Angela Bryant: 0:08

Welcome, I'm Angela Bryant, and you're listening to The Angel Rated Show, where we have inspiring conversations with the people behind the products and services most often used by online business owners. On the show, you'll hear how their personal beliefs and values have influenced their businesses. If you're an online entrepreneur who wants to know about the integrity and impact of the businesses you're buying from, then this is the show for you. Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Angel Rated Show. I'm Angela Bryant and with me today, I have Alexis Perry. Alexis is the owner and founder of Mountain Cane Media who specialise in strategic business planning and digital marketing services. So welcome,

Alexis Perry: 0:50

welcome. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Angela Bryant: 0:54

It's so good to have you. Do you want to just start telling everyone a bit about your business and how it's got started?

Alexis Perry: 1:01

Yeah, I'd love to. So I once upon a time, was an So where do you want your business to go over the next art teacher and gave that a go and decided it wasn't for me. I love teaching and I love art, but I just needed to kind of re re evaluate my own strategic business plan. And I decided to take my art and create art workshops for the elderly, in nursing homes in my community. And I did that for a really long time and just loved it. And in in doing that I learned a lot about digital marketing. Because I was marketing myself I found myself to be the accidental entrepreneur just giving it a go right. And so then, you know, a learner of life and teacher by nature, I took a whole bunch of digital marketing courses, and then found social media and decided to branch off into that direction and learn about business. And so Mountain Cane Media was born. I have lived in the new the Roanoke Valley, in Virginia in the States. And we have the Appalachian Mountains running along us and I love hik ng and mountains. And so tha is the influence for my bus ness. And here we are. five or 10 years? Where is it heading? Yeah, I love that question. So I have been doing this a few years and I'm I feel like business years could be comparable to dog years, he learned so much in a short amount of time. Business really pivots right as you are as you are doing and learning and failing and growing from all of those attempts. And I have found my space in the content repurposing realm. So I've learned that I do have an art background, that translates nicely to the digital space. But I really love operations. And content repurposing is so much an operation, it is like a formula unique formula for each business. And when you learn a business's mission or vision, then you can take all the content that they have previously created, and make a strategy to promote any current offers. And so that is my focus now, and I really hope to make a name for myself in the content repurposing space.

Angela Bryant: 3:51

Wow, that's definitely a very important area that people really struggle with. And it's one of those areas where you can save so much time if you know what you're doing right and not starting from scratch every single time.

Alexis Perry: 4:02

Right? We don't have time for that.

Angela Bryant: 4:05

Definitely not Definitely not. So what what is it that I mean, you talked about mission and vision of your clients Then what about the mission and vision for Mountain Cane Media? What does that look like?

Alexis Perry: 4:15

Yes, I love that. So my mission is to work with. I haven't found all of these people yet. I'm still seeking them. But I'd really love to work with agencies or CEOs or creatives that are in a service based realm. I'm worried about climate change and sustainability and I have brown children and a brown husband. So I would like to make an impact in some of these, you know, equality realms, and just be a really good role model for my children and family. And so I'm seeking companies that are imp ct driven and making making a d fference there because I kno that I can be part of pro oting their message, right? joi ing hands locking arms, you hav a louder voice. So that's my ission. But my vision, I rea ly stumbled with this que tion. I had to think of my vis on in two different realms, a p rsonal vision, and a pro essional vision because they fee each other. Right, I have a lifestyle, business and, and pe sonal goals. So profes ionally, I hope to create I'm we l on the way but a really th iving business that's, you kn w, solid and strong. And then I' love to live in a fifth wh el of sorts, or some sort of RV for a little while, pe sonally, and I homeschool and I ould have a remote business. An I would love to just travel th US for a little bit with my ki s. So I got a reason why I ju t, I'm on the way there.

Angela Bryant: 6:07

Yeah. And that makes bringing it back to the personal and the family makes it so much stronger, and so much easier to sort of pull you forward. Yeah,

Alexis Perry: 6:16

yeah. My kids are growing quick, too, you know,

Angela Bryant: 6:21

They have a tendency to do that. I've heard they do. They do. So there's obviously you I mean, bringing together that sort of business and family. Before we were recording, we were talking about your value system, and how important that is to you, and how that comes into all aspects of your business. So do you want to just talk a bit about this? Yeah. Because, obviously, I mean, for anyone who's just listening, you're Muslim, you're wearing a headscarf. Yeah. Do you want to and just talk us through how that impacts your business and how that means you do business differently.

Alexis Perry: 6:53

Yeah, I love that. So I took this great course, it was a Director of Operations core, by Natalie Gingrich, and it was wonderful, it was transformational for me. And the mission vision values, I didn't come from corporate. And so I never had to, like actually write a mission statement, right. But she gave us this homework. And I love homework. And so really dove into that, and, and thought about what my values were. And that also meant, like what my boundaries were and who I wanted to work with, or who I wanted to repel. And it was so empowering for me just to, to be able to make those kind of decisions as you meet, I mean, the beauty of online spaces, meet people from anywhere and everywhere and create relationships with them, right. So that was really transformational. But as a Muslim woman, I don't do photos. And the digital marketing space is full of personal photo photos, right. And so that was something that was really and sometimes can still be challenging. But when I first entered this space, it was really very hard for me because everyone, all my coaches said, you know, do the photos. And so I had to figure a way to fit, you know, business into my life, and not the other way around. And so that means making personal connections, doing podcast, doing some video and getting out of my bubble. And I do a lot of coffee chats. And these coffee chats are just 20 minute chats to get to know people in my peer group. And there's no not an intention of selling and it's just a connection and networking for for however the cookie may crumble in life, right as you as you do business together. So

Angela Bryant: 8:53

it's so interesting that everyone has that assumption that you have to have your face everywhere. And that that's what you know, there's only one way of doing this, we have to be out there. We have to be on social media, we have to build that know like trust factor, we have to plaster our faces everywhere. And I hate it as well, you know, I hate for different reasons. But you know, I just don't particularly enjoy doing that sort of thing. And being that front and center of a brand. Yeah. But obviously, there is no one way of doing things. There are 1000s of different ways of doing things. So you're very much fitting this to meet your values and what's important to you.

Alexis Perry: 9:30

Yes, exactly. And it can be done. I'm here in my dining room, I don't have photos of me on the internet, and I'm doing it, it's working and I'm making great connections and I'm still constantly checking in with what my value system is to make sure that my values meet my mission and vision and I'm in alignment with myself and therefore I can can find clients who I will be in alignment with.

Angela Bryant: 10:04

So tell us more about some of those values.

Alexis Perry: 10:07

So some of my great values are, I value autonomy and trust, and I expect you to respect my expertise, but also to contribute to it. Because we're a team, whoever, whoever you partner with in business and in life, it should be a team collaborative effort, right? I expect open mindedness, mindedness to diverse backgrounds, religion, and race. And inclusivity is an essential, which, which speaks to my heart, because I have a diverse family. And I just want respect in that. So grounding and strategic purpose, we value realistic expectations and attainable results. Because sometimes we have to bring ourselves back down. And small steps forward can equal great leaps of success, right? But it's that content, constant repetition to get there. So all right, and I'll share two more with you. we prioritize consistent strategic improvement and all we do every day, back to those small steps forward. And I believe that business operations and marketing is a system, a science and an art.

Angela Bryant: 11:25

Hmm, that's a really nice mixture of some things that are very specific to sort of business how you go about creating your business and working with clients. And some of it is much sort of those bigger issues about how you see the world and how you want to experience the world and the sorts of values that people need to have if they want to work with you.

Alexis Perry: 11:46

Right? Yes. And and some some of my beliefs and and just just warmness. For sure.

Angela Bryant: 11:57

So tell me what keeps you awake at night? What are the big issues that you worry about?

Alexis Perry: 12:03

Oh, okay, so I never turned my brain off for business. And I'm always thinking about repurposing my own content. But but that's a that's a business brain, right? big issues that keep me awake at night are my children and supporting them, and modeling entrepreneurship for them, or for whatever they want to do. And then the braces are broken, arms are things that are coming right, or what they will be, when they grow up, and how I will, will support them in their own journeys and, and holding hands, but letting go and that, that balance there. So and I worry about that, I worry how they will deal with opinions or hate from others that they encounter in the world and being strong and confident in their own value system and through through all of it that they will encounter. So those are those are big worries on my mom shoulders that I can't linger on and just live life and cross those bridges when we get there.

Angela Bryant: 13:18

Absolutely. And yeah, it's so I think all mums obviously worry about their children and how they're going to the world they're growing up in and how they're going to deal with it. And you mentioned sustainability earlier as well. So I assume those, you've got quite a strong environmental passion as well. We've, alongside that

Alexis Perry: 13:36

we do yeah, so my kids actually homeschool, but we go to Forest School here. So they are outside, rain or shine all day, regardless of weather temperature, and they just play we live in such a beautiful area that we want them to be immersed in nature and learn so much from it. And that's part of the reason that I want to do traveling with them, because I want them to see this this beautiful country we live in and learn to take care of it and promote that message as well.

Angela Bryant: 14:11

Hmm, yeah, really, really important. So tell me a bit more about how your business does your business, do anything to sort of give back or support different communities or to give back for charity or scholarships or anything like that? Is there anything that you you can, yeah, can offer from through your business?

Alexis Perry: 14:31

Yeah, actually, I'm working on something like that. So I have a process that I do with business owners called strategic mapping. And what it is, is taking and determining your mission, vision and values and then all the things that business and owners and visionaries want to do and putting that in sort of a roadmap for an annual plan and then condensing it into actual action steps for completion. And and and breaking that up into different quarters and months to actually achieve these goals and I'm working on creating the scholarship for for that service so I can offer that to different business owners and and help them reach some of their own mission and vision and dreams there

Angela Bryant: 15:22

so what sort of business owners would you like to offer that out to

Alexis Perry: 15:26

yeah back to my own mission statement and people who I hope to work with I'd love to work with people who are working hard for environmental change or for new social and civil impact organizations.

Angela Bryant: 15:43

Yeah fantastic sounds really Yeah, absolutely. It's so important and it's so good to be when you can sort of give back and support others that you believe in and help lift them up as well because the knock on effect is that of that is fantastic. Yeah. So let's come back to your business I'm intrigued by this name you mentioned your local mountains so the Mountain Cane Media where does that come from?

Alexis Perry: 16:08

So my husband has this beautiful hand carved walking stick and it was we have it mounted above our closet just in these these racks if you will and more just for display that one we don't actually hike with and then I was establishing my business like oh I need to name it something that I didn't want to name it after me Alexis Perry media I wanted it for room for growth and and pivot. And so we just started brainstorming all sorts of names that I love the mountains and Mountain Cane Media had a nice ring to it I enjoy alliteration and it's it's close and it was available on the internet and I'm like oh the.com is there

Angela Bryant: 16:58

so that's good a reason there's any right

Alexis Perry: 17:01

so it does have a place in my heart there and and we just it was like a Let's choose it and go right and and not something to linger on too much.

Angela Bryant: 17:13

Yes, yes, I think we can all get too much in our heads trying to come up with the perfect answer and the perfect name when we should just keep moving forwards and taking that next step which you said those small steps, right. So coming on to something a bit you know, lighter or less business focus, tell us something about where you met your partner, your husband,

Alexis Perry: 17:34

Sure, um, here's my high school sweetheart, and we you know, high school, but it's such a learning time of life and and season where younger relationships and then we parted ways after high school and both went on to have other relationships and then came back together a decade later and got married and and. Here we are.

Angela Bryant: 18:05

That's a sweet, high school. You never expect them to work, but I think yeah, it's so nice, especially if you then yeah, grown it separately and then come back together again. That's really great. And what about hobbies, any interesting hobbies that we need to know about?

Alexis Perry: 18:21

Sure, yes, I love to do some painting and sadly, I don't do it nearly as as often as I'd like. But painting is something I enjoy and hiking and we've recently taking up kayaking and camping and camping in a tent I camped on the ground in a tent for the first time ever. And I can tell that I am in my 30s and it doesn't feel as comfortable to sleep on the ground but I'll buy a cot and it'll be a whole different experience next time it was beautiful.

Angela Bryant: 19:01

It's so not that that being able to wake up and open a tent and just be in nature is such a lovely experience.

Alexis Perry: 19:07

It was wonderful and and the kids really love it. So I'm hoping we do a lot of these outdoor things now and then they'll enjoy it as they grow and do it on their own. If it's something that they really have a keen eye for.

Angela Bryant: 19:23

So yeah, absolute y. So before we start to wrap up Is there anything else about y ur sort of approach to life y ur worldview or anything else ab ut your business that you'd like to sha

Alexis Perry: 19:34

Yeah, I think when I said small steps forward th t's that's advice that I'd giv to others and then I nee to remember my own self right hat I'm doing this and so any business owners we are are scared and things that we d or we are just overwhelmed ith perfectionism and really ust doing things And taking ac ion and learning from that ac ion that we take is it's wh t's going to make a difference and I'm gonna remember that a d I hope you do

Angela Bryant: 20:10

Fantastic yes I think we all need to hear that reminder Don't we? So let everyone know where can they find you? where's the best place to connect with y

Alexis Perry: 20:19

please, please find me. My website is mountain Kane media.com I do have a small Facebook group it is the CEO Summit climb group.com and that will redirect you to the Facebook group. So I'd love for you to join me there and just continue the conversation.

Angela Bryant: 20:40

And I guess if anyone wants to have a coffee chat with you, then you are very open to that and getting to know people face to face.

Alexis Perry: 20:46

I am I quite enjoy it. It really has made the internet world a bit smaller and beautiful.

Angela Bryant: 20:55

Actually, absolutely. Right. Well, I think I can hear the children in the background. So I think they're probably getting to the end of their quiet time. So let's wrap up there. Thank you so much for joining us. Alexis. Thank you so interesting.

Alexis Perry: 21:07

Yeah, yeah it's been a pleasure.

Angela Bryant: 21:09

Thank you really lovely to get to know you and your business and a bit more about Yeah, what where you're coming from and what drives you. So to read the show notes from this episode, you can go to Angel rated.com forward slash podcast. And if you enjoyed this episode, obviously I'd love you to subscribe to the show. And leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. And yes, don't forget to share this episode with your online business friends and anyone who might need the help of Mountain Cane Media.

Alexis Perry: 21:34

Thank you.

Angela Bryant: 21:37

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