Donna Brown, business and branding synergist, of Milan, Italy responds

This interview took place on April 1, 2020.

Donna Brown tells Sally Hendrick of her perspective as a Canadian ex-pat living in Milan, Italy, near the original outbreak of the Lombardy region. As the hospitals and healthcare workers there have been overrun with COVID-19 cases and deaths, the Italian government has placed more and more restrictions on people's movement outside the home. Now that the northern part of the country has passed its peak in cases, the concern is being directed towards the south where the country is generally poorer with less access to good healthcare. 

Guest bio:

Donna Brown is a Canadian citizen living in Milan, Italy, near where the COVID-19 outbreak started in Italy. She is a business synergist, growth and branding strategist, and international speaker, with over thirty years experience as a consultant in such diverse fields as fashion, interior and garden design, lifestyle, events, food service, publishing, tv, editorial projects, online / digital coaching and mentoring.

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Transcript:

Donna Brown (02:07):

So thank you for having me, Sally. It's my name is Donna Brown and I'm a business and branding synergist and I really, I work with visionaries and leaders to create businesses that are supportive of their purpose and mission. And these are very interesting times and I'm based in Italy and I'm based in Milan, which is a hotspot. It is the hotspot in Italy at this moment in time. So that kind of tells you where I am. I've been here for a very, very long time.

Sally Hendrick (02:39):

How long have you lived in Milan?

Donna Brown (02:41):

I've lived in Italy about 38 years.

Sally Hendrick (02:45):

Wow. I didn't know that.

Donna Brown (02:47):

I came as a young and stayed.

Sally Hendrick (02:53):

So what's the word on the street when you go out? Do you, can you go out? How do you, what do, what are you doing on a daily basis?

Donna Brown (03:00):

So you know, as somebody who lives alone now my life in many ways hasn't changed a lot, but of course the changes are significant. Right? Even if there are very few of them. We're not in, at the beginning there was, you could, you know, like go for walks and get physical exercise and they've, they've basically said no to that. You know, you're not supposed to just, if you have a dog, you can take out your dog and you can go to the grocery store, the pharmacy, and other than that, they want you home. So it's, it's pretty tight. And they do give fines and they can take, you know, make criminal charges for those who go out knowing that they're ill and go out anyways. So, it's very like they're taking that very seriously here. So things are incredibly quiet.

Donna Brown (03:54):

But then there's that weird dichotomy that everybody, you know, we know that it's like this. I mean, people know what it's like in New York as well. So we're all safe in our homes, in our homes generally for most people, not for everyone, but for most people or places that represent safety. And so we're in a comfortable environment, or at least an environment that we're used to. And but the front lines must be something like we've never, you know, seen before and those people are living, all the health care workers are, are living, you know, desperate times. You know, I've seen the things in the States about, in New York about the PPE that the healthcare workers don't have more than they do have. And you know, we had the same issue at the beginning was very similar. You know, I don't think people were wearing plastic bags, but they, they had to work 12 hour shifts with no breaks at all because they couldn't, they didn't have a change of clothing for them to go back in. So very, very stressful. You know, it's the numbers here are high. I'm going to, States has surpassed us, but the States is also five times larger than Italy. So in some way that stands to reason, right?

Sally Hendrick (05:12):

On cases and the death mostly coming from your area that you're in the Lombardi region, which includes Parma and Bologna and Milan.

New Speaker (05:26):

Doesn't include Bologna , doesn't include Parma either.

Sally Hendrick (05:31):

What about Modena,

Donna Brown (05:34):

no, that's Amelia. You're in Reggio Emilia. That's further down the three cities here that are the most stricken are Milan, Bergamo and Brescia, which are all quite close to each other. And those two cities are, are quite close together. They're not that many kilometers between the two of them. And for a while they were, they just sort of it started with Milan of course, because it's a big, you know, hub, it's a huge hub in the same way. New York is a huge hub and that's why it just sort of concentrated itself there. And also it's a very large city, so it stands to reason that it had also a lot of chance to sort of gain a foothold and a better one. But it show also, you know took over. There's also, there's also a very important airport in, in better than one as well. So.

Sally Hendrick (06:28):

What about the rest of the country

Donna Brown (06:31):

It's spread out. It's spread out. You know, there's something everywhere, which is, you know, kind of strange like it since people are not supposed to be driving around and seeing each other, whatever. It's, you know, there isn't a region that doesn't have somebody, but we represent probably 70% of the cases I would say.

Sally Hendrick (06:52):

So you're like our New York right now and the rest of the country has pockets. And so I've talked to some other friends that I have, cause you know, I've been to Italy many times and probably 10, 12 times over, over the years and spent a lot of time there, especially in the Tuscany region and then also in Sicilia. In Sicily.

Donna Brown (07:19):

Beautiful. I lived in Tuscany for a long time and I had a farm there for a long time.

Sally Hendrick (07:23):

Nice. But I've been talking with them and they are also hating the warnings from the government to do what they're supposed to do. And they're staying at home. The kids are at home during school. And so as far as the, is it an official lockdown for the entire country, including Sicily?

Donna Brown (07:43):

Yes.

Sally Hendrick (07:44):

Yeah. Okay. That's what I thought. Cause they said that they were, they were also heating all of that and that they had seen cases popping up in their areas. And so hopefully because they are on lockdown everywhere, they won't, that you won't have any more hot spots to rise up. But with that said, are there some other areas that seem to be on the rise in Italy?

Donna Brown (08:09):

I'm not entirely sure. I could actually probably tell you really quickly. I'll just double check here. What, I do want to say something though that, and I think this is very much worth keeping in mind. The people who, I'm just going to look at the map here.

Donna Brown (08:35):

Yeah, there's, it's, you know, I mean it, it stands to reason that the cities, it's easier in cities, right, for things to gather. So of course, you know, Turin has quite a few. Naples has quite a sort of, Rome has quite a few live. We, we, if you look at where they are, they tend to be in places that have

Donna Brown (08:53):

You know, denser, denser, denser population. But what is concerning, and I think this is, as I said, worthy of note for everyone, is that unfortunately, you know, the South is definitely not as affluent as the North, right? And this is pretty much typical of most countries, right? And people who have been at home and not being paid and not having access to unemployment insurance as of yet and not, you know, sort of not a lot of help. The tensions are getting very high about the lack of funds to buy food. I mean, we're in. And so there are policing quite heavily and they're starting to police quite heavily in places in the South. Just because maybe also for the characteristics of the city itself and you know, that each city has its own sort of qualities in a narrow areas as they neighborhoods that tried to save them both together, but that's you know, that are maybe slightly, you know, rougher and these people are reacting with anger at their situation and you know, anger probably driven through fear right there they seem they're afraid and therefore they're angry and therefore they're acting out and trying to go to a grocery store and not pay and, and still get food down.

Donna Brown (10:28):

Italy has brought out for the first time that I know of, I mean, it might've happened or it was probably happened to, we're in a war time, right? To have like coupons or rations or something. But now that, which is one thing, but now they're, this is the first time I've ever heard of them having food coupons and they're beginning to do that because there are people who have no, no access to food at this point. They have no income. And where are they going to, you know, how are they going to prepare that income? Either they were paid and black money, sort of off the books, or they were, you know, seasonal or working by the hour you know, with no real benefits. So, and this is, this represents a lot of people and that whole sort of population is much more at risk, right?

Donna Brown (11:20):

There are a lot of, you know, let's say people who come and clean your house quite often, we'll just, you know, come once a week. So you're, you're, you're not actually hiring them, you're paying them by the hour. But once that, that work's gone, you know, what,

Sally Hendrick (11:33):

what do they gonna do?

Donna Brown (11:34):

What do they eat? What are they gonna do? Right? And here, I think they're not I think you cannot be evicted. If I've read correctly, it doesn't seem that you can be evicted for non payment of rent at this time. But again, it increased debt load on a population that doesn't have any margins. Right? That doesn't have any access to credit that, you know, and this puts people in a much more fragile position.

Sally Hendrick (12:00):

So besides the food coupons, has Italy released anything like the US has with the stimulus package that was just passed the other day

Donna Brown (12:11):

In different measures, but yes. I mean way like, right, right at the beginning they put off all different kinds of things. Like I forget, when workers are, they're not laid off, but they're sort of

Donna Brown (12:31):

It's not unpaid. Like, something like that earlier. I should look that up. I can't remember.

Sally Hendrick (12:39):

I get it. I get it when they're words that just don't translate. Exactly. And you're not really sure.

Donna Brown (12:44):

It's just because I never have to talk about it in English. So never

Donna Brown (12:47):

Ever occurs to me.They have, you know, they're having trouble getting through. They're having trouble getting through to the authorities. They're everything. It's, it's basically an unemployment insurance benefits of redundancy payment or something like that. Something like that. They're, it's very hard to get it through to the, the authorities to sort of get those things set up. So of course, the fault, the watershed of that is these people are not receiving what they should receive. Taxes were postponed. VAT, sort of the value add the taxes, right. Those who are British will know what VAT is a value added tax, which should be your sales tax or provisional tax or state tax or whatever those government taxes you guys have. Did you add on the sales tax that you guys have? It's included in our prices. It's not like in the States where it's added on afterwards, all those payments have been shifted as well, just because there's no real way of

Donna Brown (13:49):

Getting it done. You know, there are a lot of people that the, most accountants have had to close their offices and they're doing what they can from home, but they have to work with secure systems that are approved by the state. And so they have only certain kinds of servers and they don't, you know what I'm saying? They have all and then they may not be able to social distance in the office. So things are really, really, really at a minimum and they, so that, that whole part has been chucked down. So they've, they've brought forth a bunch of things they're going to have to bring out more for sure. And our lockdown has been extended. It was supposed to end in two days. It's been extended two weeks, which surprised me because we have over 100,000 cases. So there's not a chance that it's gonna and we still have several thousand cases in new cases day.

Sally Hendrick (14:38):

I see that. I've just, I've been watching the data very carefully and watching the curves that my background is in analyzing that sort of thing. And so I've really been on top of, you know, what's happening in Italy, what happened South Korea, which seems to be like the model that we depend on. And so when we start to see Italy is starting to have at least a down turn slightly in the new cases, but of course the deaths follow that in, in a pattern that comes a little bit later. So the worst thing that could happen would be for this to kick up too soon, you know, to like go back to work, go back to normal too soon because then you're going to have new cases to pop up in these other areas that have not been hotspots at this point. So that's what's scary about all that.

Donna Brown (15:28):

Well, in China that started up again in China, it started up again, right? They started getting new cases, they started getting an uptick. Yeah. You know, so I think that really they are just you know, before they announced a month where it was just under a month really, but they locked down Lombardi first and then they locked down the whole country. And, but I think they're doing that more for people's mental health and just saying, okay, just two more weeks. And it's like the personal trainers trying to get you to do three more squats or two more bungee jumps or whatever it is. It's, yeah. And they make you just that. So I think that's kind of the thing. And they're also trying to avoid a lot of conflict, all the things. But how is it, it's just not, it's not possible. Anybody who has, you know, two brain cells to rub together knows it's not two weeks.

Donna Brown (16:24):

Right. So the new date is April 12th but that's really just for an update. You know, I think they're just, they can't say you have to stay here until June cause people are just gonna you know, they're going to go crazy. They're going to go wonky right away and start asking all these questions that probably the government isn't even able to answer right now. Because I always remember that, you know, no matter who you think, what you think of whoever's in power and what do you think of politics in general. These are people who are also facing something that, that they had. There's no guidebook, there's no, they're very, they're no past references. There's nothing to compare. There's nothing,

Sally Hendrick (17:01):

I mean they have to keep in mind that, you know, this can incite riot. This can, exactly. That's what I'm saying. In lots and lots of things that could be happening. That would be terrible. And move into civil war. I mean, yes, that's, that's the scary part. That's like you're, you're tinkering on the edge here. You're having to walk the tie line tight rope, if you will to be able to navigate the economic piece of it, the medical piece of it, the emotional piece. All of those things have to be taken into consideration. I, I think that, that, that that's the same type of approach that's been done here in the US we've got, you know, different opinions on what people think of the different leaders and so on and so forth. A lot of people are still throwing the politics around, but it's really not the time to be blaming this and blaming that and so on and so forth.

Sally Hendrick (17:59):

Right now is the time to manage the crisis through the worst of it. Get out on the other side and then figure out, you know, people are going to look back and see what happened, learn from it and try to have new policies going forward. But then there's going to be a lot of political infighting and all of that going on again. And we know that because we've got our elections coming up in the fall in the U S now the other thing I wanted to ask you about is, do you know people personally who are on the front lines? Do you know anybody, like who's elderly, who's having trouble? What kind of like, you know, who do you know personally that you can kind of give a little bit of a story of what's happening with them?

Donna Brown (18:47):

I can't really, it's sort of friends of friends, that kind of thing. You know, my family's not here, right? I, I'm Canadian, so,and I'm divorced. So like that whole family has, is sort of, you know, not on my radar anymore. It's not really, you know, my son in Italy is a very, very interesting, I don't know if you know the Sally, but the ambulances are, have paid help Monday to Friday day shift and everything. This is all of Italy. Right. And I find this amazing. The rest of the every other shift, every holiday, every sporting event, every, anytime you see them, they're all volunteers.

Sally Hendrick (19:28):

Really?

Donna Brown (19:30):

Yes. And my son was a volunteer first responders, so and he's now in Paris, so he's not doing it right now, but you know, they're, they're working hard and we have to remember that, that underneath all of this people will fall and break their leg. Somebody will get appendicitis, somebody is going to be giving birth. Somebody is, you know, has their chemo treatment to do. Right. It's, so there's all of that going on as well. Right underneath that, that still, you know, needs looking after in some way.

Sally Hendrick (20:01):

We went on a hike last weekend and it was muddy and I was like, I've got to go slow. If I slip and fall, if I break my ankle, I am not going to the hospital. I am just going to sit at home. And I did kind of slip a little bit and I was like, you guys need to wait up for me. I know I'm slow back here, but I'm sorry. And it was just, it was just those of us living in the house and people were, you know, kind of swinging out to the side when you would go past someone. But even that I'm starting to hear is not going to be good enough and that people really need to start to stay, like stay home. And if you're going to go out and do any walking, don't be going to any crowded parks or places where you can't get away from other people. And it's just, I mean, we're so behind you guys on timing regarding that, you know, but it feels like it's been ages and I'm sure it does for you.

Donna Brown (21:03):

So the school's closed in February, so the schools have been closed for two months now. And those were the first signs and I was very perplexed as to why they would do three weeks of school closure and not do anything else for the general population who are actually the ones contacting more people. If you think about it, schools, yes, they get their hot visits. If one person gets a cold or the flu, everybody gets the cold or the flu or whatever, they get what's going around. But they don't interact with that many people outside of that environment. Right. It's so, it's kind of strange and so it just really had a chance to get a foot hold. I wish they had closed everything down much, much sooner to be honest. But you know, and you know, South Korea is, it may be the model you mentioned that, but they had a completely different system of tracking, of testing, tracking contagion that nobody in the West that nobody in the West is doing.

Donna Brown (21:59):

There was one small Italian town that did it. There was a town of 3000 people. They tested them, they tracked, they tracked each person who was contagious and they got rid of it. But yeah, you know, it's hard to do that at scale. Right? I mean, South Korea also has different governance.

Sally Hendrick (22:17):

A town named Vo',

Donna Brown (22:17):

That was where it started. Where it started. I can't remember the name of it. I can't remember. I can't remember where it is. And so it is possible, but you have to be hyper vigilant. And in the meantime, they also now have to stay isolated from the rest of the country. Otherwise, there was no point in doing that. Right. I just feel that, you know, South Korea has, you know, different systems in place to look after to sort of monitor this kind of thing. And, and in the West we consider our freedom

Donna Brown (22:58):

You know, we're a little bit petulant about giving up our freedom a little bit like children in some ways. Right. But, you know, and you know, it's one question. We have national health, so that's another god send. I'm in the midst of all of this. Nobody's paying for this, right? I mean, nobody's paying for what you're paying for it, but not like in your taxes. But I mean, each person doesn't have to walk in and, you know, spend, you know, $10,000 or something or$30,000 to get themselves looked after.

Donna Brown (23:29):

But, you know, the, they, I think they just weren't prepared to do sort of mass testing once they found the hotspots. And so they didn't, they didn't put that in place. And I really feel that, that, you know, just events have shown that, I think that would've, that would've helped. Yeah.

Donna Brown (23:46):

I, I don't think that we're, you know, got organized. I don't think we were organized to do that.

Sally Hendrick (23:52):

So let's talk a little bit really quick about, you know, what is your biggest fear? And then I want to go into what are your hopes about what's coming up?

Donna Brown (24:04):

I'm not afraid, so I don't know. I don't have fears. I mean, I'm really concerned for like, I'm not afraid that I'm, you know, really looking at countries like India thinking, Oh my God, you know, they, they don't stand a chance. They don't stand a chance. And a friend of mine in Zimbabwe who spent her life working for humanitarian causes and social responsibility and was, had spent more than a decade working on epidemic control of HIV. Is now, you know, the, there are no, there are no events leaders in the country. I think there were like three, three, two or three for a whole country.

Donna Brown (24:46):

So they've already had their second victim and he was well known. He was, you know, obviously a person that could have, you know, but there wasn't a ventilator at his hospital. And so he died cause there was no ventilators. So she's pulled together. It's it's amazing. It's like so amazing. She, they created an organization because this, she's been practicing, I guess this for her whole life, right? She's gathered all of her experience and called out to a few people and she has over 400 people like medical engineers and universities and people doing, you know, all the things so that they can build open source ventilators for the country. But so these are these countries. I just, my heart goes out to them, you know, my heart goes out to them terribly because we're still really, really lucky to like, no matter how bad things are in Italy and, and you know, people are still losing their parents and you know, their, their, their husband, their wife, their, their parents and some of their kids because, you know, it does hit younger people. So don't think that, so there are people in their twenties who've died, people in their thirties and forties, so it's not unknown. And you know, I just, no matter how much I feel for them, these countries that are, that almost seem defenseless to me, I still, we're still in a position of privilege, you know, strangely enough. You know, I don't know.

Sally Hendrick (26:09):

So I want your hopes then if,

Donna Brown (26:10):

Oh, my hopes, my hopes. I have so many. Like I feel that there's such a,

Donna Brown (26:20):

The whole world has been given a hard stop. Right. And we're just supposed to sit here and think about things a little bit here. Right? There's a moment for reflection. So I love that companies in Italy who are very traditional, who have never, like we are not a homeworking country. People have, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, we don't do that. It pays for attendance. Yeah. Very old fashioned paying for attendance. And now to survive they've had to, it's like, Oh well I guess we do need to innovate. So I'm, I think that for like on that level for like sort of structured corporations that they're going to get rid of stuff that people don't need to do. Cause I think there's a lot of like busy work that they get people to do to justify their, their salary. They'll realize that most of it wasn't necessarily they'll get down to what was necessary.

Donna Brown (27:10):

They'll have to open up that will stay homeworking because the government has given directions to have to consider homeworking at least until June. And that was way back in February when they started it, like in March, when the beginning of March when they started it. So that for me is one thing, super positive. The fact that we've all had to stop buying stuff, because the story,

Sally Hendrick (27:33):

They'll figure out the lifeboat strategy. What do you really need in life?

Donna Brown (27:38):

You know, the dollar store and Zahra, and I mean, I'm don't want to call out any brands, but you know what I mean? This fast fashion and Goya is buying something for your house and I'll just treat myself to that and I'll just to this constant buying, you know, it's kind of like, Oh my God, I, and I know that people, if they're not getting a salary, yes, they're worse off.

Donna Brown (27:57):

But those who are still getting something, I've seen comments with this thing. Oh my God, I have so much more money because I'm not going out. I'm not ordering takeout. I'm not always going out for dinner. I'm not they're saving money on gas. Again, back to the smart working. There's these lines of, you know, of computers. You know what it's like in a big city. It's just crazy. People take two or three hours to get to work. All of that has disappeared. And I hope that it, you know, and it shows that there's a different way forward. I see big those big office buildings becoming in some way obsolete as people realize that, that they're better off disperse rather than gathered. I feel that the way we look at now, and this is one thing that I'm really, really big on, I'm really big on because it's been something I've been talking about for a while, but it's finally become current, is that fear based marketing is the pits it needs to go away.

Donna Brown (28:56):

And the way, because I feel it's basically, it's terrible. It's just terrible when you think about it like the, you know, marketers that you get taught, show them their pain points, remind them of their pain points, remind them how about why they feel terrible, remind them of, you know, and then show them what they really want and then just stick yourself in between and put up like, and with a price tag again, everything will be okay. And if you were to, if you were to talk to somebody about a relationship and say, and I say this all the time, if I were to come to you and make you feel really badly about yourself, and then propose myself as, and then propose myself as the person to make you feel better, you would tell me that's a very dysfunctional relationship. And you would put an end to it if you were smart. But in marketing, for some reason it seems like it's, it's, you know, Oh, so-called. Okay. Because it does work because people will do things out of fear. People will buy out of fear, they will. People. And, and so there are all these statistics that that shore up the fact that people do buy through fear. But is that ethical? Is it ethical? That's my question. If you say, Oh, I really care about my clients, it's like,

Speaker 5 (30:10):

I don't know.

Donna Brown (30:10):

No, it's like if that is a component of your marketing, I doubt that it's new. You're not doing the favor. So I've been talking about compassion based marketing. Yeah. And this and this move to, it's like it's not, that person doesn't have a problem. It's not that you're not there to help them with the solution. But if I see say like I see you, I hear you and you sort of recognize you, you sort of see them and hear them and you make them feel like they're, you know, that you, you understand where they are and then you say, I if you want, I can help you with that. The, the words you use, the tone you use, the, the, the buttons you push are very, very different. And, and I've seen all kinds of people on social media taking down all their, all the people who have online businesses taking down their marketing efforts. You know, that was all, everything that was preprogrammed. Why? Because it's out completely out of it.

Sally Hendrick (31:02):

What's going on in line and out of context. And I turned all of my automations off. I have stopped and I have focused on this. And the crazy part is that I've got more clients now than I can.

Donna Brown (31:16):

Exactly. Because if you stop talking to people about fear, like really it's just this, you know, and there are still people who are doing it and there are still people who will be successful and there will still people who respond to that. But I really feel that we're also being asked to decide who do you want to be like you've been like doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, doing. And all of a sudden it's like, no, you have to stop. It's like, okay, big re-evaluation moment. Who do I want to be? Like, who do I want to be and how do I want to how do I want to show up in the world? And when people say, Oh, they want to make an impact and they care about others, it's like, okay, then treat them better from day one. Don't push that button. You don't need to. And I, and you can become a refuge for your clients. You can become this point of reference that is solid, that is stable, that is a welcoming, that is a safe place. Right? And that's what people need. But people have always needed that. It's just more evident now. Yeah. So that's my little soapbox.

Sally Hendrick (32:17):

Well, I love that and thank you for saying it and what, tell us a little bit just real fast about your business and what's happening right now and then we'll wrap up.

Donna Brown (32:28):

Yeah. So with my business, this is, this is what I'm helping people to do to shift how they approach their business and their business model. And it's really a question of, it's really beyond branding. It's going much deeper than normal branding would do and really realigning themselves to the essence of themselves in essence of their business and the essence of their clients, the hearts of their clients. And I call them heart clients and not ideal clients because I feel an ideal client is sort of this sort of abstract, you know, box ticking exercise. And that's not really how we connect with people. We connect people with people heart to heart. So it's the, and this, this big shift brings huge results because I've always done it with my clients. They just didn't know I was doing it. Now I've turned it into a much more obvious process.

Donna Brown (33:16):

I would just do it for them cause I was a consultant. So I would do that work and I would just kind of give them the thing and they would all be happy and go away and make tens of millions of dollars on this stuff, which is great and lovely and fun. But I'm really now I really want people who want to be leaders too, to realize that you can build a business. You know, you're always going to have, let's say maybe funnels and automations and digital products and courses. You know what I mean? Like the, the, the structure of things may not change, but it's the motor that drives them that's very, very different. And so that's really what I'm working on now. And I'm, you know, I'm doing something in the next couple of weeks to take people through a deeper process of that. I've done one small experience of that, but now I'm turning it into a more expanded version because I really feel that this is you know, that's the other thing.

Donna Brown (34:05):

I think people are now are looking to pivot, but they're looking to pivot with the same language and mentality that they had before and it's not going to work. That's another thing I would like to tell people. It's like when you're thinking of pivoting, the best thing you can do is take a breath and sort of, you know, think about, give it, give yourself a beat and and sort of figure out do you know why you're pivoting and what's behind that pivot and that pivot. If you come sort of let's say from the roots of of the root of your business and the root of who you are, then that pivot will be sort of much more natural and it will really just be like pruning off the things that are no longer appropriate and just staying right in that center and that core of what it is you're meant to be delivering and how you're meant to be delivering it. And that is so much easier than this kind of like almost like hamster like activity that we've seen online.

Sally Hendrick (34:58):

That's a good analogy. I definitely feel that. So thank you so much for coming on and talking with me about what's going on in Italy. What you're seeing in the business world is heart to heart connection with heart clients. I love that aspect. I do feel like I myself am going through that journey as well. Because this is for the shout your cause effort that I started a while ago, but I just never really did a whole lot with it. And so now that's, this is, this is where this is going. It's not like a moneymaker, but it's, it's like it's, I don't know what it's going to become. You know what I mean? It's, it's my money maker is my agency, but the, this part is the content and the connection that I have with people around the world and within our communities. It's been a way for me to connect directly with my local communities. I've always been more of a global marketer and and this is giving me a way to talk to my people who I grew up with and who I live around and, and all of that. And then also to expand out into the world and hopefully open up some eyeballs and, you know, show some new perspective of what happening from all walks of life. Well, thank you!

Donna Brown (36:20):

But you'll see that there might be a way though, that you'll see that these two roads paths converge at some point. There's an intersection, like there's an intersection,

Sally Hendrick (36:28):

there is, there's an intersection and that's, that's something that I teach in a Facebook targeting anyway, so it's probably where that's going. So, yeah. All right, well thank you so much. And I'd love to get an update later on, maybe a, if we can do that and see what, see what's going on. Okay.

Donna Brown (36:48):

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Sally.

Sally Hendrick (36:50):

Thank you, Donna.

Donna Brown (36:51):

Thank you. Thank you.