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Episode 227 - Image Curation
516 Plays5 months ago
In this episode we have Élevae Visuals Founder Shay Cochrane. This is actually Shay’s second time on our podcast and her husband Graham has also joined us previously as well.
We’re chatting all things Image Curation. We also dive into the impact that quality images have on your business, why quality images are important and ways to streamline the image selection process.
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check ’em out at https://daveyandkrista.com/image-curation-btb-227. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Brands That Book Show
00:00:00
Speaker
You cannot feel the fabric quality of a sheen bathing suit and an Andy swim bathing suit through the internet. All you have to go off of is the image selection.
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You're listening to The Brands That Book Show, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want practical tips and strategies to build engaging brands and craft high converting websites. We're your hosts, Davey and Krista, co-founders of a brand and website design agency specializing in visual brand design and show it websites. You're listening to The Brands That Book Show.
Featuring Shay Cochran of Elevate Visuals
00:00:33
Speaker
Today's podcast guest is Alave Visual's founder, Shay Cochran. This is actually Shay's second time on our podcast and her husband Graham has also joined us previously as well. As a commercial photographer and product stylist, Shay's clients span the globe. Brands like Sugarfina Candy, Pure Fiji, Truffle Bags, and Simplified Planner, just to name a few.
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Powerhouse female entrepreneurs like Jenna Kucher and thousands of others these days know her for her Elevate Visuals membership, formerly known as Social Squares, where she puts years of work as a commercial stylist and photographer into a highly curated stock membership that supplies elevated images and videos for online brands.
00:01:12
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Her vision is to enable more women to find greater success sharing their ideas and businesses of the world. And the most amazing thing about all of this is that she does it just by working 16 hours a week. In this episode, we're chatting all things image curation.
The Power of Curated Images in Business
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We dive into the impact that quality images have on your business, why they're important, and ways to streamline the image selection process. I'm really excited to have chatted with my longtime friend Shay, and I hope that you guys enjoy this episode.
00:01:40
Speaker
Shay, I am so excited to have you joining with me today. Davey has chatted with you on our podcast at least once. I think that your husband Graham has been on at least once too. We've known you guys for a long time and we're chatting about image curation today. And so you are the founder of Elevay, formerly known as Social Squares, and we're big fans of Elevay. And so I'm excited to chat about the changes that you guys have had on like Happen recently and just some of your new offerings that you guys have had.
00:02:09
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Yeah. Well, you and I are both OGs. I mean, you and your husband, me and my husband are all collectively entrepreneurial OGs. We're the OGs now at this point. It's been like 10 years that we've at least been really old when people are like, when did you start your business? And then I'm like thinking, oh my gosh, it was like 14 or 15 years ago. And I still, in my head, I don't feel old enough to have a business battle.
00:02:32
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Same. Same. But it does give us a certain level of street cred because we have been around the block. Like we've been doing this for a long time and it really takes something unique to last that long. And so congrats to you and congrats to me. We're just like a certain amount of craziness. Right? Right? Some grit, just some relentless grit. Yeah.
00:02:58
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Okay, so you've been on the
From Photography to Scalable Stock Images
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podcast before, but those of you who you're new to them, they haven't heard your story. Could you just share about how you started this image curation in the first place or this image service in the first place?
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So we'll only go back as far, like we were saying, I've been entrepreneur for a long time, like almost 18 years, but we'll only go back as far as there was a point in time when I was doing commercial work for some really incredible brands. So I did go from wedding and portrait photography into commercial and product styling. So I was being sent products and I would photograph them for billboards and for signage and for magazines and for websites and for social promotion.
00:03:36
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And that was really fun, but I knew that I was limited by the amount of time that I had. And I think the podcast interview we did with Davey years and years ago was about productizing a service, right? How to go from having a one-to-one service, which is really what that commercial work was, to something that's scalable and accessible for everyone. So it was wonderful to work with companies like Sugarfina and Simplified Planner and Pure Fiji and Truffle Bags and all of these. But for a lot of reasons,
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That type of one to one service work just didn't really work for me anymore in the season of life that I was in with young kids. And then also, like I said, it didn't really feel super scalable, right? You only have so many hours in a day. And I also really love the entrepreneurial community. I just think there's something
00:04:19
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I mean, you and I both kind of came of age in business during a time when women had unique and fresh opportunity to work from home doing work that they love and build online businesses. And that was kind of when my work, that was around the time that the iteration that you're talking about, well, it started as
00:04:38
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SC stock shop. That was actually the original stock image site that I had, right? And then social squares, formerly known as SC stock shop. It's been around for a while, but it was created during a time when there was a lot of women opting to stay home and build businesses, leave corporate, explore their passions, try to make a name in a business for themselves online.
00:05:02
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And they needed imagery to do that. And so it just, it was a, it was good timing and it really filled a need in the marketplace for high volume of imagery needed for digital marketing on Instagram and Pinterest and all the things. So that was what led me to create SC stock shop, which was kind of the first.
00:05:22
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stock image of site of its kind and then we just transition that into membership which was social squares and then social squares just needed to grow up a little bit and grew up got out of its awkward teenage phase and now is elevate visuals but it is essentially the same thing it is a stock image and video membership of highly highly curated images so we're not talking about a stock image membership for the masses we are talking about a very very highly curated
00:05:50
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The same level of imagery that I was delivering to big brands is what's being put in this catalog. And now we add videos. That's probably the only thing that's really, really new from social squares to elevate is that we now have over 300 stock video clips in the membership as well.
00:06:08
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Yeah. And they're beautiful images and beautiful videos. And I feel like the great thing about it is that they just feel on brand for so many creative female business owners. Whereas if you go to something like Pexels, yes, it's all free, but you really have to search to find quality images that just feel weird. So we love working with you guys.
00:06:27
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And there are so many wonderful stock website options now, but they all tend to be a little, they're very stylized in a certain way, which is so wonderful if that does fit your aesthetic. And I think what we've really tried to do and what we've done well is be fairly broad with the aesthetic and who feels represented.
00:06:47
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what type of brand aesthetics feel represented while making sure it's all really really at the same level of elevation so i'm pretty proud about i'm proud of that thanks to just all the amazing contributing photographers that we work with yeah you guys do such a good job with that and see you also recently added a new offering which is curating images can you talk a little bit more about what that is unlike what led to adding that to your offering.
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Yeah. Well, okay.
Influencing Brand Perception through Imagery
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So you have anyone know how valuable image selection is because you've probably seen it with templates where a template can really rise or fall, perform or underperform, whether we're talking Canva templates or website templates, email templates based on image selection. And not everyone is naturally gifted at knowing how to select imagery.
00:07:37
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Yeah. Even like I've heard other designers say that it's really hard to figure out which images look good together and they have like the same aesthetic and they communicate the brand. So it's super challenging. Yeah, it is. And I think, you know, everyone has had the experience of feeling like their market is oversaturated. So they put a lot of work into crafting like well thought out Instagram post or real only to have it fall flat. And like it gets two likes. It's like their mom and their best friend.
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Or they respond to a client inquiry only to be told by the client, like, oh, these rates are too high for me. It's just out of my price range. And what happens? They start to lose their confidence. They start to question whether they're cut out for this. You feel imposter syndrome. You wonder if they might be right. Maybe I don't have anything of value to say. Maybe I am charging too much. And the thread that I think connects these is the perceived value of your brand.
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And I think the main way that we're communicating perceived brand value online, if you are in an online business, is through imagery. It is also through copy. I'm not saying it's the only thing, but we just live in such a visual digital age that the main way your brand value is being communicated in that split second first impression is
00:09:01
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through imagery. So contrast that with, if you know that you have, you're selecting the right images, they are on brand for you. They feel authentic. They are in line with the themes that you're talking about. They're engaging. They're visually interesting and aspirational to your target audience. If all of that's happening, then you're able to show up
00:09:24
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more confidently you're able to show up more consistently because you don't spend all that time on pexels looking you know digging digging digging digging digging trying to find the right images you're able to be confident you're able to be more consistent you're able to show up in a cohesive way that just really instills
00:09:41
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a trust and a respect in your target market. So it makes you more recognizable. The marketplace, I mean, there's just so many different things that attracts a customer who sees the value and expects to pay more for what they're seeing. So an example would be like Sheen bathing suits.
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Okay. Are you familiar with Sheen? Okay. I've seen your ads, but I've never actually done on the website because I know it's like maybe not the best quality. Is that right? It's like $10 bathing suits. Okay. Made under very questionable conditions. And if you look at the photography for these websites, like that's what you would expect. I mean, if you look at the photography relating to the clothing that comes from Sheen.
00:10:21
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You're going to be like, yeah, okay. It's one of those things I spend $10 on. I can't wash it, so it'll fall apart. Now contrast that with imagery from like summer salt swimwear or Andy swim or any of these. I mean, I don't know about you. I'm getting like tons of Instagram ads fed to me right now for swimwear. I get catalogs too that are made with clothes. And I'm like, I don't think I'd ever spend $300 on a bathing suit.
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But the visuals, the photos really are what you can't touch either bathing suit, right? You cannot feel the fabric quality of a sheen bathing suit and an Andy swim bathing suit through the internet. All you have to go off of is the image selection.
00:11:00
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So this is where you just kind of start to get a feel for the value of curation. And so there's ways that we have always built in. We've really tried to do the curation work for you, right? Because here, you mentioned the reality. You go to Pexels or you go to Unsplash. You go to a lot of these stock sites. And on the homepage, like the page you land on is beautiful. And there's so many beautiful images. And then you start looking for what you're looking for. And it all goes
00:11:29
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Very downhill, very quickly. So what we've tried to do is we have an incredible curator on our team. So every image really is like, there's no okay images. Like we really try to make it that every image is a slam dunk.
00:11:45
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and is going to elevate your brand. We also have started to now in the back end of the catalog, when you're searching, you can select to see editor's picks. So that's going to be anything that our curator has like visually said, this is one of my faves. This is the best out of everything that went into the catalog this month. This is what I think you should be paying attention to. We also overhauled the dashboard so that when you're in your member dashboard, it's like opening the most beautiful magazine you've ever seen. It really is like we've done a lot of curation for you.
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seasonal curation, trend curation. So for example, in May right up at the top, you have motherhood images being featured and we've pulled all the motherhood related images together for you. And then you're also going to see like spring florals and you're also going to see spring cleaning and wellness and other themes that are trending in the marketplace. We've already done the work of paying attention to what people are talking about.
00:12:39
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right now, this month, this time of year, and put all of that for you on your dashboard. And then you can also set up curation settings. Now, none of that is what you asked about. That is all the way that we have built in curation. There's lots of ways that we've built in curation. They also can set settings so that they get a custom curated catalog with their brand color and preferences. I mean, that's always been there.
00:13:02
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But the reality is that there are people who are like, I just don't have time for that. You guys have like 7,000, is it 7,000 images? We have over 7,000 images. Yeah, there's a lot in the catalog. And so we try to put the best, most relevant stuff in front of you. But you know, you know your brand, we don't know your brand. So you still have to go back in there and do the work of
00:13:24
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figuring out what you need and making sure that it looks good together. And so the curation concierge service is what you're talking about, which is a new completely done for you
New Service: Curated Brand Imagery
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curation experience. It's a one time thing.
00:13:40
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we do a full brand. I know you're going to ask about this. I'm jumping so way far ahead to what it contains. I'll just stop. Let me just stop so that we could clarify anything, but creation concierge is what you're talking about. It is a done for you service that has so much involved in it. We'll get there, but I'm really excited. That has always, if I could have from day one made it so that we were doing all the work for you,
00:14:05
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so that it's done just perfectly and you don't have to go to anything and you just you automatically get the image you need i would have built it that way i cannot figure out how to make that scalable i'm excited to finally have an offering that's like that so if you're like listen i just don't have time to pick out images or i'm just not good at this then curation concierge is for you.
00:14:27
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That's awesome. How does somebody know if that is a good fit other than they don't have the time? Does it work better for certain types of businesses? What are you seeing so far? We have been working with all kinds of different brands so far. What's beautiful about that is no one knows our catalog like we do. People tend to be pretty literal. One thing we found is that people tend to be pretty literal.
00:14:50
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So, for example, I use a wonderful longtime client of our Susan Soaps. She will go into the catalog. She sells homemade, beautiful artisan soaps. I think that's what you would call it. I don't know. They're wonderful. Okay. So it's all about the ingredients. It's all about the process. It's all about creating a really beautiful, clean product. So if she goes into the catalog and most people are exactly like Susan, they think, okay, I'm going to search soap.
00:15:16
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I'm gonna see what comes up and maybe you know ten soap images come up or maybe fifty soap images come up I don't think we have fifty I think we probably have like you know ten to twenty five soap images and people get a little just stuck in that they have like one or two keywords in their head that apply to their industry when really what they need to be using is imagery about.
00:15:37
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cleaning, about self-care, about wellness, about meditative imagery, about imagery that speaks to the emotions that are being evoked when you know that you're using a clean product, you're doing the best for your family, you're doing the best for your body.
00:15:53
Speaker
imagery that speaks to the ingredients that are used or workmanship or the journey of the business like there's just a lot of conversations that you need to be having with your audience and that your audience wants to have with you and they're not pinhole conversations just about soap and how your soap was made and what are the ingredients.
00:16:09
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Yeah, so the benefit of working with somebody on my team is that we get that and we know what's in the catalog. Like we know as a part of the curation concierge service, we help you to identify a number of keywords to use to search images, a number of categories to use. I mean, we really kind of help steer you.
00:16:27
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We know that no one knows the catalog like us and we know how entrepreneurs tend to think and we can say like, oh, let's like open the window a little bit. Like you think that only this little sliver of imagery is relevant to you, but really this massive sliver of imagery is relevant to you and let us go ahead and sort through it and pick through it and help you know what to choose and then choose for you. Yeah.
00:16:48
Speaker
That is so helpful. Just the other day, I was talking to somebody who is booking us for a custom website project, and he's a builder in Florida, and he's just starting out on his own, and I was asking if he has images, and he's like, well, I have two projects, and so that should give you a lot of house photos. And I was like, yes, but I think we could do beach photos, and scene-setting photos, and landscape photos. Yeah, absolutely. It just makes me feel so much more rounded and more interesting. Textural photos, like close-ups. We have close-ups of velvet chairs and things like that.
00:17:16
Speaker
so many things not just but if you just go to the catalog and type house which is what a lot of people do you know you're gonna you're just gonna miss out on having a really expanded well-rounded brand image base that creates emotion and has you know texture and feel to it yeah and so are you guys pulling like images and videos for them now or like what should they really expect from something like this if they were to work with you
00:17:42
Speaker
So like I said, this is a completely done for you service, but it really is kind of like an installer, like a setup service. So you will do a complete brand review. We're going to look at what you have going on on social media. We're going to look at what you have going on on your website, any other like main online platforms that you're on. We're going to take a look at what you're doing.
00:18:01
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We're going to get from you information like your brand, your color palette, the aesthetics that describe the way that you would describe your brand. And then we're going to go into the catalog and we're going to curate for you a baseline 40 image set for you.
00:18:17
Speaker
So we're gonna say like if we were gonna represent your brand in forty images these are the absolute best images that communicate who you are what you do they're gonna speak to your target audience there in your color palette there an expanded palette. They're gonna cover the categories that we think you need to be covering the keywords we think you need to be covering.
00:18:34
Speaker
So we're going to pull that together for you. So then you have kind of like a brand base, kind of the way you think of your brand imagery that you hire someone out for and they shoot 30 photos of you and those you kind of reuse and reuse. This is kind of the foundation of your visual brand. But then we take it a step further and we put together a specific Instagram visual recipe for you, like put this with this here.
00:18:56
Speaker
Make sure you mix this in thematically, but also visually. We're going to also provide Canva templates for you so that you can show up a little bit more consistently and in a more polished way on Instagram, on Pinterest, on your blog. You can use them in email. We're going to do a review of the images on your website. We might make some recommendations about the images that you're using on your homepage. I mean, I can't tell you. I mean, you see it all the time too. Like when you land on a website and just the hero image falls so flat or isn't good quality.
00:19:26
Speaker
or looks just like a free stock photo from Canva. And you're like, oh, you're probably amazing, but I can't tell because your hero image just is sad. So we're going to do all of that. So it's both setting you up. Also, we go in and preset all of the curation preferences for you. So I told you we have a custom curated gallery in there. But we'll just go ahead and go in. And we're going to set it for you based on the colors and the keywords that we think are going to be best for you.
00:19:56
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We're going to give you all kinds of tools for how to select imagery, all kinds of suggestions, like I said, for keywords, for categories, for vibes, for what to search, like what your key search terms will be. So we're trying to set you up with
00:20:08
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the foundation of your brand visually and then set you up to use the catalog really easily and effortlessly and consistently. We're going to go ahead and load those images into your favorites. So it's all there for you. I mean, we really are trying to both get you create the foundation and then make sure that it's really easy and quick and intuitive for you to
00:20:28
Speaker
select future imagery that you need so i love it i'm probably forgetting things there's so much as a part of curation concierge but i'm just excited to be able to finally do this for people yeah this one's amazing i love that you not only help them like in the moment but you're setting that up for future success
00:20:45
Speaker
And I would imagine that you hear what we probably hear from a lot of people who work with us for branding, and they said that they feel more motivated in their business, yeah, organized and more inspired. And it's also probably so interesting to have that outside perspective too, because we're kind of looking at them and saying like, this is where you are, but this is where you could be. And so I think it's so great that you're offering that.
00:21:06
Speaker
I love that. I love it because it gives people the same way branding does. It gives people the chance to see their most elevated version of themselves, right? It's like the difference between you getting yourself dressed and working with hair and makeup and someone that pulls together the most perfect outfit for you and you just... I feel so good.
00:21:25
Speaker
You feel so good. You're like, this is what's possible. And man, don't entrepreneurs need that? Doesn't the average entrepreneur just need somebody that sees the potential in the brand and can take their external up to the level of the internal, what they're trying to provide, the service or product that they're trying to provide for the world? Just see a match there so that they can be confident. I love everything about it.
00:21:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's amazing. I love it so much that so I have like a few projects running, we started a wellness Airbnb in Tampa, we're doing a podcast, and I'm going to hire my own team. Like even though I am a commercial photographer, and could go in and I know the catalog, even I am like, I'm busy. I don't want to do that. I want my curator's eyes on that. So even I want to hire my
00:22:10
Speaker
own company to go in and do all of that for the wellness brand and do all of that for the family goals podcast. You know, so it's just, it's great to get somebody else's eye and opinion on it. We're going to talk about this in a second. Cause I am so excited about both of those ventures that you're doing now. Okay. So does somebody need to be an L of a member already to take advantage of this concierge service? Or is it something like, if they're like, yes, I want this. I can join right now and get that. Like, how does that process work?
00:22:37
Speaker
you do have to be a member. So if you're not a member, then you'd have to become a member and you can also then upgrade and get the curation concierge service. Because if you're not a member, you don't have access to the catalog. Like half of that is all completely pointless to you because it all takes place within the ecosystem of the backend of the catalog. Okay. So yes, you will want to be an, and it comes with, or it is available to you with the quarterly membership and with the annual membership, but they are two different things.
00:23:06
Speaker
I think we have a link in our show notes too and probably in podcast notes that takes them to a page where they can learn a lot more. They can see the details for that and we'll try to maybe just like put some other stuff on there too that's really helpful for them. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
00:23:19
Speaker
Okay, so your Airbnb, I've seen you working on that. That is amazing.
Wellness-Themed Airbnb & New Ventures
00:23:24
Speaker
You bought this, so for people who don't follow you, you bought this beautiful Airbnb in Tampa and you're making it into a wellness center. I saw you adding like yoga mats. Are you doing like the sauna and the cold plunge? I saw you. I am. I'm doing all the biohacking things.
00:23:39
Speaker
yes so we bought an airbnb that is already on airbnb it's a it's wonderful to beautiful brand new build by the same builder that built our home gorgeous custom home like four bedroom 3500 square feet so it's already beautifully on airbnb you can go stay in it but what i want to do just for fun
00:23:55
Speaker
for funsies is make it like a wellness biohacking Airbnb. So it'll be called Wellness House Tampa. And there's gonna be a sauna and a cold one when I'm all done with it. There's gonna be a sauna, a cold plunge, red light, PEMF, I mean, all the things, all the wellness biohacking modalities that I can get in there. Because I love those things. And the average person just doesn't get the chance to try those things. So I think putting it in a place where you could give it a try.
00:24:22
Speaker
Or if those are already a part of your routines and rhythms, then you can keep that up when you're traveling. Also, the wellness space is really big in Tampa, as you can imagine. It is bikini season all year round here. So fitness and wellness are just very big here, but I have not seen a wellness, like biohacking themed Airbnb. So I'm excited to do that. There's no Instagram account for it yet, but when there will be, it'll be wellness house Tampa.
00:24:48
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder if it's just like the cost of some of those things is so much but yeah, you really love sauna. You would be excited to stay there. I've tried it. I hate like this sweaty and hot.
00:25:00
Speaker
to everything about it, basically. I would rather be in a cold plunge, even though I think that's also really hard because it's like, okay, I just have to be in there for like three minutes. I can set a song and I can do that. But with a sauna, it feels like you have to be in there so long to get the benefits. Oh yeah, it's a whole different thing. You're like, I love sauna except for the sweating and the hot.
00:25:20
Speaker
You just want to go sit in a room temperature box, basically. There's a lot of memes online where the husband wants the house cold, but we're the opposite of my house. I want to be in the mid-60s at night. I want to be shivering at night. It's actually better for you anyway. Yeah, I heard you burn more calories. It's better for metabolism.
00:25:39
Speaker
Yeah baby take that mid sixties and so the other thing your family goals i guess i listen to anything all of your episodes. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about what that is because it's such a great lesson.
00:25:55
Speaker
Sure, you're very kind to ask about that. So that's just like a fun pet project with Graham. We've been wanting to collaborate. Those of you that don't know, my husband Graham Cochran, he's also an entrepreneur, longtime entrepreneur, built multiple businesses. He's also author and a speaker. So we both are entrepreneurial. That's kind of just been our journey. And we've been wanting to collaborate on something for a really long time. We just haven't had the margin to do it.
00:26:19
Speaker
So this year, finally, we had the margin to do it and we started the Family Goals podcast, which is just a really fun, really authentic, but purposeful podcast that is speaking to marriage. We've been married for, we've been together 21 years, married 18 years. So it's speaking to marriage, it's speaking to
00:26:39
Speaker
Parenting we have two daughters not the word we're not parenting experts We have a 14 year old almost 15 year old and a 12 year old, but we do things a little bit differently I think then typical typical culture. So so it's a marriage. It's about family It's a little bit about money management a little bit about entrepreneurship and kind of how those things blend together but the premise of it is that
00:27:00
Speaker
is inviting people to do things differently than status quo. Like just being able to, whether that's doing marriage a little bit differently, doing parenting a little bit differently, maybe it's whether you give your kids a cell phone or whether you let your kids date or what, you know, we're trying to empower people not to do things the way we do it. Really, don't copy what we've done, that's fine. But be empowered to do things differently the way that your family is wired, the way that your family's gonna thrive
00:27:28
Speaker
In accordance with the unique purposes and passions of your family every family is different every situation is different so our hope it's not kind of an instructional do like us it's like do it your own way do it differently be empowered to.
00:27:44
Speaker
Do it differently than maybe everyone else around you is doing it and find a lot of freedom and joy that way So family goals podcast there's you know, just a six or seven episodes out there, but it was really fun We did break the top ten podcasts in the first week for marriage and family So that was a surprise and
Embracing Playfulness in Entrepreneurship
00:28:03
Speaker
a lot of fun
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, we've seen that happen to us before for some of our podcast. It's so good to keep that up though. So yeah, you can't keep it up. It's for a minute. It's just for a minute. It's whatever's being downloaded, but it was fun while it lasted. We beat out like focus on the family. I think there's so much more fun to listen to than some of those. I mean, I don't know. Maybe I like to think so.
00:28:25
Speaker
younger kids. Our kids are a lot younger than yours and so I love just seeing what you guys are doing because you're such an inspiration and I feel like you guys have so much fun together as a family. I feel like we do. Play is just really like great for you and that's something that I struggle with. I feel like I have workaholic tendencies and it's hard for both Davey and I to remember to have fun and play so well it's nothing that
00:28:45
Speaker
It's miraculous that you say that because I would say the same thing. I would say we actually, Graham and I are both very driven as are probably most of the people that are listening to your podcast. We're a very driven household. We're very productivity focused. We're very tasked and it really can suck the joy out of life and out of marriage and out of parenting. So we're on a constant quest to lean into fun and playfulness and what really matters and
00:29:13
Speaker
a more lighthearted approach both to business and to life. So I love that you see that in us. It is only because we are really trying.
00:29:22
Speaker
I mean, you're working hard on playing. You have like a great family vision casting episode at the end. And I'm like, I can't wait till my boys are old enough that we can have this family planning. The two year old would not understand that right now. Nope. We didn't even attempt that until our youngest was 11. And then we did a family vision weekend. But yeah, there's lots of fun stuff on there that will hopefully just
00:29:45
Speaker
get you to think differently and get you curious about what could work for your family and all of it centered around intentionality. Yeah. Thanks for asking. Cool things that you've done. You lived in France for a month in the summer with your kids.
00:30:02
Speaker
yep we like challenge ourselves to both be able to break away from our businesses for a month and live in france we did that a few summers ago we need to do an episode on that sharing how you do that because we also love to travel but it's just hard to visualize like how that could look so i think that would be a cool episode and then did you do like 30 things before you turned no i did 52 new things in a year was that last year
00:30:25
Speaker
I don't know what year it was two years ago, but I challenged myself to try something new every single week for 52 weeks for the whole year. Okay. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, you're right. That would be a really fun episode and to hear the things that you did and what you liked and maybe some of it sounds really fun, but the depth behind that is that I think, I mean, we were talking about the beginning of the episode. We've both been in business for so long.
00:30:52
Speaker
doing variations of the same thing, right? Like you and I both have stayed in our same industry, in our same wheelhouse for a very long time. And so in order to force your brain to think with creativity and outside the box and with fresh perspective, you really do have to kind of shock your system a little bit.
00:31:11
Speaker
And if you're very productivity and to-do driven, you're not really going to make a lot of time for that in your day. And so that was just kind of a personal challenge for me to kind of just wake myself up a little bit on the inside and experience life in a little more rich and full of a way so that I'm not just checking off a to-do list that I've been, the same to-do list I've been checking off for 18 years now.
00:31:35
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I would love to hear that from you. So, where can people find you? Can you just remind them where they can find Elevay? And we'll make sure we include show links to all of these, to your podcast, to Elevay, to your Airbnb, maybe. I don't know. Yeah. You can find me everywhere at this point.
00:31:54
Speaker
I'm on Instagram as Shay Cochran, but you're definitely going to want to check out Elevay. Elevay is on Instagram as Elevavisuals, E-L-E, V-A-E, Visuals, V-I-S-U-A-L-S, Elevavisuals, and Elevavisuals.com, but we're going to have a specific link, Elevavisuals.com slash Davie Christa. We're going to have all kinds of good stuff for you there that'll be about the things that we've talked about relating to curation and curation concierge. You'll find all of that there, but you can find in general, Elevavisuals membership at Elevavisuals.com.
00:32:24
Speaker
Family Goals Podcast is not on Instagram yet, but you can find it at familygoalspodcast.com. Wellness House Tampa, there's no way to find it. I can give you the link. If you are really interested in seeing our Wellness Airbnb that we're creating, it's gorgeous. You can rent it out now. It's actually really good for team retreats.
00:32:45
Speaker
So I really wanted to create a space that people could come and have team retreats and then also do a little bit of team building around health and wellness and all that kind of thing. So I'll give you the link to that as well. Tampa is so amazing and beautiful. There's so much to do. Everything's within walking distance of this Airbnb. So I'll give you guys the link in the show notes for that on Airbnb. Check that out. We always ask like in the winter, why didn't we move to Florida? Why didn't we move to Virginia?
00:33:12
Speaker
Yeah, that comes up. And then fall here, when it's still 90 degrees and humid, we're like, why do we live here? Why did we leave Virginia? What is fall? People out there are drinking hot pumpkin spice lattes, and we are still drinking iced coffee. I know there's always an odd balance for it all. Well, thank you so much for joining me, Shay. This was such a great conversation.
00:33:36
Speaker
Well, thank you for having me. I just have loved maintaining friendship over the years and seeing what you guys are doing and being able to be just a small part of what you're doing. So thank you. You've always been a huge encourager and supporter of me and my work over the years. And hopefully we've done the same for you. And I love that we can partner together.
00:33:54
Speaker
to provide something really, really needed so that small business owners actually have a chance of success. We know that the branding, the website, the images, they're also integrated. So I think you and I and Davey, we all share a heart for the same thing, empowering small business owners in that way. So thanks for the chance to do that alongside you. Yeah, well, thank you, Shay. Yeah, see ya.
00:34:16
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Brands of Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, and sharing this episode with others. For show notes and other resources, head on over to DaveyandChrista.com.