We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mikeal Griggs. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mikeal below.
Mikeal , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?
The biggest thing I did to build up my several brands was build up myself. Sometimes people fail to realize that people buy based on emotion and the more people find you and your story relatable and authentic the more they will support. Yes having great products and services is vital but when you the owner is the face of your brand you have to appeal to the people. I pride myself on being authentic and showing that I am human just like everyone else. All of the hats I wear I am providing a service where I have to make the client feel safe, comfortable, and respected so building up myself as a person was the best thing I could do for my businesses.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
So I have always played sports but once I realized in my 2nd-3rd year of college that the NFL wasn’t going to happen for me I had to start planning for what was next. I wanted to stay in the sports/fitness world but also combine it with my desire to help others. I originally planned on starting a mentorship for at risk youth and using fitness as a tool for instilling discipline, structure, and patience. I quickly realized as a 22 year old that there wasn’t a ton of money to be made in the particular field and the bills still had to be paid. I then became a personal trainer until I could financially afford to go back into mentoring. I quickly fell in love with training and started my own training brand You Owe You LLC in 2019. In this same year I started to blow up on social media and that’s where my influencing and modeling began. I modeled for brands such as Lids and Finishline and signed social media deals with Brands such as Fashion Nova. Over the years I continued to build my social media platforms, network and connect, and learn as much as possible. I then began to feel like I was becoming a big fish in a small pond and that I wouldn’t be able to grow as much as I felt I could staying in Indiana. I decided to pack up everything I owned and packed it into my car and moved to Houston in 2022. That was one of the greatest decisions I’ve made. Moving out of comfort puts you into a different type of grind mode. Within my first few months of moving I got offered a small role in a film and that is what sparked my interest in acting. I then got into acting classes and really found my joy in that. If you haven’t found the pattern yet I am never satisfied or content so what was next? I then enrolled into massage therapy school at the Houston School of Massage and found a true passion in that as well. My massage brand quickly gained traction and people from all over the country was inquiring about my services. I now travel the country helping women feel brand new.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
For years I organically gained new clientele by just word of mouth and others sharing my content. Recently I’ve found the power in social media ads. This strategy is a very underrated tactic. You can have the greatest service or product but if nobody knows about it then its useless. Social media ads have helped my reach tremendously. I gain majority of my clientele now from ads.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Pivoting is essential. If you never heard the phrase “adapt or die” this is one of the truest phrases. With everything change is inevitable so changing with the times and demand is essential. I pivot and change direction very often when I see something is consistently not working. You can’t be afraid of change it is the only thing that is constant.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Coach_Kellz
- Linkedin: Mikeal Griggs