to get to know them back on to his right hand. people and helping clients Oh my God. Yeah. This is my third day in a row doing degrees in Austin. Oh, wow. I feel like I'm doing a tour, mostly of North. I've actually never spent time in North Austin, so I feel like I'm experiencing new Austin. Yeah, well, have you had a tiki drink yet? Not in Austin. Oh, hey, well, hey, welcome to Austin with a tiki vibe. Yeah, well, just look at this guy right there. Yeah, right.
um what is this called what are we drinking the one one-eyed monster yeah and the and the guy does have only one eye Okay. And what is in this thing that we're checking at? Bacardi? Yeah, this one has Bacardi, dragonberry, Bacardi, raspberry, lemon, and peat. So I'll give it a taste. We are. Oh my god, we need a pool right now. We do. Well, it's so good to meet you. You too. It's so good to meet you.
And, uh, and I'm so excited to hear all about you. And, um, well, congratulations, 17 years earning an agency, you know, in the world we live in. what am i 13 years okay um with my second agency done that for quite a long time, just being an agency. Poof, I know. Ah, it's something else, right? oh my goodness yes it's so much fun and so much work but it's also so rewarding you know i i agree i agree well let's talk about yours juice yeah what for people who don't know what is
Juice, Juice Consulting. Well, okay, so we are a peer marketing agency. That's the best descriptor of us, but we do so many different things under the marketing umbrella. I mean, I feel like we... we're highly strategic we work with clients on a lot of you know just things when they want to really integrate and become a brand in the city, Austin.
And they want to let their voice be heard or let their message get out. You know, we think about it in terms of there's a PR angle, there's a PR side of it, but there's also so many other aspects, you know, community engagement. highly strategic alliances.
um putting people together and they really were in the people business sure you know but like using a kind of a very intuitive process of like what would really work for this client what's going to help them get where they want to go and so pr is a piece of that but then there's a whole other spectrum of marketing that we use as well i mean i you know i always you know i'm a product and i always talk to people about the fact that like one of the things that i'm
not good at is the other side of things, which is PR and marketing. What I'm really good at and my team is really good at is creating the thing that If someone else, like... drive people there, we're good at getting people to stay and do the things that we need to do when they get there. And the other side of that is PR marketing. And so I'm always jealous of the PR side, the marketing side. It's just not our schedule. And so...
When I think about what kind of talent that you and Eugene have, I'm always thinking about how do you... When you're thinking about approaching the challenges that you and your clients face, where do you start? Someone comes to you and says, okay, I'm not talking about the pitch process. I'm talking about... The problem is at hand. There's a problem to solve. Where do you start with that problem? Yeah, it's a very...
i'd say a lot of in-depth conversations you know a lot of in-depth conversations I almost wear a journalistic hat when we meet with clients because we have so many questions and we want to get to the bottom of what it is that they're there, but why are they coming to us? So it's a lot of really trying to deeply understand the... what it is they're all about and also the nuances behind it.
And, you know, it often involves a lot of conversations before you even get going on the campaign. Right. You never go pen to paper before you know what problem you're solving, why you're solving it, and most importantly, who you're solving it for. Right. Yeah, I mean, speaking of pen to paper, one of our favorite activities is writing because that's part of our job as well. So like writing.
the storyline often in the form of a press release or some sort of announcement, obviously key message development and things like that. And then even the pitches that we send out to media and things like that. But for me, that's always like the best way to understand a client is to get into that exercise because it really does force you to look at it from a standpoint of. Telling a story, you know, and what are those key elements of the story and building that message out.
It's actually one of my favorite things to do is write. I love writing press releases and working with my team on them and figuring out how to tell that story in a way that's different. and help the clients sometimes even understand themselves better than they may have when they came to us because sometimes they can't even put it into words, you know? But we love to put it into words. Most people don't know how to put a door, the thing that they're trying to combat. I always tell our clients,
Whatever it is you want to do to get your idea down. If you want to draw something, draw it. If you want to write something, write it. If you want to, you know... record something, record it. We'll figure out how to translate it. Our job is to translate it into the thing. But
our job is to translate. And I think maybe your job is to translate into that messaging as well. Is that accurate or not? Absolutely. When we... so one of the things that i like to figure out is what is what is the ug um what is the unique story you know so one of the ways we we get into that is you know bio writing is another example of the work we do foundational work we do so
Getting, first of all, understanding not only what the client and the brand and their thing is that they're trying to announce to the community, but who is behind it? Who is the person, the visionary? And every one of these people have a really interesting, compelling story.
you know so it's like getting to what is that story you know i'm when i'm i think this is why i'm meant to be a pr person but when i'm like walking into a room at an event or something and i know two people in the room when i introduce people it just comes out of me like i have no control over
but i'm like okay this is so and so here's what they do and guess what did you know that that they did this or you know i i usually remember things about people and i i find it so fun to be able to speak on their behalf
maybe say something they wouldn't even say about themselves because i find people exciting you know it gets me gets me excited and be like oh you did that or you know and i think every single person in the entire world has something unique about them or something special they've done in their life and unless you you know it's very very rare people will say it on their own in that early conversation so um i have a friend who does this as well part of her innate personality um her name is tracy
and one of the things that she does is she does the same thing like she will just walk through and she's always like well this is so and so this is so and so y'all need to meet because of this and so when she and i are in a room together
We're on fire. It's really fun. Do you find that that makes you more of a connector as a person? Like even outside of the room, you find that you love, you know, just... whether that be personally or personally like finding ways to connect people and you know in life yeah 100 i mean it gives me so much joy to like not only connect people but
connect organizations and that's i think that's my sweet spot you know the whole company we all have things that we each do and things that we each i'd say shine in my sweet spot is connecting people and it's a lot of times it's not just Me going, oh, this thing would be good with us. It's like, actually, I get like a crazy gut feeling about it. And I'm like, they need to meet. We need to get these people in a room. And I always call, lately I've been calling them live.
million dollar meeting you know like this meeting might be a million dollar meeting not necessarily for us right but for someone else i'm like this is gonna be big all right this meeting right here is going to be big but that builds karma point i think not because you wanted to build karma plane because it builds this this sense that like okay They're going to remember that you brought them together. Yeah. And later on, and there's a relationship that you have with them already, but it just.
builds that relationship over time yeah they're gonna know that like you're looking out yeah you know what i mean yeah yeah it's such an important part of that war isn't sure yeah and it gives me energy it's like the whole concept of our company is juice consulting yeah um because it's like the word juice is kind of play on words
but i still i've been doing this a long time like almost three over three decades but i still get all excited you know when these things happen i get really excited and i'm really like pumped up about it and i get very um authentically you know, happy when something really good comes out of these introductions or meetings or, you know, just that little universe we operate in in PR.
And it's so interesting because it's like, I think a lot of people think of PR as just media relations, you know, or working with the press, but it's so much more than that. That's one piece of it. You know, it's way bigger than that. And helping our clients. you know, seek out opportunities to be recognized, you know, on spot leadership side. It's something we're really excited about and a lot more of. Um, and just that again, community, like knowing the community, understanding.
you know the players are and the people that actually have a huge influence around them and you know It's really, yeah, it's really fun. I think from something you touched on there about the reputation of PR, and I think in some ways... That's two people who are writing this thing as a reputation of agents.
is one that is a challenging one. I mean, on one hand, sometimes agencies are your best friends and sometimes people look at us as your, you know, mortal enemy, you know, agencies have this reputation of being, you know, the the people who are trying to fleece people for whatever reason which i don't think we're trying to do i think we're always looking out we're looking out for community we're looking we're kind of like
create the best opportunities possible for people. And it sounds like you're like me, you're very much about building a movie and building a relationship. I've been reading and doing some research about you and about how you build.
Your company, it sounds like you've built a... on the shoulders of the world before the mouth and on on and on reputation which is the best way i think it's best way to talk about mine as well yeah like how how has that come about for you like how have you been able to do that for 17 years that's a pretty big testament to how you know how it's real not and not like going out there and like making cold calls you know what i mean yeah yeah Well, so it really stemmed from my background.
and when i started the company in 2007 i was in a very very very unique role job wise right that actually uh allowed me to be somewhat of a i'd say I'm very lucky. a gatekeeper for a very known Texan. Right. i got to meet a lot of people in that job yeah and a lot of people got to know me in that job and and i i think we earned a lot i learned a lot of trust with people because of the role i was in so i was working with um
Beyonce for five years. And we will definitely talk about that part of my career for sure. Yeah, it was kind of an incredibly... unique life experience that i would have never in a million years thought i would ever find myself in but there's a whole thing that happened to lead to that but but basically when i was working with her and her family and her father specifically i had um
i just met so many people in the music industry specifically around texas and entertainment industry you know nationally and globally and so when i started the agency my idea was i'm just going to be an independent consultant just me by myself and i'm going to be a service to anyone in the
you know business that needs me i can fly here fly there it was just like a you know a way of um taking my experience and sharing it with others and trying to you know as an expert in the field yeah sure but my background was here in marketing so on my background with Beyonce I was marketing but the PR piece I hadn't done that while I was working with her I worked with her publicist
but i i decided to go back to my roots and offer pr because that was what i studied and done years prior and then offer the marketing experience and product management experience i had with with her and universal music prior to that I opened up a shop, hung my shingle in my bedroom. in my bedroom in Houston and I worked from there and it slowly grew. I had one person come work with me then I had another person come work with me and it was always like one or two people per year.
and then i had my kids um we're now 14 and 12 and i was able to you know keep the agency running during that time but after the kids got a little older i was like all right now it's time to really put my head down and do this so that's when it started growing even more and incrementally we've grown you know six people but um i will say Still, 90% referral is what we get still. People still know that background. I think they've heard about us through that. It's kind of cool.
But nowadays, we're switching and pivoting to certain parts of the industry that are a little bit outside of what we normally do. And in those cases, we are putting ourselves in situations where we can network and be present. I would say those things are a little bit more like, okay, we got to, we're going to go after this business. We're going to pursue this. Yeah.
Luckily, that's how we got into the tech sector. We started to immerse ourselves in it and talk to people and say, we want to do this. Luckily, people started giving us referrals. so so you started in 2007 right so i started my first agency in 2007 much like you coming up the heels of some pretty crazy success um i mean i just launched trulube oh my god right yeah like you know so beyonce but it's something um and like my first clients or
the Wall Street, like, redesigned the Wall Street Journal. We had just launched through CNN and the Wall Street Journal. I'm talking about CNN and the New York Times, sorry. So those are, like, three things, and then we started our company. Damn. So, you know. some things, some things. And then like we launched the Wall Street Journal and I was up for clients and a couple other things. And I was like, all right, you know, we're off of the bag. Yeah. You know.
And what a great time. We didn't know the economy was about to go like that. But also, I think a great time to launch a startup. I'm an agency actually in a down economy because
It's when people are looking out to launch. That's a good point. So I'm curious to hear your experience at that time, you know, because it is an interesting time to relaunch at something when... you know people are looking for stuff and what was you know even if it was just you it was just me and my partner at the time as well you know what year was this again 2007 so i'm really curious like those those early years for you
because you mentioned like how it was just you and maybe one other person and you were like what was it like you know you're in houston so you're in your bedroom it was interesting because the woman that was advising in my accounting said to me well if you want to grow i'm going to just give you a very simple solution a simple simple path you know to grow with she's like um you know how much you want to make a year
And all you need to do to hire another person is, you know, make this much more with your retainers every month. So that's how you're going to grow. And she gave me that, that math, you know, um, simple, simple stuff. Very easy, but you know, starting out when you think you're just going to do it on your own, but I realized I needed.
an administrative person at that time and and somebody to just support me in the office back office things like that but eventually what i needed was more publicists you know people that was what people kept coming to us for but Back to your question, I don't think I really felt it too much. I think 2008 maybe would have been a more difficult time for me. That's when we really started to see the changes economically.
But I was still so small at the time that it wouldn't take a lot to run the business. You know what I mean? Yeah. I was just paying me and one other person. So it wasn't terrible. And it was still a referral all coming to you. Yeah. Um, the people in your net. Right. Yeah. So it wasn't like we had a difficult time even then, you know, making ends meet. What was more difficult was COVID and the pandemic.
because i had a bigger staff at that time and um that was when my financial advisor was like no heather you're probably not going to lose somebody or two people or three people and i was like there is no way because once we come back from this these are people that i've been with me for years and have been training and and these this is the core of the company i cannot lose them yeah so we just
pivoted to do more work in the pandemic realm and COVID-related realm where people were needing PR for COVID-related projects. So we just said, you know what, we're going into the pandemic business for a while. And that's how we helped get through that because, you know, and our music and entertainment wasn't.
Yeah, I mean, one of the things I think about a lot... or I thought about a lot during COVID was how So many businesses had to think on their feet, you know, had to pivot or whatever pivoting meant for them, you know, for restaurants it was. What do we do? For agencies, it was, what do we ever do? What do we do? Yeah. So what did that mean? It meant we had to pivot to COVID related things. What did that mean?
Well, there were a few campaigns going on that were COVID focused. You know, we took on a movie called The COVID Crusades, which was at the time a documentary film documenting what was going on with people around the country in relation to COVID. and how they were handling it.
We worked on a number of campaigns that were just coming up with policies around COVID and, you know, messaging with that and even like grant programs that were going on with venues and things that people were doing to assist musicians and creatives. and also all the virtual stuff oh my god we had to learn really quickly how to host
virtual events online. Which is a big thing everyone was doing. We didn't know anything about that, you know, so we ended up having to learn technology that we weren't used to doing just for our clients' sake. And, you know, it was like people were paying us to host things online.
get the right kind of reduction in place for those things and everybody went virtual you know so we were kind of adapting doing a lot of virtual events you know i mean musicians are still playing but it was all virtual and one thing that was really interesting too is that when events started coming back i think we hosted one of the first big in-person events after the vaccine in Austin that was with a local record label.
I say one of the first because I just feel like no one was still going out and we just said, you know what, we're going to do it. And people came because they were vaccinated and they were like, I'm going out again, you know? And it was so awesome. Everybody was so happy to see one another. And then all of a sudden, they're getting call after call from organizations that just wanted to do events again.
And so we were right back at it doing events. Luckily, nothing went terribly wrong with that because it is risky putting yourself back out there. At this point, we'd all had COVID and multiple times, you know, but it was it was exciting to be at the forefront of those events again.
And people were hiring us for welling out all butts in seats services, which is getting people in the room, getting a crowd out. I will give credit for that phrase, butts in seats. My very first boss told me at the headline group, she said, One of the big things we do in PR is we get butts in seats.
simple and then jackie and my team said now we also get feats on floors and i'm like that's actually cool we need some trucker hats with that that's true yeah did you guys know i mean you're in a it's an interesting state because austin is uh blue and is bluer and texas as you may know a bit ratter um oh yeah and covetous it's a weirdly divisive and Unfortunately, I think political thing, which maybe a pandemic shouldn't be political, but the only reason I bring it up is that.
events and vaccines became political. I actually don't know how much that was a thing in Austin when people had to share vaccine cards or whatever. Did you have to encounter stuff like that as you guys were doing events? Yeah. Yeah, there were a couple things where we were recommending to our client, which probably for the sake of.
being conscientious, you know, make sure people are vaccinated when they attend or can capture proof of it. It was very important here in Austin for people to, if they're going to be coming out, to have. either that promise or that commitment that they have been vaccinated i mean do you remember that God, it feels like a distant memory now, but it wasn't that long ago. It's both a decade ago and not a decade ago. It's not that long ago, but it is.
it does feel weird to think about it all but um i remember making that recommendation numerous times to uh people were working with like just do it right you know like you got to be conscientious here especially when it comes to media attending they were not they were not interested in going out attending your event without the proper things in place. That was really important for local media. Yeah, absolutely. Well, they don't want to get sick. Yeah. You expect people to come.
you know you can recommend your client to your blue in the face like what you think they should do and most of the time it works sometimes they don't always feel the same way you do but you know we do our best I ask that out of genuine curiosity. I live in New York and New York was a very
different situation. Well, actually, I don't know those different things. I mean, we had vaccine cards and you couldn't go into bars without a vaccine card. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, that wasn't really fully required here. Not surprisingly. Yeah. I mean, I remember going to...
My mom lives in South Carolina and we went to South Carolina to visit her. I think it was like... it was like 2021 maybe and uh and we went to visit a friend of ours i was a bar in charleston and he was like yeah no like we were partying all the time and we got covid the south and the north yeah we got covid three times but like we still kept it going i was like i know yeah and i was like i own a bar in new york and i'm like yeah we had
People are at the door checking vaccine cards every night for months, for better or worse. I don't know. It was like the city said we have to do it, so we did it. It's an interesting dichotomy there. It is a very big dichotomy. I think the bigger cities in Texas were more conscientious of those things.
and that just goes to show you how our political you know map looks too right like you know people people are a little more conscientious and like you know austin houston dallas san antonio but then you know as you get in the more rural areas it doesn't reflect but i asked that because i because i you know i asked that not as a loaded question but from a pr standpoint because And I imagine you have to think about those things.
as you're as you're putting on events or as you're advising your client you mentioned this like you're advising your clients like yeah because it does impact the perception perception yeah yeah absolutely i always think about how that is going to affect the client you know that's our job is to get in there and sometimes i have to make really hard recommendations that are uncomfortable to make but it's like you know
i don't want to see somebody fail especially if they've hired us to advise them and give them advice you know i feel like there's ways of going about things or you don't alienate people and you know great I don't know. There's definitely ways of holding a client's hand through situations like that. Yeah. And hopefully they trust us enough to know that we're giving them the best advice we can give them. Yeah.
because you do we work with all kinds of people all kinds of clients so there's a lot of different viewpoints out there but um I tend to be somewhere... in the middle of trying to understand all sides of the coin and saying, okay, there's a middle ground here, you know, and there's a middle ground where I think you can find a comfort zone and appeal to all audiences versus just one.
Right. We've been talking a lot about PR, the deal side of your company with marketing, obviously. And so when you think about that side of your company, what are kind of the... the kind of projects you like you prefer taking on when it comes to marketing uh campaigns is there is there a particular vertical or a particular stage of a company that that you feel is like your spot for marketing I love startups. I love things that are just getting burned.
birth into the universe. Like the zero to go to market. Yeah. I love that. I love being on the ground level of things that haven't been really fully fleshed out yet. Yeah. I think we have a lot of creativity. You know, we're very good at like touch phrases and, you know, logo concepts and things that are a little bit out of the box. And helping that brand identity process is really fun for me. So I like that. Get really, really jazzed up about new things.
But then again, like if a brand needs to make a resurgence or make a comeback or reinvent itself, I like that stuff too. yeah i i funny i was talking to my wife about this the other day about brands that need to be turned around it's uh it's one of the most challenging things to do let's take a brand that just gone and tanked and needs to make a comeback. And there are very few good stories of brands that have come back.
And it's exciting when they do. You know what I mean? I think, you know, we were talking about Abercrombie as a brand that's come back recently and really got a total 180. And, you know, I can't really think of another good one in the recent history that's going to turn around. But are there other brands that you've seen recently and you think like, you know, wow, that's surprising to me that they're actually back in play? And if not, then that's okay, too. Um...
Yeah, it's very interesting to think about that. I think with our marketing stuff, I mean, it's really, it's more hyper localized to the Austin market, you know, so. When I think about things that are exciting, it's like one of the things that's really like a popular thing that we're dealing with clients right now is like how to translate old Austin.
to the new austin that is coming here because the city is changing rapidly you know we're really like on that cusp of the 10th largest city in the united states and There's so many people moving here every day from California and other parts of the country. The tech industry is huge here, obviously, still growing. The brand that I'm excited about is that process of how do we help the new people understand?
the history of austin thinking about you know just that cultural identity as a brand that someone has yes and it does yeah so many of our clients are in the middle of figuring that out because they realize a lot of people come here and they don't really know. uh the history nor do they have they haven't developed an appreciation for it yet because they're so new yeah yet people have been living here for a long time they celebrate that history they embrace it like austin love
We love to celebrate our local culture. So we're in the middle of a lot of discussions with clients on that brand, how to hold on to that brand, yet translate it to the newcomers. and I mean that's something I'm excited about because I think it's important. you know cities grow we never want to lose that that's the soul of a city where do you think that that old austin i knew austin where's that switch i feel like i was here for it you know i remember when i moved here in 2000 end of 2008.
My impression was Austin was a very small city. Yeah, it felt very small. Yeah, I moved from Houston. and before that i was living in amsterdam i lived in atlanta and i lived in paris for a brief period of time and um my impression there's a whole story there but um but my impression of austin is oh this is very small yes mostly i remember the first time going to a restaurant uh probably in 2009 or 10 where there was a 20 000 bottle of wine on the menu and that was what my course
ding ding ding something's changing here you know like this is different this is not normal austin is super low-key very laid back wasn't i wouldn't describe it as a cosmopolitan city back then it was definitely still a more hippie you know hipster cowboy you know the music vibe the music industry so i mean of course we still had the tech industry going but um all of a sudden i feel like it was maybe
That was the start of it. But then all of a sudden, you know, what year was it that Elon Musk moved here? That was when we saw like a whiplash reaction to, um, a major shift in the Austin scene. real estate crisis dramatically went up. Um, of course the tech industry was just coming in like crazy. Yeah. Um, in addition to moving here, it wasn't just for self-fighting was like, people are
In droves. I mean, people come here for the taxes. There's a very big entrepreneurship feeling here. It's a very welcoming place. It's a lovely environment to live in. people started to hear about it more and more um after that it was just like gangbusters well this is where the podcast takes another turn Not in the battle.
I want to take a little trip down memory lane. We're going to go back to Pennsylvania. Oh, I love that. Right? Who doesn't love Pennsylvania? I mean, that's where you're from. Pennsylvania. I do. Now, where in Pennsylvania you're from? I am from Hazelton in Pennsylvania. Where is that? West Italy. I'm sorry, or West Chisenthal. Not to be confused with Hazelteth. Right. There's two sides to Hazelteth. It is in northeastern PA.
A lot of people know it because... highways 80 and 81 across there, but it's actually very close to Spanton. Well, I've been to Scranton. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of people know Scranton because of the office and Joe Biden and all that. And I also grew up kind of very close to the Pocono Mountains. My father still lives in that area. My uncle lives in Hazleton. And, you know, came from a coal mining family on one side. And then a very interesting...
Very well-educated Jewish family on the other. And you grew up Catholic and Jewish, which is a very, I think, warring side. That's a very interesting, I think, dichotomy.
I mean, I grew up mostly practicing phallicism since my mom, you know, she was... raising me with with that as our practice and uh went to capitol school for eight years and yeah i'm top capitol school let's do it yeah yeah oh what you taught you taught no it's not right i went to capitol school okay but i i don't I don't practice like that either, but I mean I still really... I love the traditions and I love the fact that I was brought up with that.
when i was 15 or so i became much more of a spiritually aware person and probably more than a physical world sure sure and so and i think having a jewish you know, father and Jewish grandparents. I mean, just remain open-minded, you know what I mean? Yeah. So I'm open to all, all ideas, all philosophies, like a little bit from each one. And as we were growing up, like, you know,
I know even from my research around you that music was a big part of your life and obviously still is. When you think about music growing up, what was your connection to it? Was it just being a fan of music? Where did music run in your band? How did it run? I don't think I realized that when I was growing up I was so immersed in music that I didn't realize. the impact it would have on me later. Of course not. None of us do. Yeah.
i mean so as a young child i mean when i was a kid my my uncle was a jay's musician and i grew up basically living with my grandmother a big percentage of the time while my mom was working i mean mom mom and dad divorced when i was very young so i was at my grandmother's house a lot my uncle lived there and he played like i don't know seven different instruments or something accordion piano Brahms, you know, he was just always playing music and he was in a traveling pulpa band when I was a kid.
so when i was um polka amazing polish you know My earliest memories are when my very first memory was when my grandmother and my uncle came to our house, knocked on the door of my mom's house, and they said, okay, Heather, we're here. We want to take your bottle. You know, Bobby Vincent asked for it. Bobby Vincent was like the biggest polka.
polka guy that of the time and and i grew up listening to him so two and a half years old i kind of have this memory and i still remember this faintly in my mind giving my bottle because bobby vincent asked for it and then growing up at cap polish package school we would do polka dances we had polka like my in the seventh or eighth grade or maybe sixth grade i don't remember what year it was but my best friend melinda and i we in a talent show we were the polka pal
You know, we polka danced. You polka danced? For the whole school. Yeah. That's our talent. That was our talent, polka pals. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. and my grandmother she taught me how to polka dance in our you know our kitchen and it was always on the vinyl record you know so it's like i have those memories i think god i'm old
I don't know that. Oh, boy. The Pokedance, I don't think, is what makes you old. It's the original Bobby Vint. Yeah. My record that does. Yeah. That just makes you special. That's where it all started. That's where it all started. Then, as I grew older, my grandfather on my father's side, you know, I learned about his history, and he was an opera singer who sang in five languages. He came to America during the Holocaust, and he went...
Right. I went into the Navy choir and then he studied at Juilliard. Right. I think because of the Navy, he was able to get in Juilliard. I know that my grandmother at that time went to NYU. And they got together, so they were living in New York when Allen Ginsberg and the beatnik poets were around. What an amazing time to be in New York, right? Yeah. Yeah, and so I had that cultural influence. But my fire was really lit probably when I was in seventh grade. I was kind of...
I always tell this story. I was a very introverted kid. and i had some headphones on i was in there i was in the school playground and i was listening to this i think it was either it was both run dmc and the beastie boys because that was who i was into at the time and i was like jamming out probably singing and my seventh grade teacher came up to me and he's like
homegirl and he's like that's your new nickname like you're a girl homegirl like i see what you're doing i see you rapping over there he's because i was rapping the music or whatever yeah and so that was my nickname and then he was just like and a really pivotal person in my life to make me feel like more self-confident because he saw something in me like that and he noticed me and it was like that was the the start of it you know then i started really getting into music yeah and
all kinds of music, like Duran Duran and Smiths and The Cure.
pon jovi was big one being in pennsylvania yeah sure i mean in that time was we're talking like what like 87 like yeah 87 was the year that was 86 87 like that's a i mean because i'm big in the years like run dmc bon jovi beast keeper ways like those years nailed it that was like that's right that's the time of all those bad i mean yeah like that's like i just think about all the albums that came out around those years like holy shit yeah And when I was 11 I will always remember Duran Duran.
Being like a life-changing, The Reflex was a song, you know, Seven in the Eye of the Ragged Tiger, I was like dancing on my bed. My parents had moved into a temporary. My mom and my stepdad who adopted me, we moved into this new temporary house, smaller building house. I was jumping on the bed in this old house. to the reflex and the ceiling thing crashing down on me because i was you know jumping so hard
And then years later, years and years later, I was at an event. I met Simon Le Bon after the Duran Duran concert. I was acting backstage or that was at an event where I got to meet him. And what did I do? I came home. You know, in my... probably early 30s and i danced on my bed again and i was listening to the same song and i'm like i know the roof's not going to collapse on me now but like that music still does that for me when i hear that you know yeah so So did you at that point think...
My life has to be, music has to be part of my life.
not at all no what did you what was like nothing about well i i always say this and i know it's not true because i was i was about to say nothing of us know what we want to be when we grow up like i like i knew what i wanted to do when i grew up but i was like in third grade did i i mean i didn't do that but i mean that's not true i kind of did but like i can't but i but like i knew from like third grade until in my 20s i was like i knew exactly what i wanted to do and
So I always wonder, do people know, but like in general, like what direction do you want to go in? I was going to be everything from a nun for a doctor. Okay. Yeah. Different directions. Different directions. You can be a nun doctor. That would be a TV show. A nun doctor. My Catholic side of the family was like, you're going to be a nun. Great. You know, and then my Jewish side of the family was like, you need a doctor. So funny, actually. Boy, does that try. Yeah.
Didn't do either. Oh my god, I cannot believe I just said that. These are memories I have not excavated for a very long time. Like this second drink. This is why this podcast is so awesome. Wow. Okay. You didn't run to the Covenant or med school. Fair enough. The Convent. The Covenant was what you would have done in the Convent. In the middle of that, where did you want to go? I think I didn't really know until I got into high school. And that was when I started to realize that I really loved
Theater. Theater was my focus in high school. I thought for sure maybe I would go major in theater. But I also knew I loved people. Theater's a fine major. I don't know. Oh, yeah? Did you major? I did. Oh, I love that.
i mean i'm surprised i didn't minor in theater but i just had to go cool throttle into public relations but i felt like i was very business-minded and i felt like i felt like more of a more um i don't know i mean ultimately i was intrigued by the field of public relations University of Georgia, which is where I ended up going, had a great journalism program with a great PR program.
ended up pursuing that and i thought i'll do theater on the side well what happened was i got to georgia and i ended up instead of doing theater i got into college radio Oh, yeah. That was very influential to my longer-term interests. Well, Grady is an amazing student. Yeah. I particularly love Grady. I teach there every year. I go down there. Why?
i do about our few days of the workshop there oh my god i love that word uh i do a lot of the business that journalism down there oh my god oh no i i do i love jojo and i go down there that is i love athens i love also the music team while living in Athens was life-changing having that experience of that that i mean i have so many rem stories some really really all right all right come on give me at least one oh my god
but they were past their prime not past their prime but they were they were like they were past their time yeah they were already legend yeah you know so i think i got turned on to rem right before my freshman year of georgia so I think everybody's like, oh, Michael Stipe lives in Athens, you know, blah, blah, blah. B-52s, you know, all these great bands.
and i knew i had to keep an eye out for him so my first rem story is i was in finally a freshman in georgia yeah and i'm in this local co-op grocery store you know like a natural grocery store which is really when you're when you're in appings georgia you're going to go to that you know natural organic grocery store so many great places like that and i'm shopping i'm legit looking for something and i see michael stipe in the in the aisle
like randomly he's just shopping course yeah i'm like oh my god because that's where he can be a normal person yeah yeah and he's just looking at stuff and i i'm like oh my god i have to meet him so i walked up to him and i go excuse me do you know where the avocado oil is because i i was looking for avocado and he would know and he would know yeah like a conditioner for my hair and he looks at me he goes i don't work here
I didn't say quite like that. It's like, I don't work here. And I'm just like, oh, sorry. That was my first experience. Oh my. but then over the years i had many actually you know before that this is a really good story i was at working for Disneyland Paris and my friend Hans Peter worked with me at the station was like Heather you know we didn't have mobile phones back then so we're like talking on the landline He's like, I have tickets to REM at BRC. Would you like to come?
and i'm like yes and i was 20 years old going to paris meet my friend hunts peter he gets us backstage we're talking to some of the backup band members and the rm's manager get invited to go out with them so we go to a club in paris and we walk into the club with one of the backup guitarists and there's paparazzi taking pictures of us walking into the club right just because we're with the band we get down into this little underground club area and it's like a table for 10.
And so I get sat down and it's Michael Stipe, a beautiful woman who I wasn't quite sure who she was. And then, you know, Mike Mills was there, Hans Peter. and i say hello to this woman and it's she goes i'm helena melena christensen oh my god next to me and so we're getting champagne we're having a good time i'm hanging out with all these guys
And the crux is right, we ended up going back and sleeping in Mike Mills' hotel room that night because we had nowhere to go. Because our whole transport system shut down in Paris. So he was like, come on! That's pretty impressive. I have so many art. I could write a book about it, but I love these stories.
and last one was i was at the mtv awards in edinburgh with beyonce and i was introduced to michael strike yet again professionally right and we sat and talked with the vice president of mtv and uh the head of our international staff and we're just talking as colleagues or you know like i mean you know i'm like hi i've met you like many times i stopped you and then i took pictures of you and i saw you at the 41.
We hung out in Paris and this and that. I'm like, I'm Heather. I'm like, Heather. Well, so you get through grading, you get through UGA. And I mean, you kind of. To get unconventional route. Was it while you were at UGA or when did you go to Disney World Paris? That was my senior year of college. You spent like six months you spent there? Yes.
yeah what was that that was like not quite an internship or wasn't it what was it was a work exchange program okay so they picked like 40 americans from around the country to go work in paris every year And they wanted mostly fluent students. The first year I applied for it, they were like, no, you're not fluent enough. And they were picking kids who had grown up with French families and all that.
the next year they called me out of the blue and i was about to graduate and they're like you know we've changed our program now we're hiring people and we're putting them in an immersion two-week immersion program with friends
So now we can hire you. Would you like to come over? And so... you know my parents are like wait you're about to graduate what do you want to do and i'm like i want to go you know i found out that the university of georgia would give me a i'd taken a french at georgia and prior to that that if i did this work exchange they'd give me a minor
Right. So I got the minor. Disney paid. They were paying me like an employee. I got this immersive program when I got there in a language. And I got to live in Paris for six months, you know, or outside of Paris. It was an amazing life experience. What's the draw? I was a bartender.
uh in the sports bar the sport bar because they like international crew you know from around the world But while I was there, I interned, I did like a mini internship with their PR department and I was like involved with the media.
relations activation around space the opening of space mountain which is what we had like fruits from around the world coming in and i was like escorting them around i tried to do something professionally related while i was there right but really it was all about the french language like being immersed i had to speak french in the job like i had to speak french i also had to learn a little bit of german
and a little bit of other European languages because people would give you money and you had to count it out for them and normally it was in French. But sometimes like somebody would be like, I didn't speak French. They didn't want to speak English. You're just like, all right, you want some beer? Right, right, right. Well, I think what's interesting about when I was reading about this was that.
you know before you went into the music industry which i assume the first music industry job was the startup you worked after we'll talk about in a second you went and worked in like and internationally but like you spent some time there like what what was it That drove you to go.
into something so... which seems so not you. Was that on my LinkedIn page? Yes, it was. Yeah, because I don't really put that in my bio because it was a race job. I didn't stay there very long. You said I did my race job. I mean, my research was going to your LinkedIn page. Wow. And the banking thing was, um, so basically I got a job at the, um, Azeee! PR manager. They're still in PR. Or global transaction services for ABNRO Bank.
i lived in the netherlands i was there for five years and prior to that i was working for an international mba program that was the first job i got when i moved over there yeah so my other passion is global like i love traveling i loved living abroad There's a personal story that relates to how I got there, but Disneyland Paris was a part of my life. And then I ended up moving to Holland for five years. I had a relationship with a Dutch guy for 11 years.
But while I was in Holland, my first job was at a university that had an international MBA program. And it was such an inspiring environment to be in. I was there for two years. And with all the students that we were putting through the programming, they're from around the world, they're getting their MBA and then they're going off to work for these big international brands and big, you know, entities, you know, PricewaterhouseCoop or, you know, any one of these things.
Amém. I got a job offer to go work for ABN Amro Bank, which is one of the biggest Dutch banks, right? And they offered me an international position, PR. And I thought, this would be cool. You know, I got, when my boss was leaving, I decided I was going to leave too, because at the university, because he was my mentor. very, very close ally. I didn't really know if I should stay once he was leaving, so I left too. They gave me an International Honorary MBA.
MBA alumni designation and I was like, I'm so inspired by these MBAs. And so I went and got this job, but it wasn't for me. So I stayed there for nine months. I did some really cool stuff. I traveled to London. Like I'd take day trips to London to go work in the financial district and work with our marketing team over there. It all seemed sexy and cool. I just wasn't into it. But at the same time, I was, um, I was like.
edging my way i was like i gotta get back in the music industry i've got to get back because i started my role in music at a peer firm in atlanta that did music entertainment pr and so i met the ambassador from the u.s to the netherlands terry dornbus through just some networking groups and stuff and he was like yeah i'm looking for a marketing director start up and look i'm working with sound artists is looking for a marketing director do you know anyone he's like i just invested in it
i'm like you did like i have a little bit of a music industry background i said what about me And he helped me get the job. This is around like 2001. This is where I think we overlap. Because I was 2000, 2001 when I worked for this company. We probably didn't overlap, but maybe... I mean, we may have. We were doing mostly the international circuit with trade shows, and we had a very large international audience, but it was mostly European, I think. Yeah, probably.
Wait, what was the copyright? What did I get? so they were basically they created a a web-based platform that was like a place to take music and pitch it out to A&R's, publishers, record labels. So raw, you know, songs and pitch them out. It's a little bit like Taxi, if you remember Taxi from back in the day, but it was European based. And they were pretty well funded. So, you know, I did become a marketing director there and I was in charge of like managing a very, very large marketing budget.
And we had Saatchi and Saatchi working for us. I was doing advertisements in Billboard magazine and we had a very big newsletter that we distributed and I was the editor of the newsletter. So I get to travel all over and represent the company at trade shows.
work with all kinds of people but they didn't last super long i think it was like i don't know that i can't remember exactly how long it was but they ran out of funding in maybe year two and so at that point i'd met a lot of people and the president the guy overseeing universal music for the nordic countries
And the Netherlands and Belgium was one of the people I was going to interview for the newsletter. And I had this interview set up and then the day we found out that... the company wasn't continuing i had this interview with the ceo of universal for northern europe right so i'm like
i gotta keep this disappointment yeah you gotta do it so i told them in advance i said i'm so sorry but this company is not going to continue i'm terribly sorry i said but is there any way i can still meet with you because i need a job and he took the meeting And that's how I got into working with the Universal Museum. Yeah, and so you move to URG and what?
what role like first of all how do you parlay that into your job because that's pretty great they're like i get whatever he happened to have someone on the team who's going on maternity leave who was in the international department and there were only two people in the international department for Mercury Records and Polygram or Polydor.
And the woman working for Mercury was going on a year long maternity leave and they needed somebody to fill her shoes. And so he's like, he's like i like i like your tenacity i think that you'd be great for this he's like let's do it and so he hired me and gave me that job
on the spot or just it was yeah i mean it's like it was i mean i met with hr and all that stuff but we met we met and talked here yeah but i was like this is like what they call right place right time holy crap this is my big brain working for universal music that was you that was a big huge break in the music Yeah. So then, um, then I got to learn about international marketing with all these countries, like how you break, make a gold record or platinum record and, you know, you name it.
france belgium germany any country in europe we were working with all asian countries you know every asian i had to read a book about how the cultural differences were between um countries like singapore you know and taiwan and i had to understand the little cultural nuances of working with their marketing departments and then it was a universal music like guidebook to work in this country
And that's amazing for some of them to have that. And good for them for having that time to understand that. Most people would not know that. I would ask.
there's all these differences culturally and also what makes a gold record in one country versus malaysia what makes it mean the numbers or what the numbers sales numbers um and also just like how they tend to market records uh so you would read this and they're just like talking like some countries relied heavily on corporate sponsorship and partnerships you know some countries or more
what is the difference what is it like when i think about a gold record is about 100 500 000 and i'm like in the us a gold record is about 500 000 a platinum is a million yeah it's been a minute since i've even looked at that but yeah it's very the rankings per country are based on population and you know the commercial sector there okay um so
they started off with here's what's a bold record here's what's a platinum record here's what's bold you know like yeah and then get down into demographics like the population um you know just different things that they were um they wanted you to have you had to understand as a product manager what my job was something was like that it's called international exploitation manager but like you basically were you had to study this book so that when you're dealing with that country you could
you know how to present information and to activate that country and when you're dealing with international because you're now in europe you're not like i feel like when you're dealing with the united states you're dealing with 50 states united states right it's not at all yeah it's not as it's complicated but not as complicated as a gazillion country
Yeah. I mean... Which I don't think really knows if I understand. And this is a very, very good segue, because, like, when we were doing this and when I was working with them, we were able to break our records.
almost every country out there right we can go to latin america canada you know asia europe you name it but the u.s was the hardest to break our artist in so like the dutch signed artist we had andrea bocelli signed for that record to that label yeah it was discovered by the dutch label even though it's italian artist so we owned his you know
His project, my colleague ran Bocelli's career 100%. That was her primary focus. And I ran all the other small projects that were signed to Mercury. Tons and tons of European artists from all over Israel. And we had people coming to us. you know from various countries a lot of them are dutch but it's like
The thing was we could not, it was so hard. None of the, the American branch of Universal was like the hardest thing to get into. You couldn't get our art. You couldn't get me to sign an artist, you know, except for Bocelli. That was a hard, that was, so if it came like a thing where it's like. What is this really crazy thing with American culture? Why is there such a barrier to entry? It's really tough. And also why are American artists and American music such a huge thing over here?
You'd listen to the radio, it's an American artist. You'd go to see a film, it's American films. Like we were so much part of their popular culture. so that's when i started to switch my thinking and i was like i really want to experience working with an american artist or an american you know thing how long were you at universal or two courses how long were you at universal and then
How did moving into the world of the Beyoncé camp happen? I wasn't at Universal super long because I was going in for that woman who was on maternity leave. Oh, right. That's right. But they did offer me. some other opportunities with Universal Music, but they wanted me to move. I was already getting ready to move back to the United States. And when I came back, I was interviewed. The one job they had was at the plastics department in New York City.
and i just didn't feel like i was drawn to the the music i mean not that i don't love i absolutely love it but i've been working on pop music and i you know i want to stay with that so yeah i didn't pursue that but then i was looking for jobs in the united states up along the coast and i was at a conference in atlanta and that's how i ended up playing contact with fiance's dad
And I read about this, but talk a little bit about just so people who are listening understand how amazing serendipity is. But I know it wasn't overnight. You did have a couple conversations for a bad person. What exactly happened? Well, I met somebody who was on his team at a conference in Atlanta, and he was a keynote speaker.
This is Ira Dotson, who was sitting next to me randomly. We didn't know each other. And he was telling me about the company. And when Ira was telling me about everything, he was, like, so humble and so sweet about it. Like, you know, we managed a school group in Destiny's Child, and I was...
Lord, because they were number one around the world at the time. But you're just like, you know, it's family business. And have you ever heard of them? And I'm like, what? I'm like, are you kidding me? I saw them in concert. Before Beyonce was solo or she was about to go solo. Before she was solo.
so ira introduced me to matthew at that conference and then matthew and i had subsequent conversations i flew to new york we'll have a meeting with him but he was interested in my international marketing experience and needed somebody like that on the team because of what was going on with his management company. a record deal with his label and sony were like you know um partnered on the label side he managed a number of artists and he managed dustin's child
So when he ended up hiring me, he moved me from Holland to Houston and brought me into the family business, essentially. And I worked with uh solange was my first project so solange was 16 at the time and she had her first solo album out and then things went on like in three months period a three month period i was then promoted to work with the beyonce project
And when I got the, uh, the chance to do that, that was kind of like, okay, cause she was just leaving Destiny's Child and starting out on her own. So I was there from the very beginning of that and got to see what happened. I mean, it was like.
it's kind of unreal honestly like watching somebody's star what does that look like from a Like we all saw it from a consumer standpoint, but when you're looking at it from like a business standpoint, I mean, I don't know much about the music side of it, but you work at it from like... VR and marketing, like, like, what is that? Like, how much of that is like project plan versus, you never know how the general folks are going to respond to things, but like, how much of that are you?
like marking out and how much of it is okay like what does that look like and how much can you top of the bottle okay i can talk about this a little bit because i've seen it time and time and time again with artists and this is not just beyonce yeah it's any artist that i think There is a level of organic. attraction that people have to the project that you can't make it happen if you tried. You can't market. Yes, we had a marketing machine behind Beyonce, no question about it.
No question we work with the best people in the entire world on her project. No question things were coordinated and that we had Matthew fighting for her. But there's something about the talent that just always is the key thing. you cannot have a hit song or a an artist that you know breaks out on that level without this It's in them. It's in the projects. And when it gets pushed out, it's just like it happens.
It's viral. And I see it time and time again with the artists we work with even now. Yeah. On a smaller, more micro level, you know? Yeah. So you can't make a hit a hit because of marketing. You can't. You cannot. That I believe. You have to have the right.
you know you support it with the marketing you give it structure with the marketing but it's like that's why i mean i'm still big i'm kind of old school and i really believe that that hit singles are still the way in this business like you have to have a track that people gravitate towards and you have to have a sound that people gravitate towards so
and when that happens then it goes viral nowadays we have social media to change everything about how we do this right but um back then it was the video and it was like You know, MTV and BH1 and BET. You know, we're going to MTV studios. That was like a big part of our marketing plan. Yeah. Radio was so huge. Still, radio is very important for commercial artists, but I mean, I can go on and on and on into the intricacies, but...
It really comes down to the... I guess that's what my question is. So you know you have the artist, you know you have talent, you know you have the song or the song. Yeah. So you're on the PR side of it, you're on the marketing side of it. How do you, what do you do? Well, in her case, she had Sony records, you know, Sony records in Columbia. Um, there's a massive marketing machine just in the label on its own. You know, they do.
incredible planning. They have many divisions for various aspects of marketing.
What are you doing? What was I doing? Yeah, I mean, you're on the... Oh, okay, right, right, right. You're on this side of it. So I was. My job was really interesting because I had two sides to it. One was... i was her doing her day-to-day management her dad was out there as her manager in the field like negotiating major deals on her behalf and all that i took every request that came in for her like 500 emails a day and i would
review every single one. I was kind of like, it was everything, everything. Um, and I would make sure to go through every single thing and decide what is most important for her to look at, you know? And I'd really like out of an entire week, I'd take maybe 25, 30 things from her on Friday.
with her and her dad and we would sit and go through these 25 top requests and you know they trusted me to kind of look at this stuff and decide what was important what wasn't important but i also did her daily schedule i got together her schedule whenever she was doing something out in the market i would help you know down to the minute you know where her driver was picking up when the plane was taking off when hair and makeup was happening you name it down to the minute
I advanced her shows. I worked with the team to help with major productions like the Frammies and the MTV awards and like pulling the team together on production calls. And then I'd have weekly marketing calls with the global marketing representatives from everything, like the record label for film projects, for endorsement projects, for publicity teams.
We're a tour team and we'd sit on a weekly call and we'd have a marketing call for her and coordinate our efforts. Those are the things like added structure. Her dad was a very... Very, very, very amazing. He was an incredible marketer. And so I gave a lot of credit. Matthew was, he was genius and he was an incredible negotiator and he just knew.
he really knew what he was doing and he taught all of us and taught us how to negotiate, taught us how to understand opportunities. I feel like I got to see it from a standpoint of the early days you know i would have never in a million years thought like how big this would continue to get for her and i mean yeah she's the biggest there is but like that's it's all the universe you know you can't predict these it's like
see it play out the way that it has i'm like i can be prouder every time i see her i want to cry i'm like this is crazy yeah you know yeah i met you when you're 21 years old i mean i was 28 and it's like i feel like i lived a piece of history you know like that now now i know almost how you laugh like now 17 years later how much
Do you have any interaction with that anymore or is it gone now? I mean, I do still stay in touch with Matthew and parts of, you know, members of the family. We follow each other on social media. I see Beyonce from time to time at things like the Grammys. I just saw her at last year's Grammys. You know, I feel grateful that I can still be a part of that in some sort of way.
it's um everybody's moving on as well like it's been a long time well yeah the thing is the thing no i mean i say moving on and you know she's a mother of three now i'm a mother like yeah we're both older yeah you know but the thing that i will say is um that piece of history that time was so sacred so special such a time when like you know you can't re-relive that right and um
The people that worked with us at the time, the team that was there, and we're all still in touch. We all still see each other. We all still work together. I've worked still with people in that.
every all the time yeah you know we're still calling each other miserating um sharing opportunities talking about things we can do together like we all a lot of us all went on on our own after that a lot well you have i mean at that point you have to yeah well okay well so speaking of which you leave this in 2007 you mentioned earlier There was a reason. What prompted you to leave?
Well, I was getting into my early 30s and I started to really get aware of the fact that I... i needed to slow down i'd been going hard with my career since my very early 20s and i just felt like i've been working a lot and i wasn't spending enough time on figuring out my own personal desire i wanted to have a family i wanted that Just maybe have a little more...
i'd say i think it was a time for me to just take a little bit of a reprieve and so i just decided to go out on my own with never fully shut not saying i'm going to shut the door i just wanted to kind of have more trying to create those opportunities that I wanted to nurture in my life. And you know what? I did. I ended up going on to...
have children, get married, have children. Having my business has allowed me to have a lot more flexibility and I think that's ultimately why I'm very happy with that choice. You know, when you're on a plane and flying and traveling and in the office, it's hard. It's hard. It's really hard. But there's a time and a place for that in our lives, right? Yeah, I know. I know exactly. Thank you for doing this. Thank you. Wagner-Reed, for gracious