Speaker 1 • 0:00 - 0:17 • 99%
When you're talking about children who have been trafficked for sex, when you're talking about communities that have no clean water and the babies are dying as a result, when you're talking about women who don't have access to cervical cancer screenings for example, and they're dying because they have cancer, like these are really heavy topics that matter deeply. Welcome
Speaker 2 • 0:17 - 0:50 • 95%
To the Daring Dreams podcast. This is your host Hailey Bowen and I am here with the lovely and the talented . She is the CEO of World Hope International Canada was a client for a few years actually. Yeah. Now we want to kind of like chat about where you are today. Where were you when we kind of started working together before your brands were developed? What's changed in your business? I'm finding that some of these conversations I'm having with past clients are really interesting because it's like what's been the evolution over the past few years?
Speaker 2 • 0:50 - 1:01 • 97%
Brand strategy is not something that is like an overnight solution. Let's kind of give everybody listening an idea of what the heck is World Hope International Canada.
Speaker 1 • 1:01 - 1:25 • 98%
So World Hope International Canada. We're a faith-based relief and development organization and we work specifically in least developed countries around the world. There's specifically five countries that we focus on and we have three pillars. So we do anti-trafficking and education. We do clean water and energy and global health project. And then on the relief side we do disaster relief kind of as needed or as we decide to respond to disasters around the world.
Speaker 2 • 1:25 - 1:37 • 98%
Let's back up to probably about five years ago or so when you and I started working together, kind of where was World Hope Canada then what was your goal and what did you do
Speaker 1 • 1:37 - 2:09 • 97%
About it? I came in like a year and a half before covid hit, which was always a challenge. I'm sure you hear that in these podcasts right before you and I met, we had just made this huge decision to lower our overhead and send more money to the countries that needed the help and less money here in Canada. So we actually closed down our office that we had in Ontario and we moved ourselves kind of to a virtual team and that was a huge decision for us because it was like out of the comfort zone, what's gonna happen? How are people gonna respond, have to change all your addresses in your locations and stuff.
Speaker 1 • 2:09 - 2:19 • 94%
That was a big, and right around that time we met you Hailey. Yeah. And we're like, we need some help with developing some type of a plan for messaging, communicating to our donors, to our constituents.
Speaker 1 • 2:19 - 3:00 • 97%
Like how do we share who we are? And one of the things that was challenging is we didn't really have any defining pieces of information on who we were and how we differentiated ourself from everyone else in the space that we're in. And it's a little bit different than in maybe the business world because we don't really wanna call ourselves competition with other relief and development organizations 'cause like there isn't enough happening around the world, right? Like there's not enough clean water, there's not enough people rescuing children from trafficking. There's not enough health programs to go around in the least developed countries. But we had to differentiate ourselves so that we could actually talk about who we were and figure out how are we gonna say what we need to say to relay the vision that we have in our heart to accomplish.
Speaker 1 • 3:00 - 3:02 • 97%
So that's kind of where we were whenever we first met you. And
Speaker 2 • 3:02 - 3:31 • 96%
I remember when you first reached out, I was walking in the kitchen and I was like reading your email to me and like I looked at my husband and I was like, this is why I have taken off the corporate handcuffs because I could literally help this woman do so much good in the world. And that meant a lot to me. Yes. Like when you said yes behind the scenes, like I had like the teary eyes because I was just so excited that I was gonna use my talent I guess for positive change in the world.
Speaker 1 • 3:32 - 3:38 • 95%
Well and your legacy lives on 'cause all that you've taught us we continue to use. So you're a part of our journey for sure.
Speaker 2 • 3:38 - 3:49 • 97%
Oh I love that. I love that. What was a defining moment for you when you realized like this is gonna work? Like I am gonna be able to take World Hope Canada to like a different level?
Speaker 1 • 3:49 - 4:31 • 97%
I, I think it was whenever we decided to close down our kind of brick and mortar office and move into more of a virtual space, we really want it to cover all of Canada. That's our vision. And we're not big enough to do that at this point. But we have grown so much just in the last four or five years since we started working together. And we want it to not just be stuck in one location. So as soon as we made that hard decision, there were a lot of changes that had to take place and a lot of explaining and communicating and helping people understand why we did that. But that pressure of like the overhead that we had with a brick and mortar space that was lifted as soon as we made that hard decision, when the board approved that it was like there was new life kind of breathed into our organization and there were incredible people working for us in Ontario who couldn't keep their jobs.
Speaker 1 • 4:31 - 5:07 • 97%
We offered them to move with us, they weren't able to do that. They have their families and their life where they were. So there's a lot of processing, a lot of loss and a lot of changes that took place. But now that I look back, it was as if there's this like new lease on life happened organizationally for us. And whenever we did that, people started like connecting with us and wanting to grab coffee and wanting to donate and wanting to drill a well in Africa and like all these different things just started happening. It was almost like we couldn't keep up with it. As soon as we made that decision, it was like the floodgates opened in all of this partnership and connecting people to the world just started happening in such a really cool way.
Speaker 1 • 5:07 - 5:15 • 98%
And I think it has something to do with the fact that we stepped out of our comfort zone and made a really hard decision and made like a really sacrificial change.
Speaker 1 • 5:15 - 5:45 • 97%
Yeah, because that's hard to do. It's very hard to do whenever you are you, you have people who you're like caring for and there's things that you have to look after but it was worth it. And if I look back that's like the moment, like the stake in the ground where everything changed and then you came on just after that and then we're able to kind of narrow in our vision for our marketing and our communication and our brand and what we say And all of those pieces started to fall into place. But it was as if we came through this really kind of like stormed and then all of a sudden we were able to kind of move out into like better weather if you will whenever we did that.
Speaker 2 • 5:46 - 6:16 • 98%
Wow. For those of you who are just coming on, Tanya and I had a little conversation before we started this podcast. I was just saying that I am doing some work on my own business. I, I have a coach who's telling me to do something big and I kind of know that it's the right thing. I knew it was the right thing, it was kind of validating, but now I see how people feel, right? Like it is tough to be the leader of an organization or own your own business and to make these pivotal massive change decisions. Yeah. That could go either way. , right?
Speaker 2 • 6:16 - 6:27 • 98%
Yeah. And it's really scary. So I'm really glad that that decision worked out for you. Tell me about the brand that we created together, why you thought it was important to figure that out and what did it end up being?
Speaker 1 • 6:28 - 7:00 • 98%
So again, we didn't have a way to focus on who we are and differentiate ourselves from everyone else. And we really found out that the word transformation was the word that we wanted to use. And that word has continually been an actually do our projects around the world. It's, I just came back from Sierra Leone and Liberia and I just saw it firsthand like transformation is happening all over these countries because of Canadians who are generous to give money to help this happen. So we talked about pushing toward impact, like pushing really hard to make a difference, pushing really hard for transformation because transformation doesn't just happen easily.
Speaker 1 • 7:01 - 7:15 • 97%
If you ever have transformation in your personal life, start working out or you know train for a marathon or you're working on a special painting that you you know don't know how to do and you're working on a skill and you're practicing that and the transformation that takes place, it doesn't happen just like it doesn't just happen.
Speaker 1 • 7:15 - 7:46 • 98%
It has to like have energy and challenge and difficulty and you're overcoming obstacles and you're going through tough stuff and you're coming out the other side. That's what transformation is, right? Yeah. So when we push toward impact, it's that pushing toward the desire for transformation and going through that hard stuff. So that transformation is what comes out the other side. And when that happens then there's sustainability, then there's community change, then there's social change, then there's government change, whatever the changes you're working on, it comes from that transformational piece. And it's not usually the easy fix, right?
Speaker 1 • 7:46 - 8:16 • 97%
It's something that takes a lot of kind of journeying. So when we did the brand, we came up with push toward impact as that's what we do as organization and transformation is what the outcome is. Yeah. But we wanted it to be very hopeful, very fun, like something that was kinda lighthearted because this is heavy stuff when you're talking about children who have been trafficked for sex when you're talking about communities that have no clean water and the babies are dying as a result when you're talking about women who don't have access to cervical cancer screenings for example, and they're dying because they have cancer.
Speaker 1 • 8:16 - 8:56 • 96%
Like these are really heavy topics that matter deeply globally. But you can't always sit in that heaviness if you wanna understand the transformation that takes place. So Haley, you helped us so much to think through how can we be fun, how can we be light, how can we be hope filled in how we talk about our brand, how can we talk about transformation and be super dignified to the people that we've been serving? Like we don't wanna show people spaces all the time if they have something very private, we don't wanna retraumatize them by making them talk about that. But we can share their story in a way where it's respectful and it's a, it's a way to show them that they're human, you know that they have dignity and that they are valued and all of these pieces are a part of our brand.
Speaker 1 • 8:56 - 8:57 • 99%
That was hard. You
Speaker 2 • 8:57 - 8:59 • 93%
Were a very emotional client for me.
Speaker 1 • 8:59 - 9:01 • 96%
I think we cried two or three times .
Speaker 2 • 9:01 - 9:02 • 98%
Yeah for sure we did
Speaker 1 • 9:03 - 9:35 • 97%
but that's where we came out and I, and like if you look at our social media now, like world Hope Canada's on Facebook world, hope Canada's on Instagram. Like I think you still see how we work really hard to make sure things are hope built and that it's lighthearted and it's fun. It's fun to be a part of seeing transformation take place in a place where we will never go with people we'll never meet, right? Yeah. But the people matter. So being able to share that and connect that with people has been just such a game changer for us and it's been a consistent promise that we've kept to our donors, to our partners and just internally and our team.
Speaker 1 • 9:35 - 9:41 • 97%
We consistently keep that as a promise and it comes up all the time when we're doing strategic planning. So it's been really cool. So
Speaker 2 • 9:41 - 9:48 • 97%
You just got back from Africa. Tell me about the transformation that you got to witness while you were there.
Speaker 1 • 9:48 - 10:23 • 97%
So there's a community that we had a partnership with, we still do. And it was a sustainability partnership. So the goal was to have donors raise money to help with certain items that will help make this village sustainable. They live in a village in the middle of nowhere. They had no clean water, they had no high school, they had no seeds or knowledge of how to plant seeds so they could have food for their community. They had no teachers who were trained and certified and those were the kinda the big challenges that they had. So we had donors come together, it was actually a church in Nova Scotia and they decided we wanna partner with this village and we wanna see transformation take place.
Speaker 1 • 10:23 - 10:33 • 97%
They raised a ton of money and it wasn't easy like it was a lot of work for them. Immediately we put in a clean water, well that doesn't go dry, that'll be good for the entire generation that's currently there.
Speaker 1 • 10:33 - 11:03 • 96%
It lasts for 50 to a hundred years. Wow. It's well maintained, it's incredibly sustainable. And immediately the baby stopped dying and the girls didn't have to carry water all day. They could start going to school 'cause they weren't able to go to school because they carry water. So the water that the girls and women have to carry all day, they go get dirty water though and it's hurting them, right? But they have to go do this all day 'cause they have no other access. So immediately when the clean water came in, the girls could go to school, the women could start doing things to help their families help themselves, let them be humans instead of walk in these paths to get dirty water.
Speaker 1 • 11:04 - 11:11 • 98%
And things started changing. So then we brought in the seed program, we taught them how to grow their own seeds and how to make their own seeds and grow a harvest and stuff.
Speaker 1 • 11:11 - 11:45 • 97%
This was four years ago. I just went back in their on their own. The women of the community are now trialing onions, they're trialing broccoli, they're trialing how to grow other vegetables that we didn't teach them to grow 'cause they got so excited about how to grow seeds and they're doing it as a group like together let's grow things so that we can eat. Like it's a really important thing for our life. And they wouldn't have a lot of access to food otherwise. We found out that the girls could go to school to grade six and so could the boys. 'cause they had elementary school, they didn't have a high school so they were walking four to five miles each way every day on a very quiet road.
Speaker 1 • 11:45 - 11:51 • 98%
And the girls were getting attacked sexually and they were getting pregnant. And this was the biggest challenge the community had.
Speaker 1 • 11:51 - 12:22 • 97%
And the village leader said to us, we want a high school in our community so we can keep an eye out on our girls. We wanna keep them safe, we wanna protect them. Like we don't want them to be hurt or harmed or attacked. We don't want this for them. This is not good for their future. So they said, would you guys build a school? And we don't normally just kind of go around building schools, but we're like absolutely that makes perfect sense. We built a high school, we set up sponsorships so that people could sponsor children at this high school. We have teachers, they're now going to school to get their certification so they can actually be certified as teachers.
Speaker 1 • 12:22 - 12:55 • 97%
We went back and we talked to the chair lady of the village. There's like the chief and there's a chair lady. We talked to her just a few weeks ago and she said We've not had one teenage pregnancy in two years in our village. Oh my god we're so thankful that you built this school for us. And she quoted, we now have peace. That's what she said. Like the transformation is so impactful but it's so holistic. Right? And it was just an incredible experience to go to that village and to hear them share these stories with us because we knew like, well this could be a potential for transformation but would it actually happen?
Speaker 1 • 12:55 - 12:56 • 98%
Well a million times over.
Speaker 2 • 12:57 - 13:28 • 97%
Wow. It's unbelievable that some of the most simple things or like things that we take for granted have such a wild impact on so many aspects of people's lives. The fact that those girls were getting attacked on their way to school is just heartbreaking to me. So transformation is so powerful and I think a lot of people when they donate money , you don't really equate it. You're like, oh I'm gonna do good. I'm gonna give you my 40 bucks a month or 60, 80 bucks a month or whatever. And you don't really get to see the impact, right?
Speaker 2 • 13:28 - 13:36 • 98%
So I think it's really great that you got to go do that and now you get to tell people about what you saw because that makes all the difference. Yes
Speaker 1 • 13:36 - 14:06 • 97%
It does. And I knew a dollar went a long ways in a lease developed country. Like we all know this, like a dollar is a big deal. But when you go and sit there and hear it and see it and talk to those who've been impacted by it, it's like a no brainer. You're like, oh man. Like that dollar goes farther than we'll even understand. Right? So it's just kind of encouraging. I think you're right to be able to share the stories both ways. Yeah. Because I think that we have transformation here in Canada when we can give generously, we personally feel a transformation. 'cause it's kind of that outta your comfort zone experience. You might never meet these people.
Speaker 1 • 14:06 - 14:22 • 97%
Yeah. But then for them it's transformation literally for their life. Like they're alive because of your donations and it's this partnership, right? It's not like one's better than the other or one's stronger than the other. It's a together thing and we're all just kind of doing our part and I think it connects us to the world in a pretty special way.
Speaker 2 • 14:22 - 14:47 • 95%
Of course nonprofits do have that built in, right? Brand purpose mission. But as a for profit company, you can also build in that layer of doing good and contributing to something that really matters to you. I think that that the more businesses, nonprofit, profit for profit, social enterprise, whatever, the more businesses that are stepping up to help. Like Tanya said earlier, there's so many people who need help
Speaker 1 • 14:47 - 15:07 • 97%
And if we work together, I think that's the other piece. So like if you see profit and nor nonprofit don't see them as two separate worlds, but like they can actually live together in a really powerful way and make such an impact and make such a transformation together. So do it together, right? Don't try to separate those but work together in your own strengths and I think it makes a pretty cool difference in the world.
Speaker 2 • 15:07 - 15:43 • 97%
Absolutely. And actually that's a really good point. So for those of you who have been following me, we know that there is three different activation styles for your brand purpose. One of 'em is an activator, which basically is you're gonna weave in good into the fabric of your business, you're gonna weave something in either in monetary resources, time, whatever. And so sometimes if your heart is with a specific nonprofit or a specific charity, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, you can just connect your business to that as well and become an activator and help them to do all the good in the world with your contribution.
Speaker 2 • 15:43 - 16:08 • 95%
Companies like Patagonia would do something like that. Yep. And they align with nonprofits in that case to help the environment. But they are giving one per, well now they're giving a hundred percent of their profits. I don't know if you heard that they had started the 1% for the planet, which was they were giving 1% of the sales Yes. Of their company right. To help the planet. Now the founder, Yvan Bernard is retired and he donated all his shares. So
Speaker 1 • 16:08 - 16:09 • 97%
I didn't hear that.
Speaker 2 • 16:10 - 16:42 • 96%
Yeah. So he said that Earth is the only shareholder now and so all the profits of that company or like 98% or whatever yes is going now to save the world. And last year in 2023 that was a hundred million dollars in profits. That's amazing. Yeah. I think his companies were big part of creating those funds that where that money went. You don't need to be, you can just be somebody helping. Right? Yeah. If what Tan is telling you about the sex trafficking and the wells and like all of the work that they're doing there is really ties to you like reach out to her.
Speaker 2 • 16:42 - 16:54 • 97%
So I have a couple marketing questions for you. Okay. Yeah. When creating your brand and when trying to find donors and stuff like that, how do you go about identifying who the best customers or best prospects would be for you?
Speaker 1 • 16:54 - 17:31 • 97%
So we worked with you and we did so much research and we called so many people and we checked out who our donor base was and we asked lots of questions and then we got to know those individuals and then we asked them a whole bunch of questions and then we asked them more questions and more questions and we love them all. They've all stayed. So with us, which has been really cool, we continue to keep an eye on our donor base and making sure our messaging matches who our ideal client is. And we didn't know what that was when we started and when we narrowed it down it was super scary to say okay so we're gonna you know, communicate and message out to this specific group, this type of a person.
Speaker 1 • 17:31 - 17:35 • 80%
We had we, Hailey helped us create like a fake person for pretend person fire
Speaker 2 • 17:35 - 17:36 • 77%
Our persona or
Speaker 1 • 17:36 - 18:08 • 96%
An avatar fire persona. We called her world Hope Wilder and we say World Hope Wilder all the time. We're like what would World Hope Wilder think of that and how can we tell World Hope Wilder about these things? And and it was just an incredible journey to walk on but it was so much work and it sounds so easy to say, yeah we worked on this and we decided this and now we have this. It's a lot of energy to put in but every bit of it mattered and every bit of it had growth that came from that. So that's what we did. We just kind of followed your prescription. I read your incredible book that also tells you what to do.
Speaker 1 • 18:08 - 18:19 • 98%
Like it was so good to follow those steps and just trust the process that in the end the right people would come to us and we continue to see that we're growing every year and we can't hardly keep up with it.
Speaker 1 • 18:19 - 18:50 • 96%
We're so excited about it and the right people are coming to us. And Hailey, you told us like you might have your ideal person. It doesn't mean all the people who come to you are gonna be that exact ideal person. That's not the goal. But it's to focus your messaging in so that it makes sense. Yeah. So you don't look like you're all over the place and you don't know what you're doing. You don't know who you're talking to. Like it's, it has to be focused in right? Yeah. And we've been able to do that and all of the right people have come our way. Love. It's love, it's cool. We can't wait to see the next 500 that are gonna come our way. Oh yeah. To be the right people. It'll be really, really cool.
Speaker 2 • 18:50 - 19:08 • 98%
Kicking your ideal customer is literally going through who are your current customers. In Tana's case it would've been like who's donating the most? Who's the most involved? 'cause that's who you want more of. You're gonna attract someone, why not attract the one who's like the ideal best gonna be involved and then everybody else will follow suit. Right.
Speaker 1 • 19:08 - 19:16 • 94%
It's been such a great journey. I wasn't sure whenever we started it is this actually gonna work? And it has. So it's been good. So I'm a ,
Speaker 2 • 19:17 - 19:17 • 75%
I'm
Speaker 1 • 19:17 - 19:20 • 85%
A believer, I'm a believer of the ideal client. Tell
Speaker 2 • 19:20 - 19:27 • 97%
Me about a marketing strategy that you have done over the last little bit that's really, really worked like so unexpectedly. Well,
Speaker 1 • 19:27 - 20:01 • 96%
So there's one big one that you helped us with, which was our online event during Covid. We all have ended up doing that but at the time that was a big bang. We had a kind of in-person fundraiser we did every year and we decided just to go online. Haley we're still doing it. April 7th is our next online event and they still come to it and we've shortened it and it's short and sweet. We've changed it and morphed it a bit but it still happens 'cause people are still interested in that. And it was amazing that that was one big marketing strategy that we did was just doing some more online events. Not boring long zoom calls but just some little kind of snapshotty type online things that people could connect with.
Speaker 1 • 20:01 - 20:34 • 98%
And then from there it moved into like lots of little reels. So that's kind of been the new thing we've gone from is kind of this online event that was long to an online event that's really short to an online event that you can see it whenever you want to see it. And then now to all these little reels that kind of share the story of transformation through little clips. And we've been doing a ton of that for the last probably two years, but especially the last year we've been really growing that and we've had so many people respond, get excited, connect with us, hear about what we're doing because it's kind of these quick snapshot videos that we weren't doing before.
Speaker 1 • 20:34 - 20:39 • 98%
So that's been one of our big marketing strategies recently that we've been using, which has been really fun.
Speaker 2 • 20:39 - 20:48 • 93%
I always say this to all of my clients and members, if you put in a mediocre effort, right, go to get a mediocre result if any result. Right? Right.
Speaker 1 • 20:48 - 20:48 • 75%
But
Speaker 2 • 20:48 - 21:12 • 96%
You don't want people to think like marketing is so hard it can't happen. You just gotta put in the work up front and create the systems. But if you're putting crap out there, photo here, photo there, photo here, and using AI to write all your posts, you're not gonna connect in the way you wanna connect. And I love that you guys have embraced the short form videos. It's a huge hot trend right now. People love them and if it's working for you then you're obviously putting some effort into those short form videos.
Speaker 1 • 21:12 - 21:43 • 96%
Yes. It's not quick and fast and some of them fall flat and we're like, we learned from that though. We're like okay so this wasn't helpful. What about over here? But I think one of the things we've switched from is like trying to follow all of the, that was a lot of likes and that was a lot of shares which matters. I'm not saying the data doesn't matter, it does matter and we do look at it but we've moved from spending all of our time thinking about that to saying how can we have a little clip or a video that can get the word out on transformation, on pushing towards impact. And if we can keep that as a forefront of what we do, it's always gonna win at the end.
Speaker 1 • 21:43 - 22:00 • 95%
Right. Instead of trying to like find some special genie in a box. That's gonna be some, you know, big thing. Yeah. Just stay consistent and keep doing our messaging over and over and over again. Eventually it's gonna come through and I mean I work with an incredible team and they're knocking it into the park and doing that every day. Yeah. So it's been really cool.
Speaker 2 • 22:01 - 22:36 • 97%
Yeah. One of the best pieces of advice I got really early in my career was if you aren't bored with your own marketing, you're not doing it right. Right. Which doesn't mean create boring marketing. 'cause boring marketing is like the death of a business. But it means to be so consistent and on point every single time that you already know what's gonna happen but you're gonna share it in a bunch of different ways. So it's not boring to the audience, but for you it's like everything you talk about transformation, transformation, transformation, push towards impact. Like it's always gonna be the same things And it's when people think that they have to keep reinventing the wheel, the market gets confused.
Speaker 2 • 22:36 - 23:00 • 98%
People don't understand you don't get better at what you're doing. So when I was on vacation in Cuba with my daughter, I read a book and the book was called Brand Love and I'll have to see who wrote it and I'll put it in the show notes. Great book. In the book the author says, you know, everybody's looking at likes, likes do absolutely nothing. Likes are so easy, it's just like a giveaway. Like you need to create love.
Speaker 1 • 23:01 - 23:01 • 98%
Oh that's good.
Speaker 2 • 23:01 - 23:09 • 98%
But you need to create that love because love is an emotion that will cause people to take action like is not gonna do anything. That's
Speaker 1 • 23:09 - 23:10 • 99%
Right. So
Speaker 2 • 23:10 - 23:23 • 96%
You're a busy, busy mom, busy CEO, busy athlete. What are some of the methods that you employ to be able to continue to thrive and grow world hope without it taking over your entire life?
Speaker 1 • 23:23 - 23:59 • 98%
So I mean I don't think I'd be here today if I didn't have any kind of boundaries and borders in my life. It's super hard. But at the end of my workday, which is agreed upon, like I have a plan, I shut my laptop and I leave my office and it's really hard to do that 'cause there's often stuff that needs to be done. That's what I've learned and I've learned that I've just hit a place in leadership with the capacity that is around me that I just will never be able to get everything done before I close my laptop. So I just, in each morning I go okay, I'm gonna do the very best I can. I'm gonna work my hardest, I'm gonna give it the best that I have and whenever it's time to be done, the laptop closes and off I go.
Speaker 1 • 23:59 - 24:13 • 97%
So that's been a good practice for me as a leader and it's been hard. My team of course knows I'm always available by cell phone if anything comes up or if there's an emergency or whatever, just kind of have those boundaries like I'm finished and now I'm going to hang out with my boys. That's
Speaker 2 • 24:13 - 24:16 • 99%
The hardest for people who are like working in a virtual workspace.
Speaker 1 • 24:16 - 24:28 • 97%
You have to find ways to close it. And then another thing which I'm not sure you'll love this 'cause you're a marketing specialist, but I take social media fast every couple weekends. I'm off social media for the whole weekend. And actually I'm sure that you do that too. I love
Speaker 2 • 24:28 - 24:30 • 96%
That. I love that.
Speaker 1 • 24:30 - 25:01 • 97%
It's so important. It's so important. And one of my new practices has been like don't get caught in the scroll if you know what I mean. So like I love communicating and posting and updating and staying in touch with all my friends and donors, but I don't wanna just get stuck in that mindless scroll. So my new thing has been hop on, check my messages, check my notifications and don't scroll. Like don't let the thumb move. Make that a practice for myself as a way to create structure and to say I have control over this, it doesn't control me. Yeah. And I'm gonna just continue to work on this.
Speaker 1 • 25:01 - 25:11 • 98%
So I continue to do social media fasting often and it's been very, very helpful just to kind of settle my brain, settle my heart, settle my life. Anxiety levels go down. It's just so, so good.
Speaker 2 • 25:12 - 25:30 • 98%
I think a lot of people are doing that and I think a lot of people are trying to stop the scroll now. A lot of them aren't. As you do your marketing, it's important for you to realize that. And that's why when we said consistency and keep that message consistent and going, you need it consistent because they might not have seen your last week of messages. Right,
Speaker 1 • 25:30 - 25:31 • 99%
Exactly.
Speaker 2 • 25:31 - 25:51 • 96%
'cause sometimes people like to be like, here's half a thing and then I'm gonna give you something else. Every social media post needs to stand alone and push people towards whatever you're hoping and create love for your business. Exactly. Like even though I'm the same as you, I mostly check my notifications, but there's a couple companies that I follow and I will like check their stuff too.
Speaker 1 • 25:51 - 26:02 • 95%
Yes, exactly. Those are your focus points, those are purpose and then you're able to to get off. And I definitely scroll, there's nothing wrong with that, but just not getting caught in it, not letting it control you, I think has been the most important thing.
Speaker 2 • 26:03 - 26:11 • 92%
And time is so valuable. . Right? It's, I've been, I've been losing a lot of time lately to a Netflix series .
Speaker 1 • 26:13 - 26:21 • 94%
My god, I'm not saying that's always bad. Sometimes you need some downtime, right. Just to hang out and veg. That's also allowed and that's important for leaders to do too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 • 26:22 - 26:37 • 97%
When I'm not watching Netflix series, I'm listening to podcasts and I'm doing training and I'm like being productive in my downtime. Exactly. But then when I have a Netflix series, which isn't that often, I will go on my walks like on the treadmill and I watch my series instead of my training. There
Speaker 1 • 26:37 - 26:53 • 98%
Is a balance and that's not bad. You're not always on, you're not always productive and that's okay. Right. Yeah. You have to also be off and with your family and with things that matter to you and with healthy things, that stuff is just as important as your work. You have to find a way to make those two live in harmony together.
Speaker 2 • 26:53 - 27:25 • 97%
Yeah. And I think it's hard for people who are in leadership roles. Everything is so personal and I find it hard. Yeah. I find it hard. It's hard to turn it off sometimes. I did find though for me, I have to turn it off by like 8:30 PM because I can't sleep. My mind just keeps going and going and going and going. Oh yes. If I don't shut off my work by eight 30 really should be before that. Yes. But everybody listen, I do my workouts in the morning and I usually don't start hardcore working until after lunch. Right. So like that's my schedule, that's
Speaker 1 • 27:25 - 27:26 • 80%
Work time. That's what works for me. Yeah.
Speaker 2 • 27:26 - 27:44 • 91%
It's not that I'm working from 8:00 AM till eight 30 every day. Exactly. But if I don't turn it off, I can't sleep. So when we first started working together four or five years ago I think so I know, I dunno. What was your role in marketing then? ? Like what did you specifically do for marketing? Yeah. And then how has that evolved over time?
Speaker 1 • 27:44 - 28:14 • 96%
When I started, it was just like me and one other person and we're like writing all the posts and setting all the schedules and doing all the strategic planning and planning out the month and planning out the week and planning out the day so much planning, so much writing, so many like creating a pictures and creating of logos and make sure the colors are right and all this kind of stuff. And I did that for quite a few years. I think I did that for a good two, three years in the last year. My team has grown, which has been amazing to be able to hire more people. I love managing people and encouraging them and their strengths and they're actually way better at it than I am.
Speaker 1 • 28:15 - 28:22 • 98%
So it's been really cool coaching them and encouraging them and like giving them ideas. And they often will be like, that's a terrible idea Tanya.
Speaker 1 • 28:22 - 28:52 • 96%
That's great. No problem at all. I somehow, somehow have bad ideas and that's okay. But watching them kind of begin to thrive in this new world of marketing as a team, we're not huge. So we still are all together on our plans. We're together on our strategy, we review that all the time. We all know where we're going. That's not an issue and we're all in that together. But being able to kind of watch it roll and be like, oh my goodness, I'm not even doing all of that. And that's way better than anything I ever could have dreamed up. Right. Yeah. But it's still on brand. It still matches what we're doing has been a really fulfilling thing for me.
Speaker 1 • 28:52 - 28:59 • 98%
And honestly when I started working with you, I didn't think that day would ever come. I mean, and I enjoyed it too. I still enjoy doing it myself.
Speaker 1 • 28:59 - 29:24 • 98%
Yeah. If I, if I need to do it, I'm absolutely happy to do it. And I do still help out for sure. But I don't have to be there all the time. And that's been really cool to watch other people grow in their marketing skills. It's been kind of a really cool journey and I'm enjoying this new season that I'm in. But you know what, we're always in different seasons. Yeah. So if I were to shift my season and it changes, I'm also okay with that. I like to live into every season that I'm given and try to do the best that I can in each of those and embrace the things that are super positive in those.
Speaker 2 • 29:25 - 29:49 • 97%
I think that's wonderful. I know a lot of people have a really hard time letting go, especially like for people who are starting businesses or people who are own their businesses or running a business. And if you've been tasked with doing the marketing Yeah. It is hard to let it go 'cause you're like, nobody is as passionate as me, nobody can do it as well as me. Right. Did you find that hard for you or were you just like, you guys are great, like go at it? What was your experience?
Speaker 1 • 29:50 - 30:22 • 96%
Yeah, I don't think I found it hard, but I think it's 'cause the team, we've been so close on working on it all together anyways and just trying to figure it out from nothing. Like we're like all learning here, like none of us are specialists. So starting from that place and then just adding more team members in and just continuing that it, it was more of a natural progression really the way it happened with us. It wasn't like I'm completely cut off and they're only doing it like we're all, we all still wear lots of hats and we all work together very closely. So no, I don't think we felt that, but that, I could see how that could be a challenge. Yeah. If you, you're like handing it off completely to someone else and then you have to be very careful.
Speaker 1 • 30:22 - 30:43 • 96%
You can't be going on about their posts, you can't pick it apart. Like you gotta encourage them. Yeah. Because you've given that to them to work on. Right. And that's how you learn is you learn by making mistakes or by doing things that you need to update or do it differently. You're not learning any otherwise. Right. Yeah. So that, I think that part has been really good for our team is just kind of doing it together but knowing who's kind of leading point on it and making it happen. It's been really good.
Speaker 2 • 30:44 - 31:13 • 95%
And I think the benefit too is that you did do the initial foundational work. So they know they're talking to like World Hope Wilder. They know exactly that. You know, here's the key messages. Everything is already laid out. So it's just like how do you express that creatively and in an interesting way. Yeah. And that's gonna create engagement and connection, da da, da. But the core is all the same. So I think that's a difference too. It's easier to hand it over when you know that they have all of the crucial insights and information That's right.
Speaker 1 • 31:13 - 31:17 • 96%
To do it. That's right. And the tools at their disposal that they can actually make it happen. How
Speaker 2 • 31:17 - 31:26 • 97%
Do you define success for your business? . And when did you know this is gonna work, this is gonna be okay, this is gonna work out.
Speaker 1 • 31:26 - 32:00 • 98%
So I mean success for us was just more transformation happening. In least developed countries that was success but also tied with that are more Canadians connecting with the world. So both of those things had to happen with us, not just one or the other. Like if Canadians are connected to the world but transformation wasn't happening, that's useless. Yeah. And if transformation's happening but Canadians are not connected, that's against our mission. Like we're here to serve Canadians. Right. So that's kind of the thing that defines success for us and we actually track it in that exact way. How many Canadians are connecting to the world and how much transformation has taken place. And if we can't find outcomes or data for those two pieces, then it's like we're not doing our jobs.
Speaker 1 • 32:00 - 32:16 • 95%
Like we're not on mission, we're not moving our mission forward. So that's a constant conversation with us. It's connecting Canadians and transformation happening in these developed countries. Are we on mission today? Have we moved the mission forward today? Yes or no? Like that's a really important conversation that we have. Oh,
Speaker 2 • 32:16 - 32:19 • 99%
I love that. Do you have that conversation like on the daily,
Speaker 1 • 32:19 - 32:36 • 96%
Not the daily, but we would have it on the weekly at least. And in a normal conversations that happens like one-on-ones like when we're having one-on-one meetings and stuff, it's normal for us to say, are we connecting Canadians? Is transformation happening? How do we see that? And how can we share that? It's just a normal part of our vocabulary whenever we hang out together.
Speaker 2 • 32:36 - 32:39 • 94%
What are you guys doing to connect Canadians to the world?
Speaker 1 • 32:39 - 33:17 • 98%
Well, I mean talking on the podcast right now would be, one of those would be sharing the information, sharing the disparity, sharing what poverty is like. We have poverty in Canada and that's not okay, like we need to make a change there. But there's also people who live on less than a dollar a day, right? There are people who don't even have access to clean water anywhere near them. There are people who are just dying needlessly. Stuff that's preventable. There are people being trafficked and there's no way for them to be rescued or no way for them to heal from that. So all of these pieces, it's a lot of education. We do a ton of educational stuff and we've actually shifted to do more education on explaining what is poverty and what is poverty disparity, what's global poverty disparity, what does that look like?
Speaker 1 • 33:17 - 33:48 • 98%
Why does it matter to us? Right? It's not connected to us directly, but it actually is. And what does that matter to us and why should we care about that? So we spend so much time trying to raise awareness in that way. So that's kind of what our Canadian side of our operations is. It's just educating, raising awareness, bringing information, sharing stories, helping people know your life will be better if you connect with the world. It will be. Yeah. We know that in Canada we're very diverse. We care about lots of different things. We care about different languages and countries and cultures that matters in Canada.
Speaker 1 • 33:48 - 34:08 • 98%
But it also matters that you care about the world and that you're aware of things that are happening and that you're not just, I'm not just talking CNN stuff, I'm not talking negative news. I'm talking really hope, build really exciting things that are happening around the world. How can you celebrate that and become a part of that even though you might never ever go there. So just kind of connecting those two pieces is what makes our business move forward. I love that
Speaker 2 • 34:08 - 34:12 • 93%
You have been around for two non-profit turnarounds.
Speaker 1 • 34:12 - 34:13 • 98%
That's right. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2 • 34:13 - 34:15 • 92%
I'm assuming a nonprofit turnaround is what?
Speaker 1 • 34:15 - 34:47 • 97%
This is my second one. So my first one was at my previous job and the organization was like in the red and things were not looking good. And I was over all the recruitment, which is what was gonna help grow the organization. And we turned it around in in five years, which turned it around in in three years. So I did that on the recruitment piece. And then for World Hope things were not overly strong and there was a lot of challenges and struggles happening when I showed up. And then we turned it around. We've actually more than doubled our size since I started in six years. Which is super exciting. I mean it's a very business talk 'cause it means more lives have been changed, at least in my experience.
Speaker 1 • 34:48 - 34:57 • 97%
It always takes three years before like I can sleep good at night to be like, okay, got this, it's happy.
Speaker 1 • 34:57 - 35:34 • 96%
I don't know what you would say about that, Hailey, with your business, but three years, I need it. Three years. And that was three years of struggle. Three years of like failing, three years of grit. The only thing keeping you going, three years of like waking up and just going, going, going, going, going, going at the three year mark for both of those turnarounds, I, I felt okay, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, there's no more tunnel. We're flying on the open roads, like things are looking really good. But I needed those three years really feel like, okay, I think that we have some momentum and some traction. And I think that's important because people might get started and after six months they're like, this isn't working and they quit.
Speaker 1 • 35:34 - 35:45 • 97%
Right. But three years really made a difference for me in both of these turnarounds. And at that point I start to breathe lighter and feel like there was help and hope you know, that we were actually gonna be able to make it through.
Speaker 2 • 35:45 - 35:51 • 93%
I think there's a saying, it's like year one, you sleep, year two, you creep. Year three you leap. Right?
Speaker 1 • 35:51 - 35:52 • 75%
Right. Yes. I think
Speaker 2 • 35:52 - 36:11 • 97%
That's what how it goes. And I think it's true because it does take time. And I always say this, running a business, marketing doesn't matter. It's not a one and done. Like it's an evolution. It's adapting, it's shifting, it's changing. And if you think you're just gonna come up with one good idea and it's just gonna go skyrocket, like that would be a unicorn.
Speaker 1 • 36:11 - 36:12 • 98%
Doesn't happen. No.
Speaker 2 • 36:13 - 36:21 • 96%
How can they get in touch with World Hope? How can they be involved if they're interested? I know I'm already involved. I bet you there's lots of other people who would like to be involved too.
Speaker 1 • 36:21 - 36:52 • 96%
So whenever I'm talking to audiences of people, I don't know. I always say our Hope Fund is an amazing thing to just give monthly to 25 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month. It's the fun that helps us be able to respond to disasters and start new projects and respond at any moment's. Notice if there's a need on any of our projects. It's such an incredible fund. And if you're still not familiar with like all the different pieces and which one you might wanna focus in on, it's a great place to start. So go to world hope.ca and you just click on our give button and all the Hope Fund information's there. And of course reach out to me if you ever have any questions. Would love to answer that for you.
Speaker 2 • 36:52 - 37:01 • 96%
Awesome. Thank you so much Tanya. As always, it's so refreshing and lovely and warms my heart to talk to you. So thank you. And to everybody else, have a great day.
