Leap into Tech Innovation

Speaker 1: hi welcome to the sheit experience with Melanie you're here because you want to scale and grow your business Master business strategy and learn about new tech Innovation join me and my inspiring guests as we dive into the topic of how how to create build scale and operate the business of your dreams in addition to being an entrepreneur I'm also a twin mom and Optimist who loves empowering you to experience the life that you crave Magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so grab a coffee or cocktail get comfy and let's dive in today I'm thrilled to welcome Natasha French Natasha is a principal at scale strategies and the Los Angeles chapter president of the arvr association we're so excited to have you please tell our listeners more about you and who you are

Speaker 2: hi Melanie thanks for having me super excited to have an opportunity to talk a little bit about uh both the work I been doing and also my recent role as the chapter president for the arvr association so my company scale strategies over the past 15 years I've really focused on working on with a series of agencies Brands technology companies to find new ways with marketing strategies to engage consumers and fans so over a handful of years ago fell into the world of augmented reality virtual reality and Holograms where I virtually was bringing experiences to Consumers so for example imagine being able to interact with Roger feder as a hologram and you can get a personal experience when he's actually not there but then you can take that image and share it on social for more engagement or being able to experience something virtually in front of you which is augmented reality for example you can shop and you know place a sofa in your living room to see if it matches your existing environment and then you can buy it online not going to a store in today's day and age it's a little bit harder to do that so the digital and virtual world is really enabling brand to engage with consumers especially on the e-commerce front so at scale strategies what I focus on is working with Leading Edge technology companies that work with those Brands to create these experiences and I personally help both on the marketing front so helping them to identify who is their Market who are their customers and what products can we offer to help Brands better tell their stories to consumers so everything from digital marketing on traditional email campaigns to social media but also a lot of different tactics where we're now using our own technology I also work with a very cool company called Diamond who focuses on building everything with accessibility in mind so making sure that you're building a web experience or a mobile app experience and making sure that inclusivity is across that whole board and yeah most recently with the whole pandemic and everything happening I used to be attending an event or two night in Los Angeles and not being able to do that really hurts your networking abilities building starting those

Speaker 1: communication seeing the new technology that's out there so more recently I was asked to join the augmented reality virtual reality Association as their chapter president and what I'm really doing here is I really want to bring together all of the technology companies all of the brands that are using the technology companies and all the thought leaders in Los Angeles and be that Hub and resource so if someone looking to learn more they can come to our association so we host monthly virtual events right now we're going to be doing virtual demos but I think it's really important because a big part is educating the community what is AR what is VR you know how do you actually use it and when everyone's at home right now it's actually exciting because it took a while for people to adopt it and if anything came out of this it's actually helped the our industry meaning Aug reality virtual reality Excel and come to Market quicker because everyone is at home and these digital tools are really enabling us to connect better 100% and we're all looking at our business of how we can connect with our consumers and you mentioned bringing a couch in if you're selling a product I have a table that I wanted to buy for outside and you can't touch it and feel it but if you can visualize it in a space that would help me want to actually purchase it I'm sure that relates to a host of other products and companies yeah and it's that hard thing like I love going to a store and experiencing and feeling the fabric but at least in the meantime you can size yourself or there's really cool Technologies where you can put a phone in front of your foot and see how the shoe looks on your foot it's costly but now there's companies out there that are enabling Brands to turn their 3D assets and live in the augmented reality space to be able to virtually try it on I think the stat is 11 times more likely to return something also if you're buying it online so to increase those numbers you know you want to have the option to see how it looks in your house I me I feel like I spend my time at the grocery store and like going to UPS to return things because things don't look like they are in person or they don't have that same quality I just went through that with ordering wedding dresses online I think I returned five of them or six if I had that more three-dimensional experience and was able to see the full spectrum or understand the fabric I probably wouldn't have returned as many it's really important that Brands to know that they can use these Technologies to help provide the customer the better experience which is what all this technology is about is offering customers and consumers a better experience that seamless feels like they may be in a store or allows them to purchase that item without having to go through the hassle of returning it

Speaker 2: that's so interesting and clearly the direction we're going and so fun that you're on the Forefront of all of this it has to be a little bit overwhelming

Speaker 1: with how quickly things are changing but it's also super fun and exciting how have you seen your business or clients pivot within today's environment and have they been able to generate Revenue in different ways than before one of the

Speaker 2: companies I was working for before and one of the clients I work with now it's a company out of Philadelphia called MVP interactive and their whole business was providing fan engagements in sporting venues so imagine having no SP venues and no imperson events is also for entertainment experiences so we looked at the pandemic as an opportunity to innovate and the first thing with all these Technologies they're usually the first time we're doing anything so we looked at it and said what can people be doing at home because at the end of the day the goal is to engage with the brand engage with the team so if you keep those goals in mind you can now use these Technologies to create experiences that you don't have to be in venues one of the first things we created was an augmented reality bobblehead so you can get your phone take a selfie pick your team pick the brands that might be associated with the team pick the stance and now you have yourself as a bobble head and it can react to ingame touchdowns so if like there's a touchdown your bobblehead does a touchdown and and this way it's super cool you can have that experience and then you can invite friends to join your Bobble buddy and it's all through your phone because everyone at home has a phone so you have to think about what are those things that everyone has or more more people have headsets so you can create virtuality experiences the thing about that was if you just put your head down regroup as a team it was really scary that there are no more venues but then as things started to reopen we were able to work with Museum in Tennessee and they completely created like a covid friendly digital experience and it actually was great because it was all through gestur you don't have to touch anything anymore using you know new technologies to offer that contactless experience erience when people come back into museums and exhibitions and events it's been exciting we've gotten to create new experiences and then we also have to applaud the teams and the brands that are willing to take risks and Chances with new technologies and be the first like hey this whole situation is very stressful and we don't know what that future may be but let's try these new technologies and see how the fans response and then we can innovate from that one thing all of the clients I've worked with and myself learned is you just have to keep going be smart about it try new things and you're going to have to Pivot again but I think the cool thing that came out of all of this is there's going to be some really cool new technologies that we've never seen before and enabled AR and VR to be pushed forward and really for Brands and companies to see the value of the technology I think the main thing we learned was just keep on going you have

Speaker 1: to be flexible and know that things might not work but at least you keep trying that's really interesting and to your point now even when I am at a store and I go to check out or pay for something and I need to touch something I think do you really want me to do this I can see how the technology and everything is going in the direction of contactless Technology platforms first

Speaker 2: out door I was like I don't want to touch this no I had the same thought I think I've seen there's like these Keys you can buy now or like they open doors for you or their hooks I don't know if you seen it it's really like now like so you don't have to touch door handles

Speaker 1: or or elevators right Natasha you obviously have a lot on your plate with scale strategies and at the arv our association how do you manage business strategy and what strategy tips can you give us and if you are managing teams how do you make sure your team stays on

Speaker 2: task I think the first situation I already worked a lot I probably just worked more hours I think CU with lot less commute time and it took me a little bit just to step back and take a little bit of a break you could work 24 hours right like you're going from a a laptop to or eating dinner at home and I think the big thing is is making sure to separate the two and making sure you have like your focus at work I praise my friends who have children who are managing both working from home and having kids that's amazing right cuz you need able to manage both of those is very hard and I applaud everyone who can do that I think making sure that you take the time to understand like everyone's kind of in a unique environment breaking down time for work and personal is really important everyone is probably burnt out of video calls and one thing I found struggling was after five months of it I was like oh my God I lost my creativity and it was it was really funny I like I probably didn't but you just don't think because you don't step away enough another thing with teams is checking in some people are with family significant others some are working alone and you know might not be engaging much and I think it's important to check in on people someone I work with wanted to make sure like oh if you're on a laptop do you need anything can I send you a display how can we make your home office more comfortable that was really important my family and I we all drove across the country and met in Breen Ridge Colorado but you know what after I came back from that I came back with the clear as head and I just had that little break and I think that's really important to be sure you take time for your personal life and it'll give you a fresher perspective on work and then communication and just talking to your teams to your point this has affected us all in so many different ways you mentioned some people are home alone I am home with six-year-old twins that I'm homeschooling there's either not enough socialization or there's too much socialization you know there's times a little too much togetherness but I joke that having twins I've always had to juggle I've had to learn to juggle I mean I remember the first time both babies looked up at me crying and I thought okay how do I do this I'm one person I can't pick them both up at the same time I've had to learn to juggle

Speaker 1: but this time has definitely affected us all in in different ways and it's great that your suggestion of seeing how you can make someone more comfortable is a really great suggestion as far as being able to reach out to our team members I'm really excited to ask you this question and it's one of my favorite topics is there a favorite app or platform that you use that has really

Speaker 1: thing ever that you could figure out what song write I spend more time on like new engaging Innovative creating the apps as opposed to a lot of time you know I do all the social platforms for all the different Brands working for but I think for me it's these new augmented reality experiences that make your life a little more fun and it lets you take a break for a moment and live in this virtual world one cool thing I just saw was as a part of the V our association I get to demo a lot of new tech and there's a really cool new technology to host meeting so I'm sure we're all used to these video experience but there's a company called carvis it's a web- based experience you can also do it in VR but you're a little Avatar and the room is three-dimensional so you actually post your PowerPoint and it appears in the room it looks like you're all sitting there and that was so cool because it's different right it's a breath of fresh air that you don't have to just look at a flat screen and do a lot of that stuff so that's been fun to kind of see how meetings are going to innovate and how we can interact in a little bit more engaging way a friend of mine Christina heler she runs a company called metastage and they're doing volumetric capture but she hosts a VR Social Club every Wednesday you can join on Facebook Facebook and it's funny like you literally like they did a burning man in VR last week and so for me it's like experiencing and I and I tell everyone if you haven't experienced AR or VR like just go to the App Store and like download an app and just try it give yourself a chance to just experience it because it's one of those things that until you try it you won't understand the benefit of it or even if you want to play Pokemon go go do I think it's really fun to see those different experiences especially all of these NFL teams and brands have these experiences in their own apps the true try on one is called W to kicks which is super funs if you just want to try on some kicks this afternoon in AR you could check out that app trying all these different brands are investing a lot that to me is really fun to experience it's really fun to

Speaker 2: hear all of this and you're inspiring me to go and try some of these things cuz we're going to have to use them we're going in that direction where we're we're going to need them you mentioned customer service also so I've been thinking a lot about that because you know we've swung to a certain level where it's great that we have all these things delivered and it's great that we can have things pretty much as soon as we need them but sometimes it is extremely hard to get someone to respond with customer service to your point about HubSpot and I love that you say that they have good customer service I mean we're still human beings at the end of the day I mean all the technology and all the apps and virtual reality it's all so fun and I love hearing about all the new things but it's also from a customer service and how we relate to our clients we still have to be there

Speaker 1: for them to support them in Case Technology goes wrong for sure ivv noticed today I had to activate a hot spot and the salesperson was just doing it via text I'm like that was the easiest activation of a hot spot ever right yesterday I was like texting with the New York Times to like change my sub with like all the text I'm like these BS are great people didn't realize they were there but it definitely can help you technology is great when it works and sometimes a little bit of chance some technology out there might be too kimick but you have to give it a chance where a lot of of it is new you have so much going on how do you make sure that you take time for self-care and for yourself I know you mentioned you've been working from home and you know not really at times maybe taking the breaks and then how your vacation kind of reinvigorated you and brought your

Speaker 2: creativity back I think what you do is you just do it you always say I'll do it in an hour and then thing you know at 6:00 p.m. so what I've been trying to do too is bike early in the morning CU I know my afternoon might get crazy and then just making time and just know like obviously unless it's a major deadline and this has to go out tomorrow I do a priority list right I'm so old school wri in my booklet and what has to get done prioritized and can this wait till tomorrow I'm the worst at this like I could keep going going going and you just have to stop and be like you know what nothing's going to go wrong if this doesn't happen and I can pick it up probably with a a clearer head tomorrow and probably get it done faster I know people were exhausted by Zoom happy hours in the beginning of covid yes just schedule that time with your family or schedule time just to call someone it doesn't always have to be video it could be phone call old school too I think everyone's like do you want to do zo I'm like what if we just do a phone call sometimes you need that when I have when I have't beene alone I'm like I am alone this is so so strange we're not used to it usually we at work eight 10 hours a day right to be in a room with the same person for that long a little too much togetherness at times I think we've all experienced that recently um another thing interesting that you said is I talk to another woman who are on the Forefront of Technology but you both still write down your lists and I find that super interesting because I think there is something that happens in Our Minds when we physically write something down cuz I am on Google talks and all the apps and well I also think it's the satisfaction of Crossing it off when it's done you don't get the same when you hit the strike through on right I think it's like the actual pen right since we are all dreaming of

Speaker 1: travel right now I'd love to know your favorite trip that you've ever been on where did you go where did you visit why did you love it I am dying to travel it

Speaker 2: was funny the week that R State got shut down my new passport arrived it was like the irony I was like well I can't use this when I was in college I spent a

Speaker 1: semester in Geneva in Switzerland and since then it's always been a very dear place so I go back like every other year and some of my dearest friends actually one of my bridesmaids lives there we stay in touch and she comes visits and I was there just last year or the year before last excuse me and I just love it because it's one of those places because when I travel you know I either want to go I have a lot of friends overseas and family as well and I enjoy like Visine and having a local really give me the flavor and showing me around as well so every time I go there like just being able to have an April Spritz on Lake Geneva and then like taking a train up to lcon and you can like wine taste and cheese taste which is the best up in the mountains it's funny there's a part of it that just relaxes me and it might be like the familiarity because I've been there so much but also every time I go I can visit with my friends but also go explore something new like the last time we were there we did a weekend in mayorca and you know you could just take the train down to Italy or you're just like a hop skip and a jump from France or so I think that's one of my favorite

Speaker 2: places magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one tip that you can leave us today about how you

Speaker 1: find and live your joy it's funny I put together these core values for clients what those should be and one of them was to be proud of your work we spend so much time like delivering or doing things that sometimes we don't take a step back and be like you know what I did this and it impacted X Y and Z and be proud of that and share it with others and I think that's one thing that if you set the goal and you hit the mark and you can be proud of that and understand the impact you might have made in whatever industry or job you're doing that's something we probably don't do enough I actually find that with most of my clients they I always tell them when I'm working on like messaging is none of them ever say we're the best or we're awesome I'm like whatever else is saying it just own it like you are the best you're doing something really cool right like just own the work you're doing be proud of it we're all humans who will make mistakes but if you're proud of Sy them I think that's something that you should step back and then also learn from that like what did I do right so I can Implement that on my next project or my next being I

Speaker 2: completely agree we're so busy and you know we'll accomplish something really great and we just keep going you're exactly right with taking the time to really feel and acknowledge what we accomplish Natasha You' have built an incredible business and career and it's been so great having you on the show can you please tell us how we can connect

Speaker 1: with you the best way contact me on LinkedIn I'm always on it it's just Natasha n a t c h last name French so feel free to send me a message via there that and I'll definitely reply and definitely would love to hear from everyone and talk more and I thanks for taking the time to chat with me today

Speaker 2: yes it's been so great having you thank

Speaker 1: you everyone for joining us and until next time keep building your business making the day in Quantum leaps and let nothing stop you from living your dreams if you are new to Sheil it we'd love for you to join us we offer Community memberships masterminds Innovative virtual events and meaningful connections to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders please also check out our sheb built it shop curated products from women-owned businesses who put their heart and soul into their beautiful and Innovative products we offer Sheil tip business Consulting and the Sheil tip blog thank you to everyone around the world who joined today thank you to my editor Rich stalino please download And subscribe wherever you get your podcast and until next time together let's let nothing stop us from experiencing the life that We crave