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Why Pricing Your Work Feels Like Therapy · That Home Loan Hub

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: For those that have been listening for a while now, you know I love diving into people's stories.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Our podcast sort of evolved from homeland information to really diving into the mindset and the stories that people have to offer because I find that this is where we learn the most.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in regards to the storytelling, today I am joined by Heather Horswell from Carperty.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: And her company name is Veritif and she deals with people's stories.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, Heather.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Kiora.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Kiora.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Nice to have you in my house today.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for coming in.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Great to be here.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: So you and I have met earlier this year, I think.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I think it was.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I met you through a really interesting thing that started up in Carpete about the brain, I think it was a brain collective brain tank.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: And people came in and they were sharing their business ideas.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw your writing furiously on the board.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was our first introduction.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Do you just mind telling our listeners a little bit about who you are, what you do, and what's your background story, and then we'll dive into that.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: That was probably a good introduction in terms of our first experience together.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm often at a board writing furiously.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it's that connecting ideas together, and I'm fascinated about that.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a brand strategist.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I help businesses and organizations with their brand strategy, and I help them, I guide them through a process of implementing that strategy.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a it's a process that I've found that is understood to a certain extent, but there are elements of it that gets messed.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it was something as a contractor, as a videographer, that I consistently saw that there were some gaps.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it was something that I did address as a video production company owner, but it wasn't my main focus.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: My main focus was that outcome.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that eventually drove me to what I do today, which is centered around brand strategy.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's taken me in all sorts of different directions because I think our relationship with what brand is can vary.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So in terms of the conversations that I have with people, it's always interesting to see where they're at with that topic and what it means to tell our story and how people feel about that.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been a it's, I think it comes back down to who we are as humans.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a it can be a big topic, can be quite overwhelming if you think about it in terms of the impact that you can have on others by sharing your story, and that can be kind of a scary thing sometimes.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I've found that sitting with people, often one-on-one in person, and guiding them through a process that allows them to just more like it's a process that I think has has to happen themselves first before they can do the outreach to the world.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a uh it's sometimes it almost feels like therapy, I have to say, but in the best possible way.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it does feel like there's a healthy outcome at the end.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Funny you mentioned therapy, but I think this is why people go to therapy.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: They like to talk, right?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: We talk our problems out.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the same as storytelling.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: When we talk about what has happened to us, where we've come from, where we're going.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think our brain then can make sense of those things.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of your work, what do you enjoy the most?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's that one-on-one going through a there's a journey.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a journey from how somebody might feel about promoting themselves, depending on what it is that they might come to me for.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it might be to develop a new business that they have or an idea, and from taking them from that point to a point where they're confident to share their ideas with the world and feel really connected to it on a personal level, and they're able to show and share that passion that they have, which is what drove them to it in the first place.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And allowing them to find their own way to navigate that to come out the other end with confidence is something that uh will never get old for me.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Heather, I'm gonna take you back on the train to Little Heather.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Where did that little Heather want it to go and why this has become a passion?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: What's your story?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think it all comes back down to a childhood surrounded by art and creativity.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was something that my dad was a sculptor and he had multiple workshops and he was always creating something.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: He had graduated from the Edinburgh Art College in the 70s and they moved over to Luxembourg.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: My my mother was uh in, uh she worked for the European Parliament, which is why we were there.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of an odd way to start.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: We were foreigners somewhat in the country that we lived in, and I went to a European school.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: But the influence that my dad had in terms of the way he saw the world and the way he processed it and expressed his um creativity was something that was always uh was always on my mind.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I just saw something there, and I saw that businesses were also creating things, and I always thought about I would tend to think about the merging of business and creativity, but from an artist's point of view, and I always felt that there were opportunities there that often got missed and the pursuit of short-term gains and commercial interests, and I thought there was uh there was a better way of of doing it, and sometimes you know we've got some great examples of how we've had some businesses that have brought in that creativity and have done some amazing things, but I thought that there are there are things there that smaller businesses could be able to do as well.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a mindset.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where I came from in terms of getting that seed and passion for people, creativity, learning more, and then I guess the sculptures and storytelling is very similar.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: One is more physical and one is more verbal, yes, the way I would say it.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I love that, yes, because I remember my dad talking about what sculpture is, and if you're sculpting a lion, say you just take away the bits that don't look like a lion.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot, it's worth remembering that when you're thinking about writing your story in terms of staying on message, I guess you could say, which is a little bit a business way of looking at it, but it's that's essentially what we're wanting to do.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we we're we're focusing on that core message, and yeah, so there's some parallels there.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I went and studied media studies and video production at university in New Zealand or overseas?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that was in Edinburgh.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I traveled over to the UK, um, lived in the UK for four years, and that was my way of thinking uh, well, I like the creativity and I like filmmaking, but maybe let's make it into something that I could actually make some money off.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was about to say, I actually was in the back of my mind the whole time, going creative people are usually seen as the poor people because you don't really make much money in that industry unless you're Peter Jackson and you broke the world and you made your way.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: But majority of the people I know in the creative space are not mega rich, it's not a career to make a lot of money in.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess I had a problem with that.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's good.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good problem to have.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't want to be a poor, poor artist.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I I thought, well, maybe if I could figure it out, I'll circle back around and I might be able to help those artists out in some way, um, which is something that I'm starting to look at now.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: So but you're right, it is it's not an easy, it's it's not an easy approach to take.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's there there are long-term goals.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: You you can't commodify everything, make money off everything.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, it's an interesting one.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: But so that was that was my strategy.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, well, I've kind of understand this creative world, and there's film and there's video production, and there are businesses that are out there that I think could take something from this world of creativity and art and that approach.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so let's see if there's anything we can we can do with that.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So and how did you end up in New Zealand?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: That was so after I graduated, I went spent nine months in the French Alps, and most of the company that I work for were either Kiwi or Aussie, and the Kiwis convinced me to make New Zealand my next stop in my round the world tour.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: What blows my mind is New Zealand is so small, the population is so small, but anywhere you go in the world, you will meet a kiwi.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, and they all find themselves as well, the or each other.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they gravitate towards each other, don't they?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: It blows my mind every time I've met Kivis in extreme parts of the world, or I've heard of them going, and I'm like, wow, how did you guys end up there?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is so cool.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so you met some kiwis, they've convinced you to come to New Zealand.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: You come to New Zealand, then what happens?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so I by this point I was used to taking on all sorts of jobs.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was, you know, working in the vineyards as you do when you first come, you know, it's a bit of a rite of passage, yep.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Pruning or whatever it is, or picking grapes.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would eventually make promotional videos just using the this the skills that I had.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I did I saw a gap.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: I saw a gap where um Wanaka and and Queenstown often are you know known for their film industry, but these crews would come and go, they would use the location a lot of the crew would come fly in and and they would go again.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So there was really not very many video production companies around to support those businesses there that were doing some pretty big things.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: There was we had the big you know export market there, and there was there was work to be done.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I ended up establishing a video uh video production company, and that was me for 10 years.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, I love Queenstown, I love mountains.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, that's just one of my happiest places in New Zealand.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I can imagine you had 10 years of it in there.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and then what happened?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: What are you doing in Carpeti?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: I want to draw the line.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: What happened?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: How did you end up here?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so that was we we ended up with we had some land and our idea was our plan was to build.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Hold on, you met a guy?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: We skipped that chapter.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, yes, we did skip that chapter.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so I ended up with the guy that I met at uni in Edinburgh.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: After all of that.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we we reconnected when I came to New Zealand.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I I did I was traveling by myself around the world and and then we met up in in New Zealand when I got here.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the plan for me was to get back to Wellington so I could earn some money to carry on traveling, and uh, but I decided to stay in Wanaka instead, and that's where we were for a few years, and then it was Cromwell and then Clyde, and we bought our first home in Clyde.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, prices were a little bit more affordable.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was about to say, you would have been a millionaire now to buy something there.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then you guys were gonna build a house there, right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we we had a piece of land outside of Alexandra that we had the plan of building on, and just life started to get things changed, and we realized that we were quickly in a position where we kind of missed that window to build.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we just all of a sudden realized that we didn't, you know, we had the opportunity uh to to go elsewhere and explore the country, which we really hadn't been able to do.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Our work had always centered around central Otago and Otago itself, and we'd explored a lot of the South Island.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: The North Island seemed so far away.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's a whole other island.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: It really is, and it it didn't, you know, it was whenever we tried to to travel there, we realized that you know it was a long way to drive, but also, you know, getting the car over or flying up, it was a big deal.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we hadn't really done it as we hadn't explored the North Island as much as we'd wanted to.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we decided to uh our kids by that point were one and four, so it made it easy.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's easy to be moving cities and islands when the kids are so little.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was just before, yeah.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that they hadn't got I hadn't gone to school yet, yeah.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, but uh it was it was one of those things, and I it kind of feels like it's full circle because I did eventually want to come back to Wellington.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was about to say, so you wanted to come back to Wellington and then you ended up in Carpeti, so that sort of makes sense.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and how long have you been in Carpeti now?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: We uh moved up in 2021, so five years.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's yes, it's incredible.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I still feel like a newbie, but that's a that's a good thing because I like to see things, I'd like to explore new yeah, new places.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we still feel like we're doing that.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, that's good.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And is your husband also in uh video production with you?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's an electrical engineer.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we are quite different, but that works to our advantage, and he keeps me grounded in some areas where you know I can kind of get carried away, I suppose.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so we uh come from quite different worlds, really.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing that I've I've I've learned and my husband Stu is a great example of, is is creativity and those people that consider themselves not to be creative, and I know that they are, of course.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: But we show our creativity in in different ways, and I think the the the label that creativity has uh has for some stops people feeling connected to it.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: They feel like it's just not them, you know, that's somebody else, that's somebody who you know has an art gallery or something like that.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Of course it's not at all, and that's what I love to tap into.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I also like to have my eyes cheat, my ideas challenged with, you know, in terms of when we're processing new ideas or thinking about going a different way, and somebody who uh comes from that mindset is is I gravitate towards that because I do like a challenge.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: You're right.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: As you were saying that, I was thinking, I think everyone is creative, just in their own ways.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, whether you are an actual creative working in the creative industry, making sculptures or writing stories or producing videos or producing beautiful art, or whether you are an electrical engineer or a civic engineer, like there is a lot of creativity that has to go into that by you know putting things together, by building things together.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's you have to have creativity for that.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, things won't flow, things won't connect properly.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: So uh no, I love that.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: I love that you draw that.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: So is New Zealand home now for you?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, yeah, yeah.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've always been a bit of an outsider, I suppose, by the nature of my upbringing, I guess, but also the languages that I spoke.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: I did struggle with the languages in Luxembourg, so I developed an ability to get a sense of who somebody is and somebody's story without doing more observing than actually, you know, verbal communication.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that helped me with my video production because I wore a I was trained as a documentary filmmaker.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was very lucky to have some great, my great mentor that helped me uh develop all those skills at university.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the way I approached all of my video production projects is wearing a documentary filmmaker's hat constantly throughout.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that takes a lot of observation and sometimes just standing in a space and just kind of listening and experiencing it, maybe being a, you know, ideally a fly on the wall because you can learn so much about how a business operates by just you know hanging around and just and uh getting a feel for what it's like to work there.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that for me was the the ultimate goal was to understand that reality for that business and be able to translate that into something that was going to engage ultimately their their audience and be part of the story that they wanted to tell because it was always going to be unique, it's not manufactured.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: I love that because when I first met you, you really strike me as someone that's very intelligent, calm, collected, but very observant.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: You remind me a lot of my daughter.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: She's she's got the same sort of sense of energy as you because often she would stand back and just watch first before she participates in everything.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know whether it's a guilt thing or not.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Don't know, because I've got three boys and they just dive into things.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: But she often would stand back and she would really observe.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I had the same sense of you that you just striked me straight away, like, wow, this is a super intelligent person right there.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, that's very nice.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I could just see it written all over you.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny how we can see that in different ways.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: For me, I feel like I need to take some time, but that's possibly a more kind of self-critical way of, you know, I won't just jump in.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: There are people that do, and they do a fantastic job, and I'm just not one of them.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: So but jumping in some sometimes may not be the greatest idea either.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta watch where you're jumping into as well.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: So now I love that.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now take me back a little bit about what I'm fascinated to always when I talk to people is about their relationship with money and finances.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you've traveled to a different country, then you've had a family, then you've traveled from one island to another, you bought properties.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, how was your relationship with money and then your relationship with your husband and money?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Do you guys speak the same sort of language or not?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm also curious about.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's been an interesting one.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: I must have been doing all right because I was able to stay independent and I didn't go bankrupt and I didn't run out of money as I was traveling the world.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I would never considered myself very good with money, but I think that was because I was just assuming that because I didn't have, um, I didn't feel like I had gone through any, you know, I didn't really have any frameworks to live, you know, the operate by.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I d we didn't have all that many conversations about money growing up.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, Stu and I are quite different, but he's certainly been able to give me and yeah, we've we've worked together on on some things, and I think that's been part of how we've how we've managed to do all the things that we have.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny looking back and all the different projects, you know, and what we did on the on the land and how we how we afforded any of it at all, actually.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: But we but we, you know, we I think planning was was Really, it for us, and that was something that I understood and I could get behind, and under and prioritizing what those things that were really important to us, and having an overall view of our goals, and that was something that I did with my business, and it got me here in terms of you know, there was a lot of paperwork to fill out and working holiday visas and that sort of thing.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, it was kind of just part of that process.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think I could have possibly have looked it into you know the my long-term financial goals more, but I saw it as part of you know, just part of uh the the the overall process of of daily life and getting to the next stage.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's been an interesting one.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then of course the business was a whole new chapter, and and managing that, managing the finances of the business and the the pricing game that we play as small business owners, and which is yeah, which can be a real challenge if it's already something that you're feeling not 100% confident in.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I can understand how that can be.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I've lived through it.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: It certainly was a uh probably the one of the biggest challenges because I was very much focused on those goals for the client, and pricing didn't, it was a bit of a barrier to us reaching that.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And um so that was something that I had to work through.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Take me here for a moment because I I see this as a real issue in today's world, and especially when it's a woman-driven business, as pricing our services to someone.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: Often I see a business that would price something, and that could be a male-driven business, and that could ask for a ridiculous amount of money, and then there is a woman, she might offer the same services, she might offer, she might have the same experience, but somehow her price is maybe two or three times cheaper.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you think that is?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: And is this something you've noticed as well?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, yes.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's it's there's some societal expectations over.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's yeah, that's a deep one podcast.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but sorry to throw that at you, but it suddenly hit me that you know, you you're a woman, you've got your own business, and getting yourself out there, and because you touched on it, I decided to lean on that because I feel it's important we address these issues because for those that are listening, I'm sure they will relate.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if there is one solution to that, but if we at least can address the problem, we can start thinking about it.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it is, I think, recognizing the the world that we live in, perhaps the maybe the the wiring, our brain wiring, you know, as we were growing up, and perhaps there were things that we heard our parents say that that set us up for feeling a certain way about business and making money and what success is, the definition of success.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps there were some expectations on us to do certain things with our lives, and business would then maybe come secondary.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you put business secondary, then you shouldn't really be, you know, this you would put pricing secondary, and then it would you devalue it.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's an certainly an interesting topic that I would would not claim to have solved or figured out in any way, but I'm certainly at that stage in my career where I can look back and I can see patterns.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: I can see conversations that I've had with potential clients that have, you know, I've had to be quite firm about that.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: I this is, you know, there is a reason why I do, you know, have a certain process.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately it's the long-term success of you know, their business that I have in mind.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing the best that I possibly can.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think that comes down to the way that I work now in terms of the long-term goals versus short-term success and marketing tactics.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it kind of speaks to the way that I've developed Verative, the business that I have now, and and and that mindset.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it does speak to that.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And there's there will have to be, you know, I do have to stick to my values.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And also remembering that there's a certain amount of time that needs to be taken in certain areas that that some are unaware of, which is understandable because it might be uh quite a new process, something they haven't done before.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And taking time is really important early on, early on in the process rather than trying to fix problems later.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody with with 10 years of experience of perhaps fixing those problems has you know has developed something for for a good you know reason in terms of how much time you spend in and in a certain area to make things right in the first place.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I think recognizing how much time goes into it and and having a process in place that that is that speaks to that, respects that is part of that for me in terms of managing that on a daily basis.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: I love that you got a bit uncomfortable as well, because I feel this is where the brain cells firing up, going, ooh, I need to, I need to address this difficult topic here.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it is.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's easy to forget the amount of time that goes into creating something of of meaning.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing is, as you say, you know, when a business hires your services, they don't see the hours you put in because a lot of those hours are done outside of the office.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that you've come in, you took a video or you took the story and then you left, and that's all you spent.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: You've spent time preparing for the meeting, you spend time afterwards, just like this podcast.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of people just hear the final result, but there's actually a lot that goes on beforehand and then during the interview and then after the interview as well, that we do a lot of post-production as well.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's incredible to voice this because I see a lot of businesses out there that don't get the right, what's the word for it, the right credit for the hours they put in.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like you know, an electrician that pops in, fix something, and they leave, but even the electricians have to actually prepare for that trip.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: They have to bring the right tools, they have to bring the right equipment, and then they may not even have that when they arrive because the switchboard may be completely different and they have to leave and then come back again.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's the unseen work.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so I admire you.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: I admire you, and I admire your passion for what you're doing because I think storytelling is so important.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And in today's age, as well, when there's so much AI, and sometimes you just don't know the videos you watch, you don't know whether they're real or not.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about AI for a second.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think your industry is threatened by that?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think AI can replace you?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: It will never be able to replace that one-on-one.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it ultimately is a one-way conversation, even though it feels like a two-way, because the AI will be trained to, you know.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Please you.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps challenge you.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, so there's some uses to it.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think it will, I don't think it will develop ideas that will come from a conversation like we are having now.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll have some new ideas that I'd thought of before.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so that's that's something that won't get replaced anytime soon.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: There are some opportunities I feel when it comes to being able to make certain certain things more accessible, but I'm I'm working through them as very carefully and as slowly as I possibly can, because it's I think it's important to get that right.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're not diving in.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um I am in some ways.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in some ways we're, you know, I'm not putting anyone at risk of getting anything wrong.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, and but yeah, it's it is an interesting one.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's I think we're we're learning all the time the the extent of what AI can help us with, and ultimately that's amplifying what we already have in our brains.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it is it's interesting to ask AI about a topic that you know very well, and to see those errors that come through that I think a lot of people would would miss.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think those are the sorts of things that I'm picking up on and trying to gather a sense of aware what we would miss out on if we were to rely solely on AI to develop a strategy for us as an example of a project that we might use it for.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think AI has its uses and has its way of helping us, but I don't think it will fully replace you or me anytime soon because people still crave that human connection.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: We are all from the cave times when we sat around a fire and shared food, and I think that state in that ancient brain of ours that we need that human connection, we need to connect with one another and really feel that presence.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I am worried for our children's generation because I feel if you don't get them involved in the communities and sports and doing things, it's so easy for them to slip away and be stuck in their rooms and feel disconnected.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where I guess a lot of problems come up for them down the track.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it's super important more than ever to actually have those cute human connections.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we, of course, we're seeing businesses exploring using AI.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it is something that we can look at at the final end of.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if you were to look at business strategy or brand strategy as an example, it would be best to look at it as something as an output at the end.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Once you've done the work and you have set something up that is a true reflection of you and the business, and to use it as that end of the process rather than at the beginning, where it might it you you wouldn't be able to generate those those ideas that are unique to you in the in the first place to then ground ground your business or your project.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, totally agree.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it always cracks me up when clients come to me with this emails that clearly AI has written for them and the calculations that AI have done for them.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, have you used AI for this?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because this does not make sense to me.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, sometimes I had to question myself.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, maybe I don't know something.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and sure enough, I knew the right, the right thing.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: But the the way AI has structured the emails and the way AI has structured the form formulas absolutely blew my mind.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, where is it even getting that information from?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've noticed something similar in the marketing context, and it's it's picked up along the way some ideas where and and they've kind of expressed the if an AI can express, it's kind of spat out these sentences that sound like they, you know, there's there's meaning there, but if you start to kind of unpack it, you're like, what is it on about here?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's an interesting one.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: But but the that concerns me because not everyone can unpack that.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have lived experience of that particular topic to be able to unpack it in a way that needs to, for us to be communicating meaningfully.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if that was put out there, people you know, people might be quite confused by it.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I do feel like it's just a fruit salad of words that sound really smart.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: But the moment you pick as you say, it's like it doesn't even make sense.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: It does not, and it also creates certain products that don't even exist.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, wow, this is cool.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: You just created something that doesn't even exist, but by mushing together various things, it's like, oh wow, cool.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's not real, but thanks.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's it's interesting to watch this world unfold.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: So what's next for you?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you see yourself?
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: You've ticked off Wellington, sort of.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, back, yeah, in in the best way, because we've been in Capitol, we feel like we've got the best of both worlds.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't see us see ourselves as city people, but loved Wellington.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we found that balance there.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's uh it's a great community to live in.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there are lots of things happening here, people that have started businesses around here that are doing all sorts, it's incredible.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and so what now over the next few years, I suppose, for me is exploring the brand strategy, uh, the the limitations of that.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's so so many elements of that that I'm interested in.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: That so whether or not that's helping an industry that traditionally, so perhaps I mentioned before artists.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to go back to.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've already been speaking to a few, kind of test getting an understanding of of how they currently feel about promoting themselves, their work.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think I feel like that's a very, very different topic from your average product.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel like there's a lot of opportunity there because there's, I mean, there's so much meaning, you know, and and why an artist will choose to create one work, you know, as uh in a certain way, you know, there's just so much to communicate there.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking forward to exploring that a little bit.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: But also continuing on, I've worked in so many different industries from a video production point of view, and also developed, been part of developing brands for them as well, and also working in the marketing space, continuing to do that, but more in those building that foundation rather than the output at the end in terms of the marketing.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going taking a step back and looking at those that initial setup and then guiding somebody through, which is which is incredibly satisfying process when you've when you've built that foundation.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's it feels like a very natural step to take, to take a step to outreach when you've you're coming from a place of of truth and connection, feeling really connected to something.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I think that just takes working through an idea and understanding how we what the purpose of our work in the first place, why we've developed a business, and then feeding that through to strategic storytelling, which is really throughout.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just the way we all function, in fact.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, I love it.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: Heather, thank you so much for coming along and sharing your wisdom today.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: I feel I hope our listeners got the essence of what we're trying to convey here.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: And five seconds of fame for you.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Where can they find you?
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: What's your website?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Veritive.nz.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you work with any type of clients that want to?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's it's mainly the mindset.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think some businesses aren't quite ready, which is fair enough.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think um having an understanding of ourselves but also the the people that we serve goes a really long way to developing a brand strategy that is going to feel right and and is ultimately going to kind of and reach those goals.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's more about where where they're feeling that they're at with their in their business journey and feeling, and maybe things haven't worked out so far with marketing tactics, and they're feeling like there's there's there's something more to be done here, something something more holistic.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: Heather, thank you so, so much.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I look forward to seeing where your journey takes you.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's been great.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.