We would like to introduce one of our newest members of the Client Services team, Kristen DeWys, Digital Project Strategist and former collegiate lacrosse athlete.

Work-Life

Stefan: Hi and welcome back to our employee spotlight. My name is Stefan. I'm the People and Culture Strategist here at Remotish. And today, we're gonna be talking to our newest employee, Kristin DeWys. And Kristen is our new Digital Project Strategist. So we are super excited to have her on board. So Kristen, can you tell us a little bit about your role at Remotish?

Kristen: Definitely. So I'm super excited to be joining as a Digital Project Strategist. And essentially what I'll be doing is working alongside our HubSpot Strategists, coordinating with our internal team to execute client solutions. And of course, having the ultimate goal of empowering organizations with HubSpot, and really focusing on revenue ops and processes. So I'll be really focusing on project management and working and coordinating between everyone involved.

Stefan: I love that I love how you kind of incorporated our new mission statement into your role. So that's awesome. So what does an average workday look like for you? I know even with this being kind of early on, into your time here.

Kristen: Yeah, right now definitely ramping up doing a lot of trainings and onboarding, which is really great and helpful. So looking forward to, you know, getting into a routine of really checking in on projects on a day to day basis, working with our teams, troubleshooting, you know, onboarding new projects, so getting people situated as they join us, assisting in client calls and collaborating with the team in general, which is, to me the main benefit of working at a agency, and I'm super excited about that.

Stefan: It's one of our core values, innovating through collaboration. And I think collaboration is, is so important in any organization, even more so in a remote environment.

Kristen: Definitely, I totally agree.

Stefan: So with you being in the HubSpot ecosystem, what's your favorite HubSpot tool and favorite thing about it?

Kristen: Yeah, so I feel like this is a pretty popular answer, but my favorite tool is the workflows tool. And what I really love about it is just as true endless possibilities, and the way that I kind of look at it, when I'm trying to solve for a client is trying to, you know, troubleshoot, and get creative and try to find work arounds and just, you know, streamline processes as much as possible. I think that's the beauty of it, that you can really streamline admin and, you know, internal processes, but you can also use it for outreach, and you know, your marketing. So I think it's, it's a really versatile tool, and when that's what I love about it.

Stefan: The endless possibilities with workflows, and you can get super granular with how far you want to go with it.

Kristen: Definitely.

Life-Life

Stefan: So let's switch gears, we talked a little bit about your role here and work life. I'd like to talk more about, you know, your life-life. And, you know, what's the best thing to you about the remote life?

Kristen: Yeah, so I definitely knew pretty early on working in an office that I did want to go with the remote career. And what I've really loved about it, you know, during the pandemic and beyond is that it really gives you freedom to build a structure to your days that works for you, versus trying to fit yourself into the traditional restrictive environment. And I did find it to be very restrictive, and it definitely wasn't bringing me joy. And since kind of embracing remote life, I definitely find that I can manage my personal life a lot better. And, you know, you have a better balance between, you know, work life and personal life, which I think everyone should have.

Stefan: Yeah, and that's what plays into our flex time benefit. You know, some people just operate maybe more creatively or efficiently, you know, after the traditional work hours, or, you know, step away because you have an appointment and not feel guilty that you're doing so, or that you're going to be reprimanded because you aren't at your quote unquote, desk. Right?

Kristen: Exactly. Yeah. It gives people that adaptability that they, they really need to be successful, I think.

Stefan: Absolutely. So you know, what blogs, podcasts? Would you recommend our readers and visitors follow? What are some of your favorites?

Kristen: Yeah, one of them is a recent recommendation and it's radio lab. I've been absolutely loving that one. And essentially what it is is a deep dives into certain topics. So it might be deep diving into killer whales and their ecosystem or just random topics. But someone like me, I love that type of stuff. I love learning about just the most obscure random things that otherwise I wouldn't come across in my day to day life. So I've been loving that one. That one's Radio lab again. And then I really love anything true crime. So what really got me started with that was Serial. I'm sure a lot of people have probably said that as well. It's wildly popular, but really anything true crime, I can I can enjoy that.

Stefan: Yeah, Serial is one I had mentioned, that was brought up in a previous interview. I've only listened to the very first series of that, but Radio lab almost sounds like an audio version of like, what is it ‘How it works, whatever or whatever it's called on Discovery.

Kristen: Yeah, same type of energy with that.

Stefan: Very cool. So when you're not, you know, playing the HubSpot role and DPS, you know, what's, what's a little bit about what you do, when you're not wearing your motors hat?

Kristen: Yeah, so I really like to read, I bring my Kindle with me everywhere I go, because you just never know when you can fit that in. And besides that, I've been really just enjoying spending time with friends and family. Whenever possible, just doing whatever random things that come to our minds that day with each other, it's been really enjoyable for me, especially in the summertime, and just getting outside as much as possible, even if it just means going for a long walk while you're on the phone with a friend. Stuff like that really brings me peace in my life.

Stefan: It's like another perk of remote life. It's like the world is your oyster.

Kristen: Exactly.

Stefan: What would you say is your personal motto or mantra?

Kristen: For me, one that I've just been living by, I feel like the past couple of years has been ‘progress over perfection’. I know a lot of people here kind of joke that we're all recovering marketers. But I also feel a little bit like I'm a recovering perfectionist. For most of my life, I've let that dictate a lot of how I, you know, go about things and trying to switch that perspective recently, and really just looking at the little things and the little ways that progress can be made. And, you know, celebrating the quick wins.

Stefan: Yeah, and knowing that the little bit of progress that is made can still like in somewhat be perfected, but knowing that it's okay if it's not perfected, because you're making incremental updates to it. Right?

Kristen: Exactly. Because you know, those little little points of progress over time, they lead to, you know, a larger, you know, trend upwards over time. So looking back, you can really see that all those little things do add up. And the key is to keep that mindset of appreciating those in the moment.

Stefan: Right. Yeah. So I'm curious, what's your guilty pleasure?

Kristen: Oh, I would say probably when I'm not reading and doing stuff like that my guilty pleasure is probably reality TV. I don't watch it that frequently, but when I do, usually will binge it. And that's kind of been my, like, distraction. Sometimes when I'm normally not trying to read or think I'll just put on a reality TV show.

Stefan: Do you have like a go-to series that you're drawn into?

Kristen: Oh, I'm almost embarrassed to say but, The housewives.

Stefan: Okay. Yeah, who doesn't enjoy some some just banter? I guess. I’ll leave it at that. And do you have a unique talent?

Kristen: Um, this is has always been a hard question for me. But I think for me, something that's like semi-unique is that I played lacrosse. I did that from eighth grade all the way into college. And it was really like a real passion project. For me, I truly enjoyed every bit of it. And it really helped me in so many areas of growth in my personal life, and it's something that I would, I would love to continue to incorporate in my life in some way. Hopefully in the future, you know, coaching in some capacity.

Stefan: Do you think it started out was like, I'll give it a try and then it turned into like, I love this and can't get enough of it?

Kristen: Totally because you know, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do for a Spring sport. And you know, I had I did cheer which was Winter sport and so I was trying to find something for the spring and I tried a couple different things like tennis and soccer and it just wasn't for me and lacrosse was pretty small at my school. And once I kind of found that it wasn't really like a misfit Group, but we all just were trying to build something from nothing because the program wasn't established. And I can really get behind something like that and you know, love a good underdog story. So I loved being able to you know contribute to the program and see it grow over time.

Stefan: You put, you put lacrosse on the map. What did you play, offensive or defense?

Kristen: Yeah, I played midfield. So I would do, I actually played like center. So I would take the draw and play midfield as well. So just kind of going all over the fields wherever the action was, which is kind of how I yeah, I liked the action part of it and playing that position.

Stefan: That's great. Where do you live? And why do you love living there?

Kristen: Yeah, so I live in Michigan. And I love Michigan, because it definitely makes you appreciate the seasons. I've always entertained moving out of state, which I still may. But I do think that if I lived somewhere that was always a warm climate, I might not appreciate it quite as much as when you have to deal with winter for such a large portion of the year. And I personally love Michigan, Fall weather. That's probably my favorite type, like time of the year. I just love the fall activities and fall clothes and just everything about it. So that's kind of what I love most about being in Michigan and just having so many different things to do outdoors and the lakes and everything like that is just a huge plus.

Stefan: How would you rank the, the fall leaves changing there compared to maybe other areas?

Kristen: I think Michigan is just super special. If you've ever gone like up towards Traverse City in the fall, I mean, everyone just talks about doing that at least once. So I'd highly recommend that if you have haven't done it before. I haven't done it in recent years. So I'm hoping to do that. maybe this year. It's just really special. I think everyone in the state gets behind it because we know that we need to appreciate it before Winter comes. I'm not a huge Winter sports person, but some people are but I think everyone at, in Michigan just really gets behind the seasons, which I think is special.

Stefan: Yeah, that's great. Well, that concludes today's spotlight with Kristen so I want to thank our listeners for tuning in. I also want to thank Kristen again for sharing your story with us.

Kristen: Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Stefan. I'm super happy to be here on the team.

Stefan: Absolutely. So if you've enjoyed this interview, you can head over to remotish.agency and check out the other Spotlight Interviews. These can be found by heading to the header of our website, clicking on the resources link and then clicking on the blog option. So this will take you to the catalog of blogs written by other team members, including our various Employee Spotlights. So again, my name is Stefan. That's it for today. Until next time, happy hubspotting.