Andrea Heuston
Well, I said, Hey, honey, we’re having a baby because we’re what I didn’t think that was possible. I said, Go for doing it another way and he’s doing two and a half months. So he was thrilled. We were both absolutely thrilled and they are the loves of my life. These boys. They’re amazing. In fact, my oldest just graduated from high school last Friday. It was very exciting. Thanks. Education has been super hard for him. It was very difficult. And then I talked a little bit about the infertility and we didn’t know why I had such infertility problems, but I had some health issues. And it ended up I had to have a hysterectomy and they noticed I had the worst endometriosis they’d ever seen. See, the doctor said so he took pictures, my insights and asked me to sign a model release. So I’m in textbooks nationwide. Now it’s very exciting. I’ve always wanted
Jeremy Weisz
to be I don’t know if that’s what people want to be in bookstore, but you
Andrea Heuston
know, but in the series of surgeries I had, I had a surgery go wrong. And I was in a coma for 19 days in June, right now in June of 2008. And that was touch and go, I got something called a RDS, I aspirated on the operating table, it turned into pneumonia. And within a day, it was acute respiratory distress syndrome, which at the time, had a 70% fatality rate. It’s down to about 50%. Now, which is great, but they prepared my husband for my death three times. It was very intense and very Yeah, it’s just in, in light of everything that’s going on in the world right now. A lot of the people who are dying of COVID are dying of a RDS. So it’s it’s where you’re lungs turn to stone and you just absolutely can’t get air, you’re suffocating in your own body. So that was a huge life altering event for me. It changed everything. It changed everything for me about the way that I parent, the way that I show up the way that I run a business the way that I talk to friends. Every single moment is precious because I’m above ground and it really has stayed with me. And then six years ago in August, our house burned down
Jeremy Weisz
real quick Andrea I want to point out that for these if you want to hear like the full full full story of them, they should go to leadlikeawoman.biz, check out the podcast you can see right here empowering women leaders. She talks about this in depth and obviously more stories from other female leaders. So check those out on the podcast. So anyways, I don’t interrupt your house burning down, so
Andrea Heuston
no, please do I mean it was horrifying. Yeah. It was August of 2014. And I was there with the boys. We have beach house. It was a beach cabin at the time. And I spent we spent about three months there every year. And we had just gone down to spend August there. We spent the whole month plus some so it was around five and a half weeks. And we’d only been there two days and it was kind of a beautiful sunny day but the clouds and the fog were rolling in because the with the ocean and it gets that way. So I had started a fire in the fireplace with like a presto wall type thing. And within half an hour, maybe a little longer than that. I heard the loudest noise I’ve ever heard. It sounded like a jet airplane was landing on my roof. It was a little after nine. So both boys were in bed. And I went What’s that? So somebody was driving up my driveway honking their horn in a pickup truck and he’s like you have a chimney fire. So I ran inside and I dumped a coffee pot full of water on the fire and another coffee pot full and then I walked outside to the deck and I looked up and it was just smoke so it’s fine. All was good. Came back in the house. And try to get a hold of my husband because he was playing, playing cards with his friends and I couldn’t get a hold of me wouldn’t answer the phone. So I called he was at our best friend’s house and I called my friend and I said, I need Eric to call me. I think I just had a chimney fire. So he called me back because I need you to go look again. So with him on the phone, I walked out to the back deck and saw nothing I walked down because it’s three stories up. So I walked down the driveway and looked at nothing. And I said, I’ll just walk out the path a little ways. So I walked up the path to the beach, and I looked up and there was a patch of fire about this big, maybe bigger on the roof in the cedar shake shingles.
Andrea Heuston
I said oh, Eric, we have a fire gotta go hang up on him and I call 911. And while I’m on the phone with 911 I’m running up the stairs to get the kids out of bed. And we end up I grabbed a bag, which I thought was my tennis shoes because I knew I needed shoes. I was in my pajamas. I have flip flops on we’re all ready for bed. And I grabbed a bag that I thought was my shoes and we ran outside and my eldest son came out wearing a zip fleece flip flops in underwear. So I was like, oh, we’re going back in the house. So he To this day, he says, I started but I went back with him in the house so he could get some clothes. And then we went outside and just waited. Now the bag that I grabbed was the tennis shoes. I was lucky it was my laptop from work, because they were both in little cinch bags, and I just grabbed the wrong one, which turned out to be the right one. But it was a pretty intense time. And I made the call to 911. But they didn’t realize that I was there for some reason. It’s just the, you know, my one operators to the fire department, the police department. So we stood across the street in the neighbor’s driveway and watch the house burn for almost two hours before the police were realized we were there. I had no purse. I had no shoes. I had no car keys, and my car I’d had the presence of mind and I don’t know when or how to move the car. To the neighbor’s driveway because I had a convertible I left and I remember thinking I gotta save the car boys stay right here. But I had put everything in the trunk of the car so I locked my keys in the car fair. So no way to get out but it was a five alarm fire and they blocked off the entire road so I couldn’t have gotten out of I tried. So about two hours in a police truck drives up because he the homeowner, he had the homeowners were standing here in the cold crying our eyes up and he went oh my god, we didn’t know you were here get in the back of my car. So they drove us to a local hotel where the hotel gave us a night free until I could figure out my money situation. My husband drove down and made us that made it there about midnight that night from his poker game. And by the next morning, we had friends converge on us we’d heard about fire bringing us toothbrushes and underwear and clothes and food and anything we needed, even though it was two and a half hours away from our family and friends. So that was a pretty big event. Please
Jeremy Weisz
go check again because then you’ve been in the house as opposed to watching from the outside.
Andrea Heuston
Yep. Well, and the interesting interesting thing, the sad thing so like I said, it’s it’s a three story house in the top story burned down, and the roof fell in on the kids bunk beds where they were sleeping. It was very, very scary. We lost everything in the house. What we didn’t lose to fire, we lost the smoke and water. So we rebuilt from the ground up, but now it’s a house before it was a cabin, a beach cabin, not to beach house and with the best insurance in the country. So USA saved us and literally pulled our butts out of the fire, huh? Yeah.
Jeremy Weisz
And then if that wasn’t enough, there’s one more life altering event.
Andrea Heuston
Yeah, so after my coma, I had decided that I could give responsibility to my staff because they were very good at what they did. And I didn’t have to run every piece of the company anymore. Before I was able I had responsibility for 85% of the clients that came through The door. So I, you know, I divided it up, I was a strategic person sales and director of culture, but we had an employee who started when I was ill actually, who became our Senior Project Manager and one of our product managers and he was freaking amazing. He was great with our clients. But by the time he left, he owned 85% of the relationships and he died quite suddenly. So he was 42 years old, and he died of colon cancer, leaving three kids all under the age of 10. And he was my neighbor. for 12 years. He worked for me for nine years, and we’d known each other for 15. And we were good friends. And it just cut me off at the knees. And I didn’t feel like I was allowed to be sad because he was a neighbor and an employee and a friend. Whereas his wife and his family who lived four doors away were really really struggling and so I ended up realizing and being diagnosed as depressed about eight months later and in the time from his death or when he left the company in January, three years ago, to the time I was diagnosed, we lost $600,000 in revenue that year, because I simply didn’t care. And I had to put my head in the sand and care again if I was going to have a company, and people who are going to have a paycheck, so I did and we’re okay. It’s been a we rebuilt ever since. And then this year hits, everything’s up in the air. That’s okay. We’re doing our due at the time.
Jeremy Weisz
You know, I always like to ask in general, since it’s spring, Sir, how does someone push through tough challenges? And at that point, you know, the if at all these things hit and then this happens to a friend and staff member, what did you do to pull your head out of the sand? I mean, it’s not it’s easier said than done. You know,
Andrea Heuston
it is. So it was hidden from me. I know that sounds strange. I didn’t realize I was depressed because I wake up every day grateful to be on earth and I really hold that font, I have a practice of gratitude every day. And I focus on what I’m grateful for and how grateful I am for the air in my lungs. So, not only did I not feel like I was allowed to be sad, but I also felt like no, I’m not sad. There’s no sadness that I’m sad that he passed away, but I’m fine. You know, things are okay. And I actually had to realize it and have a doctor tell me first and I was depressed because I was showing signs of depression for me to actually recognize it and go, Wait, I can fix this or there’s a way I can get through it. And I can help the company. So I took over a lot of the work again, and a lot of the relationships as well and I was like, I was able to rebuild we we didn’t get them all back because you wouldn’t you know, people have done and we failed. We failed to be good at customer service for a while we fail to the relationship portion, which we really are good at. So it’s I mean, it’s been a build it’s been rebuilding step by step by step and brick by brick. And that’s difficult for me because I’m not very patient. I like things to move fast. I like results. So this brick by brick stuff is not fun. But we’ve been doing well. And we’re doing better. Now.
Jeremy Weisz
Let’s I want to talk about virtual events. Because in this shift of this environment we’re in and whenever someone’s listening, there’s always going to be some kind of crisis going on. Doesn’t matter, right? But there’s specifically virtual events, and St. Michelle Wine Estates, you want to talk a little bit about that?
Andrea Heuston
Sure, oh, I adore this client. I really actually love all my clients. I’ll say that, but this is one of my favorites. I have kept saying which I want to state as my own personal client, instead of passing it off to one of my project managers, because I enjoy working with them so much. There are a lot of fun, and it’s very creative. So they came to us we do a lot of their work, and we have for about seven years now. And they came to us and they wanted us to produce a show internally for June 24. With all their internal people, which means on three different continents with lots of have different stakeholders. And I said, it’s not gonna happen. I said, we can give you a plan for an on site event. But I think you need a backup as a virtual event. And over a few days of talking, we finally got them to realize it needed to be virtual. And what we did is instead of rolling out all of their new content, and then they’re kind of closing the book on the last 50 years, and going forward now for what’s in the future, we are creating a series of videos that is almost like a Netflix series or TV series that will release over three seasons, but it’s only going to be through six to seven weeks of time, where they’ll see a new, a new video or a new episode almost daily for a few weeks. And so we punted to create this content that now can be evergreen now can be stored now can be used when people come into the company, or when they’re doing advertising or anything else so you get a lot more value out of what you’re doing. In this case than if we’d had a life event. I’m so deep in it now. It’s fun. This is a great project.
Jeremy Weisz
What do you think? You know, because oftentimes with these shifts comes opportunity, right? So what do you see is the opportunity that will come out? Because they would have never done this otherwise. Right? And by the way, this is the right site I’m looking at is this a good coffee
Andrea Heuston
shop? There’s a Michelle. So wine estate is owned by a larger company in the south, but they have wineries and wine partnerships all over the world. And you know what, we’ve done live events for them for many years, and they’re amazing. We have so much fun last year, we up leveled everything for them with a live event and they loved it. But right now is not the time for that we will come back to live events. But I don’t think there’ll be to the same degree. I don’t think we’ll do as many because virtual events can reach more stakeholders, because we are spread apart nationally and internationally. And because we have people perhaps with access issues, who couldn’t come to a live event, we can now hit bigger on Audiences deeper audiences with more content. Sometimes when you have a talking head on a stage, it’s impactful. But it’s not as impactful as being able to review something over and over again to get it to stick in your head. Yeah, I think virtual events is where we’re going. This is the future of events. And there’s a lot of companies who are stepping up to the plate to do it really well. And we are one of them. In fact, I had a call this morning with four other companies all over the country, about creating a live event package for some of our clients with localization services, with Speaker coaching with all sorts of different bells and whistles that will bring it all together into a much more impactful event, much more impactful things for people to see and ingest.
Jeremy Weisz
What should Yeah, people make sure to have in their virtual event, like what are some of the, you know, pieces that are must have?
Andrea Heuston
It’s a very good question, Jeremy. Really interaction. So people have online with zoom, I’m learning that people have about a 12 and a half minute attention span, which is crazy. But there’s, they really say it’s 25 minutes, but you’re gonna start losing people around 12 and a half minutes where they’re gonna go, I’m gonna check my email. Now, I’m going to do this or, you know, let me just turn my my video off. So no one can see me while I eat that kind of thing, which I understand we have to understand going forward, but you need more interaction. So that comes in the form of rooms where people can go to and have more intimate conversations and then come back to a larger group. A lot of people think that q&a is the one big thing you should do. I don’t actually think so. I think q&a is important, but it needs to be moderated. And it’s best if it’s scripted. In a case like that, where you can pull people ahead of time, and then ask questions. One thing I would say in a virtual event that’s really, really good is to pre recorded Video, what I have learned is you pre record in small sections, you give the video out, and then you do an exercise. And then you have live q&a. So there’s still the activity. One of the other things we’re doing is we’re doing a technology drops or swag drops to people who are in the audience so that there can be some interaction. So you get a box full of goodies and you’re having this virtual event and the moderator says, okay, you get to open it. Oh, yeah. And then you can do something with it. So it becomes an interactive presentation, the more people do for themselves, obviously, it’s like writing makes you remember things better, but the more people can do and interact with themselves, the more they will ingest the content.
Jeremy Weisz
So actually still having the physical swag bag there. And then it’s I bet it’s probably more impactful because usually you just go to an event you get it you kind of peace through it, maybe like when you get home, you like dumping on the bed and like spread it out type of thing. But this is if someone’s specifically saying, okay, go here, pull this out. Here’s what this is for, it’s probably way more impactful than how we do it in event
Andrea Heuston
guests. And it’s curated better. So instead of saying to your event vendors put something in the goodie bag, it’s not that’s not valuable, and it’s never been really valuable. To be honest, it’s an advertising opportunity. But this way, you’re curating things that are valuable to both the content and the person receiving and so it becomes something that they want to keep it becomes something they refer back to, it becomes something that hallmarks a memory, or helps you remember what was discussed or the content that you ingested.
Jeremy Weisz
You know, um, you know, Andrea, someone goes to artitudesdesign.com, they can see the different aspects and different things that you do. One of the things I wanted to talk with you about his presentations, and because you guys are awesome Master at presentation design and training. So what are some of the aspects that from a training perspective? What should people make sure to either have in or what do you instruct them that would make their their presentation more powerful.
Andrea Heuston
So the things to tell people about presentations or to train them on how to give a good presentation, there’s all sorts of different things. But if we’re talking about what’s on the screen, and that’s one thing I want to address right now, take your words off your screen. For the very first thing I will tell you, I will challenge my speakers to have no words on the screen. Because really, that means we’ll end up with a few words on the screen.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, exactly.
Andrea Heuston
That’s and that’s fine.
Jeremy Weisz
Is it so people are not paying attention to your slides or paying attention to you
Andrea Heuston
is that yes, because really, your presentation or your video or whatever is going on behind you or beside you should only emphasize your message. The main message comes from the speaker and it’s vitally important. And that comes across. I mean, otherwise, what’s the point? So the presentation or the video should win the award for Best Supporting Actor actress, but the speaker should win the award for the best actor or actress.
Jeremy Weisz
Hmm. I love that. Yeah, as you could see some of this. If anyone’s watching the video, you could see like the some visual images that will tell a story, but the person will tell the story.
Andrea Heuston
Exactly. It’s just to emphasize a point.
Jeremy Weisz
I am terrible at this, Andrea, so I need to listen to your voice. I need to put way too many words on here. I like this one 1 billion windows 10 devices.
Unknown Speaker
Okay, this is a good impactful. Yeah, I love that one.
Jeremy Weisz
Um, so from a visual perspective, what about from a delivery perspective? What are things that people should be aware of when they’re delivering a presentation?
Andrea Heuston
Well, in a virtual world, I tell people to look at the camera and not at the screen and not at the people on On the screen, so see you’re in a Zoom Room or a WebEx or any other piece of software that’s helping you present. You can turn off self view, don’t look at yourself, look at look at the webcam. So I have a little arrow at the top of my laptop that points to it so that I remember to look at it now. I don’t always do it. But it’s really important that you do that. Because then it looks like you’re interacting with the audience. It feels really strange for the speaker.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, you’re right. I’ve seen people and I was like, wondering, I was watching this video, someone. And I was like, why do they look down like this is because I think they had it on their phone and on their phone. And they were looking down like this, but the camera was coming from their computer, and I thought they were ignoring the people the whole time. But I realized, oh, they’re looking at this little phone, but it totally I thought the person was disengaged with the audience.
Andrea Heuston
Yeah. And then I watched somebody last week, give a speech and they read their notes the whole time. So they’re just reading their notes and I’m just watching them read it. Another person in the same event actually had their notes on their screen. So they’re just looking at the camera, they’re looking at their machine or their screen. And it makes more sense because then it looks like you’re interacting with the audience. So I think really in a virtual world, focus on your camera, not on the people there is very important. I in a virtual world, you need a moderator for a presentation because the speaker cannot be expected to be able to moderate chat, moderate QA or anything else. They need to be the star of the show. They need to be present. So that’s also very valuable. There’s so many tips and tricks for virtual and virtual world it’s about interactivity. If you have a smaller meeting, we like to do things like 100 people, polls are great. q&a is great. Some sort of activity like I did this webinar for 200 women a couple weeks ago and it was about being present in a virtual world. And I made a really loud noise and I told them at some point there will be allowed Noise a trivia question. And whoever answers it the quickest and chat wins a prize. And we did that and people were so engaged because they I mean, we had like, hundred, some come across all at one time, it was about who was the fastest. So if you tell them, you’re doing things like that, it really it sounds silly, but it’s about keeping people are entertained and engaged. And if they’re not engaged, they’re not going to hear anything you have to say either. So if you’re really just a talking head, it’s the same thing on a real live stage. If you’re just a talking head, and you don’t have any inflection in your voice, and you just sound like this and you don’t move around. You’re going to lose your audience. So it’s about keeping your audience engaged.
Jeremy Weisz
So is your Microsoft. Talk about some of the things you’ve Microsoft?
Andrea Heuston
Oh, Microsoft is one of my favorite clients. We’ve been working with Microsoft for 25 years plus, actually, it’s even been longer than that. But we work really, in the event space at Microsoft and then we work almost in every single groups across Microsoft, they used to be called business groups, and we were in every single one. Now, they’re not called that, but we’re still there. So we work with different insects and different teams crafting and creating their message in such a way that it inspires audiences. Now it can be an audience online, it can be an audience who reads an email. It can be an audience who hears a spoken word, or it can be an audience that needs a video to make a point. So what we do is we were deeply with those clients and those teams to create value for them so that they can put it out to their audiences and their audience can be internal or external. It can be an audience that needs to learn something we do training to, or it can be an audience who just needs some quick information. So we do infographics as well. Anything that really inspires audiences, in a visual way is what we’re super good at. and Microsoft has been a client for years. We do a lot of work in the events presentation team, which is now called the experience The experienced team I believe, and we have a lot of fun with that team as well. But then we work with other clients like CSGO is a client we work with. Olivia is amazing over there. We work with Daphne Elliot and have for years. We work with Kelly Q and she’s a lot of fun. Jade McCracken is one of my favorites. Lee Feldman, we do a lot of work with Lee Feldman, who supports Cordell Benny, who’s one of my favorite clients as well. They’re just fun to work with. And they’re different
Jeremy Weisz
Andrea how’d you get into this business in the first place? We’re talking like 25 plus years ago, what got you doing this?
Andrea Heuston
Well, we’re talking 1988. So that’s more than 25 years ago, friend. I started as an intern at an engineering firm in Kirkland when I was 17 years old. I just returned from Europe as an exchange student and I wanted to do something because being bored is not my thing. I don’t like I’d like to have my time felt. So I started as a as an intern as a technical illustrator for their training department, and there were no computers yet. So I started with regular paste up tools during design. And then six months in, I got the putty colored Mac Mac on my desk with, you know, one desk for pagemaker is fascinating, and a lot of fun. So I was there for the beginning of desktop publishing and the beginning of computer aided design. And it’s been a ride, let me say I worked for them for a number of years. And then they were purchased by French company. And they had me come in, I ran the team. By that time I’d been there seven years, I ran the design team, and they called me in and they said, We need you to lay off your team. I said, Okay, I’ll lay off my team. I mean, I was so young. I was 24. When I laid off my team, it was brutal. And I went through it, I did it and I’m just proud of myself. And they called me in the next day and they laid me off.
Unknown Speaker
And I said, How did you do dirty work?
Jeremy Weisz
You do the dirty work and then they let you go?
Andrea Heuston
Yes, exactly. But two days later, they called me in, they said, We made a mistake. We need you to come back and bring one of your team members because we have to roll out a full brand change for the new company. And I said on the phone back then because this is early 90s, I’m like, hold please, I’ll call you back tomorrow. I hung up the phone, I did some quick research and I drove to Olympia, Washington to our state capitol and bought a business license for our attitudes lab design. Mm hmm. And that was 1995, August of 95. When I was up and running, and what happened for me is I used they were my first client. So I called him back and I said, great, I’m coming back and I’m bringing Sandy with me, but you’re gonna pay through my company, and this is how that’s gonna look. So they agreed. It was great. And then they had laid off a ton of people like all the instructional design team had left some of the marketing team and they went to this little tiny software company in Redmond called Microsoft in the my phone started ringing once people found that I had hung up my own shingle. So I started with Microsoft in the games group, doing flight simulator 95. It was years and years. Wow. Yeah.
Jeremy Weisz
Flight Simulator nine to five. So what did that look like at the time?
Andrea Heuston
I helped do UI. So user interface design. And then I also did all of the collateral that came with it. So the book that came with it, so you could figure stuff out. I did that. If you Google me, I was on ash. Ron’s call too, which is a really cool game years ago, and my name pops up in the credits, but I did so many games and then 10 years in, I was a contractor hiring contractors. So I would ask other people to come work for me, but little did I know that the IRS frowns on that. So, a freelancer hiring freelancers, there’s no way to funnel any taxes or do anything else and although everybody was 1099 I had one employee, employee, not employ one contractor, excuse me, who was One for child support in two states. So I got a letter saying they were gonna garnish his wages, and I just ignored it because it wasn’t my employ. Just don’t ignore the IRS, everybody. So I ended up hiring a lawyer and paying $47,000 in fees and fines, because I hadn’t been able to child support. Oh, no. Yeah. Wow. So and that’s how we started and then I incorporated because the lawyer said, you know how to never have this happen again. you incorporate the company. So I did. And now here we are.
Jeremy Weisz
That’s amazing. I’m
Unknown Speaker
pretty happy about it. Yeah.
Jeremy Weisz
Yo, Andrea, you work with all I mean, people see on your your page. You were Starbucks, Microsoft, Expedia. What were some stuff you did for Expedia,
Andrea Heuston
a lot of presentation design support for Expedia, where we would go in and talk to a speaker. Usually that was interviewing speakers, and it’s fun to create some stuff for them because it’s different than some of the other companies we work for. So we would interview them and create Create really cool presentations for them that they can use in their different different one on ones or different one on 10s or different one on thousands, speeches and audiences.
Jeremy Weisz
How is working with startups different from these fortune 100 500 companies?
Andrea Heuston
Well, we got a couple of things, startups first, have no money. So that’s when we have a sliding scale for Starbucks or startups. Not for Starbucks, sorry for startups. One of the things we like to do for startups is we help them with their pitches, their pitch decks. So pitch decks have seven to 10 slides that are normal in every pitch deck. When you’re going out for VC funding your first round, we’re talking first round, not second or third here. So we would help them create their story and craft it so that they could get funding and we still do that when they come to us. It’s a lot of fun. It doesn’t it doesn’t translate to a lot of revenue. But man, these people are excited. about what they’re doing. And it makes us excited to
Jeremy Weisz
what’s important for them to include in their story.
Andrea Heuston
Their story.
Jeremy Weisz
They often don’t even include that in the pitch deck.
Andrea Heuston
Exactly. They often don’t include it. They just say, this is my product. These are the people on my team. This is how much money we put into it. This is the timeline. This is our marketing plan. Great, but it’s dry. Who are you? And why should they buy into this? Why should they jump on your train versus somebody else’s?
Jeremy Weisz
Hmm, what’s what are the fit your favorite interviews? So you’ve gone because you have a lot of amazing women leaders who you featured on the podcast and they kind of you know, you get up close and personal and they talk about a lot of different things. What’s maybe what’s like a story that sticks out to you that listen, all of them are good, but like this, this story of from this person really sticks out that start here, maybe
Andrea Heuston
so there’s so much Many good interviews that I’ve done and a lot of them that haven’t even been published yet. And the stories that I get and the connection I get with these people is fairly deep fairly quickly. One of my favorite stories is Jean Thompson. She’s the CEO and owner of Seattle chocolates. And it was kind of how she jumped into it. She didn’t start out in chocolate, she started out in marketing and Microsoft. And she was a marketer for a big tech company. And then, you know, she was at Microsoft early days. And so she got some money out of stock, and she decided to invest in Seattle chocolates. And a few years in Seattle chocolate was going to go under, unless somebody stepped up and she was on the board then because she’d invested money. And she said, Hey, I’ll do it. I’ll come in and help you with some marketing. And so eventually, and very quickly, she became the CEO, and she’s just rocked it. She’s made this company that has it also creates value because they have a social justice and they add, so they do chocolates through her second cup. When it comes to a cocoa, where it’s a one for one where you buy a chocolate bar and then somebody gets a free meal, so they donate meals to nonprofits around Washington, but also someplace else that help feed the hungry. So she just she has such a beautiful heart.
Jeremy Weisz
There’s a social impact in bed. Okay, so what’s the website for that? Where can people check it out? Huh? Seattle, chocolates.
Andrea Heuston
Seattle chocolates? Yeah. Okay. And then her sub brand is J Coco. Jc OCF. And that’s the brand that they do a one for one with a gift bag. Cool. Yeah. Well, she’s just so cool.
Jeremy Weisz
Um, Andrea, the, I want to talk about you talked about some of the some like for life altering events. What’s something on the flip side that you’re especially proud of after this? You know, 25 plus year journey with your company. What’s a proud moment for you?
Andrea Heuston
There are a lot of proud moments really I always try to push that onto my team because it’s their moments. Really, honestly, I would say one of the best things that ever happened for us is that we won Best Places to Work. But we’ve actually wanted twice. We want it for Seattle business magazine, which was a really big deal, because we tried it for four years. And we finally run one number one A number of years ago, but also for the Puget Sound Business Journal, because they do the best places to work every year. And I wanted in and I wanted in And so finally, I can’t just say I want it. It’s they’re not going to do that your team or my employees had to actually answer questions and bonuses. So those are super proud moments for me that the thing I would say right now is that we’re still here that we’re still standing. When we’ve had a lot of our work has been slashed. We’re down over 30% in the live event world, or even more in the live event, but we’re making up for it now in the virtual event and it’s about the word that I hate right now is pivot but it’s about pivoting and being What our clients need in a way that they didn’t know they needed it?
Jeremy Weisz
What should other companies be doing as far as culture that you do to become a Best Place to Work?
Andrea Heuston
Listen to their employees. I gotta tell you, it’s not the Andrea show. It used to be before I figured out that it couldn’t be. I am there to serve. I am with my company to serve the people who work for our Artitudes. And what that means listening more than anything else that makes listening. So today we talked about Should we go virtual completely, totally virtual and absolutely no one have any qualms about it. In fact, they prefer it. Now, I grew up in a time where if I didn’t, you know, if they didn’t see me working, I wasn’t working. So I really have to realize that I have to trust my people. But for me, it’s about listening, and making sure that every voice is heard. So every six months, we do something called start, stop, continue. And I send it out to my team and it’s anonymous, not to me, but to everybody else, but they tell me what they want Artitudes to start doing, what they want Artitudes to stop them. Doing and then also what they want us to continue doing. And we deselect, and we talk about it as a team without making we make it anonymous, so that we can be what they need us to be. So they can keep adding value for our clients.
Jeremy Weisz
You know, I’m Andrea, I don’t know if you’ll agree with this statement or not. But I think, you know, I consider women, business leaders, entrepreneurs, any woman like a super woman, because oftentimes, especially if you have a family, and you’re balancing in like, I know, in our household like, my wife’s a superwoman, I got her know how she does everything she does, because, you know, she takes sometimes the brunt end of the kids activities and all the stuff that she has to run in addition to her business, so I don’t know how she does. I don’t think I could do it. Um, so how do you? Yeah, I probably could. You’re totally right. And she does it with ease from the outside and how do you balance the world Work and, and the family.
Andrea Heuston
I don’t believe in balance, I believe in being someplace 100% when I’m there, so when I’m working, I’m 100% working. When I’m with my family, I’m 100% with my family, but what you’re talking about, for me, it’s called the mom load. And so there’s a constant stream in the back of my head. Okay, hasn’t had his orthodontist appointment? Do I need to call the dentist back? Wait, I’ve got to get the dog to the vet. And still, I’m having a conversation with you. And I’m also thinking about my next meeting. So it is called the mom lode. And we’re really good about it. And we’re good at it overall. But we have to give ourselves grace in order to continue the steam train we’re on or the steamroller. I guess I could say because we have stuff every minute of every day and I don’t care who you are as a woman leader. Whether you have a family to take care of your spouse to take care of or anything else to do outside of being a woman leader, you have a ton. There’s so much that’s in our minds. We have also to fight against stereotypes that men have created. Over the years, and they are still there, we also have to pick up the mantle of social justice because we truly believe in equality for everybody. And a lot of times, this is the stuff that’s playing on repeat in my head, that honestly, they’ve proven that men don’t have. So men are really good at doing what they do. And they’re outstanding at it usually, but women are good at what they do. plus all the other things.
Jeremy Weisz
Totally agree. Andrea, first of all, I want to be the first one to thank you. Thank you. I want everyone to check out leadlikea oman.biz. You could see there artitudedesign.com. You can see there. Are there any other places we should point people towards?
Andrea Heuston
Yeah, check me out on LinkedIn. It’s ANDREA HOUSTON, Andy, Ra H e u s t o n. I have a voice for change and a voice for social justice and a voice for women on LinkedIn is in fact one of my latest articles has over 1.3 million interactions It’s called never apologize for being a strong woman.
Jeremy Weisz
Hey, men, check it out. Andrea, always a pleasure.
Andrea Heuston
Thanks, Jeremy. I really appreciate the time today. You’re wonderful.
Jeremy Weisz
You too.
