Tara Doyon, a seasoned consultant with Petrus Development, joins us for a fascinating exploration of the work-travel dynamic on the Let’s Backflip Show Happy Hour. Tara’s vivid tales from her travels provide a captivating backdrop to our conversation. As she shares insights from her consulting work with nonprofits, particularly within the Catholic Church, we get a glimpse into the unique challenges and enriching experiences she faces on the road. Tara’s strategies for staying grounded through local community engagement and her unwavering faith offer a refreshing perspective on managing the demands of work travel.

We take a candid look at the art of balancing personal and professional life, a challenge familiar to small business owners like Tara. Through stories of late-night conversations and humorous anecdotes about phishing scams, we uncover the importance of transparency, integrity, and authenticity in both spheres. The conversation smoothly transitions into the realm of personal growth, where we discuss the motivations and benefits of embracing challenges, whether it’s running on a treadmill or tackling a complex book. The message is clear: pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones builds resilience and enriches our lives.

Finally, we wrap up with a lively session of “Two Truths and a Lie,” where Tara’s intriguing statements keep us guessing. Her love for Disney and extensive travels spark a fun debate, adding a playful touch to our discussion. This episode is a delightful mix of personal stories, professional insights, and interactive games, inviting listeners to engage with the themes of growth, authenticity, and community in their own lives. Join us for this engaging journey with Tara Doyon, where work meets adventure and authenticity leads the way.

Topics in This Episode

• (00:00:00) Elk Hunting and Travels to Montana
• (00:05:00) Tips for Work Travel
• (00:08:00) Staying Connected with Family
• (00:17:00) Integrated Work and Life
• (00:20:00) The Algorithm and Marathon Training
• (00:24:45) Do Hard Things
• (00:26:59) Personal Discipline and Health Commitment
• (00:34:00) The Blue Zones and Healthy Living
• (00:42:00) Petrus Development’s Mission
• (00:47:30) Strategies for Fundraising
• (00:59:06) Evaluating Value of Video Marketing
• (01:08:54) Empowering Nonprofits Through Faith and Action
• (01:16:49) Two Truths and a Lie

Links

• Petrus Development
• The Coddling of the American Mind
• Alex Hormozi’s Youtube Channel
• Dare to Believe Series

Transcript

Ryan Freng: 0:06

hello and welcome back to another let’s backflip show happy hour. I’m ryan frng, co-creative director here at backflip, and there’s not a john today. There’s no john. John is actually out in colorado hunting elk, looking for elk. I don’t know, maybe he found some. Actually they did. They saw some elk across the ridge but, uh, haven’t shot any yet. So they’re going to still be out there for a little while. But that’s not why you’re here. You’re here to hang out with this lady. We’ve got Tara Doyon and I was like I should probably learn to say that name before I get on. Okay, I got it All right.

Tara Doyon: 0:43

You’re good.

Ryan Freng: 0:44

But uh, thank you, Tara, for coming on the show.

Tara Doyon: 0:47

Yeah, thanks for inviting me. I’m excited to be here and I’m excited I can. Let’s talk about the elk a little bit, maybe sometime. I’ve spent two years working in Montana and it’s elk rut season, so I can give you a lot of info so yeah, so they were a week behind.

Ryan Freng: 1:01

He was going to leave last week, earlier in the week, but live here, uh, so I ‘d never really experienced elk.

Tara Doyon: 1:29

Um, they’re huge, they’re amazing, they’re ferocious. You think like, oh dear it’s, you know they’re not dangerous. I mean, they have like daggers on their head.

Ryan Freng: 1:40

I’m fascinated it’s a completely different thing.

Tara Doyon: 1:43

Yeah, it’s amazing, it amazing, it’s scary, it’s, it’s just. It’s like a scene a seven you know wonders of world is seeing the elk rut.

Ryan Freng: 1:50

So yeah, exciting, yeah. So in what? What was the context that you were out there and you got to experience that?

Tara Doyon: 1:56

Yeah, so my company, petrus development, does consulting services, uh, for nonprofits, particularly nonprofits in the Catholic church world. We do a variety of secular nonprofits as well, but we provide consulting to a variety of Catholic entities. And I was working with a parish, newman Center in Missoula, montana, on a renovation project of their parish and we were out there doing feasibility study, which is all the prep work in terms of things that they have to do to prepare to raise multi-millions of dollars, and then we provided the council for them through that process and I went for four days every month for 18 months out to Montana.

Ryan Freng: 2:45

Wow yeah.

Tara Doyon: 2:47

Got a lot of frequent flyer miles built up.

Ryan Freng: 2:51

Yeah, that’s a lot. So, uh, you were out there with them. Is that something that they have experiences out there that you can go see, or how does that work exactly? Is it just kind of the environment?

Tara Doyon: 3:03

So when, in terms of seeing the elk or working with them. So I you’ll probably get to know me a little bit more during this time, but when I go work with a client, I try to immerse myself into the community, the environment, because if not, you are going to get very burnt out In 2023, I spent 283 nights in hotels and that has a real capability of just drying your soul up if you let it. But I really took advantage of all these fantastic places. I was going and explored the states, the towns, the communities.

Tara Doyon: 3:47

So when I was in Montana, I hiked a lot all over the state, but I spent a lot of time in Yellowstone National Park and that’s where there are pretty large concentrations of elk and a lot of them are tagged and just a lot of information tagged and a lot of information, and that’s probably where I witnessed the most elk activity and got to learn a little bit more about their behavior and just their environment. Um, and that’s in southern montana, southern, south central montana, along the wyoming border. I was working more, um, about two to three hours north west of that, closer to the Canadian border, closer to, like, glacier National Park. I feel familiar, but if I had any time, I would try to drive down to Yellowstone and just really explore that area as well well, it’s great you get to be able to do that stuff.

Ryan Freng: 4:37

That that sounds brutal to be. You know, 280 nights of 365 in hotels. You know that’s a that’s a lot of extra work and I think people who don’t travel uh might not really understand what all goes into travel. And we get to travel some and it’s you know. You wake up, you go do your day of work, but then oftentimes afterwards too, there’s work with the client schmoozing dinner or whatever events you’re probably going to. And for us in production we often then have to unload cards and prep gear and get ready. So you’re not having an eight hour day when you travel, you’re having a 14 or 16 hour day and then you’re rinsing and repeating and while you’re not doing production. I still imagine, when you’re traveling, that those days are much longer. So how do you do that?

Tara Doyon: 5:26

So someone actually just asked me one of my friends just asked me. He just finished an MBA and he was exploring what his next stages in life were. And through the MBA program they brought in consultants and everyone wanted to be the consultant. But he said I don’t ever want to be a consultant because I saw, like these consultants, they were just haggard and weary. But I see you here exercising and you’re not like that.

Ryan Freng: 5:55

So a couple of the things yeah, you’re surviving and thriving, maybe.

Tara Doyon: 5:58

Yeah. So one of the things for me is I have a good faith life. I mean that’s like the bottom rung. The base of everything is I have a really good, solid faith life, and lots of times I get an opportunity to work at churches and so I get to go to daily mass and church services and just also surround myself with people of integrity and good faith. I think that’s really, really important. Lots of times in the business world you don’t have that. My world is a little different because I do have that. So that’s one thing. The second thing, I think, is understanding what I need to keep myself healthy, and if that’s sleep like learning good sleep hygiene patterns for hotels, how to keep your shades closed with the pant clip hanger of your, you know the hanger.

Tara Doyon: 6:54

Sound machines, those sort of things. Eating really, really healthy it’s really, really hard to eat healthy on the road, but knowing that and planning accordingly is important. Um, and then exercising it’s really, really important, and besides just exercising, I always try to have some sort of race or competition that I’m signed up for and that just helps me keep me in kind of forces, the man, yeah, yeah.

Ryan Freng: 7:21

Yeah, habits.

Tara Doyon: 7:22

Yeah, so those sort of things really make it easy. And then, at the end of the day, also having a family that I come home to that is supportive of me being on the road. I have two daughters. They are in their twenties, one’s out of college, one’s finishing up her senior year of college and a husband that is really supportive at home, and so I think I never have that guilt from the parties at home saying, oh, if you were here we could have done this or and that. That keeps me really healthy and going too, and it allows me then to go to these communities, have fun, explore, meet new people and feel really good about what I’m doing on the work end as well.

Ryan Freng: 8:01

Yeah, I mean talking about family. How is that Like, how did you figure out how to survive that Cause? You know, I think in general family is just hard in many cases. But then being away is tough too, and when I travel, my wife and I don’t really ever talk on the phone Like it’s just not a thing we do. We’ll check in and be like, hey, how’s it going Good, good, okay, we do. We’ll check in and be like, hey, how’s it going good, good, okay, uh, yeah, and we might text or something like that. So being away there’s almost like a a disconnect for us, and then being back in person, it’s like, oh, I remember you, I like you, so yeah, yeah, how have you dealt with that, you know, in your family?

Tara Doyon: 8:39

so I think probably from the very beginning our dynamics lend to that as a healthy relation, part of our healthy relationship. I am a very I am my husband would say this and doesn’t tell it’s not derogatory I am the alpha, probably in our relationship. I’m the extrovert, I’m the one that’s always making the plans and kind of the decision driver, maker of our family, and he is very comfortable with me in that role and I am very comfortable in his role. And we approached parenting very similarly, Like I remember when my kids were little they went to Catholic school so we had to pack lunch every day because they didn’t have hot lunch.

Tara Doyon: 9:26

Yeah, the brutal battle, yeah, yeah so my husband was the husband that got up every morning and packed lunch so I could be getting ready and then get help get them ready, and all my friends were always shocked that he would do that, but that is just, I think, the dynamics that we have always been comfortable with from the very beginning, and we’re very comfortable doing things separately and then enjoying them together, and that’s just our personalities.

Ryan Freng: 9:56

And so.

Tara Doyon: 9:56

I think from the very beginning that is a little bit of the dynamics that we set up. Now I will preface this by saying I did not really start traveling like I am now until my daughters one was in college and one was in high school. So you know, everyone could feed themselves, everyone could get themselves dressed, they were driving. So it is a great opportunity when I’m not there that he can like binge on sports, and then when I’m home I’m not resentful of him because he’s watching sports because he like he’s happy to see me, and so it’s.

Tara Doyon: 10:36

It works out. It’s not for everyone. I a hundred percent know that it can. It can kill a marriage, it can be stressful, but for us it really works.

Ryan Freng: 10:46

Yeah, I’m pretty good with like a day or two, you know like, just especially with the noise, like I have. How many do I have? Seven, seven, I have seven kids. Wow, I shouldn’t have had to question that Counted. Yeah, just the noise is a lot, and so being away can be nice, because then it’s quiet. But then, you know, within a day or two, I’m like, I’m like done, I’m like, well, I don’t want to watch TV, I’d rather hang with my loved ones or be present with someone.

Ryan Freng: 11:14

Again, you know, if you’re traveling to coming up with people to hang out with, uh, whether it’s your client or other people you know out out there, so it’s more active and maybe more time consuming than people would think. So, um, yeah, with that, do you guys? Do you talk on the phone a lot? Do you facetime like?

Tara Doyon: 11:35

yeah, so I am a phone generation. Uh, you’re younger than me, so you’re you’re probably not as comfortable on the phone, but, um, you know, you know, we’re middle-aged, so we still communicate via phone.

Ryan Freng: 11:48

Hey, I am absolutely middle-aged and I went to the barber and I was like, hey, I need a haircut. And he was noticing he’s like, hey, your gray’s getting a lot more prolific. And I’m like, yeah, that’s why I need a haircut.

Tara Doyon: 12:05

Yeah, yeah, no, no, so, yeah, no, so, yeah. We talk on the phone, we, we. We talk on the phone, we text. Usually, you know, a typical day would be a call as I’m getting ready in the morning, I’m on the road, in the hotel sure how to sleep, all those sort of things and then text throughout the day and then at night talk. And then my daughters now, um, I talk to them every day on the phone at least once, sometimes twice. I have a daughter that lives I live, in indiana. I have a daughter that lives in florida. I talk to her every day on the phone, um, facetime her at least a few times a week, um, but I, I’m still very, very connected with both of them and even though they don’t live here, and I know that’s awesome it may seem like little hovering, but it’s just the relationship we have.

Tara Doyon: 12:48

Uh, you know, we’ll call, say did you watch this on tv or did you hear about this? I send him a tiktok or something. So you know, I don’t really I don’t feel that disconnect I think that some people do just because we had already really established these communication patterns yeah, I feel like I need to work on that.

Ryan Freng: 13:04

Just in general Again, like um I, we definitely grew up on a phone. Um, that was the only way you communicated. Like you know, the phone rang, or you had to pick it up to call somebody you couldn’t text.

Ryan Freng: 13:15

So, um, I’m, I’m with you in that as well. However, relationally, like, I just never liked talking on the phone, like I’d rather hang out. You know, just kind of a personality trait. Yeah, whereas John, who I don’t think you’ve met, um, he other co-founder here, he and his wife had a long distance relationship through college and so they spent every day on the phone constantly. So even now, you know, throughout the day they’ll talk to each other 10 different times or something like that, Whereas I might have a few texts with the wife, but I, you know, I kind of recognize a desire that I have to be better about that. You know, despite loving to talk to people and loving to interview people and, you know, ask people questions, it’s like a, it’s a weird different headspace, you know, like I don’t know what it is Like, because it’s the noise when I get home or just the work that I have to do. When I get home I’m less inclined to think about okay, how do I step out of my comfort zone and have a conversation?

Tara Doyon: 14:18

I think that’s okay, though it’s a little bit about understanding where you are and what contentment you have right now. What?

Tara Doyon: 14:26

you have going on in your life now and your communication style is very much dictated by your work, your interactions, your conversations with your having with clients and then a multitude of kids. There’s always chatter and noise. You will get to a point where things will be different and you will learn to re-communicate or not re-communicate, but communicate in a re-evaluated way, and I think it’s okay to Don’t discredit yourself If your wife is feeling heard and communicated with and you feel content with that, this is what works for you.

Ryan Freng: 15:02

Yeah, I mean and that’s the challenge, right, feeling heard and communicated, because I think a lot of times throughout the noise we don’t feel that. And then, like it was, it was yesterday like just a crazy, crazy day and then we went to bed I don’t know what time 9, 30 or something, which I try to get to bed like nine because I wake up pretty early to work out but 9 30 and I was like, hey, I could tell you’re in a funk, what’s up. And she’s like, yeah, I don’t want to talk about it. And I was like you could tell me. And then we proceeded to talk for like an hour and a half. Yeah, uh, and it was great because you know, part of it was it was nice out. She wanted to hang out on the porch and have have a drink and just hang out, but we couldn’t because it was crazy. Yeah, um, so we hadn’t kind of touched base in a couple days and then it was crazy.

Ryan Freng: 15:42

Um, so we hadn’t kind of touched base in a couple of days. And then it was nice because we found kind of our quiet moment when all the kids are in bed, you know, the baby’s sleeping, and we’re just able to chill out and have a, have a simple hour and a half conversation, you know, with no other pressures Cause for me, like, even when I’m at work, I’ll be working and I’ll get a phone call. You know it’s like personal. It’s hard for me to switch that into that mindset versus if it’s all work related. You know it’s pretty easy for me to switch that and maybe that’s like a kind of a mental trick I need to work on kind of not set up barriers of different types of conversations, be like no, no, no, I should be able to switch my mind. But I think it’s and maybe that just gets into like task switching um difficulty, you know.

Tara Doyon: 16:28

I think it’s man brain too, you know, man brain is a little different.

Ryan Freng: 16:31

I’ll own up to that, yeah.

Tara Doyon: 16:33

We’re different and you know we get frustrated with each other when we have certain expectations that are not met, and lots of times those expectations are just that we put upon ourselves. We presume someone feels this way, we presume someone needs to react this way, and when things don’t pan out that way, that’s when frustration and um, you know, bad language and attitudes come into play.

Tara Doyon: 17:01

So, I think you know it’s okay and you know they’re going to be business gurus that tell you you absolutely have to have these boundaries and it’s more to have the boundaries and you have your work life and you have your personal life and they shouldn’t interact. But the reality of the situation is no one acts that way. We’re humans. We can’t compartmentalize that way. It’s not healthy. So in my opinion, I think it’s better to be able to healthy, healthily integrate those two worlds, because they are overlapping, especially when you’re a small business owner. I feel this way with our business. It’d be different if I went to an office and I worked for a fortune 500 company and I did my work and I came home but I have clients that call me at night and they have personal issues and they have professional issues and it’s all melds together and it it really is different, I think, from the small business owner perspective. And then you throw that ministry piece into it. That changes the dynamic even more.

Ryan Freng: 17:56

Yeah, well, and, like you said, to kind of think of the corporate world or more so like non people related work. So I think whenever there’s people related work, like what we do, uh you you’re always going to have that because, like you have to be personable, right, so you can’t have business in person. You know, um, your kind of private life, it’s all integrated and this is this is a kind of a roundabout way to a funny story but like, who I am here is who I am at home, and if you were to come here and interact with me or come home and interact with me, like you’re going to get the same version of me because I’m I’m not different people and I think that’s that’s uh, uh, I don’t know, maybe kind of that novel idea of, well, you keep working your private life separate, but like work is uh personal. So you know it’s it’s always going to be integrated. But I was thinking about you know who I am, how I do things.

Ryan Freng: 18:57

Uh, you know what you do on your computer and stuff. And I got this email that was like fishing and this has been going around and they’re like Ryan and they put like one of my old addresses in there and a social security number that was like phishing and this has been going around. And they’re like ryan and they put like one of my old addresses in there and a social security number that was incorrect. And then they had some document in there and they’re like we’ve been watching you, we place this on your computer. Now we have all your history and if you don’t pay us 2000 a bitcoin, we’re gonna release it all. Uh, needless to say, I didn’t reply, but I but I was like that’s really interesting, like I’m sure for 80%, 90% of people’s like that could work, and that got me to thinking like yeah, anyone can come check. Check out my search history.

Tara Doyon: 19:35

Yeah.

Ryan Freng: 19:35

Anyone who knows me will have you know, we’ll see it and be like oh yeah, that kind of makes sense. Like yeah, you were, you were watching some anime and then you were doing some bodybuilding stuff, and then you’re researching this brand for a client and then you’re developing this video and then you watch them, you know, like you see kind of the eclectic things and like there’s no shame in there.

Ryan Freng: 19:55

It’s you know, who I am at work is who I am at home. There’s no, no kind of distinction per se in the personality of you know what I’m searching at either place.

Tara Doyon: 20:06

So there’s no no shame, yeah, no. I see people on social media um, talk about, you know, conflicts and fighting with people and they’re just so bogged down and I’m thinking what are these people? What sort of a logarithm have they been caught up in? Because I’m watching docs and videos vacation videos, marathon training. I’m like I love it. It’s pretty fun for me.

Ryan Freng: 20:36

Yeah, you know, what have I been getting you know advertised probably more businessy stuff lately. And then I saw a friend’s post and I was like wait, I haven’t seen like any of my friends posts. So I was, like you know, kind of mad at the algorithm because while I do like all the business stuff, um, productivity and things like that, I was missing out kind of on engaging with friends. You know, I wish, I don’t know, maybe there’s a dial you could turn up and down, um. But you mentioned a marathon. You mentioned it earlier. That’s a cool thing I’d love to do. Tell me, tell me more about that. How, why are you so crazy? I mean, that’s crazy marathons are crazy.

Tara Doyon: 21:09

So during covid I decided that, like everyone in the world, I was gonna go insane if I didn’t like move my body and work, and especially as an extrovert, when you’re stuck in your home and and you have this energy.

Ryan Freng: 21:26

You’re like what do I?

Tara Doyon: 21:27

do it’s. So I was like, okay, I’m gonna, I have to start doing something. So I really started exercising and I am not an exercise type person I am. I was. I was like the kid in high school that probably should have failed gym class because I could never finish the mile run in the appropriate time. I don’t like exercising, it’s not fun for me. I didn’t like to sweat. I am not that type of person. But I had to do something. So I really started. Um, I started walking, I started doing some runs, I started going to a Pilates studio and doing a lot of stretching and I realized that when I moved my body, it helped my, my mental capacity it just like turning your body.

Tara Doyon: 22:20

like my body moved, my mind moved, everything was better, right, and so it just became habitual and started doing all these different activities and I’m a very competitive person and I’m always like trying to do something new and different and hard, and so I was like I’m gonna, I’m gonna run. And my husband was like, uh, you don’t run, you don’t run, you don’t walk you don’t sweat, and so I just started training and I did like the couch to 5k program and run outside and, um, I did that all through, you know, the the spring of 2020, and I’d signed up for my first race, um, which was a 10 K.

Tara Doyon: 23:04

That got canceled, of course, um, and so that was a real big bummer, but it, you know, it, it’s life. You know, people lost a lot of things. Wow, wow, I didn’t get to do a race, so I just kept, just kept running and, um, I, I don’t love running. There are people that love running and they talk about this runner’s high Right right.

Ryan Freng: 23:29

I think there’s two kinds of people People like us, who are honest, who don’t like running, and then there’s people who are dishonest and pretend they like running. I really do feel like there’s only two types of people.

Tara Doyon: 23:41

Yeah, so, but it’s something that I can do. Like, every hotel from Amarillo, texas, to New York city has a treadmill, and so it was just one of those activities I could do, and I knew that if I signed up for a race then I would train and hold myself accountable, and I hate running, but there is nothing more exciting than crossing the finish line.

Ryan Freng: 24:04

Yeah.

Tara Doyon: 24:05

And one of the things like I hate treadmill running. I try to run outside when I can, but you know, sometimes you’re working on your speed or it’s hot weather, cold weather, whatever.

Ryan Freng: 24:14

So um, yeah, and not being familiar in a place.

Tara Doyon: 24:17

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But my gym, like they have, we have these treadmills that have these TV screens and I never have them on, but then it’s like a blank screen. So it’s like a mirror and I’m always thinking. People probably think I’m a complete idiot when I’m running on the treadmill because I’m smiling the whole time.

Ryan Freng: 24:34

Smiling, looking at a blank screen.

Tara Doyon: 24:36

Yeah, I envision myself crossing the finish line and like people cheering and that’s just as very motivated and that there’s something very satisfying knowing that you did something hard.

Ryan Freng: 24:49

Yeah, absolutely yeah, I’m, I’m with you on that. Like you said, that kind of at the beginning of this section on running, like doing hard things, like I love that. Yeah, I always want to encourage myself and everyone around me to do hard things, whatever that is, you know, whether it is physical, and I think everyone should do some physically hard things because, let’s be honest, the rest of our lives are physically not demanding and our bodies need to be pushed in order to grow, in order to develop, in order to get better, and our minds the same exact way.

Ryan Freng: 25:19

So you know, always learning, always pushing into something, always doing challenges um doing hard things. I think is really good.

Tara Doyon: 25:27

But one of my goals for myself is I do one hard, new, hard and different thing a month.

Tara Doyon: 25:33

So whether that is um, read like a book that, like, I feel like everyone should have read Moby Dick. Everyone talks about like, oh, you should read Moby Dick, moby Dick, but no one really wants to admit that they don’t haven’t really read it. Um, so, like, pick up a hard book that you don’t want to read, so that’s a hard thing. Um, this month, um, coming up in October, I decided that I was going. I wanted to do some rock climbing. So in my younger going, I wanted to do some rock climbing.

Ryan Freng: 26:02

So in my younger years I did a lot of rock climbing.

Tara Doyon: 26:03

I loved it, it was fun. I haven’t I haven’t rock climbed in 30 years. So I just decided that I was like. I told my husband I’m like you know my, my one hard thing that I want to do this month is is rock climbing. And I’m like do you want to do it with me? No, I don’t. Okay, well, I’m gonna go. I’m gonna go to the gym. We have a gym in town. I’m gonna go, I’m gonna sign up and do that. So I think it allows us to feel comfortable with the uncomfortable.

Tara Doyon: 26:30

I mean life is uncomfortable. We encounter things that make us uncomfortable every single day, but when you become comfortable with feeling nervous, shy, having anxiety, it allows you to take that power back and harness that energy into something really good.

Ryan Freng: 26:48

Yeah, and there’s this idea of, and it’s with children. It’s from the book Coddling of the American Mind. I don’t know if you’ve read that. That’s a good one to read.

Tara Doyon: 26:56

Okay, okay.

Ryan Freng: 26:59

What is it? Jonathan Haidt and I forget the other author’s name, I think one’s conservative and one is more liberal but they wrote this thing back in 2016 about issues that they were seeing in universities and kind of a philosophy that was being promoted, and there’s like the three great untruths what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker us versus them and I always forget the third one, but maybe they’ll come back. Um, uh, but that idea of you know, not doing hard things, of having safe spaces like you can’t ever be challenged with your opinion or your philosophy or anything, because that’s a micro transgression, micro yeah, micro aggression.

Tara Doyon: 27:45

Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Freng: 27:46

And you know it’s bad and all that stuff. And we really see that there’s been this fragility that was kind of created, where people can’t deal with very simple things, and the idea that we’re trying to prepare the road for the person as opposed to the person for the road, and the idea that we’re trying to prepare the road for the person as opposed to the person for the road. And I think when you do hard things, you prepare yourself for the road, like you’re saying um, you know, when you do a lot of hard things, unexpected things, you’re more prepared for the unexpected, or you’re more prepared for those hard things that come along. You can mentally deal with them, you can physically deal with them, and so it’s so key to do those and in many cases, since we don’t have to fight so hard to survive, we have to do that artificially.

Tara Doyon: 28:27

Yeah, and it helps you build empathy too. I mean, in my role as a consultant, when I go in and work with clients, I’m guiding them to do hard things, I’m guiding them to make changes, to potentially encounter people that they’re not comfortable with or situations when they’re not familiar with, and I can come to them from a place of I’ve done this. You can do this. Here are some strategies that I’ve used to maneuver through the situation, and when you have that perspective, it’s not just me telling someone what to do, it’s me helping them find the solution on their own, which makes it a sustainable solution.

Ryan Freng: 29:10

Yeah, yeah, helping them figure it out and empowering them, but also sharing your own experience and your own triumphs, I think is invaluable, because nowadays everyone’s a coach, everyone’s a life coach or whatever.

Ryan Freng: 29:28

A business coach and you’re like but wait, you haven’t built any businesses, how are you a business coach?

Ryan Freng: 29:33

So I get a lot of that noise. But then I try to filter it and I’m like, okay, alex Hermosi is a guy that I’ve been listening to recently and I think he came up because he created a bunch of gyms and then trained other people how to be successful in their gym marketing and now he has four businesses and he’s wildly successful and he shares what he found to be successful. And that’s a direct model where you can look and say, yeah, he did these things. That’s a direct model where you can look and say, yeah, he did these things, and I can see the success that came from that, or how I can adapt that to me, how I can do those hard things and I can benefit from that Because he’s shown his experience versus just you know, yeah, here’s how you do it and here’s how you build a big business, even though I don’t have a big business yeah hard to trust absolutely yeah um, so marathon training too, and travel how?

Ryan Freng: 30:28

how does that work exactly? I mean, you can run anywhere, but that that starts to take up more and more time, right, because you’ll get up to uh 13, 15, 18 mile run yeah, and it goes back to time management.

Tara Doyon: 30:40

Like sometimes you have to drag yourself out of bed in the morning after you’ve been working late at night, um, or at the end of the day, when you get back to your hotel, like you just want to take your shoes off and lay in bed and watch tv, but you just work yourself to do. It comes down to discipline, you know, and knowing what you’ve committed yourself to, and that’s why that’s for me, um, if you would ask me, do I consider myself a very disciplined person? And I would tell you, no, I just ate a half a pound, half a pan of brownies. No, I’ve noticed one. I mean, I have a sweet tooth. I’m never going to stop eating those sort of things, but by having a race or something that I’ve committed to holds me accountable to do that, and so I think it’s important for everyone to find what works for them and accountability purposes. They’re going to be people that exercise because they love it. It’s part of their lifestyle, and they don’t need to train for anything particular. It’s just who they are. That’s not for me. It’s part of their lifestyle and they don’t need to train for anything particular. It’s just who they are.

Tara Doyon: 31:42

That’s not for me. That’s not me. I wish it was. I’ve been doing this. I’ve been doing some sort of exercise pretty faithfully every day for the last four to five years. It’s still not me. It’s not who I am. I don’t get up every day and say I love this, this is great, I love my classes that I go to. I like my community that I’m a part of, but it’s, it’s not me. So I think it’s important to just understand what motivates you. What can, what gets you individually going and allows you to do that.

Ryan Freng: 32:13

Right, right, yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting to to hear you say that too, cause I I probably find myself on the other side of that coin where I am like, yeah, I am a healthy person, like you know, over the last four years, like that is part of who I am and it’s because I think about, um, one thing I’m very analytical and started listening to a lot of trainers and scientists, and and you know, the good kind, not the scientism- scientists the training scientists, the nutritional scientists, fitness and whatnot, and they, you know, they just started saying things and several of them said very similar things.

Ryan Freng: 32:54

Then I kind of started to learn that, oh, this is kind of where our understanding of all this is, and part of it was the idea of the quality of life for your terminal decade, so your last decade of life. What do you want that to be like? You know, hopefully that’s not anytime soon, but you know, when you’re 70, when you’re 80, maybe 90, do you want to be able to walk from your bed to the bathroom? Yeah, be able to wipe your own butt.

Ryan Freng: 33:23

Yeah, you know, do you want to be able to get out of your house and thinking about that and not having to have or have limited amounts of medication or anything. It really just kind of got ingrained in me that like, yeah, I, that that’s what I want. I want to have a great quality of life now and when I’m old, as a old old I was going to say old as grass, but that doesn’t make any sense. Um, what’s a good metaphor? Just really old, you know, like my grandpa who’s 90.

Ryan Freng: 33:57

Um, and so getting into the training, getting into the supplements and into the science, um has definitely become a part of who I am.

Tara Doyon: 34:07

Yeah, I’m very fascinated with the blue zones. I’m familiar with that concept. It’s like the blue zones are different pockets, geographical pockets across the world where people have like the longest lifespans, and so definitely goes back to um, exercise physicality. Part of it also is genetics. I mean, let’s just genetics play a role in this. Um, my great-grandfather died when he was 105 and he ate bacon every single day and his wife cooked with lard like real yeah sure um, so you know, at a certain point there is that genetic component.

Tara Doyon: 34:47

Like there’s people that have these immune to cholesterol yeah, yeah yeah so, um so there.

Tara Doyon: 34:53

So that is a portion of it. But then you know, environmentally, a lot of these communities have a very strong component. Part of the community living is being outside, working outside, grounding your hands, your feet, the dirt, the soil, through gardening or just outside activity. Your diet you know a lot of good vegetables, like colorful, really colorful vegetables, right right. Your lean meats, um, they’re not vegetarian. Um communities, you know, we, we hear a lot of, you know the, the red meats and all those sort of things, and I am a person that believes that a healthy diet is a very um diverse diet with all these different components. Um, so, to see these communities reflected in the, the types of foods that they’re eating.

Tara Doyon: 35:44

you know, I think that works. So that’s, I’m just fascinated by these, and so a lot of the cooking has to go back to, you know, whole, whole foods, good omega-3 fatty acids, all those sorts of things. And then also the idea of intermittent fasting. I’m fascinated by that that our bodies are not necessarily not everybody. Everybody’s a little different, Like, you know, everyone’s different, but a lot of our Americanized, white, Caucasian bodies are not. We’re not necessarily meant to eat 24 hours a day and continually. You know, have this reaction within our bodies where our organs are consistently trying to process food. And so, um, for me, I participate, I do intermittent fasting pretty, pretty regularly, um, and try to eat, you know, a whole food diet when I can, but yet I will certainly, you know, eat Doritos out to.

Ryan Freng: 36:40

Yeah, You’re not crazy about it.

Tara Doyon: 36:41

Yeah.

Ryan Freng: 36:42

Yeah, yeah, and I think that’s what works for me. Well, I was gonna say I think that’s probably the only way for it to be sustainable. Yeah, um, to have, you know, have, have some rules and some really good guidelines and be there 90% of the time, 95% of the time and then be a regular human being you know the other 5% of the time, and then be a regular human being you know the other 5% of the time and not annoy people around you, which I tried my best not to do.

Tara Doyon: 37:04

No. So I, my, my, um, niece and nephew never had sugar Like my. It was like sugar was off the table Um no treats ever added sugar.

Tara Doyon: 37:16

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, natural sugar is fine, but, like you know, candies and all those things were totally off the table. And I, with my kids and every family’s different, and I’m no judgment, um, because parenting is hard and the last thing we need to do is feel shamed in how we’ve parented. But for me, I was always like it’s okay to have it as a little treat once in a while and my kids would always oh, can we have this treat or can I have this candy? And if you gave them an option for it, they sometimes would not choose it because it wasn’t that big deal, it wasn’t like this thing that they had to have you kind of normalize it.

Ryan Freng: 37:52

Yeah, and my nephew.

Tara Doyon: 37:54

I remember anytime that he could have any sort of candy, it was like he would eat it entirely, because he never knew he was going to get it again. And so you know, I think it’s important to we don’t live in bubbles, we don’t live in these perfect, harmonious world, and so it’s important to model those sort of things with your kids, because then they also learn to develop healthy relationships with things and understand moderation.

Ryan Freng: 38:18

Right, there’s. I mean, there’s so many things there and I’m very passionate about a lot of these things, like added sugars. You know, one of the problems is we just eat too much sugar, you know, just too much calorically dense food. We say over, uh, ultra high processed or highly processed, and processing is not bad per se, but typically what we mean is like highly processed, like yeah, I don’t even know what the chemicals that have been on that food and have gone into that, and there’s a list of 30 things. You know that tends to be more bad than you know.

Ryan Freng: 38:48

Milk is, excuse me, pasteurized that’s processed Like a whey protein is, uh, turned into powder that’s processed Right, um, even your peanut butter is processed, um, mechanically and chemically. So we can’t get so staunch when we hear something. And this is maybe, you know, circling back to marketing and media like the travesty of media and marketing is like kind of our health culture is a little screwed right now because of the way that media, marketing and influencers work, because you know we should eat less sugar in general because in the west it’s so calorically dense, there’s so much high, highly processed stuff. So you’re getting maybe not good wheat grains mixed with sugar, mixed with fat and, like I just saw yesterday, a crumble cookie. There’s this one crumble cookie that has 125 grams of sugar in it, which I think, in terms of added sugars, like four or five times as much added sugars yeah, yeah um, and I think we could all agree that that’s bad.

Ryan Freng: 39:51

It’s very tasty, uh, but you know, then you take that to the extreme and you have no sugar and then you don’t have a healthy relationship with it like I grew up and I was the kid who didn’t get dessert much, not because of any nutritional thing, just because I don’t know, probably because we were poor or something we’re a dessert family.

Ryan Freng: 40:10

Not everyone’s a dessert family yeah, we didn’t have dessert often. So then I would steal stuff out of the fridge or like steal candy and hide it and, you know, eat it in bed and stuff like that, whereas my kids occasionally, occasionally they go through phases you know where they’ll. They’ll steal treats but they’ll be like offered cake and they’re like I don’t want any, like what? Or they’ll eat a couple of bites and be like, ah, it’s too sweet, I don’t want any more and my brain can’t handle it. I’m like, well, somebody’s got to eat that. Yeah, but that mentality of scarcity, you know, creates a demand in our mind versus for my kids it’s a little more available.

Ryan Freng: 40:50

But then they want it less. Yeah, yeah, same thing with my kids.

Tara Doyon: 40:51

I mean, I would. I remember my sister-in-law saying something about you know, I can’t believe, like it’s just all there and they’re not needed. That was.

Ryan Freng: 41:01

Yeah, yeah, it’s like uh that you know scarcity model.

Tara Doyon: 41:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan Freng: 41:06

Which okay, so, and I don’t always try to bring it back to business or marketing, but I am fascinated by what you do and how you do it, and thinking about scarcity and just some of the coursework that I’ve been going through and learning more about, because a lot of what we do is a lot of big projects and a lot of solo creative things. So I need a big video, I need a big website, things like that.

Ryan Freng: 41:32

Over the last five years we’ve really differentiated into other areas so that we can provide a more comprehensive media and marketing approach for our clients, so that we can actually move the needle somehow, as opposed to just creating a thing and giving them a thing. So in that regard, there’s a lot of psychology in marketing, in deals, in sales, and especially when you can commoditize something or productize something, um and uh, create a demand and then provide for that demand and that works a lot more with commodities or with retail or b2c versus b2b. So, kind of coming back to what you guys do and development and fundraising, what does that look like for what you guys do and how you do it?

Tara Doyon: 42:25

Yeah, so great question. Our company, petrus Development, works with organizations that need to understand how to best keep their operations sustainably moving through good finances. In the nonprofit sector world, I have yet to encounter an organization that always says you know, we have enough money. Um, we’re doing everything that we can. We have enough money. We don’t, we don’t need anymore. And the reality of the situation um, every organization, non-profit, for-profit, every family you always could use more money. There’s more things to to have, to purchase, to do needs. Um, the reality is that is something that we are constantly needing to expand upon. So our company helps nonprofits understand their capabilities within their market sector that they’re serving, and I think it’s important that we consistently help our organizations that we’re working with, help them understand their true mission and vision. Oftentimes we look at organizations. They’ll contact us and say, hey, we need to raise $2 million, we have to build something. Help us raise that money.

Ryan Freng: 43:50

Yeah, specific project.

Tara Doyon: 43:51

Yes, we have to bring it back to what are you doing, who are you serving, how are you serving those people and what happens if you’re not able to serve those people?

Ryan Freng: 44:04

And we ask the organizations to really do that.

Tara Doyon: 44:08

So many times. We work with organizations and you probably know this. We’re doing these great things. We’re housing all these people, we’re providing them shelter, we’re providing them clothes. We’re doing all these great things in the community. It’s all about what we are doing, when we oftentimes need to be reflective about what happens if we aren’t doing.

Ryan Freng: 44:29

Right.

Tara Doyon: 44:30

So when we first work with an organization, it’s really important that we help them understand are they able to articulate those things, because sometimes they can. They tell the story, but it’s not in a format that’s easily relatable to the public. So we really help them understand what that looks like. Can you tell your story? What does that story look like? Are you able to tell it to different audiences? You know this in media, there are going to be certain audiences that receive messages in applicable ways that resonate with them, and there are going to be certain audiences that need to hear something in a different format, in a different format Right.

Tara Doyon: 45:11

And the crux of small nonprofits especially that are usually needing to work with us because they need to raise money, is they have limited staff. They have limited ability to even understand their messaging and are not sure how to change that messaging to the different audiences. So we’re going to come in and we’re going to look at what you’re doing, who you’re serving and what that story looks like and help you craft that In. That portion of what we’re doing is oftentimes when we’ll work with media specialists and marketing specialists like yourselves. What sort of social media presence do we need to have? What does that story need to look like in print media? If we’re going to do a video, what does our video need to look like? How do we need to highlight the best aspects of what we’re doing and how we’re serving?

Tara Doyon: 46:00

So that’s often how we work with marketing and media specialists. So I’ve always I always love talking to you all because you understand what that story really looks like and how we need to share that. So we work with the organization to do that. So once we’ve established, kind of what that story is, what the product is, what they’re doing in the world, we’re going to help them understand what their donor possibilities. Look what the donor donation possibilities look like in the world, sure?

Tara Doyon: 46:35

Um, we often work with organizations that raise x amount of dollars every year and they’re really comfortable with that dollar amount and they do the same thing over and over and they’re not really looking at how to expand that. We know that people give to people and people give to projects that they love, and so many organizations we work with have not been able to adequately bridge that gap, to communicate with people personally, and so a lot of what we do is just helping these organizations learn how to talk to their benefactors in a way that is interpersonal, that’s strategic and that helps move that financial donation needle higher and higher. So go ahead.

Ryan Freng: 47:29

Yeah, yeah. So storytelling being critical, understanding what the story is, what the need is and how to communicate that Now are there any mechanisms to psychological that kind of come into play? Because again, with more commodity based things it’s a little easier to be like well, there’s a limited amount of these, there’s a quantity, buy now or get the discount now the discount will be gone. With donations and fundraising it’s not the same thing, but I’m assuming the same types of philosophies or psychologies could work. But you’re probably not like donate now or this goes away. You know the false scarcity.

Tara Doyon: 48:17

Well, sometimes there is I mean sometimes organization. I actually just had a conversation with a client before our call today that had to execute a capital campaign to raise a couple million dollars because their roof was falling down. They had staff changes, they had some program disruption, they had some real issues with the infrastructure of their organization. And if the scenario were a perfect scenario and they contacted us and we did some evaluation and they said we want to raise $2 million to expand and grow, after doing some investigation and interviews with their demographic base, I would have said this is not the right time.

Tara Doyon: 49:03

You have to build relationships with people, you have to do some hard work on your side to build up trust and transparency and then you can go out and raise money. They were in a situation where their roof was falling down. They had to raise the money. So we do encounter situations where it is a very specific goal, a financial goal and a time when something has to be accomplished. And when we encounter situations like that, there’s not a lot of psychology into it because it’s an immediate need. It’s usually an evident need. The only thing that we can do is be transparent with people and be really good in our communication style.

Ryan Freng: 49:42

Right right, it’s not artificial, it’s actual. Like we’ve got to get this done or the roof’s going to fall down. Like that is not a lie, this is for real.

Tara Doyon: 49:52

On the opposite end of the spectrum, when we’re working with organizations, that we’re helping them build their sustainable development efforts and their sustainable funding. It’s all about and you’ll hear this a lot of times if you read any books about fundraising or sales even it’s all about the relationship, and you hear that. Okay. So what does that really mean? Well, that really means that every single person that is a financial benefactor to your organization should have a personal relationship with some sort of staff member, volunteer leadership person within that organization. Because we want to know, on the organizational side, what motivates that donor. What is that donor interested in? Because if you can match the need of your organization with the interest of your donor, you are going to have success in raising money. That’s necessary. You’re going to have success making more connections. You’re going to have more success bringing that donor in to be a bigger champion of that organization moving forward, because they feel fulfilled with what their personal motivators are in terms of the organization helping meet those needs.

Tara Doyon: 51:06

And so we really work with organizations to help understand what that looks like. How do you have a conversation with someone that has been a longtime donor to your organization and ask them to make a larger gift. Well, you understand what their giving capacity really is. You do that by visiting their house, talking to them, understanding their vacation patterns and all these sort of contextual things that you find will help paint a story. You understand what motivates them, what really are they passionate about and what in your organization helps fulfill that passion of theirs. That’s where that perfect recipe, that great harmony, comes into place, and that’s what so many organizations don’t do because of fear. It takes a lot sometimes to pick up a phone and make an appointment with someone. Lack of direction, lack of staff, all these sort of lack of vision even.

Ryan Freng: 52:04

Yeah, and experience, and yeah, I mean it’s interesting too to hear you say that they’re matching their interest with the need of the organization, and maybe that even changes as well to match somebody’s interest. But it’s that idea of pain points for a potential customer, for instance, and then providing like here’s how I solve that pain point for you, let me solve this, let me solve this, let me solve this one, let me solve this one, let me solve Are you ready to buy or donate or invest? It’s like slightly different language but very similar idea.

Tara Doyon: 52:43

Yeah, absolutely. It takes time to understand that that is how your organization has to operate to be successful. If you look at all the big successful organizations in the world, whether it be nonprofit or for-profit, it’s because they have continually shifted their product availability to meet the needs and the desires of their consumers Right.

Tara Doyon: 53:09

And we as an organization sometimes well it’s. You know, we’re the National Heart Association, we provide this and we’ve always done this. And well, yes, you’re still providing that, but have you been able to shift to really understand what resonates with your donors? Is it now that not we’re just providing CPR in our community, but we’re providing CPR and AED, and now we have an app where we can access some of these great tips if someone’s having a heart attack or I don’t know? I’m just throwing it out there, but we have to constantly be willing to look at our demographics and adapt, and so many of our organizations just don’t have the ability or the foresight to be able to do that on their own.

Ryan Freng: 53:52

Yeah, and that’s an interesting thing. So for us in our business we’ve been successful through the years because we’ve created really great projects with really great clients. We like to say choose a partner, not a price. We’ll figure it out and we’ll work together to solve whatever the need or the problem is that the client may have. But what we don’t really have is the commoditized, productized items that solve a lot of pain points.

Ryan Freng: 54:21

So it’s something that we’re investigating as well, because going off of just creating great work for great clients works insofar as they can recommend you, but in terms of bringing in new leads it’s just not the same thing as like a real dialed in sales funnel where we say, hey, is this you and is this a problem you have?

Ryan Freng: 54:45

Well, here’s how you can solve that, here’s how you can solve this, here’s how you can solve this. And so we’re really trying to strategize, kind of like you’re saying, with the storytelling and asking the question and then understanding the interest and providing, maybe showing some need so that they can get involved, but thinking about those elements and how that plays into our business. And again, since big video is not necessarily something that we can point to and say, well, if you do this video, then you will reach more people. You will get this very specific ROI. So is that in your guys’ model? Is that kind of how you guys work? Are you able to say, yeah, we’ll help you fundraise this much and money back guarantee? Or what’s your value proposition that you have?

Tara Doyon: 55:39

Yeah, so we have the ability to control many things in our world with consulting. I can control who I talk to. I can control my strategy that I’ve devised. I can control the implementation of that strategy. I can make sure my consultants are on site when they say that they’re going to be on site and make the phone calls that they can’t need to make.

Tara Doyon: 56:02

The one thing I cannot control is the amount of money people are going to give to a project, and so I can never come into an organization, and I think it’s really unethical for me to be able to say you’re going to raise X amount of dollars, because at the end of the day, I can’t control that. You can’t control that. People have free will to give when they want to give and give how much they can give, and sometimes you can do everything, picture perfect, and it just doesn’t happen. And so I think it’s really important that when we work with organizations, that we are very upfront and honest with that. I know some of our competitors will come in and say we have a list of donors we’re going to connect you with and we can guarantee you’re going to do be able to raise X amount of dollars, and I think that lends itself to bad business practices. It may encourage an organization to accept a donation that doesn’t necessarily align with their mission. It may encourage an organization to create new programs or processes that don’t necessarily go with your organization.

Tara Doyon: 57:09

I have started working with and they’re in the middle of trying to apply for a grant and they’re creating a program for this grant because the grant money looks really good and that’s just a good business practice. If you have a program that the grant can support, that’s great. But unless you were already planning on developing this program, we shouldn’t just be creating something because we think that we’re going to get some money, because that’s not sustainable. So I think it’s really important that we and our company philosophy is we will give you all the tools and we will work with you, and track record and best practices says that you should be able to do this, but sometimes at the end of the day, it doesn’t happen. In the business world we talk about KPIs, key performance indicators.

Tara Doyon: 57:57

And a lot of times we see, okay, we’ve met our KPIs because our results are really, really great, and I think that’s important, and I think it’s important to have metrics, and we need to think about this. But there are other things that we can look at to make sure um are we, are we really doing what we should be doing? And and that, at the end of the day, is going to be the thing that is sustainable and that’s going to be able to to really keep us going.

Ryan Freng: 58:30

Yeah, yeah. So I think I think kind of in the fundraising world too, it might be a little more direct of like hey, we need a, we need to create this endowment. So you know, pick a parish and think about, like a priestly vocations, like so we need 20 million in this account and then that can support this many uh, seminarians for this many years, and that’s, that’s a good start. So the outcome, you know the, the key performance indicator, I guess, is if you hit that number yeah.

Ryan Freng: 59:06

Right, um, with with video. You know, we’re still kind of ruminating on this and maybe maybe need to do more research. Um, we can certainly do views, we can certainly do shares, we can get all that, and that is good. Is it an indicator of success, though? And I don’t know that it necessarily is like it’s one-to-one. So that’s where we, you know, need to kind of figure out the value proposition, because if somebody comes and they want to do a big video, I would be very happy to make it for them and provide living wages for my team, but maybe before that I’d rather it be an appropriate use of their investment. And in order to understand if it’s an appropriate use of their investment, it’s difficult because you have to understand a result or you have to have some way of judging it. Yeah, and it’s tough when it’s just something like like video.

Ryan Freng: 1:00:06

I think we can get a little closer with something like website or digital and social investment or these other things that are maybe a little more kind of commoditized, a little more productized, where we can say you know you need this sign and we can show you went from you know 10 people looking at your website to now you have 500 a day, which is then leading towards this many outreaches or this many people showing up at your store or your church or whatever it is.

Ryan Freng: 1:00:36

Um and and maybe specifically thinking about parishes. We were talking today and one of my staffers was saying that she’s like, yeah, it’s such a huge negative when she’s looking up a church where to go and she sees a really bad website. She’s like, well, if this is the quality of the website, what’s the quality of the church and the faith?

Tara Doyon: 1:00:55

Yeah.

Ryan Freng: 1:00:56

Yeah, and you think about that. Like we guild our churches, we put gold there, we get the high altars and beautiful Gothic artwork and all of that and spend a lot of money, importantly there, because it raises our hearts and our minds to heaven, it’s, it’s evangelical, but then we crap the bed, you know, because, well, we have some volunteers and they did a website and we’re doing a disservice.

Ryan Freng: 1:01:22

We’re actually disinviting people from the church, um, so there’s some of those elements that we can more think about in terms of what is your return on this investment? Video videos tough though videos, nebulous, I don’t know. How do you, how do you guys, think about video in terms of promoting the work that you do?

Tara Doyon: 1:01:42

yeah, so, um, I we love video. We’ve used video like a lot of um, personally as as a company. We’ve used video on our website. We use it on our social media. We try to have videography at a lot of our events capturing, because it is about that storytelling and it shows the relational side of people, versus a blog where you can read something but it’s pretty static and video allows us to capture the humanness of who we are and again, that’s, at the end of the day, that relational aspect that is going to move the needle All of our big campaigns.

Tara Doyon: 1:02:24

So anytime someone, our client, works with us and they need to raise money over $5 million, we automatically work with a videographer to capture that story on so many elements of that story.

Tara Doyon: 1:02:35

So the volunteers, the benefactors, the people that were serving, all of those pieces I think are very important. You mentioned, you know like you feel like you don’t know how to be able to look at that ROI with video, and then I would ask for you to really consider, instead of that mindset of the ROI or those KPIs, to think about the concept of OKRs and those are objectives and key results. So what is the objective of your videos? Can you define that and are you meeting that objective? Can you define that and are you meeting that objective? And so, if you can look at what your product is doing and are you understanding that objective and are you delivering on that objective, you have a win. And that is a win for everyone. It’s a win for the organization, it’s a win for you and it doesn’t matter how many people see it, because your objective and your goal was to create this product that shows the humanness of people.

Ryan Freng: 1:03:39

Yeah, yeah, I like that terminology as well. I think the question that I have the follow-up is you know how do you say what that value is, what that proposition is right Because you can do a video for $10,000. You could do a video for 25, you could do 50, you could do a hundred thousand dollars. We’re pitching on an RFP for a short film. Um, that’s upwards of $300,000 just because of the scope of things that go into it.

Ryan Freng: 1:04:09

Um, especially when looking, you know, maybe a $5 million project, when we, when we’ve talked to a company, we can look at um, the ad spend or the, the marketing spend excuse me, of successful companies in a certain demographic and say, okay, in your demographic, you know you’re going to be 8%, like let’s look at 8% of your overall revenue. That’s how much you should be spending on your marketing. How much are you spending spending some portion of that is each of these different channels or whatnot? Um, when you’re looking at like a $5 million project, how do you come up with the value of something like video? Because we know video is so engaging, it’s a, it’s a great way when you know somebody is not in front of somebody else, um, and even when they are to be able to emotionally speak to them in a way that even a personal connection maybe couldn’t do. So you know, you’re okay. You’re okay, are where it’s like.

Ryan Freng: 1:05:02

Hey, I want a few people to give significant donations and reference the video as one of those key components. Right, when we’re raising 5 million uh, a gift of a hundred thousand dollars. That was convinced because of a video. That’s a pretty good OKR or KPI or return on investment, but what’s? Valuable $10,000? $50,000? $100,000?. How do you evaluate that?

Tara Doyon: 1:05:30

I think that’s hard. I wish I was the business guru that could give you a good analytical statistic to say that. But I think for us, in my role in the company, in what we have determined is the best practice for us, is that we have a variety of tools that we have the ability to employ when working with a client and we have to cast a very wide net Because, again, it goes back to you know, we’re going to have people that receive things on different wavelengths and messages and it’s important and so we know that to continue to cast a wide net because, especially when you’re working for, like a church, you have all ages, you have all demographics, you have ethnicities, you just so many. We know that we have to have that human element in there and there is no better way to do that through a video Other than, you know, person to person, which obviously is standard, but other than that, we know that we have to have that through a video Other than person to person, which obviously is standard, but other than that, we know that we have to have that.

Tara Doyon: 1:06:39

So for us it’s just been standard practice and at the end of the day, if you ask me to put a number on it. It really comes down to what that budget looks like and how you charge the client and what’s fair market for the client and what they can afford versus what you can afford to give them and still pay your fees. We recently had a client that all of our contracts have a get out of jail free card, I like to call it. So if they’re not satisfied with us, they can cancel and we have a 90-day.

Ryan Freng: 1:07:18

That’s like your guarantee, right? Yeah, yeah.

Tara Doyon: 1:07:20

A 90-day fee or 90-day notice and they really wanted it to be a little shortened. That is in there, because at the end of the day, the fees that come in from we charge. You go to support our organization, our business and our budget, and if you suddenly take that money away without 30 days, that throws off the whole budget. And I’m a small business, you’re a small business, you know that, and so we want to be charitable and generous and we want to give them an opportunity, if things aren’t working out, to leave. But we also we have to be mindful and good stewards of the money and our employees too, and sometimes that comes with a dollar figure.

Ryan Freng: 1:08:08

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love that and that’s a lot of commodity marketing, the idea of this guarantee, whatever it is. That’s a lot of kind of commodity marketing. The idea of like this guarantee, whatever it is there’s different levels of it. I wonder too, um, and that you know potentially something when we’re doing a longer marketing engagement with somebody that we could consider as well. I guarantee, uh, with a cancellation, but then like hey, you can cancel, but, um, whatever our whatever, but whatever our goals are, if we can still hit those, maybe you could reconsider.

Ryan Freng: 1:08:39

So obviously if a relationship is not working, you want to both get out of that as soon as you can, but more often than not, especially with something that takes time, I think the challenge is somebody might want results after a month, whereas it takes 3, 6, 12, you know, 18,. You were saying you’re in Montana, um, and so it’s, you know it’s a, it’s a investment, it’s, it’s, you know, even faith, right?

Tara Doyon: 1:09:02

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And at the end of the day, we are a people of faith and in the Catholic world we attend mass, you know, daily, weekly, whatever that is and we we witness the miracle of the unbelievable every, every time we’re in mass. And if we have people of faith can believe that and honor that, then we can believe that we can raise a couple of million dollars to support our project or infrastructure, whatever it needs to be.

Ryan Freng: 1:09:37

Yeah, I mean, and that’s that’s something that excites me about the nonprofit world and the Catholic world and, like you said, you’ve never come across a nonprofit that’s been like, yeah, we have an uh, an excess of money that we want to spend. Um, you know, it’s always like, oh, yeah, we’re a nonprofit, so just, you know, keep that in mind. But it’s interesting, I feel like the nonprofits who know or have fundraised, they understand, yeah, they’re just, they’re just one donor away from you know, maybe doing this big project or a couple of donors away, versus asking a small business like, hey, can you give us the nonprofit rate or be cheaper? I really can’t lower my cost, but we could assist you, we could help you find some donors that you know can get into that.

Ryan Freng: 1:10:21

Um, and that’s something I think we talked about this too, because we talked about on the phone after the conference and it’s kind of tied into this series, the dare to believe series what if it it wasn’t true? Um, where we’re considering spinning up a foundation so that we can help nonprofits to market by providing, uh, some funding, right, so, being able to use our connections into the um kind of philanthropy world and bringing the people who want to create, you know, uh, good evangelical media with the groups who need help and are trying to do something, um, kind of bridge that gap and offer that opportunity. So that’s, I mean, that’s, that’s one of the reasons why, too, I keep my hands, keep coming over here, cause, as you’re talking, I keep taking notes on a lot of these good ideas.

Tara Doyon: 1:11:10

So yeah, yeah, we can’t. We can’t presume that people, the world, our communities aren’t willing to support these good acts, and so many organizations um, even just your own idea we’re held back with I don’t. I don’t know if we can find these donors I don’t know what that looks like, or can we do this? Are this, Are people willing to support that? We can’t presume that they’re not until we go out there and ask them. And so we have to be bold, and we have to go out in faith and believe that if we are really, you know, doing this work of evangelization and discipleship, that we will meet the right people and we will have the right conversations. We have to do the work.

Ryan Freng: 1:11:55

It’s not just going to fall on our lap.

Tara Doyon: 1:11:57

But we then connect with those people that help us and empower us and lead us in a strategic way to be able to execute and do that.

Ryan Freng: 1:12:05

Yeah, well, it’s like that idea Work, work, like everything depends on us. Pray, like everything you know depends on God.

Tara Doyon: 1:12:09

Yeah.

Ryan Freng: 1:12:15

And I think it’s probably just because I’m just that stubborn Uh, like I or or or it’s arrogance. Hopefully it’s not arrogance, hopefully it’s not ego, but just thinking about this dare to believe series, like we haven’t figured out how to get it more out there and fund it. But I’ve had so many good conversations, people are so positive about it and I’m just going to keep running until maybe discernment shuts a door. But a door hasn’t been shut yet. Doors just keep getting open. So we just keep forging forward like it will happen, and as long as we’re not doing things irresponsibly, I think we can continue and we’re on the right path.

Tara Doyon: 1:12:49

Yeah, absolutely. I do think that when we open ourselves up to people and the conversations, things happen. One of the things about me if you get to know me personally, is people say you have this crazy life. I’ve been on television shows, I’ve been in music videos, I’ve won crazy contests and all my friends are always like how is this person? You should write a book. This is crazy. And the thing I say is I just put myself out there. I put myself out there, I meet people, I am adventurous, I try things, I have hard goals in my life, I talk, I meet, I connect and I ask questions and all of those things lend itself to this crazy life that I’ve been granted the ability to walk through. And I think anytime you’re on some sort of discipleship path and you have an idea, you put yourself out there and you make yourself known and you meet people and you invite people into that space that help you understand what that discernment really looks like. We automatically assume that discernment gives us a very clear path, a yes or no.

Tara Doyon: 1:14:04

And sometimes the discernment is just that waiting and the understanding and the journey of that yes or no, and that’s a very discerned path as well that yes or no, and that’s a very discerned path, um, as well.

Ryan Freng: 1:14:18

Well, and kind of to that point, a friend of mine uh just jumped over on instagram, uh, tabitha, who’s another small business owner, voiceover artist, and we talk about this a lot, and I think so in terms of discernment as well, like not stopping right, so continuing to walk forward and the idea of you’re either growing or you’re shrinking, or like, in faith, you’re moving towards the Lord or you’re moving away.

Ryan Freng: 1:14:39

So, you always want to be doing those positive things, to move towards the things that you want, and we’re probably our biggest obstacle you know like all the businesses who fail, like one in five succeeds after so many years.

Ryan Freng: 1:14:50

I think that most of those other ones just give up. You know, you hit some hard things and you give up and those who are around are the ones who didn’t give up through the hard things. You know, like early on in our business we had half paychecks and things like that, and then you kind of get to a place where you don’t have that and I feel like complacency sets in. And then for us, like through COVID, people just were knocking down the door because they needed so much marketing. We stopped marketing ourselves and then 2023 kind of corrected and now we’re like, oh no, we gotta, we gotta actually market ourselves. You know, we’re still kind of doing all that Word of mouth like it’s still really great for us and still huge, but all the digital stuff kind of you know, went down the toilet and we’re like, oh wow, when we don’t just have a booming economy, we really need to make sure that we’re doing the things that we help other companies do as well.

Tara Doyon: 1:15:43

You have to oversell. Yeah, I mean, I this is the way I say this is my business too. Like, things move slower than we think that they are, so you constantly have to oversell, you have to put yourself out there and it always works out. It always falls into place. But you always have to be pushing yourself forward and understanding what those mistakes are and realizing that they’re only mistakes if you don’t learn from them and haven’t been able to course correct.

Ryan Freng: 1:16:09

Right, right. Yeah, we are live too. So if anyone is in either Facebook, youtube or Instagram has any questions, uh, for Tara or myself, we’re, we’re here for a little bit longer, um, but it is so okay. So it’s four, 15, and I don’t want to go too long.

Tara Doyon: 1:16:28

I’m five, 15. So I, I’m like I said after work I’m Eastern time, You’re good.

Ryan Freng: 1:16:32

Well, you got, you got to run to get in right. Yeah, you’re training for the marathon yeah, I have.

Tara Doyon: 1:16:36

I have a little bit of running, but that’s okay.

Ryan Freng: 1:16:38

I see I feel like you’re putting it off right now. You’re like no, no, no, we can keep talking, yeah, no it’s good, because I was thinking I had to go to the gym. Well, we do have a fun part of the show that we kind of like to close with.

Ryan Freng: 1:16:53

Let’s see, I think this will work if I play it, you ready? Okay, that’s right, we’re gonna play two, twos in a lie. That was, uh, my little girls a couple years ago actually. Okay, really fun, so I did not prep you and that’s a part of the fun. Uh, you’re gonna come up with three facts about yourself, and one of them is a lie and we gotta guess.

Ryan Freng: 1:17:17

So I can vamp as well okay um, anyone who is watching online, if you happen to guess correctly, I can send you one of these sweet coasters, cause this is a happy hour. Uh, and Tara and I are just drinking responsibly because she’s got to run and my wife reminded me that I have a meeting at six and then I have to go pick up kids at six 45. And so I’m just not done till like eight. So I am also drinking responsibly today, but you could win your very own let’s Backflip coaster which, tara, as a thank you for being on the show, we’ll send you one of these as well.

Tara Doyon: 1:17:57

Well, thank you.

Ryan Freng: 1:17:59

We’re going to get you one of these shirts too, so get your information once we finish? Yeah, absolutely, and you can rep, rep this week, okay, okay. So do you need me to vamp more, or are you good?

Tara Doyon: 1:18:09

no, I think I’m good.

Ryan Freng: 1:18:11

I think I’m good okay, let me get ready to type this down. All right, go for it um.

Tara Doyon: 1:18:19

My family breeds dachshunds. I have been to 47 different states. I have been to disney world over a hundred times.

Ryan Freng: 1:18:44

Whoa, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, so number one. Your family reads uh, dachshund. How do you spell dachshund? Is it like dachshund?

Tara Doyon: 1:18:53

D-A-C-H-S-H-U-N-D-S.

Ryan Freng: 1:18:57

D-A-C-H-S-H. That’s terrible and that’s is that. Is that German? Yes yes, uh, dachshund.

Tara Doyon: 1:19:05

It’s pronounced dachshund, dachshund, not dachshund not, not, not dachshund or dachshund dog.

Ryan Freng: 1:19:11

You know, weenie dog, it’s a weiner dog yeah, weiner dog, let’s, let’s just cut to the chase here. Yeah, so your family breeds weiner dogs? How long has your family been, uh, breeding them?

Tara Doyon: 1:19:22

I. I am a fourth generation breeder.

Ryan Freng: 1:19:26

Wow, so you breed them too? Oh, all right, all right, yeah, I like you’re. You’re playing the game really really well. Uh, number two you’ve been to 47 different States. So we have talked about your travel, um, and as a consultant, it makes sense that you travel. That’s a really good way to lie, though you it could be like 46 states and you’re like I go to 47. So, um, you have a very easy way about you in conversation. So I can’t, I could not tell. I was staring right at you and you were saying these. I could not tell what your, what your tell was, so I’d never want to play poker with you. Just just to be clear. Uh, and then you’ve been to disney world over 100 times. We didn’t talk about disney. You do have two kids, um, they’re older now. Over 100 times. That would be a lot to go to disney. Um, let’s see you’re in Indiana. Where have you always been? In India, or?

Tara Doyon: 1:20:27

I lived on the East coast after undergrad for a few years. My husband’s from Connecticut.

Ryan Freng: 1:20:32

We live there, we started our family there, but Midwestern are for the most most part man, oh man, just from hearing these things, I kind of want to choose number three, because I feel like it’d be hard to go to Disney world that many times, cause that’s, that’s florida, right yep yeah, disneyland is, uh, california.

Ryan Freng: 1:20:52

Oh, let’s see, and I’ve been to disney world with my kids a bunch and you know I need a year break in between when I I love it, but I I need a break. Um, all right’s see, family rings, that dachshunds been to 47 different States. Yeah, I kind of feel like number one and number two are true. I feel like I’m going to pick number three. I’m going to see if anybody else is in chat. Um, tabs, oh, audio is better today. Thank you, tabs. Tabs is a voiceover artist and the last time we did this, uh, we had an audio error and after the fact she, she like texted me. She’s like, hey, the audio was crappy. I was like, dude, tell me, during it.

Tara Doyon: 1:21:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan Freng: 1:21:36

Um, thanks, tabs, so you vote Disney as well. Okay, let’s see Adam Carter Brown, if you’re around. Uh, we’re playing two truths and a lie. Tara says her family breeze dachshunds. She’s been to 47 different States and she’s been to Disney world over 100 times, and we’re guessing. We’re trying to figure it out, I would. I would say Disney will give them maybe 30 more seconds, so I think he’s gone, all right. And tabs what’s Disney? Disney? We’ll give him maybe 30 more seconds, so I think he’s gone all right. And tabs what’s disney? All right, uh, what? What is the lie?

Tara Doyon: 1:22:09

the lie is that I do not breed dachshunds I have a dachshund.

Ryan Freng: 1:22:14

I am a fourth generation dachshund owner, but I didn’t have patience to breed them so oh man, that’s a good one, that’s a good lie yeah, you, yeah. First. People don’t come out first of their life typically.

Tara Doyon: 1:22:27

Yeah, oh, okay. So yeah, I don’t know the psychology of that. So, um been to most of the States. I have not been to um Alaska, I have not been to. Um I have not been to um. Louisiana and I have not been to North Dakota. Oh, randomly, I know. So so those are my and um, I’ve been to Disney a lot. Now, the caveat is my older daughter lives in Florida and she works for Disney.

Ryan Freng: 1:23:07

And so I I didn’t remember that she lives in Florida now, but I was like cast member.

Tara Doyon: 1:23:11

I go this year alone. I’ve probably been, I don’t know, 20 times just in this calendar year.

Ryan Freng: 1:23:20

Okay, so does she hook you up? Yeah.

Tara Doyon: 1:23:23

So she she has free passes, uh, yeah, so she, she has um free passes, uh, for friends and family Um prior to that, like we were a family that vacation there, sometimes twice a year um with annual passes and all those sorts of things. So I definitely set the stage and now it’s just like crazy.

Ryan Freng: 1:23:43

Oh, that’s great. I love Disney. My family, you know, we’ve been there. We’ve been to Disney, uh, done their parks and then universal and those. Um, we just don’t want to do it with a baby, so we’re not going to go for another year or two.

Tara Doyon: 1:23:56

Yeah, it’s hard. We’ve done it with all stages of the girls, um, but now it’s easy and it’s free, so it’s even better.

Ryan Freng: 1:24:02

Oh, it’s great. I know that’s what I want to do with my kids, like send them to work at places that I want to go to, like you go work at the movie theater, you go work at Disney, you go you know like yeah, absolutely. That’d be fantastic Tabs. Thanks for hanging. See you later. And I think Alexis voted number two, Alexis Texas, who’s on our team here.

Tara Doyon: 1:24:22

Okay.

Ryan Freng: 1:24:23

She thought you hadn’t been to 47 States. Yeah, proven wrong.

Tara Doyon: 1:24:27

I know. I need to get those contracts.

Ryan Freng: 1:24:30

Yeah, also North Dakota. I mean you can just drive through it and stop at like I don’t know if the corn palace, I can’t remember.

Tara Doyon: 1:24:36

Yeah, yeah, I am. I am the type of person that does stop at these oddity places. Like you know, I follow these crazy Facebook groups, oddball places. I stop, I take pictures.

Ryan Freng: 1:24:47

It’s worth it.

Tara Doyon: 1:24:48

Yeah, I’m adventurous, I’ll go out and explore that. So that is definitely on. The list yeah. And then the other one was Alaska, and would you say Arizona or Kansas, louisiana, louisiana, okay, I know, but we’re actually having an event next year there, so I don’t know why I haven’t got.

Ryan Freng: 1:25:06

I mean you should make North Dakota your epic 50th.

Tara Doyon: 1:25:10

I haven’t done anything. Yeah, I know, I know.

Ryan Freng: 1:25:12

Yeah, That’d be like the least epic but potentially the most epic. 50th state Mark it off so yeah, my buddy just did his 50th state. It was Alaska. They did kind of a cool trip up there. So yeah, well, that’s, that’s kind of what we got for today. Um, thanks for hanging. Is there anything you want to plug or share?

Tara Doyon: 1:25:32

no, just I think you can throw up your guys’s website yeah, if you um are an organization that needs to understand how you can sustainably raise money, reach, reach out to us. We have a lot of solutions. So many people think that they have to come to us when they need to raise millions of dollars. At the end of the day, we want to help you when you are just trying to make your budget and keep it sustainable. We’re all trying to build the kingdom of God. We’re all doing that in different ways, and our way that we do it, from the Petra standpoint, is by helping you realize your potential. So we have a lot of different solutions available at all different price points. We have in-person coaching solutions, we have virtual. We have a lot of just really good free resources too, so we want to be able to help you realize what it looks like if you had more money to grow your mission.

Ryan Freng: 1:26:24

I love it. That’s a great pitch. It’s like you’ve pitched that before.

Tara Doyon: 1:26:27

You know, I have a great team, great team of people, and we’re always looking to to work with great partners, so I thank you for inviting me here today. I do feel like it was providential that we met the Eucharistic Congress, and I was just on the prowl to add another videographer group to our catalog of people that we work with, and so I think we had a great conversation and hit it off. So thank you for having us today, or having me today, and allowing us to talk about what we do and just get to know us as a company personally as well.

Ryan Freng: 1:27:03

Yeah, I’m so happy to connect and it was a real pleasure. I again I think you have just a comfortable way about you Like, um, sometimes I get nervous for these, but since we’d already had that conversation before and I was like just really looking forward to hanging out with you, so, yeah, thanks for hanging out with me.

Tara Doyon: 1:27:19

I’ll have to come back after my run and we’ll have a beverage, a real beverage yeah.

Ryan Freng: 1:27:27

Just so I’m aware what is your favorite drink, what would be your drink of choice?

Tara Doyon: 1:27:31

Oh, so I like a Moscow Mule, but I’m also one of these mixologists. I like to make my own concoctions of things and I will throw in a lot of different things.

Ryan Freng: 1:27:42

Yeah, I don’t like tequila, like to make my own concoctions of things and I will throw in a lot of different things and yeah, um, I don’t like tequila, so anything non-tequila based I’m usually good with.

Tara Doyon: 1:27:52

I always. I generally gravitate to a vodka base, because it’s more of a neutral base and you can add, you can kind of make it whatever you want yeah, right, yeah, right now we are.

Ryan Freng: 1:28:01

Ours is the Boulevardier or the Negroni which is kind of a yeah, the Boulevardier is like a Manhattan plus. Yeah.

Tara Doyon: 1:28:09

Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Freng: 1:28:10

Negroni, is you just switch the bourbon for the?

Tara Doyon: 1:28:12

yeah.

Ryan Freng: 1:28:13

The gin. But if we get to hang out, which I I’m assuming at some point in the future we’ll be able to hang out yeah uh, I’m gonna get you, I’m gonna get you to try some good tequila. I was not a big tequila person until I started, uh, having some of like yeah, yeah just some good stuff and it’s. It’s even like sipping, like so I totally know this I want to convert people.

Tara Doyon: 1:28:35

My tequila experience is like jose cuervo yes, when I was like 20 yeah and yeah. We’ve all been there because that because of that I have, you know straight away, I a hundred percent know that there is probably better stuff out there that I have yet to. Um, you know, try.

Ryan Freng: 1:28:55

Yeah, and I and I’m here to share the good word of tequila. So thank you so much for coming on and if you hang out even after I turn this off, I can make sure I get your information and we can send you stuff. So absolutely Thank you, awesome Thanks for hanging and thanks internet for hanging with us. We’ll see you next time. Bye.