Uplevel University Podcast Trailer

Uplevel University Trailer Transcript

Kelly Noel Zeva: Welcome to Uplevel University. Today we’re gonna be talking about what this podcast is and introducing our mission and vision. I’m Kelly Noel Zeva. I am the Community Manager of Uplevel Coworking. I’ve been working with Uplevel for the better part of four and a half months, I think.

And yeah, it’s been wild. I have a background in marketing and coaching, which is a really fun combination to bring into this role of community manager because in a coworking space, I am kind of like everybody’s ultimate coworker. That’s how we have it described on the website. Not really therapist per se, but like I listen to people’s issues sometimes.

That’s the role of coworkers in many ways, and it’s honestly a privilege to be able to talk with my, with our members about what they’re encountering and what they’re struggling with and how I can support them. Sometimes that might [00:01:00] be as simple as supporting them with creating the correct Excel formula.

That was something I did this morning. One of our coworkers was working on an, or one of our members was working on a spreadsheet and needed to do a square root function and asked if I could help. So sometimes that’s my role. So as I said, I started about four and a half months ago. 

How Uplevel Coworking Started

Lance Schafer is the owner of Uplevel Coworking, and he wanted to bring in a community manager. When this space started in 2020, Jocelyn Dornfeld was one of the owners and brought in her team to assist with managing the community and was also running it herself, and we were in a pandemic, so hiring a full-time person just for this location maybe didn’t make the most sense.

So as we were coming out of the pandemic, Jocelyn decided, “Hey, you know, this is no longer the best fit for me. I’m gonna pull out of this operation, and we needed to rebrand.” Yeah. I’m giving you the whole backstory. I promise I will get to the purpose of this podcast in a little bit.

This is kind of that introduction, because as you noticed it said, it’s sponsored by Uplevel Coworking, and that is because I am recording this. I work at Uplevel Coworking. I’m recording it actually in our recording studio. We have a podcast studio. So if you have a podcast or you’re listening to this podcast and you wanna start a podcast, that is actually gonna be our next episode is talking about how to launch a podcast and promote it.

Okay. I shared that part already. So we needed to rebrand, and this was, as of last year, and Lance was kind of dead in the water with, rebranding and doing the marketing. That was how he phrased it to me in an interview. And, like I said, I have a background in marketing. So when Lance was telling me, “Oh, we need to do all these rebranding things, and we’re basically starting over, I was like, yes, this sounds fun.

So that’s how I got involved with Uplevel Coworking. Actually, the name Uplevel Coworking was my idea. So I got in kind of the ground floor of the rebranding, and that was at the end of February this year. So we are kind of at the end of that swap over from BRIX Coworking Monona to Uplevel Coworking. We’ve got all new graphics, we’ve got new wall vinyl, graphic wall vinyl. We have a new pretty website, and now I’ve been working on content marketing. So our podcast is one of those many efforts.

Why We’re Starting Uplevel University

I felt that starting Uplevel University was gonna be really beneficial for a lot of reasons. One is that we have entrepreneurs, remote workers, business owners in the space. Some of them do commute in. We have a couple members who live near, you know, live between here and the [Wisconsin] Dells, here and Milwaukee. We have one person in Janesville, so they have a commute when they come in. And so what better way to continue to feel connected to their coworking space and continue learning and growing than listening to a podcast put on by or hosted by their coworking space. 

The other reason is we wanted to reach more people. So with our website, with many of our marketing efforts, we are just connecting with people here, local to Madison, Wisconsin. Our SEO terms are geared toward Madison, Wisconsin. If you’re searching for coworking, you know, there’s so many spaces across the country, you’re not gonna come across up level unless you’re in Madison or Sun Prairie or maybe the Jefferson County area. 

But there, I mean, there is a coworking space in Jefferson, or at least there was back in 2021. So this is another way for us to support other entrepreneurs and business owners and remote workers. And what else? And then of course, we are using this as one of our pieces of content.

Do Good Work & Thrive

The thing that I like about podcast marketing, and I might just do an entire episode about this at one point, we will talk a bit more about it next week, but is just how powerful it is when you have a podcast to repurpose that content. In the day and age of AI, you can, get a transcription, completed of your podcast and then, oh my God, goodness, you have so much content.

And you can repurpose that content in many, many ways. So this podcast, like I said, is primarily geared toward remote workers, business owners, entrepreneurs. We will talk about coaches and creatives a little bit too. 

Any who, coming back to the mission and vision, that was the purpose of this whole episode. So our mission with Uplevel Coworking is, do good work and thrive. In addition to having a marketing background, I have a holistic health and wellness background. I’m a Reiki Master Teacher. I’ve done past life regressions, I’ve done group facilitation. I’ve worked as like a life coach, health coach, relationship coach, you name it. So I, I really value and am passionate about helping other people thrive.

Point being though, that it’s really important with remote work and especially for business owners and entrepreneurs to stay focused. And because when there isn’t that focus on what matters and getting things done it really takes more time to see even a quarter of the results. So we’re gonna be talking about some of that as well and hopefully bringing in some guests to join us this first season.

So I think I really talked about, you know, I also mentioned in, in passing, it’s important to keep learning. And so whether you’re one of our members when whether you’re someone completely new to what we do, This is an opportunity to keep learning. We are not taught how to focus. So one of the, one of the tools that I highly recommend, and we’ll probably spend an entire episode talking about at some point is Caveday.

Topics We’ll Cover on Uplevel University

Next we’re gonna talk about what, what value can you expect from Uplevel University? I’ll try to keep this short. On Uplevel University, we’re gonna be talking about different strategies and tips to be productive in the workplace to promote wellness at work.

So again, I am a Reiki Master, that’s my background, and it’s really important to approach our entire life holistically, and that means how we work as well. So how can we do this in a way that sustains us and is sustainable and where we can thrive and not just feel like we’re on that hamster wheel of death.

We are, also gonna be accepting Q&A at some point. That’s something that as we grow this podcast, I would really love to do is get your questions about marketing and workplace wellness and thriving as a remote worker and what is coworking about and how do you do podcast marketing. All those things so that we can really support you with those questions that you have.

You know, in a way that’s not just reading a blog post. We’ll also probably talk about ChatGPT at some point, because when we’re talking about working smarter and not harder, artificial intelligence is definitely a huge and booming tool for that. So over the course of this season, we’re gonna focus on four primary topic categories: podcast marketing, workplace wellness, remote working success, and mindset/business success.

Something For Everyone

Maybe you’re not a business owner and you’re like, why? Why would I do podcast marketing? Like, that’s not relevant to me. But overall, we hope there’s something that. Is relevant for everyone. You know, even if you’re not working remotely all the time, you might be working a hybrid schedule. And so those days that you are not in the office, the sections about remote work apply to you for sure, but also workplace wellness.

That applies even if you work at an office and you’re not a business owner. So there’s here something here for everyone, and we’re also open to suggestions. So if there are any topics that you have a burning desire to learn about or you wanna hear our perspective on that topic, let us know. And while we will have some guests, a lot of these will probably be solo episodes.

So join us, subscribe to this podcast. If you know anybody who is a remote worker, an entrepreneur, a business owner, Send this to them. Say, “Hey, there’s this new episode, this new podcast starting, they’re taking Q&A.” Join us, especially if you’re based in Madison or Dane County. This is in Wisconsin for you non-Wisconsinites.

So if you are in Wisconsin, south Central Wisconsin, Dane County area. Heck, Jefferson County, Rock County. If you’re in that general area, especially, or you know, someone who is, have them follow us because some of these strategies are gonna be relevant, like even especially relevant. There may be times where we include local content, like local content.

We’re talking about marketing or building your business, which we may discuss those topics at some point. There’s probably gonna be one or two episodes that are specific to Madison and Wisconsin entrepreneurs. So we are just building our social platforms and podcast community at the time of this recording.

Join the Uplevel Community

We have a couple places you can follow us. We are on Instagram. We are starting a Patreon that will be more fleshed out as this podcast gets more developed. And we do have a website for Uplevel Coworking. So you can go to uplevelcoworking.com and we’ll have our podcast linked on our website.

You can also find us on all the places that you like to listen to your podcasts (Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, Google Podcasts), and we do love feedback. If you have topic suggestions, you have questions, we really wanna address them. We want this podcast to be relevant. And one of the things about really big podcasts is it’s very hard for them to accept audience questions on a regular basis or to address.

All audience questions, so please, please, please take advantage of the fact that we are just starting this podcast, that this is a small podcast and you know, especially if you are based in Wisconsin, that we are also based in Wisconsin and want to have a more local focus. So thank you for listening to this first episode where we are introducing this podcast.

Thank you for your support. In our next episode, we’re gonna talk about podcast marketing, how to launch your podcast, and how to promote your podcast. I will admit I am much more experienced in the launching aspect than the promoting. That is something that I’ll probably do a separate episode on promoting your podcast once I have a bit more experience with promoting this podcast because, I love teaching from a point of lived experience.

Alright, that’s it for today and see you next time on Uplevel University.