Jumping Out of the Corporate Plane—with a Parachute (and a Plan) with Tonya McKenzie

Brett Trainor (: 00:01

Hi, Tonya. Welcome to the Corporate Escapee Podcast.

Tonya McKenzie (: 00:04

Hey, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here with you.

Brett Trainor (: 00:08

I'm excited too because I've actually had your husband of another escapee on the podcast twice. And so I finally get a chance to talk to you. And we'll get back to that because I think it's a really interesting dynamic that I'm super curious to get your perspective on that. But first for the audience, why don't you just share a little bit about your background and more specifically what you're working on today. And then I want to take you back a little bit to talk about your escapee journey.

Tonya McKenzie (: 00:36

I'm founder of Sand & Shores. We are a communications, marketing, and sports media agency out here in Southern California. I've been doing PR marketing, sports media, for over 30 years now. I started in college and I have continued down the route of helping people tell their stories. And now, I don't know if I'm supposed to say this, but because of you, yeah, because of you.

you and Ray, I am working on building my Substack newsletter and membership, you know, just to, well, I love it. I love how people are developing community around their expertise and their passion in a way that helps kind of bring out the best in them, whether it's their expertise or just their.

It's almost therapeutic. It's almost a safe space to be completely free and unfiltered with what it is you're trying to share. I'm looking at, other than working with my PR and marketing clients, I'm really having fun building this community.

Brett Trainor (: 01:54

Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that because it's so true, right? Because 14 months ago, 16 months ago, this, my community wasn't even in existence, right? I didn't even know I was thinking about that. But now that we're this deep into it, I wouldn't change this path, you know, kind of for the world just because it's been so interesting. And now I've become more active in other communities because I think it's just a gap and maybe it's my age.

Right. Cause it used to be, could read the blogs and, or some other things, but this is kind of that live action blog of it. Right. So if I'm interested in a topic, which I'm excited for what you're building because PR, I should be doing a whole lot more of it, which I'm not doing any of it right now. So to be able to learn, but not just read, think, yeah, I think you're going to do really well with that because I think there's going be a lot of people that are super curious.

Tonya McKenzie (: 02:46

appreciate that. yeah, hearing your story really motivated me. I'm not gonna lie. When I heard about what you were doing and what you had built, I really had to sit with myself and I was a little jealous. I love that. So yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 03:00

Yeah, sometimes it's the best accidents, right? Or things you weren't counting on that. But the other thing I found post corporate and I'm a little more junior in my journey than you are, is you have to be, you know, they always say be ready for the opportunities as they strike. But I've become much more open to not even the, even experiments, right? Cause there was no guarantee that the Slack channel was going to work, but

corporate me wouldn't even have taken that chance, right? It would have just sat on the sidelines, but let's see where it goes. It's a place to house some folks until we can figure it out. And now it's kind of taken on a life of its own. yeah.

Tonya McKenzie (: 03:40

Which is fun to watch, right? It's like having kids, like you have this new kid that you gave birth to and now you get to watch it grow. And it takes on, like you said, a life of its own, a personality of its own. I have four kids. So I say I have my PhD in personality management. And I'm guessing on some level you might be doing the same thing with your community.

Brett Trainor (: 04:02

I think that's right. Cause I have three daughters, right? So that was a whole new world for me. And now that they're out of the house, they kind of come back. not completely out of the house, but adults now. And so I've kind of missing that, uh, early stage, right? Where you're still developing and teaching and those things. So, yeah, I mean, subconsciously, I didn't even realize that you're probably right. There's probably something to do with

So, all right, I do want to get into your business as well, but I always like to start with the journey and I would call you an OG because I think you've been out 10 plus years on your own. Is that about right?

Tonya McKenzie (: 04:28

Absolutely.

Tonya McKenzie (: 04:41

And actually, I saw LinkedIn congratulate me on my ninth year a few months ago. So I will be entering into year 10 soon, but Lord, there's still so much to try to get right.

Brett Trainor (: 04:45

Ninth year, okay.

Brett Trainor (: 04:56

And learn for sure. So what, what were you doing? know, I, I was balanced between, was it a tipping point or was it your breaking point when you left the corporate and went out on your own? Was it a mutual decision or just make, kind of walk through what your thought process was at that point.

Tonya McKenzie (: 05:14

You know, when you've seen people that they go skydiving and there's always one that just goes and he just jumps and he has a great time with it. And then the other one is holding up the rest of the crew and eventually someone just pushes them out of the airplane and hopes that their parachute works. Ray was the pusher. He pushed me out of the airplane because we just, he knew that it was probably the best decision for us, for our household, for our family.

and, and I was scared, obviously, when you've spent so much time in this mindset that corporate America is where you belong is the only place you're going to thrive and excel and be rewarded and receive your accolades. You know, when, when that is your mindset, it takes a lot to change that mindset to, I can actually do better. I might be able to accomplish more on my own.

I can do great things with freedom from corporate structure. So that for the most part came from my husband. started his business probably about six months before I did. I think it's safe to say, and I've talked to other people in PR and comms that they kept a job while they were growing their agency. And I think that's...

Brett Trainor (: 06:30

Okay.

Tonya McKenzie (: 06:43

you know, with us being a couple, I kept Asia up while he was growing his agency and he's in tech. But I, for the most part, had started building community around the work that I do. So just to let you know, we are from the Bay Area, the tech capital of the world, Silicon Valley. And we moved out to Southern California and said we would never be in LA. I went to school out here in Cal State Northridge, but the traffic is like,

Brett Trainor (: 06:47

Hahaha

Tonya McKenzie (: 07:13

It's nauseating and it's crazy. So you think I'm never going to raise kids in LA. Like that's crazy. Well, this tech company moved us out here. And what I wound up doing was working for an agency, and, a news agency out in West LA. They weren't using technology. And, I was annoyed because I'm like, if I'm going to charge someone $5,000 for an ad, I want to be able to at least show them digitally.

Brett Trainor (: 07:24

Okay

Tonya McKenzie (: 07:43

how this is getting reached. Because yeah, 20, 30 years ago, we didn't have the technology to do that. We just made people promises that these things can happen, right? But now, and I maybe have the cheat code because I'm married to someone intact, but I'm like, I don't feel good continuing to take this amount of money from people in small businesses in particular. And we can't even guarantee them that they're getting what we're saying they're getting. We're not.

Brett Trainor (: 07:49

Right.

Tonya McKenzie (: 08:09

we might not be getting the reach. We might not be getting these things or we might be doing much better. All that being said, I went to management and I was like, hey, yeah, so, you know, all this technology because we're in Silicon beach now, which is ironic. And there's so much technology and so many tools and we should be using these. And they were like, let us take this back to management. And they came back and they're like, that was a great idea, but we gonna keep doing the same thing we've been doing for 40 years. And I was like,

Brett Trainor (: 08:30

Yeah.

Tonya McKenzie (: 08:38

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And I think my level of frustration in that and understanding what technology can do for an organization. was like, so he was trying to push me to go ahead and jump ship. And I think that was the tipping point. Like I know for a fact that I can do better. And I have been looking at different opportunities, how I could do what they were doing, but with technology. and I started real estate agent magazine. So the first thing I did.

I went and got training with this organization that was putting together trade publications. And I started my real estate agent magazine, cried my eyes out almost the about maybe three months before it finally got launched because starting a publication is really hard. but I felt like those tears were, were they were like, Red Bull and they energize me a little more. I was like, tears of strength. No, I'm just kidding. I was really sad about it.

Brett Trainor (: 09:22

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 09:31

Now, okay.

Tonya McKenzie (: 09:36

But it pushed me a little harder to get it done. So what wound up happening is I finally launched the magazine. So you have enough ad revenue, you have enough editorials, enough partnerships, launched the magazine. It's phenomenal. But all of my ad customers want it more than just ads. They wanted stories. They wanted to make sure that their stories lived beyond that one issue. So with that being said, I started doing PR for them.

Brett Trainor (: 09:58

Interesting.

Tonya McKenzie (: 10:06

Also, and after that, I was like, this is it for me then, because I'm really good at storytelling. I'm really good at helping people pull out the essential elements of their story, either their personal story or their business journey, to be able to get it to resonate with the community that they're trying to reach. Obviously, the first part of it is helping people realize you can't reach everybody, but we have to narrow down who your target audience is.

And then how do we talk to those people and then getting that information and being able to help them really grow their brand awareness, grow their business and then their own personal brand to, you know, connect to those ideal clients, to connect to those collaborators, to connect with those sponsors. it's something I have been doing a lot over my career, but in those moments, I just started to hard focus on it and it's, it's paid off. been nine years.

Brett Trainor (: 11:04

That's awesome. And there's so much good stuff here, but I do want to go back to the, with your husband helping you push you out because, you know, I talked to a lot of escapees now that one of them is like, well, my spouse or partner is still working. So he's given me some comfort to, you know, go pursue my own thing. I personally, I hit the breaking point, you know, kind of got pushed. The frustration level was at the mount. I said, I, to your point, I can do this better, but I'm just kind of curious.

Cause I'm sure there's folks out there listening like, my God, a husband and wife with kids. And they both went on their own escapee journeys. And for the record folks, you can find Ray's interview. I think one was the first one was October of 21 and the second one was October of 24. So I would encourage you both were interesting because if I'm not mistaken, Ray started as a building his own consulting practice and then said, Hey, there was this software tool that I need that we can't find. I'm going to go get into the software business. So

fascinating both episodes are fascinating but now tying this back to you I mean I get it but I'm curious you know what were those early days like when you were both kind of jumped off of the corporate bubble or

Tonya McKenzie (: 12:13

Well, for him, and I'm sure it's in those episodes, he raised Benintech and building his business for so long. He had a lot of people that were already using him for consulting. So he had already started kind of doing some side gigs, some side consulting while he was still in corporate America. Well, he had that. So I think it's really important that people understand that while you are in your positions, and a lot of people miss this.

Brett Trainor (: 12:26

Okay.

Brett Trainor (: 12:33

That's right, okay.

Tonya McKenzie (: 12:41

You don't know what these connections, these opportunities, these networking opportunities will turn into later. I think many people have tunnel vision and they're in their mind like, I'm gonna be here and then I'm gonna be the manager and then we do director. And they don't really look at the people around them in the rooms that they're in as somebody that can be beneficial to them later, can be support to them later, can be another connector to them later. So I think it's just very important to highlight that.

every room that you are in to maximize those opportunities. And he definitely did. You know, he was traveling a lot, obviously with his company. So he has connections all the way from the Bay Area, if not more north, all the way in Dubai and other countries. And he was in D.C. like every other week. So. It's his his network was endless and people knowing.

obviously what he does, because he's not shy about talking about his work. He loved his work. He loved what he did. He's always been a techie. So he talks that talk, but he's also a people person. I get everyone's not a people person. Everyone's not an extrovert. But if you're going to be in a room, be present in that room. Also, have conversations just to find out who else is in that room with you.

So his was a little easier. Mine was more like, okay, what can I use? And also because of the industry I was in, my contract also forbid me from doing certain things and having certain conversations. So I had to be very careful about that. But I started locally. I made sure that I started locally.

I didn't try to reach for the moon. It was, me start with my core community and letting them know what I'm doing and seeing how we can connect and go and then growing from there. So in Los Angeles County, I'm in Redondo beach and then it was beach cities. So all of the beach cities. And now I'm going to expand a little further out to like Torrance, Gardena, Inglewood. And then we can go downtown LA big, you know, statewide.

Tonya McKenzie (: 15:04

reach back out to even people in the Bay Area that I hadn't seen in a while, but also that I worked with. It becomes a just a matter of letting people know what you do, finding out what they do and how you can connect. you know, the first few months was obviously a lot of just outreach. It's just outreach. I do have a lot of experience in, you know, the cold calling market. So...

My early parts of my career, I worked for the YMCA where I had to build, I literally had to build programs from scratch. I had to survey the community to see what kind of programs they wanted, build the program, hire the staff, train the staff, then turn around and go back out and sell the program. So understanding how to have conversations with individuals, listening. One of the, one of the,

one of the most integral pieces of life and professional lessons that I learned early in my career is listen to hear, don't listen to respond because I thought I knew what they wanted and then I would go back out to sell the program and no one was buying. So I think I missed some key elements of our conversation because I was so in my head thinking that I knew what they wanted already. That's a little bit of bias, I guess.

is thinking you know what they want because where we have moved to, the YMCA I was working in was in a community that was, it was like small and wasn't as developed. It was actually a town turning into a city. So I just thought I knew, I just knew, I was just like, I know, and Lord help me, I did not know. So I spent a lot of time reworking what I thought I knew. All that being said, that experience was something that I was able to use to then grow Sandin Shores.

Brett Trainor (: 16:42

Okay.

Brett Trainor (: 16:47

you

Brett Trainor (: 16:57

Yeah, it makes sense. And listening to hear is that's maybe even be the title of this episode when we get there because it's, such a good point. And we're really bad at, even when we think we're, being good listeners, right? Because, you know, when I started the community, it was listening to hear what were the other Gen Xers challenges, right? What were they, what's keeping them in corporate and what's keeping them out. And the first iteration, everything was really around tools and tactics and strategies.

But the deeper I actually started to listen and hear it was the inspiration, the motivation, right? The support to take that plunge versus the actual playbooks. It's still important, but I had kind of missed that because early days of the community was built more around the tools and the tactics, but really what they needed was the support and...

into the networking, the connections, the relationships became a bigger piece. just emphasizing that is so true. it's funny, I also talked to some folks that are still in corporate, maybe been at one company for 20 years or a couple of companies and they, like I just, my network is so small and I always encourage them. You'd be surprised that folks you worked with 10 years ago.

know five other people that may be interested in what you're doing. And again, reach out. always say start reaching back to the folks you liked and then you can, you can look it out. By the time you get through all the folks you like, that's a, that's going to take you a while. Right. It's, and you just never know to your point where that conversation is going to lead. And if you're, connecting to be genuinely curious and looking to, right, you're not looking for something with that conversation. Yeah. It's, it's just going to start, it's going to accelerate your journey.

Tonya McKenzie (: 18:39

Absolutely, 100%.

Brett Trainor (: 18:42

Interesting. So I do want to go back because you started a publication. that when you were leaving, is it like, this is what I'm going to do? Or did you sit around and brainstorm for a while and say, all right, what is it I'm going to do? Because you've obviously morphed your business from that publication to what you're doing today. So what was, how did that journey go? And I know I'm sure it wasn't a straight line.

Tonya McKenzie (: 19:04

I knew that I wanted to stay in media, some semblance of media. I was doing a lot of ad sales, creation, design, special issues when I was at Southland Publishing. So I knew that I wanted to do something that I was familiar with at the time. And obviously, because of the area that I'm in, it was really about how can I utilize everything that is around me?

Brett Trainor (: 19:07

Okay.

Tonya McKenzie (: 19:33

from the technology to the connections, because now I've worked with people that buy ads and I've worked with people that need PR and I work with people that need writers. So, sitting and just trying to figure that out, I can't remember if somebody referred them to me or if I just happened upon them and just started doing more research about what it would take to have my own

magazine and then ran across that. I think I might've been doing like Google searches or something, just ideating. So when you, and you know, going down rabbit holes, hoping that you can still find your way out at some point. So I think I was going down the rabbit holes and I found a company that provided the framework for the industry publication that I wanted to put together.

Brett Trainor (: 20:09

Yep.

Tonya McKenzie (: 20:32

I did decide which kind of publication I wanted to put together before I left my job. So I knew that for sure. I knew what I wanted to put together because of the area that I lived in. So I'm looking at the resources. What kind of publication do I want to put together? What kind of resources are around that would help me be successful with said type of magazine? I live in a very real estate heavy

Brett Trainor (: 20:39

Okay.

Tonya McKenzie (: 21:01

Community, it just is. There's million dollar homes across the street. There's $10 million homes a mile for me. I knew realtors from some of the community business work that I had been doing. So when I was with the publication, Southland Publishing, I was their liaison for all of the chambers of commerce and all the things. So I worked with all the business people.

So I just knew what they were doing, what the money was looking like in the area. It was flowing. I knew who the power players were in those communities. So it just made sense to me. That at one point made sense. So as soon as I quit my job, I was just knee deep in doing all the things to get this publication together. From cold calling to referrals to building my systems.

Brett Trainor (: 21:27

Okay.

Tonya McKenzie (: 21:55

that made sense, building my funnels. Those first, that first like month was really building my system and digging in on who I was connected to. And then it was really a time to hit the pavement. What I did know for sure is that, especially these days is most, the most integral connections and business transactions help happen in person.

So I had to get outside and go. So I just started going to all the things, lining my calendar up with any and every opportunity to go out and meet people, shake hands, have conversations and see where I can fit in. So like we say, around the way, get in where you fit in. And that's absolutely what we did. There were some opportunities for some volunteerism with different organizations.

that I always weighed what can I get out of this, you know? So I did all those things. I just did all the things and eventually made it happen.

Brett Trainor (: 23:00

Yeah, just... That's awesome. And do you still have the publication today or have you completely moved down from that? Excuse me.

Tonya McKenzie (: 23:09

I moved on from the publication, sold it to the owner of the framework. So the digital framework that it was on, it was incredible too. it some things back then. Obviously we're looking at nine years ago. So if you think about what technology looked like back then and how it can be so very interactive with your products, if you're someone that's selling products or homes, it was probably at the beginning of

Brett Trainor (: 23:24

Yeah, true.

Tonya McKenzie (: 23:38

drones. So having drone video in your magazine when you click on it and you have drone video for real estate, it was incredible. It was great. But I was just, I knew my strength was the storytelling piece and helping people find if not in my publication, because the people that I started working with, I didn't just help them with stories in my publication. I was helping them get stories other places.

Brett Trainor (: 23:40

Okay.

Tonya McKenzie (: 24:07

So I almost felt like I was consulting for other publications or for the client. So I was consulting for the client to help them find placement in different places and get their name out there in other places, not just my publication.

Brett Trainor (: 24:10

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 24:21

And is that where the business went to then? Did it kind of morph into doing full service for clients into that area?

Tonya McKenzie (: 24:25

Mm-hmm. Full service, marketing, PR, communications, full service, events, professionals, and organizations. I have a heavy background in nonprofit and civic organizations, mostly because my career started at Cal State Northridge. So I worked for our athletic department. I worked for our health center. So understanding how to tell stories that bring in customers, clients, patients.

to those types of facilities. And then obviously my work with the YMCA nonprofit don't get no better than that. The YMCA has very good, and I recommend this to professionals now, the YMCA has some incredible developmental trainings, like for any industry. Just, you know, it's about, because the organization at the end of the day is about providing a good experience.

Brett Trainor (: 25:02

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 25:13

Really? Okay.

Tonya McKenzie (: 25:23

providing a good service for people in your community. So any training that they offered enhanced you as a professional. And keep in mind, they hire from high school kids all the way up into seniors. Like if you're 80 years old and you wanna work, you can find a job there and they have a training to help you. So if you're thinking about it that way, you're like, they're always...

Brett Trainor (: 25:44

interesting.

Tonya McKenzie (: 25:50

Training and we have to have working there. You always have to have trainings. You always have to have these updated trainings and Cultural training and you know, we were doing culture training and anti-bias training before was a thing Literally like 15 years ago we didn't need DEI to tell us we work with a Diverse group of people we need to be equipped to deal with that We work with people from different cultural backgrounds. We need to be equipped with that because the end of the day our job is to

serve a community, regardless if it's civics, youth and government, or it's a youth sports program, or it's silver sneakers, our partnership with Kaiser. If we're taking care of people, if that's our job, if that's how we make money, if that's how we bring in more customers because they are the referrals, they are our marketing piece, we have to know how to be kind to them. We have to know how to make them feel important. We have to know

Brett Trainor (: 26:21

Right.

Tonya McKenzie (: 26:48

how to make them feel like the time and the money they spend with us is quality so that they'll come back and they'll send other people. So their trainings, now, you know, as I've gotten older and been more experienced corporate after I left the Y, I'm like, these are trainings that will always be with me because the essence of it was how do you bring your best self to your position, whatever your position is, and you're able to deal with your customers and clients

no matter who they are, what they look like, what their capabilities are, their disabilities, their sexual orientation. So they've been doing DEI before DEI was a thing.

Brett Trainor (: 27:27

Right. Now on it makes sense. I think that's one of the things a lot of escapees struggle with coming out of corporate is the fun foundational pieces of everything you just talked about. Right. So maybe put on your PR guru hat for a second, because a lot of folks exiting corporate were not comfortable, I'm speaking for myself and others, telling our own story or talking about ourselves or doing self promotion.

Right. Cause we see that in corporate, people that are like that are the ones that nobody likes, right? They probably got ahead faster because they cut corners. But so now when you get a solo business, right, we have to tell our story and we have to get comfortable. So any suggestions or best practices of how is it just practice or what's, how do you help, help us overcome our fear of, talking about ourselves or even better, how do we get somebody else to talk about us? Right.

Tonya McKenzie (: 28:21

Absolutely, and there is an art to that. But what you do, the storytelling that best utilizes PR and personal branding is understanding one, who your target audience is, and two, speaking in a way that connects with them. But it requires a level of vulnerability and transparency. And what does that mean? Well, listen, we all have struggles.

Right? We all have a desire to do well. but in order to do well, most of us had to overcome something. You're going to have to identify that first. And then you speak to that. How did you get here? How did this business become a thing? What ailed you in order to start this business? What are you trying? What problem are you trying to solve and why, and why is that important to you?

So spending some time with those ideas, this is what I ask my clients all the time, who are you and why should I care?

If you can't answer that question for me, it's either because you're afraid, there's a level of fear there. There's fear of rejection. There's fear of non-acceptance. Like, she don't want to hear that. But if you haven't done it, you don't know what I want to hear. And if you haven't bothered to give me the opportunity, you're never going to know if we connect. So there are a lot of business people, there are a lot of business professionals that never tell their stories.

Brett Trainor (: 29:37

For sure. Yeah.

Tonya McKenzie (: 29:58

There are lot of executives that we as PR and comms professionals have to actually beg to share their stories, which is, it's really hard. But the truth of the matter is when you can tell your story and connect, when you're telling a story that's relatable.

The more you do it, the easier it gets, but also you get to play off of the reception of that. did they not hear you right? Maybe you fix your verbiage. Maybe you, you know, come down to their level because you might be speaking high level. That's the other thing is being very, leave the jargon behind. The best PR is leaving jargon behind.

Your job is to connect. And in order to connect, you have to be relatable. In order to relate to people, you have to speak their language. Meet them where they are. But it takes practice. And it takes each person deciding that they are willing to be vulnerable to get the win. And the win is people believing in you. The win is people wanting to do business with you.

Our job is to get people to know, and trust us. How can they trust you if they don't know who you are? So while people are so busy trying to hide behind this facade they created as this amazing business person, and I'm really good at this, and I'm good at sales, and I can tell you how to make a million dollars while you're struggling in the back, like, keep it real. People like that. I mean, I hate to bring this up, but in politics, people gravitate towards it.

Brett Trainor (: 31:39

Yeah.

Tonya McKenzie (: 31:46

So I should let you know, trying to put on a facade is not the win. It's actually a wall that keeps people from connecting to you. It also is important because none of us are perfect and bad things happen. Sometimes we make a mistake. You know, we send stuff that ain't edited or we get something wrong or whatever our product is, it's in 100%. But when you gotten...

to a place where you are letting your public know you, they trust that that was a mistake rather than, I can't trust this person. So being a good storyteller, especially your own story helps to keep you from needing crisis PR so much because people get to know, like, and trust you. And essentially that is what public relations and communications is. Communicate your story, communicate your message to the people that you are trying.

Brett Trainor (: 32:22

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 32:29

Hahaha.

Tonya McKenzie (: 32:43

to do business with that you want to know, like, and trust you, but you have to be vulnerable and you have to be transparent and relatable.

Brett Trainor (: 32:52

Yeah, such good advice. again, we have to break down almost everything we learned in corporate, right? Because in corporate, we had the corporate mask. We were this persona in corporate we had to be and everybody's judging us in corporate, right? Bosses, peers, it doesn't matter, right? You had to, you couldn't take those chances because if you got it wrong or if you asked for help, they'd think you didn't know what you were doing. But it's the complete opposite when you're out on your own, right? Nobody is judging. There's literally nobody judging you except you.

as you go through this. And to your point, if you make a mistake with one client, they're okay with that, right? If it's open, it's transparent. People are super excited when they find out that you're going out on your own. I'm sure you saw that, right? People are always helpful when you're looking for a job. When you tell them you're starting your own thing, they bend over backwards to help you achieve whatever you're trying to achieve. And so I think part of it is just unlearning everything that we had in two or three decades of corporate.

And, but once you get outside that layer, God, it is freeing. And it's, tell people, once you get over that hurdle, right, of knowing that you can do this, it will fundamentally change your life once you're outside of corporate. Yeah.

Tonya McKenzie (: 34:06

So quick story, Ray and I were looking for like an accountant. Yes, we were looking for a good accountant. So we interviewed all these accountants, right? And one of them, he was just very clean cut and upstanding and spoke all the jargon. And we were so frustrated. We wound up going to meet with him. And when we get to his office, I don't remember what it was, something Ray said, something goofy or something. And then he just started cracking up. And from there on out,

He had so much personality and we enjoyed our, I had never enjoyed an accountant as much as we enjoyed that. And I was like, what was the facade for? Like, what was that? And he's like, you know, just, you know, I'm trying to attract the right type of people. Well, we're your type of people, but we didn't like that.

Brett Trainor (: 34:38

Ha.

Brett Trainor (: 34:55

Right, you're lucky, right? You got through to see who he was versus the...

Tonya McKenzie (: 35:01

Yeah, and that's most important. If you don't take anything else from my conversation, understand that your personal brand is unique and that is what will attract people to you. It's also who will keep people away from you that is not your customer. Everybody is not your customer. And when you are clear about that, when you know who you are, you attract those high quality.

contacts and those high quality customers. There are people that will like you for who you are and get in line to have more conversation with you and wait on hold to speak to you. But you have to let people know who you are. You have to embrace all of your good, bad, and ugly qualities because those are the things that will attract other people that have good, bad, and ugly qualities. We all got them.

Brett Trainor (: 35:57

Exactly. And I think the sooner, and again, it took me a while because I didn't even tell people for a couple of years after I'd been out of corporate. Again, my mistake, but I was keeping everything close to the vest and writing. I don't know. I wish I could go back in time. I would do that over. I don't know. wish, and it wasn't like I was still working and getting side gigs, right? It was literally, this is what I was doing, but I wasn't broadcasting it to folks to.

Tonya McKenzie (: 35:57

We all got them. We all got them.

Tonya McKenzie (: 36:09

Bye.

Brett Trainor (: 36:24

Cause it wasn't, I don't know. I don't know if it was a stigma of growing up that said, you do the right thing. You go to corporate. But again, but I.

Tonya McKenzie (: 36:31

Was it a film failure just out of curiosity? Was it like, okay.

Brett Trainor (: 36:34

No, because I think I was just at that point that I knew what my worth was because I was in a consulting firm I saw they were billing me out at. So I knew what my market rate was. I knew I was doing most of the work anyway, because I was an army of one in this firm doing what we do and it was only me. I knew I could do it. But yet, I don't know, I wish I could. I needed to meet you, right?

The two years prior, it would have accelerated a lot of things. But again, I still believe now that everything happens for a reason, that there was a journey for me that I had to go through, that this really wasn't just about the work. It was more about the life and kind of rediscovering who I was again, because people would see me now that haven't seen me since maybe in corporate, they'd be like, no way, no way in hell that you're the same person, right? From even six or seven years ago, but.

I think all of us are in there. It's just sometimes we just get buried in that corporate world and we just have to get comfortable. And to your point, it's okay, right? If we come out and figure out what we want to do.

Tonya McKenzie (: 37:43

Yep, absolutely.

Brett Trainor (: 37:45

Interesting. Well, Tanya, time absolutely flew by on this. Thank you so much. If people want to connect and learn more about you, because we didn't go too deep into the PR, but you gave us some really good nuggets to take away. Where can folks find you and find the new community and if they're interested in connect with you directly.

Tonya McKenzie (: 38:04

Awesome. So Tanya McKenzie PR on all social media platforms. My company is Sand and Shores. So you can go to sandinshores.com if you want to just see what we're up to. And the community is control the narrative, CTRL, the narrative on Substack. And I'm just sharing different ways for people to control their narrative.

Brett Trainor (: 38:31

So good. I love that title too. mean, again, the other thing I found after all these years is that I think I was a closet creative after all these years, because I love doing the podcast. Now I'm hooked on doing the TikTok videos and these other things. Songwriting is not something I'm good at, but I'm absolutely fascinated by those processes. So the deeper I get into unlocking it, so controlling the narrative. Again, we used to control the corporate narrative, but now we have a...

Tonya McKenzie (: 38:40

no.

Brett Trainor (: 38:59

And the other thing I don't think people fully appreciate when you're leaving corporate, you don't need a thousand customers for this to work, right? You only need to connect with a few that know, like, and trust you that build that relationship. And then, then you can decide, you want to build a full PR firm? You want to continue doing the one person shops or it's really your choice. And that's the, that's even the bigger benefit of it is you can go down a different path, right?

Tonya McKenzie (: 39:24

Absolutely, absolutely. It is what you want it to be. I do have friends that are like, I don't want a big firm. just, this is, this is manageable. This is controllable. This is what I want. And they live that life and they're happy with the product that they put out and the people's reception to it. And there are people that want the big, you know, ginormous company and they work for that. And that gives them some kind of fulfillment. Also, you just have to be honest with yourself and decide what it is that you want.

and then do the things that it takes to make it happen.

Brett Trainor (: 39:57

Exactly. I'd love to see how big, I think we're going to see million dollar. I know we already see some million dollar solo businesses. So money's not going to be an issue. Well, depending on how big you want it to, but again, I think it comes back to what is you want? What do you want to build? Right? I know a lot of like the solo, but others do want to build small agencies. And, again, you can, the beauty is you can always pivot. You'd find something you don't like. There's no one stopping you from, from making that right turn. So

Tonya McKenzie (: 40:22

That's it.

Brett Trainor (: 40:23

All right, Tanya, thanks again. We'll put all this in the show notes so people can track you down. yeah, we'll have to check back in with you later down the road, see how business is going, see how the community's growing and we'll compare notes. All right. Thanks, Tanya. Take care of yourself.

Tonya McKenzie (: 40:36

All right, sounds good. Thank you for having me.