Elevate Your Business: Kristyn Snell

Good afternoon, good morning. Kent Beam with Nine Business Group. Welcome back to Elevate Your Business Chat. I’ve been looking forward to this interview for probably three weeks now. Kristen, welcome to the program. Please introduce yourself, your company name, and most importantly, what you guys do and what sets you apart. Kristen, welcome.

Awesome. Thanks so much for having me, Kent. I’m really excited to be here. So we’re Modern Speak. We’re a digital marketing agency based here in Calgary, and we sort of work in three different areas. One, we’re an influencer management agency. So we do work directly with TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram creators to help them manage the business side of their brand partnerships. 

And then we also work directly with clients, primarily in the tourism and hospitality space. And in that sense, we work with them on their social media and influencer campaigns. And then we also work in content production. So we help businesses build out their marketing assets from video, photo, things that they can use for all of their marketing needs.

And I would say the thing that sets us apart is probably a bit of a different answer depending on the vertical of business we’re talking about. But if we were to say in the influencer management space, I think transparency is probably the thing that sets us the most apart in this industry. It’s one of those things that’s so important, but often not always there in this industry. There’s a lot of… not always being upfront and sharing things when it comes to the amount of money and contracts and what’s going back to the creator and those types of things. 

And we’ve been really passionate about making sure that that is one of our core values as a business. And one of the things that we can promise and guarantee to our creators is that we will always be transparent in the amount of money that the business is getting paid to the amount of money that they’re getting, because it is often based off of a commission structure and that sort of thing. We’ve actually built proprietary software strictly to be able to ensure that we can show those pieces to those clients.

And then on the side of working directly with brands and specifically working in tourism hospitality brands, I think the thing that sets us apart as an agency is that I actually come from working on the brand side in tourism and hospitality. So previous to starting the agency, I worked for Tourism Calgary and Travel Alberta. And when I was in-house in those businesses, I really got to learn and understand what success looks like internally. 

So now being on the agency side, I feel like I have such a good understanding of what those clients are looking for and what their needs are and their stakeholders needs and all of those types of things. So I feel like we’re really well equipped in the area of business that we’ve gone into to be able to help those businesses be successful.

Super exciting. So you’ve been at this for a while. You’ve been in industry a long time. What is the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome since starting? How did you tackle it? How did you solve it? What does it look like today?

Yeah, I love this question because I think, quite honestly speaking, it’s me. I was sort of the biggest challenge to overcome in all of this. I sort of accidentally became a business owner when I was leaving Travel Alberta. I had actually a side business where I was selling letter boards and I was trying to get those letter boards in front of more of a U.S. audience. So I sort of turned to influencer marketing myself just as a business owner. 

And in that moment, I realized that there was all of these creators that sort of became overnight successes and had no idea how to manage the business side of what would ultimately become a business. But I don’t think they realized that at the time. And in that moment, I was like, I need to help. Specifically, a lot of them were women. I need to help them understand their worth and how to advocate for themselves, how to feel empowered to be able to ask brands for money and all these types of things.

So my letter board company, which was actually called Modern Speak, quickly overnight almost became an influencer management agency because I started helping these people and they were telling their other creative friends. And we went from having like 14 creators that we were managing sort of overnight. But with all that being said, I’d never run a business before. I had come from working on the age or on the corporate side for most of my life. And it was like becoming this accidental business owner was a really scary and intimidating experience. 

And I think a lot through a lot of this, whether it was growing the business, growing the team, getting more clients, whatever those growth moments look like. I was sort of the bottleneck in a lot of those moments because I was afraid. Do I have the leadership skills to do this? Do I have the finance understanding of what the business is doing to be able to grow and all of those things?

So I think the thing that’s really helped me actually is having really great mentors and really great coaches and people who can really show you your value and your worth and kind of build that confidence back up in you that you are able to actually do these things that maybe you don’t think that you can. And also one of the really big learnings that I had recently was being the founder of essentially a startup. It really is. You have to wear all the hats, you have to do the finance, you have to do the HR, all of the marketing, everything really. And I have an incredible team that are just phenomenal. I would not be where I am without them. 

But at the top level, you’re kind of like hands in all the pots. And I think it’s just it’s helpful to remember that you can’t successfully be the CFO, the COO, the CEO, and all of the things you really have to try and be comfortable and confident in the lane that you’re really good at. And either outsource the help for those other things or really lean on people who are strong in those spaces and not get yourself down that just because you’re not great in all the areas, it’s the business is still, you know, doing really well.

So maybe a long answer to a short question. But I think I’ve really been amazed at in the five years that we’ve been doing this, the growth that I’ve been able to experience as a business owner.

No, there’s a lot of truth there, because we all have our strengths and weaknesses. And, and to grow and scale a business, we can’t be an expert in everything we need to. And front of mind puts it this way, we’re almost better off as owners becoming generalists versus specialists. If we think about the corporate world, when we get a job, our job really is to get really good at one thing and become indispensable inside that organization. 

Well, the flip side inside of a business as an owner, the opposite is true. The less we’re good at, in a way, the more we get outsourced, the better team we get to hire so that we to your point, we’re not the bottleneck. So moving on to the next question, what is the one thing you know now that you wish you would have known five plus years ago?

I think just that it’s a lot harder than you think. And also just to like, learn to be more kind to myself throughout the journey. And just recognizing that like, around like expectations and all of those types of things that like good things take time. And that like what got you here is not going to get you there. And just remembering that like, it’s okay to grow change, you know, have to, you know, end relationships that might have really been lucrative to getting you to a certain point, but that might not be to getting you to the next point. 

And all of those, you know, hardships that we go through as business owners, but I think really like, kudos and pats on the back to everyone out there who is doing it, because as much as it, you know, gives you a lot of freedom to be your own boss and make decisions and do all these things, it really is hard to do.

It definitely has a certain learning curve to it. If there is a thief, a pirate in around your business, hacking into your computers, walking into your office, what are they stealing from you?

I think the thing that somebody would want to steal from us isn’t going to be found on a computer or hard drive. I think it’s going to be found in like the culture of our business and in who we are as a team. And I think that’s like passion. We’re all super, super passionate about what we do. We really choose to work with clients and creators that are also that same way. 

We want to have an environment where we’re constantly being inspired and this creative space. And I think like being able to jump out of bed in the morning and be excited about the people that you’re going to have to hop on a call with or be in a meeting with and surround yourself with every day is like one of the most important pieces.

And I feel like our team really has over the years, we’ve obviously gone from being a say yes to everything to now really finding our path and our way. And I think since doing that, every interaction and client and person that we get the joy of working with is it’s pure passion. We’re just so excited to be able to tell these stories and promote these people. 

And another interesting thing about our business is a lot of ways that people are our product. And so we just we get the joy of working with all different personalities and every day kind of just feels really exciting. And I think that that’s something that a lot of people would want to have and feel and maybe take into their own life.

So in five years, maybe it’s changed, maybe it’s gotten tighter. What is your definition of a successful business? What does it mean for you to be successful?

I think like all those things that I sort of just said about making sure that we’re always kind of staying in this lane of doing what we really know and understand. Success to me is that jumping out of the bed in the morning and being able to say like, this is an amazing team and company that’s been built off of passion and fun and doing the things that we know really, really well. 

I think also just being able to build a community so much of what we do is working with people who are part of this video photo community in Alberta across the world, really, because we have clients all over the world and they’re basically their audience is their community. And so we’re figuring out how to nurture all of these different communities and be able to bring a really positive impact to those spaces. 

And being a female business owner and entrepreneur, it’s really my passion to be able to mentor other female entrepreneurs in the space or other females that are coming up as creators or even just on my team. I’m really excited to sort of see how we can crush all of the things, make dreams come true. We’re just really excited about all that stuff.

Fascinating. What do you want to be known for? You look back in 10 years from now, you look back at the start, the growth, the journey. What is the one thing that you’re going to put on the tombstone saying I most want to be known for this?

I think like turning like a job into a passion and just being able to I want people to remember me for making an impact in my industry for the things like transparency, maybe like we’re working on a software right now. So being able to have the software fill some of the gaps that this industry is currently lacking, being sort of a connector. I think I really I’m the type of person who loves networking and going out and connecting other folks with other businesses and brands and figuring out how to really kind of bring that piece together. 

I think that’s something that I want to be remembered for is community and bringing people together, sparking joy, having fun, doing things that light up my life and light up a room. And yeah, I don’t want to yeah, I don’t want to ever have to be like obviously running a business goes through its ebbs and flows and has all the kinds of ups and downs. But ultimately, I just want to be remembered for mostly being happy and excited and growing something that I can feel really proud of.

And you should. Good for you. Just before we wrap up, one last question. If there’s when an influencer out there watches this and they want to run their business better and or there’s somebody that comes across this in the hospitality world, where can they find you? What is the best way for them to find you and reach out to you so they can learn how to use your services to have the impact they want to have?

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for asking that. Our website is ModernSpeak.co. You can find us there. We’re also on Instagram at Modern Speak. And we’d love to hear from you. We’re super excited to work with folks that are just really, you know, passionate about whatever their niche community is. And even though our expertise is in tourism and hospitality, we are absolutely happy to point people in the right direction. Again, making that connection to other, you know, industries or agencies in our network that might work with those folks if it’s not for a match with us.

Sounds good. Thank you very much. Your answers were great. Spot on. Appreciate the time and looking forward to hearing the rest of your story. Awesome to meet you. Take care. Bye for now.