Sure uh well to start I am a member of the inaugural group or cohort of the artist circle at California Shakespeare theater which is located in Arundah and basically what Cal Shakespeare did was think about during the pandemic it started with a conversation of universal income and there was a question of how to support freelance artists and how to diversify and become more inclusive in terms of the curatorial voice in which a theater or an organization is able to think about what they are programming how they're thinking about institutional decision making and how they can be more entrenched and supportive of the community specifically the local artists that are surrounding the organization and in talks with artistic leadership Eric Chang is the artistic director as well as the many folks who are on staff there there was a thought about who are and these are Eric's words who are the artists who inspired Cal Shakespeare the relationships they had had with them previously and felt like leaders in their community and so there was an invitation to five artists um I'll just name them because it's a very good important cohort of people who inspire me um Shannon Davis um his director and actor as well as a community leader Serita O'Conn who is also an actor and activist and community cultivator Mia Mingus who works with the transformative justice collective and Tatiana Chatterjee who is also a community worker and who works a lot with incarcerated folks around art making and abolition and so basically what we do is as a cohort we were offered this invitation to come and be a part of Cal Shakespeare to bring what we had to the table and to also take advantage of the resources that they have and what they could offer us in terms of a fellowship grant making institutional support but without an ask for any sort of deliverable which is really rare as a freelance artist um and so from that it became invitational monthly meetings which we could attend if we so chose but did not have to and then an invitation into all facets of the institutional decision making we're invited to all of the meetings there is a great level of transparency we can bring projects to them and ask for support around resources whether they be financial or otherwise and there are a lot of endeavors that each person can bring and and also by other members of the cohort to be a part of so it's just speaking for myself I regularly attend the protestorial meetings I have been involved in talking about how to redesign the casting process to be something that encourages leadership from individual artists and relationship making even if artists are not ultimately cast in a specific production and uh my fellow members Shannon and Cedizah are currently working on um potentially Monday night one-offs that they could produce um so there's a really huge sense of invitation and that we are able to make it our own and the last thing I will say on that just to give the overview is that the the dream that we've been talking about is that this was in some ways a lab to think about how we can transform the Bay Area community in terms of I don't even want to say supporting freelance artists I want to say recognizing the leadership the freelance artists are already bringing to the Bay Area because that already exists whether or not you have positional power in a traditional sense so thinking about how this can expand Cowshakes I know is looking to add more artists in the next phase and then also thinking about how other theaters can now be invited to take that on as well and what would it mean if in four years every theater was sponsoring five to ten artists a really important part of this program I should mention is that we receive a monthly stipend of five hundred dollars which is not universal income that supports your whole life but is really goes a long way as an artist to think about you know that that is coming in and that you don't have to offer anything except yourself for that payment so that is a little snapshot of what we're up to I think you're muted Tanya we're having mute issues sorry about that it sometimes it's telling some of us just to be transparent about our technical issues that we're I'll click on mute and then it says the host is not allowing me to be unmuted so I'm not sure what's happening there but we will get through that but yes thank you for sharing that that's quite a lot that that's coming out of that ever I know that it's also very new the idea of shared leadership happening for your organization I wonder if you want to talk about sort of since it's so new like maybe what the dream of the shared leadership structure is that you're working with at Oregon Shakespeare? Of course um so yeah Oregon Shakespeare Festival you know we're one of the big ones out there so this sort of feels like both a big statement by Nataki Garrett our artistic director although she's been here for two and a half years given the pandemic I think we can still say new artistic director I joined with her basically about a month after her appointment a few months after her appointment as the I guess original associate artistic director and when there was conversations with regards to how we wanted to organize our artistic office and the artistic leadership team Nataki had a real sort of push towards creating a non-hierarchical three associate artistic director model and non-hierarchical being the real I think important part of it and again this is very much in process we each have our own purview I'm associate artistic director director of artistic programming long fancy title to me and I'm in charge of the in-person repertory producing and community productions May and Teo is our new associate artistic director and director of new work who would be who is of course in involved mainly in a new work development but also will be coming up with and producing a lot of new work programming like festivals and that might be digital or in-person of course and God knows what else there are a million amazing ideas that they have that I'm excited to explore and then scarlet Kim who's been here I guess he's she joined us the second second in the trio associate artistic director and director of innovation and strategy and her purview is digital and immersive technologies because that's a huge part of osf's new sort of artistic vision although we have each of our purviews why we were all selected I think is because we are all artists we are all directors writers creators dramaturgs in our own right but also because we carry a lot of slashes in our interests so none of us are sort of squarely sitting in our purview we are interested in and have sort of a lot of work history experience and interest in the other people's purview so that it will actually be a real collaborative endeavor we're very new man joined us only a couple of months ago so we're you know we have our first artistic leadership retreat in a week so I'm super excited about sort of diving into some of how both the some of how that collaboration is going to work but it's already been because each of us have been selected for this specific purpose by Nataki and we're all coming in with a real buy-in support and sort of real belief in Nataki's sort of expansive really ambitious vision for this organization and as such American theater I think it's been quite easy to find our way together what I'm really excited about which we haven't figured out yet is you know the purview that I have it has 87 years of history in the organization new works has about 10 12 years of real history in the organization and scarless digital programming is a year and a half and so there is sort of varying degrees of expertise within the organization within our constituents in terms of our audience's donors supporters volunteers around our work and budgetarily of course you know like our although we are not we're not hierarchical in our relationship our budget sizes are very different by multiples and that's going to shift as we continue to build various different parts of the organization but it's been a real interesting and lovely exercise to pull each other into each other's business both artistically collaboratively but also financially in terms of how we're purposefully programming projects that sit in the middle of all three or in the middle of two purviews so that budgets can be shared across the silos that we're trying to break down we're hiring second and third sort of level folks associate producers artistic associates festival director who are actually purposefully sitting in between those silos they're actually reporting to two associate artistic directors so that we are very much building into our process the breaking down of those really hard lines because at least this is true for osf that you've been in my time but certainly before if the silos exist there is always a hierarchy so and to be perfectly honest the part of the organization that makes the most money which currently and for a bit will continue to be the in-person programming will always win and we're sort of you know if there is if there's an a or b a will win just because of the sort of the reality of our slightly well quite capitalistic way of producing in the regional American theater so we're sort of very aware of that and finding trying to find ways to undercut some of that the thing I should also name which is really exciting for me is this is the first time I'm actually sharing leadership or working with in the leadership way with two other immigrants it's we're all three immigrants born and raised elsewhere Korea Taiwan Singapore oh my god Korea Singapore Turkey so it feels quite exciting to be able to share that sort of global perspective as we're looking at each of our work and especially man and scarlet I will say are coming from non-western non-american ways of leadership they're really interested in breaking down some of that sort of very colonialists very capitalist ways of thinking about how we put value on our work and I'm really like in a lot of ways in a learning kind of space of how that can be put into practice in as large a an organization as osf because it is certainly not it is not easy and it is very easy for all of us and the rest of the organization to sort of default back to business as usual which is something we're finding certainly as we come back from the pandemic so that's sort of where we are which as I said I don't have great wisdom yet but great hopes I guess those are amazing great hopes I'm very inspired to hear about all of that there I wonder Morgan I know that at Wilma it's I was hoping you could talk about the rotating leadership and that structure and maybe tell us a little bit about it yes so I'm one of three co-artistic directors currently at the Wilma Cedar in Philadelphia prior to the three of us there were four of us including Blanca Ziska who's one of the founding artistic directors and she's been the artistic director for something like 40 years so she invited myself uh James Ims and Yuri Ernov the three of us are all directors um to come and it's a bit of an experiment it's a like a four-year experiment that's what we have the budget for uh and the structure is that we are co-artistic directors but um each year there's a lead artistic director and there's someone who's kind of the runner up supporting artistic director and then there's sort of a back cedar part-time person and it rotates uh so right now uh James Ims is the lead artistic director in the current season and we're moving into the season where I will be the lead artistic director and so I'm supporting him and I'm planning the next season I I'm curating collaboratively so all the decisions I will make about next season will be made with my cohort uh we meet once a week um and we talk about everything and we're also in the process through retreats and whatnot of figuring out what happens next because this this rotating structure will sort of like the the way that the organization transitioned from one artistic director to four and now to three um and so we're sort of at the end of my season which is next year we'll sort of we will at that point we will have a plan for how to go forward so I'm kind of at the moment we're in the middle of an experiment and we're we're like figuring out what is great about it and what is challenging about it for how to move forward in in a shared leadership model I love hearing how everyone here is sort of in an experiment that's kind of thank you for that um David I wonder if you can talk about the movement company and my understanding is that from the very beginning there was a choice to have a producing artistic leadership team as opposed to one individual is that correct no actually yeah let's hear yeah so we um we were founded in 2007 um a group of NYU students I was not a part of the initial founding but there was a group of actors writers directors who came together and we always sort of joke now that the original sin was forming a company that like nobody really wanted nobody really wanted to form a company but at that moment in time it's sort of the um narrative that was fed to us in school of like this is what you must do you must form a company you know if you want to make work um but really I think the impetus was a group of artists of color who were wanting to continue to make work together outside of school and who wanted to create opportunities for other artists um where there were few sort of inroads into a lot of the major theaters or even um major uh culturally specific theaters in that moment in time so a theater company was formed that had a very traditional hierarchy you know it was sort of like a how do you form a theater company great pick artistic director check pick executive check you know um and so uh folks sort of fell into these titles and in that first year I was invited to be the initial artistic director um following Darren Taylor who was one of our founders and so for the first five years of the company we kind of miserably trudged through these titles that didn't really fit us you know um our executive director like hated budgets and you know our marketing director was more interested in like art making and and I was like I don't know what I'm doing you know and and so we in in those first five years we were really sort of uh bucking against the model that we placed on ourselves and in a lot of ways was put on top of us and um in those first five years uh we had some uh leadership change um in those first five years we met Deidre Harrington who started off as an intern um on her first day at the job she was promoted um and uh you know that's how we sort of roll and uh we were part of this art new york program um theaters leading change and it was through a conversation with a consultant and Dunning that um at the time it was myself Eric Loughley Deidre Harrington Taylor Reynolds and Jonathan McCrory who was still with us um we were part of really sort of having this conversation that the model um wasn't working for us and Anne really helped us as we sort of talked about what our values were how we really worked together what we were excited about in the ways that we made theater um this title came up you know we were all producers we were all artists we were all leaders and we were a team and so uh five years in we sort of scrapped this traditional hierarchical model um and and became a producing artistic leadership team um and so at that point we all took on the same title uh and um you know there's a shared responsibility amongst all of us we're able to like obviously lean into our strengths um and uh support each other uh you know we none of us knew really what it meant to run a company so we were really sort of uh teaching each other the things that we individually know and sort of bringing them together um Taylor Reynolds uh uh was there and she was our associate we didn't know we were like you're an associate so for a year and then we were like it was like dating we're like do you want to like date us um and then um uh Jonathan left to go run the national black theater and then uh in the last couple of years we brought on Ryan Dobrin who started again for a year as like an associate and we were like please stay so now uh Ryan is part of that team so there's five of us still who share the same title and divide responsibilities uh amongst ourselves and um you know uh Diedra has really sort of uh uh taken the lead on a lot of the sort of general management stuff uh uh and sort of managing director role um but none of that really falls solely on her and I think that's one of the ways in which our model is that no one person um has all of the information about anything so at any point if someone was sick if someone got a job if someone needed to leave no one person is taking all of that institutional knowledge away it's shared amongst us and we can really um sort of ebb and flow and allow ourselves to be individual artists outside of the organization while also coming together and supporting the artists that we're bringing into the organization and so we've been that for like the last 10 years um but really you know we like to think of it as like a a second founding of the company there was the original founding and then the the refounding where I think we really found ourselves and and in a lot of ways I think liberated the anxieties that we were feeling about what it meant to run a company um and and found a system and a model that was actually working for us and and in line with our personal and our artistic values I love that and uh I love just the pure like non-acceptance of what the model what you've been told the model is just the like questioning this isn't quite working what is a different way to do it yeah yeah it's been it's been a really interesting journey sort of figuring out how to we owned it very quickly but then it's like you get paperwork and it's like who's your artistic director and it's like uh you have 10 characters you know and it's sort of like how do you describe in so many like and I think that's the thing that we realized early on was it's not only the system that we inherited for ourselves originally but it's the system that's at play in so many other systems that affect us funding you know grant applications you know how you're uh applying for your 501c3 like all of these sort of systems that are at play are designed to reinforce a sort of patriarchal hierarchy of a model and I think early on one of the things that we really got uh uh smart to and and and and got better at over time was how to talk about what our model was and how to push that forward even when there wasn't necessarily space in the grant application you know we found and we we lost a lot of grants because we didn't fit the sort of box you know but then we've been able to sort of push it further yeah I'd love to hear more about that both from you David but all the panelists specifically about how you communicate shared leadership to sort of stakeholders more broadly but how do you talk about share what how do you describe how your organization works is it different for staff is it different for audience members and what have what are people's reactions I'll jump in um for us again it's quite new but um one other thing that we should really name here is that it's three associate artistic directors all immigrants um two in a color one man of color supporting a black woman at a major company so there is a lot of already misunderstanding undercutting questioning of authority expertise and vision on a daily basis that each of us in our own ways and I don't want to equate my personal experience with any of those women um you know that we experience so when you are actually trying to change the narrative of how artistic vision artistic leadership functions at an organization um and you want to do it in a non-hierarchical way in a slower more thoughtful um sort of collaborative way it's a real um it's actually kind of a real process and we have to sort of um we've had thus far really great luck being very honest with each other about those challenges we're facing or when one of us really has to go in and speak when we like supporting each other via chat even if we're all in the meeting so that there is one voice um in what ways all three of us have to defer very publicly to notaki um and that's like the burden of being a black woman leader um you know these are all sort of real questions we have and some expertise and wisdom from our years of living in these bodies and managing through the american theater but it's been a really interesting process i'm finding personally to speak to kate your question about the different constituents um when i'm in spaces like this when i'm talking to especially theater makers um it is very easily understood they get it there is no questions there might be some like quick questions about history or process but like people get it um and especially if they all know in the case of our three selves our credits and our sort of expertise is fairly even ended in a lot of ways in our various different purview so that's like never a question our audience is still figuring it out i think i what's so interesting is we're actually as far as the audience is concerned especially long-term audience we're going back to a model because under liby apple there were multiple associate artistic directors although it was a very different group of people functioning and running it in a very different kind of way because it was only an in-person company at the time of course um so they're sort of trying to make sense of what we're doing in the context of history which is helpful and unhelpful at the same time what we're finding actually right now that we're working through um is like with staff and internal even our own teams really creating some clarity for people so that when the machine is as large as as it is at osf um there is a kind of a clarity of functional clarity of who's talking to whom about what and in what ways who's the decision maker in what way or when are the moments where it is a joint or collaborative decision making there need i'm finding that we we are having to be a lot clearer before we're ready to be clear in some of those things um and in a way the the change i want to see at osf and if this can actually go out into the field is uh i would be really happy about it and hearing sort of morgan speak about uh her appointment and her process as an experiment specifically is really helpful is you know we're in a place where a lot of us are doing things that's never been done before so we actually don't know if it's gonna work we have no freaking clue how how it's gonna work um that doesn't mean we're stupid that doesn't mean we don't know what we're doing there's literally no way to know what we're doing um so there is we have to get better especially in the regional theater circuit i would say of this iterative progress where you're putting forth a really good idea you're testing it out for a couple of years it works it doesn't work you take the things that work you leave the things that don't and you move on um and that is really hard for folks and david i'm so glad you mentioned the fundraising element to this because our foundational and government fundraising especially but even individual fundraising is so based on a narrative of this is exactly the right thing that's going to work perfectly and here are everything that proves to you that it was the biggest success ever and if it wasn't you won't fund us again rather than actually raising funds towards an experiment to learn something that can be useful to the field in the future there's some real change coming on the foundational side for this in small and big ways but we have a ways to go and in terms of these sort of big leadership experiments you know it costs a lot of money to have three of us versus one you know so those are uh there is a real need for for the lack of a better word some cushion around the experiment that's a very smart idea but we don't know if it's going to work um towards a sort of securing the experiment so that it's not just the short-term trial and error kind of process so those are sort of some things that comes up to me for me kate out of from your question can i add something ever in because what you made me think of is that really the what i've noted you know sort of in the regional model is that there is such a um and this is so American that the whole one there's one way to do it and there's a stripping down of diversity that even when we think about leadership there's even even in the conversations that are happening currently which are on the forefront of new models there's still sometimes this energy around who's going to figure out what the right leaders new innovative leadership model is and then we can all get on board with that and figure it out and something that's been so beautiful about the artist circle of how shakes and other models that are you know happening in the bay area and beyond and and everyone who's here today is i think it's so idiosyncratic to your community what artists you're working with what art you are invested in creating and the vision that the specific unique group of people who have come together have and that um really for when we talk about constituency what it means internally to rethink how do i relate to the idea of leadership and being a leader and what does that mean to innovate around that with the specific group of people i'm with and that that experiment whether it succeeds or fails or whatever and there's value in both um that experiment is important to this moment with these people and will look very different than osf's moment then from the movement's moment and that's great because diversity actually helps the art it elevates the art form and also i think like all evolution ensures that survival whereas for the past 50 years we've been kind of seeing this everyone's trying to be in these straight lines that have been established a lot by funding and funders that has undermined really the the impetus for the beginning of the regional fear project which was an experiment to start with and so what his i think it's been the retraining for me and so many conversations of relearning and re-envisioning what leadership can be is remembering that experiment is leadership that the to dare to fail is leadership and that and the humility around that um and that's been something that um i think at least in the artist circle has permeated our cohort but has also influenced our relationship to staff as we're asking for things that they didn't necessarily think of when they started this program um and then also audiences how they relate to what does it mean and and artists you know when i talk about this program with other freelance artists there's there's great excitement but also so many questions of well i'm not a leader well i don't have a title well hot and and that limiting way of thinking about leadership especially within creative practice uh i think is something that it's very important for us in our myriad ways of expressing it to challenge and resist and because i think that that's what's going to take american leader through its next century um so i'm really excited to hear about all the initiatives and and also remember that when we can start at the sort of microscopic it can build out to a change in the culture generally and nationally i'm so struck by what you said lauren of experiment is leadership um and also everyone what you were saying about honesty being an important trait some curious perhaps starting with morgan and then opening it up what are the traits what are the skills um that you feel are necessary for shared leadership yeah um i i want to answer that question and then also say um an answer to the previous question about sort of like how to sell the idea of shared leadership because i think that was something that blanc is he's good did very successfully and so i think um so i'll do that first and then i'll answer your question um so she there was a long process of her talking to the board and i think one of the things about this moment this was before the pandemic was that the loma was dependent on subscribers and the subscribers were just going down and down and down and so it's like okay we got to do something different there has to be some change um and and blanc's vision for this shared leadership structure was about directors bringing directors in who would work at the theater um you know she really believed in an artist-led organization um but also that the three of us as directors could continue to work elsewhere which is something she couldn't do when she was the only artistic director and how that sort of like movement of ideas and work and experience would um make what's happening at the loma even more exciting and valuable um so that i think those were some of the arguments that she made to the board when she was fundraising to make this happen and and being inside of it i do feel that sense of expansiveness that it's not just one vision and one compelling voice it's it's it's many perspectives many experiences slightly different aesthetics or taste and uh i i think when you find something that um more than one person gets excited about it's like all the more juicy and and so it's a it's a very natural checks and balances system to have more like i love i love the number three but i i think just more than one it feels it feels real i mean five is good too it feels it feels really um the expansive the like the the ideas in the brain expand um i think to answer your other question uh transparency which is this buzz word right now and i was and i think when i encountered it at first i was like yeah yeah of course of course but it's hard work to actually be transparent and i think the first time i learned it was directing directing um a play and uh realizing that this whole concept i had talked to my set designer about i had never talked to my costume designer about something like that and then you realize how much you have to repeat yourself but it's you have to repeat yourself you have to make sure that you're communicating um and sharing and listening into the feedback so this this action of transparency which really does feel like a muscle um and then the flip side of it is listening and i love what you said about humility lauren and um that that felt so true sure it's such an interesting thing because i again i'm coming from you know associate artistic directors as the shared leadership right so in a weird way and nataki who's brilliant uh selected a tree of people that go together and i mean that in terms of we have real shared values and beliefs and a real commitment to creating artist-centric spaces which like if you think about it the regional american theater was founded to make space for artists to do make make art and we have completely forgotten that purposefully over the last 50 years and have been very audience centric in a weird way and i audience has defined very narrowly um right um and not that it has to be a against b because i actually believe that if an organization is artist-centric all the audiences will be much happier to be perfectly honest uh because the work will be better so we have sort of a commitment to the same ideas and the same values and the same sort of change we want to see in the world but we are very different people in terms of how we present ourselves how we lead processes um what our superpowers are we have very different superpowers um and it's been a really interesting process just to give one example i am fast i can make very quick decisions i can push very complicated ideas and processes through resistance by sheer will right and calculation i have an engineering background so i'm sort of very sort of regimented in certain ways and can move fast which is positive sometimes and too fast sometimes right and what mayan and scarlet have brought for my life and my leadership is a forced thoughtfulness and slowing down and actually paying attention to making space for a larger conversation that involves more people to be able to actually question some of my biases and givens and um sort of things i prefer in the context of um a larger group of people that we actually want feel empowered and have leadership at their own in their own ways right so that has been the greatest gift of this shared leadership model for me and i will allow them to slow me down because there's trust and respect between us and i think we haven't gotten here yet to be honest but like i can see the ways in which if there are things that happen where that trust is broken or there are ways in which where somebody missteps and overstates over promises undercuts we will have to find ways to have that conversation in a really thoughtful and sort of again collaborative way so that it is surfaced it's transparent it is handled and we have a way to move forward again this hasn't really you know this is again my ideal world when it happens we'll deal with it um but i do think a lot of our conversations right now are about the ways in which we support each other right and that is both in terms of because i have been the longest with the organization helping scarlet and man traverse this machine and giving them guidance in terms of personalities and key people that might not have the title but actually make stuff happen for you you know those are kind of like secret things keys that you need to have when you're working at an organization our size and then they're able to actually provide great reflections thought partnership in my decision making which i've never had in this position and really very much elsewhere to get that kind of i don't know what to do here let's talk have two people who are at your level who have similar kind of responsibility and have your back being able to have that conversation just results in better decisions just like i mean i don't think that's pretty obvious but it does um and it actually for me anyway it has lowered some of the anxiety of the responsibility that i hold because i know that there are other people who've got my back and the one person i shouldn't you know she's not named as associate artistic director but our director of production alice holden who's been here the longest which is about eight nine years she actually is the fourth artistic leadership member and although her purview is production part of the silo breaking is the ways in which artistic and production which is very regimented in the regional theater system and are run and managed very differently we're also as a trio plus alice trying to sort of question some of those givens and figure out how the three of us appear in her spaces and how she can actually have a very very central role in our conversations so that that actually very fake division between production and artistic is just not centered because it is more efficient to work that way for sure but i think it is that division actually is one of the things that has caused in my mind the most harm for artists from marginalized backgrounds in the american theater so we're sort of again we have a long way to go but i i do actually think we have the right four people in these positions we just have we just need some time now yeah i mean i love everon that you talked about like a shared set of values i think that's like fundamentally so important when you're going into shared leadership and into any kind of collaboration you know it actually allows you to embrace all of the differences of styles as knowing that at the end of the day like there's that those core values are the same and i think what you're talking about with time too one of the things that we've learned is there's a great deal of patience that that is required you know things it takes time conversations take time and i think something else that we have really learned especially as we were producing the tour of what to send up and starting to work with other companies is like being able to also set boundaries you know and boundaries around time especially you know you get a lot of emails that are like hey we need to know the answer to this now and we were like great we will let you know in two days do you know what i mean and it was like being reasonable with that but acknowledging and i think early on like we we fought to try to meet people's expectations of a timeline that feels very rooted in white supremacy and we were very deeply like pushed back against you know and at first we were like and it was we were running ourselves ragged you know and i think in that sense as you're saying it's like buying yourself the time to have the conversations to really lean into the benefits of shared leadership as as morgan was saying the expansiveness of ideas and perspectives you know and giving yourself that that time and being patient that it does take more time you know and and as you get more and more comfortable doing it you know that time gets faster of course as anything does but i think patience most certainly is a trait that is needed which i lack greatly i should like just to own that in myself patience is not a natural organic thing for me so in a weird way i'm very thankful for my partner associate artistic directors patience with me as i like get really frustrated about why we have to talk about that thing you know because i as i said like my superpower is getting shit done which is you know very helpful but also you know not the way this is going to work i mean that's why i think that we i just want to acknowledge why i think that that is why these experiments are so powerful beyond just what it's going to be in terms of what art we make or what audiences we serve because i was thinking i was going to say patience to devine and i was thinking a lot about what it means when there's conflict or disagreement of opinion and how it only really in my experience has worked well or when we come to the table with a desire to understand even if we don't agree and that that is so lacking in our country currently and thinking about what it means in these experiments to be in a circle with people who have different styles and different visions and different even if you agree on values the biases and value personal values you bring you might be fitting into the new value and that's practice for you and so what it means you know we talk about how the art we make is going to impact the world our country our culture but we don't often talk about how the process of making that art is going to impact the culture the world etc and so i i find what has been of great value to me in terms of how we think of what do you need to bring to the table is how is me participating in this practice of desiring to understand or being patient even if i'm not naturally patient or taking on a new value and really trying to see how that's going to pan out without automatically saying no to it or it's different how is that process going to then trickle out into the how i participate in the rest of the world or life or how we model for other folks and i think we're creating these hopefully microcosms of different ways of being within the polis that then we can expand out and hopefully you know change the way we treat each other as a country um and and so that's been something on my mind in this past year with the artist circle coming up through the pandemic is that really the process is the art in some way right now and just sort of figuring out the how of how we make and that that hopefully that can make us be more expansive and how we think we're we're supporting and propelling change within our audiences because to your point ever and i think it does trickle down even if it's only energetic and they receive it through the work but also seeing you know how people treat each other when you walk through a lobby of a theater you you can see an exchange between box office and an artistic director and see you know that says volumes about what is going on so i it gives me hope actually for for how we're gonna move forward on that note hearing all of you talk about the work it takes to have these conversations and and the time it takes um i'm curious about it's kind of a pragmatic question but what do you have a system and a weekly meeting or what is your process for checking in with your teams and if there's a schedule around that that's the frequency of it you know we meet once a week all of us and then there's more um sort of splintering off smaller groups um and then we back to the transparency thing we started doing like a update after the each uh Tuesday's meeting that goes out to the whole staff so they'll see what we're talking about and what play we're reading and talking about that kind of thing um and then we have also a weekly full staff meeting where everybody's present so i think in the zoom universe it's become this very like it has to be structured and scheduled that there's less of the water cooler talk which like deeply saddens me but hopefully we'll get back to it um i mean i was never actually there in this job when we were in person i've done the whole thing online so it's been very strange um and then i think outside of the the formal structure we have you know personal side conversations texting and calling and that kind of thing and that's where some of the best ideas come from uh the more sort of like casual side chatter yeah yeah definitely i would say similar you know as an organization we we meet um once once a week on mondays uh uh are like regular meeting time and you know we get a lot done obviously in those times but the real checking in the real sort of brainstorming dream storming ideas are happening on the like texting threads and you know i think similarly we we you know it's like a tech it's like a production meeting you know like we'll sidebar on that do you know what i mean and so like there's a lot of additional meetings so we have the one collective meeting and then over the week we sort of break up and and sort of uh meet individually and i think one of the things that we've adopted that i'm what's really exciting is that you know no no no no meeting can only have one of us like sort of no sort of uh if someone's wanting to meet with us it's always like great at least two of us have to be there so that there's where we're trying to really model and disrupt this idea if they're like great i'd like to meet with your artistic director we're like great here are three people who are going to show up to this meeting you know and they're like oh we only have space for one we're like awesome we'll be two do you know um and i think really like always that like we are coming with a plus one and we are both going to speak and sort of disrupt those models there and i think also not necessarily allow um the same two people uh uh to do the same kinds of meetings so it's constantly i think uh uh this revolving door of allowing us all to really you know because i think even in our shared model people are like right but who like really runs it do you know and i think that's the question that we always get and it's like no truly like at any point like any combination of us are really managing and overseeing anything and you know as morgan was saying it happens in those sort of individual meetings all over the week but we've got that once a week anchor and then we take a winter sort of um we call it a staycation because we don't leave new york and then in the summer we do a retreat um and and and those are real times where i think it's really about um shared visioning and and really re re sort of checking in and reflecting on every year you know um and sort of saying okay great what did we learn what can we evolve what can we change how can we keep changing things up morgan i think what you said about like zoom meetings are where you formally you know do work aspect of it is killing my soul as well um at this moment so i am way meeting doubt um in this moment and zoomed out in all honesty but um that's been our main way of um sort of we have a sort of a two-hour artistic leadership team meeting with nataki that's where many of the larger conversations about initiatives projects programs um you know issues that need to be addressed whether it be artistic or not really get um handled um we have what we're calling an associate artistic director troika meeting uh that's an hour every week um although um as things get really busy you know two weeks ago we opened like an inter global vr festival at the same week that we started previous for our very first big show indoors which was you know uh if i weren't responsible for the scheduling of it i'd say it was a terrible idea to do those at the same time but here we are um so you know it's it's been in inconsistent right now our regular check-ins in terms of meetings the dreams we have i would say is that that would be a very regular meeting and more structured and then we would like to have as frequently as once a month what we're calling sort of much longer four hour maybe on a weekend um sort of dream meetings because what we've been all lacking we're realizing is getting our heads out of what's coming like what's happening this week what's happening this month and actually start together digging into questions of what is the osf we want to be helping run in five years you know um those sort of like much bigger less focused on deliverables you know or just have larger conversations about what are some artists that we all like that may and loves that i need to start learning about vice versa you know those kind of like our actual jobs conversations are very much um at the bottom of the to-do list right now and we're hoping in 22 to start sort of lifting those up um and then we are a windows company to the chagrin of many of us um so we use windows teams that's our chat function um and you know we have a little uh troika uh uh chat channel which has been actually sort of a lifesaver because it functions as like you're in a meeting and you just need to rant at someone as to what's happening in that meeting and just get positive reaffirmation that you're not crazy um versus also like really we've actually i found some of that chat and you know we're all uh like millennial minus in terms of our ages um finding that to be a really useful collaborative tool um especially because you know man is in new york until very recently scarlet was in la and i'm in ashland oregon so you know chat ended up being actually a great way for us to sort of get our heads together in the time being but i'm looking forward to having like drinks with them that's all three of us have not been in the same space since uh this experiment has started so that's going to happen this weekend which we're really excited about uh i can't remember how tall mayan is it's been a few years so you know yeah we have a um we have a calendar where basically because the five of us came in to an organization um early on there was a calendar set up that had all of the meetings that were occurring and there was an open door policy so because there were no deliverables expected it was more you were invited to anything you choose to attend but you were not expected in anything um if you are there your robust participation is welcomed or if you just want to be a fly on the wall which i think was very important to the style question of some people want to participate differently and and honoring that um so we a meeting that i tend to attend pretty frequently is the producer's meeting on Monday where we talk about season planning um different uh projects that are coming up different things that cal shakes is thinking of for neither the current season or the up current season dreaming planning us often comes up at the end of these meetings uh and then there have been one offs for special projects which i've attended or other members of the artist circle has attended there's also an open invitation to bring projects or interests to the table um so there's at any point we can email leon or eric and say hey i'd like to have a meeting about x y and z i was working on a writing project so i had an initial meeting with them about how cal shakes could support that or what resources they could offer and other members of the cohort to be invited to that so what i find it is it's interesting to hear you talk ever and about how about inconsistency because i think that also because everyone's busy and especially because we're individual artists who are not on staff there's the the beautiful part of it of that there's an influx of perspective that is not because we're not on payroll we don't feel beholden to agree with anyone and i mean that in a positive way um but then there's also you know when we do shows people disappear for a month um and so there it's hard to find that consistency but um but it's been really nice to be able to have an an organizational experience where it feels like there's constant movement through like there's something about um the cycling of artists in a meeting you never are quite certain who's going to be in the room and there's some and the positive side of that is it feels rejuvenating to and everyone's very excited when you know someone who's been gone for a show is finally able to come back and bring their wisdom from their experience a new perspective into the room so it's and then we do have a monthly cohort meeting um where it's just us and um uh Leanne who is doing um artistic programming and then Eric the artistic director and we it tends to just be more of a cocktail hour than anything else because it's just about connection and that's really that's really nice because i i do like everyone has said really miss the in person just sharing about your life and not necessarily making a plan or trying to get something done thank you everyone for all those answers we're going to move now to um to ask in questions of the audience and see if um open it up to our our viewers and i know there might be some questions that are on facebook that um for those in our audience you should now have the ability to unmute yourself if you would like to come on camera and ask your question please raise your virtual or physical hand um or please feel free to drop your questions in the chat um and if you don't ask questions Tanya and I have lots more Tanya do you want to ask your books question which I love yeah oh well I just was wondering um I know you've all said that there aren't aren't models necessarily for us to look at so I was sort of curious like if there's any books or organizations or that you're looking to for some inspiration or maybe models outside of the united states that have served for some sort of inspiration well I will say that a book that was revolutionary in my thought about leadership which is I'm sure everyone is familiar with so I'm um probably dating myself a little bit but um Emergence Strategy by Adrienne Marie Brown it just sort of thinking about how to allow things to surface versus trying to control things um I think is really helpful in disrupting a colonial mindset around hierarchy and leadership and then also another book that I really appreciated in terms of talking about the I think the way that she frames it it's a book called Freedom as a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis Dr. Angela Davis and she says something um I'm paraphrasing but about the myth of the magnetic leader and that it all movements you know whether it's Dr. King or or whomever that we tend to look at it retrospectively as um as this one person who led the charge when it's really a system of many pockets of people working in concert to change something um and whether it's civil rights or other movements um it's never just a single person and I I see that I see how we have cultivated that specifically around artistic directors and theatrical institutions of that um they're the figurehead for the audience and the figurehead for so many folks and it becomes it can become a cult of personality versus really pulling that apart and allowing um the the many people who are part of the institution or organization to work together and and to acknowledge that group work and to move the the organization forward and so that was really helpful for me not only in crystallizing my critiques of what was happening that I felt but couldn't verbalize and then also thinking about well if I don't want to be in a traditional position of power as people recognize per title what how does leadership work in you know my role or or many different roles you know if how does someone who works backstage how is that leadership and how can it be valued and so I really recommend those two books if people are looking for places to begin the Wilma has an acting company called the the hot house uh I think this is based on European models some European theaters that have acting companies as part of the structure of the theater um that was one of the things that really attracted me to the Wilma in the first place because you have this group of actors who are training regularly and they really trust each other and know each other really deeply and I think that can elevate the kind of work you're able to make especially if you have a three week rehearsal process like you have a three week rehearsal process and then you have years of history and work underneath that with the actors on stage so it's kind of incredible um something interesting that's happening is uh this shared leadership model was introduced about three years ago but it was it is a shared leadership structure at the top a non-hierarchical structure at the top the way the organization is structured is still hierarchical there's a department head someone who works under them maybe an intern and so what's starting to change is now um the hot house the acting company has adopted a shared leadership structure so there are three uh interim leaders of the hot house from within that group so it's kind of interesting to see how this might trickle the non-hierarchical shared leadership thing um and and also where it just like doesn't want to trickle in inside of the nonprofit structure um but yeah that was in a book recommendation just a model looking at Europe all of all of Europe yeah this isn't a book but I would say early on when we were um forming and and reforming we we looked to uh the collective universes a lot um they're sort of collaborative model and how they created and how they in a lot of ways like avoided becoming an institution and and really sort of just worked as a sort of similar I think to what Morgan is saying there's a shared history there that's a sort of um a model that that we really uh looked at a lot uh when we were starting and Mildred and Stephen were were mentors um uh and I would say you know in in recent years it's been a lot of like looking to um sort of queer art collectives you know there's a there's a an art collective in a dance party poppy juice here in New York that I love um and then I always want to just like I'm like there's something about that sort of community building that idea that there is that it really is about the artists at the center you know um and that all of the leaders are also artists there um there's a a a relatively younger organization called Legacy it's a black queer production company collective um and you know I feel like I'm constantly also um looking towards some of the the newer organizations that are coming up now that are are starting you know from who have had models of shared leadership that that that maybe we didn't have and who are now revolutionizing it in new ways so I think for me it's like looking back towards like these new organizations and sort of being inspired by um how they're doing it um yeah um not to push forward a friend's book but I will um Megan Sandberg's Aikian who's a co-founder with me of Maya Directors has a book called There Must Be Happy Endings on a Theater of Optimism and Honesty there you go um who is uh uh and it's a uh it's not about leadership specifically but it's about process and when theater is as hard as it is the world is as hard as it is how can you continue to center optimism and honesty in a way that doesn't feel fake or toxic um uh and it's it has really personal specific examples and it's really about in my mind about rehearsal room uh but for me what has been really uh what I found myself feeling very torn apart by is that I have a very specific way I'm able to hold space in the rehearsal room as a director and be collaborative and uh really actively be a service leader and the ways in which since taking this job at OSF how the system doesn't allow for me to show up with the same sort of honesty open-heartedness and sweetness that I like to think I have in rehearsal rooms and how that does not currently it's starting to work in my leadership position at OSF and how I can feel like those before us um the hardening of myself in the leadership position and how I have to daily sort of reject that idea that I will you know scab over because of the wound and let that heal but then I will enter the same room with open-heartedness um so that the the modeling of the kind of space we want to have is actually in my person and I'm not sort of fighting myself to be honest to become the leader I want to be at the size of company I want to be helped run or run one day so um I've gone back to Megan's book a few times along the way uh to remind myself why the fuck we're doing this sorry for swearing that's just who I am um so that has been a really helpful sort of grounding and reminding for me I have to say um I worked in Philadelphia not at the Wilma quite often and talked to Blanca quite a few times and uh being from Eastern Europe Middle East the idea of that acting company was a huge part of why I came to OSF although OSF acting company is a very different structure has been and we'll see how it shifts of course over the years but the idea of training together and that commitment to learning and growing not just as like oh this actor has acted here for so many years and people love them and they want to see them in everything but actually this actor has been part of the growth of a group of actors together and a real commitment to learning and training that's something that uh from actors I know who've been in the hot house the way that organization has centered that group and has supported that group um has been incredibly inspiring and something that I've been thinking a lot about over the last year or so as we look at you know whatever the next draft of our acting company arrangement is going to be at OSF and is it just going to be actors I don't know you know so it's um there's something about uh that that feels really really important to me and emergent strategy it's almost like a I feel like a joke saying that that's really helpful as you said Lauren like if we all could actually function the way that book says we should we would not have to have these conversations everything would be peace and love um but here we are so you know so but that idea of um I guess iterative progress big experiments bold experiments and then commitment to those experiments functioning in an iterative way it within structures that are really calcified and when do you break those structures when do you just slowly melt those structures those are sort of leadership questions that are like very active for me all the time so as we're rounding out our time together um I was on I went to a panel that everyone was on and at some point you said uh joy is a political act and I wrote it on a post-it and it's like sits on my court board and I um uh just because that idea is very important to me and and so I just wanted us to end on a last question about I just uh what is something that really brings you joy at your organization something could be a moment or a specific aspect of it I'd love to hear that um so we do our we for the last like eight or nine years we do a holiday card um and the impetus for the holiday card came out of wanting to show our audience who is running the organization that we were five brown producers and that we were running the organization and so every year it's gotten bigger and bigger um and we have like a team sorry someone is like doing something so there might be noise um but every year we have a team there is like hair and makeup people I my my partner styles it we like I creative direct it we have a photographer and we do this like sort of old school holiday card and it is a lot of work but it is one of the funnest days of the year for me because we get to come together look feel and just be fabulous and like it's just such a beautiful bonding moment that we have and our new cards are coming out next week so be on the lookout for those but it's just a beautiful moment where I think we do get to center joy and ourselves and and you know it's a moment of like self appreciation for the hard work that we do that a lot of it does go unnoticed because I don't think a lot of people are looking to like what's the leader doing you know aside from the sort of figurehead um so it's a really I think that's the thing that brings me the most joy about the organization is that that time that we get to spend every year one day just being ridiculously fabulous and I get to just play like dress up with five people it's like playing with Barbie dolls but like better um Billy is a foodie city and I've learned that some of my cohort are they're really into food like both cooking and going to restaurants and so I think they're like I think we will just go hard talking about food and that is really fun and brings me a lot of joy uh people I will say we're on the verge of like having what feels like a complete artistic team that's been sort of put together by Nataki and all of us and I mean you know transitions are hard and um we had like a wine and pizza moment in my house we were all tested everybody we were all in the you know the pod um and it wasn't all of us there but there was just you know this house I've lived in for almost a year which hasn't seen anyone but me and my husband and my dog um all of a sudden there were like 10-12 people here and there were conversations happening in the court like it was it just felt alive with the energy of the artistic team and the production team um and it was just like a really uh it was joyous it sort of washed over me and then just to name a name Donia Washington who's our festival producer and just like a true deep badass um and just makes everything happen in our repertory in a certain way while also continuing to uplift people including me um she brings me a lot of joy um on a daily basis and I'm very thankful for her. I think we I think we would if everyone else was here from the artist circle and Celtic staff were um very good at going off in tangents um and my favorite parts the conversation is during a meeting there's often a moment where Eric will be like well if this was your like what would you do and then everyone will just sort of go on this tangent of dreaming and well you know if I was the one who was making all the decisions like this is how I would I would do it and and it becomes a sort of collage of dreams and I I find that to be really invigorating because we all value each other's perspective so much and there's a deep sense of generous loving curiosity that is brought during those conversations that that it doesn't matter what the result is it really provokes a deep sense of thought that I think is exciting for all of us in terms of what we do within the organization and then also what we do on our own or with other organizations or companies that we work with and that that is a consistent thing that happens at these meetings that I find deeply deeply joyful because there's a a sense of play to the conversation um that we're able to maintain and and that's really important to me. I think a sense of play and joy are wonderful ways to end tonight's conversation um we're at the end of our time I want to thank all of our brilliant panelists Morgan, David, Evan, Lauren thank you so much for being with us tonight um for audience members if you want to find out more about our fabulous panelists and their work all of their links are on our event page um I want to thank our panelists our partners for this event at HowlRound our wonderful ASL interpreters Steve and Valerie and the entire wingspace salons committee for this 2021 season it's our final virtual salon for the year um this is number 34 since we've started doing virtual salons um and the ability to do that um is due to all the hard work uh on behalf of everyone at the wingspace salons team we want to say their names Christine Mock Edward Morris who is here with us tonight Kate Freer who got us on Facebook Adrian Jones who made all the wonderful uh uh Instagram beautiful headshots of you Rodrigo Hernandez, E.L. Hohn, Anna Driftmeyer and Tanya and myself um again this is our final salon of 2021 but when we have our upcoming salons for 2022 those can be found on our website at wingspace.com slash events you can also join our email list there to get notifications about these directly to your inbox um and finally as we look ahead to 2022 we're interested to hear from you about what topics you would like to discuss if tonight sparks something for you let us know you can email all of us at salons at wingspace.com and on that note we're going to stop streaming and recording um Tanya and myself will stay on the zoom for a couple minutes just to say thank you uh and good night but you're welcome to unmute and say hello turn your camera if you would like thank you again so much everyone for joining us and have a good night


Honestly, what's working best for us is being flexible, tailoring it to the company, tailoring it to the situation. Welcome to the Smarter Building Materials Marketing Podcast, helping you find better ways to grow leads, sales, and outperform your competition. All right, everybody, welcome to Smarter Building Materials Marketing, where we believe your online presence should be your best salesperson. I am Zach Williams, along with my co-host, Beth Popnikov. And today we're talking about marketing attribution, specifically how you as a manufacturer or someone in the building product space can be more effective in measuring your marketing. You know, one thing we're seeing here in the building products industry is that everything is becoming much more dispersed in terms of how we touch and get in front of our customers and our potential partners. And so we're really excited about today's guest today. Beth, do you want to introduce him? Yeah, so we have a really brave guest because this is a big topic, right? We are really excited to welcome Travis Hildore. He is the VP of Sales and Marketing at Pathfinder Systems. Travis, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So before we dive in, Travis, why don't you give our listeners a 30,000 foot view of who you are and tell us a little bit about your company. Yeah, so I'm VP of Sales and Marketing at Pathfinder. We specialize in automation and machinery in the concrete products industries. And I say industries because we do a lot in dry cast, precast as well as ready mix manufacturing. So basically anything from turnkey, brand new manufacturing all the way through, retrofits and automation. So who is your main customer? Are you marketing to the builder, marketing to GC, marketing to other manufacturers? Yeah, so we market primarily to manufacturers and our target audience is everything from plant personnel, plant management, supervision as well as ownership and executives. So quite often when we're trying to develop a pitch for a facility, we wanna make sure that not only the executives and ownerships are on board, but also the people who are gonna be operating the equipment and operating the facility long-term. So when you say manufacturer, you don't just mean like building products manufacturer. You mean manufacturing as a whole, like anybody that has any type of manufacturing. We specialize in building product manufacturing. There is some kind of cross work that we can do on palletizers and things like that. But for the most part, it's block retaining wall and paver manufacturing, tilt up retaining wall, whole course lab manufacturing as well as ready mix. That's super niche. Yeah. I was gonna say, does that make it easier for you to target potential customers? Cause you're like, hey, I've super defined small niche potential customer. Yeah, it can help. But at the same time, we've got pretty wide range of demographics we're pitching to as well. So it's, when you do that personality profile, when you're really diving down into who you're targeting, you have a fairly wide range of people. The nice thing is in our industry, they're all workers. A lot of times they came up from pouring concrete in the field or have an interest in construction as a whole. So you can kind of run with that, but you are getting people who are started out, sweeping floors or people who have their MBAs and came from pretty prestigious schools. Travis, can you give us an example of what marketing looks like for you?  It's a very unique audience set, but you guys are doing some really interesting things. Yeah, especially with the size of our projects, you start getting into that five to $12 million range for some of the scope of this projects. That personal relationship is very important. You have to build that trust. And so we use digital as a way to keep our name out there to promote our products, to get information out about our products. But really it's a way to bolster that relationship. We're in the door, we're talking, we hire experts, we're able to be that expert in their door telling them what we've seen, what works, what doesn't work. And we do that through handwritten letters. We do that through sending little stuffed tigers for their grandchildren. Sometimes when they have grandchildren or kids and getting that personal touch, but then using that media to push the information we want them to see.  So as far as being a little bit different, I mean, I am a big believer that if your competition's all kind of taking the road to the right, you should take a hard left. You gotta figure out how to differentiate yourself. You gotta make a mark in the industry. And so we've ran some pretty unique ad campaigns in the past, including buying out billboards that we happen to know were on a route that our customer took from his house to his office where we were trying to get their attention on a large facility as a unique case. So we've done some pretty fun stuff. You bought an entire, like more than one billboard? Is that what you said? No, because of that personal relationship, we knew general area where this guy lived and we'd been trying to get into his door for a long time. We knew he was gonna build a facility. We knew he was talking to our competitors. So couldn't get in the door, couldn't get in the door. So we found a billboard that was on his route to work and we run it out for a couple of weeks. So you run it out one billboard for one guy? Yeah. Okay, did you land the contract? Did it work? It did work. And I believe they were one of the first Tiger facilities in the country. That's awesome. And did he mention it to you? Was he like, hey, I saw your billboard. I saw my name on it. Yeah, for sure. And then in addition to that, one of the local high schools, their mascot's the Tiger. And so they had some event going on where they had Tiger paws kind of throughout the city going to the school.  So they had a lot of fun with that, but yeah. I love that. That's awesome. That's some ROI right there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you gotta know your target though. Some people might see that as a little creepy and overreaching, so luckily we knew you had a good start to your work. So Travis, I'd love to know how you're creating your marketing strategies because I can hear the arguments against digital marketing in my head. If I was in your company or on your marketing team, you know, just in preparing for this call you mentioned sometimes your sales cycle is two to three years, which is not uncommon in our industry. You are doing really large five to 12 million dollar projects which sometimes it can feel silly to narrow all that down into a Facebook post and feel like that's going to make the difference. So I'd love to know how all of those different elements of your business are factored into your marketing strategy and why you guys have chosen to continue to go forward with digital. Yeah, I mean, it's a multi-pronged approach.  Compare it to print ads, compare it to billboards, compare it to, you know, even rebuilding a website every great once in a while, just the social media side of things is cheap. But in addition to that, it allows you to promote your business on a lot of different levels. So most people know if you're gonna be on Facebook, it's that personal touch. It's talking about the feel good stories of your employees and kind of bringing in that community to help foster that relationship between you and your customers. If it's LinkedIn, you're talking more of your business approach, your white papers, look at the cool things that we're building or your customer business case. Instagram's those beautiful pictures of a brand new facility the first time it runs and being able to continue to get those in front of a customer on a regular basis while developing those relationships just helps keep you fresh in their mind and helps really push new products also in front of people fairly inexpensively. Otherwise, really the goal is to get them to travel and see facilities, but that's also expensive and there's a lot that you can do to lead up to that point, not only to qualify them, but also get them to have interest in seeing those because they saw a little snippet on Instagram that piqued their interest. Talk to me about what measuring your marketing looks like.  So talk me through what's your methodology for how in the world do you track everything you do and frankly, do you track everything? Yeah, we certainly could do a lot better at that. It's hard when you start having a three-year sales cycle, how do you track that the campaign that you're in today is effective three years down the road? So oftentimes we start looking more at opportunity generation. Are we in the door at every opportunity? That's also how we a lot of times gauge our sales reps, effectiveness, not necessarily how many sales they close, but are they a part of every large project in our industry? Thankfully, we're niche enough that we can see that. We have eyes on it. We know typically what sells and where, but we track that. But there's actually a company up here in Michigan, I don't know if you've ever heard of Myers, little grocery store that compete with Walmart, but he was famous for saying that I know that half of my marketing budget is effective. Unfortunately, I don't know which half. And oftentimes that's very true, but sometimes you kind of got to stick your thumb up in the air and if the wind's blowing the right direction, continue that direction. Certainly we're doing more with SEO. We're doing more with content, contacting tracking open rates and things like that, just to make sure that the content we're putting out, there's interest in people are clicking on, people are following up on going to our website and ultimately calling our sales reps. What's the most effective marketing strategy you've got right now, Travis? Like if you look at everything you're doing, like the craziest stuff you mentioned to more traditional marketing, what's working best for you? Honestly, what's working best for us is being flexible, tailoring it to the company, tailoring it to the situation. It really does stem from knowing the customers that we're approaching and knowing what works for some people and what doesn't work for you others and really tailoring our approach to each. So we have a generic email blast that goes out for general company news, general updates on new equipment, new processes, things like that. But then we also, in addition to that, might target a company that we know is in a buying mode and if the guy's a technology geek, we'll send him some information on the newest sensor that we've got or the newest way that we can track heights and weights or self-adjustment on the machine or talk to him about industry 3.0 or 4.0, engage in a conversation about what's coming up. If the guy's a little bit more traditional, we'll focus more on that kind of hard work ethic, back sales service support and that family relationship that we can build with those companies. I like that. Yeah, so you're really doing more like personalization with your marketing as well. Yeah, and it's probably not as well-defined and produced as some other companies. Just because we're a family business that's been in the business for forever and have those family contacts, we're able to just get a feel for somebody and do it. But I do think ultimately your marketing campaign needs to drill down to what the person you're trying to sell needs and wants and has interest in. We're not selling to the general public. It's not a numbers game. We're not doing the shotgun approach and hoping one out of 100 buys. We need to be involved in almost every project out there.  Is there a manufacturer or somebody even outside of building products? There's certainly snippets of products out there or companies out there that I admire. You know, one of the things that we have been doing that I actually think Tesla has been doing a good job of at least marketing is that quick responsiveness of the executives, that personal attention of the executives, knowing that when you put an issue out there as an example, Elon Musk might tweet back and say, hey, we fix it in the next update. Seeing some of those types of things I think has been very good for their brand in showing their flexibility and their forward thinking and everything else. And that's a big one for us. You know, if a customer calls me up and says, hey, we need this and I ignore them, that's not good business. And we've been able to be successful because we do do that outside of that. I mean, I think you kind of take inspiration of everything you look at. We try to promote ourselves as a highly professional fast moving company because that's what we do and that's who we are. And so I'll look up everything from Caterpillar to Lamborghini to Ferrari or whoever and see what approach they take as kind of that higher end manufacturer and see what fits with us and see what doesn't. That's great. If there's a manufacturer's listening to this Travis and they're like, hey, I love how you guys are thinking outside the box. I like how you guys are being nimble as well as measuring things. What's like the one piece of advice that you would give them? We actually for a long time wrapped a product line called Optimus which was mechanical paver installation. And that was a product that we would sell to their customers, to the contractors to help install products. And I remember that for the first 10 years of trying to sell that product was like hitting my head against a brick wall because I couldn't get them to understand that this is faster, this is more efficient. Yeah, you gotta spend 80 grand on it. They'd rather go out at the time than spend 80 grand on a pickup truck because it could do more things. But eventually it got to a point where they started seeing cost arising was harder to get labor, they needed to automate and it started to take off for us. And the best way we could do that was just through that education. Spending the time to sit down with people, talk about their needs, talk about how their business was growing and how we could help them become more efficient and more nimble and pay that personalized attention to them. Now that's harder when you got a contact list of 300 in the territory versus five in the territory or in a state, but yeah, that'd be my main thing is just really get to know your customers, get to know what they need, speak their language, don't tell them what they need, but understand why they might need it. Very sound advice. Travis, man, thank you so much for coming on the show. Is someone wants to connect with you? What's the best way for them to do that? Yeah, so my email address is travisatpathfindersystem.com. That is singular, no S at the end of system. That messes us up a little bit every once in a while, but reach out there and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. This is great. Travis, man, thank you so much again for coming on the show and for our listeners. If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you check us out at vanview.com slash podcast to subscribe and get more. Until next time, I'm Zach Williams alongside Beth Lopniklav. Thanks everybody.


Today I present to you a debate that's definitely needed to happen, which film starring the alien's symbiote is better? It's Spider-Man 3 vs. Venom on Movie Feud. I argue this is an unfair match-up as we're already three deep in the Sam Raimi trilogy, so characters have already been established. That's true, although that can also work against the film too, as many people hate what three did to the characters they loved. Some don't look back fondly on Tobes, emo dancing down the streets, or Kirsten Dunst singing an entire album's worth of music. In one movie. Even Franco's Osborn gets pretty goofy at times. Hey, I enjoy a good baking montage as much as the next guy, just felt out of place here. There's a lot of star power on display in this final chapter. JK Simmons still owns the role as J. Jonah Jameson to me. No one else can play that part. They're not even gonna try. Rosemary Harris pops up here and there and try as they might. They couldn't top that. I believe there's a hero in all of us line. They came up with something, but it was terrible. Thomas Hayden Church plays Sandman, one of three villains in the picture. You might be thinking to yourself, three villains in one story? How do they possibly juggle all that? Not well. Not well at all. Franco eventually follows in his father's footsteps as the Green Goblin 2.0. Last and certainly least, we have that 70s show star Tofer Grace as Eddie Brock, a spunky new photographer who's willing to play a little dirty to get what he wants. He also becomes Venom for like eight minutes. Bruce Campbell makes his obligatory cameo and Elizabeth Banks rivals Evangeline, Lily and Ant-Man for the worst hairstyle ever award. If you enjoyed Bryce Dallas Howard's performance in Fallen Kingdom as Lady with Nice Breasts, you're in luck. You can see him here too in all their PG-13 glory. Venom is not without its A-list stars. Michelle Williams was for some reason forced to do this film. She must owe someone money somewhere. She plays generic lawyer girlfriend. Riz Ahmed doesn't fare much better as an Elon Musk-like billionaire who will stop at nothing to make bad choices for his company. Jenny Slate has a pretty large role as a turncoat scientist. She's come a long way since Elvin and the Chipmunks, Chipwrecked, which will always be Mona Lisa to me. Shout out to the Parks and Rec fans out there. Last and possibly least here as well is Eddie Brock, aka Venom, aka Tom Hardy. I'm not sure what to even think about Tom Hardy at this point. He's best when his beautiful face is covered up.  Venom is kind of cool too, but Brock is just a disaster of a character. I have no idea who this dude even is after two hours of a movie. Topher was pretty cut and dry.  Spoiler, I was. Venom is all over the place, sometimes having a bizarre accent and never consistent in his personality, even before the symbiote takes over. I know Venom himself is more comic accurate this time and the Purists will probably hate what I have to say next, but I like Sam Raimi's version better. Yeah. It seems more alien-like, unless like a guy trying to pick a fight at the park in a lot of Achilles at 1am on a Thursday night. Oddly specific. That's not to say he's a complete knockout. Whenever Tofer's face pops out of the black goo, it's just horrible. It's head over to round two. Bad. Just all around bad. Spider-Man 3 already had a really tough fight ahead of it. Raimi is coming off of Spider-Man 2, a film many still consider top tier superhero material. The pressure was on both mentally and internally from Sony, who's notorious for ruining a good thing. There is plenty that works, but the overall final product doesn't. Things start out on the wrong foot when we learn that Peter didn't actually get the guy who killed his Uncle Ben. Retconning your own story's a bold move, Cotton. Turns out the killer was a more sympathetic dude named Flint Marco who just can't seem to make the right choices in life. He eventually becomes Sandman after wandering into one of the most unsecure facilities ever created ever. Meanwhile, Peter's best friend Harry is losing his mind after the death of his father and vows revenge against Spider-Man. This threat isn't too shabby with a lot of standout moments such as a ring chase and a truly awesome confrontation at his mansion. Parker web slinging a bomb back at his once best friend has all sorts of emotion and it's just a fantastic scene to watch. 2018's Venom has no emotion, not a drop, not no emotion to be found. You're just watching something play out for two hours. I guess there is a laugh or two to be had, some intentional from the writers, others not so much. It just feels like this lifeless, joyless, awkward thing rolling down the street like a turd in the wind. Eddie Brock is an extreme reporter with his own TV show. He seemingly has it all. An excellent job, a hot fiance, and one killer bike. Unfortunately, he put his career ahead of his future wife when he snoops in her computer and finds some confidential information to exploit. She leaves him faster than Universal left their dark universe behind. Remember the dark universe kids? That was cool. The mummy and maybe some the Dracula thing. Turns out it wasn't worth it either as he loses his job shortly after. Brock is having himself a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. That all changes when scientist lady calls him up with a hot scoop. This leads to his discovery of a testing lab where he finds himself the host of an alien entity. This forces Brock to take on some pretty poor eating habits but that temple needs fueling. Elon Musk, bad guy, becomes the host of a symbiote too because apparently this movie was written in 2004. It's not a complicated story yet. It still manages to be completely incompetent. That said, I barely scratched the surface on the other 40 plots that take place in Spider-Man 3. Peter's suit is infected with the alien goo which somehow dies it perfectly. It's a pretty sweet looking suit. Oh, and it makes Peter evil.  The new love interest springs up for a few scenes. Mary J. Watson has a whole stage performance thing going on for some reason. There's enough material here for two or three more movies. Help Peter Jackson would have taken this very same material, made himself a nice five part 20 hour saga, plus director cuts for each. So on one hand, we have a bloated at times bizarre final act that I do believe manages to end on an excellent note. On the other hand, we have a dumb, poorly executed origin story. It seems like a tough decision, but at the end of the day, it's actually quite simple for me. But before we go there, let's talk production. Spider-Man 3 is a total mess, albeit a pretty one. Sam Raimi continues to move the camera around like it's strapped right behind our hero. Outside of Spider-Man 2's train fight, 3 has the best offerings around. Multiple brushes with Sandman and a fantastic end battle with all three villains justify a watch or two. I'm honestly at a loss as to what people enjoyed about Venom's action scenes. They range from passable to downright awful. The nighttime bike chase is not only ugly, it feels rushed. Like Hardy had a day to shoot, so they just threw him on a bike in front of a green screen and slapped it all together. The Venom vs. Riot ending is filmed like a cartoon cat chasing a bird around a house. Can't make heads or tails of any of it. Constant movement at terrible angles.  It's just not good to look at. Okay, who you are. If you would have told me that this was from the same director as the wonderfully shot Zombieland, I wouldn't have believed you for a second. Now if you said this is from the same guy that did Gangster Squad, okay, now I hear you. Turns out Robin Feischer did both and took what he didn't learn from either and applied it here. Music is a complete embarrassment when you compare it to the Danny Elfman score from the Spider-Man trilogy. Christopher Young did the bulk of the lifting for 3 with Elfman helping out in the wings. It was a rousing success as not only was the theme expanded, each villain got their own unique composition. If Sony's twisted goal was for me to look back on Spider-Man 3 fondly, mission accomplished. You did the unthinkable. I commend you for that. Something is happening in Hollywood right now that I don't particularly like. They're making me enjoy movies I previously hated when comparing them to what they're making today. I don't think I hated a movie more than X-Men 3 for the longest time. Much like Spider-Man 3, it felt insulting to the characters and the stories that came before. Now I see some of these newer ones and I can't help but miss the original cast and the quaint or tales they were telling. Question is, are you able to forgive Spider-Man 3 like myself? Maybe you were already a fan. Why don't you leave a comment, vote for your winner and remember, this is more than just reviews, this is Movie Feuds. One thing is certain though, until my dying breath, I will never like the Star Wars prequels no matter how hard Disney tries to make me.