Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Reena Vokoun. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Reena, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from a prior job is to take chances, because you never know what might happen! I had always dreamed of working for one of the major athletic brands such as Reebok, and early on in my career, an opportunity to pursue it had presented itself.
My husband and I were going to be moving from San Francisco to Boston because he was accepted into a dual degree engineering and MBA program at MIT. I was also applying to a part-time graduate school program at Boston University in advertising and communications, while planning to continue to work full-time. I already had a great job working for CNET in digital advertising and had an offer to transfer offices, but since Reebok is headquartered in the Boston area, I wanted to see if I could pursue a digital marketing job there.
Even though I didn’t know anyone who worked for Reebok at the time, I took my chances and emailed the Chief Marketing Officer! I wrote about how I had always dreamed of working for Reeback, since I had a lifelong passion for health and fitness and was a huge fan of the brand. I also mentioned I was moving across the country to Boston with my husband, and I was interested in marketing opportunities at the Reebok corporate headquarters. I shared my resume and requested an informational interview. Thankfully he wrote me back within an hour, and we were able to schedule the interview. After an interview with him and six more interviews with others on his team, I was offered a job as a Global Interactive Marketing Manager for Reebok!
I loved my job there, and it was the first time in my career I realized I could combine my marketing and advertising background with my love for health and fitness. And about 10 years later, after working in corporate America for Reebok, Yahoo and Google, I founded and launched my own company, Passion Fit, which I still run today!
So take those changes in your career and in life, because you never know where they may lead you!
Reena, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Reena Vokoun, and I’m the Founder and CEO of a health and wellness company in San Diego called Passion Fit. I started my company almost 10 years ago after working in corporate America for over 16 years. I loved my career in digital advertising and marketing, but I had been passionate about health, wellness and fitness for as long as I could remember. I pursued continuing education and opportunities in health and wellness on the side for years before finally deciding to make the leap from corporate America to become an entrepreneur and pursue my passions full-time.
The mission of Passion Fit is to empower women to flourish both personally and professionally through wellness. The vision is to continue to build a global and online wellness community, where women can have fun, make friends, feel supported and be encouraged to achieve their dreams and goals. Passion Fit serves individuals, companies, non-profits, schools, universities and the media to help people transform their lives through a focus on fitness, nutrition, mindfulness, work-life balance, productivity and healthy lifestyles.
My company’s product, service and content offerings include books, corporate wellness programs, transformational programs, monthly memberships, online courses, personal and professional development coaching and consulting, local and livestream fitness, yoga and dance classes, an online boutique of activewear and accessories, wellness retreats, workshops and speaking engagements, a YouTube channel, a blog, newsletters, social media content and media appearances. The problems we’re solving for include burnout, workplace wellness, disease prevention and management and holistic wellness, including physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
One of my favorite marketing/sales stories is when I worked for Google. We had been tasked with some especially aggressive quarterly sales goals within our digital advertising team one particular year. At the beginning, it felt like a daunting and impossible task. And believe me, I had many moments of high stress, doubt and fear of failure throughout that time!
However, I came up with a strategy for not only closing new business deals, but nurturing and renewing my existing client accounts. In both scenarios, my focus was on working hard to understand my clients’ and prospects’ core needs and goals, collaborating with my internal product and engineering teams to create customized solutions for their challenges, building and maintaining trust and providing first-class service, communication and relationship building. I broke my goals into smaller daily, weekly and monthly tasks and stayed focused on the big picture, while tending to the details.
By the end of that year, I had not only met, but exceeded my sales goals each quarter. I was also eight months pregnant with my second baby and ended up getting promoted right before I went on maternity leave!
We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.
As mentioned earlier, health, wellness and fitness have been lifelong passions of mine. I trained in various styles of dance throughout my childhood, participated and competed in cheerleading and dance team in high school and taught fitness classes while in college and graduate school.
And throughout my full-time corporate career over 16+ years, I continued to teach fitness, yoga and dance classes on the side, compete in fitness competitions, train for and run a marathon, half-marathons, 10k and 5k races and complete certifications and continuing education training in health, fitness, nutrition, behavior change, yoga and mindfulness. I also pursued corporate wellness opportunities as special projects in addition to my main job in marketing, advertising sales and business development.
In addition, I started a blog and a YouTube channel to create content and share my thoughts and ideas in the areas of health and wellness with my target audience. These pursuits were precursors to eventually becoming an entrepreneur and building a company and brand focused on consumer and corporate wellness, health and wellness coaching, classes, online courses, videos, a book, speaking engagements, retreats, activewear and more. And I’ve now been in business for 10 years this year!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://passionfit.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passionfitllc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passionfitllc/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reenavokoun/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/passionfitllc
- Youtube: https://www.facebook.com/passionfitllc/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/passion-fit-san-diego
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@passionfitllc https://www.threads.net/@passionfitllc
Image Credits
Marcy Browe Photography Alex Johnson Photographer Jessica Napier Photography