We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kristi Addis Hickman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kristi, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?

As a young twenty-something I dreamed of changing the world through helping women one at a time become the best versions of themselves. I believed that spiritual and emotional healing at the very core of our beings was what the world needed in order to bring kindness, joy, and peace to our communities. I entered into a women’s ministry training program at my church and became a women’s ministry leader who counseled and worked with hundreds of women over the following decade. Eventually, I married and had two daughters. When my girls were young I stepped out of the ministry in order to be fully present while raising my daughters. However, I knew when they were older I would go “back to work” because I simply am wired that way. In my years of “nesting” it became more and more clear I had a knack for decorating. In fact, it became clear I had a special talent in that area. I found myself being asked to decorate my friends’ houses and their friends’ houses. I began to dream, along with my stylish mother-n-law, about starting our own family business of interior design. After my girls reached the teen years and the time was right, we cut the ribbon and The Hickman House began. I never could have guessed that all those years working in the Women’s ministry would have massively prepared me in the way it did to be an interior designer. My job now is to go into a home and connect with it’s owner in such a way that I can get into their head and into their heart. My clients deserve for The Hickman House to be able to create the vision in their heads and to deliver the desires of their hearts in the form of their own personal sacred space. All those years learning the language of the heart in the Women’s ministry has helped me immensely as a designer/decorator. It has helped me realize the emotional component in building the atmosphere within the spaces of my clients. It isn’t simply a color palette or design style that clients need. It’s a feeling they want. This knowledge helps me go beyond merely getting the measurements correct and the furniture chosen. I believe the awareness of the emotional component involved solidifies my success as a business owner. I feel I have an inside track to achieving the goal for each client by dialing into BOTH their head and their heart. I am still a volunteer staff member for the women’s ministry at my church and it is still a place where I am able to feel the pulse of the needs of women, Fortunately, the passion I have about encouraging women continues to spill over into my passion to spread love and light into the homes of my clients. For me, conviction, passion, and being a business owner fit together seamlessly.

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?

I grew up in the small, rural town of Holcomb, Mississippi and had an obsession with beauty from as long as I can remember. I spent hours and hours wandering through the wooded trails behind my house and riding three wheelers through the hilly countryside. I loved observing the pretty parts of nature whether it be the leaf formation on a tree, the light filtering through it’s limbs, or the rich moss carpeting the earth below. I decorated and redecorated my room so many times my Mom let me pick out new wall paper. As a teenager I became obsessed with clothes and jewelry. I would style anyone that would let me. At age sixteen I entered the Miss Mississippi Teen USA pageant and surprisingly won! Next came the big stage of the Miss Teen USA pageant where I even more surprisingly came out with the crown. My life was catapulted to one of world travel and LA life. To say I was exposed to the heights of global style and beauty is an understatement. From fashion to architecture, I experienced diversity and cutting edge ideas. Not only did I have a talent for design within me, but I had it all around me as well. Fast forward a few decades later and I am coming out of my nesting phase. I have been raising my daughters alongside my loving husband. There is still something I am dreaming of however. I want to take my styling talents and open my own business. My stylish mother-n-law and I decided to make it a family thing and The Hickman House is born. We are an Interior Decorating business based out of Marietta, GA. We are absolutely loving making our clients’ dreams come true. We love to see a good eye widen and jaw drop at the big reveal. We do everything from full renovations to room by room re-decorating. We have mapped out and executed a vast array of styles for our clients. Our design portfolio of spaces include styles such as modern, transitional, farmhouse, farmhouse chic, cottage, southern living, glam, bohemian, or most commonly, an eclectic mix of several styles. I chalk the ability to pull from many different styles up to the travel and exposure to so much of the world that my life has included. We plan to keep this energy buzzing at The Hickman House. One satisfied client refers us to a friend who is craving a home makeover. That friend becomes another excited and satisfied client when tells her friend. It grows and grows. Suddenly, not only are the dreams of our clients coming true, but so are ours! We look forward to continuing to create beautiful spaces one room at a time. You can find us on both Instagram and Facebook @thehickmanhouse.com

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

My business partner /co-owner of The Hickman House and I are family who share the same dream, the same name, and the same set of skills and talents. I feel extremely blessed to work side by side with Adrian. The way we became business partners however might surprise a few people. Fortunately, I am one of the lucky ones when it comes to marrying into the right family! And no by that I don’t mean into money. By that I mean I not only got to build a life with my best friend by my side but I also gained a fun, stylish, supportive, and trustworthy friend in my new mother-n-law. As we got to know each other more and more, we discovered our similar interests in home decorating and interior design. We both lived in Los Angeles at the time. When we visited each other’s homes we somehow unintentionally started this fun game which we still play to this day. In this game the visitor has to wander through the house and call out any new decor in the room or any vignette styled differently, etc. It has become the very first thing we do as soon as we cross each other’s thresholds. My husband gets such a kick out of us. We also enjoy taking turns creating beautiful tablescapes for the holidays or even for an ordinary family suppers. Over the years we began to toss around the idea of us creating a family business together simply by doing what we already do. Finally when the time was right we took the risk and went for it! It has been quite a bit more complicated than we may have thought going in but we have kept climbing up and over our learning curve and the results have been immensely rewarding! The spaces we have made into beautiful homes and the warm and hospitable friends we have made in the process gives our lives such added purpose and meaning. We love what we do and we love doing it as family.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The most effective way we have grown our clientele is through the combination of word-of-mouth and social media. We have discovered they go hand in hand. The first thing we had to do was stage photo shoots of various rooms we decorated whether it be our own homes or a friend’s home. We had to have material to get our website and our social media up and running. Once we got a few clients then the word of mouth referrals began and that really got the ball rolling! Still, those clients would first look at our work on-line to verify we were legit and had experience before hiring us. Then we’d have a new happy client and the cycle would continue. We believe that if you really take care of your clients in the way they deserve, it will come back to you. Now not only satisfied customers but our vendors also recommend us to our future clients. Relationships carry our business. However, in this day and age relationships and social media have to blend together seamlessly working in a back and forth type dynamic in which one feeds the other. Thus far this has been our most beneficial strategy of growth. We’ll see if there is more we can take on as we grow, but for now this is our plan and this has become our rhythm.

Contact Info:

• Website: thehickmanhouse.com
• Instagram: @thehickmanhouse.com
• Facebook: @thehickmanhouse.com
• Other: Kristi@thehickmanhouse.com

Image Credits
#benvilphotography @benvilleimagery Benvil Photography Nichole Crosier Photography