meghan kelly

Should You Consider a PPC Campaign For Your Practice?

October 4, 2016 By William Smith

meghan-kelly1

On today’s Reach Dan welcomes Meghan Kelly to the show to talk about Paid Search Marketing, or PPC. How can audiologists and ENTs take advantage of paid search to drive more opportunities to their practice? Meghan Kelly, Audigy Group’s Director of Media, explains how PPC can be both an effective AND affordable way to generate flow. Dan and Meghan also touch on Audigy Group’s PPC program and how it differs from other digital agency’s (hint: it’s built around the needs of audiologists and ENTs!)

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Read the transcript:

DANIEL PARSCALE: On today’s show, Meghan Kelly walks us through the initial stages of setting up a PPC campaign. If you’re thinking about including PPC in your marketing strategy, you’ll learn about how to ask the smart questions to set you up for success. Good morning, Meghan. How are you?

MEGHAN KELLY: Good morning. I’m good, thanks.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Good. Thanks for joining us again on Reach. We are going to talk about PPC, which, well, want don’t you tell us a little bit about your involvement with PPC here at Audigy so we can get some.

MEGHAN KELLY: PPC stands for pay per click. And it’s essentially just in a nutshell, when someone does a search on, let’s say, Google, they’re searching for audiology, you will see search results. And pay per click of ensuring or hoping to ensure that when someone is searching for a hearing care related service that your business would show up as an option.

DANIEL PARSCALE: So with all that in mind, could you maybe tell me a little bit about the history of the PPC program here at Audigy? I know it’s kind of new. And you have an interesting back story on why you thought this would be an important program for us to offer.

MEGHAN KELLY: Yeah. I can, I would love to talk about that. So when I first started working at Audigy in 2008, I was hired as like a first media buyer. And all that I was purchasing, primarily what I was purchasing, was traditional media. So that would be like newspaper, radio, television, all stuff that’s like really important and viable to our membership.

But we didn’t have anyone on the media team who was skilled in managing our paid digital. So we were outsourcing that to a vendor. And we found this big national vendor.

And we were sending all of our member business to them. We were funneling it there and making that experience for the member a lot easier. We got some discounted rates because of that.

And we could get averages in terms of like our results and share that across the membership. There were some benefits to sending all the business there. But one of the big, big drawbacks was we didn’t have any transparency as to how our budgets were being spent. No one at the agency would share with us if a member was spending $1,000, how much of that $1,000 was actually being spent on search and how much of that was being pocketed as a fee.

We didn’t have any transparency into at the AdWords platform, where the campaigns were actually being run. They didn’t give us that transparency. They gave us a login into their proprietary platform, which was just really convoluted and did not match up to what you would have seen if you actually were looking in the platform, where the purchasing was actually made if you were actually looking in the AdWords platform. And a lot of our campaigns were not performing well.

And we would get poor results. And our results were in conflict with what the agency was reporting back to us. So when you are in a position, when you’re a company like Audigy and it is your job to be the best steward of a member’s marketing budget, but you don’t have the transparency into determining if one of your vendors is using that money wisely, you don’t feel good about making that recommendation. And it got to the point where I felt really bad about sending business here because I didn’t know if this was something that was working well.

And when it wasn’t working well, when I knew it wasn’t working well, I didn’t know how to fix it. There was nothing I could do to help it. So at that time we had had a man, his name was Eric Kammer. He had just been hired.

He was going to be a marketing manager. But he had come from a digital agency. And he was someone who was a great resource in terms of search and best practices. And this agency just was not following those best practices. So he and I came up with a plan to start to manage our members’ campaigns in-house.

And we started really small because we certainly didn’t want to mess this up. And we brought on three members. And we managed their campaigns. And we set goals for ourselves.

If we can get these results– we set a cost per call, cost per prospect, and cost per appointment goals– if we can get these results, then we know that we’re headed in the right direction and we could bring some more members onto the program. And that was in March of 2014 when we launched that beta with those three members. And then we slowly things were working well.

We added three more members. I think that over the next three months, results improved. The bigger our pool got, the more results that we had to share, the more data that we could use to make member campaigns work better. So we got to the point where we are right now, where we have I think we have 106 audiology based campaigns running for 106 private practices across the US.

DANIEL PARSCALE: And you provide the transparency and the ROI that you set as goals with each of these members. And so you’ve really solved that problem.

MEGHAN KELLY: Yeah. So the relationship that we have with our members, we succeed when they succeed, which is something that’s a little bit different than like any type of agency or like purchasing directly through a media rep. Those are sales-based positions. And I don’t want to bash that industry because that’s not what I’m trying to do.

But when you have a goal and you are working on like bringing in a certain amount of revenue, that can sometimes encourage overselling. It certainly doesn’t encourage you to go back to a client and say, hey, I know that you said you have a $2,000 budget, but we really only need $1,200 of that to be successful. And we do do that.

Sometimes we start a member’s campaign. And we’ll start it at $2,000 because we need a starting place. And we need to start to draw data from that market. And then we see, you know what, really the only available traffic here, the traffic that’s available here is closer to a cost of $1,200. And so we would actually recommend a budget decrease in some cases.

So what I like about our in-house program is it’s very honest in those ways. The interests are very, very aligned. And I feel good about what our team offers members in the way of an honest search strategy.

DANIEL PARSCALE: One of the questions that we like to include in all the shows is, why is this important? Why does this matter? And I think that sometimes, for me anyway, the confusion seems to mostly lie with, what’s the difference between PPC and, let’s say, your SEO campaign or how they overlap? So could you maybe just clarify for us why it’s important to have this in addition to these other digital services.

MEGHAN KELLY: Sure. So PPC is pay per click. And SEO is search engine optimization. And so those are two really important digital focuses. And they complement each other, but they aren’t the same thing.

So SEO is ensuring that when someone does a search that your website shows up. And you can’t guarantee any of that, but PPC is paying for your ad to show up as an option. And so, I guess I would say that PPC is important because the top Google search results are paid. And you can guarantee, you can almost guarantee, that you will show up as an option if you’re willing to invest in the paid.

Another big benefit of investing in the paid is you get a lot more data and analytics on what your consumers’ journey has been in terms of what they’ve been doing online that has brought them to you. And we can use that data and analytics in very thoughtful ways to ensure that we get more prospects delivered to our digital efforts, our digital campaigns. And we can also take that data and ensure that we use it for our marketing that isn’t happening online.

DANIEL PARSCALE: From the SEO side, where I work, we can use that same data too to get an idea of where there’s overlap in strategy or maybe an opportunity or even a hole in the strategy so you can really have more cohesive reach for your branding.

MEGHAN KELLY: Exactly.

DANIEL PARSCALE: So this is definitely one piece in that, one extra– what would you say– spoke in the wheel, I guess.

MEGHAN KELLY: Yep. Yeah.

DANIEL PARSCALE: OK. So with that as a little bit of background, let’s talk about maybe, well, today’s show, we want to really discuss what a PPC campaign looks like in the very beginning stages. So let’s start with day 1, you stretch your arms, you get out of bed, you’re going to start a PPC campaign, what’s the very first thing that you want to think about in terms of your future plans for your PPC?

MEGHAN KELLY: So in terms of goals, that’s a really easy conversation. And that’s what we do with any member who would be interested in PPC. The very first thing that we want to discuss is, what does success look like? If this thing works really, really well, if this investment works really, really well, what do those results look like? And is that something that we can agree on before we launch this campaign?

It’s something that’s really important to grant before you launch any campaign so there are no surprises, right, like you don’t want to work with someone, create this campaign. You as the owner and the agency that’s running the campaign is feeling like, yeah, this is going really well. This is working great.

And your client is like, well, this is awful. This is not what I expected at all. So step 1 is discussing, what does success look like? And that’s where my team can be incredibly helpful because they run over 100 campaigns for private practice audiologists. And so we can take a look at how these campaigns are performing and transfer those expectations and success and just tactics to someone who is just initiating a new campaign.

DANIEL PARSCALE: So what are some of the things that they would look for if they wanted to measure that success? I know that in conversations that we have on SEO side, it’s the initial thought is, I want to rank for every keyword under the sun in my field. And that of course, is a little bit more ambitious than anybody can promise to do. But like what’s a reasonable expectation that you should have when you’re setting those goals?

MEGHAN KELLY: Well, when you’re doing paid search advertising, you’re investing money, I mean, that’s the paid part. That stuff costs money. So you want to make sure that the return on your investment is something that makes sense.

So at Audigy, we use call tracking software that records all of our phone calls and then we use a third-party vendor to score those calls as, obviously like we have a total call volume, total prospects. A prospect is someone who called. And based upon the call scoring criteria, they’ve been labeled as someone who is a prospect to purchase hearing technology and then also appointments. So we want to make sure that our cost per call, cost per prospect, and cost per appointment are all figures that make sense for the practice.

DANIEL PARSCALE: So what kind of audiologists or ENTs should be considering PPC for their marketing strategy?

MEGHAN KELLY: I think everyone should consider PPC. I think that you’re going to get different results depending on the marketplace that you’re in. Some market places are really, really competitive. And we might find out like, hmm, our cost per appointment is just not where we want it to be. I will say that we hardly ever see that. But anyone who is looking to bring more patients into their practice is a viable PPC prospect.

DANIEL PARSCALE: So generating leads is, obviously, the first thing that comes to mind for me. There’s other things that we could use it for as well, such as just testing an idea to see if it’ll work.

MEGHAN KELLY: Totally. Yeah. Our creative team has in the past used paid search to test two creative concepts, where they run two creative concepts and they determine which concept, which direction they’re going to go based upon how their target, how people online engage with those two concepts, one, message does better. One message gets more engagement, get more clicks, so they decide that they’re going to develop creative based upon that message.

DANIEL PARSCALE: OK. So it can really just set the groundwork for the rest of your strategy with a greater guarantee that there will be interactions with it in the first place.

MEGHAN KELLY: Totally. You can use it for business intelligence. And it’s really quick, you can get those results really, really fast, and they’re super accurate. Rather than maybe in the past, you would have done a focus group. And you would have looked around your community for people who fit this very specific profile.

We don’t have to do that any longer. We can run a national campaign, target people really, really specifically, age, income, where they live, what kind of car they drive. We can get super, super granular if we want to and get those results in a day. So it’s a real efficient way of getting good data.

DANIEL PARSCALE: And maybe we could even talk about using this for branding, like maybe if it’s a brand new location, maybe you have a new location and you’re an existing brand or you’re a new brand altogether, you could use this for exposure, where SEO would require more time for you to gain that that organic foothold.

MEGHAN KELLY: Yeah. Yeah, you’re exactly right. So let’s say you’re a new business, you’re a new audiology practice, and you are looking to make yourself known in that marketplace. And you want to do it as efficiently and quickly as possible so you can start making some money because very important, right? So you can’t just launch a website and wait for traffic to show up.

That’s not a good strategy. Launching a website and adding some paid search to get some traffic to that website, analyzing that traffic and seeing how people engage with that website can help you to not only get that brand presence much, much quicker than you would have achieved had you not employed PPC, but it will get you the metrics that are necessary in order to determine what type of content you might want to add to your website as you continue to build it out and refresh it. Because everyone’s website should be something that’s this living, breathing thing that’s constantly changing. It’s not the static piece of information.

DANIEL PARSCALE: OK. So those are just a couple of the reasons that you might be using PPC as part of your strategy. You can go into that with all kinds of different expectations. But what would you say are some realistic ones that can be set?

MEGHAN KELLY: What we do here with our in-house team is we set a cost per call goal, a cost per prospect goal, a prospect is simply someone who has– we use a third-party vendor to review all of our phone calls. And we give them some criteria to score those calls based upon the caller’s propensity to purchase hearing aids. So a prospect is someone who has a high propensity to purchase.

And then cost per appointment, which is obviously someone who calls and says, yeah, book me for an appointment. And that’s scheduled right over the phone. So we set those goals.

What does that look like? What are some benchmark metrics that we can set for those three KPIs– cost per call, cost per prospect, and cost per appointment– that would make me feel good about this investment? Step 1. And if we can’t agree on that, then we can’t move forward.

DANIEL PARSCALE: So we obviously have our benchmarks across multiple different practices that are of different sizes, different locations, et cetera, et cetera. Is there anything that you could say is a benchmark, like obviously you’re not going to reach every single person that you want to with one campaign or one keyword on this. But what are some of the reasonable things that you should use to temper your expectations?

MEGHAN KELLY: So when someone says I want to rank for everything, I would respond to that by saying, you have to ensure that you have the full picture when you are setting that expectation that you want to rank for everything. And what I mean by that is let’s say you want to rank for you’re an ANT. And you want to rank for balloon sinuplasty in Reno, Nevada. And you take a look at one of the things that we have access to on the paid search side, on the paid search team is how many people historically in Reno, Nevada, have searched for that specific term.

And maybe we find out that three people over the last three months have searched for that term. So does it really matter? Do you want to focus and invest on that keyword? Does it really make sense?

Do we want to build out creative and do we want to focus there? Or do we want to focus on where the search volume actually is? Because obviously, the bigger the pool, the more opportunity there is to catch a fish.

DANIEL PARSCALE: OK. I’m following you, though, like you really want to make your goals based off of the situation you’re in, your needs. And then also like really refine those based off of the best chance that you’re going to have to see a good ROI from that is what you’re saying.

MEGHAN KELLY: What I meant to say is you want to fish in a stock pond. That’s what I meant to say.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Got it.

MEGHAN KELLY: That was a bad analogy.

DANIEL PARSCALE: I was trying to think of places to fish in Reno. And I was like, I don’t know if I know of any.

MEGHAN KELLY: But, yeah, I would assure that anyone who was looking to launch a PPC campaign was just looking at you don’t need to understand all the technical things. We get a lot of people– I shouldn’t say a lot of people– a handful of people that get concerned because they’re not ranking for a certain keyword. And my response to them would be, I guess all that they need to be concerned with is if they are getting the results.

That’s how I would measure. I wouldn’t measure– it’s not that I don’t want to explain the technical side. But in terms of campaign success, I would go back to, this is what we agreed that success looked like. Let’s make sure that we’re continuing to reach those benchmarks that we set for ourself and not get distracted by we’re not ranking for this.

DANIEL PARSCALE: So that’s another great reason to set those goals early on is so that when things don’t make sense, you can say at least it makes sense in the context of what my goals were or my expectations were. OK. So let’s move forward a little bit with this.

And you’re right, you don’t necessarily have to have all the technical understanding of this, especially if you’re working with someone who’s managing it for you, like us for instance, that’s what we do. So let’s say that you’re in a relationship with that, you’re an ENT, and you’re talking to us, for an example. What kinds of things should you be looking forward to in a conversation where you’re really setting that?

For instance, I’m thinking about, how do you figure out if you’re getting a good cost for this? What is your fee going to? What kind of terminology is going to be involved in that conversation? First time you’re touching base.

MEGHAN KELLY: So if I’m a private practice owner and I’m talking to someone who wants to run a paid search campaign for me, what are some questions that I want to ask? And how do I vet this relationship? The first thing, I guess, that I would ask would be success metrics.

Like how are you going to report success back to me? I’d want to make sure that makes sense to me. I would want to make sure that they’re going to report back to me in some type of like– a lot of agencies won’t go as far as to record and score the calls, that’s something that’s unique and really valuable, I would say, to our organization. But I would make sure that they were, at least, going to report back to me in terms of cost per call.

And then I would take a look at that and say, like, all right, are these connected calls? Are they calls that are duplicates included? Do I have transparency into the reporting platform where these calls are pulled from?

Or are they just going to come to me in some type of random report where I can’t check it against something, I guess? What else would I ask for? I would ask for, what percentage of the amount that I am paying them is actually going to be spent with a search engines? And what percentage is going to be kept for a management fee?

That’s an important question. If I don’t spend my entire budget, because remember that we can only buy as much traffic–

DANIEL PARSCALE: As being clicked on.

MEGHAN KELLY: Yeah. So you can’t always like spend your entire budget. So if I don’t spend my entire budget, what happens to that? Would it roll over? Like in our case that we roll it over to the next month. So what happens to budget if it goes unspent?

We actually on one other little pitch for our team is we would recommend a decreased budget if we’re not able to spend all of a member’s budget. A lot of agencies just like take that as they pocket that. So that’s kind of an important question to ask is, where does unused budget go and how am I made aware of that? I would ask is they’re a Google partner.

What is your partnership with Google? Google requires that all Google partners provide transparency to their clients on how their campaigns are being run, which just in a nutshell means that they can login to the AdWords platform and just see exactly how much is being spent. The AdWords platform is a little bit complicated, but just knowing that you have access to that just would give me a little bit of confidence that the campaign is being run correctly. And I can get in there and look at it or share it with someone who can look at it for me.

I would ask if you’re going to be sending, where’s the traffic go? When someone clicks on one of my ads, where do they go? So some agencies will send all the traffic right to the homepage of someone’s organic website. And I’ll tell you that that’s not a best practice.

Because if you’re searching for, let’s say you’re clicking on an ad about you’re looking to the ad copy says something about like, are you suffering from tinnitus? And you click on the ad and you go to this homepage of a website that says, it’s hearing focus but it says nothing about tinnitus. So that’s not a good user experience.

Are you suffering from tinnitus and then you wind up on this audiology website that speaks nothing to tinnitus? Wouldn’t it be a much better experience for the user if they clicked on an ad, the tinnitus ad, and they landed on a page that said, we have helped over 6,000 people treat tinnitus since 1999. And here here’s how we can help you, fill out this form for a complementary consultation.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Really optimizing the experience from viewing of the ad to the click and then the information that’s presented.

MEGHAN KELLY: Sure, yeah.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Because a homepage isn’t going to be optimized for everything. It’s not going to be the first thing that you see. It’s going to be more general.

MEGHAN KELLY: It’s the ideal place to send paid traffic in almost every circumstance.

DANIEL PARSCALE: OK. So this is a great insight to the initial thoughts on setting up your first PPC campaign. Could you maybe wrap it up into three tangible takeaways that people should remember from the show?

MEGHAN KELLY: I would say, number one is if you’re not doing paid search, you should look into it. And look into it by contacting our team. You can reach our entire team, it’s a distribution email, at paidsearch@audigygroup.com. That’s A-U-D-I-G-Y G-R-O-U-P dot com. Send an email, we’ll get back to you. We’ll give you some feedback on whatever it is that your question might be. So one is consider paid search if you’re an audiologist.

Number two, if you’re currently running a campaign or you’re thinking about running a campaign, make sure that you have a goals discussion with your agency upfront. Agree on those goals, it will save you a lot of headache down the road, I promise you, if everyone’s on the same page from the get-go. And three, I would say always use landing pages. In our experience, sending traffic to just an organic website is not a best case or a best practice. I would ensure that the agency that you work with is going to take the time to build custom landing pages for you because they convert better.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Great takeaways, Mega. Thank you again for being on the show with us. It’s always a pleasure to be able to talk with you.

MEGHAN KELLY: Oh, likewise. Thanks for having me. I had a lot of fun.

Jason Luchterhand

June 16, 2016 By William Smith

Jason Luchterhand on Intersections Podcast

In today’s Intersections, Meghan Kelly sits down with Jason Luchterhand, an Audigy Group veteran who heads up our membership development efforts for Audigy Medical Group. Jason is an all around great guy, as you will hear in this interview — as well as a coffee snob, which you will also hear in this interview. Enjoy!

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Read the transcript:

Hi, guys, today I’m here with Jason Luchterhand, who is a member of our membership development team. It’s kind of confusing thing member that many times, we use that word a ton here at Audigy. What’s your official title, Jason?

Jason Luchterhand on Intersections Podcast

So my official title, technically speaking I’m the team lead now for the membership development team. So we essentially are contacting nonmembers and telling them more about what our company is, what we do, why we exist.

OK.

And I’m focusing on working with Audigy Medical, but I’ve been in various capacities over the years and working with Canadian independents and U.S. Independents as well on the private practice side.

OK. So you are kind of leading the charge when it comes to membership development?

I would like to think so. My title says I am, so I sure hope I am.

OK, yeah. I think that means that you are. I’ve worked with you long enough to know that you’re incredibly good at that line of work. Just having conversations, productive conversations, with prospects about what Audigy has to offer is something that you are incredibly good at.

Well, thank you. I appreciate you saying that.

So you have been with Audigy for how many years? I’m going to guess. Let me guess then you can tell me if I’m right. More than three.

You are correct. It is you, want to keep guessing or do you want me to tell you?

I was going to say, four?

So it’s a little more than four. August will be five years.

OK, wow. Yeah, I knew that it had been a while. And you’ve always been with membership development. Can you tell us a little bit about your history, your integration into the company, how you started. One of the things that I was pretty excited about when I knew that I had the opportunity to talk to you, was you have a really interesting way of landing Audigy. I think we kind of recruited you, and I would love for you to share that story about where we ran into you and convinced you that we wanted you to join our team.

Yeah it is a really interesting story. So I, prior to being part of Audigy I worked at a really high end hotel in downtown Portland. And my role at that time, I was the lead doorman for that hotel. So, checking people in, telling them about the landmarks of the city, I really enjoyed that role. It was about a year I was there, and the experience is to be able to learn more about the city beyond just being a resident of it. Going to really nice restaurants, learning more about places to go hiking, the wineries, the microbreweries, all the different wonderful things that Portland has.

Little did I know that some of the high end profile people coming through the hotel were the leadership team here at Audigy. So I was getting to know Brandon Dawson just as Brandon Dawson, a gentleman that came in to go to the steakhouse, or go to the rooftop bar. Mason Walker and his wife Ashley and all these people that, ironically enough, at the time I had no idea had any affiliation with this company. So two different friends of mine, both of which didn’t know each other, which I thought was kind of interesting, said, you need to check this Audigy company out. It’s full of young people, very, very dynamic, growth oriented. We know you’re at the hotel and you’re kind of in this position where you’re not really advancing anywhere.

So Meghan, you may not know this about my background, but I went to school at Willamette University and studied mathematics and economics.

No, I did not know that.

A lot of people that get to know me are shocked to hear that I’m a math nerd.

I wear it pretty well. I’m definitely a data geek.

But you’re so nice and personable.

Well I would like to think so, anyway. It definitely– I think you need that in this position, definitely.

Totally.

But back to my point. I actually applied to Audigy after hearing from my two colleagues that said, you need to check this company out, and I applied to be a finance manager. And I sat in a room with Omar Romero, who’s still with the company, he’s in business development, and the H.R. Director at the time. And within first three minutes of the interview, I found out that this role is a senior finance manager role.

I have absolutely no experience and quite honestly, no reason to be applying for this job once I hear that. And Omar’s saying, you need five years experience doing this. And Omar has this very serious voice about him and he’s laying all these facts out about the role. And so about 10 minutes in I’m like, look I got 15 minutes. I can try to really twist arms and kind of BS my way through this, or I can be real. And so I kind of stopped the interview and I said look, I don’t think I’m your guy.

And I don’t say that in a bad way, I just say it because, you know, here’s a bit more about me. I love what the company stands for. If there is something else, please let me know. And so the conversation goes on and Omar asks, well, OK, so membership development this is what this role looks like. Why should we, at a medical management a company, hire a front doorman for that position? And that’s what I did. I was like, whoa, that is, that’s a question.

Yeah.

And I don’t even remember what I said in that moment, but Omar said it was one of the better interview responses he ever heard. Walk upstairs, meet this Mason character, I’m like, you know it’s funny, I know the name Mason Walker. Like this guy came in the hotel all the time with his wife, Ashley. There’s no way this is the same guy, there’s no way. And I get up to his office he turns around he says, Jay, what are you doing here? And I said, bingo! Got the job!

Nice.

So it was pretty cool, and I let that be a lesson. And I tell a lot of young people about that story, because it really reinforces that whether you’re a janitor, whether you’re in fast food sales, just always bring your best self.

And it’s not always what, it can sometimes be who you know.

Yeah, exactly. Can you tell us a little bit more about the responsibilities of a front doorman, though? Because it does not sound to me like an incredibly easy job, but one, I’m really directionally challenged. So I can see myself causing a lot of problems just in that one specific area. Like if someone was like, where do you park around here? I would be like go two blocks this way and then– I don’t know. I’m just I’m not good at that type of thing. And you’d also have to, like you mentioned a little bit earlier, have a really good understanding of some tourist attractions, or just a really, really good overall understanding of why and where people would want to hang out.

So it does take all those things, like you mentioned, Meghan. Understanding, like you said, directions, landmarks.

I think the biggest thing that, I think the natural instincts that I have, I can look at somebody and not use judgement to cast an opinion on them, but really kind of review their gaits, how they talk, how they packed their luggage. Like what are those things that can kind of put clues in my back pocket to say, you know what? They are driving this certain car, they have these certain things. Here’s probably, if I had to guess three things they’d like, here’s the three I’m going to guess. And it just let me kind of quickly, what works well for this department and kind of reading people, again because you can’t see them when you’re talking to them on the phone sometimes. Tone, pace, trust, all those things. I was kind of pre-programming myself for a role like this where, it’s less transactional. It’s much more about, hey, let’s build a relationship. Let’s see if this is a good fit, and if it is a home run. If it’s not then no harm, no foul.

Yeah. So there’s definitely a correlation between being a doorman and being in membership development.

I must have put two and two together in my answer. But I think that was my line of thinking, is that even though you lose that face to face interaction, you’re basically taking all the information at your disposal, making quick connections, quick decisions and saying, you know what? You said these two things. This third thing way over here in a different category actually might fit in. And kind of throwing it out more as a suggestion rather than saying, you need this, or you have to do this. It’s like, hey, I heard you say this, does this other option sound like a good idea?

Sure. What’s the most interesting thing about being a doorman? Or something that we might not know? Tell me something that I would never know about that role.

Hm, never know. Well, something that I thought was kind of cool, that I don’t think a lot of people instantly associate with being a doorman, is you get the opportunity sometimes to meet childhood heroes. So I was a big basketball and soccer nut growing up. I played college hoops down at Willamette a little D3 ball there. And so NBA hoops, college hoops have always been in my blood. Absolutely love watching basketball, playing basketball any chance I get. So Nike happens to be in Portland, and you get quite a few big names. Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, people like LeBron James when they came into town when Cleveland played Portland, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul.

Do you get a heads up that these people are coming? Like is it like, there’s going to be some really important people here. Make sure you take extra– because I hate to admit this, but even though I recognize those names, if I were to see those people in person I would be like, I don’t know who they are. So do you get a heads up if there’s going to be some V.I.P.s and to make sure that you treat them a certain way?

You did, yeah. So you get basically their alias names to protect their identity. There’d always be people that find out they’re traveling.

This is exactly what I was looking for, alias names.

So they get, you know Mr. Smith or Mr. Roberts or whoever, is checking in at the hotel at this time. You open the door and you greet them in this manner. You make sure you escort them to the elevator. Sometimes you have to have a certain gift presented to them.

Like what? What would be a gift?

For some people it would be a welcome card with some instructions inside for the rest of the night, like their itinerary. For others who would be their reservations for a nice restaurant, or it could be a physical gift like a little mini pack of cigars for a gentleman, or a nice little welcome gift for a young lady. It could be any number of things. So, you know, pop stars, it humanizes them a lot, and you realize, you know, they’re just people, and they’re just trying to live their lives. So as a doorman you’re trying to make sure that they don’t get in the spotlight. Which is kind of interesting. It was a different take on all that. Like you wanted to swift them into the hotel and have them disappear, instead of like, hey, how are you? Let’s take a photo together, selfie! That’s not what you’re supposed to do, obviously. Cannot do that, because then you’d get in big trouble.

Understood. So can you act like you know who they are, or do you just call them by the alias and you’re like completely just treating them like they’re not?

You treat them like they’re not. They are whatever their alias name is and they’re just another person coming in.

That is interesting. I had an alias when I had a fake ID, when I was 19. And my alias was Tamara Dawn Morningstar Stevenson. Which was really complicated. Yeah, but everybody believed it. Nobody was like, that would just be a ridiculous name.

So your first name was..

Tamara.

Tamara. OK, I thought you said tomorrow, and I was in say, very interesting alias name. I like that.

Yeah, I didn’t choose it. It just came with the company.

I was really hoping it was going to be something like a one word, like McLovin, or some other type of alias.

OK, so we know that you were a math major, right?

Yes.

OK, and then you became a doorman, and then you went into membership development. So did you decide you didn’t like math at some point? Or what happened from graduation where you– actually let’s go to school with you, for a little bit. You told us that you played basketball?

I did, yeah.

Talk to us little bit about that. So you went to school in Portland. Are you from Portland originally?

So I actually went to school in Salem, at Willamette University. So I am an Oregon boy, born and raised. So I grew up in southern Oregon in a little town called Wimer, which is actually between Medford and Grants Pass, right off of I-5, five to 10 miles off of I-5.

How far from Portland?

It’s about, if you’re flying on I-5 it’s about a four, a little less than a four hour drive. Wit traffic now it’s probably closer to 4 1/2- 5.

OK. So you grew up there, then went away to school in Salem.

Correct, yes. So I graduated high school at Rogue River High, which is right there next to where I grew up. Went to school at Willamette, played four years of basketball there.

Did you go on a scholarship?

So D3, you only go on an academic scholarship. So technically I went on a scholarship, but it was because of my brain not because of my athletics. As much as I’d like to say it was because of my athletics, not the case. But great school, great program, loved every minute of being there. And just like any kid, the two years you don’t know what the hell you’re going to do in school. You take a bunch of general courses and you get all of your electives out of the way, if you can. And I was always really good at math. I was in first grade. Like, every single math competition, in terms of like quick addition, subtraction, multiplication. I’m wired to be really good at that stuff. And as time went on, people knew me as, oh you know, math guy, this and that.

Really?

I’d help people with homework. I actually tutored in high school and college to help people with mathematics. And I think the key to that is, I actually thought I was going to go through school, get my undergraduate in math and then get my master’s in teaching. And I was going to be a math teacher and basketball coach. Like that was what I was going to do. And what was funny, as I got to my senior year and felt good about my path, I just really thought a lot about business, and I guess, just different types of opportunities where working at a company like Nike would be neat. I actually worked at Nike for two years prior to being in that doorman position. I was in a sports marketing role.

Looking at things like Nike, looking at other companies from a business perspective, because, unfortunately, Oregon has not the best benefits in the world for teachers and I didn’t want the finances to completely drive my decision. So I basically said, look, if I get to the end of the road, if I choose business first and then if it doesn’t work fall back on teaching, or choose teaching first and fall back on business, which would be the right path? And I think if you get out of business or, like, technology or anything, too long the learning curve is going to be so steep. And I feel like if, for some reason, things didn’t work out today, I could fall back into teaching and it’d be something I love to do.

So that actually plays into what I do here too, where you’re kind of opening people’s minds in a different way and teaching them new concepts. So it’s been cool to see how this role kind of fulfills a lot of little paths and a lot of little interests that I had growing up. And specifically math, I mean accounting, being an actuary, like all these, I just never saw myself being in a cube. And God bless the people that can do this, because we need them, but just being into programming, or mathematics, or formulas, like, I got to talk to people. It’s my M.O. It’s who I am. I have to be in a more interdepartmental kind of collaborative type of an environment.

Yeah, that makes sense. So you finished your mathematics degree and then you went straight to Nike?

So I actually took a couple years off. I kind of floated around and basically didn’t want to grow up for a little while.

Wait, wait, wait. You can’t just gloss over that. Like when you were just floating, what types of things were you doing that you’re willing to share?

Of course. I had really good friends that went to O.I.T down in Klamath Falls, a technical school down there. And it was actually a school that we played every year in basketball, and I knew some of the players. The coach, Danny Miles, at the time like broke every single record in Oregon basketball history. So I was like, eh, I’m not trying to grow up and establish a career. I moved down there, lived with them, did kind of part time work here and there in various capacities, played basketball and kind of was a unofficial assistant coach, kind of with the team. Which was really cool because it was an awesome program, top to bottom.

So yeah, I did that for just a year and then I moved to Portland, worked at a different hotel, then Nike, then the hotel I was at prior to Audigy. So kind of a disparate path, but always been looking for something a little bit more, you know, that true career fitting. And I’ve definitely found that here.

What’s your favorite thing about– so remind me again of your title.

So I’m the team lead for membership development.

Team lead for membership development. OK. What’s the most challenging thing about being a team lead for membership development?

You’ve been here at Audigy long enough to know that there is a never ending stockpile of relatively important things to do, and it’s keeping, I think with any of our roles, it’s keeping that focus on what’s that one thing today or this week that’s the most important thing that I have to, I have to put those blinders on and just totally focused on. Because I’ve always been, again, collaborative. I’ve always wanted to help people. I’ve always wanted to be a facilitator.

So sometimes I get pulled away to be involved in really fun team projects, or like really, things that are going to transform the department in a couple months. Which I think are, like I said, just as important. And zooming out and being like, no, that can wait a week. I need to do these three things this week, because it’s going to help me and the team And you know, the people I report to. It’s going to help all of us achieve a better result. I think that’s probably, I bet for 90% of people here. It’s like we’re young, we’re innovative, we’re scrappy. I mean we’re not technically a startup anymore, but we all kind of still act like it in a lot of ways, because we’ve built some really cool stuff here. And so we’re always, like, we’re never satisfied. Which can be to your detriment. If it’s like our 90% is better than everybody else’s 100%, we should maybe zoom out sometimes and be like, look, I got to do these things. Like, I love you to pieces, don’t bother me.

Sure, yeah. I get that. What’s the first thing that you do when you get to work every morning?

First thing I do is log in the computer, head straight to the, we just got kind of a new coffee setup on each floor.

New coffee?

Yeah, so like new coffee setup, like new coffee bin. So I am usually one of the first people here in the office.

What time is that?

Right around [6:15], [6:30] lot of times. Because a lot of people we call are on the east coast.

What time do you go to bed?

I try to be in bed by [10:00].

OK.

Yeah. On a good night, on a really good night if I can get a lot of the things done, I’d like to be in bed before 9, honestly. I can’t imagine the days back in college when you’d like stay up till past midnight, get five hours of sleep and you feel like a million bucks. It’s like, where the heck did that go? Like that wasn’t that long ago, at least I’d like to think so.

Yeah. So you’re in here at [6:15] and no wonder you want coffee.

Yes. So I want coffee but I also make it, there’s two different pots, I just make it for everybody else. There’s a lot of other people come around [6:45], 7 o’clock.

So you make coffee for everyone on the floor?

Make coffee for the second floor and kind of, I guess, read something on ink.com or go on to LinkedIn. Like I think you can’t just dive into your day, at least for me I’ve got to wake, I guess honestly, wake up the voice, wake up the mind a little bit. So I read some things online, and then figure out who I need to contact and build the list and dive in.

Gotcha. And what time do you go home in the evening?

Ideally, around [4:00]. Sometimes, depending on what we’re doing, a little earlier than [4:00], sometimes a little later than [4:00]. So I like getting there early, leaving early to beat traffic too is kind of nice.

That makes sense, because you recently bought a new home in Portland?

I did, yeah.

Tell us a little about that

Yeah, so my wife and I bought a home in North Portland. It’s right by Columbia Park, if you’re familiar with where University of Portland is, the Kenton district. And we bought our home in December 2014. So we got married in May of ’14, bought the home in December. And that was really, I mean the Portland market’s been exploding. For everybody listening, it’s like the place in America that it seems everybody in the world is moving to. There’s no supply. There’s 100% demand.

End of ’13, early ’14 is really where that started trending up, and so in 2014, when we were fiancees at the time, and we were getting ready to elope, we were saying, hey, we should really look at buying a house. This is the time because it’s only going to get worse from here. Like, best airport in America, Washington Post says Portland is the foodie capital of the nation. I had to read that article twice to say, is this Washington Post or is this like, Washing-Toe Post, like some fluke article. Because there’s San Francisco, there’s New York there’s, Seattle. How in the hell, excuse my language, did Portland win that?

But I mean, we have some incredible restaurants. So all this stuff, I’m like it’s only going to get worse. We’ve gotta buy a home this year. So we go around. We put on a bit on a house the day after it hit the market. So this is end of ’14, this is not now. End a ’14, put a bid in on a house, the next day we find out, OK you’re actually the final three of nine bids. And I was like, OK, the house just came on the market yesterday, OK. And they really liked your story, and our realtor was a close friend.

Did you write a letter?

Yes, we wrote a letter, we wrote a letter. We did everything that the realtor suggested. And he basically said, hey, I’m just being real with you guys. This is not about my incentives or initiatives, you’re going to have to at least go 15 grand higher than your bid, which was our max bid. I was like, oh man, OK. So we went in for that, we still got outbid by $24,000 cash, and this is at the end of 2014. So this is, I mean you hear the stories now it’s even more ludicrous. So we finally find the house. It’s over budget. I’m bitter because I’m the math guy. Lauren’s like, yay! We found the dream home! And I’m like awesome. I’m so excited we got this house. Like, I was going through the motions. I did love the house, but going over budget’s not fun when you’re an analyzer. It’s just not in your forte. And within a month I was jacked. I was so excited, because you saw everything around us exploding, even less supply. So thank goodness we got it when we did.

Oh yeah, sounds like it. So you’ll stay there for a while?

So we will hold on. Because, I mean, Zillow always shows you how much more your house is worth

And that’s satisfying, isn’t it? I love to look.

And you tap your fingers together. You’re like, oh yeah my house is going up! My house is going up! I was like, yeah, I sell it, and then what do I do?

Yeah, exactly. You can’t find something else.

I’d have to buy something else that just went up by a similar percentage. Unless, if you were moving to a different city. I think that’d be the only reason to think of selling in the next 6-12 months.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Like Nathan and I sold our house, maybe like 3 1/2 years ago. And we had lived in it for a long time. We bought the house and we were pretty young and we were just, I mean we loved it, but when you look at a house for a long time there’s things that you hate about it, too? Like there’s things that you’re like, all right. You know, when I’m finally ready to move out of the starter house, I’m going to make sure my house doesn’t have all these things that I hate about my current house. So we listed our house and the first people that came through it bought it, and we were like, those suckers. We can’t believe that anybody wants this. And then it was really stressful because we hadn’t put a ton of thought into where we were going to move afterwards. You know?

You didn’t think it’d be one and done.

No, we listed it on Super Bowl Sunday and these people came for 15 minutes. And then we got a phone call that they wanted to buy it and we were like why?

I hope you literally said, like laugh out loud, why?

Yeah, like what did they like?

I don’t know what you saw. Could you tell me what you saw? Because I haven’t been looking at that part of my house.

Did they see our neighbors? Anyway, it turned out to be this really wonderful thing. You know, they were people who had a lot more skills than we did when it came to renovations.

Right. Did you move to a different part of the same neighborhood, or did you move far?

No, we left that neighborhood and we moved to a neighborhood that was better schools for kids and less personality.

Little calmer neighborhood maybe.

Yeah, not quite so much riff-raff. Perfect day, Jason, like let’s say you woke up tomorrow and money was no object. You could just kind of do absolutely whatever you wanted with the next 24 hours, what would you do?

It’s funny, because I’ve listened to every one of these podcasts, and I thought I’d be so ready to answer this question. And then of course you get here and it’s like man, there’s so many little things you’d want in that day.

Well, let’s start by making it easy. So would you really wake up and be ready for work at [6:15]?

No. No, I would definitely sleep. I wouldn’t sleep in so late that I can do a lot in the day, so I would sleep until, let’s say, 8 o’clock. I’m a coffee snob, so there would be a pre-made, either a French press or a pour-over, like Ethiopian Sumatra, some cool kid coffee would be hot and steamy ready for me there on the kitchen counter.

Do you put cream in it?

No. That’s a cardinal sin. That’s a cardinal sin. Black coffee. It’s like wine, you can’t taste the different flavors. If you add cream and sugar you’re basically, you’re frowned upon in the coffee community. We’ll put it that way. You can ask Nathan Miller and a lot of the other coffee–

Well I am married to Nathan Miller, and he definitely puts cream in this coffee, with sugar.

Really? Interesting. I’m going to have a talk with him.

Yeah, please.

Or I will tell you what to say to him when you guys get home.

Yeah, OK, so you have this snobby coffee.

Snobby coffee, cool kid coffee, ready for me. I would be, probably, in a different destination. And I don’t think that matters as much, I love to travel. I’d wake up in Istanbul, or I’d wake up in Rome, or I’d wake up in a city in Thailand or Laos, or just somewhere that I’ve never been before and I’d be like, cool.

That would be confusing, though.

Yeah

There would be this moment of, uh.

In this perfect day, I would already know where I was, and I would know roughly what my activities would be. So half of the day would be exploring, learning. Like when I travel I usually go for a run in the city to see the city and its inner workings. I wouldn’t have to go for a run, but maybe it would be Lauren and I going for a walk in the city.

So you wake up and you have the coffee, and then you and Lauren go for a walk.

Go for a walk, do an activity, a hike, go to a show, something during the day. And then it wouldn’t be a perfect day if there was an element of relaxation. So if you’re by a beach you lay out and you have a margarita and you’re reading a book and you’re just looking out on the blue ocean. Or you book a couples’ massage and you just kick it, hot stones. I don’t think the actual thing matters as much as it’d be, I wake up, coffee in hand ready to do part adventure and ready do part relaxation. And it’d be Lauren and I and maybe a couple of our friends, you know. It’d probably be Lauren and I and probably 6-8 friends.

OK, so it’s a party, kind of.

It’d be kind of a party, and then we could all disconnect and do our own thing for a little bit. But at the end of the day we’d come together, have dinner together, drink, laugh. I think you laugh every day, you smile every day, you connect with your friends, it’s a win.

Yeah. That sounds like a really good day. You were good at that.

Well thank you. I didn’t really, I kind of cheated though, I didn’t really directly answer it, I guess. I just put a lot of examples out there.

No, you directly answered it. I like the idea of just waking up in this place that you’ve never been before. I think that gives us a lot of insight into, like some people are like, I would just want to read a book and have that day to just totally decompress. And then you are like the exact opposite of that. You want to wake up in someplace you have absolutely never been before.

Yeah, I think the key, it would to be a place that I’ve never been before that I could explore, or I mean, heck if it’s a perfect day maybe I already know part of the language. And I could actually connect with the culture a little bit. That would be my, if money wasn’t an issue and you had this omniscient power to either know where you were or know all this, like that would be really interesting.

Yeah. Jason I learned so much about you talking to you today. Particularly interesting to know that there are code names, what did we call them? Aliases?

Aliases.

Yeah, that are associated with important people and that they extend down to the way that the doorman communicates with these guys.

The top secret doorman code of ethics. You know, if I told you those aliases I’d have to kill you. I’m teasing, of course.

I don’t want to take it that far. We learned a lot about your perfect day and how adventurous you are. That was insightful to me. Thank you so much for making the time to talk with us, and to let the rest of the team here at Audigy in Stratus and Audigy Medical learn a little bit more about you. You’re a pretty interesting guy.

Well, you’re welcome. I appreciate the compliments and I want to take a moment. I’ve listened to all of the different intersections, podcasts and a lot of things that you and Will are up to. So a big, big tip of the hat to you, and you rock each and every one of these. In terms of your moderation, your questions, it’s always very natural and very fun. I’m very thrilled to be picked to be part of it.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Michelle Liljedahl

May 2, 2016 By William Smith

In today’s show, Meghan talks with Michelle Liljedahl, the Director of Shared Service Marketing at Audigy Group and Stratus Dental. Get to know Michelle, her family back home in Korea, as well as some pro-golf tips!

Listen to the Episode Below

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Read the transcript:

Alright guys, this does feel a little bit weird because I pretty much spend every waking moment with this person. I’m interviewing my friend, my office-mate and co-worker, Michelle Liljedahl today– a recent new last name, so I’m still working through– still working through that. But Michelle’s technical title is the director of marketing shared services. Is that right? Or is it longer? I know you have super long title.

Michelle Liljedahl on Intersections podcast

No, that’s right. Good job!

Thank you. And what does that encompass? Can you tell us a little bit about what the director of marketing shared services does?

Sure. So as a lot of people know, there’s a director of marketing, and that’s Lindsey Ash. And she oversees a lot of our marketing managers who are member-facing. So my role is more for managing the teams that are in charge of execution, so the marketing coordinators and digital specialists. So making sure that our website SEO traditional marketing efforts are really aligned and that we are executing effectively.

Gotcha. OK. How many people are on your team?

Well, we also do a little bit with Stratus as well. So the teams that oversee Audigy oversee Stratus in marketing shared services. So I would say there’s about 15 to 20, without actually counting on my fingers exactly how many.

OK. And you’ve been in this role for how long?

I’ve been in this current role a year and a half.

And prior to this, what did you?

Two years. I don’t know. Time flies.

OK. So, like, anyone who’s listening to this– and I do know this being friends with Michelle– not good with numbers. Very– very bad with numbers. If you see her try to calculate a tip in a restaurant, you’re just like, just give up. I will take care of this.

So true. So true.

But very smart otherwise.

Eh, yeah. Yeah.

OK. So you’ve been in this role for like–

Two years. Two years. I’m pretty sure. I just counted on my fingers. It’s been two years.

Prior to that, how long have you been with Audigy?

I’ve been Audigy for almost five and 1/2 years.

OK. And prior to Audigy, what did you do?

So my first job out of college was actually working at Nike for their golf department. And I helped support the outside sales team. So making sure inventory was in stock and ordering for them and doing a lot of outside events to promote Nike– which, I mean, they don’t need a ton of promoting. But it was really fun. And then I moved out to Philadelphia and I worked for a fitness company.

And the really cool thing about that fitness company is that they were kind of the same business model that we have here at Audigy. So they worked with a lot of third-party people or directly with other businesses. So we essentially would make deals with these big-time gyms like 24-Hour Fitness, Lifetime Fitness, and then we would work with corporations and resell memberships back to them, but at a cheaper cost. So it was a benefit that they could give their employees.

But it was a lot of client relationships and marketing, things like that. So the same kind of area, a similar business model. And that was something that I thought was really cool when I joined Audigy. That’s pretty rare that you have a company that’s modeled how we are.

Yeah. This is something I actually didn’t know about you.

Whoa.

I’m learning something–

Look at this!

–through this. When Will first asked Michelle and I to do this podcast, I was like, what can I possibly ask her that I don’t already know. It turns out that there was one thing.

Whoa, yeah.

OK. So you started at Audigy and the business model was semi-similar to something that you had done in the past. So that wasn’t like this weird shocking adjustment for you. What did you do? What were you hired to do? Was it something in marketing also?

Yeah. So actually I interviewed with our old vice president of marketing. And when I told him that the business I was at prior to Audigy, that they had a similar business model, he told me I was incorrect and there was no way that that could be accurate. And I was like, no really it is.

But essentially I came to Audigy to do what I did at my previous company, and that was to manage programs. So the first programs that I was tasked with managing were our position outreach programs, which at that time was the postcard kind of thing that went out to the different lists, and then the better hearing plan, which was the corporate plan that we had in place so that companies could offer that as a benefit to their employees.

Gotcha. So you did that for how long?

Six months.

You did that for six months. And then you either didn’t do that well or you did that really well and moved into something else. What happened there?

It was actually really interesting. That same VP at the time asked me, where do you see the value in this program? Do we need a full-time employee dedicated to this? And although I saw a lot of value in position outreach, obviously, and that better hearing plan, I thought there was something that could kind of run seamlessly on its own with marketing manager support.

So I told him that I didn’t know necessarily that is where I belonged. And at the time he actually needed a project manager. So I interviewed for that and got that and moved into that role.

And that’s really, I think where, knowing you the way that I do, I feel like that’s where you thrive. Michelle and I, we work really closely together and one of the things I think that is funny about our relationship is we often have meetings with many other people.

Michelle’s super process-oriented and I am not. So oftentimes when we’re planning through something and there is four or five people in a room and Michelle and I are talking about process, it seems like we’re fighting. And people will get–

Uncomfortable.

Yeah. People will get uncomfortable and you can tell that the mood in the room or kind of the tone in the room changes. And then we’re like, oh, we’re actually– we’re fine.

We’re just talking.

Yeah, we’re not fighting. This is actually very normal.

Yeah.

So in that way I think we complement each other very nice.

Absolutely.

I can see how you are. I can see why someone would see that project management skill set in you and want to tap into that.

Thank you.

Yeah, I’ll compliment you on that. So I think, maybe we’ll do a little bit of a different format then we have in these past shows, just because I do know so much about you and there’s some really interesting things that I think our listeners would be really interested in.

That’s kind of you to say.

Yeah. So Michelle is one of nine children. Is that right?

All girls.

Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about your biological family?

Oh, sure, sure. So I actually have a seven older sisters who live in Anseong, South Korea, who I just met in September– which you know. Which you know.

Because I went there with you.

But it’s really cool story. Me and my little sister– she’s 28– we were adopted by an American family and lived in the Vancouver, Portland area our whole entire lives. And then last July we were contacted by or adoption agency, saying that our birth family was trying to make contact with us. And at that time we had no idea what that meant, if it was just a birth mom or birth dad. But we soon found out that it was seven older sisters.

And you thought all your life that you were the only children.

Yeah.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

So that was– that was pretty crazy. And they sent you a photo.

Yeah.

First, right. I think that came with the– did that come with the letter?

Yeah, it did.

And everybody looked just like you.

Yeah. Yeah. There were definite– it was very clear that we were family. Yeah.

Which was awesome. And then what happened? So then you digested that for a little bit– had a phone call, right. First contact– no, no, no. You did Facebook stalking.

Yeah. I did some Facebook stalking. I used my skills and everything that I’ve learned about social media and got onto Facebook and just started looking and searching for my sister on Facebook, because she had signed her name to the letter and I found her. So I made contact with her and we started talking through Facebook’s Messenger app.

But talking was difficult because–

I don’t speak Korean. It’s crazy. When I was adopted at three months old, I didn’t learn Korean. So there was a little bit of a language barrier. But the cool thing is, over there a very young age in grade school they do basic English. So most of them spoke a little bit of English, which made it possible for us to communicate a little bit. And then Google Translate–

Yeah, you guys got really good at Google Translate.

Yeah. Yeah.

But Google Translate would translate some things really funny. And there’s probably not a lot that we can share here. But some of our English words do not mean the same when they’re translated.

No.

So there was a period of time where Michelle was sending some very mixed messages to her Korean sisters and getting some really bizarre responses from them. And then we looked up what she was actually saying, and we were like, oh.

Yeah. Yeah. There’s definitely some words that don’t translate well, or just things that they say that we wouldn’t say. So for instance, to cheer somebody on they say fighting. So fighting– that’s what they always say. And so if I was like, oh, I’m having a bad day. They’d be like, fighting. And I was like, well, no. No.

I’m not fighting.

I’m not fighting anybody. It’s fine. But it’s a weird, like, cheering you on. Like, you can do it. So yeah, a little bit of a language barrier.

OK. So let’s look back up a little bit. So you contacted Munson? Right? And she is the sister who is born just previous to you?

Yeah

OK. So they’ve labeled all the sisters. Michelle’s number eight. Munsan is number seven, right?

Yeah.

So you contacted number seven and started talking with number seven, and then got in contact with one through six also, through seven.

Oh yeah.

Right?

Everybody.

And then they all wanted to you to meet and come to Korea, right?

Yes. Yeah.

So you were like, OK? I’m going to do this, right?

Yeah, I was, which, looking back on it, that’s kind of a scary thing. But I don’t know, instantly I just felt like there was a lot of trust and we bonded and connected right away. So it didn’t seem scary at the time.

Right. Yes.

And I took you with me.

Yes. And I got to go, which was really, really awesome. I think I was like the tallest person that they had ever seen in person. I was constantly like bumping my head on ceilings or light fixtures.

Yeah. Megan’s his nickname in Korea was Hollywood.

Because they thought I was just like so incredibly tall.

I think there was a reference to Julia Roberts too, and Anne Hathaway. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, perhaps. And one of the funny experiences that we had there was, the Koreans are so incredibly kind in terms of sharing. Like anything that they have, they will share with you. And this extends into food. All meals are served family-style. And they, in my opinion, and I think Michelle shares this– they eat very, very little. Well, I mean, I don’t know.

Yeah, yeah. No.

OK. OK. So that’s fair to say.

They do but they don’t. Yeah. Yeah.

So the first shared meal that we had I think in our restaurant maybe– and it was a breakfast. We sat down to this table and it was like super informal. And they put one bagel. And there were like nine of us. And they put one bagel in the middle of the table and started to cut it up into pieces. And Michelle is whispering to me, “that’s not enough.”

And I am starving. This cannot be breakfast. We’re going to have to go sneak off and buy some food.

Because they can’t understand English. And so very vocally, Michelle is like, this is not enough. We need to do something about– like, I don’t know what to do. This is not going to work.

Yeah, panic.

It turns out that there were other pastries and bagels and things like that were coming, but they would never just have a single– you would never just order one thing in a restaurant and expect that to just be yours. The culture, which is really beautiful, is anything that I have I will share with you.

And you don’t just have your own individual meals the way that we do here. And that was obviously clear after more food came after the bagel. But there was this moment of like, why even bother? Like, I don’t even think this is something that is going– it’s going to be more of like torture then an meal.

Yeah. Yeah.

Is there anything else that was particularly interesting about that trip?

Oh, man, that trip was fun.

Can we share the last Night Please?

You love this story.

We can edit it out if you decide that you don’t like it.

OK.

But we’ll at least let Will hear it.

OK so —

The last night in Korea.

So they ran us ragged when we were in Korea. It was so much fun but it was completely exhausting. They joke that Koreans don’t sleep, and that is semi-true, we learned. So it was probably around midnight and we were leaving one of our sister’s places to head back home, because we were staying with our other sister, Hansun..And Hansun says to me, mom’s going to come spend the night.

Keep in mind that there’s a major language barrier. So what she’s saying, you’re kind of getting the gist of it. But you’re like, I don’t know if what she’s saying is actually exactly what’s going to happen. Because we speak no Korean and she speaks just–

Basic.

Yeah, very basic English. So you kind of have to– you know a little bit about what they’re saying but you’re not totally sure that you’re getting the entire message until thing actually happens.

Right. Right.

OK, sorry. Keep going.

Megan’s just so excited right now because–

Because this is this best story. I laughed so hard after this happened that my face hurt for days because it was one of the funniest– OK, keep going.

So she’s like, mom’s going to come sleep at my house. She wants to sleep with you. And I’m like, oh, OK. All right, that’s cool. And at the time, Megan and I were sharing a bed. And it was fine. And my sister had moved out to the couch with her husband. So we go back to the house and we’re all just sitting around and chit chatting.

And all of a sudden I see my sister’s husband moving my stuff from the room Megan and I were sleeping in to the other room. And I’m like, huh, that’s interesting. And then I see a pillow go. And I’m like, oh, no. Oh, no. And I’m like, so what’s going on for tonight? What are our sleeping arrangements? She’s like, well, Megan’s going to be lonely, because you’re going to sleep with mom.

And I was like, huh. Well, that’s uncomfortable. But I’m like, I can’t hurt these people’s feelings. I’ve just met them. You know, obviously this is something that this woman wants to do. And I’m like, well, she doesn’t want to sleep with me because, what if I snore? You know? Like, I could snore and then I would like keep her up all night. And she was like, oh, no, no, no. That won’t bother her. I’m like, OK. Well, I’m going to have to come up with something else.

So we’re still talking. And then all of sudden I’m like, you know, I don’t think we sleep in the same bad because I might move around a lot and I don’t want to keep her up all night. She looks at me and she says, oh, it’s OK, she will hold you tight and tighter. And I’m like, oh my gosh. So I’m like–

And meanwhile I’m in the same room when this is– there are four people. I’m in the room. Michelle is like desperately trying to make eye contact with me. I turned my chair completely around the other way because I’m like, I cannot help. I don’t know what to say. And I know if I make eye contact with her, I’m going to bust out laughing.

So I’m like, um, well– OK, well, we need to go get ready for bed. So Megan and I go back in the room to get ready for bed and wash our face and what not. And I look at Megan and I’m just like, I can’t do this. I can’t. And Megan looks me right in the eye, smiles, shrugs her shoulders and says, sorry but, you just have to. You’re going to have to do this. And I was like, no. And I think we sat in there for a good five minutes just staring at each other like, what are we going to do?

Because you’re going to cuddled all night.

Which was not– this was not sounding good at all. And it was our last night. We were so tired. And I knew we had a long flight home. So finally I said to Megan, you know what, I guess these people don’t like me. So I guess they don’t like me.

So I went and got my sister and I told her, I was like, look, you know, I just don’t feel comfortable with this. And then of course, I say, in America, this is kind of weird. We don’t typically cuddle with people who are like our significant other. And she like, oh, OK. And then she stops. And she’s like, but Megan and you have been sharing a bed.

And I was like, yeah, yes we have. And there was no way around that. I was just like, yeah. But I was like, I’m sorry, I just can’t. And she’s like, OK. And I felt bad. I felt like my birth mom really wanted that. But we sat around talked, and then 15 minutes later my birth mom stands up. She’s like, OK. And she says in Korean, I’m going home.

She thinks it would be more comfortable to go home. And so she just goes home. It was like she was not even necessarily wanting– she that maybe you wanted that, right?

She thought I wanted that and needed that. So it turns out this woman didn’t even want to cuddle me.

She just felt like she had to.

She just felt like had to. So that kind of took the wind out of my sails. I was like, oh, OK. She doesn’t even want to. So that’s less satisfying.

Oh. And then we just went to bed.

Yeah.

It was a really, really fun– it was really fun trip, and just a really great experience all around. And it’s one of those things that– my husband is adopted and I’ve met his biological family also. And it was just a really great experience.

And to see that happen a second time– to see someone reunited with their biological family and all of the emotions and it being this really great, powerful thing was just a really cool– it was just a really awesome experience for me to have to, just kind of riding along. I could have done a documentary. I guess I don’t why I didn’t video more than I–

It was hard. We were just so busy running around. But it was an awesome trip and super emotional, but super exciting. I think Megan cried as much as– we all did.

Any time they were crying, I’m would just like, burst into tears also. Which they were like, what is up with your massive friend who’s constantly crying? Eh, I’m emotional.

Oh, it was awesome. And then they came out here in December. They’re just such good people. They treated us with so much kindness and hospitality.

And obviously that is the relationship that will continue on. That’s the really cool thing. This wasn’t like a one time thing. It’s definitely something that you’ll continue to cultivate.

Right. Yeah. We talk all the time. They’re great. Good people.

OK. So, Michelle, we know a little bit about your personal life– quite a bit about a specific area of your personal life and your family. Can you tell us a little bit about– we talked a little bit about when you first started at Audigy and your progression into your current role.

What got you into marketing? Can you tell us a little bit about school? When you first declared a major, was it a marketing advertising major? And I actually don’t know this about you either. What did you go to school for?

I found marketing just by chance. I had some really cool people that I worked with out in Philadelphia who got me really interested in it and passionate about it. But it wasn’t what I actually studied in college. I went to Concordia University and I studied psychology.

And the whole point was that eventually I would go to grad school. And that was the track that I wanted to be on. But after four years, I was just burnout and needed a little bit of break. And that’s when I went out to Philadelphia and found that marketing company and really fell in love with it.

OK. So do we know anybody else at Audigy who went to Concordia?

I know Mark Drahn went to Concordia.

Probably didn’t graduate with you though?

No, no. Yeah.

OK. You mentioned a little bit earlier that your first two jobs out of school were sports-focused, right? You had the Nike golf job, which I know that you’re really good at golfing. Which, I think I told you this before so it’s fine to tell you this now that it’s being recorded.

The first time Michelle and I ever went golfing together– because I was on the golf team in school too. But I was not good. I was on the golf team specifically so I could get out of school and go do something that took a long time. It takes a long time to play 18 holes of golf. So I was like, awesome, I can leave school for like five hours, and go place on a golf course for free. I will definitely do this. So I guess I assumed that Michelle was the same. And she invited me to go golfing and we went golfing.

And I was like, she’s like, good. She’s actually good at this. And I was mad the whole time. I was like, a huge baby about this. I was like, you should have told me that you were this good at this. I would never have come with you. So anyway, I do know that you’re good at golf and you must of practiced somewhere. But I don’t know if you played– did you play golf in school?

Yeah. So my dad’s a golf coach and he actually got me into it. And I played just a little bit, not very seriously growing up. And then in high school I played. And once I graduated my dad had said that Concordia was starting a new golf program. And he was really pushing me to go. And I was like, oh, no, no, no. I’m good. I don’t want to do that.

And luckily my dad encouraged me to go to Concordia. And I was able to get a scholarship, which obviously is great for student loans and whatnot. And it ended up being a great experience. I met a lot of great friends through the golf program. And we were able to build it out. It was the first year that they had it. So it was cool to see it grow and evolve. And now they have a great golf program over there for men’s and women’s. So it’s pretty cool.

What’s your favorite golf course that you’ve ever played?

That’s a good question.

Don’t think about it for too long. What’s one that you can think of, that just comes to mind.

I like the Reserve. But I also like the less stuffy courses, the ones where you can just go out and have fun and people aren’t taking it too seriously. So I play out at the Cedars a lot. It’s just a local course. That’s kind of the course I grew up on. And then Heron Lakes in Portland.

Do you take a cart or carry your bag?

You know, I think because I always had to carry a bag growing up– you can’t take carts, obviously when you’re playing in school and for tournaments. I’m kind of anti-walking now. So it’s almost like in spite, I take a cart. But it’s good exercise to walk. I dont’ know why I don’t do it more.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I’ll go with you if we can walk the course next time.

OK. Good exercise.

If you could give it two pieces of golfing advice to someone who has never golfed before, what would those two pieces of advice be?

I would probably say, the first thing is, don’t try and go and crush the ball. I feel like so many people go out there and try and hit the crap out of the ball. Oh, I said crap. So many people go out there and try and hit the ball so hard.

And the first part is just getting the basics and mechanics down. And sometimes that’s even taking a half swing, not even taking a full swing until you can get a good rhythm. And then the other part is short game. Short game is everything. That’s where you cut down on strokes and you can really get your game running really lean.

So when you’re talking about short game, are you talking about anything that’s taking place on the green or just anything that is right near it? What’s that area called?

I would say anything around the green. Anything from 100 yards in.

So let’s end this by talking about your perfect today. If money were no object and you woke up tomorrow morning and you could do whatever you wanted to do with that day, with that being the only guidelines I’m going to give you. You can do whatever you want. What would you do? Or what would that day look like, I guess?

The perfect day for me probably would be with family and friends, somewhere sunny, definitely not in this Portland rain. So I would say somewhere kind of sunny and tropical, just relaxing with no agenda. That sounds like the perfect day to me.

What do you eat? I know that you– another thing about Michelle is if you go to a restaurant with her, she has to have seen the menu online at least two hours in advance of going to the restaurant and look through absolutely everything. So you don’t even need to get– if you’re me and you go to a restaurant, you’re just like, what do they have here? And before you got to a restaurant, or before you get the menu, Michelle will be like, oh they have, like– and then recite the entire menu to you.

That’s true. Well that’s exactly why I can’t tell you what I would eat. Yeah. I mean, that would be a very tough decision.

You haven’t seen a menu.

Yeah. Yeah. You know how much I like food. It would take awhile for me to decide on something like that.

OK. You don’t have to be specific, but what type of food would you eat?

Probably seafood. Especially if you were somewhere nice and warm, kind of tropical. Some seafood, yeah.

Some seafood. OK. Would you play golf?

I’d play some golf.

Would you take a nap?

Yeah, I would take a nap. I think that would actually be one of the– on the beach though. A little power nap on the beach.

OK. What time would you wake up?

Probably like, [8:30].

And then what time would you go to bed?

Probably like [10:15].

There’s Michelle’s perfect day. Wake up at [8:30], eat a little seafood on a warm day and go to bed at [10:15].

And a nap. Don’t forget the 30-minute power nap

Gotcha. OK. Thanks for joining us.

Yeah. Thank you.

Kelsey Fleming

May 2, 2016 By William Smith

Kelsey Fleming

In today’s show, Meghan talks with Kelsey Fleming, a senior product manager working at Audigy Group and Stratus Dental. Hear all about some of the newest projects revolutionizing the hearing care space, as well as Kelsey’s upbringing in Alaska.

Listen to the Episode Below

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Read the transcript:

Today, we’re talking with Kelsey Fleming, and Kelsey is the senior product manager across the enterprise, which means she works on product development for Audigy Group, Audigy Medical, and Stratus.

So let’s start with what is your current title and your top three responsibilities across the enterprise right now?

My top three responsibilities– and it is really across all the verticals– is one, maintaining and managing all of our tools that are regardless of member facing, patient facing– really just anything in the IT spectrum that our members are going to interact with. The second piece of that is really going out and working with our memberships and seeing what are the new tools they need. So is CEO working to their needs to meet their day-to-day operations? Is E-Patient working? Is all the Stratus tools working?

And for people who don’t know what CEO and E-Patient are, can you define–

Yeah. In a very broad sense, these are all online applications to help our members do their job, whether it’s an operational thing that they do with their teams, whether it’s with their patients, whether it’s with their SBUs– all of our online suite Audigy-branded tools or Stratus or Audigy Medical. So yes, my main task is maintaining what we already have as offerings, and a second piece to that is making sure that they’re still meeting the needs. So do they need to grow? Do they need to change? Do we need something totally new that we don’t have as a service offering today?

And then the third piece, which is, I would say, maybe the smallest piece but probably the one that I’m most passionate about, is having that creative aspect of designing new things. I love to sit down and get all my markers out, for those who have seen this process, and draw things, and throw out ideas, and work on my computer to design what these things could look like, and go out and find best practices from other industries, and paint the picture of what could work for our members. It’s not super often that I get to do those types of innovation pieces, but that’s another piece that I get to do from time to time.

Sure. So if I’m understanding correctly, it’s really the start to finish production of these platforms. So you never really hand them off, necessarily. You are either strategizing whether or not a program is necessary, deploying it into the membership, supporting the membership through learning how to use the platform, and troubleshooting along the way and making sure that the platform is continuously meeting needs, and then developing new platforms when you have that feedback from the membership that a new platform is necessary.

Yeah, absolutely. It is a very cyclical process of soup to nuts, if you will, of coming up with something, making that thing come to life, training members on that thing, supporting a thing, and then coming up with something new again.

So your favorite part of that is the creative aspect, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

So how did you get into a job like this? When you first started at Audigy, if I remember correctly, you worked on our events team? Is that right?

I worked in professional development, but professional development and events were kind of the same thing back then. So I started as a professional development coordinator, so assisting the professional development managers as they currently are today. And how I got into my role was kind of by total chance. We had just launched E-Patient for the first time, probably four months or so after I had started.

And just real brief synopsis of what does E-Patient do?

E-Patient is a patient education tool that walks the patient through really all aspects of the ear as well as patients for life. So it explains to them what the ear does, how our Audigy-certified professionals do what they do, and walks them through all of their appointment workflows as well as some additional education pieces.

So we had just launched the very first iteration of this out to our membership just a few months after I started working at Audigy, and our boss at the time then got pregnant. So when she found out she was pregnant and told our team she knew that this was a really big effort that we had going, and somebody was going to need to man up and be the captain of this tool– and so in a team meeting, she asked who wants to take ownership and really make sure that this tool is doing well while I’m gone? And it was crickets, pretty much, across the board. Because it was a new thing. Nobody really knew what to do.

And somebody said, why doesn’t Kelsey do it? She’s new. This could be a really good project for her.

Probably too afraid to say no at this point.

I was way too afraid to say you no. And I was terrified, because at that point, I literally had zero technological savviness about me. I was like, I have a cell phone, and somebody can teach me how to work computers a little bit. So I thought to myself, a computer thing? I have no business working in this. But I didn’t want to say no, so I was like, yeah, yeah, I’ll do this. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me at Audigy, because I really grew into working in software and IT and more of a technical side of things, and bringing a creativity to that, which I think is– they don’t always coincide together, creativity and technology. But it is something that I just love.

And so it was probably about a year after supporting the E-Patient application that I actually formally moved over to what is now the Innovation and Technology team, which has been a great fit for me. And it did make a lot more sense supporting an online application to work with the IT team rather than in professional development.

One of the most interesting things that I always think from doing these interviews is learning a little bit about career history, maybe what you majored in in school, some of your first jobs. And I’ll let you have the floor in terms of how you would like to share those types of things with us.

Yeah. I come from the background of when you’re 14, you have a Job. So I’ve had tons of random kind of jobs throughout my adolescence.

First paying job.

Yeah. My first paying job was I did shampoos and washed the towels at my mom’s hair salon. So that was pretty hilarious, being a tiny, young child being like, let me wash your hair. So that was fun. I did that for a while, probably two years or so, which was easy. It was my mom’s salon.

Did you just wash the hair? Did you do the blow drying, too?

I didn’t do the blow drying. I picked them up from the waiting room, got them in the shampoo bowl, washed their hair, and then just sat them in the–

Hand them back off–

Yeah, to the stylist. And then, of course, when I was not washing, I was washing the towels that I use to dry the hair. So it was a very difficult, very challenging job. No, it was good. It was fun working with my mom and having her around as well.

And then I worked a lot of retail jobs. That’s how I put myself through college. So I worked full time retail all the way through college and on the summers in a number of different retail spaces.

Tell us one interesting one.

I was the manager of the home department at Anthropology, which was awesome for anybody who shops there. It makes you feel really happy to be in there.

What was your discount?

40% off Anthro, Free People, and Urban Outfitters, 40%. It was pretty good.

Yeah. That must have been hard to give up.

Yeah, it was. So retail, and then honestly, Audigy was my first big kid job. And I got here because– most people have heard this story, but to repeat it– Heather got a job at Audigy about three months before we graduated, because she had a great friend who worked here. And I was dead set in going back to Alaska, and moving back home, and being with my friends my family. And when I was home for a wedding right after college graduation, she was like, oh, this spot opened up.

She had a copy of my resume. She was like, I’m just going to give it, just in case. You never know. Long story short, I got two job offers– one in Oregon and in Washington. And it was kind of like a coin toss. And I picked Audigy, because Heather worked here. And obviously, it’s nice to have a friend where you go. So I picked it because of Heather, and that was six years ago. So time flies when you’re having fun.

Six years, huh? When was your six-year anniversary?

It’s coming in two months.

OK. Happy early anniversary. So you’re originally from Alaska?

Yeah.

Born there?

Born and raised in Alaska.

Do you get to go back very often?

I went back last year. I’m going to go back this year, but just for brief stints, maybe four or five days. It’s good to see– my brother still lives there and one grandma still lives there, so it’s good to see them. And I have a handful of friends. But it’s a little different, I guess, when people are adults and have jobs. And when you go back, it just feels a little bit different than the nostalgic place that it was.

So your parents are no longer there?

My parents are no longer there. They live in Oregon now. So it’s a little bit of a different feel. It’s always good to go home and see everybody, but it’s not where I would say is my home anymore, which is an interesting transition. I’ve been here for 11 or 12 years now. So when people ask, I just say that I’m from Oregon. It’s my new home.

Just so you know, I have a guy who is on my team who is a former employee of JetBlue. And right now, there is a one-way flight from Portland to Alaska on JetBlue for $59.

Oh my god. That is crazy. When we went last summer, I was gearing up, and I was telling my other half, these tickets are going to be so expensive. We’ve got to save for months. And he got on there– same thing– JetBlue is– I think it was $99. But I was like, no, you’re not looking at the right thing. You’re looking at something else. But with all the influx of airline offerings going into Alaska now, they’re so cheap. They used to be like $1,000. Let me just tell you– when I would go home for summer, it was an investment. $1,000– it’s like savings going to Europe.

That’s right. It takes a while to get there, too, so it’s a time investment as well. So I’m going to ask you a little bit about Alaska. I have really limited experience with Alaska. My brother lived there for a brief period of time, and I had only been there a couple of times, and just to one specific part of the state, Seward– really vast– this really big, beautiful, open, mountainous place. Can you tell us a little bit about– Alaska seem so separate, in my mind, or so different culturally from the rest of the United States. Is that what you feel like now, having lived in Alaska and then in Oregon and Washington?

I do, yeah. I think there’s a little bit of a stereotype, sometimes, around Alaska being the rugged wild of some sort. And growing up, I never felt that, because it was my normal. It just felt normal to be there. And it really wasn’t until I went away to college and actually spent a considerable amount of time not in the state that I realized– oh, wow, Alaska is kind of strange and very unique in its own right– the people, the environment, how you grow up and what becomes your normal is very different there. And vast is a great word for it. But it is. I always say it’s like supersize me. Everything is to the nth degree. The mountains here are like a hill in Alaska. The trees here are like a shrub in Alaska. Everything is just– if I can say on steroids. They’re just big to the next degree.

And the ocean looks bigger, and the animals look bigger. Everything is just big and awesome there. But it is so beautiful. And with Audigy and with my personal life, I’ve traveled quite a bit, and I still have never really been any other place that is like Alaska. It is very unique to me. And I think a lot of people have said that, too.

But the people there, that’s a whole other topic. The people there are, I would say, a little bit old school, a little bit antiquated. I think they are. They’re so separated from what we Alaskans call the lower 48. And they just don’t have– maybe it’s the news, or the trending businesses and things. And it’s just a little bit slower there. And so I will tell you one fun fact, or a couple fun facts. I distinctly remember when we got the Gap, the retail store, the Gap. And I was in the fifth grade. And on record– I kid you not– we had the largest sales day in Gap history in the Achorage, Alaska Gap. They sold out 100% of merchandise in one day. There was a line. We couldn’t even get into the store. Everything–

So that was a good idea to put that Gap there.

Yes. And that’s usually how it is, because when there’s a new thing– and Anchorage is big. There’s half a million people in Anchorage. It’s not super tiny. But people just go there, and they just wear it out, because it’s the new thing. Olive Garden– they had to start taking reservations at the Olive Garden. And you couldn’t get in. You called– it was like a fancy restaurant. You could call the Olive Garden, they’d be like, well, you can come in three months. Because people were just so excited about the Olive Garden. So it’s just different there. And going back, you get like a flavor for that, and it’s interesting.

Yeah. That makes sense.

But it was great. The one good thing about it– well, there’s lots of good things about it, but the one thing for me that was wonderful is I lived in an awesome neighborhood, great kids, fantastic families, people that I’m still very close with to this day. Really good schools, really good– just being outside and playing in the outdoors. And my childhood there was very idealistic. It was like out of a movie. And so that’s why I think I always have a strong connection to that place.

Thank you for sharing that. Very educational for me.

Let’s talk a little bit about college. Where did you go, and is that what brought you to Oregon, Washington? Where did you go to school?

I went to Portland State. So you can imagine growing up in a place like Alaska, and then– I was a typical kid, and I woke up, and I was like, I’m going to move to Portland, and I’m going to go Portland State. And my parents were freaking out, because it’s this big, alternative city, and I had zero city experience. And so I basically woke up, applied on my own, got accepted, and was like bye, see you later. So went to Portland State, moved my whole life down here. I started going as a vocal performance major.

Talk to us a little bit more about that.

That’s singing. That’s my major. So I started doing music in grade school, maybe kindergarten or first grade, somewhere in there. And loved it. Came very easily to me. I play– I don’t know if I could say I play them still today. I probably could dabble. But in my college, high school days, I played four instruments.

What instruments?

So voice is one, and then piano, guitar, and clarinet

Is there anything you would like to sing right now?

Absolutely not, no. Maybe when we’re off the record.

I thought maybe this would feel like really natural with us right now.

No, definitely not. So I was very involved in the music portions of high school. And that was the biggest thing. I was an athlete as well, but it wasn’t my passion to the point where I wanted to go on and do collegiate sports. And so I decided to take the route of music. And so I got in right off the bat my freshman year at Portland State into the vocal performance program, which was awesome, and they have a really great program there. And I did that for the first year of college.

In the middle of my freshman year, I broke my hand. Long story. Broke my hand, had to get reconstructive surgery. And I was taking Piano Education 101 at the time, and so I had to drop out of that class. I had this big cast. Obviously was not playing the piano.

So at that time, my dad took the convenient opportunity of saying– as all dads, I’m sure, do at some point– what are you going to do with this degree? Do you want to be a music teacher? Are you going to have some sort of music-related business? What are you going to do with this? Because at the end of your $80,000 tuition, you’re going to have to have a job.

So I was ticked. Totally, I was like, who are you to tell me what I’m going to do with my life? And so he said, I will pay– because I paid for my own school, and so it was a big deal for him to say I will pay for you to take a business class, any business class you want. But since you have to pick up a new class and you can’t take piano, take any business class, and I will pay for the whole thing. I just want you to try it. Just humor me.

And so I was, all right, fine. So I take Business 101 or Business Management 101 or something very entry level. And honest to goodness, probably seven to eight minutes into this class, I was so excited. I was eyeing the teacher, like, oh yes, loving everything that they were saying. And another five to 10 minutes later, I just thought– I don’t know if I can say this, but I was like, crap. Because I knew that I was going to have to change my major. It lit this fire in me, and I was super excited. And it pushed my mind in a way that music came very easily to me and I loved it, but it wasn’t challenging, by any means, to me.

And so I didn’t tell my dad for several weeks, because I was embarrassed. And then finally, I told him. And it took me about a term to transition out of the arts department and into the school of business. But then I high tailed it, got it together, and did a double major and minor in the school of business in three years, 3 and 1/2 years, which was great, and I loved it. And it’s still very challenging to me.

But it’s not surprising. 90% of my family are entrepreneurs. So it was pretty obvious once I started taking those classes how well of a fit it was for me.

Does music still play a major role in your life? Are you still involved in any way with singing or performance?

Yeah. Outside of my home, not so much. I really wish I was. It’s hard to find the time to be. I think now my biggest music involvement is just finding new artists, and listening to new music, and just exploring what’s out there in the music world, which is so vast. I don’t know that I have a favorite genre of music, which I have always seen as a great thing, because I love it all.

Favorite artist right now, without spending too much time thinking about it, or song. Don’t think about it, though.

I would say I’m in the popular masses. I’ve been listening to a lot of Adele, because she’s– just how can you not– she’s pretty awesome. But I’ll always be a Justin Timberlake fan. He’s an incredible soul. But that’s who I’ve been listening to right now a lot. But I do have– I love everything from old school country to jazz and blues to classical. And I don’t really have a preference. I jump all over the place.

I like that. I like that.

Thank you. It keeps you on your toes.

Totally. And I think that– I know for me, I like a lot of different types of music, too, from a lot of different eras. And I think based upon the mood that I’m in, there’s a certain type that I might want to go to. And it’s usually not what’s currently playing on the radio. However, I have been really– I don’t know. I’ve been listening to a lot of radio pop lately and singing along. And my husband will look over and be like, you know this? I’m like, every word. I know every single word.

Yeah. My commute now, recently, is really short. It’s like seven minutes, which is awesome. It’s a whole other side bar.

How many stop lights?

If I play my cards right, one. There’s some back neighborhood roads that I like to take. But if I have to take Mill Plane, then we all know that that’s a million. But I’ve been listening to the radio, too, more often, just because my drive is so short that I don’t have time to plug into my iPod or get on Bluetooth or whatever. Because I’m just like–

What’s the point? It’s just so short.

Yeah. I’m on two songs, and I’m out. So I don’t think I have things maybe as memorized.

I went through the car wash a couple of weeks ago. And you know how they push down your antenna when you go through the car wash? Well, I was like, what happened to all my radio stations? Something is wrong with my car.

The world is ending. Zombies are coming.

Not long ago, I was like, oh. It’s just try my antenna.

So did you pull it back out?

I was driving, and I just rolled down my window, pulled it back up, and everything was fixed.

I don’t even think my car has an antenna.

I think my car is really old, and that’s the way that it operates, with this old, push-down antenna. But it works just fine when the antenna is up. Yours probably has the shorter–

Maybe. That’s so sad. I don’t know. I literally couldn’t tell you if my car had an antenna. No clue. But I will say I had a very– this is an embarrassing admission that I’ll just say, because who cares? But my other half is really into cars. Big car guy, rebuilds them, super into it. Not so much. I need a calendar reminder to change my oil.

So we were in the car the other day, and the windshield was super–

Your car?

Yeah, my car. And the windshield was dirty. And he was like, turn the water on. And I was like, OK, sorry. And I did the thing. And I was, you know, I never really have known– this is so embarrassing. I can’t believe I’m saying this. I was like, I’ve never really understood where that fluid comes from. And he was like, what do you mean? And I was like, where’s the little jet that like squirts the thing out? And he was like, babe, are you serious? There’s two things on your hood, right there and right there. And you can see them. They’re actual little nodes that stick out with a nozzle.

And I was like, that is not what that is. I was so confident. And he was like, OK, what do you think it is? I was like, those are cameras. He was like, cameras pointing to your windshield? I was like, yeah, because how else would it know when it’s raining, and I have the automatic windshield wipers when it’s raining? They just come on. And he was like, those are 100% not cameras. There’s sensors in the windshield that knows when it’s raining. Those things squirt out fluid. He’s like, look closely. That is not a camera. But I was adamant. I was like dead set, pounding the steering wheel, those were cameras.

You must have thought you had a really advanced car.

Yeah. And I don’t. It’s a 1998. It’s so old. It’s not advanced at all.

I love that.

Yeah.

I remember one time driving in my friend Amy’s car, and it was old. It was a Ford Probe. Do you know what that is? And it looks like a bubble. The whole thing is just– it’s the worst shape ever. It just looks like a flexed muscle. And the shape of the windshield is such that if you have your windows rolled down and you use the fluid, it sprays directly into the car. So she goes to clean off her windshield, and she and I are sitting at a traffic light with the windows down. And all of a sudden, we’re like, oh my god! Did you get sprayed, too? We were completely convinced that someone was playing this prank on us, and it kept happening. This is ridiculous. How is this happening? She was doing it to us. It had nothing to do with me.

That same car– this might not necessarily need to be recorded, but this was in the Detroit area, and we were going to a concert. And we were going to both be getting off work, and we were going to meet and take one of our cars, because we didn’t want to pay for– probably the $8 to park at the concert. And so we were like, all right, we’ll meet in this park and ride, and we’ll leave one of our cars in this park and ride. FYI, don’t ever leave your car in a park and ride.

You’re asking for it.

In Detroit. It’s just a really bad idea. But anyway, at that time, we were like, oh, not going to be a big deal. Well, we were just willing to risk it. We knew it was going to be a big deal.

$8.

Yeah, right, $8 was at stake. So we decided it was going to be her car that we were going to leave there. I don’t know why. She was definitely like– I don’t know. Maybe I was like the more alpha one in that relationship. So we drive to park our car and come back to get her car, and it was on fire. It was in the parking lot of this–

Same bubble car?

Yeah. The windows were smashed out, and it was just smoldering on fire.

Oh my god. That’s terrifying, actually.

Oh, yeah. We called the cops, and they were just like–
/vc_column_text]

Yeah. That probably happens hundreds of times a day in Detroit. They were like, oh, another car on fire.

Nothing was stolen. It was just vandalized.

So tell us a little bit, Kelsey, about the next big developments– or maybe we don’t have to go that broad. What is something that you’re really excited about working on in 2016, 2017, a future project or a project that will be coming to fruition on the IT team, something you’re directly working on?
/vc_column_text]

Yeah. I think there’s two things. The bigger of the two is a project called Clarity. And that is for Audigy Medical. Really focused on that side for this year. And it’s a system similar to E-Patient, but also very different in terms of it’s going to help nurses and doctors go out and facilitate allergy treatment appointments– not just treatment. I guess the testing as well.

But right now, this process in allergy clinics is 100% paper. So they’re meeting with patients, testing them, actually injecting antigens into their skin for this testing. And it’s all done on paper and has– I wouldn’t say a high rate, but definitely a rate of human error, which is a little bit different from the hearing care space, where people actually die from this– a fairly significant number, in my mind, because they have a very high allergy, or maybe they get injected with the wrong substance. And so this happens. And it’s very common for people to have allergies across the whole world. And this is just a very manual process in that kind of medical space.

So Clarity is actually going to allow nurses and doctors to automate the process and give them less room for error. So it’s going to actually tell them, this is what you’re injecting at this dosage amount, and calculate everything on the back end for them. So it takes a little bit of the guesswork out.

Got it.

Yeah. So that is–

Or it’s like a second set of eyes, maybe. This is what I think, but here is just the verification.

Absolutely.

That makes perfect sense.

So that we started late last year, and we’re really ramping up right now. And it’s due to launch at the end of this year. So that has been similar to how it was with the hearing care space and E-Patient where I got to go out to clinics, and work with patients, and see how they did all of the beautiful things that they do. And so I started that journey with allergy a little bit.

That’s cool. But this time, you’ve done it once already, so the deployment will be a little bit easier.

Yes. And the development and the design and all that is coming faster, I would say, just because it is familiar for me. But it is also a whole new body of work, in working with those allergy doctors and with the Audigy Medical team, and learning about that space, which is unique in its own right. So that has been really awesome and also kind of scary, because I think I just think about all those patients that are out there getting tested today, and now I’m hyper aware. And even every time somebody sniffles or their eyes are red, I’m like, do you have an allergy? Let’s talk about it. Which is so silly, because I have literally no certification by any means. But it’s very interesting, and it’s been a good project to work on so far. So that’s the first one.

And the second one is– I’ll nerd out for just one second– is the new Pulse that we’re really seeing this year. So we’ve been working on that. And it’s totally all about data– data, data, data. But the cool thing, and what I find fascinating about it, is we’re really working towards automating everything. So right now, for members who are familiar with some of these tools, Pulse and CEO and E-Patient and all of these things are great tools, but they all work independently. And none of them–

I’m sorry to interrupt you. I don’t know what Pulse is. Can you explain? It really is just a dashboard that shows key performance indicators for a number of different business initiatives? Is that right?

Yep. You nailed it. So Pulse is our Audigy tool that we created, but we have to get all of the data that fills Pulse from our members. So they are tracking their patients that are coming in, often, through their office management system, and their hearing aid types that they’re selling, and patients’ level of hearing loss, and do they have one aidable ear, or two aidable ears, all these little micro data points. And all of those things make up those key performance indicators that we measure at Audigy Group.

But the biggest bummer, I think, about Pulse today is it’s all manual entry. So every provider, or one captain, has to go in on a daily basis– preferred– and type in all this stuff. So once again, it all ties back to that human error.

And people probably hate doing it, right?

Totally. They totally hate doing it. It’s just a nuisance. So Pulse 3.0– and what I think is cool about this is it’s really going to tie together not only the member systems, but also all the Audigy systems. So everything is going to talk to each other and be really smart. So one, they may not have to do any data entry, which is– just think about that. You come to Pulse, and everything is accurate. That would be amazing. But also have all of that data trickle into all of our other systems– so not only are we smart in Pulse, we’re smart all over the place. So you’re never going to have to do duplicate entries, or you’re never going to have to wonder, well, why does this report say one thing and the other thing say another thing? Everything will be all the same data and driven from the same resources.

So I think that that is-

A major efficiency.

Oh, a huge efficiency. And for me, it shows the evolution of not only where the IT team is going, but where Audigy is going. And I think it’s really inventive, and something that we’re not really seeing as a trend with other similar management companies. So it’s taking it to the next level, which is always good.

We always like to end on a semi-creative, positive, kind of idealistic note. And I’ll facilitate that by asking you– perfect day. Let’s say tomorrow was going to be your perfect day, and money was no object. You didn’t have to come to work if that isn’t part of your perfect day. What would you spend your perfect day doing?

That’s such a good question, first of all, because I bet you get so many good answers.

You’re buying time.

No, I know exactly what it would be. So one, I would wake up later than when I’m supposed to wake up on a normal day. Probably [7:30] is my preferred time. And when I wake up, it would be like a nice, sunny, the birds are chirping. I’ve obviously thought about this, because I have exactly what this day would look like.

[7:30] AM, birds chirping.

Birds chirping. Sun is out. Not super hot, but sun is out. When I get up and I get out of bed, I–

Do you lay in bed for a while?

I would probably get up fairly quickly. Usually when I’m up, I’m up. Have a cup of coffee. And the very key thing to note here is my house would be clean, and that’s rarely the case. So my house would be immaculate. All the dog hair would be not there.

Then I would magically transport to central Oregon, which is where my whole family, for the most part, lives. And I would probably spend the day there. My parents live on a beautiful ranch, and it’s just very wonderful. And so I would probably spend the day there, hang out with my family, my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Everybody is there. And do that.

And then I would end my perfect day– which would probably be somewhere in the ballpark of 75 and sunny– with a barbecue. My favorite food is barbecued ribs. So that’s what we would be eating. And I would probably gorge on ribs and baked beans, and French bread, the whole big salad, everything, and probably several glasses of red wine. And that, and then I would probably be in bed at [9:30] or [10:00]. Perfect day. Perfect day for me.

I love that. It sounds just like you.

Not super extravagant. Meat and family and wine. That’s basically it.

I just want my family, some ribs, and I’m no dog hair in my house, and that’s perfect.

That’s it. Nailed it.

Love it. Thank you.

You’re so welcome. Thank you for having me.

Ali House

February 15, 2016 By William Smith

Ali House on Intersections

In today’s show, Meghan talks with Ali House, a graphic designer working at Audigy Group. Learn how Ali got started in design, how he and other designers handle critique and why you should keep quiet when getting called to the principal’s office.

Listen to the Episode Below

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Read the transcript:

Hi. Today I’m talking to Ali. Ali is a graphic designer at Audigy Group, primarily focusing on business consumer marketing. So, Ali, thank you for joining us today. How are you?

I’m doing well. Thank you.

Yeah. Tell us a little bit about– well, actually, let’s start by, what’s your official job title here at Audigy?

I am a graphic designer.

A graphic designer, OK, so what is a day in the life of the graphic designer look like?

The daily life of a graphic designer involves design. [LAUGHTER]

Very deep.

I mean, for Audigy I’m mostly B to C focused. So we’re consumer-facing.

So B to C for those of us who don’t know is Business to Consumer?

Right. So I’m working on a lot of the member brands, and the clients that we work for are building out their collateral, their advertising campaigns, that kind of thing.

OK. How long have you been here?

I’ve been here for close to 4 and 1/2 years now. Wait, wait, no. That’s 3 and 1/2 years.

3 and 1/2 years. OK, so it seems longer. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad.

In Audigy years.

Yes, Yeah. Yeah. So in Audigy years, you’re like a–

An old man.

Yes, an old man. OK, what’s the most interesting thing that you’ve ever done for Audigy?

It would probably be one of the branding projects that we did for one of our members. Because it was really involved, and it was outside of the scope of my day-to-day stuff. And it really allowed me to get into some higher-level thinking things and working with a few more people on the team. I mean, my day typically is me working on stuff kind of by myself. You have the team around you, but you’re kind of just focused on your own.

Do you ever go to the team and show them– like you started on a project, and you’re like, is this good, or is this like really bad? Because I can imagine when you’re working on something that’s artistic, it’s either really good, or it sucks, right? Like that’s what I feel. That’s where my head would go. I’m like, this is either awesome, or it’s like so bad.

Yeah.

So do you ever share something with someone when you’re halfway through to get feedback? Or how do you– you he said your role is like pretty individual, but how do you go to other teammates and solicit advice or feedback?

I don’t do that too much. I probably should do that more.

So you’re kind of egotistical?

[LAUGHING] Maybe a little bit.

I’m just teasing you.

No, definitely a little bit. No, I guess I get too caught up in the comments or the different things that people say, like while I’m right in the middle of something. So I’ll try to finish it out as much as I can and get it to a place where I’m like, OK, this is the idea I’m trying to present, if I show it to somebody and they get it, then I’m like, OK, I’m on the right page. But otherwise, I could share it, and they’ll be like, oh, you know what? You should change that to blue. And that’s not even part of the equation at all. And then I’m like, oh, my whole world’s like turned upside down now. Because all I’m thinking about it blue.

Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. I can imagine that when you’re working with this many– you’re trying to please lots of masters here. And yet you’re a very creative person, right? And in many ways, what you’re working on is art, but you’re working on art that needs to be approved and validated by people that are not just you, right? So how do you handle that type of– must be sometimes harsh criticism of a piece of work or a piece of art that you’ve created, and you’re really proud of it, and you’ve put a lot of energy and just spent just a lot of time on making this perfect. And you’re really excited to present it, and you present it, and you’re just met with the most harsh criticism ever. I mean, how do you process that?

Designers all meet criticism in different ways. Artists meet criticism in different ways. I think the difference between how I handle things and maybe somebody else is that I’ve always looked at it as this work that I’m doing or this art that I’m creating is always for somebody else. And so in that sense, I can’t get too attached to it.

Ah. So it’s different than if you were creating a painting for your home and I came over and said, that painting is awful. You should have never done that. It’s different because you’re trying to interpret what someone else might want. And so their feedback– it’s not your original creative vision to do this thing anyway, maybe. And so to get that type of feedback on it isn’t as painful.

You just have to distance yourself from it. I mean, in most cases, I’d rather have somebody just come flat out and say, this is horrible. Because then I know I can start right back from the drawing board and go a different route or do something different that will hopefully get to the solution that we’re trying to get to.

So you talked to me a little bit about your most interesting project at Audigy, right? And that was the branding campaign that sounded like it had numerous steps and a lot of people involved in those iterations of the campaign. What made that so great.

I think what made it so great was you talked about being able to bring that vision to life for somebody else. Right after we started the project and we did some initial research–

Who’s we? Who were you working with?

So I was working with one of our senior designers, a project coordinator, a whole team of marketing people, marketing managers, that kind of thing. And of course, we shared notes. We did some research. And when we got the point that we were ready to present to the client after numerous iterations of that research and whatnot, it was met with a just complete, yes, this is exactly who we are. You guys got it. Please proceed with everything else.

And from that point on, the whole project was just a win left and right. And so that’s what made it, I think, really exciting, is because here is somebody with a really difficult problem. They couldn’t figure out who they were or what they were doing. And we were able to kind of guide them, get them in line, and get them on board with it.

So what types of conversations do you need to have with a prospective client in order to go through that discovery phase where you figure out from them in words who they are, and you take those words, and you make those words visuals?

I’d probably start asking about you and what your personality is like and some of the things you’re into. Because oftentimes, especially with like a small business owner and their brand, they’re almost one in the same. A lot of times what the business owner believes is kind of what the brand believes, maybe not so much for like a larger brand.

But I’d start asking about what are the things that you’re interested in? Are you a liberal-type person? Do you like art? Are you into modern furniture? What kind of brands do you follow? To kind of get a sense of what your tastes and preferences are.

And then from that point, then I can start to dig deeper. Well, you’re saying, well, oh, I’m very active. I’m like, oh, you ever heard of a brand called Jawbone? And you’re like, oh, yeah, actually, as a matter of fact, I’m wearing one.

And then I’m like, oh, well we start taking about, well, what do you like about Jawbone? Why do you follow their products? And then you start saying things like, oh, well, they communicate well with me. Their products are really solid, their quality. And it’s like, oh, quality. We’re talking about communications. So I start to try to build this kind of web of words and things to be able to start saying, OK, well, I think I kind of understand where you want to go, and here’s some people that are kind of doing the same thing you’re doing, so let’s start there.

Makes sense. Have you always been an artist? How did you choose to go into graphic design? Can you draw with a pencil?

I can draw with many things.

Can you paint? I’m just curious.

No. I hate painting. I can’t stand painting. I don’t have the patience for it. I took a painting class in school, like high school ones, and just trying to mix colors, it drives me over the moon. I cannot do it.

I love ink and just like pen and pencil kind of things. But yeah, I just do not paint. I’m not a painter.

Tell us about Milk Dud.

So Milk Dud was a part of a series of illustrations that I did for the month of October, which was dubbed Inktober. It’s an initiative that every day of the month for October, you draw an ink drawing. So you could just start out with a pen, or you could do pencil and then ink it, basically is like a term, a graphic term.

So this was probably like a couple of weeks into this, and I’m sitting at home, which I only draw these things at night, so I only had between like [8:00] and like [1:00] in the morning, basically. Because after my son went to bed, then that’s the time that I had to draw.

Do you just draw on the couch? Or do you sit at a table?

I draw on the couch. I draw next to my wife. Because if I’m off somewhere, then I can’t be like a part of the conversation with her, and she definitely wants me to be there– [LAUGHING]– to be present. So–

Hm, weird.

[LAUGHING] The things I do, right? No, I would just like sit in bed and just draw this stuff until I was done with it. And I just had this idea in my head about this really nerdy character but in the form of like a milk carton. So that’s how it came to be.

So I drew this guy, and he’s got these plaid pants and these really thick, black-framed glasses. And the one part that I really wanted to have fun with was he’s holding these flowers, and there’s one flower that’s drooped over and just like really sad looking, and then have him saying, “Let’s curdle.” Because he’s just like this pathetic guy who’s just like so cute. [LAUGHING]

Where did he come from? Where do you think he– do you identify with him at all?

Probably a little bit. I’m that guy with like the one droopy flower that’s all cute and romantic and everything, but then there’s always something that just undercuts the whole situation for me.

Well, I think your pants– like you put him in some very interesting pants. And you do tend to wear some pretty loud pants, don’t you?

I do. I like color. I like things in my wardrobe to kind of make statements I guess a little bit.

So when you were a kid, what were your artistic outlets? Or what did you do when you were a kid? Or what did you do for fun?

I don’t know. I was a troublemaker as a kid.

You were?

I did a lot of mischievous things. Other than sports and whatnot, I always hung out with the kids that were like not so good that were always like trying to like do things that they probably shouldn’t have been doing.

Were you ever suspended from school?

I was never suspended from school, but we had these things in like elementary and middle school, but mostly middle school. They’re called white slips. And it’s like once you got one of those, it was like a bad thing. Like you shouldn’t be doing that. You got in trouble with the principal or whatever. I got quite a few of those.

For what kind if stuff? You’re not a disrespectful person. But were you when you were younger?

I wasn’t disrespectful, I was just not very thoughtful.

I see.

So like one story that I’ll never forget is it was recess, and we’re out on the school yard. And I think it was my brilliant idea at the time to decide to like throw rocks at cars.

Kids do that.

Yeah, I guess. And it was like just about to be the end of recess, and sure enough, I pick up this rock, and I just like huck it. I chuck it over the fence. And it nails this truck. And the guy gets out of his truck, hops over the fence, and starts chasing us on the school playground. And I’m like running– we’re like running for our lives at this point, because we’re just like, oh, my God, this guys is gonna come and get us. We just did something totally stupid.

And luckily, he was met by like the recess attendant. And that was the last we saw him. Then like an hour into the day, I get this call from the teacher, Ali, you need to go see the principal.

So I go see the principle. She’s asking us, she’s like, so, I hear that you were throwing rocks at cars. She was like, whose idea was this? Were other people involved? And there was like two other friends of mine. And I’m like, oh, it was totally me. I’m so sorry. They didn’t do anything and this and that.

And I go and like talk to my friends after the fact, and they’re like, dude, we didn’t say anything, man. We didn’t even tell her that we did it. And I was like, dude, I just said that I was the one involved with it. And like I had totally got in trouble for it. Definitely got in trouble at home. It was not a good situation. But I definitely learned my lesson. [LAUGHING].

I can’t see you doing that. So what about first jobs? Like what was the first job that you were paid for?

I was a busboy or like a bag clerk, I guess. I don’t know what you call that, a bag boy?

At a golf course?

No, at a grocery store. [LAUGHING]

So you were a bagger. You only bagged groceries.

Yeah, that and getting those shopping carts.

What was the weather like? I always feel bad for the people around here who do the cart roundups in the winter, all rainy and like–

I can’t complain too much, because I did all that in San Diego, where it’s like springtime and summertime all year round.

Ah, OK. So was it a big grocery store or a small?

Yeah, it was an Albertsons. So that was like my first real paid job, like responsibility, that kind of thing.

Were you good at it?

I always try to be good at whatever I do. So I kind of have a competitive spirit, so I tried to be really good at it.

What does a good bagger do?

I don’t know.

Like what are the qualifications? You said you were good at it. What did you do that made you good at it?

I paid attention to when people had like cold foods together. I always like made sure I put colds together or like if there’s like meat, to put the meat separate. And then I always tried to make sure that I bagged them well enough that they’re not like super heavy or like they’re weighted on one side. Or like my biggest pet peeve even today is when you pick up the groceries, you put it in the car, and then it just like falls over the minute you get into the car. An then it goes everywhere in the trunk.

Are these paper or plastic bags that fall flat?

They’re both.

Yeah?

You gotta be good at both.

Did it bother you when someone said, I want double paper? So you had to put one inside of the other?

Yeah, that was pretty annoying. It was– well, I don’t want to comment on who would typically ask for that, but–

Who would typically ask for that?

[LAUGHING] It would typically be someone older.

So what brought you to this part– because you were in San Diego. And then you went to University of Oregon?

Oregon State.

Oh, Oregon State. OK, sorry. So what made you go there?

It was the only college that I got accepted to. And I applied to quite a few, especially in San Diego. [LAUGHING] And then also, I just had to get away from parents.

It was the only school I was accepted–

Literally. Literally was the only school I got accepted to. Like I applied to San Diego State, my hometown. And I didn’t even get into that school. [LAUGHING]

So you were like, I’m going to have to move so I can get into a school.

Yeah. And I was all about it, too, because at the time, I was just so ready to get out and do that. It was for the better. It was for the better.

So then you went to the Art Institute Portland.

Mhm.

And how many years did you spend there?

So that was about five years.

Yeah. The thing I liked about that school was that they let you kind of be high-level on things. You don’t get to do that, really, on a day-to-day basis. But they also placed a big emphasis on corporate design, which I think a good majority of design is corporate. There’s obviously the Nikes and the Coca-Colas doing some fun things, but at some point, there still has to be some kind of dry, base stuff, and that base stuff is what helped me develop my skills and be able to do some of the more fun stuff.

Mhm. So finished that job or– excuse me, finished your schooling. And then what was the first job that you had in the graphic design field?

Oh, man, it was not a good time. It was about a year and like a couple months that I was out of school, and this student that I went to school with, or a classmate, she called me up one day and was like, hey, I need a designer. We’re trying to build out this division of this company. Do you want to come do it?

And so it was pretty much like a sealed deal. I would just have to go and meet the boss or something. And then it was good. So I started that job pretty quickly after that. About two weeks into that job, they fired the girl that hired me and gave me her job on top of my job. So here I am as a graphic designer and then also handling administrative duties for this “department”– I’m doing air quotes for the people who can’t see– to basically be this design company in this massive printing company that’s been around for like 100 years. And it just didn’t– it was so bad. It was so bad.

What was so bad about it?

It was the culture of the company. It wasn’t a place that you could grow. And for me, I don’t want to just turn and burn on a job. I want to be at a place and try to grow and try to learn some things about it. And there’s just really poor leadership and things that would happen on a day-to-day basis that I just didn’t agree with or communication that was not genuine.

And I mean, it just tore me apart. After a year of doing that, it was horrible. I mean, I was working probably close to like 10-hour days, commuting from Gresham to Tualitin every day and just hating my job. And it trickled over into home, too. And my wife was like, you need to either A, quit this job, or you need to suck it up and deal with it. And I quit because I just couldn’t do it anymore.

And is that when you came to Audigy?

That’s when I came to Audigy.

So you’ve been here three and a half years. So you would have started like 2012, summer of 2012?

Yeah.

Did my husband hire you?

At the time, I think he was senior writer.

Ah.

So I met with him and Jess and Cory and Jennifer Bloom. And I walked into that interview, and I had it in my mind that I was not going to not get that job. And so I came with like these lists of questions. I mean, I never prepare like that for an interview of any sort. I mean, I tried to prepare for this one, and it probably wasn’t even that much.

But I came with like a list of questions, and after they were done, I just started going down the line and just started drilling them. And even to this day– this is like my little special thing that Nathan always says, dude, that was one of the best interviews I’ve ever been on. And I’m just like, I didn’t do anything. I mean, I just was like there. And I was just asking you questions. He’s just like, no, seriously.

Well, because it was the right fit, the right cultural fit. And you can kind of feel that, right?

Yeah. I mean, I think it was Cory that asked me this question– because Cory, he’s a quieter guy. And he hadn’t said anything the whole time. And I pretty much had a read on everybody in the room, like Jennifer Bloom, Nathan, and Jess. But just this Cory guy, I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t know like if he’s thinking I’m just like this turd, like I don’t know. Can I say that?

And so he asked me, he said something to the fact of like, so how do you like turn it off? How do you turn off this design thing? And how do you go back to your regular life? Or something like that.

And as soon as he asked that question, I was like, OK, I’m home. Because that’s how I am when it comes to this thing that I do. For me, it’s not just a job. It’s like I can’t turn it off. I do it all the time. I’m doing it in my sleep. And to hear that somebody was kind of of the same cloth, I was just like, OK, I’m here. This is where I want to be.

Nice. That’s a really good story.

Yeah.

Let’s say tomorrow you wake up. Money is no object. And you can do anything that you would like to do with that day. What would you choose? Don’t spend too much time thinking about it.

I think the first thing I would do– well, first off, I wouldn’t be going to work until like [9:00] or [10:00].

Oh, but you’d still go to work?

I’d still go to work. I love doing what I do. It would probably be my own business.

Oh, so you wouldn’t come here. [LAUGHING] You’d wake up in a totally different reality where you–

I do live in a different reality. It would definitely involve waking up with my son and being able to hang out with him for a little bit, because that’s one of the hardest parts about this, is that you don’t get to see your family much, especially in a true agency world.

So I would definitely make an effort to be able to hang out with him for like at least an hour or two. Then after that, I would probably be going to my place of work, which would be my own studio or a team, something like that, And the day would start with just a big pow-wow, just kind of like, hey, how’s everybody doing? What’s on tap for today? Do we have any issues?

And then I would just basically go into design world and doing things for clients that– I don’t know. I guess– I don’t know. I’d work for– I’d be doing stuff that would be like helping out like build systems and like–

I don’t know how to describe it. There’s a design out there. It’s like service design. And it’s kind of along those lines, where you’re kind of like designing– you’re not designing like the products. You’re not designing like the brand. You’re designing like the way it’s all supposed to work. It’s like a system type thing. And that’s like what I would love to do. That would be my perfect day.

But your perfect day, you don’t stay at work all– like you come home, right? What time do you leave?

I’d probably leave about like [5:00] or [6:00]. Considering I started pretty late in the morning. I gotta put in my hours. So I probably come home about [6:00], [6:30]. Come home, maybe I would be making dinner, helping out, making dinner while my wife got a break. She gets to go and do her thing.

What are you going to make? Burrito?

[LAUGHING] You know me too well.

I really like making– let’s see. I’d need time to make it, but I really love making chili and spaghetti. I make a really bomb five-alarm chili that is just like– it’ll knock your socks off. It’s so good. It’s like a Guy Fieri recipe. And it’s got like 20 different ingredients.

So I would come home, and if time was no issue, either, I’d sit there and prepare this food for like two hours, just like reflecting on the day of like sharing the stupid stories that my wife doesn’t want to hear with her and like hearing what she has to talk about. And then we’d all sit down and eat dinner as a family.

And then after that, I’d give Kian a bath or something like that. And then–

Yeah, chili’s pretty messy.

Yeah, well, my kid’s messy, too. But I’d get him a bath and get him in bed and just have like a moment with my wife and call it a day.

Thank you so much. You were a great interviewee.

It was my pleasure.

Jess Lund

November 23, 2015 By William Smith

Jess Lund

In today’s show, Meghan gets to know Jess Lund, our Creative Design Manager. We learn about some of Jess’s passions, how she originally wanted to be a writer, and the importance of compassionate listening.

Listen to the Episode Below

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Read the transcript:

Hi. Today I’m talking to Jess Lund. Jess Lund is our creative design manager here on the 20-plus person creative team. So Jess, you and I have worked together for– we both just had our seven-year anniversaries.

We did, yeah. Congratulations!

Congratulations. Yeah. We’ve survived. So one of the things that I’d like to ask you about is your– well, a group of things I guess that I’d like to ask you about. Your current job, your current job title, and what those responsibilities are. How you got to that place. We talk a little bit about your first jobs, just because that’s kind of interesting.

Maybe a little bit about your family life and experiences that you had as a child or as a young adults that kind of helped shape your career path. But I think probably the best way to get started with an introduction into who you are and what you do at Audigy is just to hear what your current title is and what your current responsibilities are.

All right. So my current title is design manager in creative services within the marketing shared services team. So I manage about seven designers, graphic designers. And I act as a mentor and kind of a process definer. I help define the processes that help our team run. And I coordinate with our managers to make sure that our shared service teams are working well together.

I act as a bridge between our graphic designers and the executive team. So it’s pretty great to be that conduit and act as kind of an advocate for the team. And I also act as a senior designer still. I’m still working on usually some more strategic type project.

So in addition to the process, maybe more like rigid part of your role, you also have that creative side also. So how does that balance? I mean, how do you rectify that in your head? Like, do you schedule half of your day for the more process-oriented task-driven type stuff and then carve out part of your day for a more creative-focused project? Because I can imagine those are two very different processes. And creativity, at least in my mind– those are two different mindsets, right?

They are very different. And block scheduling has been a huge topic for our team lately. How to best approach that. How do you balance several meetings throughout a week with defining processes that come out of those meetings and also those creative projects. And definitely have to block out several hours at a time to focus on any side of that spectrum.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

But I like both. I’ve always been able to do kind of a balance of creative and more structured.

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. So talk to us a little bit about your first job in the creative field. What was your first– did you go to school for design?

So that gets complicated. I actually was going to be a writer. I was always good at writing and I had teachers throughout my education encourage that for me. And I went through high school. I was on the newspaper. I was a co-editor. That was my one academic commitment. Otherwise I just wanted to get out of high school. In middle school I took pottery for a couple months and calligraphy. But I did not take art classes other than that.

So I actually went to you U of O for journalism my freshman year. And I kind of got disillusioned. I took a really good communications course that was entry level where the instructor was pretty real in how he spoke to the state of media and how difficult it was to get a job in journalism and be ethical. So I really appreciated that and at that time I was willing to pursue it, but I also decided after that first year to move back to Portland.

I was not happy, culturally at University of Oregon. I hated the dorms. They were the worst. And I came from a background of– I started working when I was 16. I really enjoyed having other things than just school year. And so to go to a college town was really a challenge for me. I had to work and you couldn’t really work off campus. I did find a cool job there.

So in my decision to move on from U of O I went to PSU which did not really have any kind of writing program at that time. And so I decided I had always been interested in anthropology and they had that program. And so I transferred into it. And I think I tried it out for about a year and realized I did not like their program. And that if I really wanted to do something with it, I would need to continue my education beyond my bachelor’s.

Sure. Yeah.

And I just– I knew that I wasn’t that committed to it. So at that point I really was at a loss. What am I going to do? I was also working at a job that was really stressful. I was a student aid at a liver transplant office.

Wait. Let’s stop. You were a student aid at a liver transplant office.

I was.

So that seems really specific. And I’m trying to– like, my mind is immediately like– typically you’re able to visualize– I don’t know how you guys process information, but usually when someone tells me something I can create a mental picture. And I have like nothing here. So I’m trying to picture what– well, my first question is, did you see any livers?

No. No real livers. Photos of livers. Yeah, photos. So I was working in the admin office pretty much. OHSU has the liver and pancreas transplant department. And so–

Doesn’t the liver regenerate?

If you drink enough it’s a goner. Most of our patients had substance abuse in their history or there are folks that are born with certain conditions that require transplants. There was a really bad episode where a large family had gone mushroom picking and needed assistance–

Because they had eaten something? The mushroom?

Yeah, poisoned.

Yeah. Yeah. Really a variety of situations happening. And folks are actually, usually on the transplant list for a really long time.

So what was your specific responsibility as the student aid?

There was the small group of us. We supported the nurses and the doctors and the admin team. And our big role was making sure patient labs were up to date and that we had all the most recent reports because the nurses would review those on a regular basis. And they would also have regular clinics where they saw the patients. So we were going into different systems on the computer or calling labs to make sure we got every unit that we needed. And we would transcribe them into their labs and also update their files.

Wow.

And we answered phones.

How many liver transplants were done? Like what was the number? Do you have any idea how many were performed?

I don’t remember to be honest. We had two doctors at that time. A physician’s assistant and I think two or three nurses. So there definitely was plenty of business happenings.

Sure. OK. So you were the student aid at the liver transplant center while you were going into PSU and deciding the anthropology was not something that you wanted to pursue?

Right.

Then what happened?

Well, so, I had gone on that track after growing up with my grandmother. We would go rock hunting and she was really intrigued by the Native American culture.

Is this Groovy Granny?

No. That’s my other grandmother. This is my grandma Helen. So that that’s actually what caught my intrigue. So I was at this point where I really felt like I needed a lot of change in my life. I needed to switch my job because it was fulfilling but it was really stressful and it paid really poorly. I was not happy with my degree. And I knew for a fact that I could not give up. I had, throughout my life, had it kind of pounded into my head that I needed to get my college degree to have a better life than what I grew up with. And so I was kind of at a really low point. And my boyfriend at the time, now my husband, Tyler– we were in his apartment one day and I was really stressed out and we were just talking.

And he said, “well, have you ever thought about graphic design?”

And I was like, “what’s graphic design?”

Because at that point, that wasn’t something they offered. And he asked me, “well, didn’t you like doing layout when you were doing newspaper in high school?”

And I was like, “yeah, I like layout.”

That’s kind of what it is. I looked into it and it was intriguing and also intimidating. And I thought, well, I have tried these two things that have been more comfortable for me and that hasn’t worked. Why not? Why not try this out? And I fell in love with it. And I had a huge learning curve. I was going to school with a lot of art students, people who had been art all their life. But the beauty of it is graphic design isn’t just art.

Right.

So I had some challenges. I had to go through a portfolio review my sophomore year of the program. And I got deferred, which meant I had to do more work to prove that I was worthy of the program. And I waited really last minute that summer, because I was so torn up about it. But I did it and I proved to them that I was design worthy, which was huge for me. And I really enjoyed the program because it was creative, but it was also very strategic and required a lot of research. And it really challenged me.

Can you tell us a little bit about how you landed– we kind of touched on this just a little bit. But how did you land at Audigy? What was your interview process like? You were one of the first of us.

How did you land at Audigy and what was that initial experience like?

Wow. So–

It was 2008.

2008 when, you know, the job market was horrible. It was really bad. I had just graduated in June with my BS in graphic design. And I was really hopeful. And at that time I was working part-time at Regents Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon as an executive admin. And I knew that– I mean, they had really helped me and supported me to get my degree, and knew I was moving on but also I knew that my job was being closed out in the fall. So there was extra motivation.

So I spent that summer applying like crazy for all jobs, like admin jobs and a few graphic design jobs, because there really weren’t a lot out there. And I was barely hearing back from the admin jobs. And these were really low paying jobs that were putting people through excruciating measures to even get an interview. So it was, I think, late August or early September. Yeah, it must have been late August and I got a call back. And I got an interview with HR, and the number was from–

Minneapolis.

Yes. Yes.

Which was weird. That happened to me too.

Yeah. And they explained that they were contracted. And I had a really good interview over the phone. And I had gone on the website and did not understand what the company was about. It was very confusing. But I was comforted when I did that interview because the HR consultant kind of reassured me, oh that’s OK. It’s a very confusing site.

And so I ended up getting and in-person interview. And at that time, the corporate office, there was three floors. And the only floor– I didn’t know it at that time but the only floor that was built out was the third floor. So I interviewed in the boiler room, which is a very kind of prestigious, intimidating conference room, all glass walls, the fireplace.

And I remember meeting Matt Murray and having a really intense interview. And him bringing in the team at that time, which was Misty, Kirsten, the designer, Cheryl. I want to say there was one other person but I can’t remember. And they looked over my work. And one of my projects for my senior project was actually I did a campaign against ageism. And that really obviously struck a chord with the–

Good choice. Yeah. Yeah.

Had no idea that would play out, but–

Did they offer you the job on the spot?

No. But I did get a call pretty promptly from Matt offering me the position, which was interesting because I had to start as a kind of a contractor for a couple weeks before I started full-time. But it was just crazy how quickly it happened. And I never once though, oh, this is a small company. What does that mean?

Yeah. I think that we were very much in start-up mode in 2008. And it’s a lot easier to see it now that we’re in 2015 and we have some systems and processes and history under our belt. But yeah, when you’re first building out a process and building out a team and learning– you don’t have data or history to fall back on when you’re decision-making. It’s a very different work environment.

And there are only a handful of us who are around to fully understand that I think the way that you and I might. And you’ve grown in that. There’s so much that you get out of going through– because a lot of it is– I mean, growth is painful.

It is.

It’s not comfortable. And it’s a number of different positive and at the time feeling very negative and comfortable things that get you to the point where you’re at.

Right.

Where you’re at today. And it’s really inspiring to me to hear you talk about how you got into design in the first place, and kind of what your initial introduction to the company is. And now you’re managing this team of seven people. And not only do you manage their workload but you also play a big role in leading that team in the development of their careers on a number of different levels, both from a design mentor– stand, ship. Standpoint, stand-ship. And sort of just a general mentorship. So if you take a look at– like, let’s say– let’s pretend you’re an old lady right now even though you’re definitely not and you’re looking back over the history of your greatest creative accomplishments.

Oh my gosh.

Without thinking about it– you have like three seconds. What comes to the top of your mind? It can be something that you worked on professionally or it can be something that you did maybe for outside of work. Just a project on your own or maybe you did some type of assistance for, I don’t know, a charity. What comes to mind? Three seconds has passed so what’s coming to mind?

All right. So my greatest accomplishments as a designer when I’m an old lady looking back–

I like how you’re buying more time by repeating the question.

I’m really looking forward to being an old lady to be honest.

So I think the first thing that comes to mind right away is impacting other people. And that can be other designers, helping grow their skills and their passion for what they do. That’s one thing that I’m really nerding out on with my current role, is being able to do that better and better.

And then how my design impacts people through story, I would argue we’re doing every day in our work, helping communicate the services that our members bring to patients and improving that patient experience. And then also connecting folks to these needs that will improve their lives. That really gets me excited. In my personal time I do volunteer quite a bit. And so–

Volunteer design?

Yeah. I volunteer my design services, and I also do peer support within the burn survivor community.

Oh, that’s right. Yes.

Yeah. So with that side of my experience, it’s interesting because I started out doing work with the Oregon burn center and one of the first projects I kind helped implement was– I had realized when I volunteered with the nurses that our volunteers had no presence with the patients or with the medical staff. And so I worked with the other coordinators to develop a kind of a peer support bio book that featured each of our peer supporters and the–

What’s the definition of a peer supporter? And, can you give us a little bit of history into why your you’re involved with the burn community and then what is peer support?

Peer support. I know it’s really vague. This is good. So to give you my origin story with all of this, actually tomorrow is the 27th anniversary of a car wreck that my family was in. And the car was hit by a drunk driver. The gas tank blew. And we lost my brother on impact. He was two and I was five. And my mother and her boyfriend were in the car as well.

But that led to severe burns. I was at the Oregon burn center for about a month. And I had some reconstructive surgeries. Once I healed from that initial impact. I think it was first grade, I had a couple of reconstructive surgeries. So this was back in 1988. We kind of went on with our lives. And about four years ago I was having a really hard anniversary. There’s a lot a loss that day.

Yeah.

And it’s really interesting because sometimes I would forget and I’d be, oh, last week that was the anniversary.

By this year in particular, I really was feeling reflective the entire day. And I went home and my husband works swing usually and I was alone. And I was so tired of feeling alone in that experience. And–

Would you talk to your mom about it or was it kind of something that wasn’t–

No. No. It was not something that I felt comfortable– there are times I would talk to her about it, but it really it was more than that. It was something– I needed to dig deeper. And I realized that was when I needed to do a few things differently. And so one of those things was, I went online and I searched, “burn victim” for the first time ever. I was like 28. And wow, there’s stuff out here. And there seems to be communities and there’s resources. And that blew my mind.

Was it comforting to see that? Or was it– how did you feel?

Yeah. Yeah. And also kind frustrating because that I didn’t know before.

And I also questioned why I hadn’t looked. But one of the things I ended up doing was, I went on the Legacy Emanuel website and their burn center web page is really lacking. And it’s actually something I’d really like to help them develop more. But I ended up filling out a generic form and said I was interested in volunteering with burn victims or survivors of drunk driving wrecks. And I didn’t really think I’d ever hear back. And actually I heard back pretty promptly from their volunteer office. And they connected me with a woman named Helen at the Oregon Burn Center.

And then Helen asked me, “can you come in next week during you lunch to meet me?”

And I went in and I met her in the basement of the burn center where she works. She’s an outpatient therapist. And she kind of just asked me what had happened originally and what had gone on over the years and what brought me there.

And for the first time I heard someone say, “Jess, you’ve obviously done really well, but it must have been hard at times.”

And it’s that last part that I never really had anyone acknowledge.

And that was the beginning of a beautiful, beautiful journey. It was amazing.

Thank you for sharing this. Like I’m crying because it is such a good story of strength and determination. Do you get that a lot now? I mean, do you feel like– do you feel like having that conversation was very empowering and really made you realize what a strong person you’ve been?

Yeah, I don’t know. I think there is definitely resiliency. But I think what’s been so fascinating for me is understanding how I got here and understanding that everyone’s survival mechanisms and processes of grieving and morning– they’re all so different. And there’s not one right way to do it. And so kind of getting a grasp on how I got to that point where I was ready to kind of break open to that vulnerability.

So I’ve had, like, from that one conversation just several conversations with all sorts of people I never expected that have broken my mind open in different ways.

So you spoke with Helen and then what came of that initial conversation? She gave you some acknowledgement and just–

She was like, you can volunteer. And at that point I said I want to volunteer right away. So I started volunteering with the nurses. And then–

How do you volunteer with the nurses? Like what do you do?

I only did that for a couple months. I would go in, like every Saturday for about four hours and help them with the phones and with people coming in and out of the units. Because there are certain periods where it’s locked. I would help with just some of their admin work and then there were a few times where maybe there was a child on the unit and I would spend some time with them. Or I would stock towels in the rooms.

So it was really intriguing to be on that side of things. And it definitely brought up some triggers for me. Like the hospital smells that were really good to confront. So that was kind of my launching point. From there, there’s actually a training that you go through to become a peer supporter.

There’s the Oregon Burn Center, but there’s this larger organization called the Phoenix society. And they have been around since the ’70s and grown. It’s for burn survivors. And they have developed some amazing tools and programs and a huge community.

So one of their big programs is SOAR, S-O-A-R, Survivors Offering Assistance in Recovery. So the concept is, you are essentially a living example for people who are very early in the stages of survival. I think at the Burn Center we require that you are two years out of your injury before you can become a supporter.

And this is amazing because there was a time when folks would come in to visit patients and there was no program, there was no training, and there were some bad situations where maybe that person would come in and just cry the entire time or try to sell lotion or share some really kind of scary photos. And obviously if we’re on the health practitioner side, that’s not good.

So they want to protect their patients. And that’s not really a healthy visit. So the SOAR program, you go through about an 8-hour training where you learn different ways of compassionate listening, like what you’re there for. And we role play with other volunteers. And it’s actually information that I’ve used in all aspects of my life.

I’m sure. I’m sure. Yeah. This is interesting and inspiring and I think some of the best content that we’ve ever– like in terms of the caliber of like a leader, someone who has been through something really, really difficult and come out the other side of that and is able to share that experience in the most positive way with everyone that comes into your– like, that is– there’s really no one else that we’ve interviewed who has had that type of skill set. So I think it is related to work in a number of different ways. I just want to kind of try to–

Oh, absolutely.

–tie that in. So what we’re just talking about? The SOAR program.

Yeah.

How it’s good that the person has to go through a little bit of a time.

Yeah. Yeah. So Jess you were just telling me that the SOAR program is something that you can get into– you can be this peer supporter after you have been– I don’t know if you want to call it an accident or after like some type of an event. After you’ve healed for two years or–

After the trauma.

After the trauma.

Yeah so after two years and you’ve done some healing probably both physically and emotionally. You can go through the certification process where you can help others to do the same type of healing. And you were just telling me that that certification, that peer support certification has been not only beneficial for your work in the burn community but also you apply that to numerous other aspects of your life like the people that you manage and coach in your current role. Can you tell me a little bit about that? What’s something that you’ve learned through that training and experience that you use really regularly with many different types of interactions?

I think the biggest tool is compassionate listening. So–

Define that. Because that sounds really, really nice. And I can get like a general idea for what it is. But tell me, how do you practice that?

So when you’re in a position where you’re trying to be supportive, sometimes we tend to want to just fix things for people. And so we will lean on, “you shoulds,” and, “I would” or those kind of phrases that actually oftentimes put barriers up for people.

So the emphasis is on listening and being engaged and showing that in verbal and nonverbal ways of making eye contact, head nods, leaning in. But then when you do have something to offer that you want to verbalize, you frame it in your experience and from your perspective.

Or if it’s something that you hear a lot of other people experience, you frame it from that perspective. This is what I have found that helps me, that kind of thing. Or a lot of people I talk to experience that too and this is the result. It’s just a subtle, it’s the subtlest a change in frame.

But empathetic rather than instructional.

Right. And we don’t learn those things growing up. We don’t necessarily learn communication techniques.

Yeah.

So I just I have found that– I think I’m a total fixer. I hear someone is really hurting or they’re stressed or they’re having trouble and I just want to fix it for them. But using these techniques you actually empower people to do it for themselves.

Sure. And that’s a great leader, right? When you’re not just fixing people but you’re giving them the tools to.

Right. And what’s amazing is you often end up learning something great from them.

Sure.

But, yeah, so that’s one of the biggest goals.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you so much for sharing all of that. I always like to end these interviews with– because this is really interesting to see how people respond. And again, I’m not going to give you a ton of time to think about this. But if you could define your perfect day wake up to bedtime– you could do anything you wanted with that day. You’re not on any type of budget or whatever. Let’s say tomorrow was that day. So when you went to bed tonight, you knew that as soon as you woke up on Wednesday morning, perfect day starts. What happens?

Right. Well, so right now it’s really kind of stormy out, windy, rainy, grey. I would go for a quick jog with the dog in the morning. And then I would find a cool used bookstore or maybe a book sale going on. And Tyler would have the day off with me. And we would go rummage and leave probably with at least a box of books to add to our library. But I you would go somewhere cozy and warm. Maybe a coffee shop or just get things really cozy a home and drink some coffee and just read the books that we just acquired. Really kind of peruse them and get to know them.

You’re going to read them cover to cover or you just like scanning right now, just seeing like, all right, let’s see what one I want to read first. Is that what you do? Because that’s what I would do. I’d sit down and look at them.

Probably looking at photos to see what I want to engage with first. and then, yeah, kind of do a scan before we get them put on the shelves and I move on to the next hunt.

Because it’s like a treasure hunt.

Yeah. Oh, I hear you.

So I think that right now, in this moment, that is what I would really love to do.

Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. What do you eat?

What do I eat?

Yeah. Are you just going to drink– because you’re going to get hungry.

I’m going to get really hungry.

My blood sugar drops. That’s like a whole other conversation because right now by we started subscribing to Blue Apron.

Oh you did?

Yeah

Oh, I want to hear about this offline.

Oh, yeah. I love it.

You do?

We love it, yeah.

Do you get a meal every day or do you get a meal–

Three meals a week.

So would it be a Blue Apron day on this bookstore perfect day?

Yeah. Because they’re not too stressful and you have everything you need. And the payoff is always really good. It’s so satisfying to make a meal and you’re using ingredients, maybe you never have before. And you’re cooking things you might have never cooked before so you’re learning. And then it’s delicious at the end. It’s huge! It’s so satisfying.

Thank you so much. You are a great interviewee and I can’t thank you enough for sharing all that you did.

Well thank you for inviting me. This was really a privilege.

Heather Desmarais

October 2, 2015 By William Smith

Heather Desmarais Intersections

In today’s show, Meghan gets to know Heather Desmarais (aka HD), our Director of Content Services. We learn about super wipes, volleyball, how to make perfect McDonalds fries and about one of the fastest growing departments at Audigy Group.

Listen to the Episode Below

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Read the transcript:

I’m sitting here with HD. HD has been with Audigy for, I would guess, close to seven years, at this point? I believe that you started in January of 2009.

You did. I mean, I did! But you did your research.

Well, actually I didn’t do any research. I remember, because I remember I started working at Audigy in November of 2008. And I remember your presence when you joined the company, because I remember it being something that was really impactful and something that was a really positive experience for me.

Thanks, Meg.

Yes, so unlike some of our previous guests, I know a lot of your history and introduction into the company. Not everybody knows that, so I would like to talk a little bit about that. But what I don’t know is kind of where you’re at right now. I don’t know your story about how you got to where you are right now, how you built up this team and this department, and kind of pitched an idea and got the buy-in from the people who could support you into making that dream a reality. So let’s start. I guess, what’s your current title?

Well, my current title is Director of Content Services. But I want to go back to when I first started, because the reason that you know so much about me is that we shared a cube wall. And I remember it because, remember, the windows slide?

Yes, oh, yes.

And I didn’t know who you were, and actually I don’t think you were there my first day. But somebody said, oh, yeah, she’s a media buyer. And I was like what is a media buyer, like most people who have no idea what media buying is.

So I remember, though, then you maybe came back from lunch or something. I never saw you, but I heard your voice. And what people might not know about Meghan Kelly is that she’s a master negotiator, I mean, like a bulldog. If you put her on something, this lady, this sweet voice that you hear, this kindness– not that you’re mean. Maybe a little bit, but these reps, right? Like you handle them really well.

Why thank you.

But I hadn’t heard the sweet Meghan. I only heard the master negotiator, Meghan Kelly, and I was like, oh, who is this girl– for this lady really? And then I remember it was a couple days later, or maybe we introduced ourselves that day or something, but it was a couple days later when we first figured out we can slide that window open, and we didn’t have to keep it closed any longer. Like we kind of like all of a sudden bonded. We had a conversation in the kitchen, and then everything changed. But that was like my favorite things, and I’ll never forget that.

Why thank you.

You’re one of my first impression here at Audigy.

So, yeah, I remember you starting as well, like I said. And it was one of those things where you had this like presence that came with you. And I remember you working in events and being like initially introduced into that team having one really specific role, but then sort of becoming like the matriarch of that team and taking care–

Jack of all trades.

Yes, well, taking care of all of the people and all of the– and I also remember this one time where you had this massive shirt ordered for you. Do you remember that?

Oh, my gosh, yes, because we wear polos. And I had an event to go to. It was within the first three or four weeks of me starting. So they’re like, we need to order polos, and they do really cool stuff with them back then– 38th employee when I started. You’re probably 35th or something.

But they embroidered you name in the sleeve back then. And so I was like, let me see the size of them. And they’re not forgiving, and I’m a big girl So I was like, I’m going to need at least two sizes larger on this. And they’re like, OK, well we can definitely make that happen.

And then it was like a week later, but like a day before we were leaving for, I think it was, the international trip like to Mexico or something. And they ordered me a men’s XXL. It was– remember? It was like a sheet.

It was like the size of like a king duvet cover. And I remember you walked in holding this shirt, and you were like–

I had to hold it. It was wide.

There was no way– there was absolutely no way you could–

I couldn’t cinch it.

No, there was no way you could wear this.

And you know it’s big if I can’t cinch it.

There was just no way. There was no way you could wear this thing. And I remember you walked in holding it by the shoulders, and it was like a blanket. And you’re like–

Like, no words.

Well, you’re like, this is my shirt.

Yeah, that happened.

And you had to take it to a special tailor, do you remember? You had to drive to downtown Portland.

Yes, and was Ashley Walker’s tailor and Mason’s tailor, and so it’s really special place in the Pearl.

And you bring them this massive shirt.

I bring in this massive polo shirt to a really chic and upscale tailor. And they’re like looking at me, and I’m like, I’ve got two days to make this shirt fit. And I’ll tell you what, all they did was cut it, remove a little bit of fabric, and sew it back together. So it wasn’t like it was a nice tailored fit. I want everyone to know that right now. It was still box-cut style polo shirt.

Do you still have that shirt?

You know, I don’t think I do. It might have been donated to Goodwill. But, you know, someone has it, and they have my name embroidered on the side of their arm.

That’s true. My face hurts.

That’s a good story. I wish people could see though, because I really did– my wing span is like 6’3″ anyway, but I was holding that shirt out. It was probably solid 5’2″.

Oh, it was the largest shirt I have ever seen. But the funniest thing about this was at that point, you didn’t think it was funny. You were just furious. You had just come up– this is my shirt– no humor. And I’m like OK, not appropriate to laugh at this point. At some point, this will become funny. Is not funny right now.

No, but it did become funny.

It did. Like right now!

Which is kind of indicative of my entire journey at Audigy. It’s a great segue, because I feel like I’ve always been given the biggest shirt and been asked to make it work.

And my resilience really had to come through. I mean, it’s a great analogy.

Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going to say. That’s a really, really good analogy. So let’s kind of use that to jump into your current title you said was Director of Content Services, and so what does that mean?

That’s a good question. So basically content for Audigy Group Stratus and Audigy Medical is basically taking anything that we’ve created from an operational strategy and turning it into something that our members can easily digest, understand, and then go implement, as well train their internal teams to be able to help them simplify, understand, and move their businesses forward.

So content really can be anything in the form of our videos that we do from an e-learning standpoint to live instructor-led courses, like our PFL event, our team summit breakouts, courses, things like that– pretty much all over the webinars. That’s lot of content-based stuff. And then anything from an internal training standpoint, helping our on-board new employees here in the building.

So we have our hands in a lot of different things from a content perspective, because really, anything that’s designed or any kind of product that comes to fruition starts with content.

Got you. So you must work with a lot of different teams?

All of them.

Like you’re getting kind of like the project scope or sort of like an idea, maybe even. It might not even be something that scoped out. And you take this idea and make it something that’s actually like–

A product.

Yeah, tangible an actionable, and like– OK

Based upon what the goal is, right? Because what are we trying to do with this particular type of messaging? And we’d say, oh, it’s we want somebody to learn a new skill, or we want somebody to change a behavior, or we want somebody just to be entertained, kind of like the podcast is right now. It’s entertaining.

So once we know that outcome, then we can design what type of medium we go through, and what kind of deliverable we’re going to construct, and which teams we’re going to leverage. But I will say that’s one thing I love about the content team is that with our hands in all these pockets, really, because we don’t work for ourselves; we work for everybody else. I mean, there’s nothing that’s like this is from the content team. No, this is for another team. Go use it in order to drive the business.

Yeah, that makes sense. So who works on the content team?

So we have a pretty good sized team. It’s composed of a couple different sub-teams. We have of our video production team. I mean, do you like want names and titles and things like that?

No, you don’t have to give me names and titles, but like the types of positions that work with you.

Sure, so on the video production team there’s a multimedia producer. We have video editors. We have writer. Have motion graphics designer, which is kind of cool, because that’s an area that it’s not just print. It really takes– and we animate a lot of our staff and/or use really cool templates to really make things stand out and be modern. That team is pretty dialed in.

And then some of those people work with our other side of the team, which is more the adult learning, instructional design side. So we have like we call content development managers, which are basically kind of a glorified project manager, in a way, or like an operations manager. They take a project, and they run it through from initial concept, working with stakeholders, and then manage the projects through, working with all the teams that are involved, whether it be the video production team or somebody who’s designing something for a handheld tool, a PFL, or whatever the case ma be. They own that project.

And then we just are now dabbling in internal training. So we have a corporate training manager now, who will be in charge of helping, alongside of internal HR, really move and build kind or an organizational training department.

Nice, so how many people total on the team?

So now we have, including myself, 13.

OK, so that’s a– do all fit in that little room?

We moved to the other building. Yeah, which shows that we haven’t had coffee in a while!

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, but on the second over at Park, there’s a big huge production studio, and that’s where we do a lot of our filming anyway. And so we just took up a couple of those offices over there and then the big alcove area also. We’re kind of bleeding out into there. We had eight people, and now we have three people out in the other area, as well.

Tell me a little bit more about how you moved through the organization and the different positions that you held along the way.

Sure, so when I started, there was no professional development manager, which is the person that helps implement Patients for Life and the practice with the owners and their staff. When I started, that that’s why they hired me actually. It was to be on the professional development and events team, which was Ashley Schmitz at the time, before she married Mason, and events coordinator, and then I was the third person. So that was your entire professional development and events department.

And I was hired on to basically– they were already doing Patients for Life trainings, these three-day events. I was supposed to come on and create this 90-day implementation plan. So I was going to be the first support to help implement, so instead of just attending a conference, now you had follow-up support, and then manage all the collateral, so all these patient-facing forms that the members could order from us. All that stuff– I was in charge of all of.

How many members did we have at that time?

113’ish

So you were responsible for–

I was like, yeah– I was supposed to, yeah– well, I had to gauge. There was only four territories, the way it was broken up at the time. And I had to work with the newly operations manager, because that was when the SBU structure was born was that year. And we had to figure out which members had the interest to implement. It was basically like I figured out I could work with maybe 20 at the time. And I just tried to create a system of checks and balances for that 90-day period, a couple touch points each month, and who to work with, and the forms that we had to do.

And look, it was all back then, and some of the members that I worked with probably would tell you this, that it was just me talking about the forms and how to use them in the practice. It wasn’t a lot of the big, behavioral stuff that the professional development managers coach on now, which is what the evolution was, which is kind of cool. Because imagine, that was January of 2009, and then five years later, you know, I became a senior professional development manager in like year four. And then we had a team of six professional development managers, and we were a completely different, evolved team.

We weren’t trainers. We were coaches. We weren’t just telling people how to use a form. We were helping them understand their patients and how to ask the right types of questions to get information to help move them forward with better hearing. And it was just a completely different vibe.

Let’s go– this is kind of like my favorite part in these types of interviews, because I like to go way back to like first job and kind of talked a little bit about what your experience was when you first jumped into the working world. Where did you grow up, Wenatchee?

Yakima.

Yakima, OK– I’m not from around here. I think I think everyone’s from Wenatchee.

That’s the center of the state of Washington. It’s a good place to start.

Yeah, how far away is it from Wenatchee?

It’s like an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

So you’re basically from Wenatchee.

Pretty much from Wenatchee, yeah.

Yeah, come on, it sort of sounds like Wenatchee– sounds like a sister of Wenatchee.

Actually, yeah, kind of.

So, Yakima, tell me a little bit about it. Well, first–

There’s a lot apples, agriculture, beer hops, golfing, wine.

OK, are there a lot of fields, and is there any like elevation or anything?

Yeah, it’s about 1,000 feet up. There’s some rolling hills. It’s right on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains. So it actually– it’s like 300 days of sunshine kind of location. You get all four seasons. You’re 45 minutes to an hour from Mount Rainier, skiing a half an hour away. Or you can go to the east, and it’s like the desert. You can go southwest, and there’s like the Columbia River and the Tri-Cities area. It’s hot. Or you can go to the Columbia Gorge in like an hour, just south. It’s a pretty cool area.

OK, yeah, it sounds great.

It’s better than Wenatchee.

Yeah, OK, so first job in Yakima?

So if we were technical, I’d say I was baby sitter. I babysat a lot. I’m the oldest in my family of my two brothers, like by eight years and 13 years. So I was every summer babysitting.

But did you get paid for babysitting?

No, are you kidding me? No, so that’s why I said technically speaking. And then also technically speaking, at age 14, I worked with my friend Megan. Her parents owned all the McDonald’s in town.

How many were there?

There were five.

Whoa.

It’s a big deal. Yakima’s got 90,000 people. It’s a big deal. But anyway, so if I did fries for the summer when I was 14, which if you think about the child labor law thing? But we worked there. We loved it, and we worked for like four or five hours.

You were only allowed to –work with the fries.

But I only got to do the fries. Until I got promoted to drive-through, but that’s not a job I want to talk about.

Well, actually, I’m not done. I’m not done. Tell me how you make McDonald’s fries.

So there’s a bag that’s in the box. And you make sure the oil is– you just press a button, because it does it all for you, as far as like heat is concerned. You take the bag of fries. It’s already premeasured– at least this is how we did it back then, back in the day. Rip open the easy-tear thing, you dump them into the basket. You press the button. The basket drops down.

How many minutes until they were–

I don’t know, maybe three or four minutes? And then it beeps, and then you have to get it out before it burns, and then you toss it over into the bin, and then there’s one salt shaker, and you salt it a certain way. And then you mix them all up, and then you take the big scoop. You attach the– I can’t believe I still remember this. You’d attach a little carton, and then you scoop it.

And then the key– and anybody’s who’s worked at the movie theaters and had to do popcorn is also key. You have to shake like the thing into the container. Like you have to– what do you call it, the scoop?

You have to kind of shake it so that things kind of settle in appropriately. Otherwise it’s not full, and people get pissed. So you need to make sure you give them their fair share of fries and/or popcorn, you know? So you pack it. It’s a big deal. It’s a technique.

So what is annoying filling the small size, the bag?

Small wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t too bad. Mediums were like a waste. You’re like, why are you ordering a medium? You can get a small. That’s fine. But you order a large. Mediums are a waste of time. And we never pre-made those, because it was only once in a blue moon somebody’s like, I’ll take a medium.

Who orders a frikkin’ medium?

75-year-old, they’ll order a hamburger, or they’ll say cheeseburger no cheese, a medium fry. I’m making this part up actually.

I bet you can learn a lot about someone if they order a medium. You know, like if they order like the odd size. I wonder what like–

They have to be different.

–the psychological profile of someone who orders–

Or they order two mediums because they think they’re getting a better deal than if they order a large and a small– something like that.

OK, so any burns from the grease or the oil?

I don’t remember, but you slide around a lot. McDonalds’ floors are gross. I remember that.

You didn’t stand on one of those mats?

No, they didn’t– maybe they had them, but I just remember sliding everywhere. It was a death trap. Like it’s like grease compounded. And they were supposed to mop every day, but we’d mop with the same water. It just disgusting. And there was a smell. There was just this– and they were polos back then too. And it just always had this smell on you. It’s like this residue of fried oil.

From McDonald’s– actually how long did you do that for? 14 till?

Two summers, because I couldn’t get a job anywhere else because of child labor laws.

Oh, right.

And it was fun. I got to be with my friend Megan.

Second job or another job that you had that was kind of–

Yeah, favorite– if I were to call it actually my first job, this would’ve been the one I talked about. I was a teleprompter operator for the five and six o’clock news for the local TV station.

My mom has been a dental assistant my whole life. And so therefore she knew– and Yakima’s not big– 90,000 people– works for an amazing dentist. She knows a lot of people. She’s super personable, and people love her. Like we go to the grocery store– my whole life– any grocery store, somebody knows mom.

So she has connections, and so she’s really good at asking people that she’s connected with. So she knew the general manager of the station because she does his teeth and asked if there’s anything I could do, even if it was just cleaning up at night. And he was like, well, and found out they needed the teleprompter.

So teleprompter operator– old school style. Nowadays it’s all got to be digital. I can’t imagine it not being digital, only just type in their stuff reporters do, and it sends it, and it populates it, and whatever. But back then the reporters would type up their story, and they had to do it in a certain width of text on this paper that when it was printed out, it was the kind of paper that goes through the printer that has the perforated holes on the side, and it grabs it and pushes it through, and it has like four copies on it.

So when it comes out, you tear off those perforated edges, and you’ve got your four copies. My job was to separate it into four piles, and they had all been ordered of the sequence that the producer would give me for the particular news session. And there’s like four segments, the first one being the longest; the second one, not as long; third one, a little bit longer; and then fourth ones really fast, like fun little stories.

So I’d put those all in order. The producer would get one inside of the room. The two anchors would get two copies, their own color. The top copy then I would tape– little pieces of the tape on the bottom corners. And I would just tape them in order of their segments. And then I would tape them up against this wall, and then there was this long conveyor belt, the size of the table, like about a six-foot table and a little camera tacked on to the bottom that was pointing down.

And there was a tiny monitor off to the side with two lines on it, where then I would tape the stream of scripts onto this conveyor belt, and it would go under the camera because it had like a dimmer switch-style. It would turn it for to go faster or slower. And then it would just go underneath this camera, project to the monitor, which then projected up through the cameras, and then they would read.

So what happens– what if there was a wrinkle on the conveyor?

That happened like every other segment, right, because the tape, if I didn’t tape it just right–

And it’s going through, because it wraps background under itself. And if it was going and then it would wrinkle, and then it would be so loud. I’m in the studio with him. And it’s so loud and going, and then the anchors are like, so I, um– and then they pull up their– because they’d have to pull up their extra scripts.

And then I would scrambling, tearing paper inside the studio– the worst place to put a teleprompter operator with paper, and I’m just loud. And I would sweat, and I would just– I mean, I was 16.

I can imagine it was nerve-wracking.

Yeah, I was 16.

So were they nice about the wrinkles and the mess-ups?

Oh, yeah, and I would figure out a system and how to make it better and know when something was going to wrinkle. But you have to realize, when you notice something’s wrinkling– I’m holding the speed control in one hand and operating it with the other. It’s not like I could stop it, because I had to do one or the other. So it was a little bit hectic.

Yeah, so did you progress at the station in any other roles, or how did you kind of leave that job, or what happened there?

I ended up, like every other high-schooler, like, what are my friends doing? So I ended up being a barista. I worked at the movie theaters. I had some other little odd jobs here and there.

Where’d you go?

My first two years I went to Columbia Basin College in Tri-Cities, playing volleyball. And I was– back then they didn’t have full-rides to junior colleges or community colleges, but I had partials. So I still needed to make some money. And so the connection I had at my local TV station– they called their sister station. And I became the tape operator for the 11 o’clock news– or know, it was the 6 o’clock news and the 11 o’clock news.

And I’ll be honest with you, within maybe a year, I became technical director, because I ran the cameras. I did everything inside of that place, and I became second director of the 11 o’clock news, which is a huge switchboard. So every time you see a camera cut to another angle or a story–

Oh, that’s what you were doing?

-or a super wipe. Yeah, I did all of that. I ran–

Oh, wait, a what, a super wipe?

Yeah, where like– Yeah, you know super wipes, duh.

Yeah, I love super wipes.

Who doesn’t know that? But like there’s a super, which is called also a lower third, or it’s where your name comes up at the bottom.

Like the banner across the bottom?

The banner across the bottom– so I would fade that in, fade that out. That was also called a wipe.

OK, so volleyball– you mentioned volleyball a couple of times, and that’s something that is pretty interesting. Obviously you were pretty good if you were getting these types of scholarships, right? Straight I know nothing about volleyball. I don’t really like any sport with a ball. I feel like if I’m holding something and people are coming at me, I feel like I just want to give it up, rather than fight for it.

Got it.

I just don’t have that, like– but foot race? Man–

You’re on it.

Oh, yeah, as long as you’re not going to like come after me, I will run away from you.

Foot race– got it, OK. I know how to pique your interest.

Yeah, oh, yeah, challenge me to a foot race. Through the cemetery– I’ll beat you every time, even if I die. OK, so talk to us a little bit about volleyball and your college years and beyond, if you continued to play.

Well, I actually did want to go back and talk about volleyball in the sense of when I started it, because it actually has played a major role in pretty much the resilience and determination that I have today. Because– so I danced from age three to age 12. It was really cute, and who doesn’t want a little girl that dances.

What kind of dance?

Tap, jazz, ballet, and I started doing toe ballet, gymnastics. But obviously, I got a little bit too tall for all of that. And I just stood out like a sore thumb, and it was sixth grade. My friends in middle school were going to play volleyball, and I wanted to do it too because my friends were doing it. And then my mom said, you’ve got to choose one or the other. They’re expensive.

It wasn’t like I was just playing like middle school volleyball. It was the club, like year-around, traveling.

It’s not sponsored by the school.

Yeah, you paid for it, yeah. So my mom said you’ve got to choose, and I chose volleyball. So back then– I mean, we’re talking late ’80s into the early ’90s, when I was going through my sixth grade to 12th grade volleyball time. It was still dominated by a lot of male coaches, and they were not kind. It was not everybody gets a trophy. It was, who’s the MVP? Who’s most valuable on the team? That was the awards that we had the pizza party at the end of the season, and you always wanted to be the captain or the MVP. Otherwise– or most improved. Those were the only three awards. It wasn’t like, everyone, here you go for a great season.

So there was always this drive for competitiveness, and there were levels of you were either on the gold team, or you were on the red or the white team, so you either where the best or you weren’t. And so the club was a major drive for me because it helped me to deal with people being in my face, yelling at me. I mean, the coaches were not– and that’s back when the parents were like, listen to your coach.

Like nowadays parents challenge coaches, and it’s not fair for my child, but that’s a whole other rant I don’t really want to get into. But it built some character for me. There was a lot of challenges and trials and tribulations, where I would be crying at home, and my mom would say– I’ll never forget this– don’t listen to how they say it, just listen to what they’re saying. You can do this. It doesn’t matter what they think. If you want it, we can go get it.

So then I always had that instilled in my mind. And so I just told myself, I’m going to go play in college. Like I don’t ever remember a time where I was worried about going to college. We didn’t have the money for it, but I never thought anything other than I’m going to get a scholarship. I didn’t apply to colleges. I didn’t write like essays or anything like that, but I just knew that that’s what I want to do, and I was going to do it.

Luckily, I did get picked up by that community college. And then the end of those two years– it great. I played all the games. I started. I got better. I remember my friend, my setter on the team, who was also my really good friend in college, she was being recruited by Eastern New Mexico University. And so they were watching her game tapes and making sure– they were going to fly her down and all this stuff. She was getting lots of opportunities like that.

And these coaches who were watching the game tape, and they saw her and I together and how it wasn’t just her. It was the combination. Her success also was how well we worked together, and I was the position where it’s called right-side, and it’s right behind the setter. So she sets backwards to me. So we were fast. Like, I could say one word, and I’d be right there, and we just worked really well in unison.

And so they were like, oh, who’s this 6’3: right-side? And then there was also a middle blocker that all three of us together were kind of this dynamic trio. So they brought all of us down for a visit as a group and had us play with the team and try out basically, in a sense. And on the spot, offered all three of us full-ride scholarship, and so we came down as a group.

That must have been like– because you were with your team– was that reassuring?

Oh, absolutely. It was a small town, and everyone just embraced us. There were news articles about this trio from the Pacific Northwest, and it was really cool. I started this in sixth grade, and I went through probably eight years of turmoil and hardship, and I had to navigate a lot of rough waters. And thank the lord my mom was a part of that, obviously, with me and shaping how I did that. It wasn’t until the final two years that I really experienced that success, like where I got to taste it and feel like all my hard work had paid off.

And as I got into the work world, it’s kind of like I started that journey all over again. And a lot of times when you’re in the moment, you don’t think like that. You just think, things are happening to me. This is so hard. There’s no end in sight. I don’t know how I’m ever going to get around this. And then if you just keep your head down and remember the things happening, not like necessarily to you, but how you react to them, and then, all of a sudden, you come out the other side. And all of a sudden, things are amazing. That’s where I’m at now.

You, know, I’ve been with Audigy for seven years, and it’s just the past probably year that I’m like where I was at in the end of my volleyball career, where it’s like, wow, it’s all making sense. It’s all been worth it, like all of it, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Yeah, well, let’s end on this. Let’s end on your perfect day. If you could choose– or your perfect, let’s say, wake up to bedtime. What does that day look like for you without spending like too much time thinking about it. Let’s start right now. You wake up.

Well, I wake up, and it’s like [9:45] or [10:00] in the morning, and I will have gotten like awesome sleep and had really cool dreams, like the kind where you wake up, and you’re like, oh, it’s a good time to get up. I wake up to the smell of bacon. And Nate, my boyfriend, would have already been up for probably three hours, because that’s pretty standard anyway, and he will have made a triple-layer German chocolate cake from scratch, which is also not out of the scope of reality. He just did it last weekend. And he will have bacon ready, and probably a coffee from Starbucks, my quad grande Americana with cream, not to be specific, but to be specific.

And he’d be sitting there with a straw. And I would then sit down in the big chair, and I would put this quilt on me, and I would be starting whatever new season of Orange is the New Black would be on. But there’d be a new season on, and I would get to have a full day of marathon watching of Orange is the New Black. And Nate would want to watch it with me, and he’d be like, OK, what can I get you now? Would you like your bacon? Would you like a slice of cake– whatever the case might be.

And then he would say, oh, and by the way, we’re going to barbecue ribs tonight. We’re going to have people over, and it’ll be outside. The weather would just be tremendously perfect, like 72 degrees, and not like hot at all, grass is green. Bricks is like super happy and running around the backyard. People would bring their dogs over, and have six or seven or eight friends– nothing major. But we would drink Jameson on the rocks. We would smoke some cigars. And at night in the dark we’d play like Zac Brown, like would be just booming, and like neighbors would be like talking to us over the fence and enjoying that whole experience.

Remember, I just watched a whole season of Orange is the New Black, so there’d need to be a time warp. But that kind of like sharing in a moment, but still having my me time, that’s the perfect day for me. Like, let me have my alone time, and then let me have my big social people time.

What time does the social people thing end?

Oh, not till after [6:00], by the way.

That what time it starts?

Yeah.

What time does it end?

[2:00] in the morning.

OK, it goes late. It goes really late.

Well, depending on if they have kids or not. I mean people with kids would probably leave around [11:00] or [12:00]. And then there would be a couple of really cool intimate conversations with whoever was left, and you’ve had that two or three whiskeys too many. And you guys are just talking, and you start talking about stupid stuff that you know nothing about, like politics. I don’t even like talking about that, but if I had a cigar and too many Jamesons, that might be exactly what I want to talk about, and I’d sound ridiculous.

Well, HD, thank you so much for joining us today. I had so much fun. I have never left this hard on a podcast. Anyone who’s listening, we had to take a little bit of a break because I could not stop laughing. And I actually felt like I had like a facial injury from laughing.

Oh, I miss you Meg– good times.

Eileen Kuffner

August 18, 2015 By William Smith

Eileen Kuffner

In today’s show, Meghan gets to know Eileen Kuffner, Program Manager of Audigy Care. Eileen shares stories of her time in New York, working at hospitals and The French Culinary Institute, how to make killer breads and her surprising family ties to the WuTang Clan.

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So, I’m sitting here with Eileen Kuffner. Am I saying your last name correct?

You are.

And Eileen, what is your title here at Audigy?

It’s Program Manager of Audigy Care.

Program Manager of Audigy Care. OK. So what does a typical day in the life of a program manager look like? What do you do?

I pretty much take care of everything, so receptionist to CFO for Audigy Care. So answer all the phones, make sure that all of the claims that we process for our providers with Audigy care are being processed properly, that they’re being paid timely, that they’re being paid correctly, and just assisting any of the providers or office staff who participate with Audigy Care that everything gets handled properly.

Sure. And how many participating members do we currently have?

We have about 120 in Audigy Care currently. So we’ve kind of stayed steady at that number. And we’re looking to expand the services currently that Audigy Care offers to be more assistance to our members in dealing with billing, coding, insurance issues.

Gotcha. Is that one of the big issues, the billing and coding?

Yes. Our providers have a lot of struggles dealing with insurance and submitting claims and getting things reimbursed properly and compliance with billing. So with the addition of my new coworker, Deb Abel, we’re really able to fit that bill now and really assist them with that. So I’m super excited about that.

Yeah. That makes sense. So your new co-worker started when?

She started in June.

In June, OK. So how big is the Audigy Care team now?

It’s two people.

Two of you, huh?

We doubled in size.

It must be nice to a little bit of company, right?

It was. It is. It’s really nice. And she’s very knowledgeable and well respected in the audiology community. So that’s been great.

Well, I’ve seen you around the building for quite awhile. Now we did the Present Like a Pro class together, correct?

Yes.

So how long have you been with Audigy Care? Tell me a little bit about what your career history has been– starting, I guess, with how long have you been with Audigy Care?

So I’ve been with Audigy Care for two years. It was just two years in May.

Happy anniversary.

Yes, thank you.

And so how did you wind up in this position? Where did you come from?

So I came from an anesthesia billing company. I started their credentialing department– so handling all the credentialing for the– I think they had about 800–

What’s credentialing? Excuse my–

OK, so yeah, let’s back up and talk about that.

I know the definition of the word. But as it applies to the–

So my job was to get the anesthesiologists participating with the insurances. So if you had to have surgery, your anesthesiologist would be participating with the insurance that you currently had. So if you had Blue Shield, Blue Cross of Oregon, that provider then was in your network and you got the benefit of your in network benefit. So that’s what I dealt with– making sure that they were all enrolled and credentialed in the insurances they wanted. We had about 900 anesthesiologists, so we took care of all of them.

Was that a Portland Vancouver-based company?

Yes. It was in Beaverton. That was the west office. The had an office in the east. We got bought out– I think it was in 2008. And the company changed, as they do when they get bought by a bigger company. And the company didn’t really seem to care about their employees. And it was hard to give my best when I felt like I wasn’t valued.

So one day, I just got one of those emails from LinkedIn that said, hey, we found a job that we think you’d be perfect for. And it was for the Billing and Credentialing Specialist in Audigy Care. And I thought, I’ve got to apply for this. And did, and–

The rest is history.

Yeah. The rest is history. So here I am.

Let’s go way back and talk about how you got into the insurance billing industry. Well, actually, let’s go back a little bit further. Where did you grow up?

I grew up in New York on Staten Island. Staten island, New York.

So this is where we’ve done a little bit of research on you and learned that your mother was an ER nurse. Is that correct?

My mother did work in the ER. My mother was a nurse. She worked in the ER in Greenwich Village at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. She was in charge of compliance. Anytime anything happened in the ER, she was down there to make sure that the protocols were followed and that everything happened the way it was supposed to. And if there was any issues, she dealt with that kind of stuff.

And your father was a judge?

A Supreme Court judge on Staten Island, yeah.

And this is where it gets really interesting. I heard that there is a lyric in a Wu Tang song that actually calls your father out.

Yes.

Will you please recite that lyric for us?

So my dad had Old Dirty Bastard in front of him from Wu Tang. Because they started on Staten Island. They’re originally from Staten Island.

Oh, he actually–

Yes. All of Wu Tang are from Staten Island. So it was one of Staten Island’s big claims to fame. And he, I believe, had violated his parole or was on probation, something that he had done. He had gotten in a fight or something like that. And he was in front of my father.

And I don’t know if you know this about ODB, any facts about him.

I don’t know.

He had, if I’m not mistaken, 11 children by 10 different women. I think it was some sort of number like that. But they were all in court that day crying about how they didn’t want him to go to jail.

All the women were?

Yes. My father felt that he had violated his parole and sent him to jail. So the lyric is from a song called “Cash Rules.” And the lyric is, there’s no crying in Judge Kuffner’s courtroom.

Oh yeah.

So that was the lyric. And apparently, they might have had another lyric about him, something about my dad maybe being a cracker in another song later on in a different album. So my dad still to this day even here in Portland gets mileage out of that story.

It’s really, really fascinating.

It is one of those funny stories that once you get into it, he loves to tell it. He tells it way better than I do.

Well, thank you for sharing. I think you did a great job.

So you grew up in New York and have siblings?

Yes.

How many siblings?

So I have an older brother who currently lives in Texas. I have an older sister who lives in San Diego. And then I have a younger brother who lives here in Vancouver.

So those are kind of spaced out aside from you and your brother.

But we’re all out here now

Oh yeah, nice. That’s really nice.

So did you go to college in–

No. So that’s how I ended up out here.

Gotcha. So what took place to bring you out here?

So when I was in high school, my grandmother passed away. And my uncle Jim, who lives here in Portland, flew out for the funeral. And I was a junior in high school. And I had told my parents I’m not going to college. College is not for me.

And when he came out, he worked at the University of Portland. And he had worked there for years. I have a cousin who is the same age as I am who was going to go to the University of Portland when she graduated from high school.

And he just said to me, fill out an application. You’ve got nothing to lose. I did. I’m fairly certain my Uncle Jim pulled a lot of strings. But I ended up at the University of Portland, and went there for four years. And really kind of fell in love with the Pacific Northwest.

When I was a senior, my younger brother was a freshman. So he came out here, too. And actually, that’s where he met his wife. So he ended up coming out here, too. But when I graduated, I went back to New York. Because the job market was–

Was better at that time?

Yeah. And my mother was working at Saint Vincent’s Hospital. And that was my first real job after college, was at Saint Vincent’s Hospital in New York.

So what did you major in?

History. Wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with that. I like to joke with my son and tell him that the reason I majored in history is because that was one of the degrees I could take that I would have to take the least amount of math credits.

You’re like me. Just seeing math anywhere just makes me apprehensive and nervous.

So fast forward 15 years after I graduated, that we moved back out here.

OK. So you moved back to New York to work at the hospital?

Yes. So I moved back–

With your History degree.

Yeah, with my History degree. My first job there was in public relations and fundraising. I worked there for about a year, and then moved over to the Department of Surgery and assisted the chairman and ran their surgical residency program. And just stayed and did that, and then took two years off to bake at the French Culinary Institute.

Oh, that’s right. Let’s talk about that. Because I do remember when we did the class together, the Present Like a Pro class, you made the world’s best chocolate chip cookies.

Yes. That’s true.

So you took two years off to do– and they were. They absolutely were. In fact, you really should have brought some today. So talk to me about that. What happened there? And let me just say, I really admire that about you, that you just– because that’s a complete career change. What happened in your life at that point that you were like, I’m going to do something totally different?

So I think it was kind of that– just wanted to try something totally different. My grandmother was a great baker. I always felt intimidated by making yeast breads. How do you know when the water is too warm, that kind of thing? And did a little research and found out that the French Culinary offered a course in what they called International Bread Baking.

And did that for six months. Every Saturday for eight hours, baked bread at the French Culinary Institute. And right before I graduated from the class, the assistant baker in the class quit. And the instructor said, hey, you want to come bake with me? And it was a done deal. So I spent about two years there working in the bread kitchen, just assisting with teaching other people how to bake, and then baking for the restaurant that they had downstairs.

So what is the most complicated thing about baking bread? Actually, let me ask that in a different way. If there was one secret that you could share with me about baking the perfect loaf of bread, what would it be?

I think it would be to just trust your instincts when you’re touching it, when you’re kneading the dough. Don’t be intimidated by, oh, did I knead it enough, is it going to rise right? Just go with it.

Don’t overthink it.

Yeah, don’t overthink it, and just get into it. Unless you actually kill the yeast by your water being–

I mean, you can– yeah.

No, I mean by your water being maybe way too hot and making the yeast die out.

Can’t you overknead, too, or is that not a thing?

I don’t think so, not by hand. I think you’d really have to work it hard to overknead it. Kneading in a bowl, you probably could. But don’t overthink it. Let it happen.

Eventually, the bread is going to rise. Just go with it. But it’s definitely one of those things that you have to do a few times to really get a sense of, oh, this is what it’s supposed to look like. Oh, that’s how it’s supposed to feel.

Two questions. What’s your favorite kind of bread is number one. Number two is what is your bread specialty.

So my favorite kind of bread– so your final project at school was to write your own recipe. So that’s what you had to do. You had to write your own recipe, and that’s how you graduated from the class. So I did write my own recipe for cinnamon raisin bread, which is my favorite. I just love the whole combination of raisins and cinnamon. So

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In today’s show, Meghan gets to know Heather Desmarais (aka HD), our Director of Content Services. We learn about super wipes, volleyball, how to make perfect McDonalds fries and about one of the fastest growing departments at Audigy Group.

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In today’s show, Meghan gets to know Eileen Kuffner, Program Manager of Audigy Care. Eileen shares stories of her time in New York, working at hospitals and The French Culinary Institute, how to make killer breads and her surprising family ties to the WuTang Clan.

Read the transcript: