WPCP 013: Bourn Creative – My Interview with Jennifer Bourn
One of my favorite aspects of my podcast is the interviews I get to do! (what… did you think I was going to say something about how funny I think I am? 🙂 )
Even though I’m the one getting in touch with the interviewee it’s still fun when we finally connect on Skype for the actual interview. With many of the interviews, it’s the first time we’ve actually spoken outside of a conversation via email or social media.
That was the case with Jennifer Bourn of BournCreative.com.
The funny thing is that Jennifer and her husband and business partner Brian live all of an hour away from where I live. Which, I’ll get a chance to meet them in person next week as they invited me to speak at the Sacramento WordPress Meetup and of course I said “absolutely!” (I’ll let you know how that goes, it should be fun).
One of the (many) reasons I had asked Jennifer if she would be up for an interview is because I had seen Jennifer at a conference or two in the past (I think it was Ali Brown’s “Shine” in 2010), had seen her site (love her work) but had noticed that they had started popping up in the #GenesisWP conversations on Twitter as they were now using Genesis for all their client work. Most people in the “Genesis” community aren’t part of the “Internet Marketing” scene (for lack of a better description -for the life of me I can’t think of a better way to explain that). Because I knew Jennifer was also part of that community I thought it would be a great interview to show a successful merging of two styles of business.
After my recent post “The Real Housewives of WordPress” where I talked about the different ‘perceived’ communities within WordPress I think you’ll get a good insight on how you can be a part of whatever community you create and want to be a part of after listening to my interview with Jennifer.
I love hearing the stories behind the business and the brand – especially the bumps and bruises along the way (we all want to hear we’re not the only ones, right?).
Jennifer didn’t hold back anything. 😉
From transitioning her business as a solo entrepreneur to having her husband join full time (and he started from scratch in terms of coding and development and is now brilliant at it. I know, kind of nauseating…), it’s all here.
And because I’m such a geek about quotes (not sure if I’ve ever shared that tidbit here, but I am…. I have 3 different quotes on my monitors as I type this) I grabbed a few from the interview that struck a nerve with me, the first one being above in regards to not networking where your competitors are as well as the quote I started the podcast with today:
A third and final quote that certainly left me with something to think about:
I’m not really a shy person and I like to think I’m pretty social, but I can also get caught up in the day to day “stuff” of life and can easily paint a picture for myself that going to something or networking is a pain (need to get ready, drive into San Francisco, blah, blah, blah.. I know, poor me)- not anymore. As long as I don’t have a prior commitment? I’m in. Which is why I said yes to speaking at the Sacramento Meetup next week. And of course if you’re in the area we’d love to have you join us. Register for the Sacramento WordPress Meetup Here.
Like Jennifer mentioned in the podcast, Bourn Creative is hiring! If you think you might be a good fit for this amazingly creative team, check out the job listing and apply today.
Enjoy the interview!
Links mentioned in this episode
Hi Kim,
I tried listening to the podcast but I couldn’t hear the interview. It sounded like it was far away and there was a lot of reverb.
Can it be fixed possibly?
Hi Val,
I’m going to try a few different things to increase the quality of the audio. I’ll let you know asap!
Thanks,
Kim
I enjoyed this interview. I appreciated the honest and candid discussion. When getting started it’s hard to sometimes figure a direction but this interview gave practical pointers that can definitely be used. This is definitely a podcast that will be on my replay list. Thanks Kim for always looking out for your listeners!
Thanks for listening Regina!
I think one of my favorite take aways from this interview was the decision they made to focus on what they do really well and simply do it better, which can be tricky when you’re starting out. Once you figure it out though I think it’s a solid business model to run with.