh my gosh, my plan didn't work.

My stuff isn't good. All it means is that it failed today. Tomorrow it might work. So let's reshape your narrative. If your product is really great and you know that people need it, maybe you're just not telling the story and I do the same thing too. Maybe I'm not doing something the right way but I believe in myself and I believe in my product and I believe in my team. So let me reshape that narrative and come at this problem a different way. When I was, and I still am a journalist, there used to be this saying that the way you pose a question determines the answer and the way you pose a problem determines the solution. So let's rephrase that question.

Let's rephrase that problem and see what different types of solutions we can have. I love that. Like, you know, Apple came out with that campaign about 18, 17 years ago, the think different campaign. And I go back to that. It's not about thinking differently. You know, this isn't an adverb. We're talking about a noun, think differently. You know this is the way you think it should be, but it's not working. So let's figure out a way to make it work. And maybe that's just shifting 1 of 2 things. So it's okay to fail so long as you get back up.

And it's okay to grow slow. A lot of times people are like, if I can't make $100, 000 in a year, then I shouldn't be in this business. But there are a lot of reasons that your sales don't go forward. There are a lot of times you have to educate people about what you do how you do it and why it's important to them. And it may take a little while before you catch on and grow. That's okay, too. Growing too big can be just as big of a problem as not growing at all.

06:50 – Gresham Harkless

That's very true. No, I love that and I love that perspective, especially as we've talked about before offline and more of the marketing-type world, a lot of times you have to kind of test different things out to see how they work and what results you get from that. And I think that it's awesome that you and Alejo Media and your team are able to kind of capture that and to work with clients and be able to test those things out and see what works and what doesn't work.

But at the end of the day, you kind of understand exactly what the end game is and what the goal is for your client. So I think that's phenomenal that you've been able to do that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask for what I call a CEO hack a CEO hack could be an app, it could be a book, or it could be something that you do on a regular everyday basis that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner. So do you have a CEO hack for us?

07:34 – Anna Davalos 

I do. I have a couple of them. One of them, you know, is I actually meditate daily. I really kind of put my mindset in the morning. I've been working really hard this month to get my morning routines up and running because I can be a procrastinator. And I'm kind of a procrastinator because if I can't get something right the first time, gosh, I don't want to do it. So I put it off and put it off and put it off. And I've had to change my mindset to prioritize and really do what needs to be done that day. Every day I make a to-do list so that when I start my day, I'm actually active and productive.

Because how many of us, even when we work for other people, would go into our office, click on our computer, and we'd look at social media, we read the headlines, or we do, you know, whatever. And the next thing you know, it's 10, 1030, and we're just starting our day, and we haven't got stuff done. So I try to be really mindful in the morning and get my day, get my head started correctly. So that when I go in and I make my list or I see my list of what I have to do that day, I prioritize the list. And oftentimes, my list goes from 6 to 7 to really only 2 to 4.

I have to get done. What do I have to do today that if I don't do it will cost me money or will cost me a customer? Those are the things that I have to get done. And the next thing I know, if I can get those things done first, I'll get the rest of my list done too. Because I tend to start with what's the easiest. I put off what's the hardest because I don't want to tackle it. But if I do the hardest things first, everything else comes really easy afterward.

09:13 – Gresham Harkless

That's awesome. No, that's an awesome perspective.

09:14 – Anna Davalos

So it's, you know, I've been reading a lot of books lately, and Eat That Frog is one of the books that I do. That's kind of what I've been trying to do for several weeks now eat my biggest grossest frog first.

09:27 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I think often anybody who owns a business or is running a business or is a CEO, has endless to-do lists where there are a million things that you have to get done. And sometimes it could be so overwhelming, but if you kind of take a step back and say, as you said, these are the things that I actually need to tackle because they move the needle more than others, then that's what I can kind of focus on. So I think that's a phenomenal kind of CEO hack and definitely obviously the meditation too as well, because I've been trying to incorporate that largely because of the conversations we had.

09:56 – Anna Davalos

So yeah, it really puts you in a sense that I tend to have like a lot of anxiety because I overthink things in my head. I'm constantly thinking about things. So I sometimes just need to turn it off and just think. And sometimes I don't think that we as CEOs think. We just sit in quietness and think about our next step. That's really important to sit and think and extrapolate out what are the next steps that can get me to where I need to go. Sometimes I feel like we just go and go and go and go and we react to the actions that are taking place.

But I've always been a pretty firm believer in not fearing change. I've always been someone who tries to get ahead of change and pull people with me rather than being pulled. And I think that if we stop and think, and I try to make like 5 to 7 minutes a day of just sitting and thinking. I mean, it sounds so simple and it sounds like something that we do all the time, but we really don't. I just sit and think.

10:54 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That's another hack I do. I love that hack. It puts you a lot more in control, like you said, on the offensive instead of on the defensive of what might be happening during the day or what might pop up. In other words, you're taking time to make sure that you're in kind of more control of what may happen or may not happen and that you're not kind of again on the defensive. So now I want to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this CEO nugget might be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice that you might have for an entrepreneur or business owner.

11:19 – Anna Davalos

Persist. Like I said, it's okay to fail. But if you really truly believe in your product and in you, persist. Find a way to just keep going. And it will come, it really will. I'm a big believer that if you put it out there in the universe, it'll come back to you. And if you just keep telling people, if you just keep working, if you just keep pushing and persisting, You'll find your way.

11:48 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Yeah, I tell myself that all the time. Just keep going. Sometimes the people who have become the most successful are just because they didn't quit at the end of the day. They had ups and downs, but they didn't quit.

11:58 – Anna Davalos

Exactly. And don't be afraid to change your narrative. I mean, that's, again, if this isn't working, it just means it's not working right now. Maybe you've done something wrong. It doesn't mean that your product is bad. And it doesn't mean that you should not be doing what you're doing. You know, every no I get, It's taken me a long time to get to this point, but every no I get, I now see as just a stepping stone to my next yes. I always try to learn from every no that I get. Could I have done this better? Should I have done that better? You know, all it means is that I wasn't ready for my yes

12:34 – Gresham Harkless

There you go. I love it. And now I wanted to ask you what is my favorite question. This is the definition of what being a CEO means we're hoping to have different types of quote-unquote ceos on the podcast and kind of redefine exactly what that means. So I wanted to ask you specifically, what being a CEO means to you.

12:50 – Anna Davalos

It means being a leader, but not a dictator. You know, a lot of what I do is create and creativity is a collaboration, right? I mean, it's so very subjective. What works for me is not what always works for somebody else, but as the client, if this is what works for you, then that's the most important thing. That is the most important thing. And I like to get feedback. Ultimately, I will make the final decision, whether it's right or wrong, good or bad. However, I believe it's important to gather input from others because their perspectives might offer better answers or lead us down paths I hadn't considered.

So I think that a CEO is a leader who encompasses listening and collaboration and someone who isn't afraid to change directions if that's what's needed. You know, someone who is Yes, in charge, but someone who is always amenable to everybody and who takes different opinions and respects those opinions and can incorporate them if those perspectives or if those ideas are better than the ones that I have. Because it's really all about making your company grow and do bigger and better things. And sometimes that comes from within not just you, but within your organization. I love it.

14:31 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I truly appreciate you, Hannah, for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know, and then how best people can get a hold of you.

14:42 – Anna Davalos

I guess I would like to let you guys know, they've already kind of said it, but you know, my biggest thing is it's okay to grow slowly. Nobody else's definition of success should be yours. If this month you decide you're going to make $10, 000 and you only make 6, 500. All that means is you got another mark for next month, right? If your friend says, wow, I brought in $12, 000 this month, okay, that's great. Maybe next month, he might make nothing.

You want to consistently make $6,500 a month for 12 months instead of making $10,000 in January and then nothing until April. So your definition of success is what works best for you. If that means that it just grows incrementally, you know, up higher and higher and higher, that's success. That's success. So you define your own success. That's what I would tell everybody out there.

15:37 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome, I love it, I love it. And people that wanna get ahold of you and reach out to you, what's the best way?

15:42 – Anna Davalos

You can email me at Anna, A-N-N-A, at alehomedia.com. That's A-L-E-J-O media.com. You can also go to my website, alejomedia.com. You can find me on Facebook at Alejo Media. You can find me on Twitter at @alejomedia.llc. Find me on Instagram at Alejo underscore media. You can even give me a call. You can find that number on my website.

16:07 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. We'll have those links in the show notes, but Anna, thank you so much for the awesome words of wisdom and the time that you took to kind of impart your story and tell us how best we can be better storytellers as well. So I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:20 – Anna Davalos

I do. Thanks a lot for having me, Gretchen.

16:22 – 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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