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Editor:
Today’s guest is Christina Rowe, founder of Standout Media Group and the powerhouse behind the global community, women Helping Women Entrepreneurs, which brings together more than 2 million members worldwide. Christina is also a marketing expert, author and mentor who helps women entrepreneurs gain visibility, get featured, and build businesses that truly stand out.
Through her platforms, Christina has built not only a thriving media company, but also a movement creating opportunities and resources for women to connect, collaborate, and grow together. Christina, it is lovely to meet you.
Christina Rowe:
It is so wonderful to meet you.
Editor:
Christina, maybe we could start by just asking you to share a little bit about your journey into entrepreneurship and maybe what inspired you to launch Stand Out! Media Group.
Christina Rowe:
Okay, so it’s interesting. I used to have a hair and nail salon back, gosh, in my other life I call it, back in New Jersey with my ex-husband. And so, that was the beginning of being an entrepreneur. And then when I got divorced, we sold the salon and I had such a horrendous divorce, I decided to write a book about it. And then this was 2006, so I made a decision to self-publish, which led me to online marketing. And then other people started asking me, “Well, how did you do that?” Because that’s back in the beginning when everybody was just getting started with all of the internet stuff where there was no click funnels. We were using front page back then, it’s like the dark ages.
And that started me helping other authors and starting to coach them. But it was when I moved to South Florida and I met some other women and we started a women’s organisation. And we started doing live events and helping women, which then evolved into me starting Women Helping Women Entrepreneurs. That was 2016. And the communities on Facebook, just started growing like crazy. Facebook took notice of it. We were one of the Facebook commercials that they had. They were playing them all over and on the radio and TV. I got invited to Facebook itself, to the Facebook Community Summit in 2019, which was amazing.
We were using front page back then, it’s like the dark ages. And that started me helping other authors and starting to coach them. But it was when I moved to South Florida and I met some other women and we started a women’s organization. And we started doing live events and helping women, which then evolved into me starting
Women Helping Women Entrepreneurs. That was 2016.
And the communities on Facebook, just started growing like crazy. Facebook took notice of it. We were one of the Facebook commercials that they had. They were playing them all over and on the radio and TV. I got invited to Facebook itself, to the Facebook Community Summit in 2019, which was amazing.
Christina Rowe:
So, the community just kept growing and I decided to create a space for women to be able to promote their businesses by borrowing my audience, and that’s the Stand Out Online Membership programme. So this way, they could grow their businesses from my platform and my audiences across social media. Time of right now, we have almost 900,000 in the group, but we have all the subgroups and maybe 1.23 million. So we’re getting toward the 2 million mark.
Editor:
That’s amazing, such an achievement. You’ve obviously achieved so much in your career. How does it feel to have, as you say, almost 2 million members now in the community?
Christina Rowe:
It’s amazing to have so many women. And the whole premise is women helping women. So we really want everyone to collaborate, not compete, because I’m a strong believer in that. And so, I’ve had women who’ve been with me for years and grown their Facebook communities to 200,000, 100,000, 50, 80,000, and they’ve taken my model of allowing women to pay to promote in their group and giving the benefits. And we’ve actually collaborated and done summits together.
So, I don’t believe in competition. I believe in let’s collaborate and we’ve put our memberships together and sold it as a package.
And so, I think if women and people in general start thinking like that about collaboration, you really don’t have any competitors because someone is for everyone.
So, you’re not going to resonate maybe with someone in business with someone else. So being in this industry and instead of thinking that there’s people out there, well, that’s my competitor and that’s my competitor, to think more in terms of how you guys can collaborate.
Editor:
There’s an old phrase, isn’t it, that a rising tide floats all boats? And I guess that stands true with this as well. By collaborating instead of competing, it does mean that everybody benefits as a result.
Christina Rowe:
It really does. When you have that mindset, you could be doing the same exact thing as someone. And before the group, I partnered with women and we were doing the same exact thing. And when I used to have clients, they, “Think I got too many clients, this person would be perfect for you,” or, “I don’t do this part of it, take this client,” vice versa. So it’s really powerful when you think in those terms. It’s like thinking in abundance instead of scarcity.
Editor:
And if anybody’s thinking maybe of taking their first step right now, Christina, what would you say to them? Because obviously since you started, times have changed and as you say, click funnels is now a big thing. Is it easier or is it harder, would you say now than it was when you started?
Christina Rowe:
Goodness, it is so much easier. So, when I started, like I said, there was no click funnels. It was this thing called front page, which was we called the opt in page. The landing page was a squeeze page back then. And there was no Facebook ads back in 2006.
So, there was a lot of tech you had to learn to build things out. Now, especially with AI, it’s so easy for people to start. It just compresses time.
What may take you years back then, can now compress into months because you have all the tools, you have everything at your disposal to start a business. Literally Claude and ChatGPT and all these AI tools just do the work for you, if you know how to prompt them correctly. And back then, we didn’t have any of that.
So definitely a great opportunity to get involved in entrepreneurship and online marketing. But I would say the key is, and I’ve been saying this now, is that you have to AI proof at the same time, your business. And how you can do that is by starting communities.
Because AI cannot touch communities. It’s going to get to the point and people, they’re going to want to be in communities. They’re not going to want to be talking to robots all the time.
So, as it invades us more and more, people are going to want to be in person. They’re going to be online in feeling like they have that human connection.
So that plus your brand is going to be the most important thing because like I say too, we’re in this trust recession right now. I say it’s not 2020 anymore where everybody went crazy. COVID, everybody jumped online, people were buying like crazy.
Christina Rowe:
And now, people are more hesitant, a little jaded. There’s some bad characters. So people just entering right now, starting out on online businesses, they’re going to be like, “Well, gosh, how do I build trust?” And by starting a community, it’s a great way to do that.
Note from the Editor:
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