Ep 10: Dana Van Nest: Using Words as Tactical Instruments

On this episode of Marketing for Good, Dana Van Nest joins Erica to talk about Erica’s favorite topic, words! They talk about getting your ego out of the way when writing for marketing or fundraising communications so you can focus on the mission and the audience. Using words as tactical instruments for content that supports your marketing objectives, which then supports the organizational goals. Making sure any communications you send out right now have a tone that lets your audience know you understand the crisis situation that we’re in, without overdoing it. And, the strategy of always giving somebody three options, so the best option will shine.

 

This is a transcript of Erica Mills Barnhart’s interview with Dana Van Nest on the Marketing for Good podcast. You can listen to the episode here and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. Enjoy!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, writing, write, marketing, communications, organization, words, content strategy, listeners, world, content, read, clients, writer, plan, messages, book, nonprofit, nonprofits

Erica Mills Barnhart  00:13

All right with me today is writer and communications strategist Dana Van Nest. Before opening her consulting practice, she was Associate Director of Marketing Communications and Public Relations at Henry Art Gallery, where she was responsible for planning and executing the museum’s marketing, communications and public relations plans. She also worked as marketing director at Collins Group, a fundraising consulting firm, where she provided strategic direction for the firm’s business development and marketing communications initiatives. In 2010, oh since 2010 (not in since 2010), Dana has been a member of the Association for Women in Communications Seattle professional chapter. In 2016. She received the Georgina McDougal Davis Founders Award. This award is given annually to a Seattle chapter member who consistently exhibits the highest ethics of professional excellence and personal commitment in everything she does. In 2003, her original co-written screenplays…wait for it…this is so flippin cool…screenplay ‘Turn Right by the Yellow Dog’ was produced by the Danish Film Institute and debuted at the San Jose Film Festival. Dana holds a BA in English from the University of Washington and an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College. Dana Van Nest, welcome to the show.

Dana Van Nest  01:26

Thank you. So I’m happy to be here this morning.

Erica Mills Barnhart  01:29

Yay. So I just read your professional bio. And clearly, there are some themes in your career writing, words principal among them.

Dana Van Nest  01:42

Mm hmm.

Erica Mills Barnhart  01:42

But I want to start by having you tell listeners just a bit more about you and how you got to where you are today.

Dana Van Nest  01:50

Okay. Yeah, the theme of writing definitely goes back to my young young days. And that’s because I’m a reader first. Anytime that I have the chance, that’s what I’m doing. I’m reading a book. That is my preferred method of relaxation, of learning, of being both in with the world and in a different place in the world. And so when I was young, probably in elementary school, I started figuring out that I could write those stories too. And that I was pretty good at it. And I was encouraged to do it. So I started identifying as a writer when I was a little girl. And it was a place to escape and to practice sentences, to practice words, to practice building whole world, in my own head, and then pushing those out on paper. And as I grew older, I started realizing that that could be a career…

Erica Mills Barnhart  02:49

Like a thing like a thing in the world.

Dana Van Nest  02:51

It was a thing in the world. It wasn’t necessarily super supported by my parents at first because they were worried about the economics of being a writer. I tried journalism. But journalism is true stories, great for journalists, I love reading journalism totally support our local papers and our national papers right now. But I like to make things up. I think that’s a lot more fun. So, when I was in college, I went into creative writing. So my degree, as you said, is English with a fair writing, emphasis. And then a couple of years later, after I graduated college, I went to Boston to get my MFA in creative writing, which was a wonderful experience. And where I got introduced to screenwriting and screenwriting, is, you know, dialogue on paper, is the way I looked at it. And dialogue is something that I was good at. And as those years passed, I kind of honed my skills in writing dialogue and writing short stories. I kind of assumed I would always get to a novel, but I never did then and I haven’t now and at this point in time, that’s not really where my interests lie. After I wrote that screenplay ‘Turn Right by the Yellow Dog’, which was not my original name, it means something, something in Danish that I can’t adequately transcribe because I don’t actually speak Danish. I wrote it in English and it was translated into Danish though some of the some of the nuance got lost in places here and there. It was a really excellent experience writing that screenplay. But what I found is that screen play writing isn’t as much of a collaborative sport as it may seem. People buy your screenplay, and then they do what they want with it. You get credit, and you get some money, and that’s nice, but that’s no longer yours.And that was something I didn’t want.

Erica Mills Barnhart  04:52

I want to go back to this idea about writing being a team sport, and marketing being a team sport, which is something we talk about on the show. But I have a question for you: do you think there’s such a thing as someone who’s just a natural writer? Or is it a skill that anyone can learn?

Dana Van Nest  05:10

I think some people have more of a way with words than other people. But you have to hone that skill. If you don’t hone that skill and pay attention, you won’t be a good writer. It’s the same with doing a sport. It really is. You may have a natural athletic ability. But if you don’t practice, and you don’t get out there every day and try to hone your talent, you won’t get better. Writing is the same way.

Erica Mills Barnhart  05:35

That’s a great analogy. Great analogy! Okay, about the team sport thing. I want to talk about content strategy and marketing strategy and these things. But I think people think about writing as a very solitary activity. So can you talk to us a bit about how to think about writing in the context of marketing and how those things become a team sport?

Dana Van Nest  06:04

Writing is and isn’t a solitary activity. You may do the actual work by yourself. But all of the words that you put out there on the page will be assessed and judged and critiqued. And applauded or not, by whoever you are writing the words for. It took me a long time as a younger person to get my own ego out of the way.

Erica Mills Barnhart  06:30

Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard.

Dana Van Nest  06:31

It was really hard because I had been praised for being a good writer. And I really took that to heart It became my identity. Yeah. And so when someone later would say, “yeah, this is good, but or, and…”, I could get really upset about it. It took it took me putting my ego aside and saying, okay, here’s the deal. I’ve been hired–at this point in time in the work I do–I’ve been hired to write this piece for a specific person or organization. And for this reason, so I’m going to write them the best draft that I can. And we’re going to go over it together because it’s theirs. It’s not mine. This writing does not belong to me. And when you’re writing for marketing purposes or fundraising communications, it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the organization and it has to hit the audience’s that they are trying to reach. You’re always having to look at a different perspective. And there is pride in getting it right the first time, but it almost never happened.

Erica Mills Barnhart  07:27

Well, but I also think it’s important to make the distinction between pride and ego.

Dana Van Nest  07:31

Yeah, yeah.

Erica Mills Barnhart  07:32

You can be, I mean, it’s sort of like kids, right? You can be proud of them. But you know, they’re their own humans and they’re meant to be out in the world and, you know, with the writing, it’s like, you can be proud of it. But to your point,  it’s not yours necessarily. Yeah. Okay, I’m hoping you’re gonna be able to clear something up for listeners. What is the difference…o you do writing and content strategy…what is the difference between content strategy and marketing strategy in your mind?

Dana Van Nest  08:06

An organization should have marketing goals and strategies that map back to whatever their strategic plan is, or their business plan, and how their marketing communications plan is going to augment their greater business goals. But the content itself, you’re drilling down a little bit further, and actually looking at what is going to go in each of these platforms in each of these places this week, so it’s much more about the actual words than the audience… that’s not quite right. It’s more about the words than the outcome almost.

Erica Mills Barnhart  08:47

 Oh, that’s interesting.

Dana Van Nest  08:49

Yeah. Well, what I mean is..

Erica Mills Barnhart  08:50

So, like words is tactical instruments?

Dana Van Nest  08:54

Well, that’s an interesting way to put it.

Erica Mills Barnhart  08:55

Well, thanks! I just thought of it. It just popped out of my mouth!

Dana Van Nest  08:58

I like that because that makes sense. That’s why you spend 10 minutes writing a Twitter post, sometimes every word and every, every placement of that word count. It is tactical.

Erica Mills Barnhart  09:10

“It is written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have the time.” When I teach. And it doesn’t matter if I’m teaching my marketing class or any of my classes, I always have them do a 280 character weekly reflection.

Dana Van Nest  09:26

Ooooh!

Erica Mills Barnhart  09:27

I know. And it’s actually usually, it’s a pretty decent chunk of their grade because it is hard and they have to do the reflection. And it’s not a summary. I’m not looking for them to summarize. I believe deeply in personalized learning, and so I want them to personalize the contents. So, you know, so what I asked them is like, take your key takeaways, and then also they have to then connect it to an outside resource we have not covered in class. So it’s actually a multi layer personalization approach to learning sort of scaffolding many different types. And students are really shocked at how challenging it is. And also the consistent feedback I get at the end, not the beginning, by the way, when they’re like,” Oh my goodness, really?!” But at the end, people are like, “That was really hard. And it really helped me learn better.” And it gets back to that idea of like, what’s the essence and what else can fall away?

Dana Van Nest  10:21

Mm hmm. That’s why I like short stories. Short stories are really hard to write. writing something that is a whole world and 35 pages, oh, my goodness, much more challenging than a novel.

Erica Mills Barnhart  10:33

Okay, so…I can’t even imagine by the way…all the writing I’ve done I can’t imagine that maybe maybe a decade or two from now. So, let’s see, in the Marketing for Good philosophy, we say that you have organizational goals and marketing objectives, okay. So sort of goals up here and objectives down here because marketing is in service to the organization or the company. The company’s goals.

Dana Van Nest  11:02

Absolutely.

Erica Mills Barnhart  11:04

So I was just curious, I mean, some people are like, “Oh, you’re just mincing words around the goals and objective”, but I feel like it’s a really important distinction. And when you talk about content strategy and the marketing plan, it feels like that’s, you know, a different rung on the ladder, the content, which then supports the marketing objectives, which then support the organizational goals.

Dana Van Nest  11:26

I would say it is, because you have an objective, whatever that is, you want to reach a certain target audience this week and have you know, 20 people comment on your Facebook post? That’s great. That’s a great objective. Now, how are you going to do it? What the language you’re going to use? Who are those people? Exactly. And where else are they going? And how can you find out what is going to entice them into staying with you into paying attention? I like the tactical and the practical aspects of writing.

Erica Mills Barnhart  11:58

Plus it rhymes: tactical and practical.

Dana Van Nest  12:04

I’m kind of a practical dreamer. I have big dreams, but I’m very practical about how I live my life. I’m not a ‘head in the clouds’ kind of person. And that’s how I approach my writing. Also, I remember getting feedback from a professor in grad school where he liked so much of my story, but these things needed to be fixed. I’m like, great. So I went home that weekend, I fixed every single one. And it came back like, boom, let’s go and he’s like, Oh. That’s what I thought I was supposed to do

Erica Mills Barnhart  12:33

Fix ’em all.

Dana Van Nest  12:34

Fix it.

Erica Mills Barnhart  12:36

Okay, here’s a here’s an unrelated question. Just a generic question. Are you somebody who if you if you have done something that wasn’t on your to do list, but then you do it, do you write it on the to do list and then cross it off?

Dana Van Nest  12:51

Yes, I 100% totally do that!

Erica Mills Barnhart  12:55

Right? I want credit for the thing. You know, like, it feels good to cross things up.

Dana Van Nest  12:58

It feels really good.

Erica Mills Barnhart  13:00

Okay, so one of your superpowers is clearly writing and then also developing content strategy. Can you give listeners some examples of what is a content strategy look like, what’s included?

Dana Van Nest  13:15

So one of the things that I really enjoy doing is working with organizations to do a communications audit to find out…what they usually hire me to do, because they know they aren’t where they need to be. Or they know they need to be doing communications, they need to have content strategy, and they don’t really want to do it. And that’s fine. That’s why you hire somebody to come in for a while as a consultant to help you out and put a plan in place. So in that situation, what I’m looking for is do you have communications messages already? Or are you winging it all the time? You know, do you have a mission or values for your organization? What are we working with here, and then we figure out what those messages are. And I think it’s fine to have, you know, three to five communications messages. Three is great, because you can remember three pretty easily. We break it down: here are the three things, the three messages, that the world needs to know, your audiences or the world, however big your organization is, about you. And everything we do from there is filtered through those three messages. Every blog post that we plan out every e-news that is planned out, all your social media channels, as well as the content in those channels is filtered through those three messages. We stay on brand, we stay on task. And that can be very easy then to build out a framework for a year saying, here’s our messaging. Here’s how this fulfills our marketing objectives, which fulfill our business goals.

Erica Mills Barnhart  14:48

So when you say communications message does that mean, are they like themes? Or is it actually the message or is it the message and a theme? Because you said then you write different things to support that. So tweets and Facebook posts in LinkedIn.

Dana Van Nest  15:07

Themes is probably the best way to put that then. Because then you have some some leeway because the world changes, your organization changes. And so your communications has to be responsive quickly. And you don’t have to be dogmatic about it, “These are messages. And that’s it.” Well, that’s your messages. We empower women and girls in low and middle income countries. Okay, that is clear, but there’s some room around that about how we’re going to talk about those.

Erica Mills Barnhart  15:44

Okay. Okay. That’s great. Um, so you do some, I think that you do ghostwriting? Is this true?

Dana Van Nest  15:53

Yeah, I do.

Erica Mills Barnhart  15:55

I’m not sure all listeners will be familiar with that term. So will you help us understand what it means? And then also how you actually how you in particular actually do it because different people goes right in different ways. And I’m just curious how you approach it.

Dana Van Nest  16:12

So ghostwriting is when you are the primary author of a piece, but it is not your name on the piece, it is your client’s name on that piece. And people hire those writers because they have something to say. And they either don’t have the tools to say it themselves or the time or the desire to write it all out. And those are things that I very much enjoy. So in this particular time, I’m mostly doing ghostwriting for blogs,

Erica Mills Barnhart  16:40

Okay, for clients.

Dana Van Nest  16:44

Exactly. So we have worked out with one of my clients, we made a plan for the year. I like to break it down by quarter. You can have ideas throughout the year, but once again, the world changes quickly and when you’re in a nonprofit or an NGO, or in some kind of organization where you need to responsive how the world’s changing that schedule needs to be able to be flexible. So I look more at a quarter at a time to say this is what we’re going to be doing in April, May and June. Here’s the plan. We can do now to July, if necessary, and move this in. And then I suggest to my client, here’s what I think we should be talking about. And she says, “That sounds good. I’m not ready for that yet. Let’s move this over here because I can connect it to an event here.” We reschedule and then I write out an outline. Okay, we talked…well, actually, before the outline, we usually have a long conversation. I just take a whole lot of notes. Because then I get her language. I get how she wants to talk about it. I can ask questions about where she’s going. And as she says, I’m thinking about how I’m going to connect this to other pieces that we’ve written and then I write it all out for her to read and edit.

Erica Mills Barnhart  18:01

Got it. So they can personalize.

Dana Van Nest  18:06

Exactly.

Erica Mills Barnhart  18:07

So there’s the words then and then there’s the tone, like that person sounds.

Dana Van Nest  18:15

Yeah.

Erica Mills Barnhart  18:16

So I did ghostwriting this a long time ago, I want to say for both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer at nominally the same era, and it was just, it was it was…I find ghost writing fairly existential. I can do it, I don’t think I’m fabulous at it like you are. But that is the starkest example I have of, you know, kind of similar content in some ways, because of the work we were doing with them. But they just talked so differently. And so how do you help your clients to find their brand personality, if they don’t have that, or are you just listening for the types of words that they use and then you extract from that?

Dana Van Nest  19:01

I’m listening to the types of words they use, phrases that are common that they use over and over again. The cadence of their voice, because you want their written communications to echo their verbal communications, not exactly because it is written so it shouldn’t be word for word, it shouldn’t be too many and’s or too many dot, dot, dots. It’s not a transcript. But you want to imbue the piece with their personality. So people will keep coming back because they also want to not just read the content, but they want to read their content.

Erica Mills Barnhart  19:35

Yeah, yeah.

Dana Van Nest  19:36

What is it that this person is uniquely bringing to the world? That is something that you have to focus on too? At times have to pull out my own thing, like I had put in a little Literary Reference in one that my client was like, “Yeah, I wouldn’t say that.” I’m like, Alright,

Erica Mills Barnhart  19:58

Well, one of the things I find so exceptional and endearing about you is your book log? Are willing to share with listeners about it?

Dana Van Nest  20:09

I keep a handwritten log of every book that I’ve written that I’ve read. And I write down the date, and the author and the date that I finished it. And I’ve been doing that since 1996.

Erica Mills Barnhart  20:21

That blows away. I am not that disciplined with my reading. I’m like, I dunno, I’m reading the book. I don’t know. It’s good. It’s not good. I finally read the “Time Traveler’s Wife” recently and I did fall in love with that book for sure.

Dana Van Nest  20:33

Good. I mean, that came out what 2011 so you know…

Erica Mills Barnhart  20:38

Well when you say it that way! Actually, the reason I came upon it, it was the day that the libraries were closing. So we’re recording this sheltered in place during COVID-19. So we’re never sure quite when the podcast will air. And it was the, they had announced like on a Thursday that all the public libraries were closing on the Friday. So I was one of those people who went and it was, you know, we’re just pulling off of the shelves. It was a it was like mayhem at the library. So I had the stack, you know, that’s like this. Is it quality? I don’t know. But they were books and they were available.

Dana Van Nest  21:17

And thank god they’re with you.

Erica Mills Barnhart  21:18

It was slim pickins Let me tell you, it was. I was just psyched to get that book.

Dana Van Nest  21:24

My pile of books, other than my pile of books from the library, is all about World War Two for some reason. I don’t know how that happened. That’s cheery reading for shelter in place.

Erica Mills Barnhart  21:36

Maybe you’re trying to extrapolate lessons?

Dana Van Nest  21:39

Sure. Okay.

Erica Mills Barnhart  21:40

Um, you have mentioned this, but I want to come back to it, which is how quickly things change in the world. I mean, obviously we’re seeing that play out minute by minute, hour by hour, day to day right now. So it’s accelerated and amplified right now. I’m just curious what trends you’re seeing and, you know, the thing with with crises is everything feels equally important. And that’s totally overwhelming. So, if you were a listener or for our listeners, what trends would you be really paying attention to because you think that they will serve them on the other side of COVID-19 are sort of long term?

Dana Van Nest  22:23

I think right now your audience wants to feel that you are there for them. But they don’t necessarily want to talk to you every day. There is so much content coming at everyone all the time, that I think that people are kind of weary right now. Yeah, we can only take in so much before our heart starts to beat just a little bit faster. And I do not want to add to the chaos at all. I wrote a blog post in mid March about that and saying But I don’t think people should over communicate at this time, which is going against what many other people are saying. And that’s because if they can’t hear you, they can’t hear you, if too much is coming at them, if you don’t have anything relevant to say, don’t say anything right now. And that blog post, got some great hits, and I was thrilled about that. And then AWC National, the association for many communications, a national group posted it about two weeks ago, and I was really happy about that, but I could also tell the content was already out of date.

Erica Mills Barnhart  23:37

I’ve been really quiet in terms of content, you know, focus mainly on this podcast and, you know, being something that will serve sort of regardless of Coronavirus, and I felt very conflicted about it, as I really haven’t done much but I, I genuinely felt like don’t have anything to add that will help people in any way during this time and, you know, I’m not a crisis communications person, I’m much more of a messaging strategist, teacher. Yeah, but it’s like a dialogue in my head for sure. And I know you know, every all my clients, past clients, folks in the community, you’re just not quite sure what to do. Right? Nothing feels quite right. And that’s, that’s a tough spot to be in.

Dana Van Nest  24:24

I think all the communications you send out right now must have a tone to them that lets your audience know that you are you understand the crisis situation that we’re in. It doesn’t need to directly reference it. You don’t have to hashtag COVID-19 all over the place. If you don’t have anything to say, then I’m really pushing people not to say anything. I had that same problem myself the other day, I looked ahead and had note on my calendar, I needed to draft my May blog post. And I thought, “Do I have anything to say that’s going to be additive? That’s going to be helpful?” And at that time, I couldn’t think of anything. So I’m not going to write until it’s something that will actually help people in this particular moment in a different point in time. I could have written about anything. But now it just seems superfluous. Or navel gazing.

Erica Mills Barnhart  25:39

Yeah. Sounding tone deaf cat. Yeah, for sure. I want to make sure that we have time to hear your thoughts and wisdom about internal alignment, communications and sort of managing internally. You have come a couple times to talk to me to students in my marketing classes at the University of Washington. And one of the things that they are, like, blown away by is your advice about both the complexities and the nuances of being somebody doing marketing internally. And what that means. Because one of the principles of the marketing for good philosophy is that it has to be good external engagement, but also good for everyone involved internally, with that idea of  alignment being really important. So will you share your experience doing that?

Dana Van Nest  26:35

Happy to! So I think people forget quite a lot that your internal team, your internal stakeholders, if you want to use that kind of language. They are your best ambassadors. And everybody needs to feel that they are part of the team. They need to feel like they have enough knowledge to be able to go forward and support whatever your goals are. And I understand that different people at different levels get different information. That being said, the more transparent you can be about where you are internally, the more engaged all your staff is going to be and feel like they actually have a stake in what’s happening. I think you’re going to see that even more now because everybody is all hyped up because you have a job, you really want to keep that job. And the more that CEOs and executive directors can say, here’s where I’m, here’s where we think we’re going. The more people say, “Okay, I understand that you don’t know yet. But thanks for letting me in. And letting me see that you feel vulnerable right now too. And that we’re in this together.” What I talked about with your class quite a bit to is managing up. And understanding that in order to be successful in your organization, you need to see what your boss needs. What are their goals? How do you help meet their goals because they are turning around and taking that up to the next level, whether it’s to the ED or to the board. And they will be able to come back to you and say, “Oh, the idea that you had, or the clarification that you helped me figure out about this project that we’re working on. I took that to the big boss and let her know that that we are actually in a good spot that we have a plan and thank you for helping me get there.” I had a boss early on who told me quite boldly, “Your job is to make me look good. Yeah, so I get that both. I understand that. But really, if you help your boss be the best person they can be at that level. It will both help your career and there and you are learning how to manage people. Yes, being a manager doesn’t mean that you manage people under you necessarily. You can manage and lead from wherever you are in your organization. You can be a mid level person, but if you’re someone that has the trust of your boss and the trust of your peers, you are a leader and people will come to you and projects will start coming your way.

Erica Mills Barnhart  29:24

Yeah, you can lead without being a leader capital L and manage without being manager, capital M.

Dana Van Nest  29:31

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And I see that in organizations all the time, where in the last place, I worked, there’s a woman on the frontline staff, and she’s the manager. But there’s two levels above her but the ED, she didn’t do anything without checking back with that manager. Because that manager knew what was happening on the frontline and she’s very smart and she had a perspective that no one else did. And she shared it. She shared it very well and in a way that made sure that everyone was included, but also was very clear. Like, you know, we over here doing this particular kind of work, you should pay attention.

Erica Mills Barnhart  30:15

Yeah, see us, see us.

Dana Van Nest  30:16

Yes, see us. Pay attention.

Erica Mills Barnhart  30:18

Yeah. You have this…I think of it as the the sandwich approach to making recommendations or when you’re presenting options. Will you share that?

Dana Van Nest  30:32

Yes. So I’ll tell you story. I had been asked to do some research. And my boss said, “Do the research, present the best option.” I said, fantastic. So I did all the research, I presented the best option, and my boss is like, “Oh, okay, well, what else you got?” I didn’t have anything because he said to give him the best option. So here’s the best option, And, ah, it’s on a platter for you. And that wasn’t enough. They wanted to see more. And that’s when I realized you always have to give somebody three options. You know what the best option is because you decided. So the next time I was told, bring me the best option, I brought three options ,brought the best option, I brought the ok option, and then I brought the other one. Right, the one that was best, the one that I could totally live with, and then the one that was no good, but that just made them no good one makes the best one look even better.

Erica Mills Barnhart  31:38

Mm hmm.

Dana Van Nest  31:41

And it’s also how you present it. You have to, if you can push them across the table that’s even best. You’re sitting there all together and you say, “Okay, well, here’s option one. This option is okay. Yeah, this could do it. It’s totally, it’s fine. Here’s option B. That’s an option. And then and by the way, so here’s option C. Take a look at option C. Now that we looked at A and B, I’m very interested to see what you think about C.

Erica Mills Barnhart  32:15

I love the tone of voice!

Dana Van Nest  32:17

It’s got to be in the tone of voice. You do. You have to show them with your voice, in your body, that this is the right option. But of course, it is all up to you, big boss. I am laying out the options. Just as you said, you have questions, I can answer your questions.

Erica Mills Barnhart  32:31

I love it. I love that. Okay, at the end of every interview, I ask same two questions, which is what inspires you and what keeps you motivated to do this work? Because if you’re going to do marketing for good, we need the motivation which is for the mind and inspiration which is for the heart. So what what inspires you and what keeps you motivated to do the work?

Dana Van Nest  32:59

I’ll start with what motivates me. One of the things I realized when I started working for myself is that I really loved working with a variety of clients. And there’s personal gratification there too, I get to learn a ton from all the different kinds of clients that I work with. And I really enjoy learning. So that was fun. I have a great curiosity for these different aspects of the industry. So maybe that’s what inspires me is that I have the privilege of working with all these interesting, smart people who are out there every day, working hard and doing good. And what motivates me is that in my little part, I’m making a difference in these different worlds. My name is nowhere and I don’t need it to be anywhere. But the words that I write under someone else’s name or under this organization, and banner, it contributes to solutions. So I am not actually in the vaccine delivery process, but the work I do to help get information out about that makes a difference. It advances the cause, and that I find highly motivating.

Erica Mills Barnhart  34:23

Well, you do a wonderful job of giving voice to so many causes and people and all the rest of it. I want to thank you for making time for being here with us on Marketing for Good podcast today.

Dana Van Nest  34:39

Thank you. It’s been my pleasure.

Erica Mills Barnhart  34:40

Yeah, it’s been fun. If you, listeners, would like to learn more about Dana please visit DanaVanNest.com on her website. The best place to find her is on LinkedIn. And yes, her name has three Ns and three As. Da. Na. Van Nest.  If you’d like to do marketing differently, so you can get better results with less stress and more joy, all while making our world a better place, I recommend you start by taking the quiz at ClaxonMarketing.com/quiz. Alright listeners. That’s it for today. I’m wishing you a wonderful day!

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Do you communicate as effectively as you think?

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