Nicole: Hello and welcome to the Limitless Entrepreneur Podcast everyone. I’m your host, Nicole Laino, and I am here today with a very special guest. I know we’ve done a lot of solo episodes lately, and now we have some friends on, which is just so exciting for me. I love having conversations so today I have a special guest.

We’re gonna be talking about marketing. We’re gonna be talking about marketing in a way that we haven’t really talked about before. We’re going to really be digging into your innate marketing genius. That’s actually what my guest’s specialty is. Her name is Christina Frei. She runs a boutique marketing practice called Innate Marketing Genius, where she helps solo business owners own their voice, market to their strengths and get the right clients consistently.

And who doesn’t want that? Christina, welcome to the show. How are you today?

Christina: I am groovy. I’ve already been in the ocean this morning with 40 degree water, so it’s a good day. 

Nicole: Are you a cold plunger? 

Christina: I am. Oh yeah. I have a group of about a hundred people. I do that with.

Nicole: How often do you do that?

Christina:Between two and four times a week. 

Nicole: Wow. Yeah, I do the cold shower. I have not plunged into the 40 degree cold weather. Is it life changing? Everybody raves about it.

Christina: It is, and honestly, I find cold showers to be even harder because that warm water is so close, it’s so tempting to just go back to the warm water. Whereas when you’re in the ocean, there’s nowhere. And also when you’re surrounded by other knuckleheads doing it, you’re like, oh, I’m doing this. It’s fine. And the thing I find in the shower is there’s always a part of you that’s not cold. It’s actually better when the whole body gets cold and you start to feel, the more I can get under the water, the more of me I can get under there the better. 

Nicole: I feel that, yeah, like your body temperature starts to regulate when it’s, when I’m half warm and half cold, then all I’m thinking about is part of me is warm and I wish the rest of me was. Exactly. So I love that you do that. We may talk about that after the show. I’m like, I’m fascinated by this whole full of plunging thing but I digress. We’re here to talk about you. Please tell everybody what I missed in that very short little bit of your bio that I read. Tell everybody a little bit more about you. 

Christina: Sure. I’ve always had two really strong tracks in my life. One is marketing and advertising, which I was in big firms out of college and account management, and then went to Silicon Valley and was part of marketing departments out there.

And working on different kinds of tech, whether it was websites or Cisco products, all kinds of things. And I was also managing a marketing department of an engineering firm back in Connecticut. And also I became a youth speaker. So that was probably the hardest marketing I’ve ever done is just to go to PTOs and ask for business.

But anyway, that’s always been a threat. And then the other track is personal development. I was in a really intensive spiritual mechanics training in Berkeley, California, and I was in that community for six years. And it’s just who I am, just getting really energy aware and how to manage my own energy, being aware of other people’s just all that.

So that’s just been a strong track as well, forever. And I never thought those two would ever meet. But in 2014 I had a big turning point and I realized. Come to Jesus moment. I actually do. I know how they can come together. I’m sort of simplifying this story, but I just knew that there was a path I needed to follow and it ended up actually aligning those two tracks, which means that now I help people be super present to the people that they want, you know, to hire them and also just practical, like, how do you actually get out there every day? So these two things are my every day now. 

Nicole: Yeah. And I love that. I just wanna touch on the fact that you talked about something that I’ve talked about in the show, and it definitely is true for me too, is that sometimes the path feels like you’re finding yourself, but you’re really finding your way back to yourself.

Kind of this full circle moment where it’s no, actually I don’t need to not do that thing I was always doing. I’m just gonna do it in a different way and incorporate all these other modalities and lessons that I learned along the way and actually make it part of that thing I was doing from the very beginning.

So it’s, and now it seems to make total sense cuz you know, every client I work with, I’m helping them become a more, what I call a generous leader in their community, so that they’re out there transforming lives in their marketing rather than pushing their stuff. And so then they get the right clients because they’re educating, they’re giving great information, they’re helping people even before they’re hired. And that takes courage. You have to be ready for that. So that’s the sort of personal development side of marketing. 

And what you’re talking about there is to me, is you’re talking about you teaching them how to go at their business from a place of, I always look at things like it’s, you’re either in lack or you’re in love.

You’re either in the energy of lack of I gotta get this thing what will please them? What will make them say yes? This feeling of there’s a desperate energy to it. Even if you don’t consider yourself desperate in the moment there is the like, I need this versus approaching it from I have this to offer and really being able to embody that value that you have. 

Christina: Yeah. To me that’s the road to authenticity, and it takes work and practice to stay there in that lane. Just being that authentic contribution to your wider community. Those are nice words. It’s another thing entirely to like to really step into that. 

Nicole: Amen. You can say it but that doesn’t mean you’re being, it’s saying you’re authentic. There’s that word that gets thrown around a lot. Be your authentic self, be vulnerable, be authentic, and that’s not really it. It isn’t really what people think it is, and that’s why I love human design. And I know we’re gonna talk a little bit about yours.

I do wanna highlight that you are a one four emotional generator. So you have emotional authority. You’re a generator, so you’re in response. I also think that is something that when we see that path layout, the way that yours did and the way that mine did as well, if I did this thing, it felt right, but something was off.

So I went and did these other things and then realized that thing in the beginning, I just needed to bring all of these other tools, all of these other aspects to it, bring a whole version of me. Generators we learn about ourselves through doing. We’re here to know about ourselves. We’re here to be wise about ourselves, but we don’t know until we’re doing things.

So sometimes it takes us going off on a little detour for a while and oh, let me go and pick up these other things. Let me go experience this other stuff. And then you can come back whole to the other thing and bring something completely new and different to it. 

Christina: And that’s one of the reasons why, just to go on a tangent around career advice, especially for younger people, when people say, follow your passion, it makes my head explode.

Because, how could that person, that young person know what they want? And I think I might be speaking on behalf of generators in particular when I say this, it’s like they haven’t done anything yet. They haven’t been out there, they haven’t had a million adventures to really refine. Oh, this is where I really need to be.

Like instead of following your passion at the front of end of all of that, like with no information yet. Like it’s just not a fair ask. I find. 

Nicole: And if you’re a manifesting generator like me and you have a thousand passions, particularly when you’re young, you really can’t discern between which ones.

Have staying power and which ones are just a momentary love affair you’re having with something. It’s incredibly misleading, confusing to throw that Live your passion thing, right? You wanna follow it, you wanna explore it, but it doesn’t mean that it’s like a career necessarily.

So tell us, I, I wanna, I wanted to start out, you, you did have a little story about how human design has played out in your business, and I’d love for you to share that with the audience. 

Christina: You know what? Full disclosure, that was more related to my cold dipping community, but it absolutely relates to it, it’s relevant to my work as well.

So the story that I shared with Nicole was that I really wanted to organize a social event for these hundred plus people because all we ever do is see each other in our bathing suits and go in, go out and leave. I’m like, let’s do something with our clothes on people. But I have this intuition as a generator that I was not the person to propose it and initiate it.

What I needed to do instead was reach out to four or five of my gal pals and just float the idea past them. What ended up happening was one of them who’s basically the Queen Bee said, oh, you know what? We need to do a celebration for this and this reason, cuz it’s the end of beanie season. You get a beanie if you go in three times in the really cold months.

And so it’s the end of beanie season in March. Why don’t we have a party? My willingness to let someone like bring in other people and float the idea first, like basically garnered a lot more momentum and now she’s on board, it’s gonna be an amazing thing. Way bigger than what I probably could have done.

So it’s hard sometimes cuz you’re like, I just wanna organize it, but I just have to back off and just honor my own design and it worked out. 

Nicole: That’s the journey as you start to see, that’s the experiment, right? Let me try it this way. Let me play around with what the response would look like here? What would it look like to be part of something, but maybe not be the center of it? And I love that. I love that you are playing with it, and I love that, and I’m looking at your chart, so it’s always interesting to me to see you laying it over what people do. I do celebrity readings and stuff cuz we can look at what somebody does, we can see what they’re innately good at, what they’ve chosen as their career, and then seeing through their chart how that might be at play.

And I love that you have, your head center, your ajna center and your throat center are all defined and you have the alt both individual channels down the center connecting those. So you have the channel of awareness, and then you have the channel of structuring, which is the genius to freak freak to genius channel.

Christina: That’s my favorite. 

Nicole: Oh, wear that Loud and proud. That is a magnificent channel, particularly for what you do for content marketing for advertising for having a message and teaching people how to craft their message. That’s just such a natural, wonderful use of those gifts. So I just love highlighting that, where I see people just like using these energies that you have in a really high expression. 

Christina: Thanks. 

Nicole: So tell me a little bit about these five archetypes that you have. Can you tell everybody a little bit about that system that you’ve created?

Christina: Yeah. So when I at some point I did 40 different marketing plans in the space of four months, and for every business owner, I realized through my work with them that they each had this archetype, and it was an archetype of joyful service to their community no matter what their profession was like. An accountant could be, have the same archetype as a real estate agent, didn’t matter, but it’s just how they loved to affect change in other humans.

If we just really wanna boil it down. When I looked at those 40,  I found five really strong categories that had a lot of common ground and this is what they are. So you have nurturers, I’m a nurturer. I’ll just say briefly what they’re about. Their deepest Why is that they wanna make it safe for others to thrive.

So then you have adventure guides. And adventure guides are those who see what’s possible on the horizon for others, and they empower you to get there by going for it themselves. They live by example. Then you have door openers. Door openers are these natural educators. They have a million ideas.

They love opening up doors of new possibilities in perception, so they tend to just have a million solutions and I’m a little bit of a door opener myself, , could talk about that forever. Then you have steady presences. Steady presences are those who least like marketing is what I’ve noticed.

And that’s because they are this treasure trove of knowledge and resources and people that they know and expertise in general. And they just want people to come knocking on their door, they don’t wanna go chasing. So they’re like a pillar in their community and there’s a specific way that they need to get out there, quote unquote, without really getting out there the way they don’t want to.

And then the last category is a celebrator. A celebrator is a person who thinks they should be a celebrator as marketers. And that’s because celebrators have their own natural flair. Whether it’s, they’re super funny, they’re just like a walking party. They have a great design sense and their deepest why is that they bring the good life to their wider community and to the people that they serve.

So you can see that these deep whys are general enough that anyone can be any of these. And what I’ve been studying for the last few years is, okay, fine, you’re a celebrator. How do you tell your story? How do you tell your story in a way that might be more compelling than if you were a nurturer? So because you’re a celebrator, not that it’s gonna be better than a nurturer, it’s just honor yourself, honor what you bring to the table.

Yeah. So I’ll stop there. I could go on and on. 

Nicole: Okay, so I’m fascinated by this. So we have nurturers, adventure guides, door openers, steady presence, and celebrators. I’m not a celebrator. That is not who I am. And I did fall into that in the very beginning because there’s always something. I think this is part of the problem and love that this is your solution. So when you work with people, are you bucketing them into this category? 

Christina: I have an assessment. You can find out your archetype or your genius in five minutes of time. So that’s there, and it helps people just get their mindset in that direction. However, when I do work with individual clients, I take them through a 90 minute process. It’s a deep journey. It takes them to a deeper, much more unique and specific archetype. Like I’m a nurturer with a side, a door opener. My deep archetype. I nurture great ideas in others, like that’s what I do. Yeah, that’s my mission. 

Nicole: Yeah. And because in the beginning this is my problem with “steal my strategy”, “steal my method” teaching particularly with messaging, with things like growing your audience on social media and all of that. It has to be your voice. So I fell into that in the beginning where I would see somebody who was successful.

I would sign up for their program and they would give me their strategy. And many of the people who were very successful who sold programs like Steal my Strategy were celebrators and it was so not who I am. And knowing my human design helped me understand that too. I’m a 5/1. We ain’t celebrators.

That’s not who we are. It goes completely against our grain. So tell me, I think we were gonna do something where we’re actually gonna are we gonna muscle test? 

Christina: Oh yeah. I just did on the sly. So what I got for you, Nicole, is you’re a steady presence with a side of adventure guide which makes you a nerd maybe. 

And then adventure guide is you just see the great things that are possible for the people you serve. And a dead giveaway for an adventure guide is sometimes there’s impatience come on already people, what are you waiting for? You got this? So yeah, how does that land? 

Nicole: Yeah, I think that lands, I was actually thinking the steady presence. I definitely have a love hate with marketing. I like marketing like this. I like having conversations. I like being a pillar of the community. Whatever that community is, this is my community. Come here, let’s talk. You like what I do. Wonderful. Let’s work together. You don’t like what I do all the best.

I’m good with that. I don’t like chasing people. So that was definitely, that’s one of the things that when you were saying that, I was like, yeah, that’s probably me. But also a big part of what I do is see the possibility for other people and show them what is possible part of my design as well.

That is part of my “purpose” in my human design chart is to kind of lead people in that way. So that was empowering for me to see. So I love that kind of jives with both what I knew and what I know from my chart as well. I always think these things are interesting.

I did in Enneagram Test on a retreat that I was a part of, and I saw that layover really well with human design as well, where I was like, oh, I see how these things jive. They all fit together. So tell me a little bit about how you okay, I’m a steady presence and I’m an adventure guide.

Now how do I take that and use that in crafting my content, understanding my voice and being more authentically me in what I share in my marketing. 

Christina: Okay. So there are very particular, what I call activation questions that bring it out in you. When you sit down to write your content or come up with topics or whatever stage of the content development that you’re at.

So for steady presences, what you wanna ask yourself is, . All right. What do you really wanna deep dive on these days that would be particularly helpful to your community? Something that you think would go over people’s heads because you know so much about what you do and you love it, but you also know that it’s gonna be incredibly helpful. That’s what I implore my steady presence clients to do is just nerd out on what you were interested in that falls in, like it’s relevant to your wider community. And then come back and just talk about it. And what’s interesting about it is you can write like a long piece of content, completely go over our heads.

Say it, craft it in a way that it’s conversational and people can follow you, but if we don’t understand what you’re talking about, it’s not a turnoff. It’s actually a confirmation that you are so good at what you do, that we just need to hire you. It’s this sort of paradox. It’s yeah, she went over my head, but boy does she know her stuff.

So I, I need her. That’s the response you want. The other thing is for study presences is, you were saying pillar, act like a pillar cuz you are one that just means in your wider community. Like what kind of community service. Can you do, are you part of Rotary or Chamber? Just some sort of leadership that may not directly relate to what you do, but like when you talk about it to your audience, it’s dang, that’s her, she’s that steady presence.

We can lean on her because she is really a pillar. So that’s for steady presences. For adventure guides, it’s different. It’s actually almost polar opposite . So we’ll have fun putting these two together, which is, we don’t need to hear about your expertise because all we care about is what’s possible when we hire you.

And paint that picture, show the examples. Like we don’t need you to go into a million solutions. And the how of it, it’s more just show me the horizon. That often is a huge relief to adventure guides who are always trying to prove themselves and they don’t need to on those levels.

And also, the other thing you wanna do is what’s a healthy challenge for you? If you want your clients to reach for the stars, you need to be reaching for the stars and in a way that takes you way outta your comfort zone. And then you can turn around and reflect that back to them and just let them model like you’re modeling and they will follow you if you’re modeling. And then that’s something you can talk about in your marketing. 

Nicole: So what’s really interesting about what you just described are those are two areas that I have worked on specifically. And. Like you said can be a weird balancing act between the two worlds of, being an adventure guide, being like, just talk about the possibilities.

Just talk about what for people. And then being the steady presence and being like, no, but I have to nerd out first of all, that is very much like the five and the one in my profile, which is a lot of what I use in helping people in my world develop their authentic voice and step into it.

But I love that. Those are two of the areas that I have consciously said I need to step into this more. One is my expertise and just being like, you don’t have to think so much about what they need, what they want. If it’s interesting to me and if it’s helpful to me, I’m the guide. I go first. So if they don’t get it just yet, it will probably be intriguing and I’ve seen that to be true when, particularly on this show, I’ve gone into some more advanced aspects of human design and other parts of my journey where I do think I bring it down to earth where I do make it easier to understand.

There’s still this level of curiosity where they’re like, wow, I don’t quite get it, but I wanna know more. And they do, they book a reading, they book something with me. They jump in with me. And then the adventure guide side is the, just go and go first and be the example. 

Christina: Yep. 

Nicole: And really diving into that and being in integrity with where I’m taking people and going there myself, so I love that.

Christina: I think that’s where the two come together, is that if you’re willing, if I’m hearing you if you’re willing to push yourself in the way that you deep dive, right? Because there’s deep diving and then there’s deep diving. You can really go out of your comfort zone with deep diving and as an adventure guide.

That’s maybe what you wanna do. It’s you guys, I went there, like I really pulled this thing apart. It was hard, and here’s what I learned and it was confronting even if there’s something that’s vulnerable for you, that’s where I feel the two can integrate with each other where you’re being a bit adventurous in how you deep dive and then you report back oh my gosh, this is what I found was possible and let me nerd out a little bit on what I mean by that. I think that might be a path for you. I don’t know if that lands. 

Nicole: No, I love that It absolutely lands and I think that’s, This is what’s so interesting about this work. When you know these pieces, you can start to see how they play together and how they can compliment each other and how you can actually, cuz that’s my authenticity because someone else might be steady presence with door opener or something and it would look different to them.

That it’s actually inviting the nuance in. So I love that. And that definitely does resonate. I could see where those two aspects would bring the two together, bridge that gap between like, how do I make these two sides of me sing? I have this. 

Christina: Yeah. So just a quick heads up, like when, let’s say your listener sits down and takes the assessment, which by the way is just @innatemarketinggenius.com assessment.  Pretty easy to find. They will receive a series of emails over a week that will give them similar information that I shared with you. What are the questions you need to ask, what are your strengths? And then they get an invitation. I do a monthly community class where we can go a little bit deeper into this.

So just, if someone’s sitting in what if I’m a door opener? What do I do? I got your back. 

Nicole: Don’t think that if you didn’t pick up on this or you’re not built just like me, which you most likely aren’t. There’s plenty of resources. Christina’s got you covered. , you just have to go and take that assessment and we’ll link all of that up in the show notes.

You don’t have to, it is a very easy link, but just in case you forget, just go over to the show notes. We got you. So thank you for this. What would be the next steps for everybody? How can they, you mentioned the assessment. How can they go deeper with you and learn more about their archetype and more about what you do.

Christina:  Yeah. So a really great thing to do is, first take the assessment and really try it on. And another thing, there is a workbook that I offer for anyone who’s taken the assessment, which then provides them with strategic questions to ask, their strengths, all that. So that’s another step.That’s $37 for that. Just a heads up. And then, I do these community classes and that’s a great way to get to know me and have a little sense of community with other people who are going on this path. Those are free and  you’ll just get all that when you take the assessment, there’s, link to all that stuff.

And then the program that I offer, you’re totally welcome. If you’re ready to be like, all right, talk to me that, what’s next, I wanna get with Christina . Like that, you can sign up for a 30 minute intro call and we’ll talk about your genius type and how it’s playing out now, but also how I work with people, which I do a four month boutique program that I call marketing for humans and that’s five steps in four months. That’s pretty much, yeah,

Nicole:  I love it. And like I said, we will link all of that up in the show notes, so hop on over there if you’d like to learn more about any or all of those offers. This was really impactful for me, so thank you for sharing this.

I think this is a really simple, elegant system to be able to type yourself and to start to see how you can put it into action, which sometimes that’s where things get missed. What do you do with it now? Okay, great. Now I see this. Now. Now what do you do with it? I love that you’ve brought the two together.

So I highly recommend you go and follow Christina. Go and take that assessment and then get into those monthly calls. That sounds like an awesome opportunity to be able to jump in with you. That sounds amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing with us. It’s a good call.

Christina:  It’s fun to, talk a little human design and then this other typing system yeah. Fun. 

Nicole:  Yeah, we mix it up. We mix it up. I wanna bring lots of ways for you guys to look at this but also looking at everything through this lens of human design, how it can be used. But there’s also many other tools out there that can just enhance your experience.

So I hope that they learn more about the one that you’ve created, cuz I do see the tremendous value in it.

And thank you listener for making it all the way to the end of this podcast episode with us, the end of this conversation. We appreciate you being here with us. Remember, we have two free guides for you always.

Go to nicolelaino.me/decondition if you’re looking for a deconditioning guide, which will show you how to embody the authentic you even more through your unique human design. We also have our float activity guide, which is about getting more done while working less.

How can you be in flow while still being productive? Being in feminine energy and in flow does not mean laying in bed and doing nothing. You can still get quite a bit done while still feeling really good. So we have that guide for you that’s at nicolelaino.me/productivity. And remember, you’re only limited by the limitations that you accept people and when you stop accepting those limitations, that is when you become limitless. So go out there, be limitless, everyone, and we’ll see you in the next episode.