Generator Ep. 024- Caron Shahrestani: Building a Values Based Business with Video

Matt Stagliano 0:00
I first met Caron Shahrestani, during a conference call between 17 Hats ambassadors late last year. And when I learned she was a fellow videographer, I knew I wanted to connect with her directly. So I reached out and within a couple of minutes, I knew she was going to be a guest here. Caron modern media is her company, and she’s based just outside of San Francisco. Her business is primarily video marketing services. But she really does so much more than that. Not only is she an expert in creating commercial videos, but she coaches other business owners, primarily women over 40, how to do it for themselves. She’s seen a ton of success in the space and it’s no wonder Caron walks the talk in every aspect of her life. I find people like Caron that are driven by their values and belief systems so interesting, because their businesses and how they build them are often so contrary to every other traditional marketing playbook out there. So while we started with our business, quite frankly, we talked less about video, and more about the cultural inequities around the world. Caron spent time in West Africa with the Peace Corps. And she talks, heartbreakingly about what she witnessed there and how she’s using her own capabilities now to combat these long held divisive belief systems. To be 100% honest, I wasn’t expecting to have the conversation that we did, but I’m so incredibly grateful for it. This is why Generator exists. So here’s my conversation with Caron Shahrestani – enjoy.

It’s so good to see you. Again. I know that from our last conversation when we were chatting, there were so many questions that I wanted to ask you. So can consider this like the continuation of the conversation? How are you doing today? I’m

Caron Shahrestani 2:06
doing well. Thanks so much for having me on your podcast. Yeah,

Matt Stagliano 2:10
of course. Absolutely. You know, when we were chatting, and I really started to look into your background, I realized how much we had in common in terms of photography and videography, and a little bit of coaching. And you know, at least on my side, I know you do a lot more coaching, but trying to get the creative brain to wrap around, how do we do all of these things and make a living out of it? Right. And it seems like you’ve been on this amazing path for at least the past 10 years. Right? You got started around what 2013 doing what you’re doing? Yep, I’m

Caron Shahrestani 2:43
in year 11. Nice. And

Matt Stagliano 2:45
you’re based in just outside? Well, California, but give people an understanding of where exactly you are. Yeah,

Caron Shahrestani 2:51
San Mateo, which is about 20 minutes south of San Francisco. It’s solidly right in the edge of Silicon Valley.

Matt Stagliano 2:57
Have you always been there? Like were you working in Silicon Valley before and saw this niche? Or did you move to California did you grow up, they’re born

Caron Shahrestani 3:06
and raised native, which is kind of a rarity here, it’s mostly transplants, and in this particular, you know, urban landscape and born in Berkeley, and went to like, basically, like, Elementary School in San Francisco, Middle School in high school in Marin County, which is north of the city, did a little travel, went to school out of state and then came back in my late 20s. And worked under a few mentors in the video and video marketing space, and then started my own company in 2013. I left

Matt Stagliano 3:40
Cisco Systems right around that time, and that 2011 2012 timeframe. So being part of Silicon Valley for about the decade prior to that it really exploded, right? And I mean, I’m not saying anything that anybody doesn’t already know. Did you find that you rode the wave of video at the right time into what’s in that area? Because I know the startup that I started with was like YouTube, before YouTube, it was distributed video for corporations. And it was kind of real nerdy stuff because there was no bandwidth, right? Fast forward 10 years. And now bandwidth is everything. And companies are like, we should probably jump on this video thing. Here we are 10 years after that, and still trying to figure out the video thing just for companies. What did you have that foresight to think that that’s where you want it to go? Is it cinematography Did you just want to get into video and help some folks? What was the what was your mindset in shifting into that service delivery?

Caron Shahrestani 4:45
Yeah, that’s a lot of questions. Matt. I’m gonna tackle on one by one. Your first question was, did I feel like I was riding the wave at the right time? I thought it was when I started my business. However, I found my Self 2013 1415 1617 1819 Like, basically the first, you know, seven years of my business every year, I was like, this is the year, I’m like, this is the year that the like, consciousness of this, like, you know, local population of medium and small business owners are gonna wake up and be like, I need video, like this is the year. And like I thought that when I first started, I’m like everybody needs video, then 2014 -15-16. Like, each year, I’m like, this is the year. And it wasn’t until really until 2020 when everybody was shut in. And they couldn’t leave their house and they couldn’t do in person networking. And they couldn’t do the old school door hangers and business card meet and greets and ribbon cuttings and all that kind of stuff that people were like, wow, my digital strategy sucks, I really need to be putting more into my website more into my social media. And then that led to like this, with Tiktok being part of it, this explosion of people really realizing all at once. Not only that the digital is important, but that video was crucial to capturing people’s attention faster, converting them faster, shortening the nurture sequence from when they first discover you to when they become your customer or your client. So it, it was a little bit of a slow start for me as someone who initially went into it as like video production done for you services. And now my focus is more on coaching and teaching people how to make their own videos. But to a degree, it’s like, like I said, there’s like, pre 2020, post 2020 pre 2020 I’m like, What, When is everybody gonna get a clue that what I do is what they need. Now. It’s like anybody who comes to me, and they don’t have social media, and they don’t have a mobile friendly website. And they don’t have any sort of video strategy. Like they’re playing catch up, like hardcore. I had a client tell me yesterday, she’s like, I feel like the train left the station. And I’m running after it. And I’m like, that’s a great way to see it. If you don’t actually have this stuff already lined up in terms of what led me to this calling, if you will, I spent my college years with the dream of becoming a newspaper reporter, which is not something you do when you want to make a lot of money, right. And as a as a woman who is, you know, let’s just say I’m a little easy on the eyes to some I would go to journalism conventions and have people walk up to me and be like, Why are you a newspaper reporter, why don’t you do broadcasts, you’ll make a lot more money. And I’m just like, I’m not doing it for my face, I’m doing it for my ideas, I want to give a voice to the voiceless, I want to be the fourth estate, that kind of thing. So storytelling, and interviewing people, and in the written form, taken an hour long interview with a complete stranger, coming back to the newsroom thinking you’re gonna have 15 inches and you actually have five inches. To me that goes right in line with how video is today, you might get an hour long presentation or a panel or an event. But when it comes to your social media marketing, you’re looking for the cooler hook that golden nugget that five to 15 seconds of most valuable information to get people to even consider watching the full length thing, which select newspaper was making the jump from the front page to the back page and reading the whole story. And so I did spend some time in radio as well. And it was the same skill set. But in audio, they would give me a 30 minute interview and tell me we need seven seconds. Like News Radio is not about being in depth. American news radio is not BBC. So they’re just like, you might want to give them a full 30 minute interview. But they’re like, Nope, we need you to find this seven seconds, the most valuable seven seconds in this 30 minute interview. So the power of storytelling, the power of interviewing the power of listening, that was always part of what I saw myself doing. But then I did go into service as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa for two years teaching English as a foreign language to Francophone high schoolers in the Republic of Guinea when I came back, and I looked at all of the memories, the content from my two years there, it’s really the videos of my time in Africa that would evoke emotion and that would bring me back to that moment. And that would really kind of reconnect me with my experiences. And that was part of what first got me thinking about okay, video over photo in the written word in terms of how I felt the impact of it in like what is like a life changing experience for me. Then I have been been trained, having worked It major newspapers having had, you know, clips from front page newspaper stories, I come back after two years in a third world country, little behind in the game, the daily newspaper reporting skill set. And I happen to have been in Africa during the 2008 mortgage crisis, which was also almost the complete end of newspaper, because of blogging and because of Facebook, all of a sudden, people were self publishing for free. And so newspapers had major cutbacks. And one of the biggest losses was recruiters for that industry. And I knew all the recruiters for all the major newspaper companies. So I came back to a market where like, I had zero prospects in the specific skill set that I’d gone to school for, and then I trained for after school. And so I just started doing blogging at a very low pay point, you know, it wasn’t enough to cover the cost of rent, here in the Bay Area. So I was working high end commission based sales to actually make the money that would allow me to live here where I was born and raised. But it was the experience of working for a blog where all of a sudden, one day, they said, if you can include a video with each of your blogs will double the pay. So all of a sudden, I was in this practice of writing little like lifestyle stories about the Bay Area. And then every time I wrote a story, I’m like, what would be a good video for this story? So kind of through those experiences, I was going in that direction. And so I had the fortune of mentoring under a couple of different videographers here in the San Francisco Bay area. One of them was a one woman show who focused on green screen lawyer marketing, like legal marketing. And we’re talking the cheesy stuff, Matt, like, have you been hit by a truck and a truck goes by

Matt Stagliano 11:52
scales of justice behind them, right.

Caron Shahrestani 11:55
And that told me two things one, green screen, like unless you’re doing like a multibillion dollar avatar project, that green screen, like I’m just not, I’m not feeling that it’s like 290s For me, and also lawyers, like no shame to the lawyers, like maybe listening or watching to this later. But get into a legal conference where there’s a happy hour, and they’ve had a little too much to drink, and it’s male dominated, and it’s just not fun as a female videographer, necessarily. So I knew then that I was like, Okay, I like the one woman show concept like tightness of it, not a lot of gear, not a multi day project, keeping the budget low if a client needs it to be but I’m like, but not green screen not legal. Then I mentored under one of my uncle’s is actually professional videographer, but a video production company based here in the San Francisco Bay Area. And we’re talking like four man team, multi camera, Van of equipment, halogen lights that will like burn the paint off your ceiling. And one day just for audio, one day just for interview and another day just for Buell. And we’re talking like, high quality DSLR, multi camera, professional videography, video production, but I’m there assisting them being like, Okay, how do I take all of this and make it an afternoon with LED lights, maybe one or two cameras, and it’ll all fit in my Prius. I’m like, How can I make this and so I came up with like, what I consider to be a hybrid of these two experiences. And around that time, I was lucky enough to connect it with a family friend, who basically had one of those like pivotal Heart to Heart conversations with me. And he’s just like, if you could start any company right now. What would it be? And what would you need? And I’d be like this video marketing company and I would need the big sexy DSLR camera with a lens, the tripod that won’t fall over with said camera on it, the software, the lighting, the LED lighting, everything right? And he’s just like an How much do you think that would be? And I like kind of itemized it out for him. And he’s just like, put all that in a document and all fund you. Wow. And it was one of those things where I was just like, and then I came to a point where I’m like, Okay, how do I pay you back? And then he flipped and he’s just like, you know, I’ll just be an angel investor, you don’t have to pay me back. So it was one of those things where I was just like, I think of other people who fast forward to now, you probably could start your own video marketing company with an iPhone 15 and a couple cheap brake lights, like you probably could just get that party started. But there’s something to me that’s so sexy about a big camera with a big lens, and a nice piece of glass on it. And so that’s why now when it comes to my services, I do offer both I have clients who are like, we want high volume, same day delivery, low budget, and I’m like you’re doing a smartphone contract. If they’re just like we need one really good crowdfunding video. And we want it to sell the idea that we are about success and money and growth and scaling. And I’m like, then you want to do big camera. So it’s like there are subtleties to the like, it’s almost subconscious. When someone watches one versus the other, is

Matt Stagliano 15:18
like the good fast, cheap pick to write. I listen to all of that. And there’s so many avenues I want to dive into, right? Because I’m like, oh, yeah, I hear everything you were saying. And again, my path kind of mimic yours. With outside television. You know, it was all about video newsreel of things that were happening you to take an all day shoot and put it down 1530 seconds for the local news, right? You’re like, Oh, but I have these amazing shots. I want to get these out, right? Clients were of two mindsets, either. I want it super cheap. And I don’t care. Right? Because I don’t understand it. So it can’t cost that much, or I don’t understand it. It’s going to cost me $100,000 To produce what I want to produce. And I don’t have the time or energy for that. Because there was no education about what this cost or what was in you know what went in nice you telling these stories. And what struck me the most and listening to all of that is when I was doing a lot of photojournalism. And starting in video right around that same time, I found that I fell in love with the storytelling. And that it was the hardest thing to get across to clients is that you don’t have to show everything that you’re saying in the script, you’re going after visuals and you’re trying to craft a story and enhance what you’re talking about. Many people are like, well get a shot of this, get a shot of this, do this get a shot fits, because this is the product that we make, or this is what we do. Do you find yourself as a storyteller, right as the quintessential storyteller through photojournalism? through everything that you’re doing? Do you find that still difficult to get clients to tell stories in an age where everything is 15 second reels and 32nd tech docs and just sell sell sell flash flash flash? Like? Do you find it difficult to get people to buy into storytelling? Or are they starting to come around? And understand the power that is really in a good storytelling? Video? Great

Caron Shahrestani 17:25
question. Yeah, I think, um, for the most part, because I am doing video marketing, which is like, let’s sell this product, let’s sell this service, let’s improve our search results, like there are all these goals around return on investment and engagement and metrics and analytics. And that’s kind of one of those things that that sets me apart from other people who are also in the social media marketing space, because you do have, at least up until last year, this obsession with what’s called vanity metrics, where people are just like, Oh, I got so many views. I was so viral. I’ve got all these followers. And yet, here in the San Francisco Bay area, if someone tells me that their job, their work, their profession is being an influencer, I take that with a grain of salt, because it’s such a bubble here that if you make $100,000, you’re considered below the poverty line, like you’re considered low income. So it’s like, I don’t know, anybody who’s making $100,000 from Instagram, or Tiktok, or the combination of these platforms to justify that cost of living. So that said, you know, there are times where some people spend so much time focusing on the storytelling to a degree but without guidance, just doing it themselves, they don’t really understand how to do that in a way that converts in a way that gets people to actually like buy your product. And so it’s almost like, I don’t want to say it’s the reverse problem of what you’re saying. But, you know, a lot of what I experienced, like when I work with clients who are camera shy, is it’s sometimes it’s just my skill set is warming them up, is getting them to be as authentic and natural and well spoken on camera as possible. And that’s why when I work with clients, I try not to expect them to have a prep script or memorize a prep script, because unless you’re actually authentically media trained, very few people have the skill set to deliver and emote at the same time. And so what I focus on is getting them warmed up getting them comfortable, and then powerfully listening to what they’re saying. And even if they have something scripted and have something so specific that they want to say, if it’s not rolling off the tongue, right? If it just doesn’t sound natural than in the moment we rescript there are times where when it comes to that shorter content again along the lines of virality and vanity metrics people think like a If I need to succeed, I need to go viral. Or if I needed to see succeed with video marketing, I just need one good video. And if it’s crowdfunding, sure, you definitely need that one powerful video to go on that platform to help you hit that goal. But when it comes to long term, marketing strategy, content strategy, social media strategy, how I phrase it to my clients is like, it’s not about having a one hit wonder, and expecting that one powerful piece of storytelling, for instance, to be the thing that sells for you, on and on. And on until the end of your days, you want to see your strategy, or any piece of video that you make as being a song and an album, part of the concert performance. And so it’s like, you know, I’m an 80s. Baby, I remember when we used to have to buy the whole album, and not just buy a song off of a cloud. And so you know, when you think of Mariah Carey, okay, yeah, every song was a hit. What do you think of other artists in the 80s, and 90s. If it was cassette, fast forward to that one, and then rewind and then rewind again, and then rewind to get like it, basically, you would just try to listen to this one song on repeat. In that respect, it isn’t just about one video, or one piece of storytelling, being the thing that’s going to sell it for you and to make you famous, or to make you profitable, or to make you be seen and found by your ideal client. It’s more about what is the body of work? What is the repertoire that you put out there, because when people decide that they like you trust you and want to do business with you, which typically happens in the first five seconds of watching a video, over time, they’re going to appreciate the consistency and the overall presents that you put out there in terms of deciding at some point in the sequence, the nurture sequence of Okay, now, now I’m ready to work with this person. But what I explained to clients is that the traditional advertising stat was that someone had to see your ad seven times before they decide that they want to buy the product. That’s a photo add statistic, because when you see a photo, add or read something about someone, the brain, on average retains about 10% of that information. But when someone watches a video, especially if you’re looking in the camera and speaking at the same time, they retain 90%. No kidding, I didn’t know that. Yep, yep, it has to do with the audio visual information happening at the same time. And so that’s part of why the Tick Tock algorithm, which is influencing the Instagram algorithm is so heavily based in music, and songs that are trending, because even if you aren’t speaking into the camera, people are associating these rapidly moving images with a particular audio track. And the robots, the video robots are not smart enough to know what a video is about. But they know that this many people have used this song. So now anytime anybody else uses that song will potentially push that and trend it. And you were talking about bandwidth earlier. That was another thing that I’ve been waiting since 2013. For a catch up on is like the internet is just not strong enough to really stream video, the way that our devices could potentially enable us to like think about 4k TV screens and 4k Shooting capabilities on your phone. But it literally when you think about the Wi Fi, the quality of internet in most places, it is just not up to the task. If if everybody in the world was just like, You know what, I’m gonna jump from 20 to 4k, I’m just gonna shoot everything just like that would legit break the internet. And so here here in Silicon Valley, like every time I hear about like, oh, yeah, in Arkansas, we’re playing with Google phi. And I’m like, hello. I can literally throw a rock at the Google campus from my house. It’s like, can we please have the fast loading speeds in this place where your campus is actually located. However, what I found on somebody has been doing face to face networking as well is digital marketing in the 415650510 Bay Area area codes. It’s staggering to me how many small business owners in this area in like a 50 mile radius still heavily depend on in person marketing, business cards, door hangers, sides of buses, shopping cart panels, like over putting time and money and investment into social media website and video. It’s baffling to me, you’d think the proximity to these campuses would make a difference, but it doesn’t.

Matt Stagliano 24:41
This is gonna be a seven hour interview.

Caron Shahrestani 24:43
So I’ll stop talking. Oh, come

Matt Stagliano 24:46
on. No, no, no, just because I’m like everything spawns something else. And then you started talking about Tik Tok and I’m like, I’m vanilla baby. You know, and I just start doing all of these songs my own head right and it’s totally right. That is It hooks us in a different way. Now, I’ll kind of back up like you were just like you were just doing with the traditional marketing sides of buses, and you know, bus stop signage and whatnot, there’s part of that that I find a little bit attractive, because it’s analog, because it’s not me staring at a device. And so I feel less bombarded by billboards and buses than I do with my phone going off all the time. So I don’t know if we’ll ever see a reversal of where we’re at. But I think that there is a little bit of technology rebellion going on and saying, but what, if everybody’s moved to video, everybody’s moved to short form video, and tick tock and trying to go viral and influence, I just want to step back from that and connect with my local clients. I was having this conversation earlier today, with another photographer in the DC area, and we were talking about sometimes the market does make a difference. I’m in a 700, person town, you know, she’s in DC in the beltway, up here, you know, I had DSL Internet up until a year ago, right? We don’t, we don’t have bandwidth in Maine, apparently, there’s one internet connection. And we all share it, we were talking about how we feel the market is saturated. Because we’re constantly trying to look at different devices. And we’re getting bombarded by all our friends and competitors and different businesses, and we’re seeing what they’re doing. And we should probably be doing that as well as creatives. And, wow, it’s a really cool video, we should, we should push in that area. And you get overwhelmed by what can be done. You forget that you’re just trying to educate your client or your potential client about who you are and what you offer, and why they should choose you over somebody else. One of the bigger issues that I think a lot of people forget in any level of business, is that if you’re going after a national audience, as a local business, you’re kind of doing it wrong. When I had my previous business in the outdoor industry, I was huge in Japan, among 13 year old boys, right? Because of what I was working, they’re never going to be my customer buying anything from me. So why do I get concerned with like you said vanity metrics about great up 10,000 followers, but none of those are going to buy from me. Right or hunt me down? I probably have 20 core clients. Why do I care about these other 9980 people that follow me, right? So I think there’s a lot that we forget about storytelling, about marketing, about our own businesses, and how we go about telling people that we exist, because we get wrapped up in trying to do it, right, trying to do more trying to put it out another platform. Let me tell all the people on this platform and then go over on this platform and tell them the exact same thing and then go around this platform and tell them the exact same thing. Right? It kind of wastes your time as a business owner, rather than focusing on your core demographic, your core audience, and giving them what they need to understand who you are and what your business is, in the most effective way. I don’t see yet retirement community that is going to market a ton on Tiktok. But they may have success on Facebook, it’s an older demographic, a different generation people thinking about their parents having to go into retirement community, that sort of thing. We forget that we’re supposed to target the market accordingly. Do you find that you have to educate your clients about that? Or do you find that you help them change their strategy from what they think they need? To what they actually need? Is that part of how you coach people and learn how to do videos for themselves? Or learn how to market differently in this day and age?

Caron Shahrestani 28:53
It’s a good question. You know, it’s, it’s interesting to think about that reply, because the only thing that prevents me from scaling my business faster is that I tend to customize everything for my clients. So when I have a coaching client, I do an audit with them. And we do an action plan that is customized to their current online presence and what they need to do to optimize what they’re already doing or to establish presences or systems that they don’t already have in place. And so when I’m working with someone who is in the beginning stages don’t even have a website, barely active on social media. Those are people where we do have to have that conversation about who is your ideal client, and when they have a service that can be scaled nationally. That’s where it does come down to like Google keywords, and how to have your business show up for specific terms as it competes with anybody else in the country who might be using those same descriptives. When it comes to a more established brand. It’s a slightly easier conversation because it Talk to them about Who’s your ideal client. And then once in a while you get someone who’s like, oh, well, I work with everybody. And it’s like, yes, but who are the people that you enjoy working with the most, and then doing what we can to sculpt their content strategy around that so that their work becomes more enjoyable. And so that they don’t have to feel like they are chasing down money from people who are going to make them earn it in a really, you know, fussy or inconvenient way. When it comes to having that compelling, engaging video marketing strategy, it does come down to leaning into your authenticity, leaning into your quirks leading into your imperfections, sometimes that that really helps people to connect with you. Because with women in particular, and I mostly work with women, as far as my coaching, it’s perfectionism that prevents them from putting themselves out there. It’s like, is it the tools, she’s got an iPhone 15 Is it the platforms, she’s got Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and a website. It’s like, so you’ve got the thing to make the videos, and you’ve got the places to put them. But the only reason you’re not putting your face on camera is because you want it to be perfect. And sometimes that becomes a superficial thing. Like, she has to get her hair done, she has to get her makeup done, she has to buy a new outfit, she has to lose 10 pounds first. But other times it’s this, and we’re getting kind of to the core of my why and my passion. It’s a male dominated mansplaining culture. On the internet. I like to tell my female clients when we first meet, you know, I consider the internet a dark place, there’s a lot of potential for good things to be done and your light to be shown and for you to make a positive impact on people’s lives. And I listened for those types of things when I look for alignment with a potential client that she’s not just doing it for the money that she wants to help people. But every day that like a woman over the age of 40, is holding herself back from creating marketing videos that speak to her expertise and speak to her life experience. And shining her light on the internet is another day that you have trolls and uneducated people in their basements going around harassing and bullying others into being quiet. And so some women it’s camera shyness around how they look. Sure. But other times it’s how they sound like. I don’t like the sound of my voice. I don’t want to sound salesy, what if people don’t like what I have to say, and so sometimes it comes down to having them connect with that core, why that core purpose of why they do what they do, and then really speak from that. And that helps with the storytelling for sure. But it also bucks, the ages to trend like I’ve got a couple clients right now. One is like very successful in her field. One is like moderately successful in the field. They’re both in the same field. They’re both in their 70s. They’re both white haired, no Botox, no fillers, they look their age, they inspire, every time they put their face on video for any woman under the age of 40, who says to herself, oh, well, once you’re in your 60s or 70s, that’s when you start gardening and retire and kind of just disappear into the ether. Because it’s like, unfortunately, a sexist idea that like women have like, a particular number of years in their life that they’re considered important enough to listen to. And so whenever I help a white haired seven year old to put herself out there in consistent video marketing, she gets conversion from people or like, she makes better videos than I do. She’s more confident than I am. And it really just comes down to how much people make these ageist assumptions. That helps a lot of my clients to get direct conversion. Like in the street, one of my clients, she told me that like, in the span of a couple of months of first working with me, she had someone stop her in the farmers market, had someone stopped her on the street, had someone stopped her at like a local post office and say, oh my gosh, I follow you on Instagram. And I love your videos. And she’s standing there being like, I don’t know who this person is like, I’ve never met this person before my life. But it makes you realize how much like that stands out. And I like to say, you know, there’s no shortage of young attractive women on the internet selling products, no shortage whatsoever. There is a massive shortage of septuagenarians putting themselves out there and video marketing and I feel like that’s the bigger why for me is being a woman who like you said, majority of my social media followers are younger than me or sometimes half my age, but the clients that I work with and the clients that I invest my time and energy into and they invest in me as their coach are 20 years older than me or maybe double my age. And so to a degree, I pride myself in kind of bridging a gap between the grandparents and their grandchildren, because one of them, they are, they have all the experience and expertise to keep driving this economy in a way that’s like, has a different level of respect and a different level of looking you in the eye and shaking your hand. But then they’re helping to guide and teach and mentor and inspire. this younger generation that was basically born with Wi Fi in their brain and smartphone or a tablet or an iPad in their hand.

Matt Stagliano 35:43
The ageism really bothers me as well. And I always think of someone like Judi Dench, right? Who is remarkably sexy at 7080 years old, right? Because it comes down to that internal confidence that, that contentment with who she is. And I find that even with portrait clients, or video clients, the more centered that someone is, the more that they love themselves, or at least comfortable with themselves. They are infinitely easier to work with than someone that is mired down in avoidance in fear and thinking that they have to lose 10 pounds or get a new outfit or do my hair or whatnot. I fall victim to it. Right when I’m trying to do self portraits or whatnot, is, you know, I think I don’t like oh, this outfit doesn’t look great. My love handles are what they are like, I’m not not the 20 something that I used to be. But at the same time, I’m like, You know what, I don’t care. This is exactly who I am and what I want. From a business perspective, I think we’re absolutely seeing that shift into the authentic person, I think that is becoming a fantastic trend that I’m seeing is that people are just putting themselves out there. Now, it could be a result of the pandemic, where people are like, I’m going to wear sweatpants for the next two years. And that’s all I’m going to wear for the rest of my life, it really comes down to the inner confidence, especially when it comes to business, because that is absolutely translatable across the screen, and people get that they know when you’re B, the bullshit detectors go off all the time, when you see someone talking and you’re just like they’re reading a script, or they don’t believe what they’re talking about, or they’re a paid actor or you’re exactly right. And we’re back to that, we’re back to the legal green screens, right? You know, it’s that self value, that self confidence that I find really helps with my client interactions when it comes to video. And I love the fact that you are giving attention to a demographic that is often overlooked, right? I just turned 50. And it’s 50 6070 year olds that are dismissed, you guys get nothing take off Boomer like you got nothing. That’s irrelevant today. But they’re the ones with the experience and the knowhow and the wisdom, right. Wisdom is a thing, being able to meet them where they are, rather than where you want them to be, which is exactly what you’re doing. And it’s so wonderful, is you’re meeting them where they are and helping them exploit that exploit themselves in a green way, where they’re saying, take all that take the gray hair, take the wrinkles, take the wisdom and give that to people because there’s a lot of folks that aren’t as confident or as self aware as you are and could use that inspiration. I think that is phenomenal. I know in the in the portrait world. There’s a lot of 40 over 40 campaigns, and as focus on the demographic of women over 40 women over 50 Because there’s money, there’s desire, there’s the feeling that they want to still exist, right and not disappear into the ether somewhere, which is how modern commercial corporations make them feel most of the time. So you know, seeing you do that and meeting them where they are is such a breath of fresh air. It’s so wonderful to hear. You’ve got to be expanding that quite a bit. I would imagine, right word of mouth referrals. Like is that your you said that to your core group that you’re coaching? Do you find yourself wanting to go anywhere else or do anything else or it seems like this is such an amazing niche for you to encapsulate everything that you’ve done and really drive home how important it is to get yourself out there. If you’re in business. It sounds like you’re really comfortable in this space.

Caron Shahrestani 39:52
It is a comfortable space for me and no I don’t have any intention of shifting my focus This again, I will work with men and I will work with like a medium sized company versus small business or solopreneur. But what I’ve found is that when you work with this age demographic, and specifically women in this demographic, I feel like it to my bigger purpose in life, my calling in this world, it’s to try to make a massive shift happen globally. And without getting too much into politics. There are a lot of governments, ours included, but around the world where one of their primary focuses is to control what women do with their bodies. Sure. I’m child free by choice, I will have for babies one day with my husband, not just not yet. And that said, even if I’m not using my equipment, per se, for that purpose, I definitely see the woman’s body and the woman’s womb in particular, as being this like galactic magical device, like women are being men help, but women are able to create a soul. Yeah, in their bodies. And when they aren’t using their eye, like no, I’m seeing equipment is just like so formal, when they’re not just when you’re deciding to be child free, or, or just life happens, and they aren’t able to have children. Sure, they’re still a creative power in the female anatomy, that can be used to put other life into this world. And I like to joke with my clients, you know, I have like a women’s coaching group, I like to say, you know, men have had their chance to rule this world. And it’s not going well, like, overall, like, if we’re talking about the environment, if we’re talking about women’s rights, talking about war, still going well, and if by encouraging women over 40, to put themselves, their voices, their energy, their light, into these dark places on the internet, at a higher frequency at a better consistency, my hope, my aim is that within a generation or two, we have a more powerful younger generation of women who are inspired to climb corporate ladders to take on political positions, to brave, this kind of daunting task of flipping the leadership of the world more towards a feminine energy, not just to save the planet, save us from, you know, a lot of natural disasters happening to all over the world at a higher frequency than ever before, like part of me on a spiritual holistic level is like we need more Mother Earth energy to heal what’s happening. But it’s also just we haven’t seen enough examples in the societies around the world of what it would be like to have women run things. When Hillary Clinton ran for president, I knew then that there would be and there was a lot of backlash around like, oh, but women and their, you know, menstrual cycles, or menopause or that, oh, like, you know, they can’t handle their hormones. And they get so that what makes you think they can lead and all that kind of stuff. And you’re just like, you know, what, if there was a more global understanding of why women’s bodies have these changes the way that they do, and if it wasn’t such like a negative connotation to these changes in women’s bodies, you would realize there’s actually a power in women understanding how their bodies sync up with the cycles of the moon, not just in their childbirth in years, but in their postmenopausal years, like women are more aligned with the planets in terms of how their bodies function than men can be. And so because of that, it’s like if we had an embracing of the fact that these aren’t like, weird, awkward, uncomfortable stages that women are going through in their lives, but this is part of like, the evolution of their power as they move through their years. And we stop demonizing that, then we would understand that it doesn’t matter what’s going on with their body, what time of month it is, what phase of the moon, or what part of their life, that women have this potential that is untapped. And the main reason why more women aren’t flexing this power is because of a male dominated kind of political campaign, saying we need to tell women what to do with their bodies, but specifically with this one part of their body that is so powerful, magical. And that is something that could really, if embraced, help us to flip, like the polarity of what’s going on in the world right now. And I think that, you know, it might not happen in my time might not happen in the next generation. But it needs to happen. There needs to be a feminine shift and I It feels like a lot of the struggles in the world are in wars in the world and all you think it’s about money. But especially when it comes to my time in, in Africa, where you have like third world countries in the Republic of Guinea where I served 85% of the women in that country have had had been genitally mutilated, so that they don’t experience any pleasure from sex, and so that every time they have sex, have a period or have a child, it’s excruciating ly painful, like opening up a wound. And all of that comes down to this idea that if women can experience any sort of sexual pleasure, they will tempt men to sin. And so the only way to keep society calm, and to keep society balanced, and to keep society sustained in the way that it always has been, traditionally, is to make sure that women can’t derive any pleasure or satisfaction from using this magical capability of theirs, and to always associate it with pain. So it’s like when you think about all the different countries in the world that would benefit from women being allowed to celebrate their bodies, and what that would lead to in terms of more female leaders and more female presidents and more female CEOs. And us being able to being able to even get a glimpse of what kind of the world we would have in that scenario.

Matt Stagliano 46:33
There’s so much truth in everything you just said. I think generationally, we’re seeing the beginnings of that shift. For sure. There’s a lot more discussion now than there ever was, when I was growing up, I can tell you that much. There is a lot more attention given to all of the importance of women in society and what they have to offer. And I know this sounds, this sounds very, this sounds very male as I’m trying to try to talk about it. Because it’s still mystifies me the point that that I wanted to make here was your value based business clearly focused on very strong connection to your values and your beliefs. And that is rare, I’m finding, I think people try to jump on what’s gonna make me the most money the fastest? How do I get the most customers, I don’t care who they are or where they come from, by you being so focused on your values, I’m assuming, or I would like to assume that you’re attracting the same types of clients with that, it starts to grow that circle larger and larger, and the conversation becomes less difficult to have, as you’re connecting more and more businesses to their own value and belief systems, which we a lot of times traditionally, try to keep separate, don’t talk about politics, religion, money, right, that has no place in business. Now we’re starting to see, I don’t know if it’s good or bad, you can argue it from either side, whether woke politics is good or bad for business. That’s not for me to debate, but least the conversation is happening. Right? What makes it good? What makes it bad? What are the extremes? Where’s that happy balance that we need to find? Because I don’t think you can also tip the scales so far over to the feminine, that you forget about the things that men have to offer as well. So it all comes down to this balance. But you’re 100% correct in the fact that it has never really shifted past where we have been, you know, for centuries and millennia, the value based system, I’m finding that more companies that I work with are starting there with their marketing, do you find that the businesses that you’re working with are building their values and their belief systems into the messages that they’re putting out? Have they even thought about it? Is that something that you bring up? And they’re like, Wow, yeah, that feels really good for me to say those things? How do you find yourself connecting other people’s businesses with that train of thought?

Caron Shahrestani 49:13
Yeah, that’s a good question. You know, I think that, at times, at least in like traditional marketing, coaching and advice people will say, like, don’t get political. Don’t be divisive. Especially if you are like a cup, a big company like Coca Cola or something like that. You’re like, Oh, don’t, don’t say anything that’s going to alienate half the population or a big percentage of the population. And, you know, with how, if we get talked about social media marketing for a second with how Facebook’s algorithm got so messed up with fake news, which is really turned off, even my septuagenarians They would rather be on Instagram than on Facebook because of like, how political and weird and volatile an echo chamber that that particular platform at times had become. And so I think to a degree, it’s hard to justify being completely on the fence, no comment about things because there are so many, very important. I find pivotal issues that if someone in your client book or someone in your networking group says that, I wish that transgender people would stop asking us to call them they, I wish they would just me know stick with the sex that they started with, and that kind of thing. And it’s just like coming from being born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is such a cultural bubble. I admit it. Like it’s not just a real estate bubble. It is not just a sanctuary city. It is like a melting pot of transplants. Why? Because people like they go, I feel like people go to Hollywood because they want to be famous. They want to meet the Kardashians, they want to be an actor, but then they end up being a waiter or stripper first, right? And it’s like with the San Francisco Bay Area. Sure. We have people come here for tech, right? People move here for our Google Campus, Facebook campus, Apple campus. But now since COVID, that’s a telecommute thing. You could have people living anywhere in the country. They don’t have to actually live here to work for those big tech companies. So what is the migration? Like? What is the magnetic pole to this area that so many people here who live here weren’t born here, it’s because of where they were born. It wasn’t as ethnically diverse. And it wasn’t as socially acceptable to just be whoever the heck you want to be. Not who necessarily you were born to be, or who people think you should be. And so I I’ve had many times where I’ve lived in other places, like I went to school at the University of Oregon, I worked at the Detroit Free Press, and, you know, lived in Michigan for a period of time. And it’s like, I like loved how like lush, Oregon is in terms of just nature and trees. And like, I love the different climates. They’ve got just like, like the California they’ve got snow, and they’ve got forests, and they’ve got all that, but it’s just like you get too far outside of Eugene, or Portland. And it is unfortunately, bigoted. And it’s not just a racist thing. It’s at times very anti LGBTQ. And I remember working at a newspaper in rural Oregon, and the editor of the newspaper wrote a column about it was this was 2004. So they were Oregon was voting on gay marriage, the editor in chief wrote a column about why it shouldn’t pass, they shouldn’t allow gay marriage. And I’m like, I went to his office. I was like, dude, fair and balanced. Like you were the head of this newspaper, like, In what world? Is it? Okay to do what you just did, like, Do you know what you’re saying? When you write this column that says that gay marriage should pass and Oregon he’s like, Yeah, I know what I’m saying. Again, this guy’s like, balding in his 60s. And he’s like, I knew what I’m saying. I’m saying that gay people shouldn’t move here. And I’m looking at him like, oh, yeah, cuz they’re not born here. They’re definitely from other places, or like urban areas, and then they’re just deciding to like, relocate to Oregon. Could it be that like your neighbor’s son is gay. Like that couldn’t possibly be the case. But that in that moment, I’m just like, I’m gonna finish out this internship. But I’m never going to live here. Again. Eugene, Oregon, University of Oregon. Great little hippie town makes you feel like Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. Portland, they’ve got their, you know, things going on up there, like cool breweries and like, very, like hipster. But again, you get too far outside of those major cities. And it is just not the same story. And don’t get me wrong. I know California has its pockets, a rural area that can get just like that. But that was one of those like foundational experiences for me, for a young person who thought I represent the fourth estate. We’re supposed to help people make stair unbiased decisions about policy and who to vote for and what to vote about. In that moment. It showed me that even in a highly educated, modern profession like that, where someone has access to all this information, they still have these very old school concepts, because then I go to Peace Corps in West Africa, and I encounter people in the rural poor is can be areas of Africa, and you talk to them about men who love men, women who love women, and they’re like, Yeah, I’ve heard that that happens to the big city. I’ve heard that happening there. So it was like, Oh my gosh, you’ve got severely uneducated, third world people having the exact same belief as a editor in chief for a newspaper. And so to a degree, like there’s no excuse for, oh, they just don’t have enough information. Or they did, they didn’t have all the facts, it’s like no, people just choose to make very harsh, unfair decisions about other people’s lives and how they should spend their time in the bedroom, or what they should do with their bodies when it comes to like gene therapy and stuff like that. And I’m just like, I just don’t have the patience for it. And I like to joke, because, you know, there are times where I’m working with female owned brands, black owned brands, Oakland, or East Bay based brands. And sure, like once in a while, like, I will offer them a better deal a more competitive package, or a better rate than I will if I’m working with an all white all male owned startup in Silicon Valley. And for me, I call it diversification of my portfolio, I don’t want to wake up in my 80s. And look at my list of past clients and have it just all be privileged white people. And so to a degree, it’s like how you do your business, how you choose to do your business, how you charge, how you customize your services, and how you exclude or qualify people to be a client of yours. That’s why I talk about alignment a lot. It’s like when it comes to coaching, it’s like they need they need to be coachable. They need to be accountable, they need to show up on time. But also, if I happen to go and find out like doing a little initial audit of their social media that they are bigoted, or racist, or anti LGBTQ, I’ve fired clients, for based on that I’ve turned around and been like, you know what, sorry, here’s your money back and the amount of anger that that person projects on me, where they’re just like, how could you tell me that you don’t want to work with me based on what I posted on social media. And I’m just like, I’m just telling you that I’m like, I’m only working with people that I’m aligned with, and this is a misalignment. And there’ll be like, You will never grow your business. Or you will never be able to succeed as a business owner, if you are choosing not to work with the percentage of people who don’t share your beliefs. And it’s just like, I’m sorry, I disagree. I think

Matt Stagliano 57:25
the gall of you to have integrity, how dare you have integrity with your beliefs and your values and want to do the things that make you feel good inside, you know, I find all of the division is so rooted in ego, I want to conform the world to how I feel, because it makes me feel safe and secure. I don’t want to think that there are other belief systems out there because that is fear inducing for me. I don’t want to believe that that exists. So how do I manipulate my environment to surround myself with people that think the way that I do that, like the same things that I do, and there’s one engineer at Facebook going, I love this, let’s build the algorithm around that. But that’s where I find a lot of these conversations really come from in in terms of when I’m getting pushback on whatever it is that I’m pontificating about because it could be anything. Oftentimes, when people are pushing back against something that is inconsequential, who someone sleeps with, or where they go, or how much money they make, or what who they pray to like it’s inconsequential. Let them live the life that they want to live. How is it affecting you? It’s not not in the least. So why can you not release that? It’s hard, right? Because people have to think outside of themselves. They have to detach their own ego from what the discussion is about. And I find it really hard to work with companies like you said that put integrity aside for the dollar. I am pro capitalism. I’m in business. I make money, I sell a service. I’m hoping to make a living from that. But that doesn’t mean that I have to fall into fatalistic capitalism and succeed at all costs and hurt other people in doing it. I’ve got the things that I want to adhere to. And hopefully, that will bring me enough business. If it doesn’t, I’ll wash dishes somewhere as long as I feel good about the world that I’m in. And the difficult part of that is division sells Unity does not there’s always going to be a way to push an agenda that is more focused on success in money and numbers, vanity metrics, right? It’s a lot easier to do that than it is to have a hard conversation where you might be challenged intellectually. I’m finding that more people are starting to understand that a maybe it’s not just group A or group B that we get to choose from, why don’t we start to have the conversation in the middle back in 2016 2015, I was driving around the country I was doing, I was scouting for a documentary I was doing. So I took a month. And I just drove down the East Coast across the south up the West Coast across the middle and got a feel for what was going on in the country at the time. This is right before the election right before the the 2016 election, and I’m driving around, and I go through my pockets, and it’s Hillary country that I go through the majority of the states, especially middle America, and it was Trump country, far above, and I came back and I’m going, Trump’s gonna win this thing. Wow, that’s gonna be really weird. Politically, I’m, I don’t care, I want the best person in the job. That’s it. That’s all I want. Right? The interesting thing was, I was like, people, media companies, whatever it is, they’re missing what’s actually happening. It gave me a lot to think about, because depending on where you are in the country, you’re being fed a narrative, through media, through the companies that you go through a liquor store that you go by your Bud Light at every place, is pushing an agenda for themselves. And I find that now, it’s just very easy to see that now that a lot of these discussions are happening more and more. And you have companies that are standing up and being like, No, I don’t want to do it the traditional way, I want to do it my way. And I feel good about that. And other people are like, Oh, we we can do it that way. Alright, cool. I think now that those conversations are happening more, that there’s more challenge to the authority, that there’s more challenge to tradition, we’re seeing all sorts of new marketing happening now that in and of itself is a cluster, because now you’ve got the 22 year old guru and saying, Hey, do you want to make viral videos, you have to do this, and you have to hook them this way. And you have to sell this and whatever, what I find are those of us that are probably 35. And over, I’ll just throw it at that. Because I think at that point, you really start to understand who you are and what you believe in what you really want, right? Are you working at a company for somebody else, or you’re working for yourself that age and up, we’re starting to really push back on what has been fed to us for ever. Right. And I love seeing that hard part is I don’t know where it’s going in terms of marketing, what the next thing is going to be. But I’m feeling really good in this authentic space. I’m feeling really good. And just talking to my clients, saying, How would you like to be photographed? What makes you feel good about you? What don’t you like about yourself? And let’s talk about that. Let’s have a urging of that. I love that you’re doing this in an area that is so politically active, that does spawn a lot of these national conversations. You’ve got to be in this hotbed on some days, where you feel real good about what you’re doing. There’s got to be days that challenge you, right? Are you seeing hope? In all of this? Are you seeing a path forward? Where there will eventually be a cultural shift towards something more inclusive? Or do you feel like this is just a battle as humans we are who we are, that will wind up in this space eventually, no matter? You know, as that pendulum swings from one side to the other, are we going to constantly trying to find our way back from imbalance to something balanced?

Caron Shahrestani 1:03:42
One of the things that was a really difficult learning moment for me when I was in Peace Corps was that there’s a concept called sensibilisation, or in friendships, sensibilities of Ceylon. And the idea is that because I’m considered like a white devil, in that I am not genitally mutilated. So if I were walking around telling black teenage girls, don’t let your grandma do that to you in the bushes. Don’t let your younger sister get that done to her. Like if I was going around and telling young Africans that, based on my experience, you shouldn’t be doing this. There’s no connection. Right? They’re just like, you come from a completely different country, a completely different culture and religion. And you don’t understand why our people are doing this to us. But there is a reasoning behind it. And just because you say that it’s not right. Doesn’t mean that we’re going to follow what you’re going to say even if we don’t want it done to us. We can just take what you say. And so since validation is as a volunteer you spend Time Training African teachers and African doctors and African leaders about why this is not a good thing to continue. And then they share that with their communities, because that’s the only way it’s going to have an impact. The tricky thing about excision as called is that people in the tribal space of Africa will tell you that it’s a religious thing. It’s from the Quran, it’s from Islam, people in the Islam space will tell you, it’s a tribal thing. Women will tell you that men require a young bride to have this done to them, otherwise, they won’t marry them. Men will say, we don’t actually do the procedure, women are doing it to each other. So there’s a lot of finger pointing as to why it’s done, and why it continues to be done. And because of that, there’s no clear path on how to solve it. But then you come over to our first world country, and sure we’re not cutting women up at a young age, or saying you have to have this done to you before you’re considered fit to be married. But we are going backwards in our political policies, if even if it’s just at times at the state level, in terms of like, women’s permission to decide what to do with their bodies, or what procedures they want done to their bodies like abortion. And so when it comes to changing the world, when you’re asking, like, do I see a light at the end of the tunnel? It’s a very complicated problem that we have going on here. And you know, when it comes to like Christianity, there’s all this talk about like, well, when Jesus has a second coming, everybody will see him all at once, and then everybody will know. And then everybody will feel like, okay, I’m a sinner, I’m going to hell, or I’m God fearing, and I’m going to have it and like all will be understood. But it’s like, there is no one god or one message that could have a global impact like that, that would shift things. And I don’t, you know, I’m not, I’m actually atheists, like, I was never baptized or anything, but like, I did go to Catholic school for seven years. And every time I went to a religion class, at some point, the nun would say, if you haven’t been baptized, you’re going to hell. And I’m like, That’s me. Apparently, I’m the one. And so, to a degree, it’s this shift that needs to happen in our world, towards even being able to explore the potential of a female led society, again, like you said, not discounting, men’s strengths and men’s roles and their, you know, value. But it is something that, at times can seem daunting and insurmountable. Because every culture, every country, executes their different beliefs in different ways based on different histories and different concepts. It’s just really jarring for me to be living in a first world country that at one point or another was considered like a superpower in, in the law on the globe, and how witnessing the reversal of something like Roe versus Wade, and realizing how hard that must be for the women who are still living, that we’re fighting for that when it was first passed. And so I wish I could say, yes, it’s turning around. But the bigger issue like we’ve kind of been talking around all this, this time is like distraction. If there is a triple threat to the advancement of any society, but especially American society, it’s consuming too much spending money, you don’t have going severely into debt. Just buy, buy, buy your problems away. It’s eating poorly or too much, eating your feelings, feeling that the tastes going across your tongue is worse, the heart disease or the cancer that might come later. But also, it’s just been obsessed with screens, all the different kinds of screens, phone screen, computer screen TV screen, and this is coming from a videographer who like my life. Working on screens for my clients and video editing and that kind of thing, but it’s almost like there has to be an apocalyptic type of events, where we don’t have the internet and we don’t have our devices popping up with Wi Fi right away. And we don’t have all of this massive distraction that We will be able to like, reconnect with each other. And then on a basic sense, understand that, you know, women can be healers, organizers multitaskers. You know, maybe at that point, opportunities can be made and chances can be given. But then as we see in any apocalyptic movie that we see it turns very Mad Max and can just be just descend into violence and chaos as well. So but I you know that that’s like that’s like my kind of like doomsday thought about it is like we need to be removed, untethered, it’s like the matrix, we need to be unplugged. To be able to actually take a moment and see what we’re doing ourselves.

Matt Stagliano 1:10:45
I think there’s a lot of truth in that. I think, regardless of the Mad Max Thunderdome that we find ourselves in, you’re always going to find people that are wanting to make it a better place that are trying to stop the division that are trying to come from a place of heart, that or come from a place of integrity. And I think that hearing you talk so passionately about all of this, I can’t help but believe that your clients come out the other end of whatever process you give them, whether it’s coaching, whether you’re doing a made for you video, whatever it might be, that they’re coming out the other end a better person because of it. And I have loved absolutely having this conversation. But I’m conscious that I’m taking up your entire day. Because don’t get me started on old albums, and the storytelling that goes into old records and double vinyl sets. And I could talk about that all day. Thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you? Right? Because I know, you’re going to have a lot of folks that want to look into you, especially in the Bay Area. So tell people where they can find you.

Caron Shahrestani 1:11:52
Yeah, so my company is called Carone, modern media. And people can learn about my services, and my background at Carone, modern media.com, on Instagram, and all the other social media platforms, it’s Corona mod media, just in terms of that abbreviated handle. And then I will also provide a link that you can prove that you can put into caption and resources with this recording mat, where people can schedule a complimentary strategy call with me where I can meet on Zoom face to face and chat in depth more about marketing strategy and their goals and their needs. And seeing if there’s alignment for us to potentially work together in some way.

Matt Stagliano 1:12:40
I think they’re I know there will be I know that the demographic of women that I work with in the photography circles, you know, where it’s doesn’t matter what gender you are in the photography circles, I think everybody struggles with marketing to some degree, and would benefit from a little bit of expertise from someone like us been there and done that all over the world. So thank you so much. Yeah, I’ll put all of that out there, people will be able to find it in the show notes right down below, or they will be able to find it on the blog. So wherever you look, you’re going to find these links. And I would encourage you highly to get in touch with Corona and just have that conversation now that discovery call and see if if see if there’s something she can do for you. So thank you, Karen, for all of your time today. I really, really appreciate it. And I can’t wait to continue this conversation because I’ve got a whole pad full of notes that I just want to keep talking

Caron Shahrestani 1:13:33
about again, that’s me again, I’m happy to come back on anytime.

Matt Stagliano 1:13:36
I’d love that. Thanks again. Have a great day. Of course. Cheers.

Caron Shahrestani 1:13:39
Thank you