Storytelling for Interior Designers: Why and How You Need to Do It

Masha Koyen [00:00:02]:
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Marketing for Designers podcast. I'm your host, Masha Koyan, a messaging strategist and a copywriter for the interior design industry. I've been marketing for what feels like forever in my past career at some of the biggest global firms like KPMG and Deloitte. Today, I write website copy for designers using my signature voice of customer framework. If you're a designer looking to up your marketing game and attract premium clients, this podcast is for you. Each week on the show, we're gonna be talking all things marketing from branding to messaging to social media, SEO, and so much more. So you can have all the tools you need to grow your business and attract aging clients.

Masha Koyen [00:00:42]:
Welcome back to Marketing for Designers podcast, where we talk about all things content, messaging, attracting better clients, storytelling, brand strategy, and everything else under the marketing umbrella. Speaking of storytelling, which is a hot hot topic at the moment, I've got a great guest to have a discussion on storytelling. And my guest today is Sara Lohse. I'm sorry. I'm probably gonna mispronounce it. Sara is an award winning author, marketer, and brand architect with a knack for turning narratives into connections. Through her company, Favorite Daughter Media, she uses her passion and talent to help mission driven brands amplify their impact, proving that authentic storytelling and strategic marketing go hand in hand. Her book, Open This Book, The Art of Storytelling for Aspiring Thought Leaders, debuted at the number one new release spot and is now available on Amazon dot com.

Masha Koyen [00:01:38]:
So impressive. Welcome to the show, Sara.

Sara Lohse [00:01:41]:
Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Masha Koyen [00:01:43]:
I'm excited that you're here, and storytelling is such an awesome topic. I was so excited when you brought this topic to me. I feel like I absolutely love to start by asking you the story behind the name of your company because I feel like there is a story there.

Sara Lohse [00:01:59]:
There is.

Masha Koyen [00:01:59]:
So I'd love to know if you will share that.

Sara Lohse [00:02:01]:
There's a story behind everything in my life. I I think and speak in stories. So my company is called Favorite Daughter Media, and I usually just say that I named my company that just to put my sister in her place.

Masha Koyen [00:02:16]:
That's what I thought kind of at first.

Sara Lohse [00:02:19]:
It's funny. People usually are like, oh, that's so funny. Are you, like, the only daughter? Like, did I say that? Okay. No. So I I never planned to run a business. I never want planned to work for myself. This was not in the cards. And so then when this happened, it was kind of like a really rushed decision.

Sara Lohse [00:02:39]:
I needed a name. And I just did what everyone does, and I just googled how to name a company. And it gave some good suggestions. It was like, ask your friends three words to describe you, and what was your childhood nickname, and Bub is not really a good company name for me. So I just kind of threw out all of their suggestions. I did ask for the three words from all my friends, and that was a really nice little ego boost, but it wasn't helpful. But I was kind of just thinking, like, what is the most important thing to me? And I my brain just kept going back to my dad. And me and my dad have a really great relationship.

Sara Lohse [00:03:18]:
He is my favorite person in the world. So I've joked my whole life that I'm the favorite daughter, but I really named my company not so much about me being the favorite daughter, but being his daughter is one of my favorite things about myself. So

Masha Koyen [00:03:33]:
That is such a cool name, and it is a cool story. I absolutely love it, and I love the fact that you do have a story for that. So awesome. Awesome. You're definitely the right person for this podcast episode. Absolutely. No doubt. So, Sara, I love talking about storytelling, and I was like I said, I was very happy when you reached out with such an awesome topic on how to use personal storytelling to grow a brand.

Masha Koyen [00:04:00]:
I think storytelling is a form of art

Sara Lohse [00:04:03]:
for sure.

Masha Koyen [00:04:04]:
And while we all want to do it, we are not sure not all of us know how to do it well. So I would love for you to share some tips with our listeners, who are interior designers on how first of all, how to identify good stories, where do we tell these stories, how to tell them, and why. But I also wanna make sure that we we know how to pick the right stories that can actually help interior designers and other business owners to actually achieve their business goals. They're they're not just stories alone. So let's start with the obvious. Why should we tell stories?

Sara Lohse [00:04:38]:
That is a great question, and there's so many ways to answer that question. But the biggest one is just it's what people want. People want stories. Our brains are wired for storytelling. It was the way that people communicated even before we had language. If you look at cave paintings, like, those are telling stories. And if you think back to just the ways that civilizations were created, the stories are what really stayed on. Even after empires fell, we had the written stories and the stories that were passed down.

Sara Lohse [00:05:18]:
It's what we've always relied on as just civilization. And then when you look at the neuroscience of it, which I've gone full nerd into storytelling, so, like, buckle in. But the our brains are actually wired for it. When you listen to someone telling a story, the way that your brain starts firing neurons is the same way that their brain is. It mirrors the act like, the actions of their brain. So you're almost

Masha Koyen [00:05:50]:
So it's as if you're experiencing it. Like, as a

Sara Lohse [00:05:53]:
parent Have you ever watched a scary movie and you're in your living room wrapped in a blanket? You've never been safer, but you feel super stressed and anxious and, like, your heart's beating really fast? That's because your brain is putting itself in the brain of the person on the screen.

Masha Koyen [00:06:12]:
It's You're experiencing it.

Sara Lohse [00:06:13]:
The right hand. Feel like you're in it. And that's what Mhmm. Like, telling a good story, that's what you're able to do When you whether you're on stage, whether you're on a podcast, or if you're just 1 on 1 with a client. If you can tell a story well enough, they feel like they're part of it. And connections between humans comes from shared experiences. So if you're able to tell a story and someone that's listening has gone through a similar experience, they're going to feel that emotional connection to you. They'll feel like you get it.

Sara Lohse [00:06:46]:
You know what I've been through. We've we're similar. We're cut from the same cloth. And they automatically have that empathy for you, that trust, and you will stick in their mind and be more remembered than someone that just gave information.

Masha Koyen [00:07:01]:
So we're building a bond. Not only we're building an emotional connection, we're also building trust, and we're also building that bond between your if it's in a business context between you you and your, prospective

Sara Lohse [00:07:13]:
Yes. Hearing stories releases oxytocin, which is one of, like, the love chemicals. And so it makes you have that emotional bond. It creates that feeling of empathy, and it's just you don't even have to really be trying. All you have to be doing is telling a good story.

Masha Koyen [00:07:30]:
Why is it so difficult for because we all hear about it that we should be, you know, weaving storytelling into our website messaging and into our marketing and on social media. Why is it so hard for us to do that?

Sara Lohse [00:07:42]:
Oh, I mean, everyone's answer is going to be different, but in my opinion, it's because you have to be vulnerable, and you have to be honest. And I feel like a lot of us when we create a company, we do it almost to put the company at the forefront. And a company is a logo. A company is a website. People don't care. And when you tell your own stories, you're surpassing that logo. You're creating a person in the eyes of just the public, in the eyes of your clients, in the eyes of your audience. And people don't wanna interact with companies.

Sara Lohse [00:08:26]:
We don't follow companies on social media because we're really excited about the company. It's because of the people behind it. And when we tell those stories, we're creating ourselves as that brand, and we're putting ourselves first as a person, and that's scary because we're doing it publicly. We're doing this on we're doing it online. We're doing it on stage, whatever it is. And there are there's so much judgment in the world and the online trolls that are going to say mean things. And I actually had someone say, how are you able to do all of this content online when you know your friends are judging you? And that was really interesting to me. Because I'm like, first of all, how do you know your friends are judging you? And she said, because they tell me, and they make fun of me.

Sara Lohse [00:09:13]:
Mhmm. Like, you need better friends. Yeah. Like, my friends, like, they have they don't even know, I don't think, what I do for a living, but they're the first ones to like and share my posts. Like, your friends should be your supporters. So I think we have to we put too much focus on the negativity and on the people who are our messages aren't for. So if you focus more on the people that are meant to hear your message, the people who need to hear your story because stories change lives. Stories save lives, but not if they're not told.

Masha Koyen [00:09:48]:
Absolutely. I love that. I absolutely love that. What are what are some of the tips that you can share for people? How how do they choose which stories they should share? Because, you know, we're living life. We're we're doing business. We're dealing with customers. We're on-site at projects. There's lots of things that are happening with us.

Masha Koyen [00:10:08]:
How do we how do we find out, okay, what this is the right story to tell? Is it the origin story? Is it, I don't know, about how you work? How how do we pick? How do we even start, choosing which stories we should be telling?

Sara Lohse [00:10:22]:
Yeah. In my book, I outline maybe a dozen different types of stories. One is the origin story or, as I call it, my villain origin story. There's the, like, milestone stories, insight stories, day in the life stories. There's so many different types of stories. And the ones that we choose are really just based on what we're trying to do. Like, what is your goal, and what is your message? And I think one thing that people get wrong and the reason that they don't tell their stories is they think their story has to be massive. It has to be Right.

Sara Lohse [00:11:01]:
Newsworthy because we live in this 247 news cycle. Turn on the TV at any moment. Open up Google at any moment, and you're just bombarded with headlines. And there are these ridiculous stories of people accomplishing things and all these insane things that are happening in the world, and that's not happening to us. I've never changed the world. I probably never will. And that's okay because neither have the people I'm talking to. Like, Martin Luther King Junior would never be my client.

Sara Lohse [00:11:30]:
He does not need me. But we think that because these are the stories that we see, these are the stories we need to tell. And I said before, connections come from shared experiences. You don't connect with those stories you read on the headlines because you've never been through it. But when you read a story about someone that's just trying their best, someone who is getting by and stumbled on this little piece of success, and it was so exciting. It changed their world. That's something you can relate to. The story that I told that changed my entire life was about a really embarrassing tattoo.

Sara Lohse [00:12:09]:
And the and, oh, I managed to find value in it, and that changed everything for me. So if my stupid tattoo story can have value, All of the little stories in our lives can. We just don't see it yet. And that's kind of what I do is I help people figure out what that value is because we're overlooking so much, and we don't take the time to pay attention to those little stories. So I think to choose the story, the first thing I would recommend is just think about the message that you're trying to get across. What do you want people to walk away from this knowing or understanding? And the easiest thing to do is just how did you learn that? What was happening the day that you figured that out? What's the circumstances? That's your story right there. And

Masha Koyen [00:13:02]:
So it sounds like we're just overthinking, overanalyzing, and looking for those big things where we should be just looking for everyday kind of things and maybe things that we assume are a given, but they're not a given to Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:13:17]:
I mean, think of the best storytellers in the world. And in my opinion, they are stand up stand up comedians, the best storytellers. They, by design, talk about the most mundane crap. They talk about airline food and traffic and the electric hair and dryers and how much everyone hates them in public bathrooms. These are not newsworthy topics. I mean, yes, you can, like, see read about traffic on the news, but

Masha Koyen [00:13:49]:
Mhmm.

Sara Lohse [00:13:50]:
These aren't newsworthy topics. They choose these topics because they know every single person in that room is gonna relate to it. So these stories don't have to be sensational. They don't have to be traumatic. They don't have to be dramatic. They just have to be stories that other people can relate to that there is a nugget of value in it. Like, it like, it teaches something. It gives you insight to something.

Sara Lohse [00:14:18]:
But then the story is just what happened.

Masha Koyen [00:14:20]:
Well, okay. So you said something that teaches something. So do you have, like, a framework or a formula that you use in storytelling on how to put together a good story, the actual art of telling a story? What has to be in it? I'm assuming there has to be that relatable factor there. There has to be some type of, I don't know, call to action. There has to be, a lesson in there. Is there anything else? Are there any other elements?

Sara Lohse [00:14:50]:
I have 4 elements to a compelling story that I talk about, and you nailed some of them. It's it has to be relatable. And the easiest way for something to be relatable is just to make it authentic, to make it personal, because there's 8,000,000,000 people in this world. It's very uncommon for you to go through something that no one else has gone through. A lot of this stuff, like, we don't realize that everyone else in the world is struggling as much as we do. And we think everyone else knows what they're doing and is doing great. None of us know what we're doing. We're just trying our best.

Masha Koyen [00:15:26]:
So confident. Just trying

Sara Lohse [00:15:27]:
our best. So just make it personal, and that's gonna be relatable. You have to have the right amount of detail is number 2. And this is something that people get wrong, especially my mother. I don't know if yours is like mine, but anytime my mom tries to tell me a story, I get 3 hours worth of unnecessary details and the backstory of every character that makes an appearance and what everyone ordered at lunch and whether or not the seagull stole the french fry off the plate. Like, I don't need to know any of this.

Masha Koyen [00:16:01]:
So the point where, like, hold on.

Sara Lohse [00:16:02]:
I don't What What what are you talking about? The story she was trying to tell me because she got so lost

Masha Koyen [00:16:07]:
in the

Sara Lohse [00:16:07]:
details. And it makes me laugh every single time that it happens. But it's just too many details. We're getting lost. If you don't have enough details, they can't put themselves in the story. You have to have enough, but you don't have to have all of it. Just enough that they can understand it.

Masha Koyen [00:16:23]:
I absolutely love that you said that because I like, as as you were talking about it, I was like, like, in copywriting principles, one of the core principles is to add enough detail to the point where the person can actually visualize what it is that you're talking about. So I'm glad you brought up there could be too much, but there also could be too little where it's just not enough context, not enough, you know, like Yeah. Vividness for somebody to actually oh, okay. I can totally relate or I can totally tell what you're talking about.

Sara Lohse [00:16:51]:
My background's also as a copywriter, so we got detail. Our brains work the same.

Masha Koyen [00:16:56]:
Of course. Of course. Amazing. Amazing. So we're

Sara Lohse [00:16:59]:
in the same So number 3 or 4 is it's emotional. And it this is another thing that people misunderstand because for some reason, everyone thinks they need to have a sob story. You're it no. Doesn't happen. Everyone like, I don't need to know what happened when you were 3, which somehow led to this message. And I've heard people just desperately try to connect stories to messages just so that they could tell this story because it it's the most emotional story that they have, but it does not connect. And you would have done a lot better telling a more, like, professional story, what happened in, like, a case study, something like that, that would really portray what you're trying to say, but you just really wanted to go for that emotion. Emotions, there's a lot of them.

Sara Lohse [00:17:48]:
And not like, sad is not the only one we have. You could tell a funny story. Funny, like, humor, joy. These are emotional. If you make we it's what's that saying? People don't remember what you said. They remember how you made them feel. If you made me laugh yes, Marangilo. If you make me laugh, you're making me feel an emotion.

Sara Lohse [00:18:14]:
If you make me cry, you're making me feel an emotion. If you make me happy, whatever it is. If it's like if you're making me anxious because you're telling, like, a really just, like, riveting story, and it could be about a professional, like, a a case study, whatever it is, but you're telling it in a way that I feel the stress you felt. That is an emotion. So having it be emotional so that the audience can feel it is important, but don't feel like you have to make it heart wrenching because you don't.

Masha Koyen [00:18:45]:
I think all of us forget sometimes that there is, like, a wide range of emotions. Like, you just said, it doesn't have to be a sad story or it doesn't have to. What is that word that you use? Sensational.

Sara Lohse [00:18:56]:
I think sensational, traumatic, and dramatic are the three things that we always try to go for.

Masha Koyen [00:19:00]:
Yes. Yeah. And you know what? I deal with that all the time when I'm writing an about page for an interior designer, and I feel like sometimes when I'm reading it, a lot of them start with when I was a child or when I was this, when I was this. Okay. First of all, it's great if there's a story there, but you don't have to go that far. That's first of all. And second of all, I feel like, if I feel like we're overthinking that part that it has to be it was like a monumental change that you went through and then you decided to become an interior designer. It could just simply be a story like a like you said, a relatable story.

Masha Koyen [00:19:39]:
You can just relate to your audience or tell it how it is.

Sara Lohse [00:19:42]:
Yeah. And it also doesn't have to have a happy ending. One of my favorite types of stories to tell, I call it transparent recounts. And those are the ones where we tell you what happened, but the ending isn't and then everything worked out great. No.

Masha Koyen [00:20:01]:
Right.

Sara Lohse [00:20:01]:
No. I had to start back from the drawing board because that failed. That blew up in my face. Because that's happened to all of us, but we only share our highlight reels.

Masha Koyen [00:20:09]:
Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:20:10]:
Not all of your ideas worked out. Not everything that you tried succeeded. And talk about that. Talk about the failures, but that's kind of a tangent just because it's my favorite story. But I

Masha Koyen [00:20:22]:
but but I actually wish more people would talk about these things because, like, you know, like you said, we all see that. Like, you you know, open up Instagram, and it's full of, like, success stories and the things that worked out for the best. But it's true. The reality is it doesn't

Sara Lohse [00:20:36]:
I purposely, like, everyone is sharing their highlight reels while I'm sharing my book for real. Like, I I am a podcast producer. I host podcasts. I guest on podcasts. I produce podcasts. Whatever it is, podcasting is basically my life at this point. But with our podcast, we don't edit out our bloopers, and we will create, like, just reels that are just our bloopers. Because we do this for a living.

Sara Lohse [00:20:58]:
We teach you how to do it, but we want you to know that while we're teaching it, we're not expecting you to be perfect. And how do we portray that? By showing you that we're not. We have fun with it. We want our clients to have fun with it. And if we say the wrong thing and it's really funny, other people deserve to hear that funny thing. And I don't care if it makes me look less professional in the moment because that's not the goal. I'm trying to make myself look human. Because I don't want someone to wanna work with me because they think I come off like a super polished robot because I don't.

Sara Lohse [00:21:33]:
But if you relate to me and you relate to this funny thing you thought that was funny too, we're gonna be friends. Let's work together. So another tangent.

Masha Koyen [00:21:42]:
I love that. That's actually my favorite part of the movies when they show loopers. Like, my favorite part of the movies. I love rewatching them on TikTok when there is Friends, bloopers. Friends bloopers are the favorite thing to watch.

Sara Lohse [00:21:53]:
The best. Right?

Masha Koyen [00:21:54]:
I know.

Sara Lohse [00:21:55]:
I love it. Number 4.

Masha Koyen [00:21:56]:
Okay. What's the 4th thing?

Sara Lohse [00:21:58]:
It has to be unexpected. And this is a challenging one because I already said it doesn't have to be a dramatic story. So how do you make it unexpected? And that's kind of where the art of storytelling comes in. Like, that is the one that's the challenge. And if you want me to throw in my little villain origin story, I can because it's my best example of this.

Masha Koyen [00:22:25]:
Please do. Please do. Because I, like, I feel like I would struggle here with the unexpected one. This is the one that I would struggle with for sure. So tell tell

Sara Lohse [00:22:33]:
So I I don't know what the, like, clean writing or explicit writing you have on the show, but I am known as the girl with the penis tattoo.

Masha Koyen [00:22:48]:
Oh, gosh. You have to Now you have to tell a story.

Sara Lohse [00:22:51]:
So when I was, like, 21, 22, I took a solo trip to Ireland. And 12 hours into a bar crawl through Dublin, me and, someone at Digest met that day got tattoos.

Masha Koyen [00:23:05]:
And I

Sara Lohse [00:23:05]:
asked for an airplane

Masha Koyen [00:23:06]:
Oh my god.

Sara Lohse [00:23:06]:
Did not look like an airplane. If you wanna see a before and after photo, favorite daughter media.com/tattoo. It's also on the cover of my book.

Masha Koyen [00:23:15]:
Oh my god. Is it really?

Sara Lohse [00:23:17]:
The cover up is You have to go check it out. The the cover up version of the tattoo is on the cover of my book, and the whole story is chapter 2. But I got it. I asked for an airplane, and it did not look like an airplane. It looked very phallic. I thought that was the most mortifying thing. I went home. 30 days later, I got it covered because that's how long you have to wait and kinda just moved on with my life.

Sara Lohse [00:23:42]:
And it was just a story that I would tell, like, at a bar for laughs when I was bartending. Just like, wanna hear a dumb thing I did. Fast forward till I was, like, 24, 25. And at this point, I'm director of marketing for a financial advising firm, and I'm at a conference for it was podcast movement. So it's a podcast conference, and the host of one of the biggest finance podcasts is there. And I was producing a podcast for the CEO of the company, Eric, and I wanted to get him on as a guest on this big podcast called Stacking Benjamins. I stalk the host for 3 days. And when I say stalk, I want you to understand what I mean because I don't just mean, like, I know he's gonna be speaking in that room, so I'll be in that room.

Sara Lohse [00:24:28]:
I stood at a cocktail table holding a book up, hiding behind it while he, like while I watched him across the room. Might as well have had a newspaper with the eyes cut out. It was so bad. I'm still waiting for, like, the legal papers to come in. Like, restraining order, it's on the way. But I finally, after 3 days, I get shocked to him, and I pitch Eric as a guest. And I had no idea what I was doing. I did not know how to pitch.

Sara Lohse [00:24:54]:
I just went on like, yeah. He's an expert in this and this, and he's been doing this for 20 years. He's got these letters after his name. Genius. And Joe lets me have my little spiel, and then it says, that's great. I don't need an expert. I need someone with a cool story. And I think I had a stroke because what I said next was, do you wanna hear about the time I got a tattoo of a penis while I was in Ireland on a finance show? And he said yes.

Sara Lohse [00:25:27]:
And I accidentally got myself booked. I wanted the biggest finance podcasts to tell that story.

Masha Koyen [00:25:34]:
If nothing else than this, like, that's how the stories connect.

Sara Lohse [00:25:39]:
So I get booked. And so we do that interview, but he knows the story. Because I told it I told him that day because he's just like, sit down and tell me this right now. And he wanted it on his show just because that's a great hook. That's hilarious. That is ridiculous. Get this on my show right now. But he also has a responsibility to his listeners.

Sara Lohse [00:26:03]:
There has to be some kind of value in the guest he brings up. So he guided me through telling my story in a way that pulled out so much value. We it wasn't just this stupid tattoo story. It was the trip that I took as a way to do brave things because I was just getting out of a terrible relationship. I was in a dead end career, and I wanted to prove that I could make it on my own. So let me go across the world by myself and do the brave thing. I got back and realized that I was settling for things that I didn't want. I packed up, moved across the country, doubled my income, launched a business, like all of these things that I did just because I went on this trip and realized I could.

Sara Lohse [00:26:49]:
That was the story. The hook was the tattoo.

Masha Koyen [00:26:53]:
And that was the unexpected thing. The unexpected is that So hold on. Let me try to understand. Is the unexpected all the value that you're getting or the unexpected is the penis on a finance show?

Sara Lohse [00:27:04]:
So there's two ways you could tell a story. The normal way is just the lead in. It's you start from the beginning. You go chronologically, and then the hook is at the end. It's like, that's the punch line. We're there. And people just follow as you go. I like the up front instead, and that's how I tell stories.

Sara Lohse [00:27:28]:
I tell the ending first. So the ending is then I gotta tattoo a penis. That's that's what he wanted to hear. I love it. That was the hook. That is not what he expected me to say at that moment, so it was unexpected. And then I can tell the rest of the story.

Masha Koyen [00:27:46]:
And the the thing that you were trying to achieve is capture his attention. Right? And you did that with that completely Yeah. Out of left field thing that you said next. And I agree with you. I think starting with a hook, having that hook or, like Mhmm. From the get go is the most interesting thing because that captures that. You get people to read, to to in invest in it.

Sara Lohse [00:28:10]:
Especially when it comes to content creation because our, what is the word, attention span is so, so small. You only have 3 seconds to get someone's attention before they scroll past. So if I were to say, like so 10 years ago, I go on this solo trip and just start talking. That's everyone travels. That's fine. Just keep scrolling. Do you wanna hear about the time I got a tattoo of a penis while I was in Ireland? No one is scrolling past that.

Masha Koyen [00:28:44]:
How how do we actually do that? How do we actually so let's say if we're talking about, like, social media posts or social media content, how do we actually do that? How do we bring that unexpected element? What like, what advice could you give to interior designers? Like, if you're looking at your social media calendar, if they have one, and they're thinking of all the stories that they've lived through. How do they figure out that hook? How do they Yeah. How do they

Sara Lohse [00:29:08]:
do that? So first, I wanna say stop doing the things everyone's doing. I feel like the most common, and I see this all the time. I've sat through people teaching, like, I'm gonna teach you how to market your business. We're gonna do social media. And I'm sitting there like, you're not qualified for this because they're saying the same thing. They're saying, have those, like, 5 pillars of your company and only post about those 5 pillars. And if it's not related to that pillar, you don't post it. Like, you are the pillar of your company.

Sara Lohse [00:29:40]:
If it's related to you, you could post it. It's okay. But I think k. I always struggle. Like, I tell stories for a living, but then I'm, like, put on this bottom. It's like, yeah. No. I don't remember how to say words.

Masha Koyen [00:29:54]:
That's all good. It's human. I am

Sara Lohse [00:29:56]:
a person. Y'all? Say the thing people don't expect you to say. And sometimes this comes off clickbaity if you do it a little too bad. But when you do it right, it's really powerful. And, like, one of the guests that I had on my podcast, I literally just booked her because one of her speaking points was why your marketing sucks. And I'm just like, why does it?

Masha Koyen [00:30:23]:
Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:30:25]:
I need to know.

Masha Koyen [00:30:25]:
Yeah. Because it triggers something in us.

Sara Lohse [00:30:28]:
Like, it's

Masha Koyen [00:30:28]:
a human curiosity. It's something like, I must know. It you know, if there's a question, you know, why do question mark, subject lines work most effective? Because it's the human brains. Like, okay. There's a question. It must be answered. I must know. I need to finish.

Sara Lohse [00:30:44]:
See. But that's that goes back to storytelling. They need to finish the story.

Masha Koyen [00:30:49]:
Mhmm.

Sara Lohse [00:30:49]:
The question started with the story. Where's the end?

Masha Koyen [00:30:52]:
That's right.

Sara Lohse [00:30:53]:
It's all a story. It's all a pattern. But we feel like we need to say the things that other people are saying, and we need to say things in the way that, like, won't I don't wanna say insult people because I'm not I don't insult people. I'm not trying to be mean. But the the ways that can just flow through other that they'll blend it. It's this is what everyone else is doing. That means this is what I should be doing. So Sunny could have just said, like, your like, is your marketing good? And I'd be like, I don't know.

Sara Lohse [00:31:29]:
Is it? Probably. I do this for a living. Alright. Keep going. But she didn't say that. She said, why does your marketing suck? She's basically telling me my marketing sucked without even knowing me. I'm like, oh my god. What did I do? And I had to know.

Sara Lohse [00:31:43]:
I had to bring her on. I had to talk to her. And that was one of the best hooks I had gotten as a pot like, as a podcast host. Find the thing that is almost the thing that no one wants to talk about. What's the elephant in the room? And with design, it can like, right now, I see a lot about, like, I I survived being a victim of, like, the millennial gray because we wanted everything to just be gray because we could not decide on a color.

Masha Koyen [00:32:12]:
That's a whole topic in interior design.

Sara Lohse [00:32:15]:
I'm not gonna lie. I designed my house. And when I built it, I went with the gray color scheme because I do still love it. I am a millennial. I'm never gonna give it up. You you're welcome to come and change everything. But that's, like, one of the things that people are talking about because it's calling you out. It's not just like, here's what's trending now.

Sara Lohse [00:32:36]:
It's, no. You did this. We know you did this. You can't hide from this. Call people out because it's connecting them. It's showing them that, like, this is something that we have in common. Oh, I wasn't the only one that made everything gray because I wanted 14 different colors, and I couldn't choose all of them, so I just chose nothing. Other people did that too.

Sara Lohse [00:32:59]:
That's forming that connection, and that's getting that hook because you see that, oh, I did that too. I wanna read more.

Masha Koyen [00:33:05]:
I feel like what it what I'm hearing you say when you say call them out is it goes back to knowing your audience inside out. Because at the end of the day, you're telling stories to your audience, to your prospective customers, to people that you want to connect with. Do you have any tips about how can we get to know our audience better? Obviously, it is looking at our past clients and studying them and researching them and really following them on social media, looking in the comments, and kind of seeing what they talk about, where they hang out, listening in. Is there anything else that you do or recommend to your clients in terms of how do you get to know your audience really well to the point you can find those stories that are relatable?

Sara Lohse [00:33:53]:
Okay. So this is gonna sound really obscure. Are you ready?

Masha Koyen [00:33:57]:
Yeah. Do you

Sara Lohse [00:33:57]:
have a pen? Because you're gonna wanna write it down.

Masha Koyen [00:34:00]:
Definitely.

Sara Lohse [00:34:01]:
Ask them.

Masha Koyen [00:34:06]:
That's so true.

Sara Lohse [00:34:07]:
And that's the part we miss. You have access to your current clients. Your current clients are your ideal clients. Ask them what they want. Ask them why you. Ask them what it was that drew them in. What made the difference? And you can do that in person 1 on 1, like, when you're meeting with them. Like, oh, hey.

Sara Lohse [00:34:30]:
By the way, like, what is it? Like, I'm I'm just trying to tailor my messaging, and I would love to hear your opinion. You can send out a survey. You can post it on social media. Whatever it is, just ask. I feel like so many people think they know what other people want. They think they know what their audience wants, and they're so wrong. Like, they think we want this, but it's like, oh, no. We're here for this.

Sara Lohse [00:34:54]:
I didn't even know you were doing that. But you don't know that unless they tell you.

Masha Koyen [00:35:00]:
I'm so glad you're bringing this up because this is the number one. So I have a framework that I use, to write website copy, and the number one thing in within my framework, within my signature process is interviewing clients. Mhmm. Because while my clients, interior designers that I work with, they fill out a questionnaire, and they tell me about their audience. You know, they do this. They're a couple. They're married. There's this, that, the other.

Masha Koyen [00:35:21]:
Why do they pick you well? Probably because of my style or this or the other. And then when I actually talk to the clients and it turns out something completely different, oh, she and, you know, the clients tell me, you know what? She's just such an amazing listener, or it was just so much fun picking files with her or this or that. And I learned the most incredible things, and it turns out while the designer thinks that it's one thing that brings your clients to you, but what's what's what makes a true difference is could be completely completely something else. So I get the most surprising things through client interviews. So I am so happy you brought this up, and I'm so happy this is, like, your number one advice for learning about your audience. This is perfect. This is perfect. Sara, tell me something.

Masha Koyen [00:36:07]:
What's one story that you tell always without a doubt that generates engagement? Is it the story?

Sara Lohse [00:36:13]:
It's the tattoo story. It's funny because that story has really become my calling card, to the point, like like I said, the tattoo is traced on the cover of my book. I brought the host of that podcast that started all on my podcast and hear his side. He actually wrote the foreword for my book, but he's an award winning author, award winning podcast host. He is an I admire him so much, and I'm just, like, honored to call him my friend. But it all started with I bombarded him with quest with, do you wanna hear about a penis tattoo? And the funny thing is I so I did end up getting the CEO of that company booked on the show too. I got myself first, and then I'm like, wait a second. We're here because of something else.

Sara Lohse [00:36:58]:
So I got him too, and he didn't know about that story until he heard it on the show. But he asked me recently, because this was back in, like, 2021, I wanna say. And he asked me recently, why are you still telling that tattoo story? And I even say, like, in my book, like, why did I just tell you a really embarrassing story in a book that I'm supposed to be, like, proving I'm a professional and I'm an expert in something? And, like, why would I do that? And it's because that's not the story. The story is what happened next. The story is that I told this, and then I learned how to tell a story. And the way I learned how to tell a story is so unique. And it's why I have the whole process that I have for teaching you how to tell yours. And it's showing you that I learned by doing and that this isn't something that I've made up.

Sara Lohse [00:37:57]:
Like, I watched it work. And I can't tell you that in any other way than just telling you that and telling the story and telling how it happened. And I think that's one of the things that people the reason they don't tell stories is because they're like, well, people want the information. You can tell the information. You just package it in a story. Mhmm. And you the best part is you won't get it wrong. Because I mentioned Internet trolls.

Sara Lohse [00:38:27]:
No matter what you say, someone's gonna try to tell you that you're wrong, or they're gonna try to disprove you. But if you just told a personal story, how are they gonna do that? I think

Masha Koyen [00:38:37]:
the next thing that I'm gonna do right after this episode is figure out my story because there's different stories. There's different, you know, defining stories. Like you said, you you outline them in the book, and I can't wait to learn all about it. But I feel like that's what I wanna do next. I want to figure out what is that story. And I guess it takes experimenting to figure out which story will stick. There's actually a book on on that that I,

Sara Lohse [00:39:02]:
I think it's by me. I'm putting gems on my shelf.

Masha Koyen [00:39:06]:
Sara, I wanna ask you one

Masha Koyen [00:39:07]:
last thing before, we kind of wrap up. I wanna ask you about AI. With so much Okay. AI generated content on the rise, Do you think story storytelling will lose its human touch, or can we incorporate technology and use all of these tools that are available to us now without sacrificing authenticity?

Sara Lohse [00:39:27]:
Short answer is god. I hope not. But, so it's funny because my business partner is actually one of the, like, leading speakers on AI, and he's consulting with the Texas Board of Education on incorporating AI and education. Like, he's all over, everything on AI. So I I'm involved heavily with using AI and testing new AI tools and all of this. And we actually just had this conversation with a blog writer on our show, and I love the way he phrased it. He said treat AI like an assistant, not like an employee.

Masha Koyen [00:40:03]:
Oh, okay. Can you help me Mhmm. Understand the difference?

Sara Lohse [00:40:09]:
So an assistant is there to make your work easier. An employee is there to do its own work. Interesting. Right. So, yes, so if you're basically outsourcing, you're writing. You're outsourcing your thinking. You're outsourcing everything. It's not gonna be you.

Sara Lohse [00:40:30]:
It's going to be the computer. It's gonna be the AI, and there everything's gonna sound the same. I read so many posts on social media where I'm just like, chat to you about that.

Masha Koyen [00:40:40]:
Can't you just sell?

Sara Lohse [00:40:42]:
There's every time. Every time. And that's not to say I don't use it because I do. Like, it's How do you use it?

Masha Koyen [00:40:49]:
I'm Tell me how do you use it.

Sara Lohse [00:40:51]:
I use it for ideas, and I'll use it for outlines. If I need to make a presentation, I'm I have ADHD, like textbook ADHD. Every single symptom that there is, I've got it. And so I don't think in terms of outlines. I think in terms of, like, here's all of the information ever. Just throw it at them. So if I need an outline for a presentation, I have chat to chat to BT. And I don't have it write it.

Sara Lohse [00:41:24]:
I don't I just have it tell me, okay. Like, start with this. Go into this. Go into this. And then in my brain, I say, okay. Here's the story for this one. Here's the story for this one. Here's the story for this one.

Sara Lohse [00:41:34]:
So I'm outsourcing the busy work, but I'm doing the thinking myself. And you can train chat gbt to sound just like you. That's one of the things my business partner does is he helps you make it sound just like you, which is really cool. But AI should never create more than a first draft, if that much.

Masha Koyen [00:41:58]:
And I wanna note that you are weaving personal storytelling into it.

Sara Lohse [00:42:02]:
Yeah. You need to still have those stories. And I actually so when I was writing my book, I thought I was done. Then I'm like, oh, I'm not done. This is too short. I need more content. And I was so frustrated. It had been, like, a long process.

Sara Lohse [00:42:17]:
I just wanted it to be done. So I just threw the whole thing and chat GPT and said, make this longer. And just okay. Cool. Copy and paste. Put in a word document. Alright. I'm done again.

Sara Lohse [00:42:28]:
And then I read it. I was like, what have I done? So then I had to spend the next, like, 2 weeks going back through and pulling out the stuff I had just added because I'm like, that doesn't sound like me at all. This is terrible. I just ruined everything, and I basically rewrote my whole book in the 2 weeks before my deadline. And it's so much better for it, so I'm glad I did. But, yes, it got the information. I've like, I I told it what to say, and it knew from the book what I was trying to convey, and it got the the message was there, but I wasn't. And one of the greatest pieces of feedback I've gotten, and I've gotten it time and time again from this book, first from people who knew me, but then also from people who didn't, which was interesting.

Sara Lohse [00:43:21]:
But they said, I could hear you reading me your book because it sounds so much like me. I don't write like I'm writing for The Wall Street Journal. I write like I'm writing a journal, and I wanted it to sound like me. So it's written the way I speak. And I could have done it a different way, and I probably would have opened it up to a broader audience of people who want a real business book. But at what cost? And that's the thing that I always feel like it's important to mention because I talk a lot with thought leadership, and anyone can be a thought leader. And you don't have to be a thought leader on a global stage. You can be a thought leader within your company.

Sara Lohse [00:44:11]:
It could be within your community, within a Facebook group, whatever it is. You can be a thought leader if you have thoughts to share. It's not that hard. But what people seem to think from the outside is that by saying I'm a thought leader, by putting out this these ideas, by putting out this content, we think the whole world is our audience and that the whole world has to hear what we have to say. And that's so untrue. I don't want the whole world to read my book. I will be very embarrassed if I find out that Obama read my book. Please don't.

Masha Koyen [00:44:49]:
We have our own clients. We have the right people. We have that's why the whole idea behind the ideal customer, ideal avatar, there is Yeah. In it, there is a beauty of niching and having your own audience. You know? You're not for everyone.

Sara Lohse [00:45:04]:
Not at all.

Masha Koyen [00:45:04]:
I like that.

Sara Lohse [00:45:05]:
And the people who are meant to connect with you, the people who think the way that you do and will appreciate your point of view and are looking for the kind of content that you have to put out, they will find you, and they're the ones that will take in your content. And so with with interior designers putting out stories, you don't have to tell the sob story of, like, what happened when you're a kid and somehow that led to this. Tell that story about like, I remember in my basement my whole life, there was a horrendous yellow striped velvet couch. And I have pictures of me and my great grandfather's house sitting with my great grandparents because it was their couch first. Shocking. And then somehow it ended up in my house. But that awful couch felt like home to me. And I can I have so many memories of, like, my first kiss happening on that couch and the parties that we had where, everyone just gathered and too many people sat on it? We're all on top of each other.

Sara Lohse [00:46:09]:
We're just laughing, like, spending nights watching movies with my dad on that couch. Stories are that simple, and they don't have to be long. That could be that one sentence. And it all connects back to something related to interior design. It doesn't have to relate back to, like, how you've planned on changing the world. But that couch is what inspired me to design houses. I want somebody to feel that feeling when I put a really unique piece of furniture in their house. Things like that relate it back to just things that you felt when you experienced an amazing design or how you felt when you walked into a home that was like, oh god.

Sara Lohse [00:46:49]:
This is awful. Mhmm. Those feelings are what your stories can be based in, and they're relatable.

Masha Koyen [00:46:56]:
I like that. That it's so simple at the end of the day. So just you all have stories. Tell your story. Just figure out what are those stories. Figure out who you're writing for, who your audience is, and what are those points of intersection where, you know, it it's relatable to your audience. So I like that. Sara, thank you so much for bringing so many interesting insights about storytelling.

Masha Koyen [00:47:20]:
One last thing that I always ask, my guests, what's the one habit or practice that you've implemented in your life or in your business that has been game changing? Doesn't have to be business related, personal thing.

Sara Lohse [00:47:36]:
I never answer questions with a single answer. Everything gets answered with the story. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad

Masha Koyen [00:47:42]:
thing, but

Sara Lohse [00:47:43]:
it's it's a thing that's

Masha Koyen [00:47:44]:
context and a story. Right? What else like, I'm, you know, that it's you. It's you. You are the queen of storytelling, so that's amazing. Well, Sara, this has been great. Where can our listeners find you if they want to work with you, if they wanna hire you, if they wanna just follow along?

Sara Lohse [00:47:59]:
Yeah. Well, if you go to open this journal.com, I actually since my book is written as part almost part memoir since it is my stories, but it's also part journal, I pulled out all of the journal, prompts that are helping you start to tell your story, and they're available for free download on my website. So if you go to open this journal.com, you can download that. And while you're there, you'll see all of my services, my social media, my email, my calendar. You can jump on and book a call, and I'd love to chat with you.

Masha Koyen [00:48:29]:
I'll make sure to link that in the show notes. Sorry. Thank you so much again.

Sara Lohse [00:48:32]:
Thank you.

Masha Koyen [00:48:38]:
Thank you

Masha Koyen [00:48:39]:
so much for tuning in to another episode of Marketing for Designers. This is Nasha Cohen, signing off. See you next week.