Explore how to transform your design business for the better and unlock the secrets of successful collaboration in our special year-end review of Designer Discussions. Join Jason, Maria, and Mirjam as we highlight the most captivating moments of 2024, including Katie Decker's expert insights on optimizing design operations for profitability and her memorable tips from High Point. Relive the intriguing revelations on the evolution of digital PR with Mirjam, including the unique journey of Haro, and discover unexpected tech facets with Maria’s deep dive into AI and chat GPT-4.
Celebrate the collaborative spirit that defines our industry with Maria's reflection on Tori Sikama's episode, where photography transcends its role as a mere marketing tool to become an integral part of brand partnerships. Hear firsthand how building relationships with photographers can elevate your business branding and content creation. Reflect with us on the rich insights our guests have shared, and join us in anticipation of the exciting innovations and opportunities awaiting us in 2025.
If you would like to get the links and show notes for this episode, click on the link below:
The links and past episodes mentioned in the episode are:
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Join us for our weekly live sessions and workshops: https://www.designerdiscussionsmarketing.studio/pages/academy
Designer Discussions is an educational interior design podcast on marketing, PR and related business topics. We also provide in-depth, actionable products in the Marketing Studio including time-saving templates and guides to help design professionals grow their businesses.
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Designer Discussions is a partnership of three experts: Jason Lockhart, CEO of KABMS; Maria Martin, founder of DesignAppy; and Mirjam Lippuner, founder of Get Ink DIY
Episode Transcript
Hello and welcome to Designer Discussions
with Jason, maria and Miriam.
Today is our year-end episodeand Jason will talk us through
the year-end review.
Welcome to the DesignerDiscussions podcast with Jason,
maria and Miriam Tune in eachweek, where we talk about
(00:23):
marketing, pr and businessadvice for design professionals.
Jason Lockhart (00:27):
Happy New Year's everyone.
We hope you had a good holidays.
And this is our time where wetalk about what has happened
over 2024 to prepare for 2025.
We usually have this year inreview.
We talk about what are theepisodes we liked and I'm going
to start.
I'm going to tie in Maria,because a lot happened on the AI
side and I'm going to have hertalk about that, and then, for
(00:50):
Miriam, I'm going to have hertalk about Harrow, because that
changed A lot changed last yearthat she'll be able to talk
about there as well.
But some of the episodes I hadreally liked was the guest we
had on.
On the last episode, weactually had Katie Decker on and
she had talked about operations.
Even though that was the lastepisode, that was actually one
(01:11):
of my best episodes of the yearBecause, if you see, she had
talked a lot about overviewingin terms of design and
operations and how to be moreprofitable in your design
business, and she had gavesimple examples of policies and
procedures that we don't eventhink about.
And there is an example inthere that where she had talked
(01:33):
about when she was at High Pointand she said, honestly, if
you've done anything in terms ofcontract.
You have a type of policy andprocedure there.
She gave an example of that.
Listen to that episode whereshe explains that and it's a lot
, because we haven't talkedabout operations on this podcast
in a few years and so I thinkthat's one of my best episodes
(01:57):
for last year because of that,because of how we address the
topic, katie's expertise in itand how she had talked about
that.
So that was one of the episodesI had liked this year.
One of the other episodes Iliked was the evolution of PR.
Now, I know Miriam that may beone of her episodes that she's
going to talk about, but how shehad talked about that I learned
(02:20):
a lot.
Oftentimes when I talk aboutthe marketing topics, it's
things that I know, but I lovelistening to Maria and Miriam
because I learned something aswell.
So, listening to the evolutionof digital PR, she talked about
the history of what happenedwith Haro, how it started and
where it is now, which I'm sureshe'll talk about.
(02:41):
Maria, I had learned a lot abouther when she had talked about
chat, gpt-4.
There was a lot of things thatshe gave an example in that I
didn't even know, and I use AIobviously not as much as Maria
does, but just having herexplain a lot of that just
helped me say like wow.
And so when I'm listening toother episodes outside of the
(03:04):
marketing topics I talk about,I'm a listener just like you,
learning a lot of thisinformation that I'm not into
every day, I don't do every daylike the PR, miriam, like the AI
and the technology that Mariadoes.
So I'm learning a lot about allthose topics as well.
So that's why a lot of thosetopics were my favorite, because
(03:24):
I learned a lot, not justteaching what I teach on the
marketing side, but hearing whatthey had to say about PR, ai
and technology, and also, like Italked about with the operation
with Katie on the last episode.
So those were the episodes Iwant to talk about.
So I'm going to hand it off toMaria so she could talk about
some of her favorite episodes of2024.
Maria Martin (03:46):
Thanks, jason.
So I would say the number onething I enjoyed most about this
year is kind of the opening ofperspective that the people that
we work with can actually bepart of our business and part of
our branding.
Tori Sikama, when she's talkingabout photography and I think a
(04:14):
lot of times we think ofphotography as just a marketing
tool exclusively for ourbusiness, like a portfolio piece
.
But she talked about therelationship that you have with
the photographer, how itintegrates into publications and
also how it can be used tocreate partnerships, to have
content for brands.
And I think, as an interiordesigner, we don't think about
(04:36):
how our businesses are actuallyconcurrently producing content
other people want and that wecan request pay for that and
that we can have brandsparticipate from the beginning
of the photo shoot to kind ofhelp make photo shoots more of a
net zero so that they are ableto be used as marketing for our
(04:57):
businesses.
But then they're also revenueproducing and they're not just
an expense for businesses.
So to me that was like mindblowing.
I thought that was spectacular.
I think more interior designersneed to incorporate that into
their business model.
Spectacular.
I think more interior designersneed to incorporate that into
their business model Along thelines of branding and business.
(05:18):
I really enjoy doing theresearch to learn more about how
we can be using AI.
I'm a big proponent thattechnology is our friend and
that if we know how to use it itcan be beneficial for us, and
that we shouldn't be scared ofit and that we should also be
very knowledgeable about whatour environmental impact is with
using it, so that we're notwasteful and that we're not just
flooding the world with morejunk, because we are
(05:40):
professionals and what we createis way more valuable.
And then I just love being ableto know that I'm on top of
everything you know Jason's veryconsistent about.
When he talks about marketing.
He talks about the essentials.
He talks about the stuff youactually need to put time and
interest in.
And since I'm a big social mediaconsumer, I've learned that
(06:03):
social media is so fleeting andnot as impactful as it has been
in the past and that we need tobe keeping our focus on getting
the PR getting published as muchas we can and marketing our
business in safe and predictableways.
And I can safely say this yearhas kind of really helped open
(06:26):
that up that lens of seeing thatthere's a lot of stuff out
there that we think we'resupposed to be doing.
That's just vanity metrics, andeven within that, most of these
social media platforms haveturned into pay for advertising,
and if you're going to be doingthat, jason has better strategy
(06:46):
.
If you're going to be spendingthat money somewhere, jason's
telling you where to do that,and so that we're all kind of as
a collective, aware of whereour time is spent and our
resources are spent, and that wearen't chasing something that
someone's advertising on aeither a TikTok or a social
media platform to spend money on.
(07:07):
So those would be my highlightsfor 2024.
Jason Lockhart (07:11):
Miriam.
So what about you?
What are your highlights forlast year, 2024?
Mirjam Lippuner (07:39):
media before this, before this year, and that
really has kind of taken abackseat, and I think, not just
in our content, but in contentoverall that you see, in
marketing and PR, and that's fora very good reason, obviously.
But if I look at our episodes,I'm like there's definitely
there's a lot of AI, and I agreewith Jason, I've learned so
(07:59):
much from Maria about AI thisyear, like on the podcast and in
the academy, where we teach alot of AI strategies as well,
and I'd say that's theoverarching umbrella of
everything really that hashappened this year, because it
impacts everything.
(08:20):
Funny side note I was workingon something yesterday and I was
in chat GPT and my twins camehome from school and I asked
them so do you use AI in school?
And they said no, no, becauseeverybody screens for it, you
know, and you're not allowed to.
They're like do you use AI?
And I'm like I use it all thetime, but in legitimate ways,
(08:44):
you know.
And I said to them it's likewhen you get there, I will teach
you how to use it, you know.
So it's okay and it's actuallyhelpful.
And I think that's exactly howwe approach it when we teach our
listeners and our clients howto use it, because I love the
episode that's about saving time, because I think that's the
crux of so many things, becausenobody so much time.
(09:13):
It makes me so much moreproductive.
It's kind of insane.
So I'd say, listen to all theAI episodes that we did this
year.
If you haven't, then my favoriteepisode that was very different
from everything else that we'vedone was actually the one with
Dr Katie where we talk aboutcreating better work experiences
(09:33):
, and I loved it just becauseit's more of like the 5,000 foot
view, whereas normally we'relike into the nitty gritty of
how to actually do stuff and Ithink that's very important.
But it's also important to takea step back and think about how
you run your business and howyou can create the best possible
(09:55):
environment for the people thatwork for you and yourself as
well.
So I thought that was veryinteresting.
That was in October, so it'svery recent.
I also loved the photographyepisode with Tori Sigemeyer.
It's so relevant.
It's so relevant and in today'stime, where really the burden
(10:18):
of getting photography forprojects is on the designers and
the people who work on theproject, no magazine is going to
come in and shoot it, not no.
But there's maybe a couple ofmagazines out there that still
have budgets and capabilities togo and actually shoot projects.
(10:39):
Otherwise the burden's on youto get professional photography
that you can place in the media,so that episode's super, super
important.
(11:05):
Then on the PR side, obviouslythere were a lot of episodes
about Harrow and the death ofHarrow and the birth of other
platforms like Source of Sources, and there's still so much
chatter going on in the world ofPR and things are still a
little bit in flux.
Every it's things are still alittle bit in flux.
But HARO officially is dead nowand kind of connectively, it
was the platform that HARO livedon.
After it was bought out byCision.
(11:27):
They officially announced thatthey're closing that.
So the HARO is dead for good.
And mostly I would recommend nowthat people focus on source of
sources because it's up andcoming and it's what HARO used
to be and I think that's what'sgoing to be most important going
(11:48):
forward.
But we'll keep an eye on it andI'll be sure to keep you
updated.
But that's definitely been.
It's a moving target and itmakes it a little bit
challenging to stay on top ofthings, but we'll make sure to
keep you in the loop on anythingthat's happening so you know
where to go for the most currentmedia opportunities.
(12:10):
But yeah, I'd say that was it.
Ai, dr Katie were my favoritesfor the year.
Jason Lockhart (12:18):
So, as our audience, you've heard from us.
Now we want to hear from youwhat were your favorite episodes
of 2024?
There's a lot to choose from.
We're up to 131 episodes as ofnow, so it's been a long road.
We want to hear from you whatdid you like this year?
We have a lot planned.
(12:38):
The next episode actually isgoing to be on trends for 2025.
That's an NKBA webinar thatI'll be handling on January 21.
So I'll have the link withinthe show notes so you can
register for that if you want toattend.
But we're going to be talkingabout what the marketing trends
for the year.
So stay on the lookout for that.
Like I said, we want to hearfrom you.
(13:00):
We want to hear what yourepisodes were that you liked
last year and what do you wantto hear from us this year.
Feel free to reach out.
We want to hear from you and ifyou have any questions at all,
let us know, and we hope to hearfrom you in two weeks on
Designer Discussions.
Maria Martin (13:15):
Did you know that your client learns 80% of what
they will know about you beforethey ever contact you?
Now imagine when your potentialclient searches for the perfect
kitchen remodel.
Will they find you or yourcompetition?
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Our Designer DiscussionsAcademy membership with your
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(13:39):
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We hope you've enjoyed thisepisode of Designer Discussions
and all of the helpfulinformation.
Subscribe to our podcast, leaveus a review and share it with
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We look forward to having youback next week.
For more information on thepodcast and the Marketing Studio
(14:01):
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