Today we’d like to introduce you to Rebecca (REBL) Risty.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Oh my gosh where to start…it’s crazy to say that I’ve had 20+ years now in my career. I think like a lot of young graduates I graduated with a bachelors in communication and the minor and biology. My mother really wanted me to be a doctor. Although I loved and excelled at the hands-on portion of biology, I wasn’t quite as good at the theoretical portion so I think I probably saved a lot of lies by not becoming a doctor. I actually was in Air Force ROTC my first semester at South Dakota State University and I really liked the communications officer and what he was doing. So that inspired me to get into communications and start down this PR path. I switched majors got into marketing and never looked back. I just had a knack for seeing how to message and communicate in a way that highlighted what an individual did or a businesses. I understood the, lack of a better word, politics that a marketer has to maneuver when promoting brand service or product. Then I meant my husband who was a nuclear engineer in in the Navy. I decided to leave Air Force ROTC, even though I had qualified for a navigator position. And if you’re wondering what that means, I would’ve been Goose to Maverick. Sometimes they’d still wonder what that would’ve been like if I went that direction. I ended up transferring over to Virginia Tech. Got my degree there and move to San Diego California when my husband then fiancé was transferred over to the West Coast. I originally thought I was gonna be a lobbyist and work in DC but that change and I actually ended up working at SeaWorld for a hot minute and then got a position at San Diego state in the graduate school business. And through their encouragement of the Dean at the time he helped me enroll in the part-time program I took classes at night while I work full-time. The crazy thing is SDSU paid for me to go to school and then when I graduated, they didn’t even consider me for a promotion so I went to a head hunter and I ended up working at Qualcomm on contract for a year. That was a interesting experience cause I learned that just because it’s a large organization ancient doesn’t mean it’s a great fit. Qualcomm has a heavily engineering, focused. The marketing. Department.I was on a team of 24 and I did one thing. I was so bored I ended up going with one of the agencies that they hired to do branding a messaging. and I really enjoyed that experience working with one of the larger agencies in.San Diego. their clients were the airport in the Port of San Diego and that’s where I really learned about Marketing how to do a creative brief look at building out creative boards and it was a more hands-on experience . social media was just starting to come out and becoming a thing.
Then in 2008 I was downsized and didn’t know what to do so like any Smart person I started a consulting agency and I called it REBL MARKETING while I look for a “real job”. Eight months later ended up taking a position at the World Trade Center San Diego as the marketing Director. I ran also the internship program of about 50 interns every semester and this was real learning experience. I had a lot of autonomy since the organization was a nonprofit. We relied heavily on volunteers. I learn to really respect the younger generation. They were so hard-working and creative and hungry. I honestly wasn’t that much older than them at the time so I really enjoyed working with the interns. Then I got recruited by a member company called Vintalk. That move got me into technology. I ended up going to Avionics engineering firm where I worked there for 5 1/2 years and at the time my good girlfriend started her outsource finance and accounting firm and she kept asking me to help her. She really encouraged me to start my own thing so I broke off starting my REBL consulting full-time and the engineering form became my client for 2 1/2 years. And I grew my business from there my first year I did about 60,000 and then 250,000 and it just kept going up and up from there. Fast-forward to today where I have the full service agency and a team of five. Last year we launched Rebl labs which is AI and automation service. My curiosity and honesty foresight to see that this is the future. This pivot is for us to ultimately fully focus on this service line..
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There’s always ups and downs. I would say the biggest ups and downs for me involves people. I’ll admit I am not the best interviewer. I am a super positive person so I always see the best in everybody like, “oh my they could do this and do that’. I have learned the hard way that most people over sell themselves. We started implementing a simple test and that test is really not about can they complete the activities but are they willing to put the effort into actually complete the activities at their best level and follow the instructions. This has helped a lot in weeding out people.
I’m happy to say that through that process we have really found a solid team. It is taken years to get there, but my team now is very strong and our focus is how do we AI and automate repetitive task admin task so that my team can stay higher level strategic and creative versus getting bogged down in the mundane.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I became a StoryBrand guide five years ago and following Donald Miller and StoryBrand 5 years before that. I’m proud that I found a framework and I apply it to every client because it works and it is something that I’m really good at. I’m always been really good at finding the words to help a client describe what they do in a very clear and concise way that’s compelling. I love when I can take a client website for example and change their headline and they go ‘oh my’ why didn’t we see that. It makes so much more sense. And I literally can do that in five minutes. There’s rarely been a headline on a website that I can’t fix. The only challenge I ever have when it comes to this is when a client just wants to say everything all the time and they don’t understand the concept of clear and concise and we have to talk to one audience at a time.
What’s next?
My biggest plan for the future now is to move into a fully AI and automation for marketing and sales firm and moving into a more subscription based model. Most of all I feel businesses and owners/founders are getting stuck. There are too many options and AI’s involving so quickly that they just can’t keep up. So our model is to take what we’re learning because we’re living and breathing it every day and create products and services that are already packaged and fully baked so they don’t have to think about it. Clients can implement a solution right away. We’ve got used cases either is a fit for them or not. We include all the maintenance, training and platforms costs. This helps them leverage AI differently than other AI automation services who are doing a lot more custom project, which isn’t wrong. I know some
Businesses that want that custom solution but what I’m hearing in the industry is it’s painful to go through the process. Because of the learning curve to really understand the business issues and processes . Mostly because the client has a hard time articulating their issues and they don’t have their processes written down clearly.. Our approach is been like look you don’t have to think about the process and how you do things. We’re telling you this is how to do it. This is the best practice and this is what works. It either fits what you need to get accomplished or doesn’t.
Pricing:
- Our set up fees start at $3000
- Ongoing subscription start at &500 a month
- Custom builds, of course are TBD based on the scope
- Our pricing includes everything so the tools, the maintenance tokens credits usage so the client doesn’t have to figure that in separately
Contact Info:
- Website: https://rebltwin.com/
- Instagram: https://smartlink2.metricool.com/public/smartlink/rebl-marketing?fbclid=PARlRTSAShAnZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA8xMjQwMjQ1NzQyODc0MTQAAacv-E-_VYSEvaAeea-LDsmey_zRlhIINg-UNhD9hjGKJ1Lu4IUNweM-2yagpw_aem_KhD2AgIo1qwz2TsS139kvw
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebllabs?mibextid=wwXIfr&mibextid=wwXIfr
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rebl-labs/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@themarketingrebl?si=_RPUsEHIlinwMuej
- Other: Info@rebllabs.ai
