12 - Kiirsten May on The Proximity Paradox, Entrepreneurship, Storytelling, Marketing & More

Kiirsten May is the co-owner of UpHouse, a marketing agency based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her and her business partner, Alex Varricchio, opened UpHouse in 2017 with a focus on supporting in-house marketers. Kiirsten describes UpHouse as, 'Rather than being a full-service agency that does everything, we like to get involved in the brand and strategy side and then support whatever our clients' needs are. For example, whether that's being there to provide video support, an extra set of hands for launching a product or digital marketing support until an agency hires in-house, etc)'. Fun fact, the average age of UpHouse team members is 30. This IS the next-gen that are leading the way in all aspects of marketing. A note of context worth mentioning, we recorded this episode back in Feb 2020, and am posting it live in May 2020. I bring this up because the world has changed a lot in this short time due to COVID-19 and one of the main topics we discuss is Kiirsten and Alex's book that launched at the end of March. Titled The Proximity Paradox: How to Create Distance from Business as Usual and Do Something Truly Innovative is about this idea that the closer you are to a challenge, the harder it is to look at it creatively or to find an innovative way to solve it. I recently finished this book and it is brilliant. With respect to what I just shared and the current times, I highly recommend and encourage people this book. Even though the book is targeted towards marketers, entrepreneurs, business owners as well as students (particularly in entrepreneurship or marketing) I would also add leaders in any field, and given the current state of our world with relation to COVID-19, there is a lot of innovation going on right now so I would suggest that if you are innovating, pick up this book. In this conversation, we talk about marketing, branding, culture, corporate responsibility, social media, the importance of story-telling, writing, and much more. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and leave a review. Website: www.deandouglasshow.com Instagram: @deandouglasshow Youtube: The Dean Douglas Show