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In this episode we talk to Crissy Dastrup who is leveraging her personal brand to help her community. You want tips? Please welcome Senior Art Director Ashley Tebbe who will help you know your UX from your UI.
Transcript
Jeff Randolph:
Welcome to the Small Business Miracles podcast. I am Jeff Randolph. This small business podcast is brought to you by EAG Advertising and Marketing. Yes, we are going to talk about marketing, but our clients are all entrepreneurs. And as you know, entrepreneurs are amazing. They’re visionaries. They move the economy forward. They’re the ones who bring the needed services to the community because they’re the ones who see the opportunity and grab onto it and make it happen. We celebrate that on this show. We give advice, we have tips, and each week we’re going to introduce you to another small business hero and hear their story and grab some inspirational advice along the way. Are you ready? Here we go.
All right. Hey, Ashley Tebbe is with us. Ashley is the senior art director here at EAG Advertising and Marketing, which gives us the ability to talk to somebody who really knows what they’re doing when it comes to design and looking at stuff that’s really pretty. So welcome, Ashley. How are you?
Ashley Tebbe:
Hi Jeff, I’m good.
Jeff Randolph:
Excellent. You walk in and you get exposed to all kinds of crazy websites from clients, from prospective clients. You also do a lot with UX, yes?
Ashley Tebbe:
Yes.
Jeff Randolph:
True.
Ashley Tebbe:
Yes. And UI.
Jeff Randolph:
And UI. So let’s break it down first for a second, like UX and UI. What do we mean when we say these things? If someone hears these letters together, what does it mean?
Ashley Tebbe:
UX is user experience. That is looking at a website or a digital product or any product for that matter with the end user in mind. So you’re thinking logic, you’re thinking, “How will I interact with this? How can I make this seamless? How can I allow for them to convert quickly?” UI is dealing with more of the aesthetics. And so you’re still thinking of the end user, but you’re thinking about how they look at something versus the path.
Jeff Randolph:
Okay. So when you start out and you’re looking at a website like that, are you looking at a checklist of things that you know need to go through? Are you putting yourself in the mind of the lowest common denominator client or viewer that app or website would have? Or what do you do when you first approach that kind of thing? What are you looking at?
Ashley Tebbe:
Well, it depends. First on, if I’m looking at a preexisting website or we’re working on a new web project. With a preexisting website, it tends to feel like a ball of yarn that you’re just slowly trying to unspool so you can figure out the different pieces and parts because if you’re coming into this without having any kind of experience working on this client or project or with the end users, you need to take a minute to unwind the architecture and the way the site’s laid out, and the way the users are currently experiencing it. With a brand new web project, I take a minute to really look at the brief. I really look at who the target market is, the target audience, and see if there’s anything missing from that brief first. Is there any other questions I need to go through? And then I go look at their website or I look at competitor’s websites with that end user in mind and think about what they’re doing and what they’re doing wrong.
And I do this because we work with a variety of clients at EAG. So our end users aren’t all just in a medical space or a manufacturing space, B2B, B2C, they’re all over the board. You could be looking at a variety, variety of ages, demographics. So it’s really important for me to know what else is out there in that space right now to make sure I’m understanding the end user’s perspective.
Jeff Randolph:
And I know that from a client’s point of view, and even us if we’re looking at our own website, we go blind to it. We see that website every single day. We think it’s easy to navigate because we built it. And how often does that happen where someone just has no idea what a brand new person thinks about their website because they’re so close to it, it’s difficult? So you come in at that point and you’re the outsider and you can be the bad guy and you can tell somebody, “Hey, your baby’s really pretty, but in this area it’s really ugly.”
Ashley Tebbe:
Yeah, and it’s less about, “Your baby’s really pretty in this area, it’s really ugly.” It’s more like, “How can we make your baby the best baby it can possibly be?”
Jeff Randolph:
That’s a much better way to put it. Much better way.
Ashley Tebbe:
Yeah, exactly.
Jeff Randolph:
All right. Thank you very much, Ashley, for talking to us. Just a little bit about UX, UI. If you fear that you’ve gone blind to your website and you’re not sure how people will take it in and where people struggle, we’re going to come back with another couple tips on how you might look at that. So thanks so much for being with us, Ashley.
Ashley Tebbe:
Thank you.
Jeff Randolph:
All right, welcome. We have our special guest with us today. It’s Chrissy Dastrup. She is running for City Council. I mean that’s a little daunting. Welcome, first.
Chrissy Dastrup:
Thank you. I’m happy to be here this morning with you drinking some delicious coffee.
Jeff Randolph:
Excellent. Coffee from Cafe Corizon.
Chrissy Dastrup:
Early morning meetings are just the best, aren’t they?
Jeff Randolph:
They really are. They really are. Tell me. So help everybody know a little bit more about you. What are you doing? Who are you? Who are you? Tell us about you.
Chrissy Dastrup:
Oh gosh.
Jeff Randolph:
What have you got going on?
Chrissy Dastrup:
Okay, chapter one. So I am a transplant to Kansas City as of 15 years. I’ve lived all over the country. If you detect a southern drawl, it’s because I was raised in the sticks of Arkansas.
Speaker 1:
All right.
Chrissy Dastrup:
I have two advanced science degrees, but I took a little bit of a pivot, is that the word use on pocket? Pivot?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think so.
Chrissy Dastrup:
I pivoted when I realized I wasn’t as passionate about that as I was about some other things.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha.
Chrissy Dastrup:
I didn’t really know what those things were specifically. Because in southern Arkansas, you can be a nurse or a teacher or a lawyer or a doctor and you don’t know there are any other jobs at all on the planet. Or a logger. You could work at the mill. And so I really had a lot of exploring to do to decide what I was passionate about. And I got involved in just a lot of community work. I served on a lot of different boards from the ballet school board, which is where I met Michelle Markum, the queen bee. And I really just loved that so much. And I kind of was a self-taught graphic designer, creative marketing, had a marketing mind. And so I opened up a marketing business because you know why not?
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, no, I mean, who wouldn’t?
Chrissy Dastrup:
I just thought, “This seems like kind of a catchall,” because I’m also very philosophical. So marketing is everything. Everything is marketing. In this 3D world everything is marketing. And I think that ultimately it was a smart decision because that is just very true. And all of the community work that I’ve done, everything from communications to adequately relaying information, understanding how people think about things, these are all important to all of the community work that I’ve done and obviously very important in politics.
Jeff Randolph:
And politics is you’re selling a product the same as you would if you were any other marketing person. Whether it’s a good or service, you’re selling your ideas, you’re selling you as a candidate.
Chrissy Dastrup:
Ideas are a dime a dozen. But ultimately, the value proposition is that I’m capable of succeeding and implementing. I am strong because this is hard work and some people just fall to the wayside once they realize how hard it is. That I’m honest and this is a true value. So a lot of these themes in political races are just the same themes that any marketer is thinking about when they’re coming up with a campaign for anything.
Jeff Randolph:
So you’ve got a brand position, you’ve got an audience that you appeal to more than the other candidate or that kind of thing. How have you approached the marketing of your own campaign?
Chrissy Dastrup:
I’m so glad you asked that question. So because I have a long marketing background and I actually have worked in politics working on campaigns for some time. And I’ve watched it done a million different ways. And I paid a lot of attention and thought, “What would I do if I ever run for office?” And so ultimately I decided that if I couldn’t be authentically me out running for office that I didn’t want it. And so I took the position of, I’m really going to put myself out there with everything from graphics, messaging, how I roll it out, what components I’m focusing on, what colors I’m using. I don’t know if you’ve seen my pink billboard in the Crossroads. See my pink business card there?
Jeff Randolph:
It is a pink business card.
Chrissy Dastrup:
And you know what? My name is Chrissy, which sounds like a 14-year-old girl, but that is my name. And I wanted something that was very … and I’m a woman and I love pink and I love bright colors. And so I really went in a direction that I think ultimately has set me apart because nobody else is using my colors, believe it or not. And with my photography, I worked with a very talented photographer named Tyler Wirken, and I’ve known him for a long time. And I just said, “Tyler just kind of capture me.” And he’s known for that. That’s his shtick. He does storytelling through video and photo. He’s just incredible. I said, “I want people to feel like they know me from my photos. I don’t want to be in a blazer posed with my head tilted 25 degrees.”
Jeff Randolph:
The chin angled this way, offset shoulders.
Chrissy Dastrup:
Yeah. And I said, “I really just want this to feel like me through and through.” And so that’s been my strategy. We’ll see if it works. The reasoning for that is I think that in any politics, but really, especially in local politics, which a lot of people pay quite a bit attention to local politics because it impacts them in various ways all the time. It is the one we should all be paying attention to. Well, we should pay attention to all of it. And so I really just wanted that authenticity to come through because when you’re asking someone to trust you and that you are who you say you are, and then you put out an image that just seems very canned, just logically, that just didn’t seem like it was going to be a good idea, and so I didn’t do it.
Jeff Randolph:
There’s the personal brand that you bring to your LinkedIn profile. And then there’s the, “Okay, we’re going to take that LinkedIn profile personal brand, and we’re going to scale it up to the nth degree to be a candidate. Was there a lot of scale up or did that authenticity continue through?
Chrissy Dastrup:
What is this LinkedIn you’re talking about? I don’t know if I …
Jeff Randolph:
Oh no, you don’t have a LinkedIn profile. [inaudible 00:11:58].
Chrissy Dastrup:
Oh, I do have a LinkedIn. That’s right.
Jeff Randolph:
You should have a LinkedIn profile, but you don’t.
Chrissy Dastrup:
I do. I do. I do have a LinkedIn profile. So I think that I kind of took my Instagram profile.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, yeah.
Chrissy Dastrup:
Because that’s just who-
Jeff Randolph:
A little more authentic.
Chrissy Dastrup:
It’s where I live on social media. And I thought, I’m just going to, I want people to get to know me. And so if they’re going to social medias, again, the only thing that I created that was new was an official campaign Facebook page, because you have to do that to run ads. But everything else, I just want people to find me where I am because all the content, they’ll see what I’ve been doing for the past 15 years or since 2007 is when I started my social media.
And that’s where I wanted them to go. I didn’t want to have to recreate something like, “Here’s what I want you to see.” I just want them to see who I am, because what I have done over the past 15 years, I’m the founder of Troost Market Collective. We do Troostapalooza every year. We work with creative small business owners, we did the KC Art on the Block Black Lives Matter murals, I worked at the city for two years. I have been in service of my community for a long time. And that’s all found there.
So I would’ve rather had people just find me where I’m at so they can see where I’ve been because I think that when you’re looking at who your leadership is supposed to be, when the assignment is to be a public servant, if you can’t find folks who have been serving their community, it’s going to be a really steep learning curve for them to all of a sudden understand what that means and what that looks like. I just leveraged what I had because I think that that is the value proposition. What I have done and what is important to me, which you can find all over my social media ad nauseum.
Jeff Randolph:
And we’ve talked about Instagram, we’ve talked about Facebook. I think that’s a pretty good opportunity to transition into the lightning round. Here’s how the lightning round works. Lightning round is short answer, soundbite answer, quick answer kind of things. And there is no wrong answer.
Chrissy Dastrup:
I’m going to focus.
Jeff Randolph:
This is just you.
Chrissy Dastrup:
I’m known for my rambling, but this is going to be a challenge. I’m ready. Okay. Hit me.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, we’ll dive in if we need to. If there’s something that’s so shocking, we will definitely do that. \.
Chrissy Dastrup:
Short answers. I want to see if I can do this. Okay, ready?
Jeff Randolph:
Your favorite social media platform?
Chrissy Dastrup:
Oh, Instagram.
Jeff Randolph:
Instagram.
Chrissy Dastrup:
I’m A-D-H-D-A little bit. And a picture tells a thousand words. Instagram is great. I love it.
Jeff Randolph:
What are you posting on your Instagram? What kind of things?
Chrissy Dastrup:
Whatever I’m doing, whatever I’m out doing. I mean, really just things that are important to me. I love local business owners, especially creative business owners. And so I really like to support them and give them place on my social media reach and things like that. Local restaurants. I was over on St. John at a incredible Mexican restaurant and they had the beef cheek and the beef tongue. Los Alamos. And that’s hard to find. And so I was like, “I got to give them some love on social media so people know where you can find this stuff.” So kind of the hidden treasures of Kansas City. And then of course, my kids and my new dog, who’s just the worst. But I love her. But she’s challenging.
Jeff Randolph:
Not there yet. She’s not [inaudible 00:15:24].
Chrissy Dastrup:
Yeah, she’s getting there. Why did I do this when I launched … I’m like, “I’m going to go and run a campaign. This is going to be really hard. What else should I? I’ll get a big giant puppy dog and just …” Ah, choices.
Jeff Randolph:
All right, what businesses inspire you? It could be a brand, could be an individual company, big, small, doesn’t matter. What are you inspired by?
Chrissy Dastrup:
I’m so inspired by people who start their business up against all odds. Sometimes when I’m out in the small business community especially, some people have definite advantages to starting their small business. But I like the folks who have no advantages and do it anyway. There’s a quote by some, I don’t know, philosopher or something. I’m not great with names.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s all right. We’ll look it up in the meantime and we’ll put it up on the screen in our audio only podcast.
Chrissy Dastrup:
Oh, I love that.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s what we’ll do.
Chrissy Dastrup:
So it says something to the effect that the universe favors the courageous implying that there’s an unseen support system for people who dare to have courage. And so I really admire people who take risks and who have a lot of courage despite not having advantages. Those are the folks that I just, it’s easy to get behind and want to cheer them on.
Jeff Randolph:
If there is a small business mantra, I think that may be it. It’s, “Be courageous and go ahead and do it.”
Chrissy Dastrup:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Jeff Randolph:
Let me go with, you’re running a campaign. You’re about to have an election coming up really soon. I’ll say when you win, not if you win. When you win.
Chrissy Dastrup:
Yes. My election is in April. It is April 4th.
Jeff Randolph:
April 4th
Chrissy Dastrup:
Is my primary. So yes, that’s the city’s primary.
Jeff Randolph:
So when you win that, how will you celebrate? How do you celebrate big successes?
Chrissy Dastrup:
Okay. You know what? I have an answer for this. So my good friend, Quez, he owns an entertainment company called Quez Presents. He does Brunch with Quez, a Soirée, which is, it’s like Arsenio Hall meets Wendy Williams at Soirée. It’s amazing. He just launched a new business. It’s a tour bus. But we’re going to turn into a celebration party bus and we are going to bump ’90s hip hop and just drive all over the fourth district and just celebrate that way, I think.
Jeff Randolph:
Yep.
Chrissy Dastrup:
Yeah. So that is what we’re going to do.
Jeff Randolph:
Outstanding. Let’s see, and we’ll close it off with just the one question, and it’s going to be the sound bite. It’s your elevator pitch. It’s the why should people vote for you? Why should they go ahead and get out of bed on that day, go out for the primary, make it happen, and have their voice heard? Why would they vote for you?
Chrissy Dastrup:
Well, you should get out of bed and vote that morning because leadership matters.
Jeff Randolph:
True.
Chrissy Dastrup:
The quality, the heart of your leadership, the work ethic of your leadership absolutely matters. And it might not impact your day-to-Day as much as it does others, but if you care about the people in your community, leadership matters. We need critical mass. Which means multiple people elected that are authentic, have human empathy, have rigorous logic, and are willing to go to work and treat it like a job. Because council people get paid $70,000 a year plus full benefits, plus a $10,000 office budget. That is a full-time job.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s a job.
Chrissy Dastrup:
It’s not residual income, it’s not a side hustle. It’s a job. And the people need you. So please not only vote, but also look at the people who are running and see what they’ve been doing in their communities for the past 10 years and judge accordingly.
Jeff Randolph:
Absolutely. That is inspirational for everything that we should be doing. Get up, make it happen. Chrissy Dastrup, thank you for stopping by. We’re happy to talk to you today. And best of luck on April 4th. April 4th. April 4th.
Chrissy Dastrup:
Thank you. If anyone wants to volunteer, you can go to my website, chrissyforkc.com. I am on social media, Chrissy Dastrup or Chrissy Dastrup for KC on my Facebook page. DM me, reach out. Let’s make this happen.
Jeff Randolph:
I’m checking out the Instagram right now. All right, thank you.
And that is our show. Thanks for listening to the Small Business Miracles podcast. I’d like to thank my guests this week, Chrissy Dastrup. If you’re out and ready to vote, please drop her a line. I think she’d like that. Remember to subscribe. Leave us a five star rating and review. Drop us a line on the website at eagadv.com and if you have some thoughts, let us know. Until then, we’ll be out here helping entrepreneurs with another small business miracle.