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Brand and Content Marketing Strategist Craig Stern paints a historic story of internships, content and brand strategy, entrepreneurship, and the 1balance of fun and business.

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• Introductions and Updates
  
• In-Person Interview – Craig Stern (Content Strategist, Branding Consultant and Entrepreneur)
  
• Outro Song – “Be” – Common (2005)
  

Send questions, comments, suggestions or love to podcast@owningyourown.com

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• What is “Chock”? (1:04)
  
• Craig brought beer to the studio (Lagunitas IPA) (4:20)
  
• Started as a personal fitness trainer while in college in the Bay Area; worked at 24 Hour Fitness (6:20)
  
• Client feedback was the impetus for going private; working for himself. (7:30)
  
• “Hella Foggy” (8:50)
  
• Some days look amazing but we may not feel up to par, and strenuous days are amazing. (10:30)
  
• Was a server part-time but got a marketing internship that allowed him to leave the server job (13:15)
  
• The internship was a bit sketchy, so backed away with no back-up plan but took the chance (14:40)
  
• Found an ad on Craigslist that someone was looking for a Powerpoint presentation; basically what Craig learned in college. (17:00)
  
• The person he built the presentation for needed him to explain things so he brought him with him. (18:10)
  
• Are you the guy for the job? (18:40)
  
• What am I doing here? (20:15)
  
• Craig interacted with his mentor about food and basketball (23:00)
  
• SOLO Eyewear – The Story (24:20)
  
• SOLO Eyewear gives proceeds to give glasses or help with corrective surgery for those in need. Also made from Bamboo (25:20)
  
• Vision To Give (28:15)
  
• A guy that hired Craig was at an insurance company but was someone that worked with the NFL on marketing campaigns (30:10)
  
• Kickstarter project allowed them to make 30K in 30 days (33:10)
  
• No live Pandas were used, you can pay an adult in a Panda onesie (33:30)
  
• Emotional response gets people to share (35:00)
  
• 20% of the people give you 80% of the referrals (35:15)
  
• High quality content! (36:00)
  
• You are always better than you know (36:40)
  
• How to convince clients to believe in themselves (39:00)
  
• If you won an award, what would it be in? (40:00)
  
• Brand is about associations (41:20)
  
• Build Constellations – Touchpoints being consistent to form a shape or design (42:00)
  
• Has a tight team and forming his own consultancy agency. (45:00)
  
• Learned a few things from Brian Tracy. (46:40)
  
• Seriously Fun (48:00)
  
• Day rate – What is that? (50:40)
  
• Learning from Audi about branding. (51:20)
  
• Value shift – Following dreams is not the end result, it was the means to the end of building relationships (54:00)
  
• Finding balance with money and family (55:00)
  
• Trust factor is key for building relationships (58:00)
  
• Scarcity mentality can be inhibiting at times (58:30)
  
• The belief shift led to more referrals; power of belief was apparent (59:10)