Latest / The Bold Lounge / Abbi McCollum: How to Adapt Boldly in a Digital Age

Transcript

Abbi McCollum: How to Adapt Boldly in a Digital Age · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Lee Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact on the podcast is all about those stories.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Every week will be hearing their stories also learn about their both.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be ready.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Tune in.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Get ready.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the bold lounge.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Today I have Abby McCollum.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: She is the Vice President of Social and Digital for HGTV.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Abby.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, thank you for having me.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: I always like to give the guests an opportunity to add a little bit more to just their title.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: So how would you introduce yourself additionally, other than the VP, which is a very important job of social and digital at HGTV?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my specific focus is working to promote our TV shows and our talent across all of our social platforms and creating content for our website, hgtv.com.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And from that perspective, I bet there's some bold moves you've made, not only there, but in other spaces and places.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll jump right in with the question we start off with is what is your definition of bold?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: My definition of bold, I've thought about this a lot, is taking chances and being willing to have some things fall down or fail and learning from those mistakes.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: In the world of social media, we're constantly able to try new things and learn from different trends and things that are happening in the landscape.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so we try things every single day.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes things that we think are going to be the most successful fall a little bit flat.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we take those learnings and turn it right into the next piece of content or the next piece of strategy that we're working on.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So my teacher bold is trying things and being willing to not have them always be super successful, but then learning from the pieces as you go.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So being willing to try, it's probably your bold every day.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you think of the world that you live in, the social digital, like at least, and I am on the novice end of your professional end, but you try things.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: You and you know, my biggest thing would probably be the post or things I do on our website.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: So those are like the spaces and places that I live and still learning, but like, well, wow, that hit, but this didn't hit.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Or I even said yesterday, I was like, wow, some of my best content doesn't even get the views that I would think it would get.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's really good.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, even and for me to say like something's really good, that takes a lot.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I'm like, why did only you know a thousand people look at that?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then like 25,000 people looked at something about Rihanna.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I know I'm not as cool as Rihanna, probably, but but that's some good stuff that they're missing.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it is like you try and you and you fall short and you try again, and then like, okay, like what do I learn about that?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of creative in that process, correct?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something I tell my team all the time is you know, don't be too precious about any piece of content that you create.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we'll have pieces that are two to three minutes long that we've put rounds and rounds of editing in.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: We put it up, it's just fine.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll put something that's five seconds long that someone shot on their phone while they were on set one day, and that blows everything out of the water.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of just being excited about any piece of content that we put up there, but not being so married to the success of it that you're not willing to just take the learnings and move on to the next thing.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Measuring success in a different way, right?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not, it's not so much the views or the hits, although that's ultimately the goal, but there was some learning in there around it, or even like the process of even creating the content of that learning side of it.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, with your definition, which is a fun one, we're gonna get into what was the first time, or when was the first time you remember being bold?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: The first time that I really remember being bold was making the decision to move to a new state where I knew absolutely no one right after college.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I went to the University of Georgia and I'm from Georgia, and so a lot of my friends from high school moved right to college.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then a lot of the kind of expectation was a lot of people moved right back to where we were from or moved back to Atlanta into the city.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I ended up getting a job in Birmingham, Alabama, which I had never been to before I applied for this internship, and I didn't know anybody in the town.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I ended up moving there five days after I graduated from college and started over there and knew nobody, and it was slightly terrifying because a lot of my friends were on a little bit longer of a path in college.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: So they were still living in Athens, Georgia, having a wonderful time.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I was starting an internship with a town that I didn't know, meeting new people, meeting new friends.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the first time I really remember making a big bold move and kind of committing to myself to try something new.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it paid off because it was the first time I really started into the digital world.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've always worked in the digital space.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: For Southern Loving Magazine, I was an intern first for their website.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then from there, my career kind of just grew in the digital space.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: As people started to flock to the internet more, and this makes me sound so old when I say it, but when in the social world was invented, when social platforms were invented, I was kind of at the forefront for all of my brands, helping them realize this, realize that we needed to be there, that we needed a presence there, that our brands needed to be a voice on those platforms.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was the first step, kind of jumping into the digital world and trying something new.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was scary and bold, but it paid off.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds like you're kind of like a pioneer, right?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: In that sense, of you've been bold for a while now.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Moving from Athens to Birmingham at 22, not knowing anyone, starting a new job, that's a big leap right there.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: So your family's not there, your friends aren't there, and you're independent.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's boldness in that.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's this unknowing of like, you know, you're learning a new job too.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like obviously you went to school, but I mean, it's it's all new.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: So what was that just do it in you?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what made you make that leap?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of it was I have a very like my family is so supportive, and I have great parents, and they were my biggest cheerleaders.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that really helped because they were telling me to take these big bold moves.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, try it, make make the choice, see what happens.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can always come home.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was something that was in the back of my head that if this doesn't work for some reason, I can always go home.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And like funnily enough, I have never gone home.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have never lived back in Georgia since I was since I moved from Athens when I was 22.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: In my head, I was always like, oh, I'll end up back there, and I have never made it back.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think just knowing that they I had their support and their love and cheerleading me on the whole time was really helpful.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I talk about the importance of your tribe, whoever that is.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Some of us are blessed to have incredible parents, and you know, kind of like I feel like I was born bold.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: My parents have always been bold, and it doesn't mean it always worked out, and it doesn't mean it was always the right thing, like in a sense of you learn from that.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I've seen them come back from some significant losses.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, that's the boldest thing I think anyone can do is kind of like grow and learn and figure it out.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I've kind of been obsessed with this statement lately of the learnings when you're in the middle, like it's in the middle how you hold, how you advance, how you grow, how you learn.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: What was your biggest learning in the middle of just the beginning of your bold journey?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because like I'm sure everything didn't go as planned.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the biggest things was I was in the middle of my career, or you know, kind of starting out in my career when the big recession, you'd call it, of 2008 happened.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so at that time, I was working on a team, a different website within the same company in Birmingham still.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And my team, I think, had seven or eight people on it at the time.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them got let go, some of them got moved to other titles within the company.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so basically the the website I was working on became me, and I was doing everything.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was a little bit of a turning point, obviously, to be like, how am I gonna do this entire website myself?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: This was many people's jobs, and now it's me.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had to scale down, I had to figure out what the priorities were, and I had to figure out how to really make sure that we were hitting everything we needed to hit.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what do we need to do for advertisers?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: What do we need to do to make sure that um, you know, our partnerships and our sponsorships are covered and really kind of highlight what the most important things were, and then just being honest with the company and saying these things have to fall away.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: I am literally one person.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was just the whole learning experience.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: In that case, I didn't put myself out there, I wasn't ready for that.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: But by going through that process, I learned that I could take on more than I thought I could.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it was difficult, but at the same time, it helped me become more competent.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: It did also help me realize that I it was too much.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: That did burn me out after a while.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: So after about a year of that, I moved on to a different company.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a healthcare company.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: I had never worked in healthcare in my life.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I went from a company that was, you know, a media company that was well known and had a lot of success in the the new burgeoning digital space and social space to a healthcare company that when I started, I think they had about 300 followers on their Facebook page.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And when I left a year later, they had a thousand and they thought I had hung the moon because I tripled their amount of social followers.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it was just an interesting, that was an interesting journey.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of needed that time to take a break and reevaluate my life a little bit.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: That was kind of a little bit of my turning point of being like, what do I really want to do?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then a year later, I had the opportunity through an old colleague to take my next big bold move, which was moving to Knoxville, Tennessee for my job right now with TV.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: So again, bold moves throughout and and just a couple things in there.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, like losing your job, and a lot of people I think now, you know, what in our world right now are in transition in some form or fashion.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're either thinking about a pivot or they've been forced into a pivot or they've been asked to leave and step into their pivot.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a lot of flavors of it out there right now.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my first job that I got out of my first master's, uh, I actually got riffed in the first year because my CEO that I reported to got riffed.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I was 26, I had a one-year-old, we were, you know, young couple.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember going, like, what the heck?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it was just kind of like again, right foot, left foot.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I remember calling my husband and saying, Can you help me pack?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Can you come?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, What's going on?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I've been like, Oh, you know, I had the box and everything.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but it was like also at the same time, similar to when I left my job and kind of started the company that I have now.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was a freeing feeling.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, okay, am I doing the right thing?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: I am, am I in the right space?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of did something similar to you.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I went from being in healthcare, which I had worked all in all my undergrad and my first master's on, to going into education.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up being in a K through 12 environment and then going back and getting another master's there.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: But it was like, let me figure this out.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's like life in a way.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Let me figure this out.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, that sucked, but I'm gonna keep going, versus like kind of like sitting in it, you know?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think sometimes people, and I don't mean like don't have a moment, it it everyone's allowed to have a moment.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay to feel like this is a this isn't what I plan.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right, just don't live there, right?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: In that sense, would you agree that's kind of how you work through?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, obviously, you made the decision and had that moment, you know, in in the sense of kind of changing jobs and having the time to think about it, but you kept moving through it.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely kept moving through it.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it was also a learning experience for me to realize kind of when I was in the media world, in the magazine media world, it was all-encompassing, you know.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that everyone cared about magazines all over all the time, that all people thought about was this.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And to move to the healthcare space was kind of illuminating to be like, oh, there's so many other parts of marketing, of social, of my landscape can go into a bunch of different kinds of careers.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was a little bit freeing to me to realize, oh, there's not just one path in life.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, like you get in the magazine world, you start to think, okay, assistant editor, editor, managing editor, executive editor, editor-in-chief.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like you think you have to continue on this path.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's really laid out.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, it's tremendous.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like my daughter at one point was thinking about going to the publication world, which is what you're talking about.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Well, why can't you come in here?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, like this level.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, No, you have to work your way up and like she didn't say it like this, but in my mind, this is why I heard pay your dues, like at every level.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like, wow, I don't know if I could do that in the sense of what if I'm ready for skip a level.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And like it was such a prescribed formula that to then kind of jump out of that and realize, oh, you don't have to go through this, or I didn't have to go through this path.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: There was so many other opportunities I could take, was a kind of freeing feeling.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the time when I was able to kind of look back at myself and say, what do I want to do going forward?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is this where I want to stay?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: What's what's my next step here?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then luckily, a previous colleague of mine reached out to me about this opportunity at ACTV.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I had just gotten married.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: I got married in September, and then this happened in February.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And my husband at this time, like, he was my tribe.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: He was the one that was cheering me on.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: He is a wonderful chef, and he was a chef, and he was saying, I can go cook anywhere.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's take this opportunity for you.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go, let's try this, let's move to a brand new place.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Again, we the only time we went to Knoxville was when I entered into the job and then we moved there.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't know a single person in this town.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't know a single person when we moved here.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, it was starting over in a brand new place with a brand new opportunity.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been amazing.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like that has been the best, probably the best boldest move that I've made is this company that I've moved into now.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, like the outcome of a bold move, like you have several here.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think one of the things, you know, I've heard is people are looking for jobs, is like, are you willing to relocate in the world that we live in now?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: And someone will say, Well, for the right job, right?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: And but you didn't know if it was right.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you knew it felt right.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: You knew that the ingredients of your decision making, they all added up to a yes, but you still made the move without certainty.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's that's also something for the listeners to hear because I think it's that it's that stepping into it and doing it part that you're not gonna know till you do it.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: But once you do it, again, like the reward or the experience or the learning from it is what you get.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you just can't convince people to make that move.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's scary.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a scary prospect to say, I'm gonna jump into something I don't know.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna learn as I go.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the position that I have now, you know, I've been with the company for 11 years now.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely different than what I got hired to do.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that was from making bold moves within the company when I got there.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I started doing more, I got hired to be in charge of the website, kind of programming different parts of the website, the homepage, what we called channel pages at the time.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: That was my job then.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then I realized as the social media world was really growing, how passionate I was about that.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was at my previous job, I had basically had to write this again, it makes me sound like I was like one of the first people on Facebook, but I had to convince my boss that we needed to be on Facebook.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I had to like basically write him a paper comparing other brands that were on Facebook, why we needed to make this leap.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he was very like focused on the website, focused on newsletters.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I think we need to do this.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so we ended up starting a Facebook page, which obviously now everyone has.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then we started there, somebody had started an Instagram account, and at the time it had 2,000 followers, and no one knew what the password was.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody had changed the password and no one knew what it was.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, if I can get the password and figure it out, can I own this platform?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone at that point was really focused on Facebook and Twitter.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so they were all like, Yeah, if you want to play with it, go for it.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I figured out the password, changed it, kind of made it my baby.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And for a couple of years, just really grew that platform.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And now obviously Instagram is huge.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: We have five and a half million followers there and growing every day.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so that really helped me realize follow what I'm passionate about.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then when the person who was in charge of social media left the company, I kind of threw my hat in and said, this is what I really want to focus on.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then we realized how much social and digital impacted everything that was happening on TV at the time, and where the audiences needed to learn more about our shows and our talent was on their phones, on their computers, on social.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so that really helped kind of develop my position as I went because the world was changing as I was growing in my career.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was able to take a lot of those changes and recognize what I saw were, you know, the platforms that we needed to be on and the messages we needed to be telling.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And from there have helped really grow our brand across social.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: So along the way, you were doing a few things.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I go back to something you said earlier around measuring success in a different way, right?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: You took opportunities like, well, if I can find the password, let me own this and take it.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: And kind of that MacGyver mindset of like, I'll figure it out even with paperclip.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like, whatever I need to do.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then again, it's like I'm sure there were moments in there where things fell flat and they didn't kind of work like you wanted.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you know how did you say five and a half million followers just on Facebook?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's just on Instagram.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Our entire world across our portfolio for HTV is about over 30 million.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a little bit like you said, being a little bit scared sometimes of just posting.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when I'm posting on Instagram and I have a whole wonderful team that does a lot of this now, it's a scary feeling to feel like whatever I put out there, five and a half million people might see.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like that's a slightly terrifying moment to then click post.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very used to it, and still every time I do it, I kind of have to hold my breath as I hit post.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's something about being authentic and vulnerable.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, regardless of whether you're creating content about someone or you're doing something like the day in the life of Abby, like those are moments where you're just like, okay, I'm gonna do it.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna put out there, I'm gonna show when I fell flat or like when my day went left.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so what is helpful for us to know about being authentic in a digital world?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: And what does that look like in your world when HGTV and kind of your role?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think for us, it's really finding the moments where we can connect our audience with our talent and show them that they're real people.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of times when you see things on TV, it's a very, you know, edited piece of content.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're watching them build a house, flip a house, decorate a house that's taken them months to do, and they're consolidating that into a 30 or 60 minute episode.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and you see a very specific version of that person.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so our goal is to show every side of our talent.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we're kind of showing these are real people.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're here's their house tour, here's what they're like when they're a day in the life of them.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Here, let's go walk around their town and find their favorite parts of what they like to do when they're at home.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what my team does a lot is to kind of go into the talented world.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the audience really seems to like that, to say, like, who are these people?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let me see who they are.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: When when you're scrolling on your phone at night when you're, you know, in bed about to go to sleep, it's kind of like an intimate environment.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so we want to make sure that we're showing a friendly, real side of our talent as we're you know, presenting them to the audience.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I always tell my team is we go into shoots with talent or big shoots that we have, you know, a big plan for three days of shooting with them.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have obviously beats that we want to get and we have an outline of our goals for the whole shoot.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, I always say, whatever we come out with is more than we went in with, you know, anything we get when we leave is gonna be more than we had.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't know what's gonna happen.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to kind of fall with the punches a little bit.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if a moment happens that we never could have expected, it might turn into that's the goal that we needed, you know?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes just being able to be very flexible and not so rigid in our goals that we can't recognize when something in front of us is the piece of content that we need.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, in that sense, I think one of the things again about being bold is not being rigid and flexible.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're kind of hitting a lot of the points, and you had a plan.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I'm sure these shoots like it's down to the minute, eight to this, eight to nine, the doing this, you know, nine to ten here.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And those things don't always go as planned.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Can you think of a time that there was a good learning from things not going right?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: We did this amazing event for almost a year.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: My team was tasked with we the HTTP bought the Brady Bunch House.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so my team was tasked, we announced it in November.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: The show wasn't airing until September.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: So my team was tasked with keep the world interested in this for almost a year.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we were there almost every week building content, putting it out there, making YouTube videos.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we had a very big promo day, we called it, towards the end where we had all of the talent, a ton of extras.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a day where, you know, again, we went in with a plan and it was so crazy.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And there were so many people, it was crazy in a wonderful way.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: There were so many people there, so many cameras.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, because of that, you know, everything was running behind a little bit.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we just kind of had to adapt.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we ended up getting so many good moments with the talent.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: One of the best ones on the first day of filming, actually, of that, the cameras were all outside the house, and we happened to have a camera that just walked in the back door.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they got this really intimate moment with the Brady Bunch cast, where they were standing in the house and for the first time they were all six looking around like this is something we didn't ever think we'd see again in our lives.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that ended up being a moment that we used on social and they put it in the show.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it just happened to be a moment where we recognized, like, get this quick, go walk in before they start shooting.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it's finding those little things.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not that anything went wrong, it's just we had to be able to pivot.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was unscripted.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Unscripted, unplanned, and beautiful.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's kind of like a really beautiful moment.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it's beautiful because it's actually not planned and it's natural.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: And in a way, that's the definition of bold too.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, in the sense of, you know, beauty comes from things that you never planned and don't have any idea how it might go or what it might look like once you tape it or take a picture of it or you know, move into that new place.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like you just don't know until you try it.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And there's spontaneity and creativity in there too, I think.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Sound like a big, big piece of your world.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Very much so.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what I task my team with.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, go into a situation and figure out what the moments are that you're gonna gather.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like we don't know what these people are gonna immediately say, what they're gonna, how they're gonna react to something.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: So even beyond a digital original sheet that we're doing, even the being a little bit spontaneous and able to adapt in actions that we do or the comments that we put out there or the retweets that we do, you know, just kind of recognizing the moments.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: I have a guy on my team who he's like a pop culture genius.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's able to take our brand and kind of insert it into conversations that I would never normally think about.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like he was like, Oh my god, the episode of The Last of Us last night had this great moment, and I think I'm gonna make this meme and tie it back to HCTV.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's see what happens.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so, again, because social is a flexible platform.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously, we're very aware of anything we put out there the world can see.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like this is an invincible platform and the words are just for us to play with.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we're obviously, you know, making sure that we are true to the brand and the brand voice and everything we put out, but we have a little bit of fun with it too.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're able to play with it.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things you just said reminds me of like uh the bold performance formula and something that I've talked about, which is really being a bold leader and how you, by doing that, actually has a ripple effect on your team.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the opportunity to try things and see how it goes, and team being able to put things out there and not get kind of a reverberation of no, we're doing it this way, empowering them to do things that we have no clue how it might end up, but we understand pragmatically and thoughtfully we won't offend anyone or do anything, you know, to hurt anyone.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: So do you see that in yourself as a bold leader?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Would you call yourself a bold leader?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to think I am.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think that, you know, working with my team to really do exactly what you just said, to empower them helps make me bold in the fact that I trust them, that I, you know, value their opinions, and that it's not just me here telling them exactly what to do.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And also being upset if something doesn't work out.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's being bold and taking chances.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's one of the things that I do well and that I lead them into doing.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I would like to say, yes, the bold thing.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty sure you are.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think the other thing is, you know, I remember telling my team and continue to tell my team, like, always tell me like if something doesn't go right, you know, because like don't ever feel like you can't, because I don't want you to feel like one, you're alone in that situation, and two, I want we, you know, maybe we can figure out something that will make it even better, right?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so just having that that open opportunity to to fail.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's been some of the big moments in my life of being able to have a a supervisor or you know, someone who, you know, has faith in me and knows I'm human and not perfect, but you know, whatever it is, we'll learn if we don't we don't succeed.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I think a lot of boldness all around that.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we take the digital world today and you know, many people trying to tell their story and be their authentic self and a lot of the branding pieces that connect with social.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: What are some of the key learnings in your world that we could maybe implement individually in our own spaces, like on Instagram or any of the socials that we use, LinkedIn, TikTok?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's like a gazillion now.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there's some I don't know.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I can't even read the news because I don't want to know about some new platform that's showing up.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, really.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that we really try and just focus on is being authentic and showing the side of our talent or our brand, even that really resonates with our audience.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the couple pieces that we put up in the last year that really hit hard were a young talent that we have.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first season of their show.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: She came from the MTV world from the show Teen Mom, and now she has an HG TV show with her husband.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she was wonderful.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: We shot with them for two days at their house in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and got amazing moments with them.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the things that really worked best for our audience was when she told more about her life, you know, about things that a little house tour or uh words, and one of the things that did really well was what are some words that you live by?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Fake it till you make it, which is sometimes good advice to have.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so she really broke down to her odd, to our audience, like who she is as a person.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we were able to show that through our social clips, and they performed super well.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: So working with our talent to find those moments of being authentic, I think is great.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I like to follow on social too.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the people that I see that are really showing me their lives, that are showing the good and the bad and the ugly, that are showing what a daily life is like.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, obviously everything's through a little bit of filter, and you're not gonna show every single thing, but just really being true to your brand, your voice, or just being authentic to yourself, I think is one of the most important things.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: So be real.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And as hard as that is, sometimes just like embrace being real.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's advice I have for people.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll be judged.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just tell you that right now.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: Someone's gonna judge you.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just kind of like, so what?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's easier said than done on certain days, and people can say some pretty mean things on social, and you know, it's how you manage that or how you, you know, delete or how you don't let people make comments, whatever it may be.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's like lots of tools, but keep being real because it's a whole lot easier to be yourself than anybody else.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's one thing.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like when I went out of the corporate world, and there's nothing wrong with the corporate world.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: I it's who I work with, it's it's what I love to do and help and and support.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: But when I was in that world, I always felt like I wasn't completely myself.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was 90% most of the time, but like I just it's just something nice about just saying I'm 100% me now.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what people want to see.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: They want to learn from, they want to know when you have the up and the down.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, being an entrepreneur, being in a role like you have, like it's not every day is unicorns and butterflies.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's some there's some tough days, and that's where kind of the grit gets in there and where you figure it out and the boldness comes through.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's great advice for people as as they're working across their platforms.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, what's new and upcoming?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: What's the biggest thing in HGTV that we can look forward to?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: Anything that we're excited, you're excited about your team's excited about for 2023?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we are doing, we've already announced this so I can talk about it.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: The Barbie movie is coming out this summer.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And as a kind of a campaign for that, HGTV is doing a Barbie dream house.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: So there's more information to come, but we have taken a house in California and we are transforming it into the Barbie Dream House, and it's going to be called the Barbie Dream House Challenge.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be amazing.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be awesome.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have 16 different talent from HGTV that are all working on this house.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Ashley Graham, who is a supermodel, is the host for it.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm actually flying out there on Wednesday to go to the house.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we have a big, huge shoot there, and it's going to be really fun.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be amazing.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's going to be amazing.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And just the whole world of Barbie.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: I because I've said Barbie so many times, basically, I think my phone is now showing me Barbie things.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I just never passionate people are about it and how many fans of the brand and the overall who Barbie is.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: She's been around for years and years.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think just showing that HGTV can play in that space and that we can really do it in a fun, awesome way is going to be so cool to show the audience.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that's our big project.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's going to be out this summer, right around when the movie comes out.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, very cool.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, all the information about the show, things coming up, and more about Abby is below in the episode notes.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge, Abby.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Through the continuum of bold stories, vulnerability to taking the lead.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: You will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Through their unique and important story.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others to share the journey of those bold.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey.