EP# 160 - Discovering a Harmonious Blend of Life, Leadership, and Marketing with Christina Cohen

Ever wondered how true joy within a company's leadership can cascade into a thriving business with satisfied clients? That's precisely what Christina Cohen of Cohen Creative Designs reveals as she joins us to share her inspiring transformation from the corporate grind to spearheading a novel approach that merges life and business coaching with a robust advertising agency. Christina's philosophy is simple yet profound: a business blooms when its leaders are at their happiest. Listen as we unpack the journey she's taken and the significant impact it has made, not just on her clients, but on the entrepreneurial landscape as a whole.

This episode is a treasure trove of insights, especially for entrepreneurs who excel in their craft yet grapple with marketing their business effectively. Through Christina's expertise, we examine the unrelenting power of referrals, debunk marketing myths, and discuss the necessity of evolving with the digital world's rapid pace. We also step outside the world of business and take a personal detour, exploring beach life and hobbies in Southwest Florida, adding a vibrant touch of humanity to the discourse. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, prepare to be equipped with strategic planning tools and goal-setting wisdom that promise to fuel your growth and success in both life and business.

Cohen Creative Designs
Christina Cohen
7830 Drew Cir #10
Fort Myers, FL 33967
(239) 288-6470
ccohen@cohencreativedesigns.com
WEBSITE

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, cabo, jim Schaller.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Welcome Good Neighbors to episode number 160 of the Good Neighbor Podcast, estero. Today we have Good Neighbor Christina Cohen from Cohen Creative Designs. I can say that it's early but I got it I got it out. I got it out. There we go. Great, thank you for joining us. Welcome today.

Speaker 3: 0:29

Oh, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Absolutely Always good to get to know people in the community and what they do and share their stories. So let's jump right in. Why don't we start off by you sharing a little bit about what you do?

Speaker 3: 0:42

Yes, well, good morning. Thank you so much for having me on today. I really appreciate the opportunity. So, yes, I am Christina Cohen from Cohen Creative Designs. I founded the company back in 2014, back when I was still working at a corporate office, but I had a lot of good freelance going on the side, because we always have those friends who, hey, can you make me a logo? Hey, I've got a flyer going. Hey, hey. So you know, obviously one thing kind of led to the other and my client just kept getting you know, more interesting and bigger, and so there's a couple of different opportunities that landed in my way, my path, and I took them, and here we are today. So my tagline, as you would say, would be I empower business owners to attain both time and financial freedom through comprehensive life and business coaching.

Speaker 2: 1:38

And there's a lot of people in it, a lot of it right.

Speaker 3: 1:41

Yes, yes, but across my journey of and if you to explain a little bit easier that I, I'm a life and business coach with a full service advertising agency, so they are two completely different industries that I came to a path in in my life that you know, I was given the option to either open a full service, you know, life coaching business, but I always had this knack to I just I was always surrounded by entrepreneurs. I was like, okay, well, how can we, how can we marry this? And I grew, you know, I graduated college with a degree for, you know, science and for graphic design, and I worked in a corporate office for 15 years and I felt like I was given this gift of still being very creative. So how can I leave both? And, you know, the life coach in me, the mindset, you give me an option between A and B and I say, I see, I want all of the above. So that's how Cone Creative Designs was, you know above. So that's how a cone crave designs was. You know, um, the trajectory of the company, how that started to go. So, um, I'm absolutely in love with what I do.

Speaker 3: 2:52

I have this belief system that having happier mentally, physically, emotionally, happier entrepreneurs, business owners make for a better business. When you have a better business, you have happier employees, you have, you know, happier pockets. You have, you know, happier memories that you get to share and obviously we want to serve to our community, but that makes us have happier clients. So I start with the leadership in the group, and once you start getting the leader of these businesses in alignment with what their belief systems are, what makes them happy, then everything else just kind of follow suit.

Speaker 3: 3:31

So, and the other passion that I have as well with with businesses, that all of us business owners, we obviously want growth, right, because when you're not growing, you're obviously not pivoting or doing it, you're not growing in any way. So that's where it goes hand in hand with the marketing and the advertising side of things. So we go through a lot of unique, different techniques in order to take a good look at what the businesses are, how they're currently running and you know, setting goals, the same kind of goals as you would in your own life, and doing them with your business, and then we write out a good, awesome, strategic plan in order to obtain those goals. Sometimes these, you know, as any goals, have certain timelines. It could be, you know, three months, six years or 10 years down the road. So we do it all.

Speaker 2: 4:22

And there's a lot of people that get into business, that maybe they're very good at their craft trade or have a great product, but they don't know the business side of things. They don't know how to market. They need the help, you know.

Speaker 3: 4:34

Yes.

Speaker 2: 4:35

They need somebody else, another set of eyes, to help them, push them in the right direction. And with technology changing everything nowadays, it's tough to stay on top of everything.

Speaker 3: 4:44

Isn't that?

Speaker 2: 4:44

the truth it is so. You mentioned starting your own business. It's not always easy. Has there been a challenge or obstacle that you can look back at now and not necessarily glad you went through it, but maybe now you're in a better place because you did go through that?

Speaker 3: 5:02

oh boy, if we yeah, we're writing a book about all of those experiences. Right, it's not, it's collective experiences, you know, because with in my position, there's also things that I'm learning still to this day of what others go through and experience. So it's not just even my own, uh, paths that I've taken, but it's everyone else that you know that they have their struggles and issues that they go through with their own personal and business. So it's kind of hard to pinpoint directly because, no, no task or no obstacle is the same. But I do want to say that a lot of mistakes where I feel that people didn't get in on time with their marketing side of things.

Speaker 3: 5:48

And I'll be the first one to tell you that referrals and word of mouth is the best form of advertising. There I said it, referrals and word of mouth is the best form of advertising. There I said it, contradictory to what an advertising agency owners say, but it really is the truth. We're all humans. We all love to base our experiences, including our purchase experiences, no-transcript Like. So there's so many different ways you can do that. There's techniques with branding to obviously get your name out there between. You know the social media, you know. There's also the you know the online Google, bing, yahoo. There's different ways like that. There's networking is also a huge, huge pillar of making that connection with your community.

Speaker 2: 7:07

Absolutely, and you've touched on it a little bit.

Speaker 3: 7:17

but are there any maybe myths or misconceptions regarding what you do that we could clear up for our listeners? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So I want to say this goes with anything in life A lot of people show fear and things that they do not know or understand. So, as long as you have an open mind to being able to understand or to want to learn how things work in the marketing or advertising side of things I've heard well, I don't pay for my clients, I don't, you know. You know we're talking about either pay-per-click advertising or you know to invest into lead generation. So there's a lot of misconception on that.

Speaker 3: 7:53

Where you know it's, you know to take someone through a journey of what online traffic is right, we want to make sure that we're putting your digital footprint on there, because if you don't do it to even the basic degree, where do you think that the technology in the world is going to be going? If you know? You see what it's done in the last 10 years. So just imagine fast forwarding another 10, 15 years from now and if you haven't established the basic necessities, then you're going to get lost, and there's a lot of businesses that have been around for a very long time that would sit here and say, well, I haven't done any of that for all these years. You have a great, you have a great foundation, but I would always just warn individuals that you know how how people and consumers search these days? Everybody obviously goes. There's no phone books and I haven't found a phone book in a long time. You know what do we?

Speaker 2: 8:47

all use, so let's see my name in a phone book.

Speaker 3: 8:49

I know, I know all of those businesses that start with AAA or yeah. So none of that really, you know, doesn't really matter anymore.

Speaker 2: 9:02

So speaking of that, what do you see trending now in the industry?

Speaker 3: 9:08

Oh boy. So here's a quote that we always like to kind of go by, as the constant in marketing is change. It's always, everything's always forever changing. So things that we learned today, you know, could obviously go out of you know, be expired by the next day. But, as you know an experience, I'm sure, with your own business or businesses that you know algorithms change a lot with social media, right. So we'll just take that.

Speaker 3: 9:37

For instance, I just read an article the other day about Instagram now starting to charge for certain services. This has always been a hot topic for quite some time. Obviously, there's paid advertising, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about you know, there's different categories that now you can start to pay a subscription base in order to enhance your online digital footprint. I'm always a huge advocate.

Speaker 3: 10:09

I love social media as far as being out there to help educate, entertain and inspire, right, and obviously this is what we. It's a tool for a business, right, but I would never advise anyone to keep that in any social platform, as that being their only source of communication with your clients. Ever Growing your email list. It's emails not dead, that's a you know. It's definitely a direct way to be able to reach out to your client or potential clients, but again, that one-on-one communication that you have with your clients, to pick up a phone. You know I feel like that's the odd thing to do these days, but that would obviously make you stand out a lot more than somebody who, just you know, send you an email every few weeks.

Speaker 2: 10:56

Absolutely Make that more of a personal connection. Yeah, so are you from Southwest Florida originally.

Speaker 3: 11:05

Good question. So I was born Long Island, New York. So once my family gets, we, my aunts and uncles, we all together sometimes it comes out. But I say y'all more than than any of them no, but we, uh, my parents moved down here when I was probably three. Uh, they built a house in charlotte county, um, and I moved to bonita springs on 9, 11, wow what was that?

Speaker 3: 11:38

mm-hmm. That was a very memorable day for everyone. Bless all their souls. Then I ended up going to. I've been here ever since, but I attended college here and graduated and had children here, so I'm definitely a lifer to Southwest.

Speaker 2: 12:03

Florida. I was going to say you've seen a lot of change down here, for sure.

Speaker 3: 12:08

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 12:14

So outside of work I know, owning your own business can be demanding and hugging at you all the time, but when you have a moment of free time, what do you enjoy doing?

Speaker 3: 12:21

Oh, my goodness. So I don't know if you've ever seen any of those funny memes like what people think Florida is like and they always just see the beach. I love the beach, I love the beach, I love the water, I love boating, I love fishing, but we also do a lot of hunting down here, obviously not during the summer, but all of us as a family, we'd like to go out to the woods duck hunting. We've done deer, we have hog. I have to show you some pictures.

Speaker 2: 12:51

Wow, they can be mean. They can be mean critters. Yes, yes, very good, very good. I love that.

Speaker 3: 12:58

We'd love to cook. My family loves to cook grill barbecue swim go on hikes, that's a lot of things, right?

Speaker 2: 13:06

Yeah, that's why we live here, because we can do it all. We can do all that stuff. Absolutely so. Is there one thing that you wish our listeners knew about what you do that maybe they're not aware of?

Speaker 3: 13:19

That's a great question. That's a great question. So, reaching out to a life or business coach to help you with your journey? One of the great benefits of hiring a business coach is to be the advocate on your side. Sometimes you don't always have that support system. Uh, through even your, your partner.

Speaker 3: 13:42

You know you have so many things going on in your life, but to have somebody who has a good eye for what it is that you're doing correctly, what it is that you're doing incorrectly, to be a flashlight, to be the shadows of some of the things in your life, to make that ultimate change that you want in order to, you know, bring your two feet forward. You know, sometimes we feel like we're stuck, you know. So whenever you have those feelings, it's all coming up for a reason. I would always encourage you to try to reach out to someone to help you. You'd be very surprised with how much movement you can get within a very short period of time and before you know it.

Speaker 3: 14:18

You know we have those fun celebrations of six months down the road of what we accomplish and then a year from then, and there's nothing more rewarding for me than to see somebody else grow. I tend to get a lot of my happiness by bringing joy to others, and sometimes it looks like you know, relief of clearing a schedule, knowing how to manage your time better, or to you know, sometimes you come in to see me for you know stress with not being able to find an ex-client and you know, a year down the road we've accomplished things that you didn't even think of, like, oh look, we've lost 20 pounds and we've done this and I finally got my new car, and so it's just. It's very rewarding for me to help others accomplish their goals.

Speaker 2: 15:04

Absolutely, and it seems you're very passionate about it and it's great because you're. You're helping people not just personally, but with their, their business side of things, and you're helping them grow and be successful and you know the community around here appreciates it Absolutely. Well, thank you, it's been a pleasure getting to know you. Thank you for being such a good neighbor and I hope to see you out in the community soon. Wait, before I leave. How would our listeners get a hold of you if they had questions or concerns?

Speaker 3: 15:34

All of the ways All of the ways.

Speaker 3: 15:38

If you want to check out what we do in a little bit more detail, you can always visit CohenCreativeDesigns. com that's plural. You can give us a call at the office 239-288-6470. We'd love to give you, you know, have a little chit chat, see what it is that we could do, how we can connect, or all the social media channels. We're all there, We'll find you. Yes, we also do another fun thing called Design your Life Show. It's kind of you know, punny with. That goes along with with what it is that we do. So I also interview others and ask them a series of questions. It's usually the most unique stories that I could find of people that they have a story to share and that's based on trying to help others live a better life, giving them tips and tricks into how to better their life on their own terms. But yes, there's some really awesome individuals that I've interviewed and I encourage you to check that out, and that's the Design your life show from.

Speaker 2: 16:44

Cohen creative designs. I love it. I love it, Christina. Thank you once again and I appreciate your time today.

Speaker 3: 16:50

All right.

Speaker 1: 16:52

Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, to be featured on the show, go to GNPesterocom. That's GNPesterocom, or call 239-296-2621.