Danielle Freeman, a student entrepreneur at Old Dominion University, runs a digital marketing firm and believes you're selling a brand, not a product. She uses a Wayne Dyer quote about squeezing an orange to explain that pressure reveals what's inside, and credits Stephen Covey's 7 Habits for teaching her the difference between proactive and reactive.
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All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Danielle Freeman with us. She is an entrepreneur at Old Dominion University and has founded a digital marketing company that helps businesses and creators transform their digital presence. So welcome to the show.
Hey, thank you so much for having me.
Of course, grateful to have you on. So Danielle, the first question on this show is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
So a story from my life that has a good message is way back when I was 13, I actually started experiencing anxiety for the first time and I didn't really know what it was all about. So I started doing a lot more research and I started finding more about like the parts of your brain and all the chemicals and how they react. And so I started getting more comfortable with it. And so then I started reaching out to other people to ask them about their experiences or like any advice. And I really realized the value in asking other people for their opinions and learning from other people, just because 9 times out of 10, other people are going through the same exact thing that you are. And we just don't realize it because we don't want to admit like our struggles. So that's when I started learning from others and I started being a little more aware of the things that are kind of surrounding me.
Yes. And then what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Well, I'm in the marketing industry and something that I always tell my clients is that we have to really understand that we're not trying to sell our clients or our customers our product or service. We're really trying to sell them our brand. And the reason why I put a lot of emphasis on our brand is because it's really our most valuable intellectual property. And that's what really increases our value proposition. So I like to tell people to take a step back and to make sure that the image that we're projecting truly reflects how we wanna be understood by our customers and our target demographic.
And then it might tie in, but what's your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific.
Mm-hmm. Well, what I would say is at the beginning of the semester, I actually attended a leadership academy and one of the guest speakers brought up a quote by Wayne Dyer, and overall it basically says, "When you squeeze an orange, you're always gonna get orange juice to come out." And I thought that was interesting because it applies to our lives as well. So like, whenever we're in tough situations and we get squeezed, whatever's on the inside is gonna come out. So something I really put emphasis on in my life is making sure that I'm emotionally aware of what's going on so that I can prepare and handle it a little bit better. And it does take a lot of time. So like, I'm actively working towards that. But once we can really understand what's going on, when we understand when to be emotional and logical, that's really when we can be successful, not just in business, but in life as well.
And then if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
A piece of advice I'd give my younger self is that it's okay to say no to opportunities. And I saw this a lot because as a student entrepreneur, I was constantly taking on more responsibility and I was really letting my priorities kind of slip because I wasn't taking care of my health as much. Like I wasn't sleeping as much at night or like I forget to eat during the day. And I realized that was really— sorry, go ahead.
No, no, I can relate to that. Sometimes I forget to eat during the day.
Yeah, I think it's something that we all deal with, but it's not really something that we talk about too much just because we're so much on autopilot sometimes. So that's something I've been focusing on more and it's definitely something I'm still working towards. But I understand like, yeah, we have to sacrifice things in order to achieve some of our goals, but our health is so important. It's something that we don't really pay attention to. So I would tell myself that action expresses our priority and we really need to make sure that our health is at the top of that list.
And then kind of going a little bit down a different path, in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
I really love this question because I study lifespan communications here at ODU, and something we talk about all the time is happiness because I study relationships in groups. And to me, happiness is subjective to every individual, but I think we can all agree that our extrinsic happiness can be taken away from us at any time. So I think the true key to happiness is rewiring our brains to let go of the things that are holding us back, like our insecurities and our fears or any, like, trauma. And then that way we can allow ourselves to to fully move beyond and to create a conscious awareness of ourselves. Because if we know ourselves more, we can work with ourselves more. So I think it's really not about like feeling the chemicals of happiness, but overall truly being happy with ourselves.
And then what is the best book that you've read? And what was the number one thing you learned from that?
There are so many great books, but throwing it back to one of the first books that I read was The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And this is like a really popular book, I would highly recommend it if you haven't read it yet. But one thing he talked about was the difference between being proactive and reactive. And going back to that Wayne Dyer quote, we really have to make sure that we're making conscious decisions and overriding our brain's natural response. And then we repeatedly, or what we repeatedly do becomes who we are. So we really have to make sure that we can stop ourselves in our tracks when we're making decisions and making sure that we're being proactive in those situations.
And then what is your favorite quote and why?
One of my favorite quotes is by Albert Einstein, and it's, "Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." And the reason why I really like this quote is because, as you know, life is busy, and a lot of the times we take on things just because we're used to being busy. And so I think it's really important to make sure we're allocating our energy towards something that's increasing our own personal value. So if it's making us happy, if it's making us feel like we're being productive, That's really important. Because I mean, a lot of the times I see myself being busy, and I would assume it was being productive. But it wasn't really adding value to what I was doing.
Could not agree more. Thank you so much for coming on. The last one I got for you before we let you go is where can our audience best find you online?
Okay, so the best place to find me is at 757danielle.com. And then that's where you can get more information about my company and some of the services that we provide. And then also under the contact page, you can get a link to my LinkedIn as well.
Perfect. Thank you again.
Thank you so much. I appreciate everything that you've done and I really love your podcast. So thanks for having me on.
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