We recently connected with Sarah Bronstein and have shared our conversation below.
Sarah , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share a customer success story with us?
• Appreciate you for joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.
The biggest risks I’ve taken have been starting my business after being suddenly laid off while simultaneously sinking all of my savings into renovating a vintage travel trailer into my tiny dream home, both of which occurred during the 2020-21 part of the COVID 19 pandemic.
The world was on fire and it was literally just my belief in myself and my vision getting me through, hoping for the best.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
• As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that, can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
My name is Sarah Bronstein and I am a persevering dream chaser – I run my own interior design studio Sukkha Interior Design and more recently have started dabbling in real estate with my brokers license. I design spaces all over the country but I’m currently based in the Blue Ridge Mountains just outside of Asheville, NC.
I started Sukkha Interior Design in 2020 to help people create spaces that bring positive change in their daily existence and overall well being. With in-depth local real estate market knowledge and background working with real estate investors I’m passionate about helping folks buy/sell/develop their dream home through a seamless, stress-free process from the get-go to happily ever after.
After 10 years of interior design experience- from commercial workspaces to residential properties, to Airbnb’s- I found myself most drawn to the unique challenges of small spaces + tiny homes which allow me to combine my love of design with my passion for sustainable living
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
It sounds cliche but niching is probably my best recommendation for growing clientele. I was super resistant to it, fearing I’d exclude money or clients but the reality is clients want to hire ‘the expert’ and in a field like interior design you’re going to have a hard time showing up as the top ranks with pros. For me niching into my background of vacation rental design and my experience in tiny house design felt effortless because it aligned with my lifestyle, business foundations, and goals. You could consider niching by design style, type of design like me, or even just by location. Create a smaller pond to be the big fish and naturally you’ll start to expand. Spoiler alert: niching does NOT eliminate you from other groups it just makes you the expert of something- and gives you a focus of who you are talking to in marketing like socials. I’ve had lots of residential projects that aren’t related to my niches.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I was unexpectedly laid off in early spring of 2020 at the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic. While my MO in sudden stressful situations was/is to totally panic, I decided to use this as an opportunity to start my own design studio- a dream of which I’d been sitting on, paralyzed by both fear of failure and the comfort of a “dependable” job with steady (albeit low) income. I took the leap and now here we are almost 5 years later and me and my business are still here, growing year after year.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sukkhainteriordesign.com/contact
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sukkhainteriordesign
