From Clarity to Connection: Ashley Pintaric on Building Brands that Last

“Be clear about your mission and show up for it every day.”

"95% of what we remember is subconscious...the emotional subconscious connections you make with your client are what build trust"

In this episode of Thanks for Doing That, Heather sits down with Ashley Pintaric, founder and chief strategist of Clarion Blue, a Colorado-based marketing company committed to “brilliantly clear marketing” with a human impact. Ashley shares how her business emerged from her volunteer work, why clarity and kindness are cornerstones of her team’s ethos, and how she helps brands attract and nurture loyal customers by staying authentic and mission-driven. If you’ve ever wondered what sets powerful marketing apart from all the noise, this episode will resonate deeply.

In this episode, we explore:

• The backstory behind the name “Clarion Blue” and its evolution
• The power of clarity, kindness, and curiosity in marketing
• Why branding and marketing must work hand in hand
• The difference between attracting customers and nurturing trust
• How to stand out in a crowded, noisy digital world
• The role of emotional connection and subconscious memory in brand loyalty
• The delight of watching clients thrive and kids grow up in parallel

Catch more of the story @thanks.for.doing.that.podcast!

Transcript

Hey, there you are listening to thanks for doing that, a podcast celebrating people and ideas that make this world a better place. I am Heather Winchell, your host and chief enthusiast, and I'm on a mission to bring you conversations that encourage, inspire and delight. So stay tuned for another episode where we explore the things we do, the reasons we do them, and why it matters.

Welcome back to the podcast. Today I am joined by Ashley Pintaric. She is the founder and chief strategist of the Colorado based marketing company Clarion Blue. Ashley and her team of marketing specialists have purposed to create brilliantly clear marketing with [00:01:00] a human impact. And Ashley is another guest that I've had the opportunity to work alongside in the past.

And at that time, we were both in seasons of starting our families, and I remember being in awe of the poise and strong leadership that Ashley displayed in the Complete Insanity that it is to work full-time and have young children. She is perceptive and excellent communicator and a natural encourager.

I love to see how she has leveraged these amazing gifts into a company that helps others succeed and shine. Ashley, thank you so much for joining me. Can you start us off by sharing a bit about what life looks like for you right now? Hi, Heather. Yes. Thank you so much for having me on today. It's so good to reconnect with you and be here.

Life for me today is. It's a balancing act. I would say that there's no hard line where it's, you know, this is work life, this is personal [00:02:00] life. It really all blends together. And so it's, for me, a matter of balancing how can I be the best for my family and how can I be the best for my clients and also take care of myself.

So it's busy. I have two sons in elementary school. One of them is headed to middle school, which I'm still dealing with. Oh, what? I'm not quite, you know, I'm a little bit in denial. Yeah. So this fall that's happening and I'm just enjoying the season. You know, as businesses grow and evolve, you get to reimagine them.

And so I'm kind of in that phase two of saying, okay, Clarion Blue is six years old and we're at another. Pivot where, where are we going next? Which is really fun. So life is, life is full, it is busy, and I, and I feel so blessed and I'm thankful for it. Yeah, I'm really glad to hear that. And I cannot believe you almost have a middle schooler.

How does that make you feel? I'm not far [00:03:00] behind you, right? Yeah, you can't be. Yeah. We're there, Heather. Oh, we are there, girl. I know. Okay. Well, I would love to kick off this conversation with a bit of the backstory into how clear on Blue came to be. Um, so could you maybe unpack the name and how you landed on it?

Yeah. Yeah. So when Clarion Blue first started, I, I actually never set out to start my own business. Hmm. It happened as I was looking for what's next. Um, after I left my last job and I was doing a lot of volunteering with marketing for nonprofits and I just kept doing more and more. And then one day my husband was like, Hey, babe.

You need to get paid for this. So I was like, oh, right, I should, you know, maybe this is it. So it, it started very quickly where I picked a name, premier Marketing and just set off and did my own [00:04:00] branding. And then within two years, uh, it became more and more clear that this was the direction I'm going. I needed to rebrand and I was looking for a name.

And one day my friend was telling me about a woman she met and her name was Clarion. Hmm. Yeah. Her name was Clarion and I'd never met anyone with that name. And it, it just really struck me as beautiful. I. Not a word that I see all of the time, and I thought, oh, clarion, that means clear. And when I looked it up, it means brilliantly clear.

And so as I was thinking about a business and I was imagining how I would want my business to feel, I. The color blue was pretty consistent too with that because it's calming, like the ocean is endless and blue and it's a color affiliated with professionalism. And so I picked the two of those and my tagline became brilliantly clear [00:05:00] marketing, because that's what we do is marketing and clarity is incredibly important for effective marketing and branding.

So that's where the name came from. I love it. I love it. Okay, so then that was about two years into already being in motion with helping clients. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, it was, it was, um, two or three years in, I, you know, a year into starting this, uh, COVID hit ah, so, you know, everything kind of slowed down. It went from growing as rapidly to everyone's in slow motion just trying to get through it.

So we survived COID and that was when I really realized, alright, I, I am ready to rebrand. Let's pick a new name, new brand colors, figure out what is this gonna look like moving forward. And I would say it wasn't until two years ago. Don't tell any of my clients this, [00:06:00] that I had my own real official website.

I had just been using a landing page because I had so much business, which I'm grateful for. So that's really where it's developed and I'm very thankful. Yeah, that's wonderful. And honestly, I feel like coming out of Covid clarity is something that people long for, and so I'm thankful that that is a core value for your team.

I wonder what other values you would say guide the work you do. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And you are right. Clarity is really important to us, and clarity in all things, not just our marketing and branding, but in our discussions, in our kindness, being upfront and honest, letting our clients know where things are ahead of time or in process, or if we're not the right people, we can provide clarity on who might be.

So clarity and kindness are two really high values for us. I would also say professional expertise and excellence are really [00:07:00] important. One of the ways I built Clarion Blue is. Finding a team of experts in their field. So right now we work with contractors who are experts in their field, and that allows me, and it has allowed me to build custom teams for different clients.

So. When I looked at the landscape, one of the things I noticed is a lot of times businesses might have one person who has some marketing or they have a team, but they have no oversight and they just need someone to help them with direction, or they have a team and they just need help with these certain things.

I. By being able to pull in the right experts and say, here's the team we can put together and come alongside you. That has proved extremely beneficial because nowadays there are so many incredible freelancers who aren't working in a company, but want to help businesses become the best version of themselves.

Mm-hmm. [00:08:00] So professional expertise is really important for us to bring the best to help our clients become the best. I would also say curiosity and humor. So if we cannot laugh at ourselves, I, we're not gonna make it so nobody is perfect and has all the answers. And so as a team you can find solutions and solve problems much better and more efficiently.

And so that's how we build our team with curiosity and humor. And we wanna work with clients that way. Curiosity really comes from. We wanna approach clients and we wanna approach opportunities or developments in the market with curiosity. Mm-hmm. So that we have a growth mindset. We don't want to be, oh, we've got the answer, this is it.

We wanna go into it as learners, and by doing that, we get to understand our client and we can help them more effectively, and we can stay up to date on trends and what's happening and [00:09:00] have that personal development too. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'd say one of the last things that's really important for us is giving back.

It's probably the thing that I struggle with the most because if I were independently wealthy, I would just donate my time to nonprofit work. It's so fulfilling, and I know I wouldn't be here if people hadn't given back to me over certain periods of my life. Being able to do that. Myself or as my team, I have a core team, and then I have an extended team of experts I reach out to.

Being able to help local or national nonprofits is, you know, it gets us going every day. I love that, and I really love that. From what I understand about the way you've constructed your team, both those in your core team and then those that you partner with to help individual clients is just in a world where I feel like there's.

So much noise around this formula, or this is the way you do this, that your company is actually [00:10:00] not forcing people into just one way to market or a mold that they need to find a way to fit. But it seems like you're taking each individual client and really assessing their need from all angles and then rebuilding teams in order to suit their need.

Is that right? Yes. I think that's a great way to put it. We do have some. General methodology. Mm-hmm. That is best practices. And then we also have some proprietary processes and methods we've developed from experience or pulling from this or that idea or this here, but it is. Designed around the needs of the client and the team so that we can customize instead of fitting the client into our packages, we can look at the client and say, this is what would best suit them.

Here's what we can do for you. Is this what you're looking for? If it's not, or. You can't afford it or it's not the right timing, we can then see what might be a better option for you somewhere else. I love that. That's really great. So I can imagine that that [00:11:00] relationship that you build with clients is really fun, gratifying, helping them flush out their vision, communicating that vision.

What have been some of the highlights for you in that process? Yeah, I absolutely love that. So my personal wheelhouse, o obviously I've got a team of incredible people smarter than me, but I would say my personal wheelhouse, the the seat that I love to sit in is strategy and helping brands get their foundation and then the research behind that to help develop that.

So. For me personally, when I get to work with a brand or a company and help them iron out what is our purpose, vision, mission, and what are our values, that is your brand substance. And to be able to help brands and businesses figure that out and see what that is in that light bulb moment of clarity for them, oh, this is what we are, this is how we can communicate [00:12:00] that in our message.

If it's not clear to them and they don't have a clear message that they can deliver to customers or clients, or they're not solving a problem in a way that makes it easy for the customer to understand. They won't get any business because the customers can't understand it. So being able to see the excitement in my client when that light bulb moment happens and they're empowered to take whatever product or service they have to their customers and they can watch that just explode with growth or with purpose.

In my mind, it doesn't even feel like a job then. Mm-hmm. It's. All of the work and the effort, it's, it's like, I get to do this. How cool is that? And I think it is a unique privilege to sit in a position where you can either be part of, or watch somebody become empowered. I couldn't agree more. It really is, it's such an honor, right?

To be part. Oh yeah. Okay. [00:13:00] So, you know, that is beautiful. And so life-giving, and I'm sure that conversely, there are some things about this work that can be a challenge. Could you speak to that? Yeah, for sure. So it is incredible to watch people have those light bulb moments, and then to watch it just snowball and help the brand grow.

I think one of the biggest challenges that I face is helping a brand or a business understand. How important that brand substance is, not just for your brand, but for your marketing. So branding and marketing are different, but they go hand in hand and a lot of people don't understand that, which makes sense.

And marketing attracts and branding nurtures. And so if you think of it this way, like let's say I'm my brand, right? And. I wanna get married. So if I'm a brand and I wanna get married, I gotta go places and [00:14:00] find who I wanna marry, right? So I gotta figure out where are those places, where are those people gonna be, that I'm gonna marry?

And so maybe it's a bar, maybe it's a church, maybe it's a recreational group, you know, a hiking group, whatever it might be. And I put on my best self, like the best version of myself possible. And I go out and I attract those people. So that is marketing. Mm-hmm. That is what marketing does for your brand.

And in today's market, we expect a human brand, someone we can relate to. So let's say I meet someone at one of these events, I. Then if I'm going to develop trust with that person and we're going to develop a relationship, that's where branding comes in. And that is where, oh, we go have dinner together, or we go for our own hike by ourselves, or we stay on the phone and we talk.

That is nurturing the relationship and what's happening is that person is getting to know my [00:15:00] substance. Mm, my character, my values. Am I consistent in who I say I am and what I do? What I showed them that first night? Is that really who I am showing them to be over time as we nurture that relationship and vice versa, right?

Can I trust them? I. So if someone starts to date you and there's no substance or depth and you are not consistently who you said you were, they're not gonna wanna continue that relationship with you, right? And be with you and trust you enough to get married. So, I mean, it's not a perfect analogy, but you can see the role in a brand.

If I'm a brand and I have a. Personality as a brand and I have a product and I show up and I attract people using marketing to my brand, then I nurture those relationships maybe through phone calls or email marketing messages where that message is the same or as you interact with my product or my services.[00:16:00] 

The way I show up day to day is consistent with what I've said I am. When you first met me. So you need them both, right? In order to really have a solid brand and build that trust. So you attract with marketing and you nurture with branding. And so one of the biggest challenges is a lot of people will come to me and they'll need mar, they'll want marketing help.

And that's often true. People don't know what to do with marketing. It is not clear. And oftentimes they just need structure. They need someone on the outside to say, here are the holes, here's what we can do to help. And on the flip side, they haven't given much thought to their mission, vision, value, purpose, or how they're positioning their brand in the market.

How are you different than your competitors? So they haven't given much thought to those things. I. They just think marketing might fix it. Hmm. Without substance, when someone finds you, they're not gonna have anything to be nurtured by. So communicating the [00:17:00] importance of that to clients can be a challenge at some times, right?

Because marketing is easier to measure. You can measure things like how many likes and how many new leads did we get? And nurturing is harder to measure. Brand values is harder to measure. So that's a challenge I would say that I run up against often. And then the other challenge that I would just say is.

People sometimes expect marketing to be the answer to their problem, and they need it to happen overnight. But marketing and branding is not something that happens overnight. Hmm. So you wanna have the long game in mind. It doesn't mean you can't have short bursts of campaigns, and you wanna be agile, so you can adjust things as you go with your marketing, but you can't just throw a bunch of money at something and expect.

Results overnight, unless you already have brand recognition. Mm. You are Apple and you launch a new product. Sure you're gonna [00:18:00] have great sales probably overnight, but if you are a new brand or you're a growing brand. It's the trust over time that you have to build with your clients. That is not something that happens overnight.

So the expectation and what's possible often doesn't align, and that's educating clients on hey. This is no matter who it is, this is what's necessary to build that trust with your customers. Mm-hmm. And it's not gonna happen overnight. It will happen faster if you have more money likely, but it's not gonna happen overnight, so.

Mm-hmm. Those are the challenges, is educating and setting up good expectations. Oh. But I can imagine that's so important because everything you're saying, as you say, that makes sense. And in light of the cultural waters we swim in with perceived overnight success or viral videos or whatever it is, I think it's created this dissonance with what it looks like to have a good return on investment.

Right. And so [00:19:00] I love that you're kind of speaking to the reality of the long game and seeing short-term wins, but really it being a persevering effort. Yes, totally. I agree. It's so easy to look at a brand or a person and think, oh, they're so successful, and. They didn't have any challenges and they just did this one thing and it got them there.

I guarantee you that is not the case. Mm-hmm. It is very rare where something happens and there's overnight success and trust built. I was listening to a masterclass, mark Cuban. He did a masterclass on entrepreneurship and, and building businesses, and it was excellent. One of the things he said that really struck me is he said, any billionaire who says that.

They did it on their own or whatnot, is lying. Mm. It it, it also includes some element of luck hitting the market and the product and the team at the right time. And so I think [00:20:00] this idea that I. Nobody else has struggled, or if I just do this, then I'll have overnight success too is a myth. Mm-hmm. It's a lot of hard work and there is oftentimes when you're overnight successful like that, it oftentimes includes just heading it Right and positioning it.

Right. Well, and I guess to just speak to kind of a different element, we've both lived long enough to know you probably shouldn't trust something overnight. Yes. Probably be slower to. To trust something that's brand new. Right. Um, not that it's not trustworthy, it's just that trust does take time. And I really loved the way you set up the marketing versus the branding, the attracting versus building trust.

The, I think you said nurturing versus attracting. Yeah. Marketing attracts branding. Nurtures. Nurtures. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Yeah. But still, you know, social media and worldwide connectivity. [00:21:00] Has brought incredible opportunity to promote in influence. Like you said, you know, sometimes people hit it just right.

Yep. But if I'm honest, it can also just kind of feel like constant noise with everybody striving to hit it just right. How do you work with your clients to rise above that noise and really stand out amidst all the other voices claiming for attention? Yeah. And that is the challenge, isn't it? Um, and there, I would say there's not just one thing, there's a couple.

One is you do have to understand your brand, your brand substance, and you have to be clear about your message, first of all, because if that's not clear to you. You're just gonna add noise because they're not gonna be able to figure that out either. So going through a brand strategy and brand identity process is really, really important because that helps you position your brand in the market and understand your audience.

That is absolutely imperative. I've worked with [00:22:00] brands that haven't done any research. Or even put together a persona. And a persona for anyone who's not familiar with is sort is like a life. Like person that would be your ideal client. So you wanna like create this fictitional person in your mind and you put them on paper.

And it, it is, it represents who your client is and it's demographics, you know, general age, occupation, and then psychographics. What are they interested in, what are they motivated by? What do they believe in? And so by identifying that audience and understanding it. Then you can work on connecting with that audience.

And I would say one of the biggest things that people miss, like the biggest mistake I see is brands and businesses center themselves as the center of the story. Hmm. They, yes. So you look at a website and if it has the words. [00:23:00] Us or we or anything at the very top of the page, and it's all about themselves and their product, and it's not about the customer's goals or aspirations, then they're centering themselves.

They're not centering their customer, and you have to center your customer at the center of your story because they're looking for you to solve a problem. Right. And you are the guide. You are the one that can provide the solution or help them get to that solution. So that's the first thing. Those are the first couple things.

And then this is also really interesting. 95% of what we remember is subconscious. Hmm. So think about that. 95% of what we remember is subconscious. And the reason I say that is what, what brands and businesses often don't realize is making an emotional connection with your client or with your customer is absolutely essential.

If you wanna [00:24:00] stand out from the noise, because I. You're gonna be part of all these messages, but the subconscious connections you make with your client, the emotional subconscious connections, that is what's going to bring you to the forefront of their mind when they have to decide, because those subconscious connections build trust.

Mm-hmm. Right? It's the nurture. Do you send a personal text? Do you send a card? What do you do? To make those subconscious emotional touchpoints with your client. And the only way you can do that is by knowing who they are, what they believe in, what they're motivated by, and how that overlaps with what you're doing and you connect with it subconsciously.

Hmm. There's lots of ways to do this, but the most brilliant marketing is, for example, a car company. If they do a commercial. The commercial is about the car. It's less memorable than it is if it's about the family being kept safe [00:25:00] in the car from an accident you watch happen, right? You felt something, and so the next time you go to look for a new car, you don't even realize you're remembering that commercial you saw a year ago.

About Subaru or Toyota or whatever it is, but it has built that trust that it's safe. So those are the things over time that will help you stand out from the noise. It's those subconscious emotional connections. It's the brand nurture. That's what it is. So that's key. How do you help people hold the tension of understanding that that's what they're going for, but not creating environments where they're trying to kind of.

Project that in an in authentic way or where they're trying to generate that as opposed to just be that. I think, and again, I would say this really starts at the core of your brand. Right? And, and think of it as a person. We've all met people that over [00:26:00] time we were like, Nope, I can't trust them. Mm-hmm.

Because they're not really who they say they are. And it's the same way with brands. So if you don't know who you are and you haven't committed to those things, your mission is what you are committed to day by day to achieve your vision. Your vision is your future goal. What do I wanna look like as a company in five to 10 years?

And that can be a number of different things. It could be based around size, it could be based around services, whatever it might wanna be. But your mission is what are we committed to every day to help achieve that vision? And if you don't show up in that mission every day the way you say you will, people will notice that.

Mm-hmm. So if you say you're a company that support sustainability, and then they find out you have excessive amounts of waste at your plants, well then you're not really showing up who you are. Right. Right. Because that will get out. So I [00:27:00] think. To be authentic, you have to be who you are. It's being clear about who you are as a brand.

You have to think of yourself as a human brand. That is what people expect today. They expect a human-like characteristic where they can build trust. They can build a relationship with that brand. And we see it time and again when that's successful and we've seen it where it doesn't work out because behind the scenes, that's really not who.

The brand is, and this goes for your internal team too. If you aren't treating your own staff or your internal team, the way that you say you have those values and your mission, your everyday mission, that will affect your company too, and it will leak out as well. So the way you show up authentic is. You are committed to your values and your mission every day to achieve your vision.

And you have a purpose beyond your purpose is why are you here? Why do you exist beyond commercial intent? Mm-hmm. Why are you doing this? [00:28:00] And so those factors are who you are as a brand. So the way you show up authentically is you have to make sure that you are solid and that that is coming out and people will be able to see that in the way that you show up.

Yeah. Does that answer that question? It totally does. Ashley, and I'm just, I'm, I really love that you get to have such an active role in helping people unearth and shape their vision and really helping them see that it matters. You know, just really coming along and stewarding their vision and helping them better understand it so that they can do.

The good and right thing that they're trying to do. I just, I really love that. Yeah. Thank you. It, I, I do love my job. Yeah. Well, I can tell, and I love the energy and the passion and the conviction, and I love what I see coming off of you in that. That is really beautiful. Thank you. [00:29:00] Thank you. Can I add one more thing to that last.

Comment you asked me about how do you stand out in the noise? One more thing I would add to that, and this is really easy for you to do, for anybody to do when you create a piece of content, whether it is on social media, and it's the image, the meme, the copy that goes underneath the post, whether it's a blog post or a newsletter or an email, sit down and read it.

Before you put it out and ask yourself, would I want to read this? Would I take the time to read this if I opened it? And would this help me? 'cause if, if it won't and you wouldn't take the time to read it because you are busy, then I guarantee you your customers and your clients won't. Mm-hmm. That's often, sometimes what I will do if I have a client, they'll say, what do you think of this newsletter?

And I will read it and I'll write back and I'll say, would you read this? [00:30:00] Many times I've made my point, you know, oh, okay, I see it. I need to adjust this. Or would you read this? And would it, would you remember it? If there's no emotional connection, probably not gonna remember. Even though there are times just information is important too.

So, yeah. Anyway. That is so helpful, Ashley. I feel like for anybody out there that's trying to do anything in the world, this conversation has been so helpful. You can tell that you are in the business of providing clear, direct, good communication, so thank you for sharing of that with us. Thank you. Before we kind of transition into the later part of our interview, I'm wondering is there anything else we should know about the work that you do or how you do it?

Yeah, I've already mentioned that we really customize per client, and that's how we built our team is to get to know the clients and if we're the right fit. And if we are, [00:31:00] how can we empower you? Our mission statement, our purpose and mission is we exist to help businesses be the best version of themselves.

And then our mission is we do that through uncovering exceptional insights. Educating and empowering our clients and providing customized personalized services. So through those methods and means is how we've built our agency, and that's what makes us tick. If we can help you be the best version of yourself, that's the best thing we could do.

Mm-hmm. That makes us excited. And I think what I love is knowing you even though you have a company that can be very flexible and agile to meet the needs of the client, you also aren't afraid to say when you don't think you are the solution. That's right. It, it doesn't help anyone to try to be something that you're not.

There is more than enough business to go around. So for anybody who's [00:32:00] afraid, have an abundance mindset, not a scarcity mindset, and I promise you'll come out better for it and your clients will be able to tell too that you're authentic. And I would also say this, we have worked with startups, we've worked with small businesses, we've worked with big brands that have been acquired by companies like the A DM Group.

What's important to us isn't the size or what you're selling, it's who you are. So we want to work with purpose-driven brands who also care about being authentic, wanting to be treated the way that you would wanna be treated and have those core values. So that's what's important to us, and we're always up and open and willing to talk and see if we can help.

Very cool. Okay, so for the latter part of the interview, I really like to just ask some fun questions. Yeah. Okay. So what are three things that bring delight in this season? I would say [00:33:00] my sons watching my sons. I have an 8-year-old and an 11-year-old like we were chatting about, and they are, they're developing their every day, their personality, their likes and dislikes come out even stronger.

As they hone their independence. Mm-hmm. You know, who am I? What do I like? My oldest refuses to wear anything but shorts. I hear that. I have one of those. He doesn't like pants, he likes shorts, and he's a Colorado kid, so that's a delight is watching them assert themselves and trying to work with them to.

Develop that in a healthy way. So that's a delight is really seeing them come into their own and, and my relationship with them, it morphs, right? Because they're growing up too, which is really, really sweet. I would say another really sweet thing in this period of my life that has been, I wouldn't say unexpected, but you just.[00:34:00] 

You never know. And that is I've been able to reconnect with a lot of my college friends. Hmm. So it's not that necessarily we lost connection. You go through seasons where maybe you live in proximity or there's things happening when you're more connected with different people. I am very, very fortunate to have a really strong core group of friends that came out of college, that I came out of college with and have remained.

Like family for me over the years and even more so in the last few years where many of them were like aunts and uncles to my kids. And, um, my best friend from college, she and I actually get to work together now, which is so cool and amazing. If you had asked me when we were in college, staying up till two in the morning, figuring out all the problems in the world.

And then waking up the next morning to realize we didn't know anything, that we would be working together for businesses and [00:35:00] brands and marketing and customer success. I mean, I would've laughed. Mm. And here we are working together and it's just so rich. So I feel incredibly grateful that some of those relationships are coming up on, you know, 25, 30 years.

Yeah. And more like family. And then I think the other thing that is really delightful in this season is. I look back, we were talking about this before we started. Today. I look back on where I am in life and really being in midlife and seeing the things that I've done in my twenties and thirties and how that has shaped where I am today.

And at the time, having no idea. I never set out to start my own business, nor did I think that was coming or where all my previous trainings were. What I did as a bachelor's degree, how that would all shape where I am today. But something I delight in is in this season, being able to watch my clients have success.

When I can look [00:36:00] back and see, okay, all the work we've done for the last year is having massive payoffs in their success. That is just, it's hard to capture that with money because. It doesn't, money doesn't always produce that, so that is a huge delight for me is to watch their success. Oh, I so understand that.

I mean, even just from the couple of handfuls of episodes that I've put out, it brings me such joy to hear that one of the episodes has connected someone with a career coach or with another service that they've been looking for that I've had the opportunity to highlight on the podcast. It's. Yeah, it's just such a delight.

You're right. Yeah. You get it. It really is. Right? You just makes your day. Yes it, yeah. 'cause you love what you do too, right? Right. Okay. Ashley, what song or album could you play on? Continuous repeat. Okay, Heather, so [00:37:00] I might already do this. So I tend to work better if I have some music in the background.

Of course, it depends on what the work is. But for myself, when I need to really think deeply or strategically or get into this strategy zone, I actually listen to SoundCloud. So there is a, there's a composer named Evan mc McDonald's, and he has lots and lots of sound clips that you see in commercials and movies, and they elicit a specific emotion.

Mm. And so. Being able to tap into that emotion actually really helps deliver to my clients. So I often listen to his music on repeat, on SoundCloud. That is so fun. Go check it out. And eventually when they run out of that composer, they will throw in other ones. And some are good, some are bad. But I've created some, not bad, but.

Not the right fit. So I've created some [00:38:00] playlists, so you should try it. Get some playlists that get you into the groove. Oh, that's so great. Okay, here's a, here's a fun follow up. What about your boys? What soundtrack would they be listening to over and over? Oh gosh. My boys really like pop music right now.

Nice. Love it. They are actually particularly like catchy country songs. So fun. Thanks to my, I know, right? It's cute. They like to listen to in country. So my boys are currently kind of going between two soundtracks, one of them being Mufasa. Oh, I don't know if you guys seen it, but, uh, Lynn Manuel Miranda wrote the songs from Mufasa and I actually love Lynn Manuel Miranda.

Um, and then the other one is Wicked. So this, this kind of dates the podcast, right? Yep. Except one of my sons. He's five. He. So the song, what is this feeling? It says Unadulterated Loathing, but he for a long time called it Unadulterated Clothing. He wanted to [00:39:00] listen to unadulterated clothing. So funny.

Right? I just love it. I know. Those kids' words are the best, aren't they? They really are. My youngest used to call applesauce, ASBO. Asbo,

some asbo mom. Well, I had a kiddo that instead of saying crackers and milk would use another unfortunate word that begins with F. And so we wrote that down, but we tried to. Not laughed. We tried to not encourage it, but someday you'll share that. Someday. Someday. All right, so your team just got a call from a major brand or company and they want you to help them launch their next campaign.

What brand would you want that to be and why? Okay, so you had mentioned you were gonna ask a question like this, and so I have been thinking about [00:40:00] that for a while and. Two things hit me. One, I couldn't think of a specific brand, a well, nobody had asked me that ever, if you can believe it. And what I really discovered is for myself, what would be more exciting than a specific brand is working with a specific person.

That, for me, would be collaborating for a brand with someone like Jonathan. He is a brilliant marketing strategist and has worked for some of the giant, like huge brands out there. Or Michael Brito who works for Xena Group, and he's like their head of data analytics. So I've got some, you know, fan, I'm a fan club of some of these really forward thinking, brilliant marketing strategists or brand strategists out there.

And so I. I actually think for me, if they or a [00:41:00] brand were to call up and say, Hey, will you collaborate with us on this project? That would just, that would be next level for me. So I, that's really, I had to think about it, but that's really what would do it. Mm-hmm. More than a specific brand. The reason why is.

I would learn so much, you know, just by working with them and having that opportunity to craft and shape a brand with someone like that would be incredible. And then I could bring all of that back, that learning to my own clients. Yeah. Right. So I think that that's really where I land. I've been so fortunate, Heather, I've been able to work with some really big brands already.

Some of my clients work with. Brands like Google and Meta and Qualcomm, and I've worked with large corporate brands and small one or two person mom and pop shops, and they're all people, right? There's people behind every brand, so treating them all the [00:42:00] same. They might need different strategies, they might need different techniques and branding, but approaching everybody with the same level of effort and the same level of championing them.

Is important. So for me, working with someone like these guys or these women, people in that sphere who are brand strategists and experts in their field, that would be next level for me. Mm. I love that. Okay. Now I would like to invite you to give your own shout out. Who would you want to tell Thanks for doing that, and why?

Okay. Thanks for doing that, which I love the name of your podcast, by the way. I hope this doesn't sound too cheesy, but I really wanna give a shout out and a thank you to my husband. Mm. Yeah. So my husband Mike, we've been married this year is 14 years. Not only is he my best friend and life partner, but he is the best person I know.

I would not be here. I would not be able to do what I do if it weren't for him and [00:43:00] his unwavering support He has. Been there for me and our family through really high highs and really low lows over the last 10 years. Nobody, you know, we only see a portion of other people's lives, so from outward appearances it might seem like, oh, we've never had any problems and everything was smooth sailing and we started this business and mm-hmm But it's just not like that.

You know, you have medical complications or your family members. Gets a fatal diagnosis or whatever it is, or you had really hard pregnancies and it would not be possible for me to be where I am as a person, mentally, physically, spiritually, or emotionally, or as a business without him. Mm-hmm. So I just wanna thank him for.

Who he is and for all he does for me and our, our family and our kids. And just say that we love you and we wouldn't wanna do this with anyone else. Mm. I love that. And I don't think that's cheesy at [00:44:00] all. I think that's right on. Have you heard that? Need to breathe Sun Banks? No. You should listen to it. Um, actually I feel like Mike sounds a lot like Joel, my husband.

Yeah. And I had a friend tell Joel actually that that song. Just reminds her of him in relation to his really consistent support of me. I think we're alike in that we're both extroverted with a lot of ideas and a lot of passion, and it really, we are so supported by these like strong men in our lives, and so I so understand.

I'm so glad we're ambitious, you know, and yeah. Can't help, but it's in our DNA and they're just, there's no, they're not threatened. They're, you know, our cheerleaders, they're, they want us to develop as much as they do. Yeah. Okay. So the way I like to end my show is by sharing with you a haiku that I've written just for you as a way to say thank you, and to just kind of sum [00:45:00] up the reason that I wanted to have you join me today.

So this is the haiku that I've written for you, Ashley. Thanks for doing that skillfully, helping each brand attract and nurture. Thank you. And thank you. It's so good to to see you, Heather, and I really appreciate you having me on.

Thanks for doing that. Is presented to you by the apiary. A place for beholding and becoming. And thank you for joining us for today's episode. Before you go, I have a couple of invitations. If you found it meaningful, could I invite you to take two minutes to rate and review the show? I also invite you to help me create an upcoming episode of thanks for doing that by nominating someone or suggesting a topic.

Let's link arms to call out the good and the beautiful that we see around us because I really believe [00:46:00] that finding delight in our divided and difficult world could make all the difference.