We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ruoyun Killian a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ruoyun, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

You know there comes a time for many business owners to question if it’s worth the extra stress, work, and risk to run your own business. Sometimes that stems from questioning if we’re actually worthy of the business that we’ve created and sometimes it’s questioning whether this is what we’re truly meant to be doing.

When I first started my digital marketing agency, C3nami, in 2015 I knew inside that I had 5 years in me to really get this going before it was time for me to exit. It was a business that I excelled at but it wasn’t something that brought me long-lasting joy. Yes, there were plenty of times when we didn’t hit our goals or made mistakes that made me question if I was up for the job. But each time, I held onto the belief that we were onto something different that our industry wasn’t doing which was human-centered marketing and business and at the end of the day I wanted to create an agency that was a home where brilliant strategic creatives can thrive in.

Fast forward to 2020, we were tracking on for full growth with an exit plan for myself in mind and then the pandemic hit. It really created a reckoning in me to realize that while I am great at what I cultivated, it still drained me and it really wasn’t what I wanted to do. Combined with the circumstances of that year it was ultimately a decision to sunset the agency and I shifted to individual practice.

At first, after the big shift, all I wanted was to take a break after being burned out for so long and I questioned if I wanted to go find a regular job. Yet then I realized that at my core, I love being my own boss too much and I would clash with leadership because I was working under them rather in collaboration with them. My skillset as an excellent project manager brought forward many clients that wanted me as an intermittent CMO to build their marketing teams. While I felt joy in helping my clients succeed, the joy was short-lived and I quickly realized that I fell into the trap of “doing what I’m good at vs what I’m a genius at” which was offering clarity and strategy as an advisor vs implementation at a director level.

So yes, I’m happier as a business owner and I’m on the journey of finding what I love to do that will let me create long-term happiness rather than short-term rewards. When I find myself in moments of questioning if I should stop, it is less about if I want to be a business owner but more about what I want to be a business owner of.

Ruoyun, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hello! I’m Ruoyun, pronounced Rauren. I advise and guide changemakers and marketers to help them get out of the marketing fluff and back into building relationships and impact in their community.

I love creating a space for the humans behind the brand from marketers to business owners to be the human being that they are as they continue to build relationships with their ideal happy human aka their customers. I’ve guided brands to stay true to who they are while creating their own human-centered marketing system to optimize and expand their impact in their communities.

For over the last 10+ years, I’ve been in the digital marketing realm since before Facebook had business pages and watched Social Media become a visual reflection of our society, the good and the bad. What I’ve noticed is that as consumers and the humans behind the brand, we are seeking to connect at a deeper human level.

Growing a business is more than increasing transactions and gaining profit. It’s about impacting our communities for the better. That’s what drives many of us as changemakers because we believe we can create an impact to better our world and inspire others to do the same. As businesses, we sit at the forefront of innovation and as marketers, we plant the seeds for the future status quo. If we can change the way we do business, then we can create space for our society to lean into humanity.

Currently, I work with brands at a customized 1 to 1o level guiding them to build their human-centered marketing system that can navigate the ever-changing algorithm. I also run a Youtube Channel that offers resources to marketers and business owners on how to understand and implement Human-Centered Marketing into their marketing system.

You can visit my Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfhmTGNgiDvGCxGf51Pi78g

Any advice for managing a team?

Remember that everyone is motivated for different reasons and creating a system that allows individuals to tap into their unique zones of genius and continue thriving is the end goal. Assumptions that are unspoken will end up creating unnecessary resentment.

So as a leader, our role is not to be the fixer and the only solution creator. Instead, our role is to inspire others in our team to create solutions and work together. Tactically it can show up as creating a clear communication space where people feel safe to speak up, collectively brainstorm a solution, and set tangible next steps that will be reviewed at a later date.

Most importantly it’s about meeting a team member where they are at, many leaders who through years of leadership development become more emotionally intelligent but we must realize that we all started from somewhere. So how can we help our team member also grow their resilience and emotional intelligence that will keep them motivated and foster collaboration between team members? That starts with meeting them where they are and understanding what motivates them. Human beings are very much like plants, not all of us are made the same and we all need different “light, water and soil”. As a leader aka cultivator of our company’s garden of plants, we need to recognize these different needs and most importantly, give them space after giving them these needs to adapt to their environment.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I have worked with a variety of brands over the years to build their social media from BigCommerce to RebelCheese to MUTTS Canine Cantina Austin. No matter what industry you’re a part of and what type of content you’re creating building a following on social media needs to answer one question “Why should someone follow your content?”

In our current era where every brand/business is now a creator of content and social media platform’s biggest goal is to increase watch time because it increases the time a user stays on the app. The question of why should someone follow your content is your answer to building a social media presence. Gone are the days when social media is about speaking from a megaphone and now it’s about creating content that inspires engagement in the user whether that’s entertaining them, educating them, or starting a conversation.

Which boils down to “What you should say that would inspire connection” and that ultimately depends on what types of topics do you and your ideal happy human like to talk about? Remember, social media is a gigantic digital networking room and your profile is a little break-out room that someone can walk into at any time so what will entice them to stay and interact with you?

Take my brand for example, people follow me because they get little golden nuggets that inspire them for a quick 1-2 min per day that inspires their marketing strategy and goals. The social media reels that I currently create mostly point back to my Youtube where if someone wants to explore and learn more through a 15-20 min video that they can listen to on their commute or in the morning that lets them feel seen and heard and reinspired to go about their day.

So how are you growing your following?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rxuconsulting.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imperfectlyren/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rxuconsulting/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruoyunxu/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfhmTGNgiDvGCxGf51Pi78g
• Other: Sign up for my newsletter at: https://subscribepage.io/TE26A0

Image Credits
Leandra Blei https://www.leandrablei.com/