the-pitch-podcast-art-episode-art-2Ashland Viscosi is the founder of Creatives Meet Business, an event and podcast series based out of Austin, Texas for creatives of ALL disciplines to no longer think of themselves just as “artists” and “creatives” but also as “small business owners” and “entrepreneurs.” Ashland is a jack of all trades: she assists a variety of film and production clients with their sales and marketing efforts to advertising agencies and companies, as well as consults with independent filmmakers on festival strategies. She has a background in film and production and has produced several short films. She works with a variety of festivals and philanthropies and is a graduate of the Leadership Austin program. Her passions include: people, brunch and cheese plates.

I have almost never met anyone before who does as great a job as Ashland does at creating relationships. She is very clear on the fact that what she does well is help connect people, but she is also clear that there are things she doesn’t do well. This is what gave her the idea for bringing together elements of business to creatives.

She loves creating true partnerships where people who are doing what they do best connect and find the “overlap”. We discussed her methods of creating relationships with people and what “magic dust” she uses to do that.

The question that has been driving Ashland is how to get a bigger audience and raise her profile. We talked about both “niching down” the media she reaches out to via podcasts to make sure they are the right fit for her. We also discuss how she can reach out to other mainstream and local media by making sure that she offers them the right angle or story in order to get them interested in interviewing or profiling her.

When I asked her what piece of media, television, radio, book, movie, or news item, has had the biggest impact on her she shared that it was “Community” by Peter Block

For more information about Ashland you can visit her at website: www.cmbatx.com

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