We were lucky to catch up with Sara Bacon recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sara, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

I hope people can someday see the life and career I created and then believe it’s possible for them to have a life where they’re able to do the things they love because of it. I sincerely believe we’re not just here to survive this live, to have to suffer and work hard and that’s it. I think we’re here to give back to the world our special gifts and talents and to do the things that light us up and make us feel alive, and it’s what fuels me to keep going in my work. I want to live out that belief for myself, by creating a career and an offering for the world that is uniquely tailored to my specific desires and dreams, and show others what’s possible for them in the process so they can be inspired to not give up on their dreams as well. I hope that when I’m gone people remember me for living fully and believing in the beauty of my dreams.

Sara, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

For as long as I can remember, I’m someone who has noticed and appreciated beautiful environments and design. I’ve always gravitated towards beauty and understood how much it adds to my life and others’. I go to great lengths to seek it out, and the process of this is part of the enjoyment for me.

But over time I found myself wishing there was an easier way to find the most beautiful places to eat, drink, stay, and work from that no one had seemed to crack the code on. So eventually Opulist was birthed in my brain. The first search site focused on aesthetics and good design, that makes it easy to find the best of the best places no matter where you’re going. When I thought of it, I couldn’t believe it hadn’t been done yet.

While I ultimately created this for myself, something that I wish existed in the world, I had a feeling that others might appreciate this offering as well. And as we’ve continued to grow and expand over the past year, it’s been such a gift to see how affirmed that assumption was in the ways that Opulist has been received. We have so far to go, but we are also so excited by looking back at how far we’ve come.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I’ve had to unlearn and that I continually have to push back against is the belief that success has to come from hard, stressful, and very difficult work. And I don’t mean “hard” as in intentional, focused work, but, hard as in the opposite of the kind of work you actually want to be doing.

I think this narrative has been so drilled into us as a society, but I believe we’re going to start seeing the undoing of this in the years to come. As people realize it’s possible to do work that’s aligned with their natural gifts and intuitive desires, I think work will start to become a more enjoyable expression of one’s creativity and not something that feels unnecessarily hard and stressful.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

A lot of thought goes into our social media presence, specifically on Instagram. For starters, I think a lot of people demonize the app as well as the “algorithm” and feel stressed by the pressure to have to show up on all social media platforms, which understandably can feel overwhelming for someone who never went into business to do social media or marketing.

So the first step would be to do some reframing and recognize that Instagram (as well as other social media channels) is a FREE marketing platform that anyone can use. And you can get creative with it and use it in a way that works for you. Focus on one app at a time and don’t feel like you have to do all of them well. Without a full social team, this is impossible and also not necessary.

Second, don’t just create advertorial, business-focused content. If you want to grow and expand your reach, you have to create content that is going to be relatable, educational, entertaining, and shareable. And you don’t have to create reels to grow! Our most viral post – that brought in over 17k followers – was a meme carousel that has been shared 165k times. The topic was related to our business, themes around eating and drinking out and enjoying nice things, but never mentioned our business once.

Lastly, have fun with it. Choose the social media channel you personally enjoy using the most, think about the kind of content you appreciate seeing, and create from a place of excitement and enjoyment rather than stress and obligation. Be consistent but no need to be crazy, and think about how you want to genuinely connect with your audience and customers and I promise growth will come.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://opulist.co/
• Instagram: @opulist
• Other: TikTok: @opulist
  Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/opulistco/