Welcome to another episode of the Design+Style podcast. We are a podcast
for designers, by designers. I am one of your co-hosts Dixie with Dixie Willard Design
and with me as always is the beautiful effervescent--Rachel with Rachel
Moriarty Interiors. And we wanted to say that the Design+Style podcast is brought
to you by the Visibility Lab. The Visibility Lab is the only membership
group that focuses on the latest strategies and tools to help you get
more visible while showcasing your specific brilliance. We've got weekly
online office hours with both of us, monthly topics, in depth worksheets, and
exclusive monthly trainings.
I have been waiting for this day for months Dixie!
Yes she has, she's not lying. I am not lying. Well I have too. I know we have Karen Bohn from the
House of Bohn and she has been really I mean it's such an influence to me I
think just because I don't think I had had a full vision of what I wanted to do
what I wanted my stamp to be in the design industry you know and
she kind of is that full picture. Yeah. Where I was like oh okay
she does you know personal brand and lifestyle and travel plus interior
design you know and I just love that about her so I am like so excited that
we got her on the podcast. And I love too that she's giving back to the interior
design community by showing you exactly what it takes to put yourself out there
to do design all of the behind the scenes stuff
yeah just even things like dealing with HR which I don't ever want to have to do.
It's been really exciting that one of our community members introduced us to
her she was already putting out great content and now she's well over I
haven't checked the numbers lately but I know she just hit her ten thousand--
I checked it today. Oh did you? She had 17,050 subscribers today when I looked.
that is crazy because she just celebrated 10,000 so within like the
last couple weeks she got seven more. How crazy is that? She is blowing up. Let's get to it!
Karen Bohn is a Canadian award-winning
luxury interior designer, successful businesswoman, speaker, and YouTube personality.
Hello I'm so excited to be here. Oh my gosh, okay let me just--I am more excited.
We have to announce that this is your first podcast interview. This is my very first podcast interview.
We're honored. Yeah, I'm feeling legit
right now that I'm doing a podcast. You're so legit right now.
I have to tell you I'm gonna out myself, Dixie. Okay.
Okay. Well if you didn't, I would have so--I know. I love it. That's why I want to do it myself so--
Our community introduced us to you and I went on and I can't even tell you I
binge-watched you so hard. Awesome. Dixie would call me and try to--we'd try to do a meeting
and I'd be like excuse me, I'm watching Karen Bohn right now, I can't talk. I love that you know what that means
so much to me and my entire team that's like the best compliment and I always
feel so just humbled and honored that people watch even a single episode on
YouTube let alone binge-watch so when people are saying like oh my god I'm
binge-watching you right now, I'm always like wow that's so amazing so
thank you so much it really--I really feel humbled and honored about that.
You receive it so well too because when somebody says that to me I'm all oh. Yeah,
yeah, well you know it's a funny thing because when you're putting
yourself out there a lot as I'm sure with you guys are with your podcast,
right? It's--there's a certain amount of vulnerability that has to happen as
you're putting yourself out into the public
whatever the platform is and so I think and I think for people who are only
watching or consuming they might not realize the type of vulnerability that
there is there so when you get a compliment or when people are really
loving the content that you're putting out it's just like an amazing it's
an amazing compliment. Yeah. Yeah. So our community focuses around visibility. Yes, yeah.
And most of our community are solo design firms and
small design residential design firms. Yes. Mostly stagers, stylists, and
decorators. Okay. And designers too interior designers. Okay. Dixie's got--I always say Dixie's
got alphabet soup behind her name.
Amazing. So I love that you talk about the vulnerability a lot of people reach out to
us and say you guys are so confident and we're like we're really it I mean there
is a now we you know down the road we are a bit confident but I think courage
trumps confidence. Definitely. You have to be you have to be courageous and you have to
put yourself out there. You have to be courageous, yeah and I think that the
only way to become more confident is by doing and by trying, right? And by getting
outside of your comfort zone and so and that's the only way that
growth happens too business growth or personal growth is that you have to be
consistently getting outside of your comfort zone so and that could be
anything from doing a podcast to doing a YouTube episode to doing a cold call
which for me if you I've talked about that a lot on
my YouTube channel and building my business through cold calling and I
still do a lot of cold calling and that was a huge--I had to work at it. It didn't
come naturally in the beginning it was super, super scary. I hated doing it in
the beginning but I was motivated to build my business and the more that you
do it the more comfortable you get at it the more that just builds your
confidence so I 100% agree that courage trumps confidence
for sure but courage is what leads to confidence. Absolutely. And I think failure is really
important too. Oh my gosh. Yes. Very important I think you can't be growing and you can't
be building you know your self-esteem if you're not failing and you're not
dusting yourself off and moving forward again so you can't live
inside it--you can't grow if you're living inside a box. What we try to tell
our community too is you have to get uncomfortable and then stay there. Yeah. You know what I mean? For sure.
Like every time I do something that's out of my comfort zone once it starts to feel comfortable
is when I start pushing again. For sure and you know what I think for me I with
I've--it's--so there are times in my business and in my life where I just have to
accept and embrace the discomfort whatever that looks like and you know as a
business owner and even if you're a solo entrepreneur you know that there are
there are ebbs and flows in business and as you're growing there's always
challenges that you're taking on it's like it's not an easy road and there's
times that I've experienced when building my business where you know we
hadn't been collecting on payments and our s* was hitting the fan with clients and we
had overhead and staff to pay for and all of these commitments and so much
pressure and I couldn't see a new work coming around the corner and those are
always the scariest, toughest times to go through because you have so much
pressure and commitment that you have to do and so in those moments I
always try to check myself and say okay you know what it's uncomfortable right
now I'm just gonna embrace the discomfort and this too shall pass
and I think it that for me that's really worked because it allows me to have a
little bit of peace in those really hard times and it allows me to approach
any of the problems that are coming up or the challenges that are coming up
from so much more of a centered place rather than being really reactive right
so yeah but definitely embracing the discomfort is very, very important for
sure. Okay, I have to ask you something. Okay, let's do it sounds serious.
No, no, no, not at all well Dixie and I were of course you know researching you I didn't
even need to research you actually cause I've been kind of doing that for the last couple months.
Yeah. But we love
that you have this personal brand. Okay. As well as your firm like I think that's--you--I think the reason why
you resonated with me so much is because my background design was organic I
didn't go to design school I did get a certification in like 2005. Okay. But I was a
fashion stylist and prop stylist. Cool, yeah. And vision merchandiser and I kind of did that
track. Right. And so for me it's always been like well how do I bring this like
fashion part you know I'm almost 50 so my fashion was in like my twenties--What?! Oh my--Yeah
Oh my god girl you look like you're 30. Amazing! So this thing that happened like
years ago right I'm like how do I pull that in and make it you know and make it
part of my thing. Yeah. So, that's why it really resonates I love that you do in the past
you've done like the makeup and you've done lifestyle--your travels all of
that so I just love that you do this whole personal branding of yourself. Cool, yeah.
Thanks. Is that--what came first brand or--? No, it definitely wasn't the personal brand
so I definitely built my business for just head down worked hard for a full
five years before I did anything on social media anything and I think when I
mean when I started my business there wasn't--Instagram I don't was even really around because I
started my business, I don't know nine years ago and no one was really using it and
after five years I had reached a certain level like I wouldn't say that I was like
established in a big way but I had reached a certain level of you know I
had an office and I had staff and we had a few systems and the business was
trucking along and I, for me personally, I felt like I loved what I had built but
self-expression was--is so important to me and self-expression is we have eight
commandments at House of Bohn and self-expression is definitely one of
them that you can express yourself, that you can show up, be who you are and I
really felt like I had something to say and more to share beyond just my
interior design work and I sort of felt like you know I had a beautiful website
and great portfolio photos but I wasn't able to show my personal personality in
the way that I wanted to so it was about after five years that I just started
dabbling with starting a blog and just really experimenting with social media
and it's just evolved into what it is now and I don't know I just genuinely
love to do it. So, you've been at it a while? Like you've been at it a while. I guess so, yeah I
mean the YouTube channel is technically probably about two years old or
something like that but we started really posting consistent
content last January so about a year. Yeah. A year ago and then but I
definitely started my blog probably about four-ish years ago and it was
really I mean like anything you start a business it's trial and error right
you're just experimenting what works what doesn't work what feels good what
doesn't feel good and but the great thing was that I had already built a
business and so building a personal brand after that I don't want to say
like it was easier but there was it wasn't like I was trying to build a
personal brand and then try to build a business on top of a personal brand
because that's not at all what I'm trying to do it was just this really is
just a platform for self-expression and then it's turned into an amazing way to
give back to my community too and share knowledge and be really honest and real
about what's going on for me as a business woman and the more I talk about
that topic it's amazing to me the response that I get from that and then
the realization that this is okay truly important work because we living in
North America I think we have it so made as a businesswoman and as just
as a woman in North America but to be able to do all this stuff and have a
business and grow a business and build a personal brand I mean there's so many
countries in the world that can't do that or that need really awesome role
models and strong women to look to so now it's almost become a little bit
more of--it's--I feel like it's bigger than me I guess. Oh my gosh it's taken on a life of its own. Yeah, yeah.
That's so cool I know I think one of the comments in
our community was that they love the ones where you're just like being an
entrepreneur is just so hard like sometimes when you're just like you look
great and you have your coffee and you're looking all cute but at the same
time you could just tell there's like this weight of like so much--For sure
yeah and you know it's an interesting thing the
entrepreneurial struggle because people don't want to talk about it people and
there's a lot of smoke and mirrors that happen in the--Yeah the "#entrepreneuriallife." Yeah when you're building a business
totally and I think also men and women think about business very differently too
which I've--I'm like fascinated by that topic but yeah so just the idea of smoke
and mirrors and that you you're trying to portray you're bigger than you are or trying
to portray like you've got a bigger team than you do or that you have bigger clients
than you do or more clients than you do or whatever that looks like for you know
whichever industry and the one thing that I really love about the YouTube
channel is it's like okay this is you know you here we are peeling back
the layer we are peeling back the curtain and you get to see really what's
happening behind the scenes and for me there's something that's I love about
that because it's like the ultimate transparency you know like if you want
to work with us you can you can see what it's like on our YouTube channel or if
you yeah if you want to know anything about us it's right there and it
just is you know it is what it is. Even--there was one episode I was watching and I don't
remember which it fell under the entrepreneurial part of it but you
were talking about how much you hate HR issues and I was like yes! I do.
I hate HR issues, I hate them. I don't want to hire people because I don't want to have to deal with all of
that--yeah--issues and it's just it's nice to hear that you're not the only one, you know?
Totally, yeah and I think that--I don't know I think that women and
entrepreneurs think that they have to have it all together and that you have
to love what you're doing every single day and your job is amazing and you know
this is your passion so why would you be having a bad day? Kind of thing and I
think that even if you're doing what you're passionate about it's still it's
still a job at the end of the day you still have commitments and
you still have to wake up and do your job and not every aspect of that job you're
going to love and that's totally ok that's totally ok you don't have to love
every aspect of it and I think there's actually something really powerful in
really being identified--being able to identify the things that you don't like
and passionately don't like because you know right away that's something that
you need to give to someone else because they're gonna do a way better job than
you are at it. Yeah I love--have you ever read the book Big Magic by
Elizabeth Gilbert? No, oh you know what, but I've heard Big Magic yeah I've heard of it. It's so good. Is it?
She talks about it and about choosing something that you're passionate about basically
when you do that your choosing which s* sandwich you're gonna eat, right?
It's either this corporate thing that you don't like doing
or even if it's something you love doing we still have to eat the same one just a
different flavor you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It's really good. Exactly I think I remember
Marie Forleo talking about that on one of her YouTube episodes or had to
interviewed her and she was saying the exact same thing that when you even when
you do what you're passionate about there's a certain amount of s* sandwich you
have that comes with that passion and that's so true and I think it's just
the hopefully the goal or the aim in life is to just you know eat as little
of s* sandwich as you possibly can but that everybody has to and is going to, right?
Yeah. Right? So, yeah. That's so funny. But I do think as an entrepreneur too you I mean there's so
I often say that like sometimes I feel like the janitor and the
firefighter that's really like I'm a glorified janitor and firefighter I put
out all the problems and clean up all the s*. Oh my gosh, that is so good! Yeah. I'm gonna need it. Tweetable!
Speaking of Marie Forleo, Tweetable! Yeah, exactly. I had a question so when did you decide or
did you decide from the beginning was it so intentional what you're doing to hire
a media team? Oh to hire a media team? Like did you first do it like let's do it like oh I'm just gonna do it by myself
and one other or--? I have to say truly the media team was an organic happened
organically and more than anything out of the need well I'm a believer in like
hiring for attitude and training for skill and I'm also a believer in hiring
the right people and that that will help direct where the ship is going to go
first is trying to steer the ship in a certain direction and then trying to
find people to fill those roles so really the media team I mean Sama as
you guys all know or Kristen I mean she had been shooting fashion for me just on
contract for so we had developed a relationship for I don't know maybe a
year or two maybe even longer than that and one day she approached me and said
hey you know what if you're ever looking to hire someone full-time I'd be
interested in shooting for you and doing video and I mean that was amazing that I
it was great that I love hearing that she wanted to come on board with
the team and I was at the time I was kind of like oh you know could we afford
someone full-time in-house? Yeah. But I knew I loved working with her and
I knew that you know when you hire the right person the role will it's kind of
like that build it and they will come analogy like the role will sort
of evolve and if that person can add value to your business then it'll work
and so it was a little bit of a leap of faith when I brought her on board and it
was great because we were able to just start collaborating in a really cool way
and developing and I mean the cool thing too is that she's been here like
with the YouTube channel basically since the beginning you know when we tested
out her first few videos and so it's been a fun journey to go through
people and do through the experimental phase which when you're in start-up and
that's kind of sometimes how I've thought about the media team is it's
almost feels like a little start-up again and there's something that's like really
exciting and fun about start-up cause you don't know where it's gonna go and you don't
know where your next job is gonna come from and you know how are you gonna make
money and then how are you gonna be profitable and there's a certain
excitement that comes with that and then you know once you take your business to
a level where it's now sustainable and profitable like if you are if you if
you're a true like true thorough-bred entrepreneur like I am as soon as you
take your business to a point of sustainability it's like insanely boring
Yeah. It's crazy it's like this weird thing that happens it's almost like the
excitement and the thrill of trying to get something off the ground and the
challenge it's like self-torture the brutal challenge
of trying to get something off the ground is the exciting part and then
once it's all the pieces are in place it's kind of like, oh okay. It's kind of like
Now what do I do? Like new design projects like oh my gosh this is going to be so awesome
and then you're like in it in the middle and you're like oh my gosh yeah
but I think with the media team too I mean for me I like really like I said
before self-expression is super important to me and I wanted to be
working in media for a really long time to be totally honest I had been trying
to actually get a TV show off the ground for pretty much as long as I have had my
interior design business so--See that's what I was wondering because I remember one
of the videos that you did that you said being famous was actually one of your
values that you wanted. Yep! Not a value but you wanted your thing--Oh totally. Like a
little thing in your soul that--Oh yeah, totally, totally. The feeling yeah that's like
your core desired feelings and one of them yeah for sure
feeling famous is different than being famous. Yes, yes. Because it almost doesn't
matter if I am famous it's just if I feel that way and no one knows about me that
that's enough right and so yeah that was a powerful moment being able to identify
that because when you and then being able to say it out loud too, right? I like the
way you actually re-framed that for me because very Danielle Laporte right but
no that's true because as an introvert I don't mind as an introvert I
don't mind feeling famous but I don't necessarily want to be--You guys don't
mind if you see Sama in the background do you? No! No, it's part of your story. Okay
yes sorry I cut you off there yes, totally. So, I love the way that you've
reframed that because I remember when you said it I was like wow yeah and then I was
trying to think in myself like is that something that I'm feeling too?
And I was like no, no, no, but the way you reframed it yeah I do like I mean
obviously we put ourselves out there in a big way every you know
every day so there must be that little something in there, right? For sure,
and I think you know whatever those core desired feelings are like one
if it was successful you know the--being successful is so subjective and being
successful to different people means different things so but for you if you
just want to feel successful and you know what that feels like to you that
might not be money it might not be you know a huge agency--My style or something. Yeah, it may be
something--it might be having just a very rich network of friends and family and
you know a great career that might be successful to you and so that feeling is
so much more important than the attainment of it. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
I'm so glad we talked about that because--I like your fur by the way. Well I had to. I am all about fur.
It was intentional. It was intentional? You wore it for me? Yeah, I almost threw it on my shoulders just kinda like
Karin Bohn style you know? I love it, I love it. She really is--she really does have a crush on you.
It's--we're not--Yeah, it's for real. Oh that's amazing. Well we're mutually girl crushing
right now, so--I love it! It's awesome!
What else did I want to say? I think I lost my place hold on somebody called me
Wilma Flintstone chic I went to an event and I wore this they went oh you're so Wilma Flinstone chic today
I love it. I love that. I love the background too. Are you--this is your office? Yes! I love how the design--
very cool. Yeah, my home office I work from home. Oh, yeah. We all do so--Awesome. Anything else Dixie?
I lost my place. No. You're crushing I can see it in her eyes. Okay, Rachel may not be the only one.
When she gets that glowy look in her eyes--
Yeah. Well I know you guys talk about visibility a lot, right? And that's a big
focus. Yeah, that's actually a good segue into something I did want to ask about
which is has having your YouTube channel with all of the different
aspects in it how has that enhanced your design business? So interesting that you
would ask that and to be totally honest I feel like
it's too early to say because it's still growing and evolving but one of the
things that I am a firm believer in and at least for our practice and for House
of Bohn is that social media is not the same thing as sales and I've said that
before on I think another video where
the sales process and being very active on social media are two completely
completely different things and currently our my social media audience
is also very different than our interior design client so you know and right now
whether I bridge that gap you know over the next year or over the next five
years that might happen but right now that's not to say that clients and stuff
like that don't come through social media they do but it's not a huge
portion of the work that we do so I think for me I think for--Gary V said
it best where I think he said you know building a brand just to build a
personal brand is pointless or he said something along those lines like what's
the point in having a personal brand just for the sake of having a personal
brand? Yeah. But I do think that you know it--I mean it is good for visibility and
it's great for credibility and like I said it's again transparency is one of
our eight commandments at House of Bohn so by being able to you know lift
the curtain for people to see what's going on I feel like that is the
ultimate transparency it definitely I do notice that we get I get more calls from
people who have seen the YouTube channel or Instagram for all sorts of different
reasons it's not always and actually very infrequently "oh I saw you on
YouTube and I would love to hire you to design my place" so that doesn't happen
very often but who knows? That could change but I don't even know if that's
necessarily why the point of the YouTube channel like for me it really is about
you know community and really about giving back
and sharing so it I don't necessarily see it as like a sales tool if that
makes sense? But it is nice though what to have those avenues there where
sometimes it's not the client that sees it, it's somebody who knows your client
For sure, yeah, yep, for sure yep and that hasn't happened yet it
maybe it will but it hasn't happened I don't know I'll check back
with you guys in a couple years and I'll say like oh my god we get all of
our clients from YouTube, I don't know. Well it's interesting because I think your audience is designers more like
enthusiasts. Yeah. We get the question a lot how do you become an interior designer?
For sure. Now I have the opposite so almost all of my traffic to my website
which means I need to do a better SEO job is Facebook. I just post like last night when I post a
picture of a before and after I just posted a picture of me putting a cover
on a bed somebody in and just with like a post that says you know this couple's
gonna sleep well tonight does your bedroom need a refresh and I got a client
like that and I booked it for after the design--Amazing. So, I get a lot, it's the way that I
show and kind of like tag my or do my posts or whatever I've nailed that
down but I have a very different client than you do you have a great team and
you have big projects and--Yeah and that was actually one thing I was going to say is that's the thing too
is I think if it's you want to use social media as a tool for client
acquisition or attracting new clients I think identifying you know A) first of
all are your clients even hanging out on social media? Yeah. Right? Because some
when we're doing big homes and like international projects like they're just
not finding us on social media that's just not where they are so definitely
that's not a tool to attract them. Yeah. Yeah, so I think if that's and I
definitely think that there can be a lot of client acquisition or you know lead
generation through social media but I think having that you have to understand
your client first and--Yes. And then yeah strategize for that.
And you have different like I have gotten clients through like from I
did a little like one of these and went into private banking. Okay. And I so those and
all the founders of the bank and the Chairman's of the board they're on
LinkedIn. Right, exactly. So I connect with them on LinkedIn as long as I'm sharing what I'm doing then I'm kind of
top of mind when that stuff so those that's happened too even though I'm not a
heavy hitter on LinkedIn. Yeah. So, it's kind of different you have to know
the different ones and you know. Yeah and I think too you know right now and it's
social media it's be social it's the hot thing right now like everybody's doing
social media there's that new platform vivo or whatever that just launched. I've seen that
yes and I was like oh my god another one yeah and you know I think that it's
important as a business owner to look at everything objectively and go okay what
what do I feel is going to be authentic to my practice yeah and then
what like what where do I want to spend my time and energy and effort when it
comes to whether it's promotion or visibility or client acquisition or
sales brand building because there's so many different ways to do it and I think
we can get really caught up in what everybody is doing
and really trying to you know aggressively do the same thing that
everybody else is doing yeah but that could be and especially if
you are a solo entrepreneur I mean there's only one of you so there's only
so much time that you have yeah and you want to make sure that you were maximizing that
efficiency as much as possible so yeah I think always just like taking a pause
and stepping back a little bit is critical. We always say if social media was a gym
we would deadlift Facebook. Nice, I like that. People kind of flit around they don't get any footing because they don't focus
because they are they're like oh that's the next new thing and that's the--oh I
love Karin Bohn I want my YouTube with that many followers exactly you know and
it's like you never they never focus and just deadlift something
yeah you know and so one of the things that I did is I did a live stream for a year
straight Wow I think yeah I think I knew that about you. No way!
That's a big commitment to be able to do that. That was--yeah and that's what we teach is that's
what people are missing is it's not so much the confidence it's the courage and
commitment that's the problem that people have is commiting. The discipline. Yeah.
yes and that's discipline I think is if you want to achieve something it
never comes without hard work and a little bit of sacrifice right and if you
want to make a shift in your life I think discipline is so important and so
so difficult to do I find it personally difficult to do because there's so many
distractions and so changing your habits is like oh my god but that discipline if
you know if you keep practicing and you show up every day for that one little
thing eventually it will shift and change it does turn into something
that's why I know your YouTube channel it's just gonna--I'm excited
to see what happens it's like and I always love Dixie and I will be planners like we'll
go to the market or whatever and we'll be like okay we scheduled this but we
always leave room for magic yes and so I love--I love that. Just putting something
being pulled by intuition and then leaving a little space for chance meetings chance
conversations you know for sure all of that stuff because you never know what's gonna happen and I think if
you're really truly in alignment with what who you were and
what you're doing and very intentional about how you're moving yeah I think
that great things are gonna happen right absolutely yeah
well this has been amazing Miss Karin. It's so wonderful to meet you guys oh my gosh we adore you thank you so much having me on
your show oh my gosh our pleasure yeah
well what did you think how fun was
that what do you mean what did I think that was amazing of course it was and you got all you got
all dreamy-eyed at the end too I totally busted you
Maybe a little bit I try and hide it but I'm not--apparently my face shows
everything that I'm thinking or feeling so
I should not try and hide anything really cause it didn't work. No, no she was so she was
exactly how I thought that's what I love about video and watching video content
because right when we hopped on with her she had no idea who we were but you know
actually she did she sounded like she had done some--you know she knew a few things
about us but I was so surprised to learn that we were her first podcast
right like she has this big YouTube channel now and she was like she's like
I fill legit this is my first podcast I think I mentioned it but I feel
really special that we were her first yeah yeah so she was so nice and she
she's just the real deal I am so looking forward to seeing where this journey
takes her I have a feeling she's gonna just blow up and so--Oh, yeah I look forward
to crossing paths with her I hope that we get to see her like a High Point or
something like that in the future I've got my fingers crossed
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