Very special guests indeed!
Today, I’m speaking with the 2 people that help keep this show going, Trish Mertens and Holly Wooten!
Trish is in charge of scheduling for the podcast, but she is also our interview coordinator on the RPG side. Holly is the in charge of production, but also does data analysis on the RPG side.
I enjoyed getting to have a casual chat with them, while getting to introduce them to our audience, and I look forward to getting to record our 2nd part!
The Marketing Gateway is a weekly podcast hosted by Sean in St. Louis (Sean J. Jordan, President of https://www.researchplan.com/) and featuring guests from the St. Louis area and beyond.
Every week, Sean shares insights about the world of marketing and speaks to people who are working in various marketing roles – creative agencies, brand managers, MarCom professionals, PR pros, business owners, academics, entrepreneurs, researchers and more!
The goal of The Marketing Gateway is simple – we want to build a connection between all of our marketing mentors in the Midwest and learn from one another! And the best way to learn is to listen.
And the next best way is to share!
For more episodes:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheMarketingGateway
Copyright 2025, The Research & Planning Group, Inc.
TRANSCRIPT:
Sean Jordan (00:08)
Hey everybody, it’s Sean and St. Louis from the Marketing Gateway and thanks for joining us today. We’re going to have an interview with some different types of people today and those are the people that work behind the scenes on this podcast and that is Trish Mertens and Holly Wooden and you’ll get to learn a little bit more about both of them. But I just want to say the reason that I felt it would be really good to include them besides the fact that it’s the holidays and it’s kind of hard to find professional guests right now because everybody’s out of their office.
But it’s also because ⁓ Holly and Trish are a big part of what we do. And, you know, I’ve been thinking ever since ⁓ I did an episode a few weeks ago about her to Herzog and her creation of the focus groups and also just in general, all of the times in life where people behind the scenes, especially women, kind of get ignored for their contributions. I am not the kind of person that likes to ignore people. I like to celebrate them. And I celebrate these two because they have been a big part of the success of our firm at RPG.
And they’re also a big part of the success of this podcast. So I’m so excited to have them on today and enjoy.
Sean Jordan (01:12)
Well, hey everybody, I’m here with Trish Mertens and Holly Wooten, two members of my staff who both are
contributing members to the podcast as well here. Trish is our office manager at RPG and also our field work coordinator. But on the podcast, she is our scheduler. And then Holly, who has been an analyst for us at RPG has taken on the role of doing podcast production and is actually responsible anytime you see it go up on the web for being the person that makes that happen. So Trish and Holly, so glad to have you on. And one of the reasons I wanted to be sure to have you guys featured in an episode, we’re actually gonna have you in two episodes here.
is because I am the face of what we’re doing here because I’m in just about every episode, but I am not the only person doing all this work. And I ⁓ love to give credit where it’s due, as you both know, and especially when we have women who are working on things, because I think that there’s just been a long history of guys taking credit for the contributions that women have made. And I don’t want to be one of those guys. So ⁓ I was really ⁓ excited that we had an opportunity to have a couple of slots where we could just
talk and introduce you all to everybody that listens. so welcome. ⁓ let me just have you Trish, why don’t you start us off? Trish has been with us for about five years at RPG. And I rely on her like you wouldn’t believe because she’s the person that’s responsible for making sure the bills get paid. So ⁓ Trish, tell me a little bit about just how you came to live in St. Louis because I know are you from here originally or
Trish (02:41)
most part, yeah, I grew up here. spent all of my younger years here and then right after high school, after I had my second daughter, I decided to move to Joplin and I was there for about four years and ended up back in St. Louis because of the Joplin tornado. So after, what was that, 2021, I believe that’s when it hit, we moved back up here.
right after that, I think it was in February, and I’ve been here ever since. So it’s kind of my roots where I wanted to be and I missed home and we came right back and it was a good excuse to get out of there. But.
Sean Jordan (03:16)
And then.
And I always
think about you with regards to that Joplin tornado, because that was a terrible, terrible disaster when that happened. And you guys are in it. You survived it.
Trish (03:30)
That was, it was.
We did, yeah. It kind of started at like, we were pretty close to where the starting point was. So we were very lucky in that sense, because there was a lot of several people that were our neighbors houses were completely trashed and ours wasn’t. It’s just a wild thing that how it can skip one and hit another, you know, it was very scary, very traumatic, but we we were one of the lucky ones, thankfully. So and I’m happy to be back in St. Louis because this is home for us. So we love it here.
Sean Jordan (04:04)
And for that, I’m glad. ⁓ you know, Trish is our expert on St. Charles County because she lives in that area. And so anytime we need to know anything about what’s going on out on the northwestern side, she is definitely a great resource for that ⁓ with Holly and I living in other parts of the area. So Holly, tell us a little bit about how you came to be in St. Louis, because you’re not from here, I know.
Holly Wooten (04:24)
No, yes. So originally I lived in, well I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. ⁓ And then after me and my husband, we graduated from college. ⁓ And I was trying to be anywhere but there. And so he was throwing a wide net of job applications. ⁓ And then back in 2019,
He got a call from a lab, because he is a chemist. So he got a call from a lab up here in the St. Louis area, and they offered him the job. They offered him the job on a Friday. We came up to look at the house that we were going to rent on Wednesday. And then the following Monday, we packed up what we could.
in my car after taking our engagement pictures. So we didn’t make it up to the city till the middle of the night. And then he had to go to work the next day. it was a very interesting week and a half back in 2019 when we moved up here. and we’ve been up here ever since.
Trish (05:23)
Mm-hmm.
We’ll
be
Sean Jordan (05:41)
And I’m sure it was a fun acclamation having to get used to the different kinds of traffic we have around here and the fact that we have all these rivers that nobody ever seems to want to cross for whatever reason.
Holly Wooten (05:51)
you
Trish (05:52)
Thank
Holly Wooten (05:53)
We’ve made it work. We’ve made it work. You kind of have to when you’re the only one that drives through the two people, but you know, we do what we got to do. And I definitely pick my feet up a little bit when I have to cross into the actual downtown city.
Sean Jordan (06:11)
And Holly, I always associate you two with Halloween because that was, you guys chose to get married on Halloween one year. And I know that’s big day for you. Trish, did you guys have any remarkable ⁓ dates like that where you didn’t get married on a holiday or anything, did you?
Holly Wooten (06:17)
Yes.
Trish (06:28)
We did not, although today is our 18th anniversary. I’ll give you that. 18 years we’ve been together. Yep, we met 18 years ago today. So that’s exciting for us. But no, we did the typical June wedding. It was Father’s Day weekend. If you want to call that our holiday. We got married and the very next morning was Father’s Day. So it was a little bittersweet having our dads.
Sean Jordan (06:33)
Really? Well, congratulations.
Ha
Trish (06:55)
Are there dads there and dads giving us away? But it was a great weekend. It was beautiful.
Sean Jordan (07:03)
Wow. You know, in my family, I have two brothers and of course my parents and we all got married in July in different years. So my parents got married on the bicentennial back in 1976, July 4th. So theirs is really easy to remember. But ⁓ my brothers too, for whatever reason, also picked July and we picked July. So we all have July anniversaries. It’s weird. Well, fantastic. Well, tell me a little bit about ⁓ you guys.
Trish (07:12)
God.
hot.
Sean Jordan (07:32)
having lived here for a bit, have probably gotten used to some of the things that we have going on in St. Louis and some of the exciting things. know, ⁓ you know, my family, we’re big supporters of the zoo. We go there a lot. ⁓ Science Center, of course, City Museum. We know we’re big fans of those kinds of attractions. We just recently went out to the St. Charles Traditions of Christmas thing they do where they have these costume actors that are out being different spirits of Christmas from different parts of the world or different parts of history.
⁓ You know, we love to know about stuff like that, because it’s always fun to do. But what are some of the things that you guys really enjoy about St. Louis?
Trish (08:08)
I also went to the Christmas traditions on Main Street, which is beautiful. It’s so much fun. The kids love going. They always like to collect all the character cards. It’s a fun thing to do. It’s a good family time. Botanical Gardens is one of my favorites. I love to go any time of the year, summer, winter is great because they have all the Christmas lights up and you can walk through and it’s just beautiful. It’s really one of my favorite spots to go to in the city, I think.
Sean Jordan (08:36)
Yeah, I went there for the Japan Festival earlier this year. It was awesome. Just incredible. Holly, how about you? ⁓
Trish (08:38)
Yeah, it was. There’s plenty to do.
Holly Wooten (08:45)
I don’t if there’s one particular thing. I will say something that, and like I’ve talked to like my mom when she was here the other week for Thanksgiving and like Kyle himself, like I appreciate how inexpensive doing things in St. Louis is. Like we went to, ⁓ like I said, when my family was up here for Thanksgiving, we went to the brewery lights.
and I was expecting it to be like 25, 30 dollars. No, it was only like 12 dollars a person and that was like surprising to me because I just that just feels like such a big thing for it to be so like inexpensive. So and same thing with the zoo lights. Like ⁓ I think they’re like 15 to 18 dollars or something like that, which I mean, I guess is on the higher end, but even still, that’s like
For something like that, like the zoo lights is like, it’s just mind blowing to me how like inexpensive those kinds of things are. And there’s plenty of things to do around the city that are like free, like the Science Center. ⁓ And the zoo, like during like normal time is free, which again is incredible to me because even going during just like the zoo lights or the lantern lights or whatever, like it’s just.
It’s just so fun and it’s neat and there’s a lot to do and a lot to look at. So it’s just, I think that’s something that I just really like about St. Louis as opposed to like living or being elsewhere. It’s just how, you know, I can get in the car and I can just go do something and it doesn’t have to like cost me very much. So I appreciate that.
Trish (10:37)
I agree, Holly. think it’s wonderful that we have so many options in our city to be able to take your family or children wherever to go and enjoy what we have and take the pressure off of what is this going to cost me? How much is this going to cost? I have a family of six. Holy moly. know, like the littlest things really do add up. So I agree. We do have a great city that offers a lot of activities and entertainment with no cost. So that’s that’s lovely.
Holly Wooten (10:41)
Thank
Yes.
Yes, and the food. we have, my husband and I, like we love food. We are food people and like the food, you know, obviously you’re gonna have your chains. That’s gonna be anywhere you go. But like the amount of like local places in like St. Louis is just, it’s so nice.
Sean Jordan (11:32)
So speaking of St.
Trish (11:32)
I feel like I’m getting spoiled.
Sean Jordan (11:35)
Louis food, what are some of your favorite St. Louis foods that you guys… I’ll go on the record and say I cannot stand Emu’s pizza. Like I didn’t grow up here. I don’t understand it. I think you had to grow up here to love it. But what do you guys like?
Trish (11:50)
Anything on the Hill, Italian for sure, hands down.
Holly Wooten (11:50)
We will.
Yeah,
we like Nudo. Love Nudo. Like we’ve been planning for like weeks. like, man, we need to go back to Nudo. Like it’s been a while since we’ve been to Nudo. We need to go. So that’s like our favorite, one of our favorite like local spots.
Trish (11:57)
Mm-hmm.
Sean Jordan (12:09)
What does NUDO serve? haven’t been there.
Holly Wooten (12:12)
They have like ramen and stuff so they’ll have like bowls. I think they have banh mi as well so kind of a wide array of Asian style cuisine but it’s really good.
Trish (12:22)
Sounds good.
She’s obsessed.
Sean Jordan (12:30)
And we do have a lot of different types of, I mean, people always associate St. Louis with the Hill, toasted ravioli, gooey butter cake, know, think the Emo’s pizza, things like that. But we do have a lot of other types of ⁓ food here that are from many different ethnicities, a lot of fusion type places. Like I like Seoul Taco over in the Del Mar Loop, where it’s a fusion of Korean and Mexican food. It’s crazy. Who would ever think to put those things together, but it works.
Holly Wooten (12:53)
I love that place.
Trish (12:57)
you
Holly Wooten (12:58)
Their waffle fries are so good too.
Trish (13:00)
Yeah
Sean Jordan (13:02)
Are there any like classic St. Louis foods that you guys are a fan of? I like to toasted ravioli before I went vegetarian and I have to admit the cheese variety of it is not nearly as good as the beef one, but.
Trish (13:14)
It’s pretty hard to pass up. It’s pretty good. ⁓
Holly Wooten (13:18)
This may be controversial, I do not like gooey butter cake. It’s not. I’m a sweet tooth and I don’t. It’s way too sweet for me. I can’t.
Sean Jordan (13:22)
Ha!
Trish (13:22)
It’s too much for me.
It’s pretty sweet.
I could take a bite and be done. Just taste it and that’s enough for me. But yeah, it gets pretty heavy. ⁓
Holly Wooten (13:31)
you
Trish (13:37)
I don’t know. It’s hard to say because we’re big foodies too and we want it all. Wings are great. mean, anywhere. It’s hard. ⁓
Holly Wooten (13:43)
you
Trish (13:50)
We have our few favorite spots. We’ve gotten to a bit of a dip where we just go to our favorites that are close to home. But when we really want to venture out, we like to go downtown and just kind of explore all new places and try all the new things, which seems to change a lot. But at the same time, you can count on a few of those nice restaurants. They’re still there, and that’s been great. Pizza, I mean.
We’ve got a couple of really nice pizza, like good pizza places that we really like. ⁓ Which Sarah’s I’ve heard burned down recently, is, that’s unfortunate. I don’t know if they plan on rebuilding or not, but I hope so. That’d be great. Cause they’ve been around for a long time. And Sean, believe like, you know, pizza is like one of your top favorites, I believe. Is that right? Pizza? I mean, I know you’re a big fan.
Sean Jordan (14:44)
Which one? totally.
But ⁓ there’s not a lot of St. Louis pizza places that I actually like because ⁓ I like Chicago deep dish and it’s hard to find around here. There’s one Chicago deep dish place around here that’s Nancy’s and that’s a real Chicago chain. mean, they were actually the inventors of the stuffed pizza. yeah, beyond that, Rackinelli’s, which is New York style Neapolitan pizza. I love that. That’s local here.
Trish (14:55)
Yeah, it is.
Nances.
We had.
Sean Jordan (15:14)
It’s not St. Louis style.
Trish (15:16)
No, you’re right about the the emos pizza either love it or hate it. My husband feels the same way. He’s like, I don’t know what you’re thinking about this kind of pizza, but he’ll eat it. But he likes the he doesn’t like the Provel. I’m like, man, you’re crazy.
Holly Wooten (15:24)
you
Sean Jordan (15:30)
If,
if there’s anyone listening that isn’t familiar with EMOS pizza, EMOS is a St. Louis chain that is famous for using this blend of cheese called Proval. And I think it’s like provolone and mozzarella and something else. And it’s, kind of squeeze it together into this gelatinous, you know, kind of tube. then, and then they shred it again and you put it on the pizza and it just, you, love it or you hate it. And I personally hate it.
Trish (15:44)
was something.
for me.
Sean Jordan (15:58)
⁓ To me, it just tastes awful. And I don’t know what it is about that particular blend, but it just doesn’t work for me on pizza. It’s fine on a sandwich, but…
Trish (16:07)
You’re
going to have all the emails coming after you now. ⁓
Sean Jordan (16:10)
I know, I know
I’m a heretic. The problem is I moved here when I was 10. And so I just didn’t, I didn’t grow up eating it. I remember even Pizza Hut was trying to do a St. Louis style pizza one year when I was a kid. And we all thought it was gross. Now, granted it was Pizza Hut. So it wasn’t, you know, a high bar to clear to begin with, but well, so we, we, talked a little bit about some of the fun attractions. We talked about some of the good food.
kind of surprised we haven’t talked yet about the big thing in St. Louis, which is, well, there’s really two big things. One of them is the high school question, which I grew up in the Metro East, so nobody asked me what high school I went to. But the other thing is ⁓ the sports teams we have here. So Trish, did you grow up in the St. Charles area? Do people care about what high school you went to?
Trish (17:02)
yeah, that’s the number one question when you meet anybody in St. Louis is, okay, where did you go to school from? All right, and so yes, I went to Fort Zumwalt South High School. Pretty much grew up in the St. Peter’s area. We moved here back, I think when I was around eight or nine, somewhere around there. And my father was in the Navy and stuff, so we traveled a little bit. And then when we landed back here in St. Louis and I…
pretty much stayed here up until we headed out for Joplin. ⁓ But yeah, it was.
Interesting. I don’t know. It was it was pretty fun
Sean Jordan (17:42)
You know, I went to, ⁓ Fallon high school in the Metro East, Fallon township high school. And I grew up in Fallon, Illinois. ⁓ which we always thought, we’re the good Fallon. There’s another Fallon over in Missouri in St. Charles County that they can’t possibly be as good as us. And, you know, since visited there and figured out, no, they actually are the better one. I don’t remember. Are they one of the four, what schools too?
Trish (17:58)
you
So when I went to high school, know, many, many years ago these days, I hate to say, but there was just the two high schools. It was just North and South. And now we have an East and a West and a North and a South. And I’m sure there’s probably more coming around the corner. I mean, it’s just expanded tremendously out here in the last 20 years for sure.
Sean Jordan (18:28)
I did a project for St. Charles ⁓ for the Economic Development Council once and I was just looking at their demographic data and they went from having like 30,000 people back in the 70s and 80s to like 300,000 people or more by the time I did the study. And I think it’s gotten beyond that sense because of all the expansion that’s gone on. So I know a lot of those people move from North County out there because you’ll talk to a lot of people that grew up in North County and then moved out to St. Charles County for
more, you know, affordable housing or for more suburban type environments or parks or, know, things like that. But it definitely blew up from even when I was a kid.
Trish (19:03)
⁓
for sure. I remember when there was cornfields and stuff out in O’Fallon and you don’t see that anymore. Not very often. Not on my wicket anyway.
Sean Jordan (19:16)
Well, Holly, you’ve gotten to know St. Louis kind of from ⁓ the perspective of someone that’s moved in as an adult. So are there any favorite parts of town that you have?
Holly Wooten (19:27)
So we actually, before we moved out to the, because of course now we live in the Metro East area on the Illinois side. So ⁓ before we moved out here, we actually lived out in Chesterfield. And if I could have afforded to stay there, I definitely would have because I do like how.
Especially the particular area that we were at, we were like right off of 64. So we were literally like a two second drive from getting on the highway, which I really appreciated because it, I know, especially like with going back to my mom’s house, she lives like a good like 10 minutes from the highway, just like having to get through her neighborhood and stuff.
And I just kind of hate having to do that. And that’s kind of how we are now where it’s like 15 minutes to like get over to the highway. So and that just like that adds up a little bit when you’re trying to go somewhere. So I really appreciated that because it just made everything like every trip just felt so much shorter.
And a lot, there was actually a lot out there. And even when we were moving or like when we were getting ready to move and we were leaving area and everything, like things were like picking up quite a bit. Like, ⁓ I know they have, I don’t know exactly what their plans for the Chesterfield Mall are, but I know they had some plans to make that more of like an entertainment kind of area. ⁓ So I’m interested to see how that goes. ⁓ Cause
We do still like going out there because there’s like local places out there that we like to visit when we are able to make the time to do it since it is a 40 minute drive now. So, ⁓ yeah, but yeah, I like the Chesterfield area a lot. ⁓
Trish (21:15)
See you.
Holly Wooten (21:23)
Brentwood, despite its flaws, has its perks. The mall with the Galleria. The Galleria is pretty nice, I will admit. The Galleria is nice to just, even if you don’t really care for shopping, just to walk around. For a mall, the natural lighting in there is actually…
Sean Jordan (21:29)
This is where our office is located, by the way, for anyone that’s listening.
Holly Wooten (21:48)
really good, especially around like the food court area where it’s got that big dome. I think that’s where that is. ⁓ like I said, for it being a mall, the natural light in there is actually really nice. So I can appreciate the Galleria.
Sean Jordan (22:08)
Right around the corner from our office is the infamous Brentwood Promenade, which is a shopping center that has a Target and a Trader Joe’s and Micro Center, other things. And I can see it right now actually as I look out the window. And it is full of cars today. It is a place that everybody in St. Louis avoids like crazy. But still everybody seems to go to because it’s always crowded over there. So we’re right around the corner from all that hustle and bustle and Galleria is just down the street. So I get what you’re saying about Brentwood.
Holly Wooten (22:35)
It’s just because everything
shares that parking lot. Like if everything didn’t have to share that parking lot, I think it would be fine. But since every store over there has that one parking lot, it’s just…
Sean Jordan (22:47)
with the tiniest, narrowest parking spots they could possibly fit in there.
Trish (22:51)
I’m
Holly Wooten (22:52)
like
Sean Jordan (22:54)
Well, so let me let me ask you both. ⁓ you fans of the Cardinals or the Blues or any of the other local sports teams?
Trish (23:03)
yeah. sad to say it’s been a busy year. I’ve not made it to a hockey game this year. I’m not a huge hockey fan, but my husband is huge. we do like to go to the Cardinals game and it’s really, really fun, especially with the schools in our area. They get, ⁓ really involved with the St. Louis Cardinals and they like to have, like my daughters have a couple of them. Well, probably all of them at this point.
have had a chance to sing with their choirs on the field at the stadium with the Cardinals. So that’s always really fun to go and watch. And especially when you got a kid out there just soaking in the moments, they love it. So, and I love it as a mom being able to watch that and be a part of it. So I’m really glad that they offer that kind of stuff for the kiddos. ⁓ But yeah, we’re, we love going to games. It’s a fun family thing to do.
in any of them, the St. Louis Cardinals, we’ve got the Blues, we’ve got soccer now, which is cool, which is fun. And I’ve only made it to one of those so far, but it was fun. It was a good time. I’m happy to see that we’re getting more more sports and athletic teams in our area.
Sean Jordan (24:14)
How did you feel about the Rams leaving town?
Trish (24:17)
I was a little bummed actually, cuz I love football. I love football and I am a huge Chiefs fan. ⁓ Which is a huge bummer because we lost Patrick Bums last night, tore his ACL. So we’re gonna be out of the playoffs and all that. It’s a bummer, I really loved when we had the Rams here. ⁓ It was a fun time, things change and we get it. But we had a good time. ⁓
when we had, I think it was Kurt Warner and Marshall Falk, I think it was. We had a good go there for a while and won that Super Bowl several years back and that was great. It was so much fun to watch, but we’ll see. Hopefully we’ll get another one down the road.
Sean Jordan (24:51)
Mm-hmm.
I was,
I was going to college at the university of Illinois. And when the Rams were having their moment in the sun and it was nice to see St. Louis doing something. Cause almost everybody there was from Chicago. And, ⁓ so we were all rooting for St. Louis cause it was their next closest team. So it was nice. Like finally St. Louis gets to do something that we don’t care about that. And the baseball home run thing was going on at the same time where Mark McGuire was hitting home runs. And, ⁓ that was, that was a big thing too, where we had St. Louis and Chicago kind of.
Trish (25:07)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sean Jordan (25:31)
you know, seeing who was going to hit the most home runs.
Trish (25:34)
It was a really fun time in the city too because everything just felt alive and vibrant and there’s this really cool energy just everywhere because everybody was like on a high from all the cool things that were going on. that was neat. It was neat to be able to experience it.
Sean Jordan (25:50)
When the blues won the Stanley Cup just down the street from our office one day, I couldn’t get out. There were people everywhere. And it turned out the blues like to go and drink at one of the bars down the street. And they were there. All these fans just mobbed the place and you couldn’t get out of our office building until you got through the crowd. So that was pretty wild. Holly, how about you guys? Are you into sports at all?
Trish (25:53)
Thank
I didn’t.
Yeah.
yeah.
Yep, I can imagine. We were out.
Holly Wooten (26:16)
Not so much. We are definitely more indoor people, but I do like going to the baseball games when they do the theme nights. I really want them to hurry up and release the theme calendar for 2026 because I mean, I’m not I’m not much of a sports person, but I like y’all were saying, like the vibes when you go to like a game are just especially when we win are like impeccable. Like they’re so like
It’s just so much fun to like, it’s just something to do. And again, it’s very inexpensive a lot of the time if you find the right seats. So that’s also definitely a plus. ⁓ And I, yeah, and like, it’s just, it’s just a lot of fun. though, even like, even not being a sports person, I really do enjoy.
Trish (26:58)
Boos has great fans too.
Holly Wooten (27:11)
getting to go to the games every now and again. It’s not something like I’m not going to buy a season pass probably, but you know, it is just fun. It’s something to do and you know, just have a good time. And like I said, the vibes like it’s one of those things where it’s definitely the crowd that helps make it because it’s like everybody’s just so excited and like so into it. And then you start getting into it and you’re just like, yeah, like knock them out stuff. So
Trish (27:37)
Thank
Sean Jordan (27:41)
Well, and St. Louis is different from a lot of other cities in that, you know, if you’re driving down Interstate 64, which everybody in Missouri calls Highway 40 for some reason, you drive past the Busch Stadium where the Cardinals play, drive past the stadium where the, or the center where the Blues play, you drive past the soccer field, drive past the zoo and the science center and all the other attractions that we’ve mentioned. It’s all like in the central corridor and really easy to get to and really visible. So.
Trish (27:52)
Right.
Sean Jordan (28:09)
that makes it a lot more fun because then, and by the way, you’re passing the gateway arch as you’re going through all that stuff too. So it’s a very visible city, I think. And I’ve been to a lot of different cities, traveled a lot, normally things are pretty spread out and you have to go to different parts of town for different types of events, except in Kansas City where they have the Chiefs and the Royals play right next to each other out ⁓ on the Missouri side. But ⁓ yeah, you know, a lot of times you don’t get all of that just in one shot.
the we do here. And I think that’s one of the things that makes St. Louis a little bit different and kind of special is that it’s all very, very easy to get to and very visible. And, some of my other favorite things in town, we love the Fox Theater, which we go there to see musicals and shows all the time. We’re going to Phantom of the Opera in a few months and Hadestown next year. We’re excited about that. ⁓ The St. Louis Public Library is one of my favorite places to go. Speaking of free things, like we pay a fee because we’re out of state. ⁓
We pay like a $50 fee to be able to use the library, but they have everything and they have this beautiful library that’s got like really awesome architecture. can go and take tours. People go in there and take wedding pictures and things like that. And I love the opportunity to go to places like that and experience, you know, all the different media that they have and all the collections that they have. And then we actually have a lot of really good art museums in St. Louis too. And I talked about this with Wes Morgan in one of our previous interviews, but
We have an awesome free art museum in Forest Park and we have a modern art museum and we have a couple of ⁓ different galleries that are showing ⁓ off different kinds of exhibits around town. have great ⁓ other types of theater as well, like the Repertory Theater at Webster is really famous for putting on just awesome plays and there are other playhouses and theater ⁓ companies around town that do a lot of different things. So we have a pretty good performing arts scene, which I don’t think a lot of people think when they think St. Louis.
⁓ I wish we had a better comedy scene here. That’s one thing that we’re lacking. There’s only a couple places to go for comedy, but…
Trish (30:05)
No, did you in the muni?
Picking
it’s picking up. We are going. The factory has picked up quite a few, I believe, comedy shows as well. And I think we have a couple stadium tours from some comedians coming. I’m actually going to the Nate in January. He’s going to be at Enterprise, I believe. Nate. I forget his last name. He’s a big he’s he’s pretty famous. He’s one that everybody knows. But sorry, I’m.
Sean Jordan (30:17)
Mm-hmm.
Trish (30:41)
terrible. It’s a weird, it’s a hard last name and I’m even going to try to pronounce it because I will butcher it for sure. But if you love comedy, I’m sure you know who I’m talking about. I’ll have to Google it and look it up and let you know. But he’s coming soon so I’m excited to go see him because we love going to those comedy shows too. The Funny Bone. Now that we have two locations, it’s easier to get to a few of them.
Sean Jordan (30:47)
Gotcha.
They’ve come and gone in a lot of different places. We even had a ⁓ version of it over in the Metro East where I live at one point. well, let me kind of wind us down on this discussion. So this is the marketing gateway. We talked about marketing on here and we talked a lot about St. Louis. So if you were going to make a pitch to someone about why they might want to live here, raise family here, we’re
One of the things we all agree on, I think, is that it’s a really affordable place to have a family. And that’s certainly helped me. I know it’s helped you Trish and Holly, I’m sure it’ll help you down the road. ⁓ What would your pitch be to somebody if you’re like, you know, you really should consider moving to St. Louis because, what would you say?
Trish (31:44)
man.
Holly Wooten (31:47)
See, I’m lucky in the sense that I didn’t have to pitch it to my friends. All of my friends, when they came up here, they were like, wow, I love St. Louis. they like, a few of them actually have plans ⁓ to move up here eventually. Obviously, like moving to a completely different state takes a lot of time. was in a very, Kyle and I were in a very unique circumstance when we did it, but you know.
So like I’ve definitely got friends that, like I said, I’m lucky that I don’t even have to pitch it to them because they’ve been up here and they just like, they just really enjoy it. I think one of my friends even was trying to convince her mom’s to move up here. So like they were like, wow, it’s so great. ⁓ So, you know, it’s. It’s just, I feel like the city speaks for itself, I guess you could say, because like it’s just.
Like we’ve already discussed, there’s just so much, so much to do and like.
It’s just great. I love living here. Like, I love living in the area. Yes.
Sean Jordan (32:54)
So come here, you’ll want to live here, with your pit. like.
Trish (32:57)
Yeah.
Sean Jordan (32:58)
How about you Trish?
Trish (32:59)
Well, and what’s really not to love? mean, like we mentioned, there’s everything that you can imagine that you would want to do. Basically, anything that you want to do is within 20 minutes away. For the most part, unless you live in Illinois, you add an extra 20 minutes. But, you know, like like Kali mentioned, there’s it’s just it’s affordable. There’s plenty of options. There’s great food. There’s good entertainment. The people are great.
Plenty of good schools, good education for your children, plenty of anything you can think of to take them to go entertain them, your children with, because we all know we need to keep those kids busy and keep them off our phones and keep them active because it’s super important. And there’s parks everywhere. Like anything that you could imagine is, kind of like Sean said, it’s like all located centrally. So it makes it very accessible to get just about anywhere you want to go. ⁓
Having that and living in other places where it was difficult to have those things is one of the reasons why we moved back. when we lived in Joplin, it’s a great little town and there’s great people there, but there’s limited resources. you’re in a smaller town and anytime you’d like to go do something, it was going to be an hour, an hour and a half travel time. And just made it little bit more difficult to
get up and go do something fun for the weekend, you know? And I feel like moving back home, back to St. Louis, we’ve been able to just have free weekends where we wanna go on a hike. There’s plenty of hiking trails. There’s, like I said, there’s parks, there’s food, there’s entertainment, there’s, we have Cuddleville that’s right up the street from my home and they offer all kinds of options of vendors and food trucks and.
They’ll play the games, they’ll play the Cardinals games or the Blue Games on the big TV and you can just sit outside by the fire pit and watch the games for free. mean, there’s just, it’s kind of unlimited. So it’s really a no brainer. And if you like the seasons, the weather you’ll get every season in a week. You might get summer, spring and fall all in a matter of a couple of days. So there’s that.
Sean Jordan (35:15)
We’re getting that this week, in fact. Yeah. ⁓
If the leaves
hadn’t already fallen off the trees, we would think that it might still be spring because it went from being 10 degrees yesterday to 60 degrees by Thursday, right?
Trish (35:31)
Very
true. Now, if you don’t like all the seasons, you might want to reconsider. But we get a little bit of it all here. So it’s I would say it’s it’s just a great place to be. I’m happy here. I’m glad we came back.
Sean Jordan (35:43)
So
your pitch is a little bit of everything. It’s a great place to be. I like that.
Trish (35:48)
Yeah,
it’s really true. mean, honestly, we kind of do. We kind of have it all. So it’s great.
Sean Jordan (35:55)
fantastic. Well, it’s been great talking with you both. We’re going to take a break from this particular recording and we’re going to move on to talk in our ⁓ next episode about something a little bit different. We’re going to talk about brands and marketing and I’m going to give them a little bit of a quiz to see what they’re familiar with. And I think it’s going to be interesting because we have two different generations here. Trish and I are of one generation. Holly’s a little bit younger than us. So we’re going to see, ⁓ you know, what are some differences that they might have in terms of what they grew up with and what they know. So
⁓ Be sure to check out that next episode. But thanks Trish and Holly for being on. Thanks for all the contributions you make to the Marketing Gateway and of course to us at Team RPG. Such a pleasure to talk with you.
Trish (36:34)
You too. Thanks for having us.
Sean Jordan (36:37)
Well, I’d like to thank Trish and Holly for being on and we were going to record a second part right after what you just heard and we unfortunately had a lot of technical difficulties. So we’re going to get together and record that second part in a different session and that’ll be available sometime next week. So look forward to that. But in the meantime, I’m Sean and St. Louis. This has been the Marketing Gateway and see you next time.
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