The OG Furniture Nerd Shares Her Secrets with Dianne Murata

Ever wondered how a visionary and an integrator can shape the success story of a business? Dianne Murata, the interior designer and founding principal of Kimiko Designs, unravels this intricate balance in our recent podcast episode.

Dianne's impressive journey from a funeral home to establishing Kimiko Designs is testament to her determination and innovative approach. Her mission to usher in sustainability in the furniture industry is as inspiring as it is admirable. Listen in to understand the strength of acknowledging individual capabilities and appreciate the unique culture of the furniture industry.

In a world where remote working has become the cornerstone of professional life, Dianne provides insight into how she built a thriving remote work culture with intention. She brilliantly details the roles she and her business partner, Ginger, undertake as a visionary and an integrator, that have been pivotal in their business growth.

The discussion continues around the concept of work-life integration and how Kimiko's flexible approach enables their team to operate from anywhere. The conversation concludes with a deeper look into sustainability and the shift in perspective from product to problem. Learn how Kimiko Green, with its customer-centric approach, grew from a handful of clients to over a hundred in just two years.

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Transcript

Dianne Murata: 0:00

It's hard to find really good people. So when you do, we want them to stick around working remotely for Kimiko Designs or Kimiko Green, whatever. It's not for everybody. There are some people that really thrive and going to an office every day, having the routine, getting up, getting ready. I mean we saw that during COVID and so we're not for everybody. So when we do find folks that it's a good fit in both directions, then we work really hard at it.

Sid Meadows: 0:34

Hey friends and welcome to the Trend Report Podcast, where we have real conversations with real people about all things contract interiors. My name is Sid Meadows and I'm your host. I'm a business strategist and certified professional coach and a longtime student of the office furniture industry, and I'm excited that you're joining us today, and my hope is that you will gain some insights, inspiration and motivation that will help you grow and your business grow. So let's dive in to today's conversation. Hey everybody, welcome to this week's episode of the Trend Report. I'm glad you're joining me today for this conversation and I'm excited to learn about my guests today, and I hope that you are too and get some amazing value for what I know is going to be a great conversation. So welcome my guest, Dianne Murata. Hey Dianne, how are you?

Dianne Murata: 1:24

Thanks for having me, Sid. There's no pressure, but yes, there will be lots of value.

Sid Meadows: 1:29

Absolutely.

Dianne Murata: 1:30

If nothing else, you and I together, we are solid entertainment value.

Sid Meadows: 1:36

That is a true statement, 100%. So, Dianne, before we dive in, tell everybody who you are and what you do.

Dianne Murata: 1:44

Sure, I am Dianne Murata, I'm an interior designer and I am the founding principal of a little firm called Kimiko Designs and we are a furniture centric design firm and we kind of grew our roots in the furniture industry and provide. For the first 15 years of the company we provided design specification support to furniture dealers and manufacturers and in the last 10 years we've also branched out into what we call furniture planning, and so furniture planning for all intents purposes is being an owner's rep and walking them through the furniture process, Typically whether they're buying new or repurposing or reusing. And those are the magic words, because in the last two years I was telling somebody this morning we basically gave birth to this little green alien called Kimiko Green. Now, it's not the bad kind of alien, it's more like the good ET kind of alien, but it is essentially. Kimiko Green has become an environmental and sustainability initiative where we're really pushing, trying to get our industry into a more sustainable lane and drive change and bring facility owners and managers together to help educate.

Sid Meadows: 3:03

So we're going to talk about Kimiko Green a little bit in a few minutes, but I want to go back to your story for a minute. I'm curious. What was the like? Give us a glimpse behind the scenes a little bit. What was the catalyst that said I'm going to start my own business because you're working in an office furniture dealership. And then you, like, started your own business, and so tell us about that story. How did you get started?

Dianne Murata: 3:27

I'm going to start like two months before that. So I'm Canadian, grew up, born and raised in Winnipeg, canada, and when I first moved to the United States and I lived in Texas, I moved to Texas. And when I first came here, because I am able to work through, at the time, the North American Free Trade Act, I was able to get a professional position. But at the time it was gosh 1999, maybe 2000,.

Dianne Murata: 3:53

the economy was not good then and so I ended up, in all of my efforts, getting two job interviews. One was at a commercial furniture dealership which I didn't even know was an industry, honestly, back then.

Sid Meadows: 4:06

Most people don't.

Dianne Murata: 4:07

No, true and a problem. Maybe we'll talk about that later. And the second job interview I had said was an interior design firm that specialized in funeral homes, so I chose furniture. Good for you and so furniture. You know I'm not knowing that it was an industry, I didn't realize. That actually is a really really good fit for me, so going through university.

Dianne Murata: 4:34

I was not a great student, said you know the whole creative, highly not schematic but highly conceptual design.

Dianne Murata: 4:43

I am extremely creative but I'm probably leaning heavily on the technical piece of it.

Dianne Murata: 4:49

And so when I got into furniture I realized really quickly that oh, I'm good at this technical stuff and it requires a lot of project management and I'm really strong in the project management space. And it was pretty clear to me quickly that while I loved the type of work that I was doing, the culture in the industry which I would say is still fairly prevalent, the culture of overworking and over everything, over everything, most things that just wasn't for me and also I just wanted more flexibility. So I would never hire me now, I would never, ever tell anyone to do this. But nine months after getting my first job in commercial furniture, I quit and started Cameco Designs and at the time I thought you know what, if I can just earn enough money where I am making the same salary, then I'll be fine and gosh, I think by the second year I had doubled what I was doing. Word had spread that there was a resource and at the time there were several really large projects on the East Coast and the dealers were short-handed. So that's awesome.

Dianne Murata: 6:02

Got my start there.

Sid Meadows: 6:04

That's a love understanding a little bit about the backstory and funeral home design. I just can't imagine that that would be any fun, honestly.

Dianne Murata: 6:12

Well. So the lady was very, very nice. I very specifically remember that she was very Southern and very kind, and when she asked me to put together a fabric and finish board, I stopped the interview. I said thank you for your time. This is not the job for me.

Sid Meadows: 6:31

So what I really appreciate about that is that you understand what your strengths are. Your strengths are not the creative but the technical, and we need both in our industry right, we need both in the world. We need the creatives and we need the technical people that understand, because when you think about furniture, it's the technical stuff that actually makes the magic happen at the end of the day making sure all the parts and pieces are there, that it goes together correctly. And the creative is fun, but the technical aspect is really really important.

Dianne Murata: 6:59

So it turns out I'm actually really creative in the space of problem solving. So it turns out that one of my superpowers, which I learned through the technical pieces of my daily job, I'm really really strong at problem solving, and whether that's problem solving of furniture or in a reconfiguration, or starting a business that is not a business and starting a business when back at the time when we started, we were using dial up internet, said dial up internet.

Sid Meadows: 7:33

Oh my gosh.

Dianne Murata: 7:34

So that that is where my creativity comes out and becomes a real strength. And well, certainly, over the years we've learned really quickly that there are hallmarks of dealer designers that are really, really important and in certain types of dealer designers and that being a strong rule follower is one, and then being really detail oriented and being able to dive deep into a project or a topic those are really important things to look for in dealer designers for sure.

Sid Meadows: 8:08

So I really appreciate the problem solving and tying that to creativity, because I think that's very, very important. And I remember Kosh, probably six or seven years ago, asking someone that I had been working with, because they tell you to do this right, like, ask the people that work for you or work with you, what do they see as your strengths and your weaknesses? And so I was having this conversation with somebody and this I never will forget this this guy I won't name his name, but he said you were one of your biggest strengths is creatively solving problems, and I thought that's why we don't know right.

Sid Meadows: 8:43

But I thought to myself, I never actually thought about it that way, and now, as I sit back after somebody brought it to my attention. Now I see it Like I see it. When somebody puts a problem in front of me, regardless of what it is, I can in some way figure out a path to the other side. And it is tapping into my creative genius, if you will, because picking colors and finishes ain't one of my creative geniuses. Let's be clear.

Dianne Murata: 9:08

Right, right With you.

Sid Meadows: 9:10

But business, on the other hand, is.

Dianne Murata: 9:12

And I think, Sid, the creativity too is what I have experienced of you is that not only do you see a path forward, but I hear you talk about multiple paths forward, that there's options, we could do this, this or this. And I think that's also where the creativity comes from, because it's not for me anyway, running a business it's not a linear process, or putting a team together that's a highly effective, high performing team. That is not a linear process. So the ability to see ultimately where you want to go down the road, but to see there's multiple ways to get there, one's not right, one's not wrong, and to test and try a direction and then to be able to redirect. I have seen you do that and I think that's also been really helpful in my career in building a business. I think being open to multiplicity is that a word we just make that.

Dianne Murata: 10:11

We know one do multiple paths forward. Right Is really important.

Sid Meadows: 10:14

Well, I think the biggest takeaway there is it's life's not linear, your business is not linear and the world's not linear. So you need to be able to take the ability to ping pong, make little micro pivots and adjust as the world throws crap at you, because you're going to get things thrown at you, and one of the things that probably got thrown at you early in your career was oh no, I got to hire people and you've taken that and you've grown to a really large group. I think I remember 13 designers that are working with you. You're a 100% remote organization, so some of them, I think I've even heard you say you haven't ever met it before in real life IRL, as we say. So tell me, what was it like hiring your first person? And now you've built this really nice firm doing good work.

Dianne Murata: 11:04

Well, so I also would just want to say there's 25, 27 of us.

Sid Meadows: 11:10

Hold them only so my stats were wrong. That's embarrassing for a podcaster who's done research.

Dianne Murata: 11:16

Oh, okay, okay, we're going to start that again.

Sid Meadows: 11:18

No, no, we're not either. You keep going.

Dianne Murata: 11:21

Yeah, so here's 25. Wow, here's. What's just mind blowing to me is that the very, very first person that I ever hired brought on as a contractor is Ginger Cookson, and we still work together today.

Sid Meadows: 11:38

Congratulations, that's awesome.

Dianne Murata: 11:39

Isn't that amazing? It's amazing. And have you ever read the book? Are you familiar with the book Rocket Fuel? I am not.

Dianne Murata: 11:47

Rocket Fuel talks about the concept of successful businesses. Successful companies almost have two types of leaders that work together. And there's a visionary, which I would say, Sid is you and I, and then there's an integrator. I will be the first person to tell you I'm all about the first 80%, but that last 20%, yep, you know it. That last 20% is probably the part that matters the most. And what we didn't know at the time is that Ginger and I are this perfect yin and yang of visionary and integrator. And she our team calls her the Dianne Whisperer sometimes, but she knows how to take all of my visionary energy ideas right, because sometimes multiple ideas and problem solving is really good, but when there's 100 of them, which is sometimes what comes out of my head or comes out of my mouth, that's a lot she's got. The integrator has this magical ability to understand what really needs to be done in that and then put it into practice. And so, oh gosh, maybe 10 years ago, Sid, I'm going to send you this book.

Sid Meadows: 12:59

I'm sending you this book. I wrote it down. You better do that before I put it in my Amazon cart, by the way.

Dianne Murata: 13:04

It's going to be done. You will have it by Monday. A friend had recommended the book to me and I read it and I it's a business book, Sid, but I cried because it felt like an autobiography of my relationship with Ginger, and so that was very first hire 22 years ago. Congratulations, that's awesome. And now here we are 25, 24 more people.

Sid Meadows: 13:31

Yes, and we need at least three more Wow and so everybody works from their home and is there, like I've talked to some entrepreneurs and business owners in the past, and maybe they target a certain demographic. Or do you do that? Are all yours moms that wanted to work but not you know? I mean, tell me about that demographic that you're hiring and how you built it Not intentionally, I would say we've.

Dianne Murata: 13:57

I don't want to be exclusive. I mean, for the most part, we are a bit of an army of moms, right and selfishly. The whole driving reason behind working from home is actually I don't want to work from home, I want to work from wherever I want to work from. I want to go right, yeah, I want to go work, but visit my family in Canada. I used to live in the Caribbean, so I want to go to the Caribbean, but not have to take vacation. I want to work while I'm there. I want to. My husband travels a lot for work, so I want to be able to travel with him but still be able to do what I love to do. So, yeah, so there's this army of moms that we've accidentally I mean, not on purpose. That just how we worked out.

Dianne Murata: 14:39

But I will say the thing that is the common thread for everybody is that we all want to do a good job. That's important to us. We all want flexibility to do other parts of life, and we talk a lot about living by design. So, Sid, we went to school for years. Everything that we do in our industry is focused around design, and we design a higher education, healthcare, corporate environments, so that to enrich the lives of other people. But hello, we can design our own lives too. So that's what we do, with intention, with purpose, and in order to do that, we work when we want, we work from wherever we want, we make commitments and we meet those commitments. But if that means that you want to go and spend Rachel on our team, she likes to do some machine work, and so she wants to work and work hard, and then she wants to take a month off To me that's living by design.

Sid Meadows: 15:41

So I have a couple of questions, because I think one of the things you just outlined is something that I refer to. I don't believe that there is such thing as work-life balance, because the term balance means that both things are equal, and when have our lives and our work ever been equal? And I think what we learned through 2020 and 2021, and even today, honestly, is we learn to truly integrate our life and our work so that we have a more fulfilled life or, as you described, living by design, so that, as Rachel, as you mentioned, I'm going to bust my tail getting all this work done during this time frame. I'm going to go, take a month off and be a missionary in a foreign country, wherever she goes right To do that work that's passionate to her. So she's learned to integrate the two together and I think that's very, very important, but in a remote culture, it has to be difficult for you.

Dianne Murata: 16:37

I don't know, Sid, it's the only thing we know. No, it's not difficult. It's not difficult, I mean, it's problem solving right Like we. Culture is important and I'm not sitting beside you so and my dial up internet is a little sketchy some diet, so, okay, how are we going to do that? Well, how we did that 15, 20 years ago is really different than how we do that today. But, for example, we've all bunch of us have just come back from the CET experience conference. So we intentionally do things like that so that we can create communities, so that we can create a culture.

Dianne Murata: 17:15

Ginger is amazing at, you know, we have we have weekly longer, longer standing design meetings where we you know, we share best practices or we talk about. We get reps that come in and tell us about their lines and we talk about some of our wins and some of our fails. We're always learning. And then we have almost two other weekly check-ins where we're making sure that balance, workload is being balanced, and sometimes we just get on and talk about what happened with our kids this weekend, and sometimes I really need you to just look at this picture of my foster dog. You know, sometimes you just have to have room or we. It's really important to us to leave room for those types of things, because it's just how it is in a virtual environment. If you actually want to know your people, if you want to know the people that you are okay, so you're not sitting beside them, but you are beside me on my screen. So it just is a different way of doing it and I think it's not hard at all.

Sid Meadows: 18:22

So the word that comes to my mind listening to you describe that, is intentional. You're being very intentional about connecting with your people, with your team members, about building relationships with them and about knowing them, and that is what helps to create a culture, regardless of where you are. The kudos to you for being intentional about the way you're doing it.

Dianne Murata: 18:43

Well, thank you. It's hard to find really good people. So when you do, I mean we want them to stick around and also listen to it. We realized really early, working remotely for Kimiko designs or Kimiko green, whatever it's not for everybody. Like there are some people that really thrive and going to an office every day, having the routine, getting up, getting ready. I mean we saw that during COVID and so we're not for everybody. So when we do find folks that it's a good fit in both directions, then we work really hard at it.

Sid Meadows: 19:22

That's awesome. So I am curious, though, about because our world rapidly changes, right, and we talked earlier about the fact that it's a little known industry. You come out of college you didn't really understand it, but it changes a lot. There's a lot of things that change about the way we plan spaces, the way that designers design spaces, trends in our industries and things of that nature. And, obviously, from 2020 to 2023, there's this whole hybrid work conversation, remote work conversation, whatever you want to call it. How are you guys keeping up on the trends? What are the steps that you take to stay informed about the way people are designing workplaces today?

Dianne Murata: 20:01

Back to your intentional word. We intentionally hired learners. So there's, a few Explain that Intentional hires yeah.

Sid Meadows: 20:09

No learners. I want to you say intentionally hired learners. Explain what that means, because I think my audience would be very interested in understanding what that means.

Dianne Murata: 20:17

So it's actually a word that is used in the Clifton Strengths Finder and the Clifton Strengths Descriptions, yeah and so. So learners in general just means to me these are these are my words but that they can't live without knowledge. They need knowledge, they consume knowledge, they need more. Given a book or a people magazine, I'm choosing people magazine and they're going to choose the book, the Encyclopedia, what have you? Now, by the way, there's trends in both, because you asked about trends, but mine's a little more shallow. So learners sometimes they're hungry for information about products, right. So there's learners who like, really collect ancillary products and information. But there, we've got a learner on our team, tamara, who's amazing and she is hyper focused on technology. So having this variety of learners, where we are putting the right people in the right place, in the right positions and enabling them to do the things that just come naturally to them, well, that's hello, that. That just makes a ton of sense.

Dianne Murata: 21:33

And and I don't have, you know, there's other people like me on the team. Not too many, thankfully, but there's other people like me who I, you know I'm. I love reading people magazine, but also because I would rather spend time talking to you or spend time educating people on on how to do furniture better. So I think, just having that, making that intentional decision to hire learners and now a spectrum of learners where you can't have everybody in the ancillary and and that's just been a really big deal, but it's the same thing with hiring, with intentionality.

Dianne Murata: 22:09

Currently, you know people who are really interested in sustainability in the environment. We, a few years ago, have intentionally added people who it was in our designers, who it was important for them to have some travel in their lives, because we have projects out of town, out of state, and so I think just this is the theme I'm learning for us, as I'm hearing myself speak more these days. It's just the thing that we do, the chemical way, if you want to call it that is that we very regular stop and think about what's happening and ask ourselves what do we want to do more of and what do we want to do less of, and so, and then we pivot from there.

Sid Meadows: 22:53

Great, great question, and I think one of the things that I heard you say that I think I want to reiterate for any business owner, a business leader that's listening to us today, is are the right people in the right job and then empower and enable them to do their job. That's a huge takeaway right there, that's it.

Sid Meadows: 23:11

So I want to fast forward so that we can get to another topic. So we've got two more topics I want to cover. So, yes, we're going to get there. I promise let's do it. I'm ready. Tell me, what was it like being asked to be a judge for Best of me at Cognizia in 2023?

Dianne Murata: 23:29

Well, I mean, first, what an honor, right? I mean, honestly, I didn't even ever consider the fact that I say someone like me. I don't know what that means, but that's someone like me. Maybe it's someone from the furniture industry or somebody who's a consultant on the outside, I'm not sure. I just couldn't believe that I had been asked to do that. And then, of course, in all the imposter stuff comes in and oh my gosh, do I even know anything? Can I contribute anything? And then after a while I was like, oh my god, what did I do? Because neocons an intense marathon all by itself. So then you add two to three more days on the front end and they listen. Being a juror for neocon is not for the faint of heart and it requires really good footwear.

Sid Meadows: 24:24

So I don't think that people understand. Is that neocon judging starts on Friday before the show? Yeah, Before the show. It's all day, right.

Dianne Murata: 24:31

I think at like 730 or 8 o'clock on Friday morning, so you actually have to be there the day before. Yeah, and it's a grind and, Sid, it was amazing. I mean to be able to have access to. I mean access to the thing that I love, right, I mean furniture and beautiful things. To have that access at neocon through so many showrooms without having to swim in the swim upstream and the sea of reps and people and clients, and that was amazing. It was amazing.

Sid Meadows: 25:09

That's awesome.

Dianne Murata: 25:10

And I would do it again and I would probably figure out how I could sleep for a week beforehand and so that I could do it and not need two weeks to recover after the fact. But let me the other thing. That, too, that sticks out for me is I'm amazing, I'm thinking back to that time, was I mean the people are amazing, the other jurors really. Such a variety of different backgrounds and some had been doing it for years and years. And then there's others like me who are brand new and dough-eyed. Yeah, what an experience. And then you know, the furniture and nerd and me was exploding because of all the facts and even though I'm not a learner, but just to see and learn about all that stuff and to be able to have that really high-level perspective of what the show is about, that was really cool.

Sid Meadows: 26:08

So I appreciate you sharing that. I've always been curious about Best of Neocon Judges and how they get selected and what it's like, and you've explained it. Let's share it a little bit. But I really want to know when you go into the room and close the door and you start debating who gets what, what's that experience like? I wish you guys could see her. If you're watching on YouTube, you saw that huge smile that just came on her face.

Dianne Murata: 26:31

I'm thinking because I can feel the electricity that came with that Wow. So I think there is like always there is an element of education. So, as we're trying to make those decisions, some of it is in our smaller groups, so some of it is more. I'll call it a local debate what did you like and why, and advocating for this or that or the other thing. But also what was amazing was what I heard a lot of, and no matter what category we were talking about, was there would be a group that would make a recommendation for product Z we'll call it.

Dianne Murata: 27:08

And then it was fascinating to hear the professional banter from the other groups who were bringing in a really different perspective. And in lots of cases you get the original pitch as to why this product would be best of neocon and you're like, oh yeah, that's amazing, that makes a ton of sense. And then you hear this completely different perspective from another group, which is also very eye-opening. It made me feel good about humanity that we could have that well-informed, kind, professional debate back and forth and in the end it was also just amazing to see how we all came together and really huddled around this. One final product.

Sid Meadows: 28:01

And yeah. Thank you for giving us a glimpse I can feel the energy.

Dianne Murata: 28:05

I still feel that.

Sid Meadows: 28:06

I love it. It's such an important event for our industry, especially North America, and so I appreciate you sharing, giving us a little glimpse behind the scenes. But let's go back for a second. You had a job started can be designed, then started growing, hiring people and your super passionate about furniture surrounding yourself with the right people, the right learners to help continue to grow. You Focus on dealers first and then started expanding to do facility planning or furniture planning for large corporations, to be unnamed, by the way. But and then you can.

Dianne Murata: 28:39

You can go to our website and see if you want to know every salesperson that you just said.

Sid Meadows: 28:44

You just said that to every salesperson out there. Right, your website metrics gonna ping up for sure, right? And then you started a new side, if you will step of commico design. You started commico green. So tell us what led you to commico green and then tell us we'll talk a little bit about commico green.

Dianne Murata: 29:05

I mean that was a complete accident. We had full transparency, said we had no idea what we were doing. We heard from all of our clients that there was a problem and they are all kind of having the same problem. Great, we're moving into this wonderful new space but we have all this other furniture in most cases. In a lot of cases it's still really quality furniture. We don't want it in our new space but we don't want to throw in the landfill.

Dianne Murata: 29:31

Interesting observation that I've noticed even just in the last 12 months, looking back at the last five or six years, I think one of the shifts that has happened is that facility owners and managers who five, six years ago there is a handful of them that wanted to do the right thing and not send furniture to the landfill, but now there is a majority of facility owners and managers who have to do the right thing. So I love that there is the shift. But really we started out by ask, trying to figure out why is everybody asking us the same question? And then, as we dug into it and and sort of started putting together what we think is was the problem, we would became pretty clear pretty quickly that, as a business person stepping back and looking at our industry and how we do things. And while we're always focused on new trends, I don't think we are Doing ourselves a lot of favors sometimes in our industry because we still try to do a lot of things the way we've always done them. But what we realized was, oh, if we're going to change the industry and if we're going to be able to make sustainability Less of a nice to have and more of a need to have and must have, that that change was going to come from the buying power of facility owners and managers.

Dianne Murata: 30:53

And when you start to hear the owners and the facility owners and managers all saying the same thing, it became pretty quickly evident that we're going to bring everybody together so that we could speak, that they could speak as one voice and try to drive change in the industry. But you know, super cool is that the very first time we got a group of together to say, hey, this is what we're seeing, this is what we think is happening, is this really happening? And they said yes, and there were six or seven of them, and that was just over a year ago and we have now over a hundred facility owners and managers who looked to Kimiko green for resources for community, for sharing information. We have specific resources. You know checklists and things like that. We have the Kimiko green playbook, but we even have resources.

Dianne Murata: 31:50

You know, I just got an email the other day about hey, I need to stand up an office over here, but it's in this city state, but it's just temporary, and so do you know anybody else that might be a resource for helping me get some temporary furniture? Great question.

Sid Meadows: 32:08

So that's making. So you said something that I think is really important. We talk about I've talked about a lot Our industry is very product centric and less problem centric. We sell products, but we don't always pay attention to the problem that our products solve. Yes, because we get paid by selling products. Let's be clear, that's what we get paid to do is sell products, but we miss the problem that we're solving.

Sid Meadows: 32:31

And what you just highlighted was something I think is very, very important that I want everybody I'm going to reiterate because everybody understand it you can make a green came from listening to your customers and the questions that they were asking you, identifying that there was an issue and a problem that needed to be solved. And you saw you're solving the problem and, in doing so, develop a new company, basically to help your customers solve this. And in I think two years roughly, I think a year and a half, two years you had nine customers and now you have a hundred that look to you as a resource for helping to solve their problem. And that is called paying attention and being problem centric and not product centric.

Dianne Murata: 33:16

OK, spot on. Yes, and you make sound really smart.

Sid Meadows: 33:20

You are really smart. You kidding me, you are really smart.

Dianne Murata: 33:24

Yeah, I mean certainly creative and open to trying new things. You know, there's a reason also that I call myself the accidental environmentalist and, yes, more than anything, we didn't start Camico Green to create a company or a consultancy or or for anything. That seems to be the side benefit of trying to really understand and trying to solve the problem. The side benefit is now we have a front row seat and to the countries and the world's most amazing companies, and the great part is there's already a filter, right Like the people who are there, the people who are a part of Camico Green, they come from organizations that are intentional. They are as a culture. They're wanting to do better, they're wanting to do more, they're wanting to do right by the planet, by the next generations, and so it already filters out and we're left with this really incredible group of people who are passionate about sustainability and incredible customers for us.

Sid Meadows: 34:35

That's awesome. So you mentioned the playbook and it's a comprehensive guide 38 pages of information. That will help. 25 pages, 35. I'm just looking at it in my PDF. That's why I said 38. Oh, in the PDF.

Dianne Murata: 34:48

Yes, yes, in the PDF. In the PDF, sorry, 38. Yes, it's a spread. There's two pages. Yes, it's a spread. We wrote a book and I'm going to try to make it sound as big of a deal as it was, as painful as it was to write that thing. It's great, but we just call it 75 pages.

Sid Meadows: 35:04

It is great. I'm looking at the PDF so, but it is great and we're going to drop a link to your website for people to go get the.

Sid Meadows: 35:11

we'll put that in the show notes for everybody to go get the playbook, because I have looked through it. The graphics are great, the information is powerful and I think some of the things that you're sharing are very important, not just for us as an industry, but we can also share this with others to help our customers, especially if you're a seller that don't understand this or don't know, or maybe asking the same question, we can point those customers into your direction by sharing the information that we learned in your we take away from you.

Dianne Murata: 35:38

Yes, please share that. It's free also, so that's helpful. But I will say just from a seller's perspective here's what I am hearing, and this is the example that we have firsthand seen in the last 18 months. Facility owners and managers want to talk about this and so if I'm a seller and I'm not keying into that, that's a really big problem. So, going back to what you were saying, Sid, about, really we're selling solutions and we're building relationships. I have seen we have a couple of really great dealers that we work super closely with and I have seen them use the playbook as a means to reach out to customers and to start new conversations and to engage in different conversations and listen when you go from seven to over a hundred and listen. We're a tiny company, right? We're not. We don't have giant marketing budgets. This has all happened very organically. What that says to me is that this is what facility owners and managers want to talk about.

Sid Meadows: 36:47

So if you are a seller in our industry, you need to hit the back button about three times and listen to what she just said again, because it's very powerful, very, very powerful, and I appreciate it. Dianne, I know we're out of time because you have a hard stop. I have a couple of minutes left. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you coming and sharing your story, telling us about Neocon, the journey of your Kimiko , Green, where you're headed with it. But I have one final question. It's an easy one. Okay, Sid, lay it on me. Will you come back again? We can talk some more.

Dianne Murata: 37:19

Absolutely 1000%.

Sid Meadows: 37:21

I think there's a lot of things we could talk about.

Dianne Murata: 37:23

It'd be super fun, though we should try to do it in person, Because I and we if we do it in person, though, we're going to need to leave a lot more time because you and I, we go, we go and you make it really easy and you make it fun. So yes, absolutely.

Sid Meadows: 37:37

Well, I appreciate you sharing your story, and if our community would like to get in touch with you, what is the best way for them to do that?

Dianne Murata: 37:44

Well, LinkedIn is super easy, or go to kimikodesignscom.

Sid Meadows: 37:49

We will be sure that both of those are in the show notes for everybody to link to and remember. Guys, if you do reach out to her on LinkedIn, be sure you drop her a note at add comment there when you send her a connection request, letting her know that you heard her here on the Trend Report and that's why you're connecting with her. Dianne, thank you again for being here with me today. For all of you out there listening, thank you for joining us. Go out there and make today great and we'll see you again in a couple of weeks. Take care, everyone. Bye. Thanks for joining me today on this episode of the Trend Report Podcast. I'm glad that you're here and I hope that you got some amazing value out of today's conversation. For more about our podcast and this episode and our other episodes, please visit my website at sidmeadows. com. We look forward to seeing you next week and go out there and make today great.