Today's guest on the show is Carly Waters, the Principal of Carly Waters Style. Carly has really loved design ever since she was a little girl. As the daughter of an attorney, however, she followed in her Dad's footsteps and became an attorney too. Listen in to find out how she ultimately managed to change that and follow her heart and her dreams.
Carly graduated from UC Hastings in 2010 and started out in what would be a career in Family Law, at an esteemed Law Firm in San Francisco. Her heart really wasn't in it though, so when she went on maternity leave while pregnant with her son, she rediscovered her love for interiors. She designed their apartment in San Francisco and got it featured on Apartment Therapy. This was when she started taking on some Design clients, on the side. After going back to practicing Family Law, however, she realized pretty quickly that it was time for her to leave the law behind. So, when they moved to LA for a job opportunity for her husband, Carly decided that this was the right time for her to strike out on her own, so she started Carly Waters Style in 2014. Here's the thing- in these three short years, Carly has been featured in My Domain, People, Rue, Simply Spaced, Apartment Therapy and Martha Stewart. Listen in now, to find out how Carly managed to achieve all of this, in such a short period of time.
Show highlights:
Links:
Carly's website: www.carlywatersstyle.com
The guest for today's Power Talk Friday is Yian Quach. Yian, who is originally from Seattle, Washington, has been designing websites since 2015 and he helps professionals in the Design Industry to cure their web site pain so that they can grow their businesses. There is a particular mention, on his website, that LuAnn found quite interesting- in addition to his role as Website Doctor, Yian really loves educating and his original career was as an English Teacher! Listen in as Yian explains all about his real genius ways with websites.
Yian's clients have been published in a number of top shelf magazines, including Architectural Digest, Lux, Hudson Mod and Editor At Large. The thing about Yian is that he has a rare combination of skills in the areas of Website Design, Copywriting and Coding and he's also familiar with all the nuances of the Interior Design Industry. He regularly attends Industry Trade Shows, so you may even know him. In the past year, he's been at High Point Spring Market, Brooklyn Designs, ICFF (where he and LuAnn did a Facebook Live for Curated Kravet), The D and D Building Spring Market and later this month, he'll be at Las Vegas Furniture Market. Listen in now, to learn about the really actionable ways that Yian works to help people to cure their website pains.
Show highlights:
Yian will be covering the Las Vegas Furniture Market, later this month, on the Tastefully Inspired Facebook Page, with lots of live videos. Like the page and ensure that you get the notifications when it goes live.
Today's guests, Leslie Carothers and Sam Henderson, are the two industry pros and the brains behind Savour Partnership. They create magazine quality, custom branded e-publications for your website, or blog. This really means that they create opt-ins and lead magnets, for you to attract and grow an email list. LuAnn urges you to hang on and really listen, specially if you find your eyes are glazing over at the mention of growing your email list, because these two really are experts at this and today, they're going to explain precisely why it's so important, for the health of your business, to grow your email list. Listen in to find out more.
Sam Henderson is the owner and Creative Director of Savour Imagery, which is a Food and Lifestyle Creative Studio, located in Dallas, Texas. Sam and his team create photography, video, and graphics for numerous national brands and media outlets. He uses his knowledge of food, lifestyle, and travel together with his experience as a Designer, to create content for HDTV and DIY Network. Sam also writes a weekly article on Design trends.
Leslie is the CEO of Kaleidoscope Partnership, which has more than thirty-seven years of experience in the Luxury Home Furnishings and Interior Design Industry. This year, her company celebrates it's the fifteenth year. Leslie pioneered the use of Social Media Marketing and Influencer Marketing nationwide and she has helped to build the brands of major manufacturers, retailers, software providers, individual Interior Designers and Trade Shows through her website, her Blog Management work, Social Media and Content Marketing. These are brands like Havly Court, Wilson Kelsey Design, Four Point Design Build, The New Traditionalist, Meredith Corporation, World Market Centre, Las Vegas, ICFF and more than thirty-five others! Leslie speaks frequently at Industry Events and she is often quoted as an Expert Resource in National Publications. She wrote the Retail Ideas Column for Furniture Today Magazine for nine years and her micro-blog, @TKP Leslie, has more than thirty-six thousand followers and was named, by Decorex, as one of the top one hundred most influential Interior Design blogs in the world! Together, Leslie and Sam are the co-founders of the recently started Savour Partnership. Listen in to find out how they can really help you to position yourself for success, elevate your brand and grow your business.
Show highlights:
Links for Savour Partnership:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/savourpartnership
Instagram: www.instagram.com Savour Partnership
Email: savourpartnership@gmail.com
The guest on today's show is Susan Yeley, of Susan Yeley Interiors, in Bloomington, Indiana. A few weeks ago, Susan contacted LuAnn, because she listens to the show a lot and she thought that the particular challenges that she faces in her Design Firm could make an interesting topic. After learning a little more about it, LuAnn agreed and she really hopes that you will too. Listen in to find out about the challenges that Susan faces in her business, which is really defined by the area she lives in.
Susan started out as a struggling graduate student in Religion and Philosophy at Indiana University. She later took an unpaid internship at Thomas Jobb, a furniture and fabric showroom in the Merchandise Mart in Chicago and became hooked on Design. She then enrolled at the Harrington College of Design and eventually landed a job at a high-end Residential Design Firm in River North. Susan and her husband finally returned to their roots, a few weeks prior to the birth of their first daughter, in 2005. Listen in now to find out more about Susan and the specific challenges that she faces, when it comes to her business location and the fees that she charges.
Show highlights:
Susan's website:
The guest for today's Power Talk Friday is a really special force to be reckoned with! She's is also the very first guest to be talking about Twitter on the show! Madalyn Sklar is a Business Coach, Consultant, and Twitter Marketing Expert. Other than being an expert on Twitter, she's the host of #Twitter Smarter Twitter Chat and Podcast. She has the weekly #Social ROI Chat, she blogs and she creates courses and also speaks and teaches courses at Madalyn Sklar.com. Listen to getting some awesome advice about marketing with Twitter from Madalyn.
Madalyn, who really has some visionary skills, is known for being the Number One Social Media Influencer in Houston, a city which has a population of two million people. She has been blogging since 2000 and she's been founding online communities since 1996 when the internet was new and she saw it as a really great way to connect people. Listen in now, as LuAnn interviews Madalyn, someone who really has the knack of being an early adopter of all things tech!
Show highlights:
Link:
Madalyn's website: www.madalynsklar.com
Go to www.madalynsklar.com/chatlist to get to a page with a variety of charts that you can look through.
The best place to meet Madalyn- on Twitter! #madalynsklar
Today, LuAnn is shaking it up a bit and introducing a new monthly feature, called Design Biz Live. On the third Wednesday of every month, she will be talking with Judith Neary of Roadside Attraction Design Studio and Corey Klassen of Corey Klassen Interiors and they will be discussing the specific problems and challenges that you are facing in your design firm. Somewhat similar to what LuAnn's been doing for the last eighteen months, however, with Design Biz Live, she will be dealing with the questions that you have by asking them of these two talented designers. So, it's the same, but different... Listen in to find out what it's all about!
If you'd like to know more about who Corey and Judith are, you can listen to episode #170, where LuAnn first met them and there you can hear all about their firms and their backgrounds. What really makes this new feature so actionable and worthy, is that Corey and Judith run two entirely different kinds of firms, with Judith's being a solo operation, on a small island and Corey's in a big city, with staff. This will be really fun and interesting and it will also give you two very different, yet valid perspectives. What makes it live, is that in addition to this podcast version, there is also a video available, of the three of them, which will be posted on LuAnn's Youtube channel, A Well Designed Business, as well as on the LuAnn Nigara Facebook Page. LuAnn wants you to know that this format is a bit more laid back- more like a coffee jam session- and she also warns you about having these three crazies all in one place! Make no mistake about it, however, they're still going to be covering the business principals that you need to know, in order to be successful. At the end of the day, the goal is still to help you to be more productive and profitable.
They've decided to start off with an introduction of the philosophy of both Corey and Judith, so they have each made a list of the top things that they think you should do, or you should know, in order to be successful in the Design Industry. You don't need to take notes, because if you go to www.windowworks-nj.com/designbizlive1, you can get your free PDF download of 'The things I learned from Judith and Corey Design Biz Live Episode #1'. Listen in now and enjoy the new show!
Show highlights:
Links:
Corey's website: www.coreyklassen.ca
Judith's website: www.roadsideattractionstudio.com
Today's guest is Lane McNab, of Lane McNab Interiors. Lane, just like Darla Powell, who appeared on last week's show, has also come to Interior Design as a second career. Listen in to find out all about Lane and how she's developed her really successful Interior Design Business.
Lane grew up in Florida and attended school in both Tennessee and San Francisco. She continued her education at Oxford University and at Il Globo Institute, in Italy. Lane's Interior design career is backed with her vast experience and her work and her expertise have been featured in many places, including The Today Show, the East Bay AIA Tour Of Homes, Dwell, Modern Sanctuary, Lux Pad, 24 East, My Domain and also in her home town publication, Berkeleyside, as the go-to Interior Designer, for approachable ways to modernise an historical home. Listen in today, to find out how Lane's career path and the lessons that she's learned along the way have contributed to her success, both as a Designer and as a Business Person.
Show highlights:
Links:
Labe's Website: lanemcnab.com
The guest for today's Power Talk Friday is Kathy Knowles, a former HR Director who has become an entrepreneur. Her company is called Intuitive Strategies and Consultants and Kathy has become known as The Soulful Business Mentor. She really understands the challenges one faces, when leaving behind a successful, yet unfulfilling six figure career, to build a more satisfying business and life. Kathy has more than twenty years of experience of maximizing people and potential, as an HR Director, which has given her a real advantage in helping you to create your own Heart and Soul Business.
She and her team share proven strategies and formulas, to help you to establish a growth strategy that makes you more money and frees up more of your time. Magic words, right? Kathy's mission is to help more business owners and entrepreneurs to create a life of a business that they love, without sacrificing integrity, income, or sanity! There are really so many things that Kathy, as a talented Business Coach, could have discussed today, however, LuAnn decided to zero in on 'Help Business Owners Hire Right The First Time'. Even though LuAnn has owned a business for more than thirty years, she's really looking forward to this discussion, because for her, hiring really is one of the most troublesome parts of being in business. So, listen in, to get some great insights from Kathy's more than twenty years of experience.
This is going to be a really jam-packed episode, as Kathy has a ton of information for you. She has prepared a list of questions that are very helpful in assisting you to make the right hire. Several of the questions will be discussed in the interview today, however, her list is really much more in-depth, so if you are about to hire, or if you struggle with how to do that, you will enjoy this interview. To get Kathy's really valuable list of questions, go to www.windowworks-nj.com/kathyk and click on The things I learned from Kathy Knowles. Listen in now, to find out more.
Show highlights:
Kathy's website: www.kathyknowles.com – This is where you will find her free Gaining More Loyal Customers resource.
For Kathy's free Find and Fill resource, go to: www.kathyknowles.com\find-and-fill\
Kathy's email: kathy@kathyknowles.com
The guest for today's show is the truly remarkable Darla Powell, of Darla Powell Interiors, in Florida. Darla and LuAnn initially became friends through the social media of the podcast and then continued their friendship with conversations on the Designer Facebook Groups that they were both in and also through Instagram. It's not unusual for LuAnn to become friends with the people that she interviews for the podcast, and she and Darla also have a few friends in common (Mark McDonough from Tastefully Inspired and Karina from Superior K Interiors), so she really thought she knew all about her, until she went out and did her research for the interview. Then she was truly surprised to learn a few things about Darla that she didn't know before! Listen in to find out all about these surprising details.
Mark McDonough was actually the person who suggested to LuAnn that she should consider having Darla on the show. He pointed out that this was a second career for her and that she was going to be a truly amazing Interior Designer, as she was really putting her all into it, after having retired from her first career. Listen in now, to find out more about Darla and how she came to be doing what she does now.
Show highlights:
Links:
Darla's website: www.darlapowell.com, where you will also find Darla's blog, Wing-nuts and Wallpaper.
Resource:
Business of Design, Volume 3- Win The Flat Fee Game by Kimberley Seldon
The guest on today's show is Enoch Bartlett Sears, a licensed California Architect and the founder and publisher of Business of Architecture. He's the creator and host of The Business of Architecture, the number one podcast for Architects and he is also the co-founder of The Architect Marketing Institute. LuAnn had to wait quite a while to get to interview Enoch, as he really is busy, so she's grateful and very glad that he found an hour for her today and she thinks that you're going to be glad too! Listen in, to find out how you can increase both the income and the efficiency of your business, with the fantastic resources that Enoch has for you.
LuAnn came across Enoch because of his podcast. She's a regular listener and really enjoys his show and thinks that what he does is really terrific! She finds that he actually does a lot of the same things that she does on her podcast, except that his target is Architects, so she just switches the word 'Architect' in her mind, for Interior Designer. Enoch interviews Architects on how they run their firms and what they do to increase their income and efficiency. He also talks with outside Industry Experts, as does LuAnn on her Power Talk Fridays, to help Architects to increase the profitability of their firms. This is why LuAnn thought that this would be such a great fit for this show. Enoch is also a Business Coach and he's become famous for helping Architects to grow their firms and their income and increase their freedom, through the use of effective Client Strategies.
Enoch went through one of his very actionable strategies, a Twelve Step Questionnaire process, called Twelve Questions To Ask Before Your Meeting- So You Know What Hot Buttons To Push, which he recommends to Architects, with LuAnn. This was developed by Enoch's partner, Richard Petrie, who's known as The World's Leading Architect Marketing Coach. LuAnn was really impressed with it and as she went through it with him, she found that it could be translated right to Interior Designers. So listen in now, to find out more about this questionnaire which you could apply to yourself, to help you to attract your ideal Interior Design projects and clients.
Show highlights:
Links:
For some awesome, free giveaways:
Go to: www.archmarketing.org/awelldesignedbusiness and give your email address, to get your free PDF download of the questions and frameworks mentioned on the show, as well as the two questions that Richard Petrie calls his Mind Cannon.
The guest on today's Power Talk Friday is Dorien Morin-van Dam, the Owner and Social-Media Consultant with More In Media, which is located in sunny Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Dorien helps Small Businesses Owners with their strategies, planning, and execution, around Social Media. Listen in to find out more about Dorien and what she has to share, to help Small Business Owners with their Video Marketing on Social Media.
Dorien is a Coach and Trainer, who concentrates on Video Marketing and Social Media Management. She particularly enjoys working with Video Coaching and helping people to overcome their fear of the camera. This is something that she runs into all the time, with local clients and Small Business owners who really need to be on camera, yet have real fear around doing that. Dorien has found that here is such a great need for this right now, with Video Marketing being so popular, that she is also busy writing a book about it. Dorien, who's a Mom with four teens and three dogs, loves to run marathons and cook and eat vegan food. She also really enjoys teaching, blogging and speaking about Social Media. Listen in now, to find out more about how Dorien helps people to overcome their fears about appearing in front of a camera.
Today, Dorien talks to LuAnn about:
Dorien's book, No Fear Video, which will be coming out later this year.
Links:
Dorien's website: www.moreinmedia.com
Today's show is taken from LuAnn's presentation that she gave at the I.W.C.E.
LuAnn starts her presentation by explaining the mix that goes into creating a really successful business. She points out that you are actually your own magic pill and that you really do have the ability when it comes down to making decisions. All that you need is to have confidence in yourself and to know that you have a good business and that you're a good business leader. Then, you have to identify the obstacles and make a plan, rather than running away from them. The really important part though, is to make the decision, as confidence and a plan are nothing without a decision. So, every day, as a business person, you have to choose to go out and do what is necessary. Listen in now, to LuAnn's really valuable presentation.
LuAnn explains that Window Works was initially a franchise which started in the early 70's and went until the early 90's and that she and her two partners owned three of them. From year one and for the next ten years, two of their three franchises were number one and number two in highest gross sales, every year! Today, LuAnn talks about the things that she has found when looking back, that have really contributed to their great success. Number one being Leadership, number two- Systems and number three- Excellence. Listen in, to find out how to use these three ingredients to really attain the kind of success that you would love for your business.
Today, LuAnn talks about:
Resources:
Book: The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber – An amazing book for small business owners.
Today's guest is Manuella Moreira, one of LuAnn's long time early listeners to the show. In May, there was a big event at the insanely gorgeous Ethan Allen Showroom in New York City, where Manuella works with Barbara Viteri, the Designerlebrity. You can go back and listen to the audio of that show (#185 ), or you can see the video of it on A Well Designed Business Youtube channel- something really well worth seeing! Listen in to find out more about Manuella and her fabulous career.
Today, we're talking about Manuella's fascinating career, working for Ethan Allen. What LuAnn finds interesting is that it's really so completely different from what she would have expected an Ethan Allen Designer's career to look like and she points out that the opportunities that this brings for Manuella are truly remarkable. Listen in now, to find out more.
Today, Manuella talks to LuAnn about:
What's coming up on the horizon with Ethan Allen and Amazon and Manuella's role in that.
Links:
Manuella's email: manuella.Moreira@ethanallen.com
Manuella's website: www.manuellaMoreira.com
Manuella's Instagram: mgmdecor