Exploring Life & Business with Christina Lyon of Lyon Content

Today we’d like to introduce you to Christina Lyon.

Hi Christina, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
As a journalism major in college, I realized right away that my heart was in creative writing, traveling, and storytelling. So I started a travel blog to chronicle a summer of study abroad in Italy, intending to transfer to a Cal State to get my Bachelor’s in Journalism that fall. Instead, I dropped out of college and started freelance writing using my blog as leverage to showcase my writing chops.

Five years later, I own Lyon Content, a content marketing agency specializing in written content and organic marketing. But long before where I am today, I was out of touch with my entrepreneurial gifts. At one point in my life, I even said “I could never be a business owner,” because I was so misaligned with my passions and talents. Now, I love owning a business, managing a team of writers, editors, and content marketers, and working with exciting clients in the tech, beauty, and lifestyle niches.

Owning this business has opened up the freedom for me to pursue my personal passions of creative writing, songwriting, and traveling. After having some health issues and surgeries earlier this year, my husband and I bought a travel trailer and are currently traveling around the U.S. Being able to work remotely and have an amazing team has been one of the fruits of my labor of building this business from the ground up.

I’m still based in CA, but am enjoying branching out and seeing this beautiful country.

Shoutout from Yellowstone, where I’m currently exploring!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
On the contrary, I’m reluctant to believe any entrepreneur who sings a smooth-sailing song. It simply doesn’t exist. I relied on my gut instinct the entire way and learned from many mistakes and setbacks. You can’t be in business for yourself without being willing to risk failure and making huge mistakes.

My writing career started off with horrible red-flag clients. One tried to blackmail me into working for free. On another project, I wrote SEO content for a website, and the client kept going in and removing all the keywords, then blaming me for not doing my job and optimizing it. My first writing gig paid $12 a post. At one point, I was writing 10,000 words a week for dirt cheap, then realized I needed to scale the biz to make money. Now, people see me running a team and traveling full-time and think I’m a trust fund baby or have someone sponsoring my lifestyle. I started a business with nothing but a laptop, an unpopular travel blog, a knack for writing, and an unwavering determination to make something of myself.

I was not above taking jobs that paid pennies just to build some credibility and a portfolio.

I’ve been scammed by clients and contractors, but amidst these setbacks were incredible milestones that kept me going. In the beginning, you’re so green that you’ll take any work you can get. Once you sit down to do the work every day and learn to value your contribution, you become more confident, and the imposter syndrome begins to dissipate.

Being afraid to send large invoices used to completely immobilize me. Now I know the value and quality of our work and the results we generate for our clients. If someone isn’t willing to invest in us, they aren’t worth us investing our time and energy into them.

One mistake I never made was being afraid to hire, hire, and hire more talented contractors. If a client asked for work outside of the scope of my expertise, I’d hire someone versed in that medium. And I really contribute my success to having the self-awareness of my own limitations because if you let go of your ego, you see that you’ll get farther with a great team. DIYing a business will only take you so far.

But even now, five years later, I still make mistakes all the time. From hiring the first candidate for a job because I felt the energy was right (I was so very wrong) to mixing up a currency exchange on an investment… I’m human. It keeps me humble and striving to grow and evolve as a business owner.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Lyon Content?
Lyon Content is a content marketing agency crafting engaging AF-written content for trailblazing online brands. We’re known for our unmatched quality, research, and personality-packed writing. I’m most proud of the fact that we don’t take the easy road and use AI or regurgitate basic info from other sources. At the heart of every project is the mission to do honest, human-generated work. When so many are folding to AI, we’re prioritizing human empathy and transparency. Perhaps this will come back to bite us in the ass when we get replaced by robots, but until then, I’m gonna go to battle holding this proverbial pen.

Our clients trust us to submit fresh, authentic, and vibrant content. There are tons of writers and agencies out there doing good work. But that’s not enough for us. Good is just another word for basic. We’re unicorn writers gifted with the ability to connect with audiences on a deeper level, doing the work to understand their needs and pain points and genuinely help them with our content. That’s why our clients repeatedly trust us and refer their colleagues to us and why DesignRush named us as a top digital marketing agency of 2023.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Spending Christmas at my grandparent’s cabin in Crestline. I have always loved the mountains and snow. In California, you need to go to the mountains for it to feel like Christmas because in the Inland Empire, where I grew up, a hot Christmas was typical.

My grandparents had a classic A-frame cabin close to Lake Gregory, and my brother and I would have snowball fights and sled down the slope next to the cabin. It was three stories, and I remember trying to fall asleep on Christmas Eve on the bed on the top floor, convinced I was going to hear Santa’s footsteps creaking on the old wooden floorboards. Then we’d wake up Christmas morning to a fleet of presents, have hot cocoa, and go play around on the snow-blanketed lake.

Those memories have always stayed with me, and even now, I love spending Christmas in the mountains.

Pricing:

• SEO blog retainers start at $1500/mo.
• Web copywriting starts at $4k per project
• Social media content starts at $650/mo.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lyoncontentagency.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lyoncontent/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinalyon1/