Kristen Crowley [00:00:00]: I mean, literally, it happened that quickly that we had an opportunity to host an event for someone else, and it was a retreat, and they went under, they went bankrupt. It was a whole fiasco. And thank God we didn’t get involved further with them, because it was just a horrendous situation, and we were like, we can do this better. We can fill in gaps for women. We know what we’re doing in all of these areas. Why don’t we just combine forces? And I think we actually started the company three months after we met.

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INTRODUCTION

Lesley Logan
Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I’m Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I’ve trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it’s the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It’s a practice, not a perfect. Let’s get started.

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Lesley Logan [00:01:12]:

All right, Be It, babe. Get ready. I got two amazing women on today’s episode for you today, and honestly, I hope that I get to be best friends with them forever and ever. I just really love women in business. I love when women come together and they can see the beauty in each other and they see abundance, and then they put their brains together to make magic happen for other people. And that’s what I hope you get from this episode, is one, inspiration on you have some unique strengths, and really, probably confidence is where you need to be growing in. And how do you do that? Also truly being bold and reaching out to someone that you see something in that you love about them. Oftentimes we put people on a pedestal, we admire them from afar, and we actually never truly reach out.

Lesley Logan [00:02:01]:

And actually, when you do, you a business partner you can up with, a best friend you can end up with. We’ll let you know what Jill calls Kristen, and you could end up with that. And so it’s a really fun interview. These two women just really are incredible at supporting other women in business and their mission on this planet to really help them be able to get into their businesses more and live the life that they want. So enjoy this amazing interview with Jill Bunny and Kristen Crowley. All right, be it, babe. I’m so excited to finally be chatting with our guests today. The world is a really small, small, connected place, and these two women have been people I’ve been following for some time.

Lesley Logan [00:02:40]:

They’ve been following me, and then someone’s like, hey, they should be on your podcast. And we’re all like, we already follow each other. How did we not do this already? So I’m so excited to have Jill Bunny and Kristen Crowley here from Reframe to talk about all the things you can do to shine and show your uniqueness off. So ladies, can you tell everyone who you are and what you do?

Kristen Crowley [00:02:58]:

I’ll let Jill go first.

Jill Bunny [00:03:00]:

So just like you said, my name is Jill Bunny and obviously if this was Visual, everyone would see my little assistant that’s on my lap. Rusty.

Lesley Logan [00:03:08]:

Oh, the YouTubers are. (Jill: absolutely so for)

Jill Bunny [00:03:11]:

All the YouTubers podcasters, I’m sorry but Rusty will say hi. (Lesley: Oh my God), he is my little assistant.

Kristen Crowley [00:03:17]:

I love it.

Jill Bunny [00:03:17]:

I am a dog mom (Lesley:Yes) by all accounts. So I live in Canada and I am a business consultant with Kristen for reFRAME Your Brand. And I also run a clinical practice as a psychotherapist and an author and an ex-retired athlete. Literally, I do all the things with Kristen and we have a lot of fun just to keep it a little short and sweet.

Lesley Logan [00:03:40]:

I love it. I’ve got three dogs somewhere around here, so I feel you. And also I think that’s really cool. I’m sure as the psychology part of you, it really comes into play when it comes into business stuff.

Jill Bunny [00:03:53]:

It is a little secret weapon that can be very helpful.

Lesley Logan [00:03:57]:

Kristen, what about you?

Kristen Crowley [00:03:59]:

I’m Kristen Crowley. I live in Virginia, Virginia beach area. Here on the east coast. Grew up in Michigan, horse farm girl. Went into visual merchandising, went into television, spent twelve years as a TV news anchor. Finally got out of that because it was absolutely draining. Took every ounce of my well being away from me. I was connected by the universe with Jill as I was moving into media and PR for women in Fitness and reFRAME was born and we’re kind know utilizing our backgrounds to help women in different industries grow their brand the way that we would have wanted, been helped a long time ago.

Kristen Crowley [00:04:36]:

And now we’re just living our best lives. We have a lot of margaritas, we do a lot of photo shoots and we have a lot of fun.

Lesley Logan [00:04:43]:

I’m in on all of those things. Yes, all of them. The margaritas, the photo shoots, the laughter. I’m in. So you know, Kristen, when I lived in L.A. and I was in retail, I actually had the pleasure of working with several of the local news anchors as far as their jewelry goes and holy freaking moly, the hours are terrible, the pay is shit. And they expect you to show up bright eyed, bushy tail at I don’t know, 03:30 a.m. (Kristen: Yeah.) And then you have to somehow get people’s points across in less than 7 seconds, in under two minutes.

Lesley Logan [00:05:17]:

So I feel like do you think that all of that kind of primed and ready do to help other people see the point of their business? In a small snippet, ask Jill how.

Kristen Crowley [00:05:28]:

I am when it comes to time and planning I’m a drill sergeant. I think that there are some things that people should probably experience in life, obviously working in retail, working in the restaurant business, and then trying to do live television. And since I’ve done all three of those things, it really primes you for dealing with any situation whatsoever. Which I think as women in business in general, we have to roll with literally everything thrown at us. And most of the time we’re not allowed to look like we’re failing. So those things helped me a lot. And yeah, I had horrible hours. I was up at 03:00 a.m., I had to be at work by 330 in the morning.

Kristen Crowley [00:06:08]:

I was at work till 01:00 p.m. I had two small children pregnant on air both times, didn’t sleep for twelve years. And I was on the same morning show for all twelve years. So I never changed schedule. I think that’s funny that a lot of people that you dealt with it because you saw probably the behind the camera side of it, which a lot of people don’t get to see. And it is literally the worst pay on the planet. I don’t know how people think it’s so glamorous because it’s so (Lesley: yeah, yeah.)

Lesley Logan [00:06:35]:

I will have a little side story and then I want to hear how you two do all that. I’ve been on KTLA during the pandemic, channel five. I had moved and I was like, do you need to know that I don’t live in L.A. anymore? Because it was all virtual at the time. But then I was on the local news here and the person who booked it had told me it was going to be like, they’re filming it to edit for tomorrow’s show. So I was like, okay, no problem. Easy going, it’ll be good to go. And then we’re there, I’m all mic’d up and they’re like, okay, we’re live in three. And I was like, three we’re live.

Lesley Logan [00:07:10]:

And so it was all live. It was four minutes. It’s amazing. Like, I got my four minutes, I was awesome. But when it was over, I was like, holy fuck. I would have liked to have known it was live before.

Kristen Crowley [00:07:22]:

That is very true for all media because they just throw shit at you without telling you a lot of times. That’s why when we were probably the best way for some people, it is to throw them. I threw Jill on air for her first time ever when we first met. And we’ll go through how we met, but it was hysterical because I was like, you really have no choice. Then, you know, we try and make people laugh and that’s why we created like when we started helping people with PR and media stuff, I was like, these are the very specific questions you need to ask before you show up somewhere. Because if you don’t know you’re going to do whatever they tell you, you’re at the mercy of them at that point and we don’t that so and I told Jill, I think Jill our best advice when things start going wrong on air, you just start taking your clothes off.

Jill Bunny [00:08:05]:

Absolutely. Yeah. Naked news. Everyone’s seen that.

Lesley Logan [00:08:10]:

I mean, it is live. So, okay, you two don’t live in the same place. Like somehow your world had to collide and then you guys both were like, yeah, we should work together. Which I think that’s a whole journey itself. So can you tell us a little bit how you met and what were the things that made you go, yeah, we should partner up on these things.

Jill Bunny [00:08:29]:

I”ll start. So back in the day I used to do some modeling, may have seen me on a few covers, had blonde hair back then and my recent cover with Strong after going through a cancer scare and going through cancer treatment with my thyroid. So I got on the cover explaining that. Kristen subscribed to that magazine and read my story and was going through something similar and reached out on good old instagram. She legit slid into my DMs.

Lesley Logan [00:08:57]:

I love it.

Jill Bunny [00:08:57]:

It happened. It happens. Legit relationships can happen sometimes through DMs. Not always, but it really worked out in our favor. So we chatted. Then nothing came about. And then at the same time serendipity we have to be in Arizona at the same time for two separate things. And when we realized that we said, you know what, let’s go to Starbucks, let’s grab a coffee and chat.

Jill Bunny [00:09:20]:

And we just knew meeting there and sitting together, that there was just some spark and that’s why from that moment we literally call ourselves our non sexual life partners. Like, she’s my girl. She’s my girl. And she was running a welfare social so she runs events. And I said, I’m going. I’m going to be there. I’m going to fly to Virginia. I’m going to stay with you and it’s going to happen.

Jill Bunny [00:09:42]:

And most people that know me, when I say something, I will do it. And so I went down to see Kristen, and lo and behold, there became an opportunity from that where reFRAME actually began.

Kristen Crowley [00:09:55]:

(Lesley: That’s so cool.) We were literally in hotels across the street from each other in Arizona, and I mean, from two totally different sides, two different countries, and we were in literally on the same side of the street. Like we were right there. So we met in the Starbucks was actually in the middle and when yeah, Jill, now you left out the best part was like when we were talking impressions are everything online. So you do see these people’s perfect brands and these perfect all these scenarios and Jill was she was a cover model. She had won all these titles. She was like in my sense of just kind of getting into fitness. I was like, wow, she’s done it all. This is amazing.

Kristen Crowley [00:10:32]:

She’s probably a complete stuck up bitch and is going to be so proper and so like I can’t eat anything. I’m going to just have my coffee and a piece of broccoli. I had this whole thing in my head. (Jill: Judger.) Yeah, totally judging her. Totally. And I was honest about it when we met. But when she sat down and we were having this conversation about the events I was creating because after twelve years news again, like she said, my health failed, I had to get out of it. So I was doing those events to kind of do some community stuff here locally.

Kristen Crowley [00:11:01]:

And she’s like, I’m coming to your house. And I was like, okay, you want to speak? And she’s like, no, I’m going to stay. This is the first time we’ve literally met. Like we’ve had two DM sentences to each other. That’s really it.

Jill Bunny [00:11:15]:

She’s like, fuck, I’m staying with you.

Kristen Crowley [00:11:17]:

And I was like, okay. And she’s like, okay. And then I mean literally it happened that quickly that we had an opportunity to host an event for someone else and it was a retreat and they went under, they went bankrupt. It was a whole fiasco. And thank God we didn’t get involved further with them because it was just a horrendous situation and we were like, we can do this better. We can fill in gaps for women. We know what we’re doing in all of these areas. Why don’t we just combine forces? And I think we actually started the company three months after we met.

Lesley Logan [00:11:50]:

Cool.

Jill Bunny [00:11:50]:

It was three months after we met.

Kristen Crowley [00:11:52]:

Yeah, I think it was three months and then by that next year we had already had an entire plan. We were going to do all these things and then COVID hit and we had to reframe what we were doing and we had to literally named the company. Not knowing that that was going to become like the antithesis of everything we did for the next two years.

Jill Bunny [00:12:10]:

Yeah, it was the neatest thing. And that’s what I say to all viewers, where you never know where a door is going to open. Right. So Kristen and TV and then myself and health and wellness and more clinical practice would I have ever thought we’d be running a business for businesses right? When we’re in that we think we can’t be business coaches and some business coaches should never be that. And then we sat there and thought wow, like never had I expected this to happen. But we knew our strengths and what we could deliver. And being in TV and then obviously modeling since I was twelve, it became a no brainer. And then we thought, we both know how to run business.

Jill Bunny [00:12:48]:

And what’s the missing piece? It’s that businesses do not have group photos and connection photos and can speak to their actual clients. And we knew that. Let’s set up a retreat and get all like minded women together and create all the content they need for an entire year so they can actually spend time in their business instead of taking stupid photos with photographers that have no idea when it comes to business or branding and just want your clothes off. Yeah, we just knew this is what the missing piece was and we have a blast doing it.

Lesley Logan [00:13:17]:

Yes, I was extremely lucky to have been in a business group where the photographer of the event was also in a business group getting business coaching. And so I happen to have someone who’s amazing and has put together things like this. So I’m lucky in that way. But I know it’s so hard. Whenever we coach people on doing photos, I’m like, There are photo shoots. I’m like, yeah, you have to have people in these photos. It cannot be a picture of an empty studio. No one wants to go to an empty studio.

Lesley Logan [00:13:40]:

It looks like no one goes there. But it’s so hard to get that content. And then you’re like, okay, today I need a photo. So I guess I’ll do a selfie. Which, by the way, they’re back. You can do those again at the time we’re recording these occasionally. However, it’s so hard.

Lesley Logan [00:13:55]:

So I love that you’re like, we’re going to put together something that allows people to connect and then also solves a problem that they all have and they can leave here. So I think this is so cool. Obviously, you couldn’t do it right away because of the pandemic, or you had to get real creative with where it was and how many people were there. But how did you get people to even trust to come? Because the first event is, I think, the hardest because there’s so many moving parts. I mean, obviously with all your skill sets of events and business, you know how to run a show, but you have to get the people there. What was that like to get those first ones there?

Jill Bunny [00:14:29]:

Well, I would say luckily, we came from two different backgrounds and we had the people to begin with from our own businesses.

Lesley Logan [00:14:37]:

Got it.

Jill Bunny [00:14:38]:

So that became much easier than starting fresh. And knowing us, we actually had credit to begin with. And that time with COVID actually helped us immensely because we could build more and more credit and we just gave value that entire time, what we gave people to come in. We knew that we just needed to keep people, keep them sane as much as possible. And then when things opened up, we knew that we had them. So that was our long term strategy, where we weren’t taking money. We just said, we’re going to invest in and everything happens for a reason. So we’re just lucky that we had people to begin with.

Jill Bunny [00:15:12]:

I’ll be honest on here.

Lesley Logan [00:15:13]:

Yeah, no, but I think actually that honesty is so I hope you all heard this. They already had credibility in their existing businesses before you put together something like this, because a lot of people because we run retreats. We have a lot of people who are like, I’m going to run a retreat and it’s going to be here. And I’m like, so you’re going to run your first retreat internationally and have you ever ran one, but have you been to one before? Can I just suggest it’s like a two hour drive away for that first one. Just make sure people are interested because there’s such big investments of time, energy and money. If you don’t have that credibility already built up, it can be really tricky and you almost need more people who could say yes than will. I actually appreciate you being honest about that because what people might see is like or hear is like, oh, they met three months later, they had a retreat. Boom.

Lesley Logan [00:16:05]:

It’s the accumulation of your entire business existence together combined.

Kristen Crowley [00:16:10]:

Yeah, we’ve been I mean, again and what you see on social media is such a small piece of most people’s puzzles. So you have to look into or ask legitimate questions and do your research about people that you’re working with or building with. I’ve had other companies. I’ve obviously opened retail stores. I’ve opened and designed restaurants. There’s a lot more that I have done in my professional career. My husband, we own a construction company. There’s other things that are happening behind the scenes that I don’t show anything about.

Kristen Crowley [00:16:42]:

I have kids. I don’t really talk about them much. There’s other things that lead to my skill set of being able to do these things properly. And Jill had a background, I mean, sports and travel. And there was so many things that went into this puzzle. And when she says give value, I mean, we had a plan. And I think a lot of people need to realize that when you’re starting out, everybody makes it look so easy nowadays that you’re going to just make money in that first three to six months to a year. We knew we were not going to make any money for at least a year, if not two, because we had to keep filtering back in building the infrastructure, building the foundation, and getting to a point where we knew what our percentages and our costs would be because we created something in a space.

Kristen Crowley [00:17:26]:

We are the only people who do what we do in the world. Like, there is no one who runs event like us. And so it was new territory. So we took all that time to educate, give value, start creating things. But we also had reputations prior of being extremely hardworking, extremely honest, extremely reliable, and you have to be still a professional and show up as a professional online. You can’t just say, oh, I’m going to wing it and do these things and do these sales tactics and then I’m going to make all this money. Then you’re going to piss people off and your business is going to last a year and then you’re done.

Lesley Logan [00:18:02]:

Or also you think that, okay, I do all these things and I’ll make money. And just because those sales tactics worked for somebody doesn’t mean they’ll work for you, especially if you don’t have the people yet. I’m so appreciative of you guys actually just sharing that behind the scenes. We knew we weren’t going to make money for at least the first year or two, and also that you highlighted the strengths that you have. So that is something I find does not come naturally for most women that listen to this show. When I talk to most people, I’m like, I’m like, you are the only person who can do what you do the way that you do it. You’re it. When I ask them, let’s talk about your uniquenesses, they literally that’s a shutdown.

Lesley Logan [00:18:43]:

That’s a question. Why do you think it is that women have a hard time? Because you’re like, I did this and I did this and I did this. Was that something come naturally to you? Did you get coaching around it? How come and maybe Jill can speak to this because she’s a psychotherapist. How come so many people have a hard time going, actually, I’m really fucking great at these three things, and I have experience in them. What’s the block?

Jill Bunny [00:19:02]:

Yeah. So I would say if you were in a room with very high end business, whether they’re women or men, they’ll be like, I’m great at this. I have this strength. And they know it, and they own it because that’s just them. It’s exactly like an athlete that they’ve done the work. They put it in. They put in the time. You can’t just be like, show up like, I never spoke before.

Jill Bunny [00:19:26]:

Now I own a business. Like I’m a business owner. No, you’re not. You got an LLC. You got a company. But there comes confidence over time, and you have to practice, practice, practice. But a lot of the time, people coming into a business for the first time, that’s not what they’ve grown up with. Maybe their parents aren’t business owners, right? So maybe they have like my parents are teachers.

Jill Bunny [00:19:45]:

They literally bred two entrepreneurs, which is completely opposite of what they’re used to. Right? So this becomes like traditional family values. Where do they grow up in? And a lot of the time, for females, it’s not known to be like, I’m great at this. I do well at this. Because it looks like we are being cocky. No, it’s confidence, but if it’s in any other sector, you’d look cocky. But in business, if you talk to other business people, spot on. I would hire you in a second, because that’s what I need.

Jill Bunny [00:20:12]:

And that’s what women have to do, is put in the reps, put in the time, and be proud of what you’re good at, because that’s business. It’s like an athlete doing a layup in basketball and saying, yeah, I’m shit at doing a layup in basketball. I’m terrible. I shouldn’t do this. No athlete would ever say that. You’d be like, what the hell? Team member? I don’t want to put you on the course. That’s what you’re saying. I need confidence.

Jill Bunny [00:20:31]:

We take that same aspect into business, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Kristen Crowley [00:20:35]:

Yeah, I think that environment chat is important because maybe you didn’t grow up with it, but you can choose to surround yourself with it in your adult life. So, I mean, I grew up with the opposite of a mom who was an entrepreneur, always owned her own horse farm. She was a real estate agent. She trained horses. So everything was her business my entire life. She’s always been self employed, and I didn’t really go into entrepreneurship until I’m like, 40, so I had witnessed it and helped everybody else build everything, but she was kind of disappointed in me that I didn’t branch out more in those areas. But she was also very cocky and confident in herself. So I didn’t have a problem with it once I got into my late 20s.

Kristen Crowley [00:21:19]:

But until then, yeah. I think we all struggle with saying what we’re good at because we don’t want to stand out or be judged. But if you don’t have that in your life prior and you’re really desiring it now, you have to find the right people, online coaches, circles, whatever it may be, that are going to force you to level up to that. Because really, you can’t blame your past saying, I wasn’t hugged enough as a child. Okay, well, you know what? Go out there now. Do the work for yourself and make it better. It is a conscious effort, and I think that’s where we see a lot of people that are really going to make it or they’re really not. And it’s okay to not be an entrepreneur.

Kristen Crowley [00:21:59]:

I think we hear it all the time because it’s a buzzword now. You don’t have to do that. I didn’t do that for my first three careers, and I was perfectly happy, and I learned a ton by watching these amazing people build amazing things, and then I got the experience that way. So there’s a ton of ways to do it, but I think create your circle, like, make your circle level you up, or you are going to stay the same.

Jill Bunny [00:22:23]:

And get people that will scare the shit out of you.

Kristen Crowley [00:22:26]:

Yeah.

Lesley Logan [00:22:26]:

Yes.

Jill Bunny [00:22:27]:

Legit. And then that’s what you want. You got to get outside of your comfort zone. I’ll always say that. And you get people you’re like, whoa. And I always say in a business, there’s like, top chairs and they’re the people that create franchises. They’re nuts. That is not me.

Jill Bunny [00:22:41]:

And I will fully admit that that is next level, very hard to come by. But there’s a lot of second chairs and third chairs that come in that might have a business where there’s not that ton of overhead, or there’s linchpins that say, hey, I love what you’re doing. I can’t be the person that kind of owns that and takes out all the risk, but I’m there 100% to help you. So there’s a lot of different ways to look at businesses, and that’s where someone should look at their strengths and really see how they fit in. And I always say, take a risk, but have great people on your side and people that are honest that will tell you what you might not want to hear. Because in business, there’s no room for cheerleaders. Therapy is different. Like, go to therapy for your personal shit.

Jill Bunny [00:23:20]:

But when it comes to business, that’s totally separate. It should be cut off.

Lesley Logan [00:23:24]:

Yeah, and that’s the hardest part because it’s so easy, especially if what you do. So as Pilates instructor I coach mostly Pilates instructors, but other fitness instructors. And so there’s a lot of unfortunately, they feel like their personal stuff blends into their business a lot because they believe they’re a representation of what’s that they do, which we all know as women age. As hormones go, there’s a lot of things you can’t change about your body. So I think they put a lot of pressure on themselves to look a certain way to feel like they’re doing these things. And I think that that can get really muddled and messed up. And it’s actually like, really people actually care how you make them feel. They care about the results you get them, and they care that you’re confident that you can get them those things so they can trust you because they’re not going to trust someone who doesn’t feel confident in what it is that they’re offering.

Lesley Logan [00:24:13]:

I think that’s really where it is. And it can be hard, especially when you’re in an environment where it’s a service-based business, so your client says something to you that triggers you in some way, and then all of a sudden you’re like, I’m not good at this whole business thing. And it’s like, whoa, they just challenged your cancellation policy. Let’s just take a moment. You need to go see your therapist about your scarcity and your worry of losing your home. This is like real business. Like, Nordstrom’s does not care if people are pissed that they’re not open at 10:00 a.m., they don’t care. They might consider, but they’re like, I’m not going to put that in because it’s a business decision.

Lesley Logan [00:24:49]:

So I think that that’s the hard part about what is it like, if you want to learn about yourself, like own a business, you’ll learn all the things you have to work on.

Jill Bunny [00:25:00]:

Yep.

Kristen Crowley [00:25:01]:

And we talked about that actually yesterday, Jill, when I was saying in your traits, like whatever your best traits are in business are typically the most detrimental traits in your personal life because all of us are hard charging, very high achieving, and I ran myself literally into the ground. I mean, I never had less than two to six jobs at a time from the time I was 15 until I was 40, and that was with kids. I still was bartending on the weekends, plus doing the news full time, plus children, plus training for fitness stuff. It was like, how much more crap could I get into a day to make myself look like I was successful? And I got to that point where and Jill kind of went through that journey with me because it was the end, I think, when we met, that was October, my last day in TV news was the end of August. And letting go of that was probably the hardest thing I had ever done, because in people’s impressions, it made me look very successful, intelligent, kind of breaking barriers for women in the industries that we’re in, thinking, oh, she’s not going to be able to achieve that. She’s not smart. She’s wearing if she has big boobs, she’s not smart enough to do this.

Kristen Crowley [00:26:11]:

Like those kind of misconceptions. And I had to let go of that. And she went through a lot of that with me, which was extremely helpful to have, especially during COVID as well of us being we were together every day online. And women that we even coach and work with, we do see that they have to learn to let go of some of the vanity, or the we say vanity metrics online, vanity metrics in life, too, because you’re trying to look good. Like you just said, some of your ladies, they want to look a certain way. That isn’t what the goal is. And all of that comes with age and time. We get better as we get older, so it’s never too late to start those processes because, I mean, (Jill Bunny: Absolutely.)

Kristen Crowley [00:26:55]:

Again, it’s like in your 40s, are you really going to start a bit?

Jill Bunny [00:26:58]:

Yeah.

Kristen Crowley [00:26:59]:

In your 50s, in your 60s, you can start businesses every decade of your life and it’s not going to change the outcome. You’re actually going to get better at it. That fear. I think we can learn to let go of a little bit, seeing it online more and more as people are being more honest about it, which is a good thing.

Lesley Logan [00:27:17]:

Yeah, I agree. I think the umbrella of vanity is something that can be very distracting or can make you think you’re doing a really good job when you’re not. When you’re like, oh, I’m getting all these likes on these things, but that doesn’t equal money.

Jill Bunny [00:27:35]:

Numbers never lie.

Kristen Crowley [00:27:36]:

Numbers never lie.

Lesley Logan [00:27:37]:

That doesn’t equal that they actually went and clicked your bio and went to the next thing. So we can get caught up in searching for these metrics, these vanity metrics that make us feel like we have a business when we actually don’t yet. I actually want to know the journey of bringing both your strengths together and starting this business. What were the conversations like? And you don’t have to tell me everything, but we have a lot of people who listen. Like, I want to partner with this person. I want to partner with this. Obviously there’s pros and cons to everything, but what were some of the things you guys made sure to talk about so that you guys could partner up? Because it’s like a marriage. You just got married to someone you met on Instagram.

Jill Bunny [00:28:17]:

Non sexual life partners.

Kristen Crowley [00:28:18]:

Non sexual life partner NSLPs.

Lesley Logan [00:28:21]:

That’s what we are.

Jill Bunny [00:28:22]:

So I would say the first again, if there’s a hesitation in mind, you know, where you know, you’re closing the door because we’ve kind of been there. It’s like, oh, I have an irk. We know if it’s the right irk or just nervous irk. But I would say the first conversation, it has to be about money. Like straight up business is money. So a conversation has to be made of how is this going to look and where are each of our finances personally so we know what we’re doing coming into this business, right? So some people will be like, this is everything. They might have a second business. So it has to look at what are the hours you can put in and then how are we going to be looking at the money? Are we going to be putting our own personal money in? That’s really how it has to look if you’re bringing more than one person into the equation.

Jill Bunny [00:29:09]:

So it would be sitting down even with a third person involved, asking questions, writing it all down, thinking back again and coming in. Because at the end of the day, everybody has to be on the same page. Otherwise that is what really breaks up a relationship. Like whether it’s a marriage, obviously it’s finances half the time. It’s no different in business. (Kristen Crowley: Yeah.)

Kristen Crowley [00:29:31]:

And we had, I mean, very clear. And it’s funny because when people see us together and we’ve gotten more obviously used to each other over the years, so literally we go on stage and it’s like an anchor team. Like, I start one thing, she finishes it. Our brains are pretty much the same when it comes to how we serve people, our moral standings, our moral compass. We’re the same person that way. Outside of that, I’m the creative bubble that likes to design and build and do all these things. And Jill is very analytical and she likes to do her research and she likes to read and she’s the spelling Nazi, so she’ll go through that stuff. So we have very distinct left and right brain traits that balance each other out.

Kristen Crowley [00:30:17]:

So if there’s something but if one of us can’t be there, both of us are fully capable of doing all the tasks. So we built literally everything together. I mean, we went through we built Kajabi together with our horses. We built, you know, Canva, Jill’s learned more editing and design stuff. I’ve learned more on the planning so we balance each other out. So I think if you’re looking for a strategic partner, you have to have the same moral compass, you have to have the same goals, and you have to have the same mindset around money, because money changes people in general, and we are very much the same and we love nice things, of course, we all do. We love nice things. We like nice vacations, but we are not attached to them, so we aren’t afraid to fail because we have things in place in our lives. We’re both have been through the wringer with our own companies, so we have other things to do.

Kristen Crowley [00:31:13]:

And we made a conscious effort. We just said, we’re going to do this, we’re going to pour everything into this, this and this for these next few years. We’re not going to take money out this first year. We’re going to actually keep this going and we just know where we’re going with it and what it will turn into. Because you have to have a plan past that first two years. You have to have five years, you have to have ten years. And if you’re going to exit, you have to have an exit strategy at that point.

Kristen Crowley [00:31:40]:

It doesn’t matter if you’re a personal trainer or a coach, you still have a business because you are a brand. Your brand is a business, and you have to treat yourself like a business, and that includes the people you work with. So as Jill said it, you feel them like, not wanting to do things or I mean, that’s a big red flag to not even dive in that direction just because you’re craving someone to be there to help you. Like, that’s the wrong reason to get a partner. You should be able to do it yourself. That person is going to force you to level up and keep you on track.

Lesley Logan [00:32:14]:

I love this because I think business and marriage is very similar. And also it’s like you shouldn’t be marrying someone to complete the skill sets that you don’t have. You can do life alone and you can proudly be single for the rest of your life and it’s fine. Who cares what the media might make you think? But going into business with someone shouldn’t be because like, oh, my God, I can’t make this on my own. It should be like, oh, we together are so badass. What we can create together, we’re already creating stuff on our own. We can create this thing together. That’s even more impactful.

Lesley Logan [00:32:48]:

I think that’s a really cool thing to say. And also, I love that you brought up exit strategy. I think that’s the thing that no one thinks about, whether they’re working for themselves or they’re partnering up, you do have to think about how do you want this to wrap up? Is it wrapping up because you’re selling it? Is it wrapping up because you’re retiring? What is that going to look like? Because it kind of allows you to make better decisions moving forward. But also, especially with partnerships, it allows everyone to know how someone could leave and if that’s possible. Not that that’s something you guys want, but you never know. You just don’t know how life can happen and you don’t want as you said, money changes people. It just can complicate conversations if you don’t have communication at the front. So I love that you guys share that.

Lesley Logan [00:33:31]:

You guys really communicated around what those goals were, what people were doing. And it sounds like you keep communicating that and that’s where things break down when people don’t have the time to do that.

Kristen Crowley [00:33:41]:

Yeah, 100%. We’re pretty open about it as far as helping our people when we’re working with them on plans for those type of things. I never in a million years thought I would have a business partner. That was not me. Again, I’m very independent. I’m an only child. I’ve done everything.

Jill Bunny [00:33:59]:

Really.

Kristen Crowley [00:34:00]:

Yeah, I’m very independent and even my family, like, I moved away the day I was 18. I was gone. Full mortgage, car, houses, everything. I didn’t want anybody to help me with shit. Like, you’re not going to help me. I can do it all myself. And it took me finding the right person. That’s pretty much it.

Kristen Crowley [00:34:21]:

You can go through life and never find that person and that’s fine. But I was lucky enough that I did find the person who could help me build something that I knew that I could have. Someone who just had my back.

Lesley Logan [00:34:35]:

I love that basically, it’s like the universe had to show you that you’re really awesome, great job. But also you can be really great with someone else. Here’s someone else. Like, wake up. We’re going to put this person on a cover of a magazine to make sure that you find them. I feel very similar.

Jill Bunny [00:34:48]:

Strong magazine.

Lesley Logan [00:34:49]:

Yeah.

Kristen Crowley [00:34:50]:

Thanks, Strong.

Lesley Logan [00:34:51]:

We love you. Love them. They’re so great. My husband and I got together, we were, like trying out dating and I broke my leg. We’d been dating one week and I broke my leg and he had to move in. And he’s like, I’m really good at helping people. I’m like, I am terrible at asking for help. So you’re just going to have to help because I’m not going to ask.

Lesley Logan [00:35:15]:

And it was actually so nice when someone are like, oh, look at that. Someone makes dinner. That’s cool. It just happens. I don’t have to do it myself.

Jill Bunny [00:35:24]:

You should pretend to break your leg tonight so that that’s all made for you.

Lesley Logan [00:35:28]:

People are very like when I, this is like a whole side, but he lived in the Valley, I lived on the west side. And people were like, oh, how did you get a guy to move to the west side? I said, well, I broke my leg. They’re like, okay, I have to break my leg. I’m like, here’s the deal. To be really honest, they could not move. And then you will realize you have a boyfriend who doesn’t care about you enough to live in your space for a bit, and now you have a broken leg, and you have a broken leg. So I would just say maybe just ask if they live on the west side.

Kristen Crowley [00:35:57]:

Yeah, you might want to ask. Don’t get too extreme. I mean, I just married my husband because he’s hot. I mean, that was pretty much dumb.

Jill Bunny [00:36:05]:

Married my husband for the benefits.

Lesley Logan [00:36:06]:

Yeah. Oh, my gosh, ladies, you’re amazing. We’re going to take a brief break. We’re going to find out how people can find you, work with you, go on a reFRAME retreat with you and your Be It action items. Okay, so where obviously Instagram, but where should people follow you, get more information? How do they go on a retreat with you guys?

Kristen Crowley [00:36:28]:

So really it’s easy to find reFRAM Your Brand on everything. So reframeyourbrand.com, @reframeyourbrand on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. We host these retreats throughout the year, so we have destination retreats where you go for several days and get away. We have our one day pop ups, mostly in the Virginia area, and then we actually work with brand businesses and doing corporate retreats for other coaches and companies so we can custom design a brand image retreat for you and your team. And all of that information is right there on our website. So we’re pretty easy to find across all platforms.

Kristen Crowley [00:37:04]:

Personally, everything I have is Kristen Crowley TV and Jill is

Jill Bunny [00:37:06]:

Jill Bunny 2.0.

Lesley Logan [00:37:10]:

I love it.

Jill Bunny [00:37:10]:

Or just Jill Bunny. Easy to find.

Kristen Crowley [00:37:11]:

Pretty easy to search, and she pops up.

Lesley Logan [00:37:14]:

Yeah. Okay. Amazing. I’m already like, we have to go look at when these dates are just now. So if I want to hang out with you guys in real life, is really what I want to do.

Jill Bunny [00:37:23]:

You want Margaritas, don’t you?

Kristen Crowley [00:37:24]:

You want margaritas.

Lesley Logan [00:37:26]:

Yes. Everyone’s like, what would you do if you weren’t teaching pilates? I’m like, I would be a tequila sommelier. And they look at me and I’m like, no, I’m dead serious. I’m trying really hard to change the schedule so that I can go down to Guadalajara and study tequila for, like, six months.

Kristen Crowley [00:37:42]:

I’m really trying to figure this out.

Lesley Logan [00:37:44]:

So stay tuned, everyone. Okay. Be It.Action items. Bold, executable. Hello, Lesley. Intrinsic, targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it. What do you have for us?

Kristen Crowley [00:37:55]:

I think it’s really I mean, find yourself online first. Stop trying to show up like you think everybody else wants you to show up online. Building a brand is about knowing who you are and who you’re serving, and without those base foundations, your entire structure is going to crumble.

Jill Bunny [00:38:12]:

That’s exactly what she answered it.

Kristen Crowley [00:38:15]:

Would you say that you say the same thing?

Jill Bunny [00:38:17]:

Yeah, exactly what it is.

Kristen Crowley [00:38:21]:

It’s a process. Like, stop trying to rush the process. Because the hardest part for action items is trying to do too many of them. And as women, we try and take on so much. So you got to simplify it. If you’re in your own way, find somebody to help you get out of your own damn way.

Jill Bunny [00:38:36]:

We have no quick fix tips for success. That’s our tip. Don’t stop looking for them. And just like Kris said, we got to find ourselves. The only way to do that is take a step back. Unplug from social media. Stop looking at other people trying to get ideas and just sit with yourselves and ask, what is it that I really want from my life? How does that look for business hours? How does that look for me helping people and how can I best serve somebody? What the heck am I damn good at and people could use. That is the first step because then you’re not getting influenced by other people.

Lesley Logan [00:39:09]:

Yeah.

Kristen Crowley [00:39:09]:

And Jill has a really good journal for mindset, so I know she journals every morning. I’m terrible at journaling. So for actual action things people could do, like right now, this week, hers is writing it down.

Lesley Logan [00:39:20]:

Do you have a favorite journal or you just journal?

Jill Bunny [00:39:24]:

I just journal. Yeah. Just a stream of thought.

Lesley Logan [00:39:27]:

Just like what’s coming?

Jill Bunny [00:39:28]:

Literally, I just take a 2.0 and I always say it’s like where we’re currently at is a 1.0. And maybe in business it’s not all bad, but where is it your 2.0? Where do you want to be when it comes to income, comes to who you’re serving? What are the hours like really being strategic. And we do that in our consulting and that’s what I do every single day as I look at the 2.0 business and what is it that I’m going to do today? And that’s an intention. And then each and every hour I look and like, am I matching that 2.0 that I wrote? And usually I’m pretty close, and if not, then I got to check myself and say what went on. Likely saw something on social media, got to tracked it and it took me away from what I was doing. But when we journal and really stay focused in the morning, we’re better off being able to be successful and not just writing it and then going off on our day, like really checking in and looking at that again and again and again. Because otherwise we’re just avoiding what we wrote and then we feel good about ourselves. But we got to be disciplined and focused.

Jill Bunny [00:40:18]:

Business isn’t easy and it’s the mindset that’s really going to get somebody from here to there.

Lesley Logan [00:40:23]:

Yeah, I actually love it. It sounds like your journal is like the be it till you see it for each day for your business, which I like (Jill Bunny: Exactly.) This is really a great direction you got. Ladies, you’re fucking awesome. We’re going to have to have you back. We’re going to figure out and have

Jill Bunny [00:40:36]:

With margaritas next time. Yeah.

Lesley Logan [00:40:38]:

Why don’t you come to Vegas? We’ll do this in person at my Pod room. Yeah. We’ll make margaritas.

Kristen Crowley [00:40:46]:

Jill needs to go to Vegas, so I got married in Vegas, so I go to Vegas all the time and I love Vegas. We will, we will plan it out.

Lesley Logan [00:40:54]:

We’re doing it. We’re making it happen. All right, thank you so much for being here, You all, how are you going to use these tips in your life? Please tag reFRAME Your Brand. Tag Kristen and Jill. Tag the Be It pod. Let us know what your takeaways were. What are you going to take away from this? Are you going to journal, like, in a 2.0 style? We want to hear it.

Lesley Logan [00:41:10]:

And share this with a friend who needs to be reminded that business takes time. Thank you so much and until next time, be it till you see it.

—

Lesley Logan
That’s all I’ve got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate this show and leave a review. And, follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over on IG at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us help others to BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!

—

Lesley Logan
‘Be It Till You See It’ is a production of the ‘Bloom Podcast Network’.

Brad Crowell
It’s written, filmed and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan
It is produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.

Brad Crowell
Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan
Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals and Ximena Velasquez for our transcriptions.

Brad Crowell
Also to Angelina Herico for adding all the content to our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.