Alright, welcome back to another S.O.G. Meetup, ladies and gentlemen. What a way to get started, and by having with us, two impressive human beings is this beautiful couple that not only are incredible in all different areas of life, but especially when it comes to interior design. They own and operate the famous award-winning design studio, the Terbo Design Studio.
Now, their names are Graszina Viterbo Amiguel Beeda. There we go! Hi! Hi!
Come on, bye! To the very... To the very... To the very...
I love it. Welcome, welcome. Thank you for joining us today. It's great to be here.
Thank you for the invitation. No, of course, and it's such a pleasure. I was just making a quick intro about yourselves, and not just this fantastic couple that brings so much passion to what you do, but so much history and so much success because everything that this studio represents is phenomenal. I'm mind blowing.
I was just going through everything that you've been awarded, all the friends that you've been working on. It's fantastic. So I'm super thrilled about having this conversation with you, and welcome. Thank you all.
Thank you all. You're very excited. You do an amazing, you know, super luxury group is just doing this amazing job and you and your vision. So we are so happy to have this conversation with you.
Absolutely. Absolutely. So thank you for the kind words. You're currently in Cascais.
Can you hear me? Yes, yes. Yes, but here you are. Okay, perfect.
Yes. So you are at the moment in Cascais? Yes, yes. Yes.
Yes. Oh my God. You know, as a kid, I used to go there a lot. I love it.
It's wonderful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm good by far. I just used to do a lot of projects there.
So anyways, I love the area very well, but I was so fascinated to know how much magic it was created from the bottom of Cascais to do all these international projects. So I wanted to start it off just by asking because this is a family business. It's been there for many years. So what's really the DNA and that it's very shades, your business from any other interior design.
So I would say, besides the passion, the experience, the expertise, the all the structure that we have, I think where we differentiate is we ask, we ask the question, the client a question. We ask them, what's why do they or what drives them to a home at the end of the day? Are they happy when they go home the end of the day? Do they like where they live?
So we try to understand the psychology of the clients, where they are in their home. And after understanding their needs, we really work very deeply to turn their house into a home. And this is the twist that we bring to every project that we do. Yes, one of, you know, we always say every project has a style, every client has a story, has a story, and every project has a style.
Because the story is very important for us, the identity of the client. So we bridge a life to a space. And for us, it's very important. It's really the core of our business, is how the clients feel the home.
You know, more and more and with the pandemic and the inter-design is changing, what people want is changing and what they really want is to feel. You know, we've been two years and there's a lot of emotions in these last two years. Yes, yes. All of the planet.
And I think design has changed forever. It's one of those pivoting moments in industries and ours was totally affected by it. And people are more demanding, they're more demanding on quality, they're more demanding on creativity and on identity and how they feel in their own homes. They don't want to feel like they're in a shop, they don't want to feel like they're in a magazine spread where it's not their identity, it's not personalized.
So we focus on that. We focus on the identity, on the mental side and how people are going to feel and on the emotional side as well. Obviously, you've set it right there. Everything has shifted so much.
And obviously as our company, you've been for many years operating and not just being cascised in Portugal, but all over the world. So what have you seen in the last couple of years with everything that we've been going on as a major shift when it comes to the interior design? Would you like to answer that? The miniature design, I think that people are much more demanding on quality, as I was saying, and on detail.
When they go buy a house and a lot of our clients collect houses all over the world. So we end up designing their collection of houses. But before, they weren't as interested in the doorknob, in the light switch, in details. And when you open the housing closet, we're organized and the kitchen has become really, was already the heart of a house, but right now it's a whole project.
And people are living the house 360. And they really want to go to the nitty gritty details and how that's willing power. They're every moment. They want to feel safe.
They want to feel grounded and they want to feel empowered. Not least fits. In a great project. And offices too, because people are working hybrid and okay, we're working from home.
So they also want the gym so they can work out, have 30 minutes, 45 minutes, quick work out. So all of this has changed the projects. And if I might add as well, you know, before a lot of designers, we're seeing as furniture sellers, you know, that's not what we do. What we really do is we're the ones coming in making you enjoy your Sunday with your feet up, looking at your amazing living room and feeling I'm home.
Or getting into the garage and before it was just a wasted space, even in the real estate, right? In the value of the house, wasted space, no one took care of it. Right now people want beautiful garages and they want to enjoy as soon as they get into the door or the garage, you know, they become added values. So they're more focused on empowering those moments through design.
Right now I think that's fantastic. I wanted to ask you because any person, especially this industry, you're always like innovating and finding new ideas. But why is that source of inspiration that you get all these ideas or evolutionize in the business? I believe it's the client story.
I love listening. I love being side by side with the clients or, you know, looking into their, you know, words and understanding where they come from, where they are, where they want to go. We always go into a client in moments of change. You know, either they purchase something new or another house, but they want something from it.
They want to grow from that moment and that project. The project is always a moment of growth. And we really respect that. So we listen and it becomes always from the inspiration of the clients and their story.
As you as a company, how do you best promote yourself? Well, I would say our best, best promoters are our clients. So word of mouth is possibly at least 80% of our new clients is word of mouth. Then I would say social media also helps a lot and the magazines where we publish our projects.
But for us, it's very important to have always very, very happy clients at the end. And we worked very hard to make that sure to make sure it happens. And we also love doing it. But I would say a happy client is worth the client.
So I would say referral. Is that something that now that we're facing potential recession and everything is kind of like tumbling. Is that going to be strong enough to maintain the business driving? Or are you adjusting a little bit the way that you're doing things now?
No, I would say it should be enough for us. I'm not concerned about the recession because we also work all over the world. So the market for us is huge. It's sometimes too big for us.
And so we don't only work in Portugal, as you mentioned, we work worldwide. We have to also be cautious because COVID happened and nobody knew what was going to happen. So that's how the news happens. So COVID happened.
We have these issues in the Ukraine and Russia. We don't know what's going to happen. But thankfully our network is very strong. Out of all the years in business, what's the hardest moment or situation and what do you learn from it?
I would say, we travel a lot and we have four kids and dealing, balancing the family life and having to travel a lot. Probably that was something a challenge to handle this balance with that. Yeah. I have to say, Alvaro, that there's an amazing solution.
Miguel, like he said, he's in the management part of the company and he's a wiz during the show. It's true. You're very discreet that he's really an amazing mind when it comes to difficult moments like we have. The 2008 crisis we have COVID and he's very quick and analyzing what is or even envisioning that's coming.
He's always reading and seeing everything because he also wants to protect our clients. It's not just the business but also protecting the clients investments. We deal with huge luxury projects. So we really have to be ready to go in any type of situation.
It's not only us, we have a big team. So we have to consider the team as well in their future and their balance and their stability. So I think Miguel is really focused in these times to be creative. Maybe we influence you with the creativity.
But he's done very quick in each of these moments that the whole planet had 2008 pandemic and let's see what's coming to adapt and to shift and to put us on a new path considering all the experience and expertise we have but adapting to the moment. I think that's key to any company. Obviously the question that we always ask our guests and I'm really curious to know what is in your case. What's the really true meaning of luxury?
I would say that's more than you want to do discrete luxury. You want to feel the quality but be discreet at the same time. I would say that would be that the true meaning of luxury. Not being able to be discreet but at the same time have one of a kind piece or pieces at home.
I would say that would be the true luxury. It's being and having a safe environment. I would say that's... I can complete.
Yeah. So I think that's totally agreeing. Adding personalization. People feeling it's for them.
You know, for me something that is in a shelf or all over the world times a hundred thousands is not luxury. I think something that is thought for you that is designed for you and it's only yours is luxury. So authenticity is really key in luxury. Everything that we do is always with the purpose of empowering others to go for their own goals or dreams in business and whatever they're working on also to find more about your story and potentially apply whatever they can into their own journeys.
But what is one of the biggest takeaways of something that you would like to share with the audience today? I would say never stop learning. Never never stop learning. You can always be better tomorrow if you learn.
So always learn more. You can always there's always inspiration everywhere and model someone that you really admire and try to be like that person. I mean there's so much that you can do but I would say learn learn learn. Yeah, great.
Take care of yourself. That's great. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Thank you guys. Anything else that you would like to add? Uh what do you want to add? I would add to that question that you know taking care of your team is really important and taking care of your clients.
Fall in love with your clients. Really get to know your clients. I think that's luxury too. A client that can feel listened to, heard, understood.
You know the psychology in this profession in this career is really important. You have to respect and listen and really focus on who your client is. Thank you for such a great conversation for all your insights, for all your stories and keep on thriving because I'm a big fan of what you do. So we're here to help you in any capacity and for those that are watching now or later, please make sure to check out what you're doing, follow them and you know it's not just that you're an amazing couple is that also you're thriving in this space.
So good luck with everything. Congratulations and I can't wait to see you very very soon. Thank you. Aloha.
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks again for everybody tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed it and remember embrace its beautiful success in life.
My name is Alvaro and I'll see you next time.