Today we’d like to introduce you to K’AY SAMONE.
Hi K’AY, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Fervid. Earnest. Creative. Optimistic. Unabashed. Unflinching Determination
These 6 descriptive words are my story. However, these impetuous seeds all started from the root of my family. When I was a little girl (age 8), a little girl of many curious and active qualities, I was first introduced to design and construction through my father and grandfather, we called it the “Love Corporation.” Love Corp. infrastructure was simply targeting family-owned or small businesses in search of landscape, construction, and electrical design for residences and privately-owned buildings across the state of Mississippi. Our mission was to provide a quintessence yet budget-friendly solution in landscape grooming, new deck construction or reconstruction, new storage shed construction, and gravel paving.
After many years as an active protégé to both my father and grandfather, I simultaneously soon became the right hand to my 3 aunts who provided Interior Décor/Styling and Event Planning services as an extension to the Love Corporation yet served as its own entities. Our modus operandi as the designer or event planner was simple: dazzle and stay on budget. As my aunts grew their businesses separately, as a family unit, we still worked together to build the family’s legacy. As an assistant to all 3 aunts who grew their companies separately, I was able to adapt to different production methods that enabled me to be a great team player no matter the task at hand. We provided excellent design solutions and storage solutions for commercial spaces, and residential spaces alongside décor and event planning solutions for family/graduation soirees, weddings, or business functions. With this talent at bay, deciding on my career industry was, at the time simple: Design and Construction.
I received a full scholarship to Mississippi State University for Structural Engineering under the Civil Engineering curriculum in 2011. After a year, I opted-in to double major, with the Interior Design curriculum acting as my minor/associate degree. After many semesters and summer-school programs, in 2015 I received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Design, Architecture, and Engineering with a minor in Civil Engineering.
In 2015, I landed a job in Dallas, Texas working under an International Hospitality Interior Design Firm that included prestigious and talented ownerships supported by great and talented design teams that helped mold and navigate newbies through the hospitality industry working their way from green to elite designers and project leads. In August 2020, due to COVID-19 that impacted thousands of businesses and jobs, I soon found myself along for the ride of unemployment. “I never thought I would be where I am today.”
In September 2020, after many weeks and late nights of contemplating my next start, K-SAMONE & CO was born. Originally, K-SAMONE & CO was established as a freelance consulting business that provided branding, architectural drafting, and interior styling to get me through hardship. However, I had no idea of the impact my services would bring to the community altogether. After constructing my Professional CV (Curriculum Vitae), my 5 years in hospitality working on boutique hotels, and – at the time – 18 years in residential and construction, I found myself evolving my business to a more corporate and luxury audience. It was at this time I started thinking more like an owner versus an employee or freelancer.
During my professional years of residential and hospitality learning from some of the greats, I converted that knowledge into a teaching opportunity for myself in an effort to build my company in an efficient and effective way that brings luxury to the figure tips of my clients.
Due to my hospitality experience of working with boutique hotel brands such as, but limited to Hilton, Marriot, IHG, Hyatt Hotels, Caesar’s Entertainment Hotels & Resorts, Hard Rock Hotels, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, and Radisson Hotel Group I am able to adapt to multiple styles of design while tailoring each client experience into a hotel-like oasis that fits their necessities and design desires. Now 20 years of professional design and construction experience are under my belt, with 2 years being my proudest and most accomplishable achievements, because what was a tragedy became the start of a legacy. If you would’ve asked me this 2 years ago, I would have called it an unfortunate reality.
I now believe that I have created a staple to what is now a new era of design talents impacting the world of design on an international base. Myself and my team that supports the company’s project vision and implements it so effortlessly can only grow from here by learning, teaching, and challenging ourselves in an effort to change our client’s stories that can last them for a lifetime.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Well, there are many challenges I can name but my top 10 are:
1. Operating as a business owner versus an entrepreneur.
2. Unscrambling the lifelong puzzle of work, life, and balance, while allowing the business to grow.
3. Defining success in my own way.
4. Overcompensating to make a sale but understanding the company’s value and not losing that respect just to make that sale.
5. Determining a risk worth taking verse a gamble work passing on.
6. Understanding the season of business demands.
7. Maintaining business relationships during this market crash to have a support team for our clients.
8. Maintaining client relationships to keep them coming back and becoming a strong referral.
9. Understanding industry cost inflations, both on a consumer case and merchant case.
10. Defining the company’s brand/look and not deviating from that.
These top 10 challenges I can say are discussed almost every day between business owners, CEOs, and financial teams. I believe anything worth having is worth working very hard for, but in the right season. You don’t want to grow too fast without the manpower or equity to support the workload; however, you also don’t want to under sale your value as the consultant for the sake of the company’s growth. Reputation is everything so I used this quote from my father to help determine my seasons, “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” Think about it and use this to your own advantage as I did.
My first time using the “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast” method was when I opened the doors to K-SAMONE & CO. I was scared out of my mind because I knew this meant I would have to start over alongside the many points and questionable suppositions of success only being determined as working for a corporation and earning a benefits package in order to be a part of the success club. In the beginning and still even now, I suffered many stoic situations because I was my own aphrodisiac for a company no one knew about. I offered dexterity and reciprocity in an effort to not become a pariah to the small business club that many look at as “cute ambition”. My business aspirations were big and my support group outside my family, husband, and child, was small. So yes, starting over with this being my credence and reality was the scariest adult decision I ever made. But now, I am happy I gallantly stood up for what I believed in and didn’t let the hierarchy, contempt behavior, and lack of lucrative capital stop me. I looked fear and the lack of unprecedented parity in the face with something much more countervailing. Faith and ambition.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
K-SAMONE & CO, Dallas Texas-based, is an international Interior Design, Architectural Drafting, 3-D Visualization, Branding, and Real Estate Development firm. K-SAMONE & CO specializes in iconic designs and spatial planning solutions for interior and exterior developments. Our keen experience in design, architecture, and branding has refreshed the design market in residential, commercial, hospitality, and student living becoming one of the most buzzed-out renovations or new build properties in the world of design. In collaboration with our constituents in the UK, we act as a creative conduit that spearheads and administers the design direction of the interior and erratically exterior of buildings for architects and contractors becoming a silent partner on multiple properties.
What matters most to you?
Family and legacies. I have always looked at life in a “what’s the bigger picture” sense. I have chosen to direct my energy toward making a difference that would positively impact lives so that future generations can continue to evolve that idea or talent. I teach my son every day to live life to change the lives of others so that his future can organically change without seasonal losses. Stay humble, but proud of his accomplishments. Stay alert, but willing to be open and transparent. Never think he knows everything, or he will soon stand for nothing. Create a legacy that stands for something positive. Don’t give up or be afraid to fight for his beliefs but be mindful of his delivery. Understand that there will be good and bad days. There will also be days when it seems like the world is against him. What matters, is how he recovers and continues to build his brand from that for the sake of his personal growth and the selected industry growth. His success will transition to his family.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.k-samone.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ksamoneco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ksamoneco
- Other: https://linktr.ee/ksamoneco
Image Credits
The Nava Residence
Las Colinas
Toni Martin Artist
Anton Boiko Visuals
