I recently interviewed Leslie Carothers and Sam Henderson, the co-owners of Savour Partnership, one of our sponsors this year, and today, I’d like to share the interview with you.
JULIA: “Let’s start with your backgrounds. Tell us a little bit about yourselves.”
Sam: “I have a degree in interior design from Virginia Tech, and started designing homes for various clients, once I moved to Dallas. Then, I branched out into writing my blog, Today’s Nest, which led me to learn Photoshop and to become an expert in video and photography. From there, I was contacted by the Scripps Network to create content for their sites, including HGTV and The DIY Network. Because of that, my work was seen by various ad agencies, and I opened Savour Imagery in 2012, where I now create photography and video content for major food brands, including California Giant Berries, Dole and Scharffenberger Chocolate, as well as continuing my work for the Scripps Network and other major brands and media outlets.
Leslie: “I have been involved in one way or another, with the luxury interior design and furniture industry for the past 37 years. For 20 years, I was a luxury interior designer myself, before opening The Kaleidoscope Partnership, my main business, where I pioneered the use of influencer marketing and social media marketing within the furniture and interior design industry.
I have always loved *all things interiors* and *furniture* and it has been my joy to use my experience and knowledge of digital marketing to help many corporate brands, tradeshows and individual luxury interior designers move their businesses powerfully forward over these past 15 years.
JULIA: What led you and Sam to come together, now, to form Savour Partnership, even though you both still have your main businesses?
Leslie: Sam and I both see, clearly, that the way products are being sold is rapidly shifting. Many manufacturers, even formerly *trade only* manufacturers, are being forced to sell direct to consumer through e-commerce sites like Perigold, etc. in order to remain competitive and grow their businesses.
We can also see that many manufacturers, even high end, typically *trade only* manufacturers, are signing on with exclusive affiliate aggregation sites, in order to empower and financially compensate a new distribution channel: luxury interior designers with blogs or simply excellent content producers, with blogs, who love design.
Because of this shift in product distribution, Sam and I saw an opportunity to use our combined skills to help interior designers and other creative professionals layer in passive income to their sites, while helping them build sellable business assets over the long term.
Sam: Another one of our goals with Savour Partnership is to help luxury interior designers present an elevated visual experience to their website and blog visitors, to help them attract a clientele that appreciates this level of quality and in order to help them attract more lucrative opportunities.
We feel the editorial quality of what we can offer, which includes beautifully presented products and copy, embedded videos and custom animations, can help them achieve this outcome.
JULIA: What exactly is Savour Partnership producing that can help designers generate passive income and elevate their brand presence online?
Sam: We are designing editorial quality, custom branded e-publications, including email lead magnet PDF downloads, e-books which can be for sale on a designer’s own site or on Amazon, media kits, lookbooks, portfolios and e-newsletters, all of which can be embedded with affiliate marketing links (or not), and all of which can include videos and custom animations, as desired.
Leslie: In addition, we are providing hands on project management services, copywriting, and affiliate marketing set up and training on as needed basis, making this an elegant, easy turnkey solution for our clients to implement.
JULIA: Do you have a designer’s site where people can go to see an example of your work?
Sam & Leslie: Yes, we recently completed a 4 page custom branded PDF download for Houston based interior designer, Carla Aston. If you subscribe to her blog at http://carlaaston.com/designed, you can access it for free there. In addition, we are working on more now that we’ll unveil at the #BOLDsummit.
JULIA: How can people learn more about your services?
Sam: I am designing our website now, which will be unveiled at the #BOLDsummit: http://savourpartnership.com, but, in the meantime, people can contact us on our Facebook Page at http://facebook.com/SavourPartnership or via Instagram at http://instagram.com/SavourPartnership.
Leslie: One of the keys to being very successful in generating passive income is in understanding how to drive traffic to your website or blog. To this end, we’ve also started a Facebook GROUP:
where we are sharing daily tips about how to drive blog and website traffic. Everyone is invited to join it. The URL is:
www.facebook.com/groups/drive.massive.traffic
JULIA: Thank you, Leslie and Sam, for agreeing to be one of our sponsors this year, and Leslie, we all look forward to hearing your input as one of our speakers this year, as well.
Any last minute thoughts?
Leslie: As was so beautifully articulated in your video with this year’s 3 BOLD MASTERS about luxury, Julia, I want to say that I believe luxury, now, is about finding the time to deeply experience whatever truly matters to you.
We hope what we are doing by helping designers and other creative professionals layer in passive income to their online publishing activities, and elevating the online visual experience others have with their brand, will, over time, afford them ever more sustainable, financial freedom to live their own dreams on their own terms.
Sam: It has always been my dream to live in Paris, and then live out the rest of my life in New York City. I hope that by using my skills and knowledge to help other interior designers live their dreams, free from the concerns of location, it will help me live mine in the same way, too.