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

Alright, Tom thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

For many years, I’ve had an interest and a burning desire inside to be an entrepreneur. While working at a digital marketing agency as a consultant, I talked to thousands of business owners. I would ask many of them, “What’s one tip you have for an aspiring entrepreneur?”. 99% of them said, “just do it.”, “Take the leap, you’ll figure it out along the way!”, or something similar. This scared me.

I’m the type of person who needs to know the steps, the end from the start, in order to feel comfortable/confident to move forward. This didn’t make sense to me. One person in particular shared that “the path isn’t straight, so you can’t ‘see’ all the steps. Often, the next thing you need is around the corner, and if you didn’t embark on the path, you’d never see the turn and the next thing you needed around the bend. You just have to start and keep going.” That blew my mind and made a whole lot of sense.

Years continued to go by. With each passing day, I felt the flame inside grow dimmer as corporate life continued to squeeze it out. The normal 9 to 5 is like that. Keep you just barely dragging by so you can’t escape without serious determination and risk.

That all changed around 2020 when we decided to chase a different dream – restore an old 1973 Airstream trailer and live in it with my wife and 3 kids while traveling the country full time. The plan was 1 year, which quickly escalated to 3. The idea of restoring this seemed crazy to me, but I like to build things so I was interested. But it was a monumental task, one I would never have imagined being so daunting, and probably would have never started if I had seen all the things we’d encounter along the way. But I love my wife, wanted to support her / our dream, and honestly, I was tired of just a normal life and really wanted to start chasing our dreams and making this life the one we really truly wanted.

After 1.5 years of hard work, countless hours (well over 1,500) and nearly $20-30k invested into restoring it (lost count..), we hit the road. FREEDOM!

I determined this was already an insane leap of faith, so I might as well take another and finally start that business I was always wanted to do. Why not?!? So I quit my job, and my first 2 clients landed in my lap just as we were near $0 in our bank account, and nearly $15k in credit card debt. Timing and faith work often be like that… We have to prove we are serious, have faith that everything will work out, and just take the leap.

So far, I haven’t had to find a single client, they’ve all been referred to me. When you really, truly care about people and put in hard work to help make a positive impact in their business and lives, they feel that.

One of my goals and themes of our full-time travel, and my business, is that I hope our leap and journey inspire other people to take the leap and chase their dreams. We’re all different. We all have different dreams, desires, passions, callings, talents, and goals. What’s yours? We only have ONE life to live, we may as well LIVE IT!

One thing I discovered in making the leap, is that when you do, it seems that God and the whole universe seem to come alongside and help push you forward on that journey, because you were meant for it. I also learned that fear is a liar. Fear holds so many of us back. All the what-ifs. It’s bullsh**! Kick fear in the face and get on with living your best life that you were created to live!! Believe me, you WILL NOT regret it.

Oh ya, and what happens if you DO fail? Well, you don’t. You learn. You get back up, brush off the dust, optimize your approach, and keep going. Because at that point, you’ll have gained a new sense of confidence already. Anything you are called to IS possible, and you already have what it takes, the rest you’ll learn along the way. So do it. Don’t put it off any longer!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Thank you for that opportunity. My journey into digital marketing began organically in 2004, building websites and learning SEO for a family business. Seeing their significant growth, I realized the power of helping businesses ‘look good and grow.’

This led to nearly two decades consulting at top agencies, where I learned what truly works and what’s a waste of time. That entrepreneurial drive, fueled by witnessing others chase their dreams, eventually led me to launch RizeUp Marketing. Our mission: ‘WE HELP BUSINESSES RIZE UP & ACCOMPLISH THEIR DREAMS.’

Practically, we offer comprehensive services: branding, website design, and digital marketing (SEO, Google Ads, Meta Ads, client nurturing). We also provide our powerful all-in-one RizeUp Marketing platform for streamlined operations.

What sets us apart, and what I’m most proud of, is our unwavering care and transparency. We’re dependable partners, promptly answering calls and providing clear reports. I invest my heart into every client’s business, digging deep for real problems and recommending solutions that deliver. We don’t just want to be paid; we genuinely want to see you thrive and make the impact you desire.

When you work with RizeUp Marketing, you gain a trusted partner bringing almost two decades of expertise, meticulous attention to detail, and a deep passion for your success.

Any advice for managing a team?

People care when you care. I like to get to know my team intimately: what matters to them, what their dreams are, what lights them up, what’s their love language? Things like that. So when you meet, you can bring up topics that interest them. When they feel you care, they’ll work extra hard and do good work. Read up on 7 levels deep, asking someone why that thing matters to them, and why that matters, and why that matters, etc etc, to get to the ROOT of what drives them – really powerful stuff.

One of my team members isn’t local. He plays guitar, I play drums, so in video meetings we’ll sometimes bust out our instruments and have a virtual jam session together. It’s a lot of fun for both of us, a different kind of bond.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

One of my favorite client stories is a recent one. Leigh, a med spa owner, was referred to me a couple of years back after she remained stagnant for a long time with little help from her previous marketing guy (he was mostly MIA). After auditing his work, it was clear he wasn’t doing much other than collecting a paycheck. So, I put together a plan and we got started.

A key part of our marketing plan was building her reputation and reviews online. She was in business for nearly 20 years and had only 30 reviews online, yet saw 15-20 patients every week. I put together a system to reach out for reviews weekly. In the last 16 months, we’ve gotten over 200 reviews online.

Just recently, she was approached by someone to looking to purchase a med spa. The area was where he wanted, but most importantly, the number one thing that separated hers from several others in the area was her reputation. Not just the number of reviews, but the quality of the reviews. He and she both explained, this was clearly a result of our reputation management service. The sale just closed, and she’s as happy as can be. THAT feels rewarding to me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rizeupmarketing.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rizeupmarketing/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rizeupmarketing/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-christen-769aa19/