What if the secret to winning clients isn’t just great marketing, but building a culture your employees can’t stop talking about?

In this episode of Foundation Issues, host Dhara Patel sits down with Christie Hendricks, Director of Marketing and Culture at Abstract Construction and one of the Top 50 Women Leaders in Construction. With a career spanning insurance, business development, and senior marketing roles, Christie has mastered the art of aligning a company’s external story with its internal reality.

Christie shares how integrating marketing and culture not only strengthens brand identity but also drives employee happiness, and why that happiness is the best business development strategy there is. From spotting early signs of morale dips to encouraging young marketers to speak up, Christie’s approach is part leadership, part strategy, and part humor. The result? A workplace where culture becomes a competitive edge.

What You’ll Learn:

• How authentic culture fuels client trust and long-term success
• The importance of leadership buy-in for real cultural change
• How to identify and address morale issues before they impact projects
• Why boldness and speaking up can accelerate your career
• Tips for choosing a company culture that fits you, not the other way around
• How cross-industry inspiration keeps ideas fresh
• The role of humor in building a resilient, connected team

Connect with Christie Hendricks:

• LinkedIn: Christie Hendricks

Connect with Dhara Patel:

• linkedin.com/in/dharapatel001
• outerrealmvr.com

Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite platform.

If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a fellow construction professional, marketer, or leader, and don’t forget to leave us a review. New episodes drop weekly!

What if the key to unlocking new revenue streams wasn’t just selling more, but tearing down the walls between your teams, and adding a layer of immersive tech to the mix?

In this episode of Foundation Issues, host Dhara Patel, CEO of Outer Realm, sits down with Lorena Morales, RevOps Executive, Advisor, and Design Thinker, to explore how breaking silos, recovering “lost” deals, and integrating VR are reshaping operations in the built world.

Lorena shares her journey from product design to pioneering RevOps as a service, including how she recovered over 20,000 abandoned opportunities through a “rescue revenue” initiative, and why traditional GTM titles and heavyweight CRMs are losing relevance. She also explains why aligning marketing, sales, and customer success isn’t optional; it’s essential for sustainable growth.

Dhara adds her perspective from the immersive VR space, showing how virtual environments accelerate decision-making, improve project delivery, and serve as collaborative, data-rich tools, not just visualization gimmicks. Together, they unpack the challenges of innovating in a legacy driven industry and where the next decade’s biggest opportunities lie.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to recover value from “abandoned” opportunities with rescue revenue strategies
• Why dismantling silos is the fastest route to operational efficiency
• How AI is reshaping real estate operations today, and what’s next
• Why traditional GTM roles and bulky CRMs are losing traction
• How VR can drive collaboration, not just visualization
• Leadership lessons on time management, trust-building, and leading change in resistant industries

Connect with Lorena Morales:

• linkedin.com/in/moraleslorena
• medium.com/@eledeloca

Connect with Dhara Patel:

• linkedin.com/in/dharapatel001
• outerrealmvr.com

Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite platform.

If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a fellow construction professional, marketer, or leader, and don’t forget to leave us a review. New episodes drop weekly!