Podcasting to Build Your Interior Design Business (Nicole Lashae Ben)

Welcome. Today we have Nicole Lachey-Benn. She is our guest on the Creative Genius podcast. Welcome, Nicole. Thank you So good to have you. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited about this conversation today. it’ll be so great. Well, tell us a little bit about your background in the interior design industry. Yeah. So I always think this question is so funny because my background really goes back to childhood. Like I did my first interior design project when I was five years old.

My mom and I moved into a new house and I was like, I want this wall purple and this wall pink and a ballerina border. So that’s kind of where it all started. But fast forward, I ended up going to Syracuse University and getting my BFA in interior design and fell even more in love with the interior design process and design industry. Went on to get my master’s in design management from Savannah College of Art and Design. So I’ve always worked in end.

gone to school in the interior design industry literally forever. I’ve worked at design firms for product manufacturers in that evolution of just loving design, loving the strategy behind the business side of design has led me to start my own business, which is called Thrive InDesign, to really focus on design focused brands that wanna amplify their stories in the design industry.

Tell me a little bit about what you’re doing now because you’ve created this special niche for yourself and it’s helping those brands through their stories, through podcasts and product launches. And here we are on a podcast today. So tell us a little bit more about that. Absolutely. So for me, I always knew that I wanted to start my own business and I had this very vague idea. like, I want to help brands increase their brand awareness and their revenue. So I ended up starting,

with actually virtual summits before the pandemic when everybody had to do virtual and started these business summits where I was bringing together experts, I was doing workshops and just helping people understand the strategies behind business and how to increase their brand awareness and revenue. And then that evolved and I learned a lot about my customers in different conversations and services that I was providing. And no matter the type of business,

They all were saying different things, but it came down to like the same problem. They were like, hey, Nicole, you know, I want more people to know about my brand. I want to make more money. I want to be known in this design segment. Or sometimes it was international brands. Hey, I want to be known in the U.S. But even though it sounded like all completely different things, really everybody was saying the same thing that they needed to tell their brand story effectively, whether it be online or offline.

So that really became my thing. And I niche down into that about three years ago, and especially for brands in the interior design industry. Like how do I help you tell your brand story online and offline? And I think especially in the last year and a half, that has become even more niche for podcasting and product launches, mainly because those are like, that’s like my zone of genius. Like how to effectively tell your brand story on a podcast and attract that ideal audience.

convert them to a paying client. And then when it comes to product launches, whether you’re a designer launching your own product line or you’re a manufacturer, there’s a certain strategy in our industry that is different from any other product industry out there, right? The way that Apple launches their products is very different from our industry and how somebody launches like a textile or a chair. So I really understand.

the brand story that needs to be told in those product launches and what needs to be done online and offline for those things. So it’s been an evolution, but yeah, this is where I am now and the things that I love to do with my clients. That is so interesting. And we have a similar story in a way, because back in 2008, when we started our business in October was our first virtual summit. And we did it at that time without

Zoom, which today it’s like, my God, it was on audio. we literally had separate, we had interviews, some were recorded, some were live and we did 14 people in three days. It was wild, but you know, I look back to those days. had no idea that anybody was really doing that kind of thing again. So good for you. That’s awesome. That was so funny. Well,

Let’s talk a little bit about why an interior design firm should consider podcasting. think you kind of touched on it a little bit, but for a lot of people, they’re not sure that they want to go this direction. And they’re not sure if it’s worth the time and effort and money and all the things that they have to learn how to do in order to do podcasting to do that, because they’re thinking social media. That’s where most people are spending their time and effort and money.

today and maybe sometimes on SEO. So let’s talk about why podcasting. the basics podcasting is actually something that I was not thinking of before, which is so funny. I was like, why would I do a podcast? Like who’s going to listen to my podcast? It’s my audience really listening.

But then a few things clicked in a conversation that I had with another woman who I was in a business accelerator with. And I’ll share those things that I tell everybody now. I think everybody should be podcasting. But really, you should be podcasting if you want to establish yourself as an expert and authority in whatever it is that you’re doing. If you want to build brand awareness, because podcasts can be video and audio or one or the other.

So that’s a great tool to build brand awareness about who you are, what you do, and again, what your expertise is. If you want to engage a broader audience, right? A lot of the times with podcasts, you’re able to reach an audience that might not have known you before, especially when you’re doing like guest interviews, right? That guest is going to attract their audience. They’re gonna be resharing your content and promoting your episodes. So you’re getting in front of a whole new audience that had not known you before.

or might’ve known you, but now gets to know you in a different way through your podcast. It also allows you to strengthen your client relationships, right? So especially in any like B2B type of client business development, you always strengthen client relationships by adding value to that client in some way. So if you’re doing a podcast and you’re creating all of this valuable content, whether it’s in a solo episode or with a guest on the episode,

you’re giving so much value to your client in a free way that they’re listening in and they’re like, wow, I never thought about X, Y, Z in that way before. Then you’re able to have like a warmer conversation with that potential client to move things along in the process. So if you were hesitant, I would say those are probably the main reasons that I would suggest for somebody to start podcasting.

What are great reasons and podcasting is really not hard. We’ve been doing it for a few years. We started ours during cove it and I did my first one a long, long time ago with Lou and and negara. And then, you know, I’ve done a lot of gas, but it’s interesting. And I think also just remember that you can do guest interviews to get started and get your feet wet in it and find a podcast like.

I’ve had some of clients on our podcast, which is great for us and also great for the client. And I think it’s really good if you can find a place to start and even get a time to just practice a little bit. It’s not a complicated process. Yeah, for sure. The ease of it. And I would say like when I started my podcast, the first season, I was in the corner of my bedroom, probably in my pajamas.

with my laptop, a microphone, and some headphones. So it was just a matter of deciding that I was going to do it and starting. Well, it’s not so hard. So anybody that’s thinking about it, you can talk to either Nicole or to me. will encourage you to do it. And I probably do anywhere from four to 10 podcasts a month recorded. to me, it’s just part of my activity. That’s what I do.

So let’s go back to something else that you and I talked about when we had a chat a few months ago. And you talked about repurposing content. And I think that’s a brilliant thing to do. And I would like for you to explain what that means and how does a designer go about doing that? Yeah. So in terms of podcasting, right, the main form of long form content that you are creating is the podcast episode, whether that be just audio only or it’s audio and video.

So you have this amazing file that you’re uploading to your podcast and it’s going out to all of these networks. But that file, think of that as how can you reuse it or repurpose it in different ways? So for the sake of time, let’s just see three ways you can repurpose that content. So the first way you can take the transcript or just get it transcribed in general.

and then repurpose that transcript into a blog post that you’re putting on your website, right? And so now that’s great for SEO and driving traffic to your website. The second is taking that transcript and dicing and slicing it up, elaborating on it, and then creating an ebook out of it. So now that is either a free lead magnet or something that you sell. So now you’re increasing your revenue by adding another product to your business.

And then the third form, which is going to be going along with promoting the podcast episode, is taking that audio or video and then putting it into a tool like Clap, that’s K-L-A-P, which turns it into shorter reels that you can share on Instagram or on LinkedIn. And it’ll basically pull out the best sound bites of that episode so that it engages with people online and then…

you can write a caption to encourage people to listen to the full episode on whatever platform. So those are just a few ways, but the first thing you had to do was just record the episode and you can repurpose it in those ways. Sure. Well, we switched to Riverside, which has a lot of benefits too. Do you use that? I just started and it has changed my life. Yeah. It’s a great software and our,

The person that does our podcast editing is a contractor for us and he has been with us for a long, time. And he has educated me about the benefits of it. And I’d heard about it through one of my mastermind groups. And I really think it’s a great platform for anybody that’s really starting out because you get good quality video as well as audio. And you have

you end up with better quality audio than you would if you did it on Zoom, which we used to do. anything else you’d like to add to that or other softwares you’d recommend? Yeah, absolutely. I got started on Zoom. Most of my seasons were on Zoom and I just learned about Riverside probably earlier this year. And I’m like, where has this been all of my life?

But yeah, if you’re like down and scrappy and you just want to start Zoom, like GarageBand and whatever your RSS feed is going to be to publish your podcast, I use Podbean is all you need. But if you do want something a little bit more high quality, of course, Riverside is where you’re going to record, Clap, as I mentioned, to create that short form content. And then when it comes to editing, a couple of, well, one specific platform that I recommend is ISE.

IZOTOPE, so that’s I-Z-O-T-O-P-E. So it’s pretty much like magic for editing your audio. You can literally type in filler words like delete delete when I say yeah, like I say okay, I say okay way too much when I’m recording. So it’s like an AI powered editing. So even if you don’t know how to do all the editing and click and.

drag and drop and all that, you can just type in what you want edited or highlight it. Like you see the text and highlight it, delete it, and it’ll delete that part of the audio. Another one is dscript, which also is similar for editing. And then another one is Mowpod. I think that’s how you pronounce it, M-O-W-P-O-V. And that helps with advertising your podcast and getting it out to new audiences.

Great. those are great tips. Okay. So if somebody is considering doing a podcast to attract clients in their town, their city, their region, wherever, what kind of content should they be creating? What kinds of interviews should they be doing? Yeah. If it’s specific to a region, you should be focusing on like regional specific things, whether that is regional trends, right? So

What’s happening when it comes to design trends in your region or architecture trends? How is that inspiring your design process or even the desires of your clients? You can do interviews with local experts, for example, architects, contractors, real estate agents, especially if you’re in the home design industry. You can either even engage with other homeowners or people that are putting on local events.

that especially that are tied into like cultural influences, because that’ll always tie back to design. And then if you’re doing a little bit more video, I would always highlight doing behind the scenes of any local projects that you are working on, especially in collaboration with like those architects and contractors that you’re working with. So those are just a few ideas, especially if it’s a region specific topic for short.

I like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the idea of bringing in people that you already partner with, because you’re going to let them know that, post this on your social feeds as well. Exactly. And that gets you out in front and gets them some publicity and starts building that relationship even stronger. Absolutely. I think that’s great. So who should somebody invite besides these people? Should they invite their clients? Would that be somebody they should have as a guest?

Yes, before I answer like who though, I think it’s also important to figure out like who is your audience for this podcast. Because if you’re an interior designer, you wanna know like who are you trying to attract, right? You could be using your podcast to attract other clients so that you can do design projects for them. Or you can be positioning yourself as an expert in some type of like specific style of design, right?

and you want to teach other designers about that style. That’s a different audience. So I guess it just, it first depends on like, who are you trying to reach with your podcast and like, what is the goal? What is the theme of this podcast? And then from there, that should really determine who you’re inviting to the show, right? So if you’re trying to attract other clients, yes, of course, have your clients on your podcast because again,

Networking is a big part of the podcast. They’re going to share their episode with all their friends and coworkers and whoever is in their network. And that will attract similar types of clients that you want to reach. If you’re trying to position yourself as an expert in whatever it is that you’re an expert in and maybe sell those services to other designers or other people that might be that your expertise might be beneficial to, you want to be inviting

people that are aligned, right? So for my podcast, I might be inviting people who are marketing experts, right? Who know something about like business strategy, right? Versus, you know, other topics. So first get super clear on who you’re trying to attract, what you’re trying to position, and then that will guide you on who you’re interviewing on your podcast for sure. Okay. Yeah. Well, it-

It seems a little bit like a lot of stuff to absorb, in a way it’s just so natural because this is conversations, really having relationships with people, building relationships and asking curious questions because that’s really what it’s all about. So how much time does it take to develop content and how much of that content needs to be created before you start launching your podcasts? Well, I think each episode definitely takes a little bit of time.

I’ve cut down on some time because I use chat, chibit for everything. So I will do, I do take some time to research a guest or research whatever topic that I’m talking about in a solo episode. If it’s a guest or a topic that I’m doing solo, I usually like free write all of the notes that I know about that person or about that topic. You know, put in information that I’ve researched, all the things.

And then I truly lean on chat GPT for things. So I’ll say chat GPT, here are all my lists of notes I’m interviewing this person or I’m talking about topic XYZ. Help me formulate questions to ask this person or write out an outline of how I should do the cadence of this show. And then chat GPT comes up with an initial outline and then I’ll do some tweaks from there.

So what used to take me like four hours of prep for show now takes me probably about an hour of prep. And then I’ll do some tweaking and then send that to the guests or record. So it should take probably between an hour to four hours of prep, depending on who you are and how long your episode is for every single episode, for sure. And of course, there also takes some planning if you’re just getting started because you need to put your…

your podcast onto an RSS feed and submit it to Apple and Spotify and all the things that take some time too. But once that’s done, that’s done. The planning is what takes the most time in the episode and even post-production as well. Yeah, and that’s where you can outsource a lot of that work. That’s what we do. We certainly, have our team that schedules everything on.

behalf of me. yeah, I think mine’s about an hour, hour and a half at most for every episode. So that’s all good information. And you mentioned where the podcast should be hosted, RSS feed, and that you should upload it to Apple and there are several other platforms as well. But you can certainly research those, but definitely start with the bigger one. Absolutely. yeah. And then how

can this podcast attract ideal clients, especially in the residential design field, which is the majority of our clients do residential. Yeah. So of course, it really goes back to everything we talked about today in terms of figuring out who your audience is, what story you’re telling and what you’re positioning. But it’s also important to like plan ahead for what the next steps are that you want people to take with your brand. Right. So they’re listening to this. They’re gaining all this value. They’re like,

yes, this person is amazing. I’m interested in working with them, but always think about what are the next steps you want people to take away from your podcast or with your brand. So the first simple, the simplest thing is what is your episode outro or do you incorporate any commercials within your show to give a call to action, right? So that call to action is go to xyz.com to

download the PDF or show notes for this show or schedule a call consultation. Those are things that our people are going to take action or join this webinar that you might be hosting. might be webinar.xyz.com. Whatever it is, make sure that that is incorporated into the audio form of your podcast so that people can know what they need to do next and keep it consistent. Don’t change it up every single episode. Choose one call to action and

direct that into a funnel. And then the second thing is put that same call to action into your show notes, right? Your show notes should also be very SEO rich and explain what’s happening in the show. Give some timestamps and also your call to action again so that people can easily click on that link and go to whatever direction that you told them to do. But essentially, this is a brand awareness tool. This is a marketing tool for your brand. So that call to action needs to be clear.

It needs to work, it needs to be streamlined so that you can move people along in whatever your sales process is to get them to be a client or whatever you want them to do next with your brand. Okay, well, that’s great. And I think that’s a great idea. And you talked about a funnel and we use funnels in our business, but a lot of designers probably don’t know what that means. So why don’t you talk about that? A funnel is just a fancy word for steps that you want clients to take, right?

Essentially, the first action that you want somebody to take is for them to give you their information in some form or fashion, their phone number, their email address. Then from there, you’re nurturing them in some way, right? You might send them a follow-up email saying, thank you so much for downloading this or subscribing to our show. And then from there, you’re taking the next step of asking them for their times, especially if you’re an interior designer.

join me in a consultation so that I can walk you through my steps of design or learn more about your design project or where have you. But essentially a funnel, no matter the type of business, is just a series of steps that you’re doing to attract your ideal client, get them to be a lead, nurture that lead, and then ultimately convert that lead to a paid customer.

Right. And this is not something that you do occasionally. You really need to have a plan for this. Absolutely. And I would encourage you that if you’re going to jump into this, that you’re working ahead. You have at least, I think, four episodes as a minimum to have in the can, so to speak, so that you have enough content that you can then start to have a regular pattern that you use to record. Because otherwise, you’re going to have

long breaks and you don’t want to have long breaks. You want to have very short breaks if you have breaks between seasons. Yeah, absolutely. The planning is so important for me. I know I do my podcast in seasons because once I launch a season, I get a whole influx of new clients and then I have to take a break before the next season. But yeah, you have to think about what is your cadence? Is it bi-weekly? Is it weekly? Is it seasons and what works well for your

marketing strategy and your sales funnel as well.

We actually, and you’ll see this, you’re on LinkedIn, that’s how we connect it. And on LinkedIn, we will have a clip of this episode that we will be playing. And that will give people the opportunity to come and connect and hear the whole podcast. And yes, we use clips of that, do social media clips. So there are just so many things you can do with the content that you talked about earlier, which is that repurposing. yeah, it’s great.

Here’s another question for you about where does this fit in the level of priorities for designers if they’re already busy doing maybe they’re active in local charity and they’re definitely doing a lot of social media today. Where does this fit in that priority list? I saw that question and I don’t know how to answer that really. just depends on the designer. Honestly, it really depends on the designer and who you have on your team.

Right, because podcasting, can be a time consuming thing. So I think, I guess to answer the question, you need to really look at what is the capacity that I have to add another marketing channel to my business. Can I do this solo or do I need other contractors to help me or do I have people on my team that has the expertise? And if not, do I have the budget?

to kind of outsource what needs to be done. So I would first start by assessing the room. Like, do I have the capacity for this and who is there to help me? And then the second thing I would do is figure out, is this important to help me position myself and my brand as an authority and as an expert in the industry, right? Would this help me stand out from my competitors? Like, I will also be looking at my competitors. Are they doing something?

that is similar to this or not doing it at all, because if it’s gonna help me stand out from my competition, I would be like, let me do this like right now. So those would be the first two things that I would do to assess, should this even be a priority for me right now, or is this a 2025 type of thing or 2026? And then kind of make a decision based on those assessments. Well, I think those are all,

really good points. it is and I guess I forget about how much back end help I have. if you if you don’t have that, I really think it’s a good idea to have somebody who can edit for you. We have a writer that does the pull quotes for us and edits the show notes. And we have somebody else that does the social media clips and somebody else that does the editing. So we have a team of people we have somebody who does a scheduling.

And you need all of those things in order to do this efficiently because you as the leader of your company really need to be spending just the time necessary to be on that podcast and do the research necessary. And you can also have somebody else help you with research as well. Your friend, Chet, GPT. Exactly. That’s awesome.

Okay, well this is a lot of great fun information that will be very helpful to anybody thinking about a podcast or even somebody who didn’t think about it, but maybe they will now. Yeah. And also I think it’s great to talk about the funnels because it’s really about talking about your full marketing strategy, just one thing as an element that you’re using in your marketing, but how does this all fit together and how is this going to help you propel your business forward?

Yeah, really great insights today. So good. I’m glad. Yeah. Let’s let’s shoot through a couple of personal questions. Absolutely. I love the answer that you gave us about if you were stranded on a desert island, who or what would you have with you? I love that answer. I can’t even remember what I said. What did I say? said, a machete for one thing.

I cracked up. yeah, I definitely you need a machete if you’re on an island because then you can like chop down things, build a home, you know, get your food. I don’t know, open a coconut. There you go. That’ll give you something to drink and eat. Exactly. Okay. You also said something about a straw. So guess a straw works on that’s so funny. All right.

And also, what about in 10 years, what would you like to have accomplished? man, so many things. I would like to be the go-to strategist for brand storytelling in the interior design industry for designers and interior product brands. That is something I would like to accomplish. At some point, I would also like to have my own collection of interior products.

Yeah, and just like travel the world more and show my son even more of the world. We love to travel together. That’s so great. Yes. Well, don’t go to Iceland this time of year. It’s cold. OK, yeah. I’ll wait for another time. Last week, I wanted to see the Northern Lights. My girlfriend saw it this week. She’s there an extra week. my goodness. Don’t go this time of year. cold. OK.

So what are three things your listeners, our listeners can take or implement from what we talked about today? Yeah. So I know we shared a lot today, but really boil it down. It’s the three main things. One, just figure out the vision for what you want for your podcast and what story you are telling about your brand. Who are you trying to reach? What story is it that you’re trying to tell? The second is just develop some key themes for what topics will be discussed, because that will allow you to

plan for your episodes, whether it be a solo episode or a guest episode, because you want your content to be streamlined and make sense so that listeners keep coming back to hear what you have to say. And then when it comes to planning, always think about what is the next steps that you want people to take with your brand, right? This podcast is a marketing tool. This is a sales tool. So think about what is the call to action that you want people to take and how is that going to lead to you?

honestly, it’s like increasing your revenue for your business. So I would say those are the main things that I would love for you to take away and implement right after listening to this episode. Well, thank you so much. It’s been so fun. I’m glad we connected on LinkedIn. That’s a great place to be. A lot of designers aren’t there. Yeah. And they should be because that’s where a lot of the people are that they want to connect with, like realtors and

anybody that can refer business to them plus their clients as well. So definitely check LinkedIn out, right? Yes, for sure. Get on there today. All right. Well, thank you so much, Nicole. It’s been a pleasure and I really enjoyed having you. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been great.