We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Danielle Clardy. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Danielle below.
Danielle, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
I got my work ethic from my parents. My whole life I have watched my dad work and be a problem-solver/fix-it guy. Watching him work in Business, Marketing, and Sales has driven me and my work ethic. There is never a closed door or window. I am also an extremely type-A and organized person that keeps me running and productive. All of this feeds into my work ethic to keep creating my brand and business and eventually creating my own media company.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Let me preface that I have grown up with a camera constantly in my hand. I have always loved photography and taking and creating videos. I was a sophomore in college at East Carolina University in 2016 when blogging was becoming more popular. I had always loved to write, share stories, and build and be part of a community.
My blog, Southern Style at the time, started out as sharing style, lifestyle, travel, and family. I had designed my site all by myself and in no way am I a professional. Hop forward a year, still running Southern Style Blog, I had transferred to NC State and had a camera. Now, this was the time that YouTube was becoming more and more popular.
I started my YouTube Channel and centered it around the same content that my blog was sharing– fashion, family and friends, travels, and more. This was around the time that I started to get really creative, connecting the two platforms, and growing more to other platforms. In 2020, I created my first podcast called The Conversation Series where I get to talk to incredible people about their inspirations, journeys, careers, and more. The podcast has been an incredible journey that I love growing the most because I get to learn from others and build a bigger community for others, especially my followers and listeners.
Today, I have a brand new blog site that has been rebranded to Danielle Clardy with brand new colors, a podcast called The Conversation Series on Season 4 with over 70 episodes, a YouTube Channel of 5 years, several social platforms connecting it all, and expanding to create another podcast and grow all of these channels. To add to all of this I am getting Danielle Clardy Media off the ground and creating a few other podcasts.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Teamwork, collaboration, and resiliency. It has not been a smooth road at all and those qualities are part of my business and qualities I carry with me every day in everything I do!
Collaboration – I absolutely love getting to sit down with other creators, entrepreneurs, etc., and pick their minds and feed off of each other. In this space, a lot comes out of collaboration and working with others.
Teamwork – I am awful at asking for help. I have been doing all of this by myself for so long that sometimes I don’t recognize when I am spreading myself too thin. I enjoy working with collaborative people who are Social Media Managers or work in the Podcast space that I can lean on or ask questions or for help that allow me to take a few things off my plate. Teamwork really does make the dream work.
Resiliency – There are bumps along the way almost every single day and items on the to-do list that don’t get crossed off every day. Things you thought were going to succeed didn’t, pitches sent that you a no back or no answer at all, and more. I am a one-woman show and I run a podcast, YouTube Channel, blog site, two Instagram accounts, two TikTok accounts, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn page, and a Twitter account. I have learned to be practical while still shooting for the stars. One of the biggest bumps for me is that there are always things that I want to do, people I want to feature or talk to, growing my channels, etc. but it doesn’t happen overnight.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
The number one obstacle I am facing others would see as a good thing and that is growth. Things with The Conversation Series Podcast have been going so well and have been growing bigger, that I am looking into, how I grow and expand, not just the platform and podcast but an actual team, the branding, getting an actual studio space set up, etc. All of these things are top of mind for me right now because there are some moments, like doing more in-person and live recordings, that I can’t do it by myself anymore.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://danielleclardy.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dlclardy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danielleclardyblog
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clardy-b6bb17126/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/dlclardy
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjbSlQA8RWDYri9kKPjsE4Q
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/show/0gVy30DiMv3ZNFDljVyHMc?si=5ef795cfd77b4c8b
Image Credits
Glory Roze Photography
