Meet Korbin Christie of Phoenix

Today we’d like to introduce you to Korbin Christie

Hi Korbin, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Every day, we enter a world filled with stories, and we don’t even know it… Every car beside us on our commute to work, the people ordering coffee in front of or behind us, everyone around us has hundreds of stories that make up who they are as people. This is a key piece of information that I’ll come back to later in my story.

Growing up, I fell in love with 3 things that have made up my personality, my business, and the way I approach the world around me.

The first thing I fell in love with was movies. I can still remember my dad picking my sister and I up from daycare on a Friday and walking us to the Blockbuster that shared the parking lot with our pre-school. I can also recall the days when my Dad would let us stay home from school on a half-day and take us to the Harkins by our house. Movies have remained a consistent staple in my life both as a break from reality and as a case study in storytelling, which has become the core driver within my business.

Psychology and personal development are my second love in life. Around the age of 13, my grandmother took me to a personal development event with Michael Bernoff. It was at this event that I found my love for psychology, entrepreneurship, and personal development. During my senior year of high school, I became an intern at the Human Communications Institute, working for Michael and his wife, Debra, as a video intern. Working for them was a crash course in how to manage and run a business, and is where I sharpened my marketing, video, and leadership skills.

The third major love in my life is learning. Whether it’s learning through trial by fire, reading a biography or personal development book, or scouring YouTube to learn a specific tool, I love learning. Outside of business, this is where my love of stories also comes from. I would argue that most relationships are as simple as learning someone’s story. Their likes and dislikes, what they’re after in life, and the stories that make up who they are and give us insight into their personality.

All three of these areas shaped my video business, which I started in 2020. Every project I work on within my company aims to tell a story, and whether that’s a short film, non-profit video, or social media content, I’m always looking for the story behind the mission. Stories continue to be the most powerful and effective point of entry for learning, building relationships, and marketing.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I can’t think of one business owner I’ve met who found the process of starting and managing a business to be easy. My first year of business, I nearly sunk my ship with irresponsible financial decisions, a lack of processes, and no plan for obtaining clients whatsoever.

I cross-contaminated my personal and business spending, didn’t track expenses, and made probably every business 101 mistake a person could make. I thought that owning my own business meant I could make my own hours and take time off whenever I wanted, and boy was I so very wrong…

I was fighting just to survive, which meant working on the weekends and late nights and overfilling my plate with projects. I had zero processes for managing my workload and setting expectations with clients, and my invoices were an Apple Pages doc that, half the time, didn’t add the line items correctly. Super profesh, I know…

I remember one project in particular when I was fighting the clock to get an edit done in time. It was 2:30 in the morning, and I had just completed the video. I uploaded it and emailed the client. The next morning, I woke up to an email thanking me for the edit but informing me that it was unprofessional to send an email at such an odd time. While I still don’t fully agree with the idea that sending an email at this time is unprofessional, it hammered a very important idea into my head: I NEEDED TO ESTABLISH PROCESSES.

I don’t believe I’m alone in being thankful for these mistakes. Yes, I wish I didn’t have to learn this with paying clients, but how else do we as business owners learn about these things until we’re in the field actually making these kinds of mistakes?

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Entering my fifth year in business, I’ve really honed in on my style, expertise, and what my business offers.

K27 Media is a professional storytelling company that aims to find the unique entry point into every business and individual we work with. I believe that when we learn the stories that make up the people and businesses we serve, we build genuine connections between them and their clients.

Whether we’re working on social media or a multi-day shoot with a large crew and complex ideas, our approach remains consistent: It needs to look and sound great, be aligned and effective in its mission, be on brand, and stay focused on connection and relationship-building.

My company was built on a passion for story, performing at the highest level, and creating lasting and memorable content. The lion’s share of our business has been with repeat clients because we have a deep belief in building relationships. I’ve become invested in the mission of each company and individual I work with, which drives a passion and commitment to excellence in the content we create together.

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I believe that risk is the only way to get what we’re after in life. Risk leads to a payoff, period.

It’s not always as fast as we would like it to be, but I can say with certainty that everything I’ve built is the direct result of risk.

“Think and Grow Rich” (Napoleon Hill) illustrates this idea perfectly, in my opinion. The very first chapter of the book tells the story of Edwin Barnes, who wanted to work with Thomas Edison. He didn’t know Edison, nor did he have any mutual connections, he had no money, and he had no plan, but he had his mind set on the idea that he would be Edison’s associate. He risked everything to do so and eventually found himself living in the very reality he set out to achieve.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://K27Media.Com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/korbin.christie27/

Image Credits
Cristian Torres, Chip Brown, and Grant Hall.