Libsyn Directory

880: Barry Bordelon and Jordan Slocum: Adventures in Business with the Brownstone Boys

A Well-Designed Business® | Interior Design Business Podcast

Release Date: 05/23/2023

916: Marilyn Watson-LaVergne: Clients Don’t Buy What We Do, They Buy What We Believe

A Well-Designed Business® | Interior Design Business Podcast

Today With Marilyn Watson-LaVergne: Today on A Well-Designed Business I am joined Marilyn Watson-LaVergne. In her first career, Marilyn worked in marketing and public relations in New York City, witnessing the progression of branding for products and creative services, including interior design. Now a seasoned designer and owner of Marilyn LaVergne Interiors, Marilyn is teaching us that we can’t be all the things to all the people—and what to do instead. It all starts with identifying what you believe and finding your point of differentiation, because clients don’t buy...

915: Power Talk Friday: Masha Koyen: 7 Mistakes Interior Designers Make on Their Website Messaging

A Well-Designed Business® | Interior Design Business Podcast

Today With Masha Koyen: Welcome to a Well-Designed Business. It’s Power Talk Friday. Your website matters for so many reasons. It’s the gateway for how your clients get to know you, whether they trust you, and ultimately whether they ever contact you or not. My guest today, Masha Koyen, understands the importance of web copy. She is the founder of Content Vertical, a copywriting agency for the interior design industry. She helps designers and builders level up their brand and create messaging that connects, engages, and attracts their ideal audience. Masha has...

914: Maria Leigh Palantino: Giving Yourself Permission to Launch an Interior Design Business

A Well-Designed Business® | Interior Design Business Podcast

Today With Maria Palantino: Welcome to a Well-Designed Business. My guest today, Maria Leigh Palantino, came into the interior design industry as her second career. She started a career in fashion design then pivoted, and brought with her many skills from her fashion career that guide her philosophies, design style, and the way she cultivates a memorable experience for her clients. For Maria, it wasn’t just about being scared to take the plunge to start a new career. The real challenge was giving herself permission to leave behind not just her expertise but something she...

913: Power Talk Friday: Terri Taylor: The Importance of Money Mindset in Charging Your Worth

A Well-Designed Business® | Interior Design Business Podcast

Today With Terri Taylor: Welcome to a Well-Designed Business. For today’s sponsored show, I’m excited to welcome back Terri Taylor, creator of the Interior Design Business Academy – an education and coaching resource that provides a unique mix of business strategies and systems along with powerful positive mindset practices to help interior designers create meaningful success. Today, she is giving us an inside look at her upcoming Design Biz Summit—a 3-day event to help designers shake their mindset breaks and develop the skills to know their worth, charge it, and deliver on it....

912: Jessica Bantom Continued: Take Action With the Six Habits of Culturally Competent Designers

A Well-Designed Business® | Interior Design Business Podcast

Today With Jessica Bantom: Today on A Well-Designed Business, I am joined Jessica Bantom, interior designer, color consultant, and DEIB practitioner. This is Part Two of our conversation on how to become a culturally competent designer, and we are going even deeper. In this conversation, Jessica walks us through the six habits of a culturally competent designer—the same habits outlined in her new book, Design for Identity: How to Design Authentically for a Diverse World. Listen now to learn more about each of these habits and how you can incorporate them into your...

911: Power Talk Friday: Jenna Gaidusek: Introducing Virtual Assistant Certification by Mydoma Studio

A Well-Designed Business® | Interior Design Business Podcast

Today With Jenna Gaidusek: Today on A Well-Designed Business I am joined by Jenna Gaidusek, Director of Community and Education at Mydoma Studio. Jenna is a talented designer, founder of the Interior Design Playbook (formerly eDesign Tribe) Facebook community and creator of eDesign U, an online school dedicated to providing designers with the knowledge and tools needed to succeed in the eDesign industry. Jenna doesn’t want you to go it alone as a designer, which is why she joined forces with Mydoma Studio and created the Virtual Assistant Certification program. Listen now to...

910: Christina Richardson: Expanding Your Design Business Internationally: What You Need to Know

A Well-Designed Business® | Interior Design Business Podcast

Today With Christina Richardson: Welcome to A Well-Designed Business. Today we’re traveling outside the country. My guest Christina Richardson from Christina Richardson Interiors. Christina is a Scandinavian native who grew up on the charming coast of Northern Sweden. After moving to the U.S. with her husband and two daughters, Christina earned her interior design degree from the New York Institute of Art and Design. With 20 years of interior design under her belt from Sweden, Christina has learned a lot in the business of starting over in another country. She is here to share the...

909: Power Talk Friday: Traci Connell: Normalizing Wealth With The Gloss

A Well-Designed Business® | Interior Design Business Podcast

Today With Traci Connell: Today’s show is sponsored by Traci Connell’s free masterclass The Reveal which begins on September 11, 2023. Traci joins us once again to share all of the ways you can work with her in The Gloss, including her free masterclass The Reveal where she “reveals” all of the secrets and shortcuts she has learned in the interior design industry. This is a five-day, one-hour-per-day event. In The Reveal, you will learn the strategies Traci teaches designers to hit one million in revenue. This FREE course is for any interior designer who wants to reach the next level....

908: Jessica Bantom: How to Be a Culturally Competent Design Activist & Why You Want to Be One (Part 1)

A Well-Designed Business® | Interior Design Business Podcast

Today With Jessica Bantom: Today on A Well-Designed Business I am joined Jessica Bantom, interior designer, DEIB practitioner, and author of Design for Identity: How to Design Authentically for a Diverse World. This is the first part of a conversation about how to become a culturally competent designer. In this episode, part one of a two-part series, Jessica explains cultural competence is the ability to understand, interact with, and appreciate people of different backgrounds or belief systems that are different from your own. But she explains that it essentially comes down...

907: Power Talk Friday: Manuela Keller and Philip McKay: Introducing 2 New Home Industry Trade Shows; Sun Shading Expo North America and R+T, Stuttgart Germany

A Well-Designed Business® | Interior Design Business Podcast

Today With Manuela Keller & Philip McKay: Today’s episode is sponsored by Messe Stuttgart, a German company that specializes in organizing trade shows, particularly for the home decor industry. They have been in the trade show business for more than 80 years, annually organizing around 60 shows and 100 conferences worldwide. Manuela Keller and Philip McKay are joining us to tell us all about two upcoming events: Sun Shading Expo 2023 and R+T 2024, which will both bring together the sun shading and textiles industries. Here, you will be able to maximize your time and meet...

More Episodes

Today With Barry Bordelon and Jordan Slocum:

Today on A Well-Designed Business I am joined by Barry Bordelon and Jordan Slocum, AKA the Brownstone Boys. Barry and Jordan are designers, DIY-ers, renovators, and restorers who followed their passions and serendipitously fell into a flourishing business together.

In 2018, Jordan and Barry bought a brownstone in Brooklyn and started The Brownstone Boys blog the day they closed on the house, and that’s just the beginning of their adventure. Today they are renovating their way across Brooklyn and New York City, one brownstone at a time.

In our interview, The Brownstone Boys share how they grew their business organically, how they are implementing systems and processes, and how to balance work and life when you’re in business with your partner.

Pick It Apart

[2:33] Jordan talks about the significance of his and Barry’s second date—a bike ride through Brooklyn neighborhoods where they realized they shared a love of brownstones.

[10:44] Jordan explains how The Brownstone Boys blog began and how that led to their first clients.

[20:13] LuAnn makes a point about how fundamental business questions and processes are imperative to successful businesses.

[35:43] Barry discusses how the business has grown organically over the last few years, but now they are intentionally restructuring and building in systems and processes to help it run smoother as they grow and pivot to different platforms.

[41:01 LuAnn asks Jordan and Barry to share lessons they have learned through their business and partnership.

[52:09] Jordan shares big news about his and Barry’s future.

LuAnn Nigara and The Brownstone Boys’ Ah-Ha Moments

“I think a lot of that has to do with listening…And no matter how many systems we implement, I still want that one-on-one authentic relationship with our client.” – Jordan Slocum

“We started our business, and it happened very organically…And right now we're at a point in the business that we're going back and really building in some structure that we should have a long time ago.” – Barry Bordelon

“We're business partners, but we're also life partners. And I think something that I'm really excited for with the new processes is separating—or trying to separate—work from our home life.” – Jordan Slocum

“There are difficult times. But I think it's just really cool to be building a business with a partner and to be going through this together and to have this thing that's our own.” - Barry Bordelon

More About The Brownstone Boys

We’re Jordan & Barry, AKA The Brownstone Boys.

We’re designers, DIY-ers, renovators, and restorers. We have a passion for old homes and everything that comes along with them: the details, the quirks, the character, and especially the parts that need lots of love. We have a ton of respect for all of those gorgeous original details and love restoring them but we are not afraid to add some modern touches.

We bought our 130 year old historic Brooklyn brownstone in 2018 and we’ve been slowly restoring it ever since. We started our blog and Instagram account the day we closed on the house. When we started our journey we found it hard to find the right information, but some of the best real estate, renovation, and design advice that we did find was on other helpful and creative blogs. So we decided to share our experiences as well. We are so fortunate and thankful that other people found it helpful…and maybe a little entertaining! We enjoyed sharing our journey and answering the thousands of questions we received. Eventually, we started helping people more and more with design advice, contractor & architect recommendations, and generally holding the hands of others who were trying to navigate renovating a historic home in New York and even around the world.

Some people that reached out really seemed like they needed more help than just a recommendation or suggestion, so we thought long and hard about it and nervously asked someone one day, “Would you like us to help you do it?” And like that, we had our first client. That quickly led to a second, then a third, and now we are full time Brownstone Boys designing and renovating our way across Brooklyn and NYC. We have found our true passion and pinch ourselves everyday that it’s also now our careers.

Connect with The Brownstone Boys

Website

Instagram

Youtube

What’s new with LuAnn Nigara

LuAnn Live 2023

luannuniversity.com

http://www.luannnigara.com/cob

A Big Thank You to Our Keynote Sponsors:

Nancy Ganzekaufer

Traci Connell

Duke Renders