Making Business Feel Fun Again with Jessica Santise

Andréa Jones [00:00:00]:
If you ever see one of those brands where you go, oh, my gosh, this is so different and unique and interesting. Well, I have a special guest for you today. Jessica Santees is on the show today to talk all about how she creates just fun, fun and playfulness in her business. And so I'm excited to pick her brain about all of that. But first, a word from our sponsor. Riverside is the all in one podcast recording and editing tool that I use for this right here show. I use it to edit not only the audio in the video, it is like Chef's kiss magical, making the entire process so, so easy. Plus, I love their magic AI clips.

Andréa Jones [00:00:40]:
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Andréa Jones [00:01:14]:
Jessica, welcome to the show.

Jessica Santise [00:01:16]:
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Andréa Jones [00:01:19]:
I'm excited to chat with you. And for those of y' all who are watching this, you get to see the, like, stunningly themed background. If you're not watching this, go to YouTube online, drea.com YouTube and you'll see it there. But Jessica, let's start at the beginning. I know you as like the GIF queen. So talk to me about how you even got into this world.

Jessica Santise [00:01:41]:
So I. That is the biggest compliment you could give me. So how I got into it, it's actually, it goes way back to like early 2000s. And I was in my corporate job. I worked for a tech support, like in a SaaS company lives like cloud, corporate cloud storage, before cloud storage was even a thing. So it was completely boring. Not at all what I went to school for. Like, it was.

Jessica Santise [00:02:04]:
It was a job to pay the bills and I worked overnight. So I had, I had lull between like midnight and like 3, 4am before, like, Europe calls picked up. So I was just like, I had a lot of free time. My co workers learned that I knew Photoshop and there was a couple of tasks that we done with Photoshop. So I got all of them. So I got access to the company's Photoshop and then also the company's like, photos. So I just started making gifts of my co workers for fun because we use a messaging system where you could create your own, you could add your own gifts to it. So I would do that and then send them the gifts as a reaction just because it was fun.

Jessica Santise [00:02:46]:
And then so it was just a thing that I always knew how to do. And then I was in a coaching program actually with Molly Mahoney and she was like, like, you need to talk about this. Like you could do this. That's so cool. And it kind of just took off from there and had a, you know, life of its own from that point. And I created a whole course in 2020 around called GIF Yourself about how to create your own gifts. My background is as a video editor and motion designer. So it's like all the tech came naturally to me.

Jessica Santise [00:03:18]:
And then I just got to have fun and be creative and be my silly, quirky self. So it just, it was a natural fit.

Andréa Jones [00:03:25]:
Yeah, I love this. And I think this is one of the things when we start our own business, especially those of us who come from corporate, we feel like it has to be like buttoned up and like, you know, stuffy and you just add fun to it. So talk to me about the process of creating these, the high level version of it. Because I feel like whenever I see one I'm like, oh, that's cool. And then I never actually do it. I have a few like in my email sequences that I, that I put in there. And I'm always like, I should do more. But for those people who are listening who are like, I don't even know what this is like.

Andréa Jones [00:03:58]:
Give us the overview of what we're talking about.

Jessica Santise [00:04:01]:
Yeah, so it's just a little snippet of video that loops. There's no sound. In fact, it doesn't even have to be video. You can use images I literally have on my website in my brand shoot. I was specifically like, I need to get images to use for a gif. So I got one image for those. You could see me like my fingers pointing, like I had one higher than the other and then I just reversed it. And so if you go to my website, you see me doing this because it's like, it's like a flip book.

Jessica Santise [00:04:30]:
It's the digital version of a flipbook. So you just need movement between two images. That's all it takes to create a gif. So you could start out, you know, the easiest way to do it is Just take two pictures with this movement in between, like you would for Flipbook stop motion. It's all the same concept and that it creates the animation because your brain sees the, you know, the. The. The movement from one to the other, and it interprets, like, you know, those frames, so it. It doesn't feel as jarring as you think it is to just use two frames.

Andréa Jones [00:05:03]:
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. The Flipbook analogy is so spot on, because I remember in grade school, we would, like, draw on the corner of our, like, school books to, like, make a whole little stickman do, like, a backflip or whatever it was, right? And that's basically what we. This, like, adult style. I love it.

Jessica Santise [00:05:22]:
That's why it's, like. I love it because I feel like I'm just a kid in school playing again. Yeah.

Andréa Jones [00:05:27]:
What's been the most fun? See, I say gif, and you say gif. But you know what? We're gonna leave it at that. What's the most fun gif that you've not been?

Jessica Santise [00:05:35]:
That's all I'm gonna say.

Andréa Jones [00:05:39]:
What's the most fun one that you've made?

Jessica Santise [00:05:42]:
Ooh. Oh, man. Well, I have a collection of ones of myself in different costumes this past, like, last holiday season, I was a dancing Christmas tree. I bought a Christmas tree costume. I did a live round of my course for Black Friday that I called Thanksgiving, and it was a dancing turkey. As someone who won't dance unless I have a couple of drinks, like, you throw a costume on me, and suddenly, like, I'll do baboons. I don't. I absolutely don't.

Jessica Santise [00:06:16]:
But, yeah, but another really fun one was I just did gifts for Tasha Booth, and we did one where, you know, the meme that's like, everything is fine as the dog and everything's burning around him. So we did it. It's her in her kitchen, and I got to make all the flames around her. And that was. That was a really fun one where I'm, like, I'm getting paid to do. This is wild.

Andréa Jones [00:06:40]:
That is so fun.

Jessica Santise [00:06:42]:
That is so fun.

Andréa Jones [00:06:43]:
I love this concept because I do feel like we're moving out of the age of, like, the Instagram aesthetic. And the Internet, to me, at its core, is, like, corny and cheesy and, like, just silly. And this. This is that. I love it. I love all of it, and it's part of the reason why, too. I love your branding for this summit. So, y'.

Andréa Jones [00:07:07]:
All. This just for context, for people listening. Jessica said to me, hey, do you Want to be in this summit. And I'm like, oh, okay. I get pitched summits all the time. And then I go look at the page and I'm like, yes. Like yes. No questions asked.

Andréa Jones [00:07:21]:
Because it is a fully branded in Halloween theme. It's called Tales from the Backhand Summit. But everything is like fully branded in Halloween. So I need to go to like the, the nebulous of this idea. Like the, the very beginning. Why Halloween? Because it is so fun. But it' something I would have picked. So talk to me about that process.

Jessica Santise [00:07:46]:
Okay. So I was born in October. My birthday is actually tomorrow. And happy birthday.

Andréa Jones [00:07:51]:
You may not know this, my birthday's October 3rd.

Jessica Santise [00:07:54]:
I know. I meant to wish you a believe happy birthday, but I've been in some chaos. It's okay.

Andréa Jones [00:07:59]:
Aw. Well, by the time this comes out, it'll have passed. But everyone go wish Jessica happy birthday. Okay, continue.

Jessica Santise [00:08:06]:
So you know, from the time that I was young, just, I guess it just worked out. Like I liked Halloween and I always had a Halloween themed birthday party. And I also grew up living between two cemeteries. My family has like twisted sense of humor. It just kind of, it just was a natural fit, you know, that's. It was just something that always appealed to me. But I should, I should preface. I'm not a horror person, which always is like weird to people.

Jessica Santise [00:08:32]:
I'm like haunted mansion level of like spirit. Spooky creepy ghost stories. Like I would read ghost, you know, I would be in my room and I could see the lights from the cemetery guards driving through and reading a book like at midnight, like ghost stories and freaking myself out and knew what I, you know, I'd give myself nightmares but did it anyway. So like that's where. That's the starting point. And then it grew like having Halloween parties. And then I went to college and stuff. But coming back to.

Jessica Santise [00:09:01]:
After I got married and had a place of my own started like my husband and I, we started throwing parties and they became bigger and bigger. In fact we have. We used to do themed video invitations to go with our parties. So my like my like first passion before I got into online business was and actually what got me into it was party design. I wanted to be an event designer. This was like what I wanted to leave corporate for. And I realized like I actually in doing this summit, I realized how that's carried over because I'm like the Pinterest mom who goes all out. Like I make these crazy creations for my kids or more mainly because I love doing it.

Jessica Santise [00:09:42]:
I love that But I realized that it's really important to me to brand the details. It's what I do in physical parties, and I've carried that over into virtual events. And so I think about the experience, like, when I host a Halloween party or now that, like, I have, you know, that I have a house. I'm the Halloween house of the neighborhood. Like, we do this huge display. We have a walkthrough area for the kids, and I'm always thinking about all the little details to create an atmosphere, and so that's what I realized that I'm doing. So in the summit started because I wanted to pick. I wanted to do.

Jessica Santise [00:10:21]:
I wanted to share my love of Halloween. Like, I wanted to bring that personal side into the business side. And I'm like, this is the easiest way to do it, and it sounds like fun, and I want to basically make Halloween stuff. Like, I want to do it online and, you know, in my yard. So in. In doing that, I. Like, even the first time I ran it was back in 2018 or 2019, and fun fact, Andrea was in it in that very first one. It was super, super, super tiny.

Jessica Santise [00:10:50]:
I don't think anyone heard about it. Like, it was such a tiny audience, but it made me want to do it again. It took a few years before I.

Andréa Jones [00:10:58]:
Got back to it.

Jessica Santise [00:10:58]:
And so this is my third year. Even though I've kind of skipped years. I did it last year, is the second time doing again this year. But I've. I've realized how important the details are to me. And that's actually what's so important to me this year, is now that I've kind of honed that in and realized, you know, see that in my branding and see that in myself and my business is that I'm able to do this my way. And that's what inspired this year's theme is how do you. How do you do marketing? That's you.

Jessica Santise [00:11:30]:
Especially with all the AI and everything, you know, well, those are all the bots that are out there. Like, how do we. How do we stand out? And it's being yourself, being your weird, goofy, you know, quirky self and just, like, bringing it. And I had. I had a conversation with someone, you know, earlier because I was really struggling. I'm launching a shop called the Gift Shop, and I really struggle because I'm like, is anyone gonna care about this? Like, there's so much more important stuff going on right now. Like, this is just silly gifts. Like, who wants this? And then I thought back to the feedback I got in 2020.

Jessica Santise [00:12:04]:
Because also when I launched the gift course, it was March of 2020. I have a knack for my timing, Clearly. Last year's summit was right before the election. I mean, I really. I really nail myself how to pick these dates, seriously. But when I launched the course, I had so many people tell me this was the. This was, like, the distraction that I needed. This is the fun thing that I needed and that we still need fun and joy in our lives right now.

Jessica Santise [00:12:33]:
Especially now with everything that's going on. And so in, like, having this conversation, because the gift shop, this is my baby.

Andréa Jones [00:12:42]:
Like, this is.

Jessica Santise [00:12:43]:
I've had this in, like, in process for years. Years of. Of just being afraid to put this out there. And I just decided, you know what? I'm. I'm separating myself from the outcome. Like, my goal is just to get out there in the world and do it my way. That was my big takeaway from last year's summit, is I did it and I was happy and it was successful. But there was things that I didn't get to do my way because I was afraid.

Jessica Santise [00:13:10]:
I was afraid to go all me. So this year, good or bad, this is 1,000% Jessica.

Andréa Jones [00:13:17]:
Yes. I love it. Okay. The one thing that stuck out to me the most, even though you dropped so many gems, I hope y' all are taking notes. I love this idea of branding the details. This is like something that I have been like. I am like a quick, like, let's. Let's just ship this product out there kind of person, which works.

Andréa Jones [00:13:37]:
It works for me. But then I always have to go back and brand the details. And so this is something that I'm really trying to work on in my own business now, which is like branding the details of everything, because it really does. It's the difference between someone going, that was nice, and someone going, oh, my gosh, I can't. Like, I'm going to remember this for a while, which I love. So one of the details of the summit that I want to talk about is a character that I want you to introduce to our listeners. I'm not going to give anything else other than that, because I want you all to experience this.

Jessica Santise [00:14:11]:
Okay, so for those of you who are watching, you'll see a torso of a skeleton behind me. Can't see, unfortunately. He's six and a half feet tall. So it's either my head on camera or his head on camera. We can't both fit. But this is customer service, Steve. So as a video editor, someone who spends all their time behind the camera, behind the computer, editing other people's video. I tend to hate to be on camera, but I wanted to make it fun.

Jessica Santise [00:14:39]:
I'm like, well, how can I cheat the system here? This Home Depot sold a talking Bluetooth skeleton this year. I'm like, done. Business purchase. Gotta have it. It's definitely for business and not for messing with my kids. But you can connect it to a Bluetooth app and talk through it. So I actually did this for pitching some people is I. I recorded their pitch with this, like, as the skeleton talking.

Andréa Jones [00:15:05]:
Brilliant.

Jessica Santise [00:15:06]:
Customer service Steve, because he has to. He has to have a Persona. He can't. He's not just skeleton. You gotta. You have to have a name for your skeleton. So customer service Steve. And he's gonna have.

Jessica Santise [00:15:16]:
He's getting a wardrobe upgrade because he can't show up naked on camera. Like, that's rule in my house. Tell the kids, you gotta have a shirt on. Steve that you too. So he's. I'm. I'm gonna have a video ask funnel on the summit. And it's gonna be fun.

Jessica Santise [00:15:30]:
So you can ask, like, actual legit questions or you can ask him to tell you a joke. And you can get some cheesy Halloween jokes too, because you gotta have fun in every last little detail.

Andréa Jones [00:15:41]:
I love this so much. Down to the fact that he cannot be naked. No naked videos in this house. I love it. It's a great rule. It's a great, like, general rule to.

Jessica Santise [00:15:50]:
Have when you have two boys running around.

Andréa Jones [00:15:52]:
That's a.

Jessica Santise [00:15:53]:
That's a legit rule.

Andréa Jones [00:15:56]:
Oh, my gosh, I love this. So for those people who are listening who are like, I need this in my life, can you tell us more about the tales from the Back End Summit and what they can expect when they sign up?

Jessica Santise [00:16:06]:
Yes. So you can expect craziness and unhinged weirdness, but in the best way possible, I hope. But it's going to be a lot of fun. My goal is to not make it like the, you know, the traditional summit and not to knock that. But that's my goal is making it my way and how I like would envision the perfect summit for me. So that's what you're getting. So if you go to talesfromthebackend.com and sign up, you will see that we're talking about just all the weird ways to really hone in on your personality and bringing that into everything that you do. And the content will drop on October 20th and it'll be, you know, everything's open for seven days.

Jessica Santise [00:16:48]:
So you have the full week to watch everything. I don't like to be overwhelmed with the idea or try to do math summit. Math is the hardest, let me tell you. If it expires in 24 hours, 48 hours. When. When can I watch this? Still, there's gonna be countdown timers to remind you and me when this ends. But you got the full week to go through it at your pace. And I want it to feel more like a party trick or treating.

Jessica Santise [00:17:10]:
So instead of themed, instead of days, we have is we're gonna have a trick or treat map. And we have all the interviews that I are divided into four streets, so you can pick your street to go trick or treating and get your treat from each speaker. And it's just. It's the whole experience.

Andréa Jones [00:17:27]:
Details, y'. All. This is details. Even. Just sign up just to, like, study the process, because I feel like there's a lot there, but also there's so many sessions. And I have to say, my session with Jessica was a lot of fun, too. So you can always check that out, too. I'll put the link in the show notes.

Andréa Jones [00:17:43]:
It's gonna be at onlinedrea.com 380. Jessica, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Jessica Santise [00:17:49]:
Well, thank you for having me. It was so much fun. Yay.

Andréa Jones [00:17:51]:
Awesome. And thank you to your listener for tuning in to another episode of the Mindful Marketing podcast. Coming up next, I'm going to be talking to Alesia Galati about seasonal content marketing, so stay tuned for that. I'll see you then. Bye for now.