Today we’d like to introduce you to Brianna Peacock.
Hi Brianna, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started out doing odds and ends to get enough money together to start a business on Legal Zoom. After that, I made some social pages, built my own website, and offered to do 5 homes for free on my personal page in order to get some before and afters to use in a portfolio. Fast forward about 3 years, and Ora had grown enough to get its first location. I also got my first employee that year. About 2 years after that, we had grown into a full-blown remodeling company in addition to the interior design studio we already were. And the single employee we had was now well over a dozen. We have also moved into a bigger location. After a lot of wins, losses, trial and error, growth, and learning, we transitioned into what we learned (at times the hard way) as our best version. While remodeling was a great addition to Ora, it was not our strength. I decided to eliminate that division of our business so we could focus on our specialty, our passion – Design. I had a vision when I started ora, and that was that it’d embody the same characteristics that I was proud of in my own personality. Enthusiasm, thoughtfulness, creativity, passion, and joy. Doing something that I wasn’t passionate about or, if I am being honest, good at – really took those away from Ora’s core. I felt the identity of not only Ora, but of me as well suffered during the period of time when I was trying to pursue and grow an entire division of Ora that I don’t believe I was meant to. Getting rid of all the extra and returning to interior design only was the best decision I have ever made. Our clients have never been happier, our staff has never been happier, myself included! As a single mom of 5 beautiful little girls – my peace is invaluable to me.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Absolutely not (nervous laughter/lol). It has been incredible but also terrible. Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure. It has given me some of my best memories but also some of my worst. It isn’t easy to take risks and pursue things you don’t know will work. Sometimes, you hit a home run, and sometimes, you walk right into your worst fear and completely fail. Some of my biggest challenges came with the explosive growth Ora experienced. It went zero to a hundred, and I was truly unprepared to handle it. Adding in other divisions that I was still learning also made it harder. I think that if I were to advise someone else in a similar situation, I would tell them to slow down. It is so tempting when you are excited and passionate about something to want to just keep piling on more ideas and go full steam ahead. But that isn’t as wise as perfecting the one thing you do really well and growing that further first. New things are more fun and easier to be excited about and focused on. All entrepreneurs have that impulsive thought process of constant new ideas, which is truly a blessing and a curse. Maybe let the growth balance out a bit before growing and developing even more all at once. I think it is extremely important to seek out team members with strong skill sets in all the area you lack as well. It is ok to not be the best at everything, recognizing that you can’t do it all is half the battle. Committing to find the people who are better at those other roles than you is the other half. A leader is only as good as their home team.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next, you can tell us a bit more about your business.
So, Ora is a full-service Interior design studio with an emphasis on the psychology of design. We want our spaces to make our clients feel as good as they look, and in order to do that, we have to dive a little deeper into getting to know the people we are privileged enough to work with. And that is a process we LOVE. Design is my passion, but people are my purpose, so getting an opportunity to help them create not only a beautiful space but a beautiful life as well is a dream come true. We are introducing lifestyle coaching inside of our design services, and we are OVER THE MOON about it! It’s been a few years in the making, so we’re just super ecstatic to see it finally taking shape and coming to life.
What’s next?
My plans for the future are to continue to improve the design services we offer and perfect them perpetually. I am proud of our awards but I am also proud of our trials and all the hard lessons I had to learn through trial and error. I have done an amazing job, and I’ve also had times where I missed the mark and had no one to blame but myself. So, taking not only our wins but our losses too and using that experiential knowledge to innovate our offerings is truly the greatest investment I have ever made, not only in my company but in myself. I also plan to greatly expand our virtual offerings, as well as our B2B offerings. I am probably most excited about the inclusion and expansion of our lifestyle coaching alongside design. Helping clients design a lifestyle that is as beautiful as the spaces they live their lives in is truly a dream come true for me. It’s a place where my passion and my purpose collide.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.oradesignsohio.com
- Instagram: ora.designs
- Facebook: facebook.com/oradesignsohio
- Other: tiktok – @oradesigns
Image Credits
Little Bear Photography
Ora Designs
