why connection is everything

Take a read of this if you’re camera shy https://www.instagram.com/p/CpZXpZHvCUJ/?igsh=MXZyN3pmeGtmZDI1NA==

Five Five-Minute Tasks to Build Better Connections Today

1. Audit Your Social Media Followers: Spend five minutes reviewing your follower list. Identify and remove any bots or inactive accounts to improve engagement metrics and ensure your content reaches real, interested people.

   2. Engage Authentically: Instead of generic comments or likes, take five minutes to leave meaningful comments on posts from followers or potential clients. Show genuine interest in their content.

   3. Show Your Face: Create a quick story or reel where you share something personal or behind-the-scenes from your day—even without makeup or in a casual setting. This makes you approachable and real.

4. Share a Mini-Story: Post a short story or an experience that shaped your business or your day. It could be a challenge you overcame or a small victory. Keep it real and relatable.

5. Direct Messaging:Send a personal message to a follower or potential client who has engaged with your content recently. Ask a question or share a resource related to their interests to show that you value their engagement.

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Transcript

0:13

Welcome to designing success from study to studio. I'm your host Rhiannon Lee founder of the Oleander and Finch design studio. I've lived the transformation from study to studio and then stripped it bare, took time to write down the step by step framework. So now you don't have to overthink it. In this podcast, you can expect real talk with industry friends, community connection, and actionable tips to help you conquer whatever's holding you back. Now let's get designing your own success. On today's solo episode of Designing Success, I wanted to have a little talk to you about humanizing our brand. So that connection piece we're always using all these buzzwords like connection and humanizing and in marketing, authentic is a big one. We hear all of these words. And because I am creating the marketing workshop at the moment for the girls who are coming to our event in Melbourne on the 2nd of June, there's still a ticket or two. So let me know If you want to join them, but because specifically inside of that marketing workshop, I'm going to be talking about imposter syndrome, a lot about connection and about what we actually are trying to achieve in this personal branding day. And by filming all of this B roll and you know, how does that connect me to my audience? Because it's just me straightening up vases on a fireplace or me putting a book, opening a book on a coffee table to style. How is my potential client? Going to be like, oh my God, how do I work with you? Take all my money. Like obviously there's a gap between those two things. The B-roll and the really heavily engaged audience and humanizing your brand is that gap. It's making that connection. I can't tell you how many times people have said to me over the course of six years, I'm, you know, I'm in the framework because I related to you over other people. You just say it how it is, or you felt very real. I know you. So if you have really young children and you just show up for your brand or I wanted to come and work with you on marketing and getting over my fear of being on camera. And I know you're the right person to help me with that because you get on camera every day, stuff like that. So, yeah, and that's not a toot your own horn thing on your own podcast. It's more around what can it look like and why actually maybe showing up is going to be that connection piece that we have to get over because if you don't leave a lasting impression on your audience, when they see you. And they're ready to go ahead and buy whatever it is that you, whatever service you provide, whatever product you're selling, when it's time to buy, they just don't think about you as the person to buy it from. And they're the kind of people that you would run into down at the supermarket and say, Oh, I'm surprised to see that you're working with X designer. I would have loved to have helped you on your project. And then I, Oh, I forgot you did that. Or, Oh, I didn't even think of you. I didn't even know, Oh, don't you, you know, when you get that. from people. That means probably we could do some more work on that connection piece. The key to connection is establishing your personal brand, like being totally exactly as you are in person on every interaction that they have with your brand showing up. You'll hear like, it's not just the language that you use. It's the opinions that you have. It's the way you verbalize them and share them. It's the way you listen to opposing opinions and deal with that. It's every. Every tiny little place that you step up as the business owner and that people are able to observe you in that way. I feel in the early years, I wanted to project a much more professional persona on Instagram and whatnot than I probably am in real life. And it wasn't until I let a little bit of that guard down and Actually started speaking a bit more about what I was interested in and what I loved and who I was, that I started to get a lot busier and people did connect a lot more. So at the beginning I felt that I was showing up a lot and saying, today I'm going to talk to you about the different ways that we could stack a tile and I love a herringbone tile lay. Whereas when I would get on there and say, Oh my God, does anyone know how to actually pronounce Zaligar tiles, which I recently learned is not Zalige. Those sorts of things, people like, ah, I didn't know that. Or I pronounce it like you used to, or I don't judge you for saying a word wrong because you are a person and we all have to learn these things. You can't just be bored knowing everything. That creates, as you can see a lot more conversation. It's a lot more interesting than just showing up in a perfect bubble all the time and feeling like, because this is my business, I can't be relatable. I have to be completely, I don't know, the professional projection that I thought an interior designer was. Designers should be making, the, the blazer, the heels, the softly spoke. It's not necessarily me. It's much better just to show up as me and say, Hey, take it or leave it. I'm here to help. Because you hope that most people who want to buy from you will actually not have a problem with taking it. In fact, there'd be more attracted to it by who you are. So some of the easiest ways to humanize our brand is not to take things so seriously. Just have a bit of fun, show up and be okay with. I didn't mind that I pronounced Zalij, Zalij instead of Zaliga. I have subsequently listened to the pronunciation on Google and I have it under control. Or maybe I don't, or maybe I was right and it was wrong. It's just still a bit of a laugh. It doesn't, I don't think that it's going to make or break me. I can still make that selection for my client because everything I do is in a written procurement list anyway. I don't have to verbally say all the things. So. I'm just using that as an example, obviously, but being able to have a bit of fun tap into your actual personality, talk about the things that annoy you a little bit, maybe, or that grind your gears or that push your buttons a little bit because a lot of your audience will either lean hard into that or lean hard away from that. And that's how we find our true sort of community and the true people that want to work with you. That's where you identify the people who scream, take my money when they see everything that you do. Another thing that I will just highlight, I guess, at this intro or early section of humanizing your brand is just to be careful not to only show up to pitch what you're selling. It's important to share what you have to offer. So, Specifically when you know, that's a helpful thing. Like I've recently been talking about the intake of the framework coming up at the end of the month, as well as the be in the room where it happens, marketing, personal branding day a lot. And I feel like I'm showing up a lot, but then somebody I've followed for ages who I know has been watching my stories for months, popped into my thing the other day and said, what event, what are you doing? And I went, see, it's exactly why it doesn't actually matter how many times you say it, it could hit differently for someone, or someone might suddenly go, Oh, no, I kind of get the value now. I didn't realize I was going to get 20 images or I didn't realize I was going to spend all day learning. I thought it was just like in and out all those little penny drop moments. So it's totally fine to show up and sell every single day, specifically when you absolutely are passionate about what you're offering and you know, the benefit is to the client. It's not, it's like, I'm helping you have a thing. I'm giving you a massive transformation. Then it's about talking about what that actually looks like and what they Get, and that is a service, you know, you need to show up and talk about, but only showing up in your feed and every other instance to pitch something, ask people to buy things. That's a real ick. Like it's really hard to humanize a brand like that. If you never share a meme, if you never share a laugh at yourself, if you never show up and have a conversation about where you went for lunch or this thing, someone cut you off in the car park at Coles, and this is how you found it. If you're not showing any of that, if you won't get on and. Share your goofy, you know, showtunes and 90s music jams or, any of the tragicness that makes you just a super dork. If you won't get on and show any of that, then it's really hard for people to connect with you when all they ever see your face. The only time you're showing your face is because you're like, Hi guys, I thought I would show up and let you know that I've got this new thing to sell you. Like, I don't know. People notice that for sure. This industry sometimes feels like such a crowded market. So that personal connection can really set you apart from other people, because a lot of people come out of design school and we all have the same skills. We can all do the same thing, but it's how you do it, how you create things. And it's you, you're actually sort of selling the experience of working with you. So that's why discovery calls and initial consults are so important because it's about building the relationship. Do I want to work with this person for two years on a highly stressful project? If we're on a site meeting and she can't be flexible, will I feel connected enough to say, I'm going to need a breather from this? 24 hours. I need to think about it. I'm not ready to lock it in or you're pushing me out of my comfort zone too much. I'm not that borrowed with color. I need you to listen or stuff like that. So you want to have a really good two way relationship and that trust and loyalty is easiest built early before you're there. Even a client. So it helps them people buy from the brands that they feel really connected to. They want to know, yeah. The humans behind the business, they want to know what's going on for you. What's your life like? Like, do you have kids? Are you obsessed with texture? Do you have wallpaper all in your studio? Like, are you one of those designers? Or do you, are you much more neutral led? Do you have an opinion on a hybrid floor over a classic timber flooring that Those things will be collected over time without you even noticing just through the conversations and collaborations that you project out to your audience. And so to achieve genuine connection. Your personal branding obviously is the way you're, you humanize your content. You show up and they see that you're a person, but that authenticity just comes from exposure and over and over showing your true self and less polished is better. Like if you can, if you'd say something wrong, or if you could just say things in the words, the way you would explain them, the way I'm doing this podcast, it's so much more relatable to people and people get it. Simple sales. They don't want you to come and talk to them about procurement. If you could just. say, I will absolutely help you. I will make sure everything gets purchased and installed on the last day, you know, talking them through it in a way that they can understand. The same as with your social media, you don't have to put on a front and show up and only talk when you're using the big girl language. Like you can just pop up in the stories and say, Oh, I just had a funny thing happen in a tile shop. I was really looking for something textural and the girl language. The person I spoke to in the store was really helpful. I found one and then I couldn't stop thinking about what kind of grout color, like having a conversation, telling a story is going to really, really help. Okay, so I want to give you five, five minute tasks that will help build a better connection with your audience today. So things, actionable things that I want you to go and see, maybe you can collect all five by Friday. That'd be amazing. If you're on my subscription list for my email, I sent out a Friday five at five, I would love for you to reply to that and say, Oh, I also did all of these five things between when I listened on Tuesday, if you're listening to this in real time and today. So. The first thing that I would say is to audit your social media followers. Spend five minutes reviewing your followers. Identify and remove any bots or inactive accounts. Maybe for some people they remove some others who are never going to be paid. clientele. So that could be some peers in the industry somebody that's followed you, that used to work with you when you worked in accounting 22 years ago, and you just feel like you don't want them watching for whatever reason. It's your social media account. I don't mind, but when I say audit your social media followers, I specifically mean we're trying to clean out your audience so the people who do follow you are much more inclined to engage with you because you don't have any fake people in there, people that are following you to give you a sheen gift card or whatever. You have to be really careful. Because that's what spikes our engagement percentages or like makes engagement feel really hard a lot of the time can be that you've left out a bit unchecked. There's also an area within Instagram that will flag that for you. So when you go into your followers, it will say like you have X amount of possible spam bots. Do you want to get rid of them all? So you can use that. So five minutes, just go in. Even if you do five minutes a day for the next five days, you clean out quite a few, it'll help bring your engagement figures up higher. Activity number two, engage authentically. So instead of generic comments, likes, take five minutes to leave meaningful comments on posts from followers or potential clients, show genuine interest in their content. I am one of those Instagram, Mood board or whatever. I genuinely have had my socks blown off by it because I really hate that 15 minutes engaging with these people. Then 10 minutes of engaging on this and then like this to try to get your own result. I have always hated that social media method and I have never ever employed it. So when I say engage authentically, what I mean is. Think about the sort of comments that you do give when you give them and make sure they're not just one love heart or stunning love this try and be in there to say I've seen quite a few of your mood boards on my feed lately and this one has to be by far my favorite like think about something because that person will know that you've taken the time to engage authentically and will come back to you so I think it is more meaningful to spend five minutes finding something that you you are lit up by that you are excited by and then telling the person why and creating and sparking genuine engagement. It's just going to take you a lot further, a lot faster. Today's podcast episode is proudly brought to you by Purefloor. Purefloor is a cleaning solution that I use in my own home. I have a white rug, a white sofa, three boys, a dog, a cat, and a husband. I definitely need this in my life. And because it's all natural, it's soap and chlorine free. It's a hundred percent a plant based formula, and 000 square meters of surface. Cozzy lives, am I right? It's gone a long way and it's been a total game changer for us at home. So thank you Purefloor for sponsoring Designing Success. Okay. Activity number three, stay with me because we have five to get through. And I know this is the one that you've got to want to bail, but show your face. Just create a quick story or a reel where you're sharing something personal or behind the scenes, something from your day, even without makeup, even with a filter or without a filter. Keep it real in a casual setting, it makes you feel approachable, it makes you feel like a human, and that is the point of humanising. Not all of you will be able to do number three straight away, and that's fine. I have like, a whole bunch of tips around how to overcome that fear. Fear of the camera and get on, show your face. It's something that I definitely will be teaching inside of the marketing workshop in a few weeks. It's really hard to overcome, but once you get on there and you do it, you'll find it gets easier and easier. I know that it's really hard to hear other people say that it's like fine for you. You show up every day, but I never used to. I remember my entire face shaking. I remember being so, Paralyzed with Fiat I refilming and filming and refilming and wasting an entire day, and then never putting the content out there because I just could not cope with the sound of my voice or the look of me or whatnot. And now I have a podcast and I show up every day. So it's obviously exposure therapy and I would not suggest you do it if I didn't know that it 100% works. If you would like some further support, come and see me at my DMS over on Instagram at oleander underscore and underscore Finch. I will give you a link to a resource that I have all about how to overcome like heaps of ideas, how to do stuff as you're getting used to getting on camera, as well as I do have those sorts of things in the resource hub for interior designers of my website, which is www. oleanderandfinch. com. Okay, share a story, a mini story, a little story. Post a story about an experience that either shaped your business, why you got into business, something about your day, a challenge that you overcame for a client recently, or even the teeniest, tiniest victory. Like, I can't tell you behind the scenes I've been searching around and around for ages for a particular height chair to fit under an existing antique desk, which we're going to use. But of course people were made smaller back then and I couldn't find a chair that tucked under and needed to be fabric, but their wheels need to go in the cutlery. We Thousands of examples of these tricky things that we do for clients. It's part of what makes up the client brief. Your potential client is watching how you deal with that. So whenever we can get on and talk about how you managed a situation on social media. site. So 90 percent of what we're hired for is problem solving. So if you can get on your stories and articulate how you solve those problems without hyperventilating and crying and screaming and without a tantrum and without going to ground or needing. to be admitted to hospital for the drama, if you can actually get up and say, look, it's not ideal. This is what's happened. This is how I've approached it. This is the client's approach as well. We're on the same page. We're really looking forward to X outcome or yay. I found the chair. I know you guys don't know anything about the chair, but let me tell you a little bit about why it was so difficult to find the height and the antique desk and that sort of story. People will watch that. People will also watch 26 consecutive stories about a person trying to make a sandwich. Like, I have watched the most mundane, boring stuff on the internet in my life. I cannot tell you, we're all guilty of it. We are basically a TikTok generation or Instagram stories. Think about what you consume. It is far less interesting than what you have just done this week alone for a design client. And if you don't have any clients yet, you can get on and talk about the design brief. You don't have to say who's designed brief and how you met the brief and how you delivered the brief. And those things will start to give your potential clients some real confidence that you know how to handle yourself in an interior design environment. Okay, the last thing that you can do as a five minute task to build better connection is around direct messaging. Okay, now when you are DM people, this is not that gross thing where you DM them and said, Oh, I can see that you might be looking for a course to help support you with the business knowledge you didn't get in design school and like, Gross, I'm never going to do that to you. And neither should you to anyone else about your services, what you, what it means when you direct message is to send a personal message to a follower or a potential client who's engaged previously with your content and ask a question or share a resource. So for me, I like to like share a resource. I might've talked to someone about something that they're doing in their business. And then two days later, I see a reel that's related to that same And then I will send it to them and say, That's what I meant when I said show up on camera. Like, see how she's doing that? See, she's not even on the camera. She's just kind of in and around it. Or she's the voiceover. Or if I've tried to support someone in something, then I loop back around with a free resource or a thing that could be helpful. Better support them. That's obviously coming from my perspective where my potential client will be a business owner who needs coaching, needs help, needs support, community and resources. So that would be my approach. But for you, you might be Someone might've said, Oh, where's that rug from? I really love it. And you're like, that's a Miss Amara rug. It's from two collections ago though, and it's no longer blah, blah, blah. But you might swing back around in two weeks and say, Oh, I was just on this site in the U S and ruggable have one. It's exactly the same, but you would have to pay shipping. Here's the link. I used to do that all the time. Those people came back and booked consults with me, hands down. It's not trying to be manipulative. It's trying to use the. You know, work with what your mama gave you or whatever it is, but shake what your mama gave you. It's just trying to use what I've already got in a business savvy way that's going to result in better connections. Because ultimately I didn't care if they came back and booked. I cared if they were an engaged audience that was having a good conversation with me and I had that connection. It is social media. I wanted to be social. I don't want to just have a bunch of connection that feels really routine and disingenuous. I would really encourage you to pick at least one of those tasks and try it right away. Do it right now. Then, please share your experience with me. Come and tell me if you gave something in this podcast a go. It would absolutely make my day. You would not only be one of my conversations in my direct message that I just love to have, but it just, This podcast goes out into the ethos and you don't know what people actually take out of it. So when I hear that you did, Oh, I did one, two and four of those activities. It's only taken me 15 minutes this week, but it's meant that I've sort of audited some social media followers. I've shown my face on camera and I've shared a mini story. And I did all of that in 15 minutes. Just to recap what those five minute tasks were. Number one, audit your social media followers. Number two, engage authentically. No generic comments. Get in there and think of something really, really good. meaningful to talk to someone and to make a comment about their work. Number three, show your face, create a quick story or reel where your face is there. You're personally branding and humanizing your brand. Number four, share a mini story or experience. And number five, level up your DMs, share a personal message, share a link, be helpful. Know, just double tapping the heart. Like when somebody reacts to your reel or reacts to your stories or comes to talk to you. Just a reminder, if you want any of the free resources, the guide, any information on our personal branding day, that's coming up. If you want to talk workshop, if you want to talk framework, because this is the last intake ever for 2024 for the framework as it is right now. Very nerve wracking. I'm like, Oh, it's so weird. We're doing so much. I'm doing so many changes in the background. And I'm also thinking, Oh my gosh, this is the last chance people have to just swoop on in and take. Everything that they need and spend a year with me. If that's you, DM me the word framework. Let's get chatting, book an alignment call. I have a whole bunch booked for next week, but the week after is pretty clear and that'll be the week leading into when you can actually join. So if you want one of those alignment calls, let me know. But until next week, that's it from me. I hope that you can pick out a couple of things to help you with connection because connection is everything in order to get people aware of your brand and desperate to work with it. They have to know who you are and. I don't care about faceless Instagram accounts. I know this is a new thing like, oh, this faceless account got X amount of followers. Cool. Followers mean nothing to me. Likes mean nothing to me. Everything is in the shares, the saves, the spreading the word of my brand, the connection, the dropping into my DMs and those that could actually say, Three things they know about Oleander and Finch and they generally got nothing to do with my deliverables or job that I do as an interior designer or a coach in the interior design industry. I'm not kidding. Like mostly people say to me, the three things I know I know that you have three little boys. I know that you live in the Macedon ranges. I, you know, they, they know things about me that actually have nothing to do with what I'm with what services I'm actually offering. Okay, on Thursday, I have an amazing interview with Veronica, the founder of Ark Arlo. Veronica is heading into her third year of business. She is in the framework. She has just gone out on her own about six weeks ago. So she started her business for the first two years alongside working full time. And she will talk us through the entire journey and what's going on for her right now. There's some really exciting tidbits in that conversation. I really enjoyed it. And I hope that you will too. I will chat to you on Thursday with the lovely Veronica from Akon Alley. That wraps up another episode of Designing Success from Study to Studio. Thanks for lending me your ears. Remember, progress over perfection is the key. If you found value in today's episode, go ahead and hit subscribe or share it with a friend. Your feedback means so much to me and it helps me improve, but it also helps this podcast reach more emerging and evolving designers. For your daily dose of design business tips and to get a closer look at what goes on behind the scenes, follow at oleander underscore and underscore finch on Instagram. You'll find tons of resources available at www. oleanderandfinch. com to support you on your journey. Remember, this is your path, your vision, your future, and your business. Now let's get out there and start designing your success. Today's podcast partner was Purefloor. Purefloor is a 100 percent natural plant based formula cleaning product. It uses multi enzymes that continue to work up to 72 hours after you're clean. Up to 72 hours after you clean, it's a soap and chlorine free stain remover and odor remover. I can absolutely attest to this because my father in law rang me in a blind panic last week after he'd spilt hot, dirty, chocolate, milk, all through his beautiful rug. I whipped over there with my Purefloor, we treated the rug and I can tell you there are no milk smells and no remaining stains. So thank you Purefloor for sponsoring Designing Success.