---
title: "Curiosity Is the Whole Job: Building Trust in a Tight-Knit, Deeply Informed Market"
id: "18325"
type: "podcast"
slug: "curiosity-is-the-whole-job-building-trust-in-a-tight-knit-deeply-informed-market"
published_at: "2026-08-11T03:05:00+00:00"
modified_at: "2026-07-30T13:58:50+00:00"
url: "https://kulapartners.com/thekularing/curiosity-is-the-whole-job-building-trust-in-a-tight-knit-deeply-informed-market/"
markdown_url: "https://kulapartners.com/thekularing/curiosity-is-the-whole-job-building-trust-in-a-tight-knit-deeply-informed-market.md"
excerpt: "Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo spent 15 years as a reporter and editor in Ecuador before landing in Manitoba as marketing manager at IHT Group, which builds heating, cooling, and lighting systems for the swine industry. She argues the newsroom taught her the..."
---

#### Episode 403

**August 11, 2026**

Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo spent 15 years as a reporter and editor in Ecuador before landing in Manitoba as marketing manager at IHT Group, which builds heating, cooling, and lighting systems for the swine industry. She argues the newsroom taught her the one skill industrial marketers most often skip: listen before you speak. Her buyers are technical, deeply experienced, and allergic to buzzwords, and they talk to each other, which means a single bad experience travels faster than any campaign. Nancy walks Jeff and Carman through months-long buying cycles, why proof beats claims, and why she treats marketing as a growth function rather than a support function.

##### *Curiosity Is the Whole Job: Building Trust in a Tight-Knit, Deeply Informed Market* Transcript:

**Jeff White:** Welcome to The Kula Ring, a podcast for manufacturing marketers brought to you by Kula Partners.

My name is Jeff White, and joining me today is Carman Pirie. Carman, how you doing, sir?

**Carman Pirie:** Oh yeah, all is well on my end, Jeff. And you?

**Jeff White:** Doing great, thanks. It’s a beautiful day in Halifax.

**Carman Pirie:** This is going to be a fun conversation, you know?

**Jeff White:** Yeah. Yeah. No, th- this is interesting. It’s a, niche that a number of manufacturers kind of play into and sell into, but, everybody deals with this a little bit differently

**Carman Pirie:** I guess I would suggest that I think a lot of the people listening to this podcast, many of them will work in organizations where they maybe face similar dynamics, right? But they’re not, they’re probably not in similar orgs. Like, or, or not in exactly the similar space, but, but the dynamics of the buyers and I think there’ll be some, a, a lot of interesting parallels there.

Um, yeah. I think, Jeff, you were just about to try to, uh, give a bit of Halifax preamble for

**Jeff White:** There was a weather statement, but we don’t need to go there. It is nice today though.

**Carman Pirie:** See, I thought you were gonna rec- uh, t-talk something about the fact that outside the window where you’re, uh, broadcasting from here, that there’s a bunch of SailGP boats, moving incredibly fast in the harbor. It’s one of those weird things like, um, I don’t know, like, like anything that moves incredibly fast, whether it’s like a racing cars or motorcycles or whatever, that makes it cool.

The fact that it’s boats is just kind of rare.

**Jeff White:** Yeah, no, it’s, it’s interesting to see. We, we have the SailGP here in Halifax this weekend, so they’re out practicing and ripping around Halifax Harbor at Mach Chicken, so

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah, if you haven’t– if nobody’s ever seen a boat move, like, just incredibly fast under wind, um, you know, give it a go. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about today. In fact, I think we’re decidedly land-based in today’s conversation versus sea-based.

**Jeff White:** Well, but we can find out for sure. So joining us today is Nancy Verdesoto Feijoo. Nancy is a marketing manager at IHT Group. Welcome to The Kula Ring, Nancy.

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Thank you so much for having you, and I should say that I’m jealous about the harbor and the sea. I don’t have anything about, ah, here.

**Carman Pirie:** It’s, uh, one of those formative questions that, I was asked in a, an off-site meeting once is you had to just answer the question, mountain or ocean? You know, and that was to give you, give people an indication of your personality, which do you prefer? So there you go

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Well, coming from a country where I have both, it’s hard. But I think that I’m missing mountains in here a little bit more than ocean, yeah.

**Carman Pirie:** All right. Understood

**Jeff White:** I grew up by the ocean, but I would take mountains in a heartbeat. Every time I go to the mountains, I’m just stunned. Just stand there. Yeah

**Carman Pirie:** What our regular listeners will know is that that’s because Jeff’s a mountain biker and that’s why he wants to be in the mountains. But, but Nancy, we’re not here to talk about mountain biking today. We’re here to talk about, uh, your work with IHT. So I would love to hear, an introduction to the firm.

What do you folks do for our listeners that haven’t heard of you?

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** For sure. Well, uh, IHT Group is a manufacturing company. We are located in, uh, Bluff, Manitoba. Uh, we manufacture heating, cooling, and lighting systems for the swine industry.

**Carman Pirie:** Very cool. So, um, for the agricultural industry, just, correct? And, uh, i-is it specific to any type of agriculture or is it quite broad? I noticed that hog farming is certainly very much front and center on the main image of the website, but, uh, just broad HVAC and, and, and lighting across agriculture?

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** No, it’s mainly for the swine industry. It’s for hogs, uh, and especially more focused on farrowing, uh, sites.

**Carman Pirie:** Nancy, how did you find your way to Manitoba, Canada to do this job? What, uh, how, how did you end up there?

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Well, uh, it’s a little bit interesting if I could say it. I start my career in journalism in Ecuador, where I’m from. Uh, I spent there 15 years as a reporter and editor, and then journalists taught me how to understand people, ask questions, and communicate complex information a little bit more clearly.

And then I moved to corporate communications, and I, in 2022, I moved to Canada, to Winnipeg specifically, and I transitioned into marketing. And that’s how I, uh, get into this, uh, marketing manager role at IHT.

**Jeff White:** I think we could do an entire episode on folks who started in journalism and, and then eventually made the transition to communications and marketing. It, it– There certainly are, are many, but I don’t know that we’ve ever covered that directly

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah, we haven’t covered it as a topic, Jeff. You’re quite right. And, and we’ve been thinking, uh, we’ve had some great, uh, teammates over the years that fit that same description.

**Jeff White:** What do you find, Nancy, that was the best learning from your career as a reporter and journalist, um, that you’ve brought over to this?

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Yeah. Well, um, I could say that, uh, journalism taught me, taught me curiosity. So I learned, uh, to listen first and then speak. That’s the only way it’s, I can understand what people really need and how they can achieve what they need. And if you are applying those knowledge, that knowledge to marketing, you could say that that’s how marketing starts, right?

Understanding what your customers need, what are their challenges, and what are their goals so you can work with them.

**Jeff White:** I would suggest that curiosity is an innate personality trait, and you probably didn’t learn it, but you already had it.

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Probably, but I think it learns, uh, it taught you more how to use it in a proactive way.

**Jeff White:** No, very cool.

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah, how to develop and nurture the curiosity and, uh, how to… Yeah, yeah.

**Jeff White:** I’ve met people who aren’t curious at all, and there’s no way you could teach them how to be.

**Carman Pirie:** Hmm.

**Jeff White:** Hmm

**Carman Pirie:** If you find a way, Nancy, of how to take somebody that is not curious and make them curious, could you please let Jeff and I know?

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** I will try.

**Carman Pirie:** That’s i-interesting though, like you, you think about, that, that very specific skill set that you honed as a journalist of, you know, listening before you speak, being curious, helping to understand that other side of whatever that you’re not, you don’t currently understand that you’re trying to figure out.

And I have to think in your work in trying to connect with buyers in a, in the swine industry who are probably incredibly hands-on in their work, that background has to serve you so

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** yeah, I think, uh, it is because, uh, when you understand the reality, you can connect in a better way with your customers, right? People in this, agriculture, specifically in the swine industry, they don’t want marketing buzzwords or complicated messages. They want to know how a product will help them to solve a problem, uh, save time, or improve efficiency, or just reduce costs.

**Carman Pirie:** Hmm. Yeah, I found, I guess my curiosity, rather than telling you what I’ve found, I’m more won- like, you said that they, they don’t want a lot of marketing, speak, uh, and, and very direct to the point, what benefits does your product offer, et cetera. You know, and that, that’s something that I think probably a lot of people listening to the podcast would, would find themselves nodding to say, “That’s the environment I find myself in, too.”

It’s not the swine industry. They’re engineers for a manufacturing firm or something. But similarly, they don’t, um, they’re not interested in marketing buzzwords as a way of, uh, learning information. Yeah.

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Yeah, for sure. I think they, they know exactly what they need because they are involved in the day-by-day operations. So you can’t repeat every time something without, uh, actually providing them a solution.

**Carman Pirie:** How do you balance that with the desire as a marketer and maybe even as a journalist to, to try to tell a bit more of a story, to try to, you know, give people more of a reason to buy from you than just, specifications and features? Uh, do you find that there’s tension there between, um, or there’s a maybe a delicate tightrope to try to walk?

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** No, uh, I, I don’t think so. Um, because when you are working, with, um, with specifically agricultural people, they are both technical industry and also a people industry. They are highly knowledgeable and experienced, so they, they are doing… they are making decisions that affects productivity, profitability, and animal welfare.

And if you are working in, um, marketing for this specific area, it’s, just how to communicate information in a simple and meaningful way. They, producers understand their operations very well, so marketers ne- needs to explain complex solutions without oversimplifying them, but also creating this, relationship in a more trust, with a more trust, way of, o- of connecting.

They are knowledge, so you need to help them to understand a little bit better how your product can fit their needs.

**Jeff White:** That’s interesting. And I, I wonder how that kind of plays out depending on the persona or, or the buyer that you’re, that you’re speaking with. We are lucky to work with a few agricultural manufacturing companies, and the diversity of the customer base is interesting because some of them are, you smaller, more family-operated farms, or you may actually be dealing primarily with the main owner of, of the farm.

And then, of course, there’s large corporate entities, especially in North America. Do you kind of split your audience at all that way or another way, and does that at all change how you, how you communicate with them?

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Well, you can do it, but I don’t think at the end of the day it’s gonna be way different because both, even though it’s a, a small, barn, farm producer, family-owned company, or it’s a big corporation, they all start in the same way. So I think if you are creating marketing for this particularly group, that goes far beyond of specs or technical features.

At this core is people making business decisions. They are working hard every single day to improve performance and profitability, and, you don’t see the, them as two different groups. They are just knowledgeable people. They are people with a lot of experience, and they are, um, they know exactly what they need to overcome a product, so, overcome, a, process.

So when you are creating products for, for marketing, you are not selling a product itself. I don’t think that’s the main goal of doing marketing. It’s just, present you as a trust brand, as a, a, a better solution, but because you have been working in creating a deeply relationship, not just going outside and say, “Hey, buy this from me,” or, “Buy that from me.”

**Carman Pirie:** You’ve mentioned a, a couple of times of how experienced and smart, frankly, your customers are and those buyers. And it’s one of the things I, um, Jeff’s gonna be sick and tired of hearing me say this because anytime we talk about agriculture, I’ll kinda highlight the fact that I come from a pretty rural part of New Brunswick and, um, I, you know, grew up in and around farms and kinda always thought that the farmers that I knew were some of the smartest business people I’d ever encountered.

They watched commodity markets and things of that nature a heck of a lot more than a lot of other people did that I encountered as a kid, and they seemed to really understand frankly, how what they were doing in the field turned into money in a bank account or not. They were, they’re very, very savvy.

Um, uh, so it’s interesting to me to hear you emphasize that because it’s just as… It’s, I feel like it’s the kind of thing that a lot of people outside of agriculture maybe have a differing opinion or view, and it’s one of the biggest surprises. So with that very long preamble, Nancy, what’s been the biggest surprise for you in marketing this kind of product into this kind of sector?

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Um, well, I think if I could say a surprise, I think it’s the way they, the way they decide to do a buy-in. It’s in regular B2C marketing, you are having a impulsive, impulsive buy-in or it’s something more, from the moment and decision. You just impact them, they will go and get your product. But in this kind of, manufacturing and agriculture, I think it’s a long buy-in cycle.

So it’s basically focusing on, on nurturing trust, through consistent education. So customers may take months before making a purchasing decision, and during that time, our role or my role is stay visible keep with this educational content and of course, being credible. We don’t want to, uh, push products.

We want to provide valuable insights that help producers to improve their operations. By the time when they are ready to actually buy, they already trust our company and understand the value that our solution provides to them

**Jeff White:** Do you find that this audience over or under indexes in digital? Like, are, are you, are you meeting or you mentioned staying visible and, and I’m wondering how you’re doing that. Like, how– are you using social media? Are you using email? What are the kind of, uh, mediums and vehicles that you’re using in order to stay visible so that they remember you from the start of needing this product to maybe making a purchase?

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Uh, well, I think it’s combination of digital marketing. We are on social media, so we are posting regularly. But also we are not just, uh, presenting itself like the product, we are creating content regularly, content that is, focused on, um, providing value, not related specifically to a product, a YX, yeah, product, s- but more specifically about how, uh, the general day by day in a barn, in a farm, or how, an operations can be better if you do this or do that.

We use digital marketing as a, as the strongest strategy I, I could say because it’s allo- it allow us also to reach customer faster. We can personalize the communication, we can measure engagement in real time. And so we use social media. We do- we use massive emails. We use our website as well.

And also we are present in trade shows because we know that trade shows are, uh, a valuable, tool to connect with our customers. And, yeah, and I think we are doing, both digital marketing and, uh, hands-on…

**Carman Pirie:** mm-hmm.

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** face-to-face marketing.

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah. I’m, I’m assuming, Jeff, that a bit of embedded in that question was a, you know, obviously battling a bit of the assumption that, oh, the, this sector isn’t online at all. They’re hands-on and they’re working every day and they’re… But it’s obviously we know that’s not true. I was interested to hear Nancy’s response in some ways confirming that.

No, it’s like, no, no, no, we see lots of lead flow and, connectivity via our digital channels. It’s our main, main path.

**Jeff White:** Yeah. No, I, I figured that would be the response, but I, I wanted to know for sure.

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, and Nancy, talked about the, the biggest surprise that you’ve encountered. I’m curious about what challenges that you’re, you’re seeing i-in, in your work. It seems to me that the attention spans are ever decreasing in terms of, uh, the amount of time and energy that people are willing to maybe spend ingesting that educational content.

I think sometimes the patience on the sales side is, a little lacking. They start weighing on marketers and asking them to, maybe be a little bit more salesy in what they’re doing and move the conversation along. Not to lead the witness too much, I’m just more curious, what are you seeing right now that is maybe a bit of a, a headwind or a challenge in, in front of you that you’re wondering how will we navigate this as a marketer in this space?

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Well, I think, you can… Probably people think that marketing is doing brochures, is, uh, doing trade show banners or social media post and, and actually getting, a sales done, right? But, marketing, I- I think it’s, it’s a grow- has a growth function. It’s not a support function because we are influencing in brand perception, in customer trust, in lead generation, in market expansion.

And, we… The, I think the difference sets in, how the customer experience the marketing. And I think as, you, you were saying that marketing and sales sometimes you… people request the marketing do the sale, but I think they are, they have to work together. They’re not the same thing, but they are, they are like siblings, right?

One do like the pre-selling, creating the environment for actually going to the sale. And that is when, uh, that is where the sales people goes and finalize the, the sale, the sale process.

**Jeff White:** Do you find that this industry has a lot of word of mouth, as a valuable, way of kind of expanding your audience? It strikes me that the, that there probably is a bit more of that rather integrated community. Folks aren’t necessarily competing with each other, but, a bit of coopetition, I would imagine, between a lot of folks in this industry.

So how, how valuable is that and, and how do you leverage it, help encourage it, uh, utilize that to your advantage?

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Uh, yeah, definitely it’s, word of mouth a lot in this industry. I learned that, when I started working here because even though you can, promote all your advantages and all the benefits that your product can have, if you don’t get this connection or get this trust with one of the pork producers in our case, there’s no way that the others are going to trust in you.

They are … If you see, if you can connect with one pork producer that has a, a good reputation, that has a deep understanding of the market and has been in the, in, in the market for a long time, you will see that that kind of example will be followed by others. So that’s why we are, uh, focusing a lot of in our credibility.

We need a good reputation because if something happens with just one customer, that word will spread out and it could kill us. So that’s why it’s so important to be a really good, um, manufacturer with, putting in place a lot of quality controls, a lot of process that m- make you sure that everything is gonna be okay and everything’s gonna run smoothly and you’re not gonna have any issues with your customers.

**Jeff White:** That’s a unique, um, potentially a more unique challenge than some others might face to, to have to, you know, absolutely be so on top of your quality knowing that, uh, folks are gonna chat around the campfire.

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Yeah.

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah, I think it’s a part of that niche dynamic, I suppose, Jeff, and but it, I mean, it spreads across the manufacturing and industrial categories more broadly.

**Jeff White:** Yeah

**Carman Pirie:** Like, you know, why do people in the swine industry talk to each other? Well, frankly, because they know, each the subject matter better.

You know, they’re more informed with it. And there’s more trust, uh, in that peer-to-peer relationship as a result. I’m really curious about, Nancy, your, your discussion about kind of building trust, building credibility. Do you– I guess I’m wondering in some way how much of that is from a marketing standpoint, how much of it do you look at through the lens of, oh, just frankly appearing credible?

Like to looking proper for your scale and size and the solution. Again, how much of it is that versus how much of it is in, I don’t know what we say or where we choose to say it, the channels we use?

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** I think that peers marketing, it’s way important for us. And, um, that’s why we, we understand that marketing typically seems to just announcing something and promoting something in social media or whatever, but we tries to create content that is based on proofs. We’re not just saying claims.

We’re not just giving our word for itself. We provide research. We provide real world results. We have customer testimonials and case studies that demonstrate that our solutions improve operations, for example. And when you deliver this kind of value and credible content, we could, uh, help customers to make an informed decision.

Even before they are ready to do the, the buy-in itself, they start to create this conscience about, okay, this can help us to build this because of this and with this result. If you are talking with peers, if you, as, as I was saying, if you have one customer that really, tried our product and could really, uh, feel the improvement in different aspects of their operations, that would be a huge impact, and we want to capture that testimonial for our website or for our social media because that’s when we can say, “Hey, you know, this is been proved, and this is giving you results.

So what this producer Joe Doe did, you can also could do it in your barn if you trust and believe in, in, in our product.“

**Carman Pirie:** That’s a… It’s interesting ’cause it is really about, um… It makes sense to me. I mean, obviously you want to, uh, the, the ultimate credibility is in leaning on those customer examples and customer case studies that where the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. The good news is you guys also have a gorgeous marketing presence.

The website looks great, things of that nature. So it’s not like you have to choose between aesthetic and putting meat around the bone, as it were. I wonder what advice you might have for, uh, younger marketers maybe just exploring where they may ply their craft, because you’ve had an interesting journey to make it to where you’re at now.

So, um, yeah, so maybe we’ll end the podcast with, your advice to, uh, young marketers. What should they do? How should they think about their career in 2026 and beyond?

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Yeah. Well, uh, you know, that marketing is evolving every single day. There are new tools, there are new ways of communicate and to connect with your customers. So I think for me, the most important is just never assume that you know more than your customer. Uh, listen first, understand their challenges, their goals, and their reality.

And when you really, truly understand what their need, what are their needs, you can build trust, and, you can actually put in your sh- the shoes of your customer, and it will be a more natural connection, and you can build a, a strong relationship

**Carman Pirie:** I think that’s really amazing advice, the idea of don’t think your customer’s stupid.

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** yeah.

**Carman Pirie:** yeah.

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Totally.

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah, that’s, um, that’s that’s really incredible advice. Look, Nancy, thank you so much for joining us. It’s been wonderful to have you on the show

**Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo:** Thank you for your time, and this is… This was wonderful. It was nice conversation. Thanks.

**Jeff White:** No, thank you.

[Read Full Transcript](#podcast-transcript)

[« Episode 402: Your PhDs Are Your SEO Strategy: Leveraging the Authority Already in the Building](https://kulapartners.com/thekularing/your-phds-are-your-seo-strategy-leveraging-the-authority-already-in-the-building/)

#### Featuring

### Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo

Marketing Manager at IHT Group- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancy-verdezoto/)

Nancy Verdezoto-Feijoo is Marketing Manager at IHT Group in Winnipeg, where she leads global marketing for the agricultural technology sector across North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Originally from Ecuador, she brings more than 21 years in journalism, corporate communications, and marketing to a highly specialized B2B environment, including 15 years as a political journalist and editor. Her focus is translating complex technical innovations into stories that connect with producers, distributors, and industry stakeholders. Nancy holds a bachelor’s degree in communication with a specialization in journalism, a master’s degree in corporate communication, and a project management diploma from the University of Winnipeg. She also serves as President of the Ecuadorian Association of Manitoba, supporting newcomers as they build their careers in Canada.

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