EP #16 | {Special Feature} Guest Experts Highlights from Inside the Membership

Each month inside the Designer’s Oasis Membership, we invite guest experts to come share more about their area of expertise.  These curated individuals come and provide actionable insight into their areas of knowledge.  

 

Some months we have Design experts such as Porcelanosa who came and taught us about using their XTONE large format porcelain slabs which make beautiful and durable countertops, flooring and wall finishes,  or Surfacing Solution who came and talked about tambour wood - a flexible wood paneling product that is so popular in design right now. We learned how to specify it, different applications for it, and more. 

 

We also have experts in business who have come to discuss everything from money and finance, to wellness and mental health, to art curation. 

 

Today I’m taking just a few of these experts and sharing with you some of my favorite moments and insights from over the years. 

 

Consider this montage a sneak peek, but my HOPE for you today is that you find these excerpts to be powerful little nuggets of actionable knowledge YOU can take with you. And of course, if you like what you hear and want to catch the full episodes, you can always join the Designer’s Oasis Membership. When you do, you’ll not only get access to all the archives but access to join future LIVE guests where you can submit your questions to the experts in real time.  

 

Just a quick note before we get into these sessions - These were not recorded with podcasting in mind, so you’ll have to forgive the audio on some of them. I hope you can still take away some great insights from today’s episode.  

Here’s a glance at this episode…

[03:20] Molly Bird Casey - Nine Dot Arts - Curating Art for Your Clients 

Molly Bird Casey is the Chief Curator and Co-founder of NINE dot Arts, a full-service art curation and installation firm in Denver & Seattle but with projects all over North America. Their work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Forbes, LA Times and nominated this year for the Colorado Top Companies in Architecture and Design. 

 

We brought Molly in to talk about how to Curate art for your clients. You can find out more about Molly on her site at https://ninedotarts.com/

[12:07] Tracy Harwood - Is it Time to hire a VA in your business?   

Tracy Harwood, the founder of Rock Solid VAs, a Virtual Assistant Matchmaking service (one that I use) that helps pair busy professionals with a virtual assistant who can help them manage the seemingly endless daily to-dos. 

 

In my interview, I asked Tracy what she encountered over and over again from small business owners who are struggling to take that first step to hiring? You can find out more about Tracy and Rock Solid at https://www.rocksolidassistants.com/.

[24:50] Morgan Boudreaux - How to Create a User-Friendly Money Management System 

Morgan Boudreaux is the COO of Business by the Book, who offers Professional bookkeeping & accounting services for interior designers, home professionals, & other creative entrepreneurs. 

 

Mogan shares how to create a user-friendly money management system. Their team works with many interior designers and they have seen it all so they really are experts when it comes to understanding the nuances of the interior design industry. Find out more about Morgan and Business by the Book at https://www.businessbythebook.money/.

 

[30:39] Heidi Taylor - Ask like an Expert 

 

Intro: Next up I want to introduce to you a woman who has niched down so specifically, that her entire career is built on helping business owners craft the perfect intake form; one that qualifies buyers BEFORE the sales call.  I’m going to bet you’ve thought about, maybe even agonized over the questions you ask on your intake form? These are really important questions to ask, especially when selling high-ticket services such as interior design. 

To find out more about Heidi, you can head over to https://www.heiditaylor.ca/

[35:34] Natalie Norcross - Power of Public Relations 

 

Natalie Norcross is a public relations expert for interior designers. Her firm is called A Design Partnership.  She and her team have an unwavering passion for building brands in the modern design, architecture, lifestyle, and consumer markets. 

 

Natalie shares her definition of what a Brand is, as it relates to public relations. I love this definition. She then goes on to explain about the benefit of creating a Marketing Ecosystem and how the benefit of doing this on autopilot helps designers to achieve more work-life balance. You can find more about Natalie and A Design Partnership at https://adesignpartnership.com/.

 

[39:48] Chris Thomas - Successful Brands are Never an Accident 

My final guest that I’m sharing with you today was one of my favorite conversations with my friend, Chris Thomas, Creative Director at Cohn Marketing, a full-service branding and marketing agency. Chris’s fresh perspectives to marketing is heart-centered and authentic and is a refreshing approach to branding and marketing. To find out more about Cohn Marketing head over to https://cohnmarketing.com/.

 

I want to quickly just give a special thank you to the guests that I’ve shared with you today, Molly, Tracy, Morgan, Heidi, Natalie and Chris. We’ll link to a list of ALL the amazing guests and topics covered that are available ONLY in the Designer’s Oasis Membership. We’ve had more than I can mention right now, but you can see all of them on our website and we have some more incredible names lined up for the rest of this year and beyond. 

Resources mentioned in this episode: 

• Molly Bird, Nine Dot Arts
• Tracy Harwood, Rock Solid Virtual Assistants
• Morgan Boudreaux, Business by the Books
• Heidi Taylor, Ask Like an Expert
• Natalie Norcross, A Design Partnership
• Chris Thomas, Cohn Marketing
• All Guest Experts - Exclusively inside the Designer’s Oasis Membership
• Membership:  Doors are open! Join Today!