We recently connected with Praise Santos McKenna and have shared our conversation below.

Praise, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the most important things we can do as business owners is ensure that our customers feel appreciated. What’s something you’ve done or seen a business owner do to help a customer feel valued?

Because I’m starting a podcast this Fall, I invested in new audio gear. I’d heard about the customer service at the online audio store Sweetwater so decided to buy through them anticipating that if there were issues with the gear down the road I could call them up. Sweetwater went beyond my expectations. Once I placed my order they were the ones who proactively called me. A sales engineer names Lei greeted me, thanked me for my order, asked me if I had any questions, and then chatted with me about me about what I was working. This kind of personal touch made me feel really seen. I hope our team can do these human touches like this (sorry AI is not gonna beat 1:1 human interaction) even as we scale.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a big encourager to have people spend their time when they are in flow. Flow is that feeling that you’re so in the zone, you don’t even realize time passes. For me, my flow zone is at the intersection of loving people well and making pretty things. I currently express that by being a brand coach and photographer, helping people create lovable brands while also building a life that they love.

I also get to lead a team of creatives through our branding studio, ComePlum. We have grown because we have systemized how to help people discover the feelings they want captured through their brand. Whether it’s through a brand strategy, brand identity, or a brand website, we walk our clients through a process that gives them clarity, confidence, and inspiration.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

As brand professionals, our work is easy to share, whether it’s photos or a website but truly how we get the most business is by leaving a positive impression on our clients. As much as we stay true to our deliverables, we also want to leave our clients feeling inspired, resourced, and confident. It’s this impression we leave that has our clients telling their friends about us.

Another special way we’ve found our clients is showing up in the same spaces. We love working with small business owners and in 2023 many of them are working from social clubs or joining co-working spaces. Even though we have our own studio and also work from home, we love showing up in these spaces so we can be connected to community. People also happen to find out what we do, they dig connecting with us on a human level, and book us as well.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Our business strategy is very personal versus trying to serve large quantities of people. This allows us to develop relationships with our clients. Many of them I’m on a texting basis with. I’ll often message them when I’m thinking about them.

We’ve also started to do more events to help resource our clients in ways that boosts their bottom line and their morale. This past March for Women’s History Month we partnered with our local social club Groundfloor Club to launch an event called ChargeUp. We not only invited some of our past clients to be vendors at this event but we also hosted a moment called “The Proud Party” where we created a space for our community to share what they were celebrating. We had over 300 people attend our inaugural event. It was satisfying for me to serve our people in this way.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ComePlum.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/ComePlum
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/comeplum
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@comeplum

Image Credits
Praise Santos Mckenna, Caitlin Hannan, and Lore Gonzalez for ComePlum Photo