If one thing can be said for Kimberley Crossman it’s that there’s always a project on the go.
The latest for the bubbly LA-based Kiwi actress is a new business venture with her sister, executive coach and branding expert Rochelle Sheldon. The duo has set up an online collaborative gifting hub called Joyable – which is not to be confused with an app for managing anxiety and depression that has the same name when you google search it.
Kimberley is fresh off the plane from LA on a whistle-stop visit to New Zealand when Now To Love catches up with her about the venture.
She arrives at our studio fresh-faced and looking summery (although the sky is grey and weeping). Dressed in a cute floral dress, denim jacket and lace-up heeled shoes, she looks cold.
But she’s cheery and personable as ever as she explains the Joyable concept. Joyable is an online gifting platform that allows people to chip in together on a gift for anyone celebrating a special occasion. Simply create a gift page then share the link with everyone involved so they can contribute money towards the gift. Joyable keeps a record of everyone who contributes and how much, and releases the money to you at an agreed release date so that you can go and purchase that gift.
“It takes the hassle out of gifting, and the waste,” Kimberley explains.
The recipient gets one great gift they really want rather than a lot of things from different individuals that they might not.
This is not the first time Kimberley has worked with her sister.
Rochelle was instrumental in helping Kimberley create her kimberleycrossman.com brand.
Kimberley explains, “When I first started on Shortland Street – this was a little bit pre-social media days – one of my biggest goals was that I didn’t want to be typecast and I wanted to have longevity as a career here in New Zealand, so with my sister steering the ship we branded myself as Kimberley Crossman.com – having a website, a brand, I wrote a self help book… the irony of the fact that many people have screen shot my own advice to advise me later in life is not lost on me,” she laughs.
If you’re wondering if this means Kimberley has shelved her acting career in Hollywood the answer is no.
“I haven’t given up on the dream,” she laughs.
In this video Kimberley talks business, she lets us in on the latest FX series that she’s hoping to secure the lead role for, and she opens about how she copes with rejection.
“It’s okay to be sad about not getting jobs, I give myself permission to have a bit of a cry,” she says.
And the place where she goes to cry? Well, that took us by surprise.
