Today we’d like to introduce you to Sage Miller.
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?
Shay and I (Sage) both have backgrounds in the health and wellness space. Over the past few years living in LA, I (Sage) was a personal trainer, a nutrition coach, the marketing manager for Wanderlust Hollywood, and an event producer for Nike, Lyft, Roxy, and other wellness-based brands. Shay is a yoga instructor who works with clients one-on-one and has a background in the entertainment and casting space – having worked with brands like Fox, Nickelodeon, NBC, and Netflix. When COVID hit, we were both producing events, and everything we were working on at the time got canceled indefinitely. We were both soul-searching to decide what we wanted to do next. One day we met up to talk about what we each wanted to do next in our professional careers, and in an instant, we decided we wanted to build something together. We knew we wanted to create a company that elevated everyone who came in contact with it, and that was based in the world of health and wellness – and Awaken was born. We have seen the impact that wellness practices/modalities have had both on our personal lives and on countless lives of those around us, and we wanted to expand that out to as many people as possible.
In all that we are doing, our intent is to help elevate every end-users state of being (from any given wellness company/product.) Given the ever-evolving nature of the marketplace this past year, we have gone through a few iterations of the company concept since our launch in August of 2020. Today, we have landed solidly as a wellness-based influencer marketing agency that facilitates unique brand partnership opportunities between emerging wellness companies and health/wellness-based influencers. We exclusively represent leaders in the wellness world (i.e., yogis, trainers, coaches, etc.) to facilitate opportunities for wellness companies to meet credible talent and create unique partnerships. One thing we do differently is what we call Ethos Marketing. While many brands today are focused on ‘Influencer Marketing’ (using a large digital audience to move product sales), we practice what we call Ethos Marketing: credibility-based marketing. This means that all of our influencers have credibility in the health and wellness space and can speak as a voice of authority and educate their audiences on the wellness companies/products that we partner with.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Yes and no. Working together has been an absolute dream. We are constantly blown away by how seamless the transition has been from best friends into co-founders and in the ways it has pushed us to grow both personally and in our relationship. We have been challenged by finding the perfect market fit along the way. We knew we wanted to represent Wellness Talent – people who were making a difference in the lives of others, but we’ve had to pivot a few times to figure out the best way to do so. It has been a bit of trial and error these past few months, but we are more clear than ever now as to how we can move forward and elevate the lives of many.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Great question. One thing we do differently is what we call Ethos Marketing. While many brands today are focused on ‘Influencer Marketing’ (using a large digital audience to move product sales), we practice what we call Ethos Marketing: credibility-based marketing. This means that all of our influencers have credibility in the health and wellness space and can speak as a voice of authority and educate their audiences on the wellness companies/products that we partner with. Another thing that sets us apart from other influencer agencies is our commitment to health and wellness and to better the lives of others. We exclusively work with talent whose primary goal is to impact the lives of their clients and with wellness brands that we vet to ensure their products/services have a positive impact on their customers. There are so many new brands in the world of wellness today, so we feel it’s important to ensure we are sourcing and working exclusively with brands that we know are genuinely impact the health & wellbeing of their customers. Our number one goal as a company is to have a positive impact on people’s lives by helping brands doing amazing things expand more quickly. We love being in the wellness space and seeing the deep impact that people, products, and services in this field have on others. We want to be able to help small wellness companies expand quickly and new wellness talent create their own platform and share their world.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
We absolutely love how much there is to do here. Shay & I (Sage) are either working, or we’re playing. We love LA because there is always more to do, amazing people to connect with, a sunset to catch, a bustling cafe to snuggle into for a creative work session, and new places to explore. We are pretty fast-paced people, and the city aligns with us in that way. On the other side of things… We can both become bogged down with the ‘showiness’ of the city at times, and that’s a huge part of the reason that we wanted to build a wellness-based influencer marketing agency that did things differently and deviated from traditional influencer marketing.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://www.awaken-agency.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awakenagency/?hl=en
Image Credits:
Celia Smith
