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Welcome to design for the creative mind, a podcast for interior designers and creative entrepreneurs to run their business with purpose, efficiency and passion. Because while every design is different, the process should remain the same. Prepare yourself for some good conversations with amazing guests, a dash of Jesus and a touch of the woowoo and probably a swear word or two. If you're ready to stop trading your time for money and enjoy your interior design business. You are in the right place. I'm your host, Michelle Lynn.
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All righty Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the design for the creative mind podcast. I am Michelle Lynn, and I am so grateful y'all are here. It's always nice to know that it's more than just my mom listening to the podcast. So today I have Allison Conklin as our guest. She is the founder and principal of Alison Conklin public relations, also known as ACPR, which is a boutique public relations agency for interior designers. So welcome, Alison. I'm so glad you're here.
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Thank you for having me, Michelle. Oh, this
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is going to be so much fun. And so y'all I think if you've been listening to the podcast for a little while, I've mentioned that I really an Allison, you might not know this, I did not want to do a podcast. I was just like, how am I going to add one more thing to my plate? I have no desire to do a podcast like no, I can't do this. But y'all. And Alison, I am so excited because I've changed my tune. I love doing these podcasts, because I get to meet such interesting people and learn things. So on a selfish level. I'm so excited to talk to you today and learn more about this whole PR thing. Oh,
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well, thank you. Thank you again, for having me. I'm really excited to be here. And thank thankfully, you started the podcast and you kept it going even though you didn't want to at first that's
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I'm addicted. It's a thing.
2:10
You know, I think that there's something to be said about obviously, being an entrepreneur, but then also doing things that we don't want to do. Because we know there is essentially a reward or lesson at the end. And you just you have a full circle moment for you. Right? Very
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much. So it's like working out, you know, the hardest part is just to get started. So I don't want to get dressed. I don't want to get in the car and go, let's so here we are. We're doing it. We're full force. And I'm super excited to talk to you. So hey, okay, let me let me start with, tell me about your PR firm. Who do you serve? And how did you get started? Yeah,
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so ACPR, as you said, acronym for Alison Conklin public relations. Were a 13 year old boutique PR agency for interior designers. founded this company in 2010, after a corporate career in PR, I always worked in house and PR. And when I was leaving my last corporate job, an interior designer that I had worked with there said to me, would you ever consider opening your own company? And if you did, I would be your first client? I was 27 or 28. At the time, and or no? Hell no. Yes,
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amen. Well, I
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will not be doing that. Who months later changed my tune started the company. And just like we talked about doing hard things, you know, and just the best, it has turned into something that I am so insanely proud of. We serve interior designers across the US. My husband and I were actually just talking about this in preparation for this call about who we have served over the last 13 years in terms of regions and ages. And we have rep designers from California to New York all over the southeast Chicago, it has been such a privilege to be able to represent so many designers with different style of viewpoints and different Yeah, right processes and understanding of business. And we've also represented designers who are at different stages in their lives from we have a Gen Z designer on our roster right now. All the way to some baby boomers who have very incredible, very successful studios. I got started in PR in New York in the early 2000s. And started in beauty PR specifically and made my way kind of into luxury lifestyle and which encapsulated interior design. And I'm so grateful because I was able to utilize all of that experience to create this multifaceted agency. We are a small company, all women with the exception of my husband, who's our CFO, and we work predominantly with women on brands across the US.
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I love that and I I think that women supporting women is just such a powerful space to be in. And you know, personally, it just, it just lights me up. Agreed. It's a completely different demographic. So thank you for for that service. Okay, so if I'm in the audience, or actually just selfishly, what can PR do for my studio? And what can't it do? Yeah,
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I love all that happy to answer all the things. So in terms of what it won't do, I have had, over the years, people come to my door asking, I want to be famous, or I want to, I want to have my name become a household name, PR can do that. But that's not really what we do. What we are doing is building awareness for brands, we are attracting audiences that you would not be able to reach on your own. So in terms of what what we do, and where the value really is for PR for interior designers, we're not going to give you new clients, we're not going to convert new clients, what we're going to do is we're going to bring them to you through exposure through media placements. So whether it's a story on House Beautiful online, within print pages of Better Homes and Gardens, you know, a social takeover on veranda, a podcast opportunity where they're able to share their story and their design viewpoint, that is exposing designers to a whole different audience that they would not be able to reach on their own. And when I say reaching on their own, it's through your own marketing activities. So we're talking about SEO, we're talking about newsletters, social media, anything that you have an existing audience, we are able to give you exposure to and awareness to people that you would not be able to reach on your own and the sweet spot. And the really cool thing about PR, is that it's giving you that credibility, it's giving you that third party validation idea which, you know, if I come on your podcast, and I say to everyone, I'm amazing, trust me, I am amazing. You will not regret working with me, versus having someone esteemed or a credible media source, say, Allison and amazing, she has delivered these results. This is why you should work with her. Who are you going to believe? Who are you going to place more value in their opinion? And that that's PR in that shell? We're delivering social proof. Okay, so
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basically, you're taking a marketing aspect, and spinning that into public relations. Therefore, the client or the prospective client calls us and then it's up to us to do the sales dance and close them. Correct. Correct.
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So we are we call PR a top of funnel marketing activity, meaning we're delivering audiences to your website to your Instagram through whatever links or, or replacements. And then really, it's up to you to have a strong website with really strong brand positioning and active Instagram portfolio, you know, things that are going to capture them, and then convert them. We've heard we all as business owners know that it takes a certain amount of times for someone to be exposed to you before they actually take action.
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Yes, and even more in this, like overly saturated world
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so much. And I think last year, we were saying it was eight times, which that's a lot of times to have to be exposed to the same brand, over and over again, before you take action. I don't know about you, but I love to shop online and you give me one time I'm gonna buy it. So maybe maybe I'm not very I'm not normal customer. But if you think about all of your marketing activities, plus PR, those are all I mean, it's all a part of strategy for your for your brand.
8:51
That makes sense. And also so I literally, I think I just bought a belt off of Instagram, there's a difference between like an $89 belt and hiring an interior designer. So you're right, I think for us, they probably have to be exposed eight 910 times just to pull the trigger
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for and you think about all of those times like they it's through an Instagram ad it's through being you being quoted in a story online, it's through you speaking on the panel, all of the different types of ways that you generate exposure for yourself, they all work together and PR really works together with your marketing, but gives you a different on what like I said before, it takes it
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further than I can. So that's okay, so let's let's talk about that. Because I've di wide my PR for a long time. Yes, I just threw myself under the bus. Why should an interior design firm, hire a PR agency instead of trying to scrap things together? Yeah.
9:51
So not knocking any DIY PR because listen ever there has to be something for everyone or also would Dude, that's just the beauty of this world. That said, I do think there is there's a lot more that hiring an agency will do for you and then doing PR on your own, you can only learn so much from a DIY course, you can only send the same templated email out to so many editors so many times before they start catching on. I mean, we working in this industry for a long time. I have really candid conversations with editors. And they, you know, a few months ago once said to me, you would be shocked at the amount of template emails that I'm getting from directly from designers who are pitching their projects. And it's clear that there are some DIY courses that they're taking, which I love that PR is on the radar for designers, because clearly they know that there's a value there. What we offer as an agency is inherent strategy, deeper connections, and understanding of life cycles of media of trending of how to position brands. And let's be honest, as business owners, you don't have time for that
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I was you have a sad thing you should be doing after I threw myself under the bus, right? They're saying that I've been kind of patching shit together myself. It's like a bookkeeping. I'm not a bookkeeper. So why am I trying? Like I outsource bookkeeping, I outsource procurement, all of these sorts of things. I think that when you first start in business, and you you don't have the additional funds, then you know, patchwork it together, it's fine. But it's I think PR sometimes gets lost in the Yeah. It just gets lost. Yeah.
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And if you think about, you know, name recognition is everything. Even with us personally, like on a personal social level, if we get an email from someone that we know, in our inbox, of course, we're going to open it immediately. You get an email from Alison Conklin and you have no idea who she is, you know, versus Alison Conklin's PR team, who you've worked with many times and trust and know that we're going to be breaking open
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the door faster than I go directly to spam. I'm just I haven't actually pitched specifically to any shelter magazines or anything, but let's just say it goes to House Beautiful. And then like, it's ml interiors group, and it goes to spam. I pitch it in December, they might not find it until June. Yeah, as yours lands in there. And I like what I hear from Allison.
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And thinking about the amount of time it takes for follow up. So I think we recently heard another video and PR about the amount of times you need to follow up in order to get a response or to get an answer. And sometimes it's for six times. And the facilitation, let's talk about even the facilitation of opportunities. So say, you are pitching you DIY pitch and you land a project well, then there's this whole interview process, and how do you know who you're supposed to credit in your story? You know, are you supposed to talk about the architect is the contractor involved? You know, how much of your resource list are you sharing? What are the homeowners interested in participating in this? And so there's just so many nuances. So I'm very much like you, Michelle, I'm an advocate of hiring for strengths and for things that I don't know how to do. So of course, finances is number one, bookkeeping, accounting, all of that. And then the things that we don't have time for or specialization in, that's
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what I joke. So when I'm teaching when I'm in my coaching, when I have my coaching hat on, I joke that you know what, this is not my natural hair color. Like I don't do this stuff myself. Like I go to Shauna and say Shawna, this is what I want. This is what I don't want and she's the one who works all the magic. A while Why would I not hire some? It's like hiring an interior designer. They come to us because we are professionals. We need to go to professionals for for what we need to get done as well. That's hilarious. I've Yeah, see, I learned so Sean's, I'm not
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doing a great job. So yeah, it's not up to you. shenana She does a fantastic day. I love the world shamanism
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the world. Okay, so I'm just I'm thinking about designers are walking their dogs right now, or they're driving along, or they're doing housework or whatever. Which by the way, you guys should outsource your housework so that you can create more designs. But as they're listening, they might be thinking, Well, how do I know what PR firm to hire? Because it's now that it's kind of on the radar. It might be just showing up all over the place. How what's the right PR agency, whether they hire you or hire somebody else? What are we looking for?
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Yeah, I want to go back to the outsourcing cleaning Believe it or not, my husband and I we still clean our house ourselves. God bless you. Our chores. I mean, we don't have kids. We have dogs and we've been married for it'll be 18 years next month adulation squirrel. That's
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a lot of work. Oh, my.
14:48
Thank you so much. Yeah, I really hit the jackpot a very long time ago. But I get my best ideas back you me real?
14:56
So that's funny. I get it. I did I did a funny little reel on Instagram at one point that I get my best ideas when I'm putting my makeup on. So yeah, it makes
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unfolding learning the unfocused, like creative ideas. And yeah, so anyhow, where do you want
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to come back I live in, you want to come back in my house. Dammit, you're too far,
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I need so many ideas who needs their house? I need. You asked about what to consider and how to find the right agency. So in terms of finding the right agency, business of home has a really great directory that you can look at. It's a paid directory, so we are ACPR is on it. You can see total lots of different sizes of representation from solo publicists all the way to agencies like mine, and then to even to larger agencies. So I'm talking about larger traditional PR agencies, where you're going to have you're going to require a larger budget, you'll know what you need based on how large your company is how large your studio is, a lot of designers that I know who are maybe a one woman show or one woman with maybe someone who does all of their operations or has an assist design assistant, typically will go the solo publicist or boutique PR agency route, because, you know, maybe they're making a million a half a year in revenue, maybe they're making 3 million a year in revenue, being able to have a smaller shop represent them that being able to eat that type of budget. So I'm just going to be completely honest, I think you could, you could, because I don't think that there's anything wrong with transparency when it comes to pricing. Yeah. If you're ready to start PR, you should be planning to spend, you know, between three and $5,000 a month for PR. So it needs to be a part of your marketing budget. And that's really within solo publicists to cheek PR size. When we look at traditional larger agencies, you could be spending upwards of 10 to $15,000 a month. Those are for the really large studios who have home brands who have reality shows, you know, who require the
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Nate Berkus of the world. Absolutely.
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And there's a place for all of us, when you're, if you're if you don't find what you're looking for it business at home, I would, I don't think there's anything wrong with who you admire reaching out to who you admire, or like minded designers and asking who they're represented by, they have a ton of really great press. There is a it's a large a large group, but also a very small group of interior design publicists that are out there and everyone has their own niche specialty approach. And when it comes to finding the right fit, it's really all about ensuring that you share alignment in terms of how you want your brand positioned you share that values and an understanding of the mission and the objectives there. You gotta like who you're working with. So discovery calls are very important. And I encourage any designer that we talk to talk to several agencies talk to several publicists to get a feel for them. I think also understanding how much service you need is really important. Do you have a backlog of unpublished projects from the last two years that need to be presented to media? Do you have investment of time to be able to facilitate and participate in interviews with media? Are you interested in podcast interviews? Are you interested in social media takeovers, you know, really understanding the why the most important boring service search and
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also keeping in mind that, you know, hopefully, nobody wrecked their car or fell off the curb with walking their dog to three to $5,000 per month? Right? So let's back up a little bit because y'all, this is not an expense, it's an investment. As business owners, we have to take a look and say, Okay, if I spend, let's just say on the low end, $3,000 a month, what is that going to do? It's going to bring you clients, if you sign one client that you know has $100,000 design fee, you it pays for itself in less than a year. So so in that respect, it's an investment you need to take a look at what opportunities what your long term goals are, and so forth. So I love the fact that thank you for sharing, you know what the investment could be. And then what until you do get the opportunity to set aside that money. It's a goal that you can work towards. So when should you hire a PR agency has something to do with Financials? It's not going to be your first year unless you're coming out of you know, potentially another job and you've got some savings that you can invest in Springboard you. Although I am gonna say instead of that you should probably go to the interior design business bakery. Get your found Asians settled and then hire a PR company. Because what you're saying, Allison is, that still takes a lot of time doing all the interviews and stuff like that. So your business has to be able to navigate
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and support that. We have worked with designers at all different stages, but I think, you know, ones that have just launched their studio, some that have been in business for 20 years who have never done New York, who are, you know, the PR that they have gotten completely organic. But I think that the sweet spot really for when the time is right, when you know, is obviously the financial part of it when you have money for that investment? And then, do you have the projects that you feel are the photography? Have you invested in your photography enough? Where those are they they could be seen in the pages of magazines, you know, are you ready to position yourself as an opinion leader amongst other designers and stories? Are you ready to really to grow your business? So I like to always say to potential clients, tell me some of the goals and objectives be like for the business specifically, not just for PR because PR goals are awareness, we have set we often will say these are top publications that we want to reach and to have you be included in a really our goal is awareness and delivering social proof for you. But what are your business goals, and then we can align what those specific objectives for PR are to ensure that we're supporting that growth.
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22:58
I think that's a great point. Because what if you just want to be a one person boutique design firm, you've got your bookkeeping outsourced, you've got your procurement, you know those types of things. But if you get so much publicity, and so much recognition, you know, that could be too much of a good thing. And you are not delivering in the best manner that you would want to be able to deliver.
23:22
We do have quite a few designers who are solo designers who know the power of PR and this isn't this is something that I think is totally unique to everyone and how they run their business. But PR is the only marketing activity that they participate in beyond Instagram. And it really depends on what your goals are and how you run your business. But I think you know, there is like I said, I think PR is is wonderful for everyone if you're ready. So when a designer comes to me and says I think I'm ready for PR This is the checklist that we run through. Do you have unpublished photography from projects that are newer from the last two years? When you
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say on publish? Can they be on the website portfolio? Or just completely? Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's
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a really great, great question. And that's something that we've navigated over the past few years. You know, five years ago, you were it was standard industry practice not to share new projects anywhere because you didn't want to get in the way of media covering. Nowadays, we know the how important it is you finish a kitchen, you finish a new cottage or a vacation property, you want to put it up on your website and share it on social immediately because you're going to attract clients that way? Well, so yes, it can be shared. Typically, if we do get a confirmation that media wants to run with a project and you've already shared it. What they'll ask is for you just to take it down for the time being from the website and not to share anymore or maybe even archive on social media. I think media has editors understand how important it is like you got you want to share your new stuff. You want to share the good stuff that you've been working on. So one having unpublished projects, meaning unpublished by other media, I would say having at least three to four is helpful when you start with a PR agency, that also having a portfolio of of projects photography that may have been already covered or can just be supporting for insight opportunities. So those are the ones that we're talking about, like, let's say traditional home is working on the best blue paints, story, and you are going to put forward a sunroom and share your insight. And that is featured in the story. So having photography is number one important to having having a functioning website fully functioning with a portfolio page with a press page, even if there's nothing on the front page yet, because that's our job is to generate that for you. That's very important. And then time having time to invest in strategy with your PR agency, having time to answer questions for interviews, participate in other opportunities that come your way. Those are the three things that we really look for with designers to know Are you ready? Are you ready for PR?
26:06
I love that. And that's thank you for sharing, because I think that that. I don't know why but it it just is it's not discussed as much. It's not as familiar as, say bookkeeping and procurement just the day to day stuff. This is what takes you to the next level and sharing that. Are you ready? What do you do first? How do you go about finding somebody? It's just getting back to the basics.
26:31
It is so much I do like what you said before about making sure that you do things like working with a coach or taking taking stock of your processes and your system and your team if you have a team to ensure that everything that you have is supporting your business. And that way you can focus on other things to help grow because we chin is as the foundation is everything.
26:54
Oh my gosh, yes. And it's just so nerve wracking. Especially if you are a solopreneur you're trying to do all the things and be all the things and it feels like if you drop one plate, all of them are gonna fall.
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Yes, having that. Especially in the beginning, especially when you're a new entrepreneur, one plate falling feels like the sky is falling. Amen
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to that. And sometimes even yeah, sometimes even when you're tenured, like, oh my gosh, it's just the bigger plane. It's a bigger plane.
27:24
Ladder falling from the sky.
27:27
Duck, duck real quick. So. So Alison, what is the favorite? What is your favorite part about what you do? Hmm,
27:35
I think it's, I know it, it's the relationships, and watching how brands grow. Thanks to what we do like in response to what we do. It's being an entrepreneur is not easy. And like we said before you started record reporting, it's not for the faint of heart and running a business is is challenging. And so being able to see from a business owners perspective, what we do and how it impacts other founders, other businesses, lights me up. I love hearing the those success stories of oh my gosh, this story that you got me and roo had I had a new client inquiry from California, and I'm based in New York, or this gave me X amount of new followers on Instagram. Those are the ancillary benefits that we're always looking for. So awareness, number one, but all of these other things, these benefits are what we absolutely hope for. So being able to be a part of the journeys with founders knowing that Listen, I've been through a lot of it myself, as much as I'm not a designer, and it's a different business, as so many of our lessons and our experiences are universal. Yeah. And so being to be that part of our service as an agency is founder to founder consulting, and I will say not enough of our clients take, take me up on that. So it's the having someone in your corner who isn't on your payroll, who is someone who understands but is able to give you feedback, be someone to lean on. Someone who you know, is championing you through good and bad but has your best interests at heart, I think is one of my favorite parts of my day to day.
29:17
I love that and I can relate to a lot of that just from the coaching aspect. It's just so much fun to to be able to sit back. It's almost like kids, like I love watching them grow up. It's like so much fun because it's like, oh, when they have that lightbulb moment of oh, I can do this. Like my daughter. She's five and a half now. But when she was learning how to walk just the look on her face was like Oh, I'm doing Oh, yesterday actually yesterday she was she was riding her bike and we've taken her training wheels off. And so she's she went like five or six feet without without falling. And just the look on her face was so exciting. And I feel the same way with my coaching students and stuff like that. So I love that. Okay, so changing directions getting to know you a little bit differently. What do you want to spend more time doing? Like, whether it's personal or professional or whatever? What does that look like for you? So speaking founder to founder, this is this is interesting.
30:11
Let's get vulnerable. Yeah. What I really want to do, yeah, I had over the last few years of being 13 years in business, we've experienced many seasons, and many, like build grow seasons, and many like sustain, or maybe we need to be focusing on other things. I think for me, right now, at this place in business, it's really about sustainability. For me, I am an very elder millennial, I was born in 82. And I am part of hustle culture. And I grew up with the Girlboss mentality. And so I am very, very attune and accustomed to the work your tail off, it doesn't matter what the costs are, I have, I'm gonna say grown up a little bit over the last two years and recognize that I can't do that if I want to continue doing this until I'm 6065. And so my goal, what I want to be doing right now is really focusing on the things that lights me up in the business. One of them is leading my incredible team, I have a small all women team that with my exception, and my husband, I know I said that already. But I feel badly when I say all women, Michael is amazing. And we couldn't do it without him. But being able to teach and lead and inspire. And empower is something that really, really fulfills me. Also being able to engage with clients and really develop personal relationships that transcend time, we have clients that have been on our roster for five to eight years, nine years. That's amazing, thank you, those, those relationships are really the types of relationships that I'm looking for. So how I like to be spending my time right now is really anything that's relationship building, I do quite a bit of the Home Tour pitching still. So the one who was working with shelter magazines to get projects published from our clients, and those relationships are those that I've had for many, many years. And that, you know, I think it's all relationship based. I think in the future. Who knows, I have also talked about for many years now having a podcast, more of like a resource for business owners who have questions about PR, but I haven't seen been able to launch it yet. So maybe not this year, but maybe in the future.
32:34
But I totally understand that it is getting that foundation settled so that you can step away. And then you can step back in but at the same time it Yeah. And then and then you start to go crazy, because you have multiple personalities. Am I a coach? Yeah, am I designer? Like what's going on? Who am I the day, everything, you can do it all. You can't do it all that hustle culture, I get it, I was born way before you and it's still a thing, drill.
33:02
i It's been something very hard to unlearn or try to retrain myself when I initially started this business getting on to a flight at 3am. And flying home at nine o'clock that night. And from you know, to see a client or to do to go to a photo shoot was easier. And as I've gotten older, it's become much, much harder. And those are not,
33:24
it's not nearly as glamorous as we thought it was. Travel if I was
33:29
actually I will say the more what I have found over the last few years is the more in alignment I am with myself and what I want to truly want the clarity portion, the greater the abundance has been and the right clients always just seem to show up. And we do we have a very, we have a really strong robust business development process that we do in house so I don't hire anyone we if you are pitch if you are in any of you designers who are listening or ever pitched, it is me who is pitching you. And I find that knowing exactly who I am and what I want just brings that brings me what I need at that time. So really grateful for the journey and all the highs and lows and yeah, everything in between.
34:16
It's interesting that you say that because, gosh, by the time this podcast is published, it'll be two or three episodes ago, in March that I finally kind of landed on my word of the year. And oh went through multiple iterations of it. And it's aligned. It's truly just like, is this aligned with but it's for me, it's how I want to feel. So it's more along? Yes, this is what I want to do. But maybe doing something like whatever goal, it's not the right time. So if pursuing that particular goal can be in the future because if it's not if the action to get there is not aligned with how I want to feel today then it's not the right time to pursue that goal. But that doesn't mean the goal goes away. But that's a
35:05
lot of trust. There's a lot of trust that's involved with alignment. And trusting yourself. And I think that that is such a powerful word. Oh my gosh,
35:12
it's just been great. Because I've made I've already made decisions like, Nope, I'm not going to do that. And a lot of it had to be hopping on a plane for you know, a day or two to go do this, that or the other and then having to be somewhere else. And it's just exhausting. Like, no, I choose
35:24
not to. Yeah, my word for this year is steady, I had come up with it, maybe like October, November, and kind of just let it marinate. Last year it was emerge, and the year before that it was flourish. And as I look back, I've been setting the words of the year for a very long time. And as I look back, it's kind of a mixed bag, sometimes what you get when you set a word, because you can also get the opposite of the word as the lesson part of it. It's like, every Monday, my husband and I pull a tarot card, it's a spirit animal, Oracle deck, and it kind of like sets the tone for the week. And every card, there's an Oracle message when the card is is upright. And when the card is flipped upside down. It's called the protection message. And I feel like that is with so many things in life that you're going to set out for me steadiness and being steady, which mean to me is taking all of the lessons and the experiences that I have learned over the past 13 years and really applying them but doing it in a way that is not like rushing to make decisions have giving myself grace, knowing that I'm not going to be perfect as much as I would love to be perfect. But you know, all of the things that I would love, that I know, will give me also that online, right? But also the lesson is to be able to recognize when is it when am I doing the opposite? You know, what, what is what is this word bringing for me.
36:51
So that's, that's interesting, because it's all a matter of your focus, too. So if you're focusing on what you don't want, that's the direction it takes you if you're focusing on what you do want, it takes you in that direction as well. So controlling your thoughts will control your direction, because we could talk about that for the next two hours.
37:09
Last question for it. I
37:12
know right? We'll have to have to be continued. Okay, last question. Is there a book that you recommend? Whether it be professional or personal, just anything like what have you read recently that you would recommend?
37:26
So I am reading right now the boundary boss, and it is something that I wish that I would have been taught. I mean, so many of us women are people pleasers. And we were raised to be people pleasers boundary boss has been transformative in my life. And I've been reading it for like four months, because I can't finish the last two chapters, taking so much of it. Last year, I read a book called the comfort zone, which was also really, really radical in terms of what the topic was, and what I learned because I bought the book thinking, Okay, I'm gonna learn how to like push boundaries and above my comfort zone and just continue to grow. And it really was about reshaping how we think about our comfort zone, and less about doing things that we're that make us uncomfortable, because when we do that we're out of alignment. And so being able to say, like, let me grow my comfort zone. Let me let me approach this in a way that is, I'm clear, I know what I want. And I'm going to go after it. And it makes me a little bit uncomfortable, which is good, but it doesn't mean a wildly uncomfortable that I'm like this is so far out of my comfort zone. I
38:42
should not be doing this. That's it's like working out like you can you can build your muscle by making it a little bit uncomfortable. But if you're so damn sore, you can't walk the next day. Don't do that.
38:52
That wasn't me last week. Please, it's the it's the study for the year like okay, Allison, let's push it you you do 25 pound dumbbells with that. Do it and then the next day when you're like, I literally cannot get out of it. Yeah. Or it's like where's the handicap bar for the toilet? Yeah, I can't walk upstairs downstairs for staying upstairs. So yeah,
39:15
yeah, so that's a little too uncomfortable. Well, I know that our audience has loved you know, hearing from you and the words of wisdom and advice that you've shared. Will you tell them how they can connect with you? Where can we find you? Absolutely.
39:31
So online, it's Alison Conklin. pr.com on Instagram, it's Hello ACPR. We do complimentary discovery calls. So if any of your listeners are interested in even talking about like, Am I ready? Do what do I need to do? Am I what do you think about my brand and my media worthy? Please feel free to book a complimentary discovery call. There's a button on our website that they can click and book automatically. And I would love an end average to anyone to connect and beyond that I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. If anyone is here and wants to connect for a coffee I would love to in Canada
40:10
are these are house vacuumed, or needs their house vacuum. So Allison's name is spelled with a Y, a ll, y, s o n. But I will also make sure that your contact information is in the show notes. And you'll take advantage of that free discovery call. There's no commitment and analysis, and I'm just I'm just pitching you right here. There's no commitment, but it will also give you insight as to if you're ready now, like, what does that look like? If you're not ready now? Like, what do you need to do to get ready? So yeah, just take advantage of that. So I'll make sure that all those details are listed below. And y'all if you want a business bestie, sending you business tips, encouraging words, event updates directly to your fingertips, you can text, the word bestie to 855-784-8299, which will also be in the show notes 855-784-8299. And you'll hear from me on the regular. So like two, three, sometimes four times a week, if I'm feeling really encouraged, I will just text you words of encouragement, business tips, all sorts of fun things directly to your phone. So no spam, I promise. So for those of you listening, choose to be great today. And every day. And thank you, Alison, for being here.
41:32
Thank you so much for having me.
41:35
Hey, y'all. If you love the show and find it useful, I would really appreciate it if you would share with your friends and followers. And if you like what you're hearing, want to put a face with the name and get even more business advice. Then join me in my Facebook group, the interior designers business launch pad. Yeah, I know it's Facebook, but just come on in for the training and then leave without scrolling your feet. It's fine. I promise you'll enjoy it. And finally, I hear it's good for business to get ratings on your podcast. So please drop yours on whatever platform you use to listen to this. We're all about community over competition. So let's work on elevating our industry, one designer at a time. See you next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
