227: Using Your Past to Create Your Story
Michele 00:00
Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to Profit is a Choice. Joining me on the podcast today is Ericka Saurit. She is the founder of Saurit Creative, which is a boutique brand marketing agency. This is really going to be such a fun discussion. We’re going to talk about story, we're going to talk about leaning into that story and inviting people in. She has such an honest and curious approach. I love that. I really think you're going to learn a lot not only about your brand and marketing, but about being able to invite people in to share the story and to feel a part of it, and to use words and emotions to do that. Enjoy the podcast.
Michele 00:53
Every day, empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company financial health, and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background, as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design, industry, educator, and speaker, I coach women in the interior design industry to increase their profits, regain ownership of their bottom line, and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit is a Choice.
Michele 01:28
Hi, Ericka, welcome to the podcast.
Ericka Saurit 01:30
Thank you for having me, Michele, I'm super excited to be here.
Michele 01:33
Me as well. We had a little bit of a conversation prior to coming on camera. We both are looking to serve and to support the industry very much in the same way very parallel, if you will, right. finance and marketing.
Ericka Saurit 01:49
And do you have a background in tech, too?
Michele 01:51
I do. Ten years in tech and then started a tech company in the fall. So lots of tech going on over here for sure.
Ericka Saurit 01:59
It's kind of an essential skill right now. You know, it really, I mean, even just the basics, it's important that we were just talking about, you know, the how people's attitudes about, you know, meetings virtually have changed, and their habits, but now just getting people on Zoom is great, you know, and everyone feels really comfortable. So it's, great.
Michele 02:19
It is. Tech has changed. It's interesting, I found a notebook, where I, how many years ago, 24 years ago, I guess almost 25 years ago, I was going through the process of determining if I was going to stay in tech, or if I was going to come home and raise my family. And I found my journal at the beginning of this week, where I was journaling, like, if I step out, I know I can't step right, I can't go step out for 10 years and step back where I was I'm going to have a tech event in tech, I'm going to have to step in a different place. And so I'm reading my entry to myself where I was processing, that if I'm taking that step out, I don't get to go right back, like it's an out for a while now that I couldn't come back in tech, which I've proven that I have and that I can. And many managers say, which is awesome. But not in the same way. Because it's continuing to move and evolve. Yeah, that's the beautiful thing about interiors, I think, though is even though it approves or evolves or changes, you can step back in Yes, but the tech part has become so huge. I know, I'll just put it out there. Like we're having trouble in some of the companies that I've been working with and supporting at hiring employees over 45 who don't know how to do Word or Excel like basic computer skills, you know, Google folders, like the whole idea of transitioning the whole system of it, it is overwhelming. And they, either don't have an app or a natural aptitude because it wasn't what they had grown. Yeah. But they don't all have a desire to figure it out. Like they just don't want to.
Ericka Saurit 04:09
It's a big learning curve.
Michele 04:11
It's a learning curve. But it makes me makes me think of when I was a little girl, we got one of the first VCRs that came out. And then I can remember my parents getting to the point where they're like, Oh, these electronics, we don't know how they fit together. And we kind of giggled at that. Well, now our kids are coming at us. What do you mean, you don't know how to do that on your phone? What do you mean you don't, right? So it's just it's all shifting, but it is such a big part of our business, whether it's finances, digital marketing, client engagement, Process Management, whatever it is. So tell us a little bit about your journey and how you got to where you are because I know that all of that plays a part for you as well. Yeah,
Ericka Saurit 04:56
I have an interesting path but of course, now it all makes sense to me. I began, I went to art school, just out of high school, college, knowing that I wanted to be a professional studio artist, I studied sculpture. And what I was doing in art school was really environmental sculpture really, I was looking, I was thinking, I don't know, if, if I look back on it, how successful the pieces were, but what I was thinking about was like, How did these experiences with these kind of larger sculptures make people feel? And how did it? How did the environment I was creating? How is it shaping, like, how they walk through the gallery? Or how was it walking, like, how was it, you know, affecting their, the, you know, the movement of their body, which is kind of a fundamentally interior design focused point of view. And I took some interior design courses at the very end, you know, like when you have leftover electives. At the end of my very last year of art school, but the university where I went, the interior design school was, it was not in it was not in the art school. So it was, it was in the School of Human Environmental Science, which is the perfect place for it in some ways. But at the time, I didn't see, I wasn't getting to what I really wanted to get out of it, which was, you know, kind of the softer side, the decor side, I really wanted to kind of understand more about that. And so then I went, I graduated with a fine art degree. And I went to, I moved to New Orleans, and I was going to live, you know, the life of a studio artist, which I realized really, really soon after moving there, that was not going to be possible. So I got a job working kind of almost full time in a landscape architecture firm. And that changed my life because I was exposed to the, the business of design, how designers think, you know, I saw that it was both ways very creative, and very analytic. And it was a, it was a small firm, it was run by a husband and wife. And then they had a team of, you know, designers and they have kind of a landscape kind of built in team with it. And I just thought like, you know, designers and artists come from the same place. And I had never had this realization before. So they really encouraged me if I wanted to, you know, explore design to go back to school. And so I did, I went back to graduate school for interior architecture, back to North Carolina. And I ended up being able to integrate my fine art background with interior design and the idea of, you know, what might happen in space in a gallery space in a virtual environment. And I wrote the very first, this was at the turn of the century, the very first digital thesis for the University of North Carolina at the time. Now there's, I mean, everybody’s digital, of course, but I did a whole virtual museum experience and did all of my research based on that, and then spent some time in Finland trying to understand, you know, light. So my, my thesis project was the Museum of virtual light. So at the time I was learning, you know, how to model space and how to understand how to, you know, research and communicate what it took to talk about this thing in a world where people, people were really fighting technology around the year 2000. You know, they were really like, we had Y2K, this was going to end. Remember, almost,
Michele 08:23
no, no, I remember. I was writing up just a short blurb about my life for a couple of different groups that have asked for it. And I was writing it this morning. And I wrote in there about Y2K, when the tech world was supposed to end, my husband had actually lost his job at the end of 99. Know how they were all going through and laying everybody off, they, they had put a hold on all hiring. So he could not get a job because nobody would hire because they thought it was all going to crash, you know, as it rolled out. And the first thing they did in January was they hire everybody back frenzy, and everybody got hired back. But that Christmas was probably one of the most difficult Christmases for us. Because we were worried that the tech, I mean everything. Every everything was going to change.
Ericka Saurit 09:14
Everything was going to change. I wrote down
Michele 09:17
everything just Yeah, it was it was bad. Our stocks, everything just plummeted over the tech. It was terrible. And now we look back and look where tech is compared to that and we were worried back then.
Ericka Saurit 09:29
We were worried back then. And isn't it funny how you know 2010 We saw kind of a repeater of this and now in 2020 It's like everything like this 10 year cycle for tech is be warned. Yeah, predict what will happen in 2030. But let's be prepared for whatever it is.
Michele 09:47
I'll say yeah. You know what, I think even just hearing that first part of your story, Ericka is when you mentioned about I can't say because I don't have that fine arts background but I can't say that I ever thought about, it makes perfect sense. But the studying of how your body moves when you see art and those kinds of things. But I know what happens to me when I'm, I love going to like behind Museum of Art here in Atlanta. Wow, I feel Yeah, I know how I feel when I go in. And I know what it does to me, we have the Monet exhibit that has come through here. And we have a couple of others that are like that, and I love impressionist art, like it's just for whatever reason, um, you know, high school and college in the 80s, it speaks to me, it was what I guess my art teacher loves you, she kept putting you in front of us. But having gone through the Van Gogh experience, and I feel I feel D immersive. Oh, it is. That's why they're called immersive experiences. And you know, they have you in those and I feel my body leaning in and pulling back. But the thought to me when you said that was in some of these courses, it really is art and design, and business and sociology and anthropology and psychology. It's like, all the ologies Right, right. Because it are really whether it's written word, expressed word, visual, it it is, it's an expression of a deep thought a deep one a deep need something is meant to evoke, right? So just I mean, like, even the words that you use to describe it, have painted a picture in my mind.
Ericka Saurit 11:35
Oh, okay, it doesn't stop there. Because after I graduated, so I taught a little bit in graduate school, and I taught visual communication, right teaching students how to draw and how to, you know, communicate their ideas, to the professors, or to the panel, you know, to the jury, when you sit in front of a design jury, it eventually kind of leading to presenting to clients or employers. And then I taught kind of while I was working, after I graduated for several years in two different universities, kind of the same principles, how do you, you know, either leverage drawing, and we kind of started to move away from that as, as digital technology became more important, how do you know, create renderings? How do you create, you know, renderings with we were doing with markers, which was still kind of some of my favorite like hand drawn sketches with markers and watercolor love that. But it was also teaching Illustrator and Photoshop and how to really use 3d studio and all the different computer programs at the time to tell you know, tell stories about space, and then presenting it. And so what I was teaching was, really, it doesn't matter. I mean, it matters. Of course, the even the best ideas, even the, the very best interior design will not matter if you can't present it, if you can't sell it to your client, if you can't sell the right story. If you can't sell the right benefits of the design itself. If you don't have that language and that communication, however, it's done visually with words, oftentimes, your speaking, if you aren't able to present that and really catch people and get that story straight. In the first few minutes. You lose them, and it's really hard to get them back. So I was teaching that at the time, I was working. And I started working for an exhibition design firm, called Ralph Appelbaum associates and what they're famous for what Ralph Appelbaum was really famous for was the Holocaust Museum. And in changing the way people experienced information about history, and I don't know if you've been there, if you're familiar with it.
Michele 13:47
I have been there. It's heavy. It is very, it's heavy.
Ericka Saurit 13:52
But that's kind of the point.
Michele 13:53
It was a heavy time and a heavy experience. Right. So to walk out of it and not feel heavy would actually have not done it justice. Exactly. I know we took our youngest son, it was too much for him to hold. And he had to take a step out at the time, just with his age and his ability to handle
Ericka Saurit 14:13
even children are heavy.
Michele 14:16
I mean, he doesn't school. So it wasn't like little but he he's a feeler. He's a deep feeler. And he, it was a lot. But it was it is still interesting that you say that is that and the 911 have been extremely impact powerful, powerful. Even the Pompeii exhibit like I go to a lot of those exhibits because I'm like, I want to understand I want to see I want to feel I want to experience a little bit just for that understanding of interesting.
Ericka Saurit 14:49
Yeah, that. So I had been doing other projects while I was teaching and also kind of on my own. And again, following up sort of on my thesis work. I was really curious. Yes, it was sort of my dream job, I actually went to the office. And, and sort of presented the work that I had been doing. And I had a two and a half hour interview that turned into a job offer. And it was kind of like, how this is amazing, this is my dream come true. And I ended up working with, you know, kind of a multi, sort of multi kind of disciplinary team of content producers, people who are, you know, historians, people were writing for the exhibits that we were doing, obviously, other interior designers product, kind of industrial designers to design, you know, the components, graphic designers, obviously, architects to help us with, you know, some of the bigger kind of spatial things that, you know, actually the museums themselves. And what I really took from that experience was, you know, those, of course, they need to be immersive, they were sort of shifting the way we understand either history, or science or even culture, right? We want to give people such an impactful moment that they don't forget it. So it's not it comes off the wall, no longer it's a timeline or something kind of like, you know, this happened first, and then this happened. And then this happened. Because that's not really the way everyone's going to get it. Right. But if you make it put away that
Michele 16:14
I think about it is yeah, the way I think about it is that we you're inviting us to join the story, not read the story. And some of it feels very much like, I've been to all the museums in DC, and they, they're nice, but I would consider them a static, like, here's a picture of a dinosaur. Here's where we found some bones, like moving on, right? You can read it and just move in these immersive experiences you, you feel like you're walking within the story. And I'll take the thing that my husband even said, because my children, we took them to so many museums growing up that they got museums, the tea, and they were like, don't take us do not again, only ones that they really, really liked after that was when we took them to Williamsburg, Virginia, because they got to walk through it's immersive, right. But when we did the Van Gough and some of the others, my husband was like, we went through that. So slowly, we're normally we're like, boom, looking, you know, to the left to the right, reading a little bit odd, you read that, no, got this. I got this, like, you know, back, go look over there. And then you're moving. Alright, we've been to the Country Music Hall that we've been we've done all the things. But these make you linger. They make a lane in like your lane in like your part of the story. And I think that's the what is so interesting about that particular work and the work that you do and help others. We want our clients ultimately to lean in to us, we want them to see the story of their home or of their experience. Right? We want them to have questions, right?
Ericka Saurit 17:55
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So I did that work for a while. And it was amazing for about 10 years all over the world, like China, I was based in Beijing and Shanghai. And then the opportunity to come back to the US. part of that I had been sort of pulled, I kind of tell the story, just as a joke, I sort of got pulled into the dark side of marketing. But what really happened was, they I think teams really realized that I was, I was good at telling stories, I was good at drawing, I was good at writing, I was good at presenting. And I was good at taking big amounts of information and distilling them down really quickly, either into like, literally into a tagline that everybody on the team could get, like in their head. And so everybody was kind of saying the same thing about the project. And I think what happened was that the marketing team was like, come with us, like, come, we need you to help us. And the more work I did, of course, the more you know, ways I learned just what was emerging at the time, obviously, email has been around for a long time. And it's one of my favorite ways, sort of timeless way to capture and tell stories about whatever it is you're doing services or products or museums or whatever, but I also was learning social media. And I was, you know, I was I was getting kind of all these sort of channels, this education, about technology about how to use it, but then taking some of the background I had in interior design and art and kind of making and creating and applying that into kind of like digital space. So this is where it all started to come together. And what I realized was, I really liked this and I do not want to do any more, you know, wall sections and CAD drawings. And I would much prefer to you know, understand and learn about this world and apply all of the you know, design knowledge that I have interior design knowledge and product knowledge and see what I can you know how I can help designers because what I saw, like I said, going back to when I was teaching was that I saw so many great ideas. Falling, you know, off the cliff, like getting ignored or being left, you know, off the table, simply because the designer wasn't able to articulate or communicate what the story was or what the concept or the principal or sort of that, like one benefit was. And I thought that's maybe this was my purpose, this is what I'm meant to do is I'm meant to help other people communicate their design ideas better, so that those beautiful ideas don't die. They don't go away, they don't die on the table. And they get they get to have a life. And that's what I've been doing for since Yeah, over 10 years. And I love it. And the more I learn, the more I'm able to bring to my clients. And I'm, yeah, it's it's my purpose in life. It's my mission. I'm really excited to have to have found my way here, even though it was, you know, it was not an untraditional path. But many people have this and, you know, I, I'm excited to to be delivering the work that I can, you know,
Michele 20:59
it's interesting, we talk about often how there are so many different avenues within any industry. And we're talking about the interior design industry right now. And, you know, I didn't come at it from a very traditional path, either, I would almost submit that most today are not coming at it from a very traditional path. I really do. I mean, I don't, I don't have any, I mean, I'm happy for the traditional path. But I'm happy that we can make use of our varied experiences, to live out what's in our heart and the joy that it brings us in doing what we do. I even look back, I am a firm believer that God doesn't waste anything in our life if we allow it to be pulled together. So I look at the fact that I wanted to be a teacher and I now teach financials, but I wouldn't teach in a school system. I wanted to do math and science. And so I went to tech route did tech for 10 years, started a tech company, I wanted to be creative. And so I made window treatments and did like design. And, you know, I published a magazine and I was at spelling bee champ. And so all those things show up for me like I look at something and just see it, it just like jolted me. And I know that for some that that could be very much an irritant. But it is something that has been able to carry forward like pulling all of the things together, the love of numbers, the way you tell stories with words, I can tell stories with numbers, I can look at them, I can see, I can see what they're showing you like I can tell you where it's going to go, I can tell you how it's going to play out, I can tell you the changes we need to make to change the story, right? It doesn't have to stay that static story, I can tell you how to immerse yourself into the financials, like all the things that I can do. But it is from a 30 plus year history of looking almost looking at it from so many different angles and being to assimilate all of that together. But that's the beauty of growing as you may have growing in our knowledge base. You said something to Ericka, you said it multiple times. I don't know if you recognized it. But it was a good thing. But it's one of my words for the year. And that's why of course it's like hitting me. So I have three words that I'm focusing on for the year 2023. Kind, soft, and curious. Oh, and you kept saying I'm curious about this. And then I was curious about this. And so I'm seeing this, if I were to just look into the way that you've described things, I see you very much as an active learner, I see you as being extremely curious about your surroundings, and about what informs your opinions, and those surroundings. But I see you as an action taker just from the description of what you've given already. Because you're not just curious, for curiosity sake, you're curious. And then you take some action based on the information that you've gathered. But then I also see you as a sharer, because what you just described to me is and so then I taught a class, and then I went here, and then I said, Let me inform you, and then I get pulled into this, right? That's very much the way I am. I'm like, if I've got the knowledge if I've got the goods, I want to give it to you. I don't want to just hold it back. Yeah. Where do you think that? Did? Did I nail it? Did I get it right?
Ericka Saurit 24:21
Thanks you for that? I don't know that anyone's ever told me those things. And what a really beautiful analysis. Thank you. Oh, I affirm going to take that. I really appreciate that. Thank you
Michele 24:32
Should I really want to affirm you in that? Thank you. You invited me into that part of your story by sharing your story like that. As they say, I'm picking up what you're putting down and that's what it felt like you're putting down which is interesting because like I have like words that I want to continue to build into my story. So I told you sign kind soft and curious. I have him on a sticky note over here so that I can remember, but I want to be a kind leader, a gracious man and you're an active listener, a decisive action taker and a supportive guide. And so I work.
Ericka Saurit 25:07
Okay, you've already done all those. What are you going to do for the rest of the year?
Michele 25:12
But I say that because it's about building for me, it's about building these things intentionally into my story. Right? And so it's just it was sweet to hear you share your story and to hear that, but I'm curious. Now, I'm curious. Where do you think that, um, that curiosity comes from for you? Have you always had that as a child? Like, what is it that has? Because that's what's probably also making you hugely successful with your clients is you're curious about their story. You're curious about their path, you're curious about? What makes them tick? Have you always been that way?
Ericka Saurit 25:48
I think so. And I think most people who are creative, and creative doesn't have to manifest itself as like an artist or musician or writer, like, I think some of I mean, you'll, you know, this, like some of the most brilliant minds, in finance and in math, and in physics, and in any kind of, like, any industry, creativity is essential to innovation, right? It's about asking questions. It's about putting kind of maybe disparate things together in a way that nobody helps us really thought about. And creativity is what, what makes, you know, all of us. kind of continue. Well, maybe I'm just speaking from my own perspective, but creativity is what a curiosity is what has really driven me forward. Without an, I don't know, somehow curiosity combined with I mean, I'm quite shy. I'm very much an introvert, although I've had to become an extrovert over the last few years. But creativity and curiosity has what has kind of made me very bold, which is great. It's an honor to interact, you know, being such an introvert and being shy, that I've just, you know, my, I've been compelled to find answers are to find, I know what I needed to know. And maybe I think a lot of creative, creative people would agree like they have the same drive.
Michele 27:15
I would I totally agree with that. I always laugh because I have always been creative. And I think I've always had that entrepreneurial spirit when people asked me Oh, you started your first company in 2000. I'm like, well, technically as an LLC with the government. But if you go all the way back, like I'm selling girl scout cookies over here, I've got a side gig as a babysitter, I was braiding the girls hair in high school, I was in middle school, and they would come over because I could French braid and have had French braid their hair before they went out on their dates or whatever they were doing. And then I can remember in college making wreaths for people remember when the like twig roots birthday, all that I'm making those in my college dorm room to take home to make side many, I'm selling my color coded notes on my IBM Electric. So like I'm constantly doing something, and then selling it to somebody. So it makes me laugh when I think about that. But when I look at the story that you've just told, alright, so you started, I would, I would say one of your big first moments was looking at the physical world of art and sculpture, and how it makes people feel. Now you've moved into more of using words, to tell a story evoke a feeling and create a brand creating motion and draw people in? Why do you think words matter so much? Especially in visual industry? Right?
Ericka Saurit 28:39
This is a topic that so many people feel like it's very polarizing. In fact, I've seen Yeah, well, I've seen a lot of designers say, no, no, no, no, I've just got so many great, you know, I've got all my images and professional images are up. And, you know, I have them all on my website, or I have them all on Instagram. And the captions don't matter. You know what I say? It doesn't matter. And I say, not true. Not true for two reasons. And sometimes if they don't hear one, they'll hear the other. Well, the first reason is, not everybody is visually able, like not everybody accepts information visually, they can see something. And you know, we're trained to look at images and see certain things and see, you know, we read images in a very different way than someone who isn't, who doesn't have a design or an art or creative background. So I'll just say that first. And what you show in your image is a very sort of, again, curated moment in time that your words can help accompany and tell what you know what, what did you do for this client? Like what exactly did you do? Someone may look at it and say, Oh, they just painted the space, which is could be right or could be totally wrong, right? You don't want me people making assumptions about what was done. So the words can help you bring people into the story even even further and help you explain your capabilities. What kind of work you really want to do. If you are doing full renovations and someone sees an image and thinks that perhaps you're just doing you know, part of the space, you use words to, you know, tell a better story, tell a bigger story tell exactly what you did. And then my approach for that is always to tell that story in a way that's going to emotionally resonate. Going back to again, creating emotional experiences, emotionally resonate with your client or your ideal client. So you want to be saying, you know, if you want to work with more families, if you're showing, you know, family rooms and your showing spaces, you want to talk about togetherness, you want to talk about belonging, you want to talk about the things that someone who is looking for an interior designer who focuses on building homes for families is really going to resonate with and that language is really, really important. So you have that opportunity, I think of it as an opportunity to add words and to, you know, double tell your story. But the technical side of that is, and you probably know that words help with SEO words are going to do a lot of organic marketing for you that you don't need to pay for, you know, they're gonna help with Google indexing your website, they're going to help with providing keywords, if you're clever about how you write it for your area, or for, you know, the types of work that you want to do. So words are really valuable, in many ways, multiple ways.
Michele 31:28
You know, it's interesting years ago, we've seen the pendulum swing years ago, websites were words, words, words, words, words, and a couple of pictures. Because we didn't have I'm going to say the power to load too many pictures, or it slowed everything down. So everything was like you're waiting on the spinning just to get to the next page. And so we were encouraged back in the day to load it up with words and sprinkle in pictures. Well, then the pendulum almost went the other way. Where the websites for like, don't say a word, your pictures will speak for themselves. They'll buy a flash. Yes, yeah. And so that's what we had over there. The truth is probably like anything, somewhere in the middle, I've been on the jury for multiple projects where you were, like WCA and IWC E, and all these different IDs, where we were looking at pictures of interiors, or if window treatments are of something and we were trying to make a decision. And I always tell people, when they asked me, Michele, you been a juror on those. What's the winning secret? I said, the winning secret is to describe what and the pain described the pain and describe how you how you solved it. Because if not, there are some of the pictures even just last year, I remember a picture coming up at one of the awards banquets. And when we looked at it, it, we were like, Why did that win? It is so simplistic. I don't get it. Like it looked like something that anybody could have done.
Michele 33:06
And then, and then dot dot, dot, dot, that's next part,
Michele 33:10
They started describing the problem, they started showing the before pictures, they started showing where moldings came in, and where they were stopped here and stop there. They started showing where they had to be creative and where the engineering came in, to make it look so simple. And by the end, we were all like, oh, my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. But if they had not taken us into the story and down the path, we would have looked at something and we would have drawn a completely different conclusion than we drew by the end. I've also looked at pictures. And it was remember how I said a minute ago, going into some of these museums, you feel like you're walking up and I'm here and the pictures there and I'm looking at it and I'm walking further back. That's what happens without words, we just take it as the whole, right? We don't either narrow down, we don't look at an a better piece of it. We don't even know the story. We're writing our own story. And that's what I tell people in the absence of your story. Everybody will write their own challenges you beautifully said, you don't know if the story they're writing aligns with the one you're telling. Just like when you send somebody an email and they don't respond, what story do we start telling ourselves, they're angry, they're mad, they're going to cancel Sunday, blah, blah, blah, we go into all the negative storytelling when they just were away busy afternoon. I'm going to get to it later. Sorry, got overwhelmed, or my kid was throwing up and I couldn't get to my email. I mean, it's not it's rarely the story we tell. And so that's the beauty of using the words to tell the story. Now, I will say there are times when the captions are four pages that you're like, yeah. I'm um, but it doesn't mean we go right from one to the other to wordy or no words. Go somewhere in the middle.
Ericka Saurit 34:56
Yep, completely agree.
Michele 34:58
So how do you get your don't worry straight, how did they start determining what story they even want to tell in those pictures? Because, again, they can take that story in a lot of different pathways, right?
Ericka Saurit 35:09
Yep. So one of the things, before we start with that I always start with, Okay, before you can start to message your brand, and that messaging has, obviously, a series of pillars or tiers, by the time you get down to writing captions, or writing the about even the about copy on your website, or writing kind of more detailed description, you have to sort of get to the top of the pyramid, and the top of the pyramid is like the strategy of who you are, as a business. Many people have a different, you know, a different approach, it starts with values, I will certainly agree that you really have to understand the why of what you're doing, in order to really to be able to do most anything in your business properly with a system 100%, you say, with integrity, and I will completely agree with you, you have to have that kind of guiding light that benchmark for what, what really matters to you most, those values will help you, you know, make decisions about your business. But I also start to say, Okay, there's a difference in thinking about your business, it's a business mindset versus a brand mindset. Because a brand is going to or having a brand mindset is going to allow you to have a create a series of emotions and feelings and associations about your business, in the hearts and minds of your clients. So brands are doing this, whether we like it or know it or not, like if you look around the room, anything that you've purchased, and made a decision to bring into your life clothing, your toothpaste, your car, your desk, I know designers are crazy about like pins, and you know, there's a brand affinity for those your running shoes. All of these are brand decisions that have been made, because a brand has created a narrative that helps us understand an affiliation for that thing. And you can do that with your design, interior design service brand, also, as well as your product brand. And that's really what you want. Because when people are making a decision, and there's always a decision between, you know, sort of person a person B, Person C, you don't want them to be. And I'm sure you have a lot to say about this, but you don't want them comparing you on price. And if they're also comparing you on style, you know, when that pendulum of style swings, you go out of style, and then you're left with what so you really want to be thinking about your your business as a brand. So that it can help you strategically make decisions that over time will resonate with the right people. And I have a three kind of a three part system for getting to figure out that strategy, because the strategy is what keys into directly into the storytelling, whether it's a tagline, or it's captions for your you know, social media, or captions for your photo and your portfolio, or you know, any other kind of narratives, what you say at a party, what your what your employees say, when they're saying like, if they're on an airplane, and someone asked them, what do you what do you do? Like, oh, I work in an interior design firm. Okay, that's great. There's no more questions asked about that. But if you say, you know, if you're if your employees are repeating this sort of value that your business is based around, that's providing a benefit, it's going to start a conversation. And that's that, going back to that kind of leaning into a story. That's really what you want people to be doing, because that's also what makes you unforgettable. That's what makes you different, and unique, and all of the things that you want, right? But that kind of mindset of shifting from just business thinking to thinking of yourself as a brand, will, you know, be the beginning of the work that we do.
Michele 38:55
I think some of it and that was very beautifully said I think some of it too comes down to us being willing to invite in curiosity, not being afraid of what they might say and ask us because we are so secure, and that every single person that I coach, we start at their why? And I know that there are some that have got their feathers a little ruffled when they come in, and I've been working for 25 years. And why are we going back to that? And I'm like, because that is the amount that it flows from that is it right? Whether we're making a marketing decision, a hiring decision, a process decision or a financial decision, it must be in alignment with why you're here and what you're trying to do. Because anytime we start, you know you talked earlier about disparate kind of things. The minute we start making disparate decisions, it's not going to pull together you Boston, it is not going to gel, you're going if you feel like an octopus now and you're all Ricci is going to get nothing but worse. And so when we can Go back, even just to review it, it doesn't mean we're going to change it, I review mine at least every six months, I go back and reread it. And if somebody comes to me with like a collaboration or some big deal, I pull mine out and read it before I even dig in. Because I want to make certain that I want to be known for the way I want to be known. I want my billboard to be my billboard, for the brand and what I'm trying to do, and you know, there are times if we're not careful, we don't know who we are, we can be so sucked into somebody else's story, that we no longer have ours. And I worked at the Niners all the time. Yep, that's exactly right, who they have not been, you talked about a minute ago, that the more you learn, and the more you knew, and the more you kind of dug in, the more boldness that it gave you. And I tell designers, my goal is to give you like a steel rod and Your backbone, because you so know, who you are. And as a company, what you're here to do, and how you're going to serve, that pricing to me is tertiary is always at the bottom. Like, if I'm trying to make a price decision, then it's probably some commodity that's throw away that I don't care, because I know I can replace it. That's how I make those pricing, I can replace that. That's a shirt for one season, I'll wear it, I don't care, I'm moving on. When I'm trying to make another decision, I'm looking at value, quality, lifetime value, that's more important to me, then I look at price, under the, the framework of quality and value, right. And if we don't know that,
Ericka Saurit 41:39
I was going to say if you want to think about this, in marketing terms, if you are making, let's say you're, let's say you're considering the purchase of toothpaste, I mentioned this before, you're going to the grocery store, or wherever the pharmacy, wherever you're getting your toothpaste, and you're seeing all the choices of toothpaste, right, you know that toothpaste is only going to last you whatever a month, or however long your to your tube of toothpaste lasts. So your purchase, like the decision to purchase that is very short, the thought process you go through in your mind, not probably not so emotional, maybe it is maybe not, but really that purchase kind of the emotions around and the motivation for that purchase. Could be based on you know, things you've always used, it's easier, it could be based on price, right? But it's really short, you don't spend months and months and months in the in the aisle of the grocery store or wherever making a decision about toothpaste however, you do make a very, you know, your clients are making a very important and big investment, not just in their, you know what it's going to cost but in, you know, the risk, right, they're going to have to potentially move out of their home, they're going to have to relocate their family, they're going to have to, it's a, quite a,
Michele 42:54
you're going to have to live with these decisions for a very long time.
Ericka Saurit 42:58
So that means where, you know, Crest or Colgate not to call these brands out for any other reason other than they're just top of mind, they are having very fast messaging strategies that you can kind of very quickly remember, when you're in the grocery store making that really fast purchase decision. That's great. However, as an interior designer, you have to think like that entire span, let's say it's a month, let's say several months, let's say it's I mean, for some people see, it's a years before they learn about you, they meet you at a party, they see you online, they follow you, they're kind of absorbing all of the things that you're sharing with them, they're going to your website, they're seeing like, maybe they're looking at you on LinkedIn, or they're you know, they're finding all these different ways to be exposed to your brand. And you need, you want to make sure very sure that the message you're giving them every single time they encounter your brand over that course of time, no matter how long that is, that is consistent, that it's unforgettable that it's emotional, that it's beautiful, that it's sit, it's talking and communicating all the things that you find important about your brand and necessary for them to make the decision to choose you over someone else. So that's why having a very clear strategy, having a very clear point of view, having a very strong and bold focus on making sure your message is clear, is really important. And that's the work that we do is kind of help figure that out. And why it's important.
Michele 44:29
I think part of maturity of a business. Ericka is understanding that when business can't serve our people. And I know right, and I know that even as a business owner at the beginning, the goal here is especially when you don't have a lot of clients. You're trying to serve as many people as you can.
Ericka Saurit 44:47
Whoever walks in the door.
Michele 44:48
That's right. I used to always say if they show up breath and a checkbook like come on, then I really am right. But we do we tend to have a wider gait, if you will, yeah, when we're first starting, but sometimes we don't know, we don't know who we are, you mentioned, knowing your point of view, sometimes it's easy to start and not know your point of view, you're just starting, you're just trying to get it going, you're trying to craft your point of view and find your point of view, you haven't even had enough experiences to create it. And then you start going through that maturity process of business where you're like, Okay, number one, I can't serve everybody. Number two, I don't want to serve everybody
Ericka Saurit 45:29
If you work with a client, that's kind of not You're not your jam. And you're like,
Michele 45:32
that's right. Like figured it out, I hope we never see. You're going through the process where you think, and I used to tell this all the time, if it was a job you hated, do not put it on your website, because the thing that you hate doing, I swear to you, everybody's going to call you for that thing. Because whether it's a window treatment, or whether it was a design, if you promote it, and you put it out there, you were telling people, Hey, here's the billboard of what I do call me if you want the same thing. So you don't ever want to do it again, put it in a personal stack, and move on. But we're having to learn that, oh, talk to me for a minute talk to our listeners, because I really love the idea of having a business or a brand point of view, not just a message, we hear about having a message we hear about, you know, using our words like that's, we all hear it right. And I'm not discounting it, I'm just saying. But really having a point of view is different. Because a point of view can be somewhat personal. And it means you've got to stake a claim. And it means you have to be bold, and it means you need to be competent. And that's a little different than I can have this nebulous brand message that never really is about Michele and Michele's point of view, right? I mean, it is, and I know if I see this, and we're talking financials, and we're talking full on business strategy, because we go through all these same things we just don't focus in, right, I will take them and say, I can help you do all of this. And here's what you need to do in your marketing. So go call Eric, because I'm going to take you away, I can diagnose that we have a disconnect. But that's not the place that I'm carrying them forward. Right. So talk to us about point of view. And in a lifecycle of a business, some may come in with it, but many don't, especially those that are coming in with varied experiences. How do you see that being formed? When do you see that being formed in a business,
Ericka Saurit 47:31
I think, even if you you're just getting started, I mean, obviously, you're coming from somewhere, you didn't just you weren't just born yesterday, and you know, dropped into interior design, you have something match
Michele 47:43
of interior design,
Ericka Saurit 47:47
You have, you have come from somewhere, you have some kind of valuable experience that pivot that you may see as unrelated, or, you know, maybe potentially even negative. I, in my process, I asked designers and brands that I work with to do several exercises, we do them together. But one of them is to do a list of positives and negatives. And this is really important when you think about again, building a brand. Because when you think about like, let's say Disney or Apple, right, you probably have some positive and maybe some negative feelings, your feelings or associations that are wrapped up in that brand. But let's say if you do a list of positive and negative and you're brand new designer, maybe one of your negatives is people perceive me as really small or people perceive me as inexperienced, or people perceive me, as you know, not having enough whatever to get this job done. So I say, fine, like let's do a Martha Stewart where she went to jail, and was able to flip that.
Michele 48:49
she totally flipped the script, Didn't she like
Ericka Saurit 48:53
She did. She's working with Snoop Dogg. I mean, she really made herself relevant. She took something actually, that could have really sunk her brand out of business, it could have really put her out of out completely out of business. But she didn't let it. She took that as a message. And she said, Okay, I made a mistake, fine. But I'm going to move forward. And I'm going to be relevant to a different audience. Because I may have, you know, some of my, my audience may not appreciate that I went to jail for what I went for. But she took that negative and she turned it into a positive. And I think that you can take almost any negative write a background in finance, someone may say, oh, but you're not creative. But you know what? Absolutely. I am creative. And I'm also going to be able to make sure this project comes in on budget. You know, that's a positive that comes out of what could be perceived as a negative, right. So we do that exercise the early early, early and trying to figure out the messaging.
Michele 49:52
That is so important, Ericka, I want to just stop there for a minute and put like a verbal exclamation on that. Because I'll have people come to me and say, you know, almost apologetic while I was a nurse. And I'm like, awesome, that means you understand triage, that means that you can, that means that you can walk into a situation. And you can take a quick assessment, like, Okay, you're not bleeding out, but you're a little bit angsty. And like, maybe this isn't like you can do that you understand how to calm somebody in a time when maybe their feelings are big, I want you to look at all the skill sets that you've learned as a nurse or as a teacher, like, I see a lot of nursing teaching and all of those prefer and like, oh, my gosh, you care about people, you understand feelings and emotions, and you understand how to, like cut through the mud, if you will look at how you can now bring that into what you're doing in the interior design or window covering space into your creative business. And I'm with you, I think, for me, we're all made an image of God and us a creator. Therefore, we are creative, whether it's by word by D, by thought, just it's all creation, and learning how to harness that and own that is really a beautiful thing and be proud of it
Ericka Saurit 51:11
And know that, that so this going back to this process of thinking like your question of like, how do you start to think like a brand, when I was saying that there's kind of a like a three step strategy. This is part of it, that first part is to say, and really be committed to understanding what it is that makes you extraordinary. That's the first part. Some people call that the your differentiator.
Michele 51:34
I like the extraordinary better. Let's go that.
Ericka Saurit 51:37
I made these start in my business start with an E, because I'm Ericka, and it gets easier for people to maybe remember these three E's. So the first one is extraordinary. Like, what did you do? Whether it's nursing, or teaching, or finance, or whatever that background? Is that made you different? How do you come into this, right? And you really call it out? And we go through a whole process of really getting down to? What can you bring from that forward? And what's going to be relevant. So the second step of this is, what's going to be that going back to that emotion, what is that emotion, connect an emotional connection, that you are going to be able to articulate about your work and the kind of work that you want to do? That's going to resonate with your, let's say, people say, ideal client or target client or the client that you really want to be working with, or right. So when I have been doing this, like I said, for many years, both as an interior designer, and then in the marketing profession, where we look at specifically, these core emotions are those motivations are the drivers behind what make us and I will say, the purchase decision. So we talked about, you know, purchasing toothpaste versus purchasing a sweater or purchasing, you know, interior design services, the purchase decision of how, what you understand about what someone's mindset is, before they get to you. And, you know, is there a match, first of all, but I've identified five that, that I work with my clients to really get deeply into when you purchase toothpaste, or when you do and I'm not certainly not the overall author of this kind of work. It's psychology, it's, you know, consumer brands have really kind of narrowed down, they have like 16, or 17, core emotions for what drives people to make purchases. And they really understand that, and that's how they're able to create marketing messages that speak to you. But I took that research, and I applied it to interior design services. And I thought, are there ones that keep recurring over and over again, what have I seen in my career? What am I seen in my practice? What have I seen with all the designers that I work with, and the brands that I work with, and I narrowed it down to five. So I think there's five sort of core emotions that your clients, one of them, sometimes two that they'll come to you about? And the third one is the idea of experience, how do you take all of this and apply it over? And we started to talk a little bit about the funnel of marketing. But how do you how do you take all of this messaging and apply it to each step of your process of communicating your brand marketing it whether you're on your website or social media? How do you apply it to each of those places to make sure that if it's a multi year, kind of thought process for them before they call you when and say I'm ready? Are you making sure that that message is consistent?
Michele 54:39
So, Ericka? Oh, that sounds so intriguing to me. But I am curious if our listeners are out there today, and they're thinking this resonates with me like that's the story I want to tell. I want to find out my point of view, I want to be able to not just market and not just create a brand but I want to be able to have a strategy for this right and somebody So let's be honest, marketing strategy sometimes are not quick they are longer processes just like financial strategies. I think sometimes we think of the marketing processes in and out in a fast and not saying there aren't some of some of those things that they can be just like, just like over here I can have you cancel a subscription, we can get a fast financial win. But that doesn't mean that it's going to change the entire trajectory of your business. Right.
Ericka Saurit 55:24
That's right. I think that's really well said, thank you.
Michele 55:26
For one thing.
Ericka Saurit 55:27
Yeah, in that, that framework, it sounds great.
Michele 55:30
Well, I think we have some fast wins. But it we're looking at a longer game here as well. And in all areas, and we just need to acknowledge that. So if somebody's listening today, and they like me are like, Okay, this is exciting. This is interesting. And I like your vibe, I want to hang out with you. How can they find you? Where are you? Where are you hanging out these days? In the digital world, of course, right?
Ericka Saurit 55:52
In the digital world, yet, I have a website, obviously, it's www.sauritcreative.com. And I have tons of, you know, information. I love content, I've got a media page full of things like articles and previous workshops, people can kind of dig into that, or they can find me on Instagram @sauritcreative SAURIT. And then I also do I have a brand audit, which is like a template to help you see all on one page, where your how your brand message might need to be adjusted. If perhaps you know you have never sat down and really none of us have until you do this. Sit down and put all this Yeah, put all this on one page. And it sort of prompts you to look across, you know, all your social channels, your email, signature your business card, what you say at a party, when you introduce yourself what a client might say about you when they refer you to someone else. You know what, when you Google yourself, what comes up so that you make sure that that message that you're putting out about what you do and why it's valuable? Again, it's you're not just describing I do Interior Design Services. Okay, so what? Like, why should I care? So you see all of this on one page, and then you get a really good, you know, a really clear kind of overview of where you need to focus the message and get your story straight.
Michele 57:20
Amazing. And they can have access to that. It's free.
Ericka Saurit 57:23
Yep. On your website downloaded. Yep. sauritcreative.com/brandaudit AUDIT it's all one word. Yeah. And it's easy to do probably do it in like less than half an hour. Very informative.
Michele 57:39
I'll put all that in the show notes for them. They'll have access to all of that. Well, this has been a fun conversation of like, I could sit here for hours and continue talking to you. Like thank you for sharing your story.
Ericka Saurit 57:52
You're welcome, Michele, thank you for having me.
Michele 57:54
You're so welcome.
Ericka Saurit 57:55
It was great, I enjoyed it a lot.
Michele 57:57
Me to have a good day. Bye.
Michele 58:02
Ericka, thank you so much for such a fun conversation. I had to stop and check the time or we could have kept going. It was really great to be invited into your story to see how curiosity has led you down the path that you've taken and also how you've been able to use the different aspects of your past as well as your training and to tie it into something that is serving the interior design industry in such a huge way. For those of you that are listening, if you're looking for a strategy around your full business and financials and that kind of thing I would love for you to also check us out over at scarletthreadconsulting.com go out there and do a financial health survey. Check out our cash flow position document. Learn to understand the financials in your business. Learn to understand the story of your numbers. And if you want to understand the story of marketing, check out what Ericka has. Because both of us in our own way would love to be able to support you and your business. And here's what I'll always tell you profit doesn't happen by accident. Profit is a Choice is proud to be part of the designnetwork.org where you can discover more design media reaching creative listeners. Thanks for listening, and stay creative and business minded.