Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, we're talking with Heather Prestanski from Ontario, Canada, where she runs a great design business.

Heather's an interior designer who helps people get the best designs and the best outcomes when they're remodeling their home. It's become a very successful business, and although she's been in the industry for some time, this new business, so we talked a lot about target markets and an approach to making sure she's establishing a brand.

You'll hear how we define that term to resonate in the minds of the people who happen to live within a radius of Windsor, Ontario, where she's focused, and we also talked about some very specific target audiences and how to really stand out to a very specific group of people.

As we describe in our Profit Activators, this is really a plan to dominate your category.

I really enjoyed this conversation. There's so much potential in this business, and I you're going to get a lot of ideas from it.

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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 180

 

Dean: Heather?

Heather: Hi.

Dean: Hey, it's Dean. How are you?

Heather: I'm good. How are you?

Dean: I'm so good. How do I say your last name?

Heather: It's Prestanski.

Dean: Prestanski. Okay, perfect. Where are you calling from?

Heather: I am in Chatham, Ontario.

Dean: Chatham, Ontario.

Heather: Yeah.

Dean: Look at that. Are you a quarantined or? [inaudible 00:01:50] social distancing all of that?

Heather: Yeah, we are. Everything is shut down here in Ontario. So we're just staying home and trying to navigate business from home without being able to go to client's homes. So it's interesting.

Dean: Well, there you go. I grew up outside of Toronto in Holly Hills. So not too far from you.

Heather: Yes.

Dean: So familiar with Ontario.

Heather: Yeah, good.

Dean: So tell me about what you've got going on. It sounds like you've got some pretty cool stuff in the works here.

Heather: Yeah, so our business is only about eight months old, in Ontario. We had a design business in Windsor when we lived in Windsor, but made the mistake of calling that Windsor decorating and design. So when we moved we had just all that.

Dean: Wow.

Heather: Yeah. And so a few years later we opened up after we moved to Chatham for my husband's job and he now works with me. So we are servicing still the Windsor area. We opened up a design center in Tilbury, just kind of in between Chatham and Windsor. So that we could still service that area because the home pricing are a lot stronger there than they are here in the China market. So we provide interior design services, interior decorating services to mostly homeowners. We set a few commercial projects, but it's mostly homeowners that were focused on from renovations, new builds, redecorating projects and things like that.

Dean: Okay. And so how does your business work now from a marketing standpoint, if you kind of walk through your before unit, during unit, after - whatever level you're using, that kind of approach.

Heather: So we have been mostly using Facebook marketing to kind of get us started here. And that's been going pretty well. We've got the majority of our clients through organic Facebook. A little bit of paid Facebook ads and also through just people kind of driving down the street and seeing our sign. We intentionally put our studio in a very busy rural street close to the great lakes and things like that. So when people are going up to the cottages we are really close to that. So that has been the vast majority. Now in over the recent months we've written a book so that has been pretty good for getting some people onto our list.

We have an email marketing sequence that we lay out. Our goal is to get to 52 emails essentially in sequence so people don't start, kind of where everyone else is. And I'm sending an email every week and said they're starting greatest weakening of this -. And we are if you call it educating, motivating them, it's through those emails. So it's things like before and afters of our projects, they can see our portfolio work or we do educational pieces like, five mistakes people make when choosing a sofa, or a mistake to watch it for when you're building a house. We send out those types of articles regularly. So that's been pretty good. The other thing that we do is we host eight times a year. We have them planned out eight times a year, our workshops in our studio space so we can host up to about 20 people, the fairly small space.

So we have to limit that, but up to about 20 people in our space. And we do just different topics. So we just did one on how to choose pink colors because that's something that people really struggle with and we've done how to lay out your room like a divine pro. And that's always fun. And that's been a pretty good, it an interesting for us about that is that a lot of times the people who come through the DIY or so they're not necessarily our clients or the people who are going to pay us, but then they are referring their friends and family members to us as a result of - that workshop. So that's been really good for us. Yeah.

Dean: What's the best way that somebody can work with you? Like what's your sort of highest engagement or your average engagement, or how you charge, and how that works for you, who your ideal client is?

Heather: Yeah. So we have three different levels of engagement with our clients. The lowest level would be a consultation service, which is somewhere between 125 and $300 depending on what it is they need. So that's usually, they just have a single use, if they need help picking a pink color, or making a countertop or picking flooring or something like that. And the rest of it they're kind of doing on their own. The mid level would be what we call our design or our DIY design. So that is where we are essentially pulling together the design, the materials, a shopping list for them, but they're going out and they're sourcing, I want this so bad, I want this flooring, I want this, all of that.

And then our highest level, the projects that we're really looking for in the projects that we really love to do are the fall service. So that is, we are doing the complete design process which in the planning process ahead of time which includes coordinating with our trade partners. So let's say we're doing a kitchen, we'll come in, we do our initial concept in the kitchen. We bring in our trade partners so that they can quote it. They can tell me, I'm not crazy on the design I want to do, because designers, we have ideas and then the contractors go, yeah no you can't do that.

Dean: All right. Yeah, yeah.

Heather: We bring them in first before we present those ideas to the client. So they don't fall in love with something that they can't have. We then formulate the budget, we present that to the clients and say, this is how much it's going to cost to do what you want to do. They either, love it, they want to move forward or they follow their tearing go, Whoa, we didn't think it would be that much. And we kind of rework the design plan to suit their budget and then we come back with a full design presentation in where we are presenting, here is the cabinetry, here is the flooring, here is the tile, here are the lighting, we have all of the material samples and they can do a speedy photorealistic walkthrough of what it's going to look like and see exactly what it's going to look like.

So from there, once they've made all the approvals, once they've paid for the furnishings, the materials, all those things. Then we move into the project management phase, which is when we are helping to really be that point person with our contractor, really be that point person in scheduling and having people through the house. In terms of doing the work and pulling all of that together and then about three to four weeks. I guess in that time as well, we're also ordering all the furnishings. We are storing that in our warehousing facilities. We are checking things. I mean, about 20% of furniture I'd say comes in damage. So we also deal with all of that. So the client doesn't have to. And then about three or four weeks from the end of the project, we have a styling meeting with them and we just sit down and we really work through what their styling preferences are.

Do they like having family photos in this space? Do they not like having family photos in the space? Do they like a particular style of artwork? Do they like something that's a little bit more less than layered or do they like very minimalistic styling so that when we come in and do the final installation, that HGTV style reveal where our team's been there all day, loading up this space and then the clients come home and we kind of walk them through and there's tears and hugging. And, not hugging right now because of the COVID-19.

Dean: No hugging, yeah. Acknowledging and nodding -.

Heather: Nodding, acknowledging - keeping -. So those are the projects, those ones there are typically our fee on that is about 5,500 a room. And then we have a package price if they're doing three more rooms at a time because we have efficiencies in how we work. Our process is pretty firm and laid out. And if I skip parts of the process, then, we always feel it later. So we run the process from start to finish with every client in every room, no matter how big and how small and how well we've already known them from the past.

Dean: How much would, just to put it in context, what would be a right room, you're talking about somebody's redoing living room, or a family room or kitchen or. Is it all, is a room a room, or do you have -.

Heather: So for the most part of room is a room. However, we do have some efficiencies for let's say kitchen because we don't have to do the cabinetry drawings, we don't have to do the renderings, our kitchen partner can do that. And that saves me about 18 to 20 hours.

Dean: I got you.

Heather: So, we do have packages for kitchen and bath and basements that would allow us to have a little bit more efficiencies in that. And it depends on the level of service that they want us to take. So, if they just want us to design the kitchen and then they want to handle the project management and the filing and all of that themselves, then that's going to be a lot less expensive because about 80% of the time and the effort and the grunt work and everything comes in that project management phase and the styling and installation phase.

So for that it would be about 850 for us to come in and do the kitchen design and provide them with quotes from our trusted trade partners that we've worked with, we've vetted, we trust to say you can run with them or you can, you can run with whomever you'd like. But these are the people that we trust and these are the ones who have been in your home, and have seen the space.

Dean: I got you. So all of that, what is the average typical amount of money that you would make from one engagement? Do you call it an engagement or you what do you call it?

Heather: A project usually. Yeah. So it does depend on whether or not they're purchasing furnishings or not. So we don't make a lot on or really anything on materials. Typically, the contractor is going to make the mark up on material. So your heart stuff is as you're flying, you're having to trade all of that. But if they are buying furnishing, a lot of our clients will buy to the trade only furnishings. And so, on those projects we're typically making probably on average it's about eight to $10,000. And if they are doing design only, our average price point is about 1,500.

Dean: 1,500, okay. What's your like dream job, who's the best, if we could just like line you up with them. And first of all I'll preface that by saying, how busy are you? How much capacity do you have for taking on new work first off?

Heather: Yeah. So our process is laid out fairly well that we're able to bring in and grow our staff and for them to still get, Heather's designs for them to still have, my touch because a lot of the times those into the drawings and the CAD work and all of this things that we can easily outsource.

So we're able to take on, at any given time, it depends on the size of the project, but if we're looking at really a whole home, either new construction or renovation projects, which would be kind of our ideal. We can handle about four to six of those at any given time, given our capacity at our warehouse. And just given our capacity of our team and our project management staff and given kind of how long our process takes, that would be what we would be comfortable with. And depending on the size of the project. So, if they're building a house, if it's a semi-custom home, that's probably a six month project. But a full custom home where they're, going through the architect that can last a couple of years depending on the size of the home itself.

So our ideal person that we love to work with are both working professionals. So typically, both the husband and the wife are working as professionals. We mostly work with families and because our style's a little bit more, comfortable, relaxed and really our goal is around function and we call it conscious design. So we are not only thinking about how do we make the space look beautiful, of course that is an important priority. But it's also how do we make this space function for the family and how to considerations. We've been doing a lot of research and back in Paris with some behavioral psychologists around things like how things in our home are impacting mental health. How things in our home are impacting the way that our kids learn and the way that the kids listen to into their family and their anxieties.

So we work in a lot of those things. And then we also in that consciousness, I and really look at things like sustainability, environmental, and also just, how timeless is going to be. So protecting your investment versus putting something in. if you do tile everywhere, tile is really expensive. It's not expensive to put down depending on the tile. But it's very expensive when you have to start pulling it out because whatever's behind it is going to come up with it. -. Then you're redoing the whole floor, where you're redoing the wall behind the tile. And so you want to make sure that those things, the hard surfaces are going to be generational. They're going to be things that you still love. As the kids grow older and as your style evolves and changes we ensure that the things that we put in that may be more on trend are going to be things that are easy to update down the road.

Dean: And what do you think is motivating these families? Where are they doing remodels that you're working with? Or are you describing the whole, the new construction or the custom homes as well? Are you working with people who are just remodeling their existing home as well?

Heather: Yes. Definitely remodeling their existing home as well. It could go either way. But typically our process is the same. And it just depends on the builder that they, if they are working with a builder and in doing new construction, it's going to depend on the builder that he choose because each builder has a different way and some of them have in home in house designers. So those projects we have to kind of trade a little bit carefully because they have all their own projects. But when it comes to renovations, which is really, I would say our bread and butter as far as the renovation we love working on old homes. We ourselves have always lived in, a Victorian style old home, and kind of bringing those up to standard for today's living. And so it's either a complete gut renovation or it's just a simple redecoration of a rumor too. And that's probably our bread and butter over the new bells that are a bit more challenging because every builder is different.

Dean: One of these things that, how big of a geographic area, is the radius around where you are, that you typically work with people?

Heather: So it would be about an hour drive each way. If we kind of put Chatham as the bullseye in the middle. We would go to Windsor, which is about an hour towards the border. We would go to London, which is about an hour the other way, and we would go to Sarnia towards the other borders. So each of those would be about an hour radius from Chatham where we live. And our studio is located a little bit closer to Windsor in Tilbury. So, we've got kind of that radius to work with and we don't love to take projects aside of that -

Dean: Even seems like an hour away. Seems like a long way to go. What would be your ideal, if you could say, like if we were just shaping the ideal scenario for you?

Heather: Yes.

Dean: What would be... Is there work in Chatham or in a closer range, or do you pretty much have to go that far to get to where the jobs are?

Heather: There are the average? So Chatham was a very Lew color, low cost town to live in. So we don't have as many... Because interior design really is, it's a luxury service. It's not a thing that people need. It is that luxury service. And so we typically, if people are making that type of investment where they want to bring in a designer, they live in a home that's probably between $750,000 to a couple of million dollars, will be kind of the price point range. And there's not a lot of it in Chatham. So our ideal scenario would be to do the majority of our work in the Lake shore, Windsor area which is in about a 25 minute radius of our studio in Tilbury.

Dean: Okay, perfect. And the population, Windsor is pretty big. Right?

Heather: Yeah. About 250,000, maybe 300,000, yeah.

Dean: Yeah. That's plenty. So, part of what you look at is, I love that you can kind of narrow this down there. Because I'm always first of all select a single target market. And the difference is that often people misinterpret that by or where they get resistant to it is that they're trying to expand the services or expand the language that they use or the description of what they use about what they do to expand the number of people that can select them. Meaning that a designer would think, well, we do this and this and this and this in this one hour radius here. That it's expanding the possibilities of the number of people that could select you to do their design work with. And what we the to chance to do now, and this is why I'm asking about the choosing the specific people that you want, is that we could select those people and then do the marketing to just attract those people individually. Right?

And so there's a really interesting dynamic that happens when you start to constrain yourself and part of that, like artificially, there's no need for it, but you're doing it because it amplifies the message that you have. Now, one of the great things about the great gifts that we've been given in the last few years is Facebook, for advertising, right? And Instagram, social media for reaching your audience and to narrow things down. I don't know how you target your ads. I know you were mentioning that you do some Facebook ads. What's your approach? What are you doing new? Are you reaching?

Heather: So we typically focus our advertising mostly on that Windsor area, like the wizard order kind of thing. And so within that 20 or so minute radius of the studio for a couple of reasons. Number one, because we prefer to have our design presentations at the studio. We have the large screen, we have all of our samples. If they don't like something, I don't have to lug more samples over. I can just, you can just get it done in that one meeting. So it saves time for everybody.

Dean: And while you're there you can go see somebody else too, right?

Heather: Yeah.

Dean: If there's - efficiency and that.

Heather: Yeah. And just for our project management team, for the site visits and things like that, it does really, really help. If our more local and just, for our trades and everything else that helps for their scheduling and things like that too. Because we do like to use the same people, every single partner. So that really it helps us, it helps them and we just know that we can trust them when we understand how each other works. So, yeah. We do tend to target more that kind of Windsor area plus, 10, 15 miles. We have to be careful because we have to exclude the United States because you're on the Detroit border and we can't, work over in the US. And so we are kind of going and expanding our process on through our Facebook ads is, it usually starts with a blog post.

So we have five common custom kitchen mistakes that could cost you thousands. And if they click through and they read the ad, then we're going to re target them with an ad for our custom kitchen design package. We have an ad for how to budget for your refurnishing projects. So we know that those people are probably looking in the near future to redecorate and to buy. Furnishing furnishings are a great profit center for us. And then we can re target them with other articles and videos around before and after that we've done. And so that they can see some of the 3D visuals. They can see some of the furnishing that we can offer because they're not able to get it anywhere else. And that's a big reason that we are winning projects is, they say, I've been looking, I find the furniture I like online, but we can't get it shipped here to Canada, or if we can, it's like $800 shipping for a sofa.

And so we have the ability to get these things because we have the receiving and we do have the trade accounts to be able to access the furnishing that they can't access inside of furniture stores. So that's kind of every type of project in a home, because most people have a starting point, right? People are starting in either their living room, their kitchen or their bathroom or their basement. Not very often that, somebody goes, I need to hire a designer for my kid's room or for -. They kind of want to bring us in on the projects that are most important to them. So we're really focusing our marketing efforts on those rooms because once we get one room with the client, then they're much more likely to bring us in for their next project.

Dean: Absolutely. How would you rank it? The starting point? Would it be bathrooms, or kitchens or?

Heather: We've probably been brought on most often for living rooms and for kitchens. Living rooms people find how to lay out their furniture challenging and just finding specific - Yeah. So a lot of times they come because they can't find a great couch or they can't find a rug all the time. And we have over 10,000 rugs at our disposal that we can sample and kind of bring in. So rubs are really, really big. And the kitchen is just more, people are terrified to do it on their own.

Dean: I think you're right. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess that would be the same thing with bathrooms, that they would be the same kind of thing, anything where there's fixtures and all that kind of stuff. Right?

Heather: Definitely. Yeah. I'd say kitchens are probably, they're hot right now. Everyone seems to be doing their kitchen. Maybe it's a HGTV driven thing, but we definitely see more kitchens than bath. But once we're in on those two points, the living room or the kitchen, then we are off to the races with some of the other rooms in the house.

Dean: And so when you're running the ads, are you doing lead generation ads or audience building ads, like engagement or video ads that you're tracking views to an audience and then you're doing everything just on Facebook or are you gathering email as well?

Heather: So we have a couple of tools right now to gather emails. We have the budget guides. And we created that because I was asking people on our discovery calls and our initial kind of discovery sessions do you have a budget in mind? And either their budget was just the so far off of what they wanted or they couldn't even do it at Ikea kind of thing or it would be, I have no clue what is going on. And so we created a guide that we could use to walk through with people to say, this is what an inexpensive sofa would look, the cost, this is what a mid range of the costs, this is what a high end designer cost. And we'll usually work with people in a mixture of all three.

So that is often that they can get, we also, when they do book with us, we send it out in a folder as part of our welcome package because it's an important part of the discussion. Yeah. And then we also have the books, so for the book, they can buy it on Amazon, but we do have, if you get on our list, then you get the book for free. And that's what most people opt to do is they opt to and to actually opt in and they get the PDF version of the book. And the book is 10 common decorating mistakes that fill homeowners with regrets. So it kind of covers off wherever they're at in the starting point. And that gets them into the email sequence where we're just sending them something once a week, every week. And we do just start them on kind of day one. So I might be on week 12 and someone else might be on week one.

Dean: Like my world, everybody is now doing the podcast as our flagship so that everybody jumps in where we are right now. No, it's not a sequence type of -. Okay. And there's no right or wrong on that, the emails are going out. So this is all very exciting. How much does it cost you to get and opt in now if you're able to do the book offer or these budget guides or?

Heather: So it does depend. - anywhere between about $2.50, and about $5.50. It'll go up and down and kind of fluctuate in between that, but it doesn't really go much higher than above 5.50.

Dean: Perfect. And so that now you'd look at this as building that list of people who know you and like you, and I have an awareness of you that you've turned, you've created a list of visible prospects. And that goes a long way because getting design is not the same, you can't buy a list of people who are thinking about remodeling their home, right? Like, that's really where it is. But you know that by narrowing your audience to this, 20 minute radius around Windsor, that you've got a fixed kind of audience there. And what we really need to do, this is where, this is what's fascinating to me is that growing up in Canada, and spending up until five years ago, I spent every summer there like spend five months in. I've spent from May till October, in Canada. I still spend a couple of months in Toronto every summer. So I can say to you that we can talk about Sarah Richardson for instance.

Heather: Yeah.

Dean: Right? And you know exactly who I'm talking about. But most of the people listening to the podcast here have no idea who she is. Because, she's on HGTV but she's on HGTV [inaudible 00:33:19]. And so she's famous in a context, right? She's famous only in Canada. And what was really, this is an interesting thing for me is that realizing now, if you see the way that kids today now are completely enamored with YouTube stars, right? Like they don't know anybody on TV but they know all of the YouTube stars, right? And they get that star struck thing with them. And so what you really have the opportunity to do, is to get 20 mile famous where you could be your Heather Prestanki.

Heather: Right, right.

Dean: This is where, this is part of the thing about branding is that my recent like revelation about branding, because I've never had a good definition of brand that I've been happy with or that anybody could really describe what it is. And I settled on an acronym for brand, which is a buying reflex affecting now decisions.

That's really what we're trying to establish in the minds of the people that we're trying to serve, right? Now Coca Cola has established a brand in more people all over the world than anybody else because of the years and years and years of consistent messaging that when it matters, when people say, what would you like to drink that they say, I'll have a Coke. That buying reflex when presented with an opportunity to get a drink is I'll have a Coke. And so what we're trying to establish in a business context is that when somebody says, I'm going to remodel the house, get me Heather Prestanski, that's the buying reflex that we're trying to create. Just like in Toronto, a lot of people have that. Even though she's on HGTV Canada, she really primarily works with people in Toronto. So that creates the job for her.

That reason that she gets a lot of jobs is because she's famous, because she's Sarah Richardson. Now to produce one of those shows is not at all very expensive now. Right? Like everybody has the capability. It's with even your iPhone as far as like YouTube or Facebook stuff goes if you have just a good HD camera and somebody holding the camera and a nice lavalier microphone that you have the makings of being able to do what you do in the same way that, that Sarah Richardson does for probably $1,000 worth of equipment, right? If you go all the way and had lighting and everything there that you could create your own reality show.

Heather: Okay. Yeah. - we have most of that equipment for the photography and everything else.

Dean: Absolutely. Like documenting these things. So if I said, like you mentioned that you love these Victorian remodels, right? And so here's how my mind thinks because what I'm thinking about is to select a single target market and then plan to dominate that market. So if we took Windsor, excuse me, at a radius around there are quite a few of these Victorian homes probably, right?

Heather: Yes. Definitely there are certain neighborhoods that have the larger older homes for sure.

Dean: Exactly. And so, one of the things that you can do with both, with postcards, with and in Canada, you've got a great opportunity for unaddressed ad mail. Do you do any direct mail?

Heather: We haven't done direct mail, but I've considered doing it.

Dean: Okay. Well because in Canada it's one of the best bargains ever that for 12, 13 cents. You can have Kayla to post, you probably get them at your home, you see postcards that are delivered but they don't have an address on them. They're just delivered to your mailbox to go to those. You can do an entire postal walk, which would be, 400 homes in a particular neighbor and they have a map where you can look online, look on at Canada, post the mail route, the postal routes, and you could pick specifically the neighborhoods with just the higher propensity to have those older Victorian homes. Right?

Heather: Okay.

Dean: And you can do even targeting with the Facebook micro targeting ads that are just like, I treat those like mailing a postcard. We've used micro targeting on Facebook to target a specific subdivision with a few 100 homes. And the way we do it is with the inclusion groups where you can narrow down to one mile radius on Facebook. But then we would also put around it exclusion groups like you exclude the United States. You say don't show it to people in Detroit. And so when we look at that by surrounding the neighborhood where you want to be, you can exclude this area of new homes, exclude this area so that your targeting now almost exclusively the older part of town or the other way around. If you want to target the homes that were all built in the last five years, that maybe it's time that they're thinking now about doing their basement.

You can target specifically those things. But imagine if people living in a Victorian home, which there are only so many of them. When you go into this idea of dominating a market, or getting as much as being preeminent provider in that segment of the market. You look at it with a long term perspective, are you building this business as a for a long term or are you looking to go somewhere else or what's your longterm vision for this?

Heather: Yeah, I mean, this is a passion business for me, so when I was sitting on a beach in Mexico, last year. I was saying, I need to do this again, and within a week we had a place, we were starting renovations. So, it's a long term for us, and both myself and my husband are involved and its gotten better and better, so we're in this in the long haul for sure.

Dean: Okay, perfect. So if you look at it that it would be, there's a limited amount of time that it would take for somebody. Even when you think about, and I described this is in the effort that nobody else you'd have such a competitive advantage with this, that if you knew exactly where all of the Victorian homes were in that radius, and you could target those Victorian homeowners, only with content that is specifically targeted to Victorian homes, to remodels, to as a niche for that, right?

That, that is where you've got this huge opportunity and it may sound like, okay, that would take a little bit of effort. Right? And it would, but imagine if you could create a list of a thousand Victorian homes, or 2,000 Victorian homes that it would take some, limited amount of time. Somebody could literally drive through specific neighborhoods, and you could mark on a map or mark on a list like doing a census kind of thing about the types of homes that you're talking about who that person could be. And then it's really about, that is much easier to position yourself and create that by reflex among those specific people because you're going to speak to them differently than you would speak to all the new homes that were built in the last five years that probably don't have their basement redone yet, for instance.

Heather: Yeah.

Dean: Not often when somebody's buying a new subdivision homes that people, they buy the homes, then there's a lot of money in getting their furnishing and decorating the main living areas of the house. And then two, three, four years later, they've got a living room now and it's time to redo or do the basement.

Heather: Right, right. Yeah. I think just clients who own Victorian homes, they tend to like a very specific style, whereas with new builds for renting, there's certainly different styles that kind of come along and we see with some of the... Because I mean, even you talk Sarah Richardson, I mean she has a very defined style. She is a contemporary diner, right? And you've got people like Shane McGee who really has her own style as well. It's very, very defined. And she's got, over 1,000,000 followers on Instagram and just blew up really large. Whereas right now we take projects and part of what I love is definitely digging into what that client's personal style is. But we do talk to people that if you live in a mid century home and you put in a modern farmhouse kitchen, it's going to look dated in five years when the modern farmhouse trend is, I mean, the modern feminist trend is already kind of on the outs. -.

Dean: - I think that's the biggest -. Everybody doing the horizontal barn board -. That is the 70s paneling of our generation.

Heather: It's true. But if you live in a farmhouse on a farm, then that is going to remain timeless for that home, because it is true to the architecture of the home, right?

Dean: Sure. Yeah.

Heather: No different than the 70s paneling when you walk into a mid century home that, 70s architecture, it kind of looks cool and vintage and and people love it in those homes. But you stick that in my home that's from 1900.

Dean: Right. Especially - paneling, that's what they're saying, yeah. But I wonder if that's going to be the stainless steel appliances are going to be the harvest gold stoves and appliances 10 years from now.

Heather: Well it's funny too because we are seeing that at trade shows. Right? And so part of our job is to go to the trade shows to see what the different vendors are offering and we're seeing more and more white appliances coming back. And I remember having white appliances as a kid, and they are ugly, right? You get that reaction, like people who grew up in the 70s have to, the gold is coming back. They're like, "Oh, I don't know if I can handle it." But it is interesting. -.

Dean: Our appliances are built into our fridges the same as the cabinetry.

Heather: I see that the panel-, yeah.

Dean: There you go. Yeah. Exactly. That's so funny. But even that, think about the stuff down. We have the door, the kitchen cabinetry and stuff. Now it seems like everything is more towards the shaker, the modern shaker, or whatever that seems to be the trend right now. But at any of that, this model of taking your cat scan perspective of this bubble, if you put that bubble around Windsor, and you are focusing on the top level, all kinds of design staff, but where it's really going to be amplified is when in addition to the general design stuff that you're sending as messaging to the whole audience to now in addition, I live in a Victorian home and I'm getting your Victorian stuff specifically that's going to really be, Oh wow, she specializes in my kind of house. You're speaking directly to them.

And I might look at taking a particular market like that feels like the people who buy those homes. Part of the dream is to renovate an old Victorian and do it there. What I would look at is perhaps partnering with a real estate agent to, because you're getting this audience of the Victorian homes or the desire for that, that there's only so many that would be renovation ready kind of thing. Like, some you could tell are already done, like been remodeled and they show it from the outside and the inside that home. That you could imagine that they're redone on the inside. But then there'll be others that are let's say, less loved or they don't have a design high on them. They're not appealing from the outside, and there's probably some on the market right now.

That would be a really interesting thing when there's what only take a couple for you when people buy a new Victorian home, that you kind of go that you adopt that person that has a specific target market. Like if you were to have, if you were to know that this Victorian house just sold so that you can go approach that person as a new mover, that would be a pretty high probability, right? That they're going to be in there or if you preempt it by helping, like one of the things that I'm sure you do are style our idea boards, or different things like to show what could be possible.

Heather: Yes.

Dean: And so, I wonder if that, as a realtor who's settling one of the non renovated one yet, that you could put some ideas, some reds or some things that spark creativity for people in what could be possible in that area.

Heather: Yeah. Totally. Well, it's funny, because my mom and sister are real estate agents.

Dean: Okay, perfect.

Heather: Yeah. -. They're in the Chatham area and my mom lives in my house -, which is in that Windsor area. So, if I could sell more out in that area. But she has always... She owned a Re/Max office in Chatham for many years. So yeah. Yeah. So that would work out quite nicely. We know a lot of real estate, because when I lived in Windsor, I was a mortgage specialist, so I knew a lot of real estate agents in Windsor. Yeah.

Dean: Oh, perfect. So this I think is a great that could be a great opportunity if you're closely aligned there. If you had a reality show, Windsor, about like almost the equivalent of an HGTV show about Victorian homes. And you're showing Victorian remodels, like documenting it like a project, you're doing an episode of Sarah Richardson's show where you're walking people through the design process and through the decisions that you're making. If you're documenting those things, that's going to be a very valuable thing for people to vote you in on.

Heather: Yeah, for sure. And I think even when they see some of those renderings, because they do, I mean they just, they look like the room when we post them. Even sometimes we'll say, here's the brand new we did. And somebody will say, Oh, did you change the bay port? I'm like render, this is [inaudible 00:53:54] real picture. They do. Some of them are just so photorealistic that people think that there aren't real pictures. So for people to be able to see that, I think it would be really cool. And one thing that we have been doing with real estate agents, it kind of got put on hold because of the COVID-19, and we can't get the supplies. But when it was something we were just getting going is boxes that our realtors buy as closing gifts. So we get trade discounts on, things like these candles and throws and all those things that would cost them significantly more to buy and give it to them at cost.

And it's a branded box and it's all of their real estate agents branding on the top. It was kind of on the side flat and when they open it up, it's a copy of our book along with a nice throw, a nice candle. And it has a fan deck that what our paint partner at show a million, they actually pulled together our 20 favorite pink colors as well. So that, because that's the first thing that people do when they move is they paint.

Dean: Yeah. -.

Heather: And actually that might even be a goo, we may be - as well just around the habitudes paint colors. Because we have a video right now, really, really well around that to help to target those new movers. But our whole goal with that is just to get our names into people's home, you know as much as possible. So we could certainly add some things in there where if they are selling in those older neighborhoods with, the Victorians most of the streets around here will be a mixed probably Victorian craftsmen because they're all built within a 20 year span of each other. But if they were selling a home and one of those areas and we've moved around a lot between Windsor and Chatham and oh, we've been in those areas, we know a lot of them already. Maybe we could have some supplemental information in there just around old homes and around modernizing those old homes while keeping the character in the term.

Dean: Yes. That's great. And I mean, that kind of thing where, that kind of content would be a great thing that the real estate agent might love to sponsor to be part of that. You could talk about, to get a list of Victorian homes that are renovation ready. Just go to this website or call this number that might, right? That it could be a lead generation thing for them, for both of you. That's really what you're creating content that creates desire. That people if you're showing it in specific areas that people would be able to get that desire to do a Victorian home.

Heather: Yeah. Yeah. I like that. And I mean the content can start in our own home because we're in the process of renovating anyways. So, even though-

Dean: Well, there you go.

Heather: ... We're talking now, we could start something here.

Dean: Are you documenting it now? If you documented it as a reality show...

Heather: Yeah. You know what, with us being on lockdown, we haven't even started. So we're just in the process of starting and getting some samples in and things like that. Because samples are sort of thing. So that is something that we can do and my husband can be the client essentially and we can walk them through the entire process from start to finish, which I think would be really good for people to understand more about what we do as well. Because I think a lot of people think we just come in and in two hours we can pick out everything for their house. And if it's taking them 100 hours to do it, it might take us 30 or 40, but it's definitely not going to be done in two.

Dean: Yeah.

Heather: It can kind of show us a little bit more of that.

Dean: How long is the process going to take for you?

Heather: Well a lot of, so the home that we're in is in really great shape and it was gray washed during the gray trend, so every room was painted gray, and we just need to bring back some of that character and try and bring in some of the more traditional wallpaper has done it. But I think it'll be great because it can show people how this can be done in a modern way. And we can talk about how even just how things like wallpaper has come a long way. The wallpaper that was dripping from the walls, it's horrible this drip off. But the newer wallpapers is very, very easy to take off in the future. So long as they're prepping the walls correctly.

So we can definitely show a lot of that and really within a couple of weeks could have a couple of the rooms then that don't need a lot that just needs a paint paper styling. Things like the kitchen, we'll have to wait until we can do that. Right? I mean, it's a gorgeous kitchen, it's just 20 years old. It needs a facelift, but, we can't get countertops and tile and things like that right now. But that could be, for anything that we can kind of DIY for now. We could be starting there showing that.

Dean: I mean documenting this whole thing and thinking about it as little chapters, little episodes that you're doing that are educational opportunities, that's all I think it's going to be a great thing.

Heather: Yeah. I think that we could even share, the initial ideas, kind of like where we dig into what the client's style is. We can share behind the scenes of what that meeting looks like. We can share a little behind the scenes of how we pulled together the concepts. We could pull together, you know an actual video of a concept of budget meeting where we are reviewing the financials and we are reviewing the concept, and how flexible we are with a client, what changes and things like that so that people don't feel like we're going to push them in one direction. I've heard horror stories about that with clients working with designers and I know that that's something that they're afraid of.

Dean: Yeah.

Heather: Yeah, for sure. And we can kind of document that straight through, obviously for the installation, and the reveal, and all of the things that I think there's so many steps that aren't often talked about on definitely not an HGTV kind of skip through a lot of it. Right? And the thing with HGTV is the costs they show is just for the walls and the floors and it doesn't include all the pretty furniture you see. When they ask about this cost is the renovation and anything, it would be nice to pull back the curtain a little bit and show them what it actually costs to finish a room, like what they see there.

Dean: I like it. I think that's a really great opportunity for you. Sounds like you got a lot of progress that you're making already in eight months. So, it's very exciting.

Heather: We've been a long time listening and we've been taking a lot.

Dean: Oh, I love it that's great.

Heather: What you say on the podcast, the heart. That's why we read the blog, that's why we were doing some of the Facebook ads and things like that. So I appreciate and I think we're going to get to work on that, and we're going to do everything that we can to make the best use of this time while we're on lockdown. Because I think at the time you'd be creating some of this stuff.

Dean: I love it. Well, I can't wait to watch it all unfold, it's been a lot of fun, brainstorming, - skills with you.

Heather: Same, yes.

Dean: It's actually a great opportunity. So thanks for playing.

Heather: Thank you.

Dean: I'll watch out and see what happens.

Heather: Okay. Thanks so much Dean. I appreciate it.

Dean: Thanks. Okay, Heather, thanks.

Heather: Take care.

Dean: Bye. And there we have it. Another great episode. Thanks for listening in. If you want to continue the conversation or go deeper in how the eight profit activators can apply to your business. Two things you can do, right now you can go to morecheeselesswhiskers.com, and you can download a copy of the more cheese less whiskers book, and you can listen to the back episodes of course if you're just listening here on iTunes. Secondly, the thing that we talk about in applying all of the eight profit activators are part of the breakthrough DNA process and you can download a book and a scorecard and watch a video all about the eight profit activators, at breakthroughdna.com. And that's a great place to start the journey in applying this scientific approach to growing your business. That's really the way we think about breakthrough DNA as an operating system that you can overlay on your existing business and immediately look for insights there. So that's it for this week. Have a great week and we will be back next time with another episode of more cheese, less whiskers.