Our guest this week is an interior designer who has become a household name. She’s an expert storyteller, creating compelling stories through both her design, and her appearances on screen. She’s been frequently featured on HGTV as a host and mentor on “Battle on the Beach” and “Build it forward”. Joining the show this week is Principal and Interior Designer at Taniya Nayak Design, Taniya Nayak!

Taniya sits down with Dan to dive into her background as a designer. She covers the ways that bartending helped her refine her design skills, the necessity of designing your spaces for a wide range of guest experiences, and how she got started as a host on HGTV. 

Takeaways: 

• For Taniya, hospitality means addressing all the small nuances of an experience. It means creating a warm and inviting space where you are thinking about every possible customer scenario. 
• Balancing operations and design is a delicate task as you will often need to choose between prioritizing aesthetics or cost. Ultimately, the choices you make need to revolve around the experience you are trying to create for your guests. 
• Creating an experience your guests want to evangelize is important because a guest’s journey begins with a review. Their expectations of your space are set by what they read beforehand, and a bad review can set guests up with a pretense of your space.
• A quality product is the cornerstone of any successful business, but the presentation around that product determines your success. An ok product with great presentation will outshine a great product with lackluster presentation. 
• As a designer, you need to tell a story that relates to the guests in your establishment. Each element should correlate either functionally or emotionally to the story of why your guest is in that space. 
• As a young designer, it can feel demoralizing to not land a design job right out of college. Retail, customer service, and food service jobs give you firsthand knowledge into how those environments run, making your future designs for those spaces more effective. 
• For leaders in the design space, you need to create environments for your employees to thrive. Encourage communication, and make your employees feel comfortable being vulnerable. From their honest sharing comes opportunities for you to help them grow. 

Quote of the Show:

• “I want to make sure that when the guest comes in, they are greeted by a warm and inviting space.” - Taniya Nayak

Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaniyaNayak 
• Website: https://taniyanayak.com/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taniyanayak/ 
• Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1892187 

Shout Outs:

• 0:30 - HGTV
• 0:42 - Ellen DeGeneres
• 0:45 - QVC
• 0:46 - Rachel Ray
• 0:47 - Oprah
• 1:20 - Hotec: https://www.hotecglobal.com/ 
• 10:44 - Yelp
• 11:42 - Open Table: https://www.opentable.com/ 
• 12:37 - The Break: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1892187 
• 17:13 - Danny Meyer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhmeyer/
• 19:02 - MIT
• 21:03 - Boston Architectural College: https://the-bac.edu/  
• 33:06 - Knock First: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401024/?ref_=ttpl_ov 
• 35:28 - Baccarat Hotel New York: https://www.baccarathotels.com/
• 37:16 - Craigslist
• 37:53 - ABC Family
• 38:14 - The New York Yankees: https://www.mlb.com/yankees 

Ways to Tune In: 

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0A2XOJvb6mGqEPYJ5bilPX
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-hospitality-podcast/id1573596386
• Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGVmaW5pbmdob3NwaXRhbGl0eS5saXZlL2ZlZWQueG1s
• Amazon Music: ​​https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/8c904932-90fa-41c3-813e-1cb8f3c42419