Ep 196: How to Land Corporate Workshop Clients (and Why It Took Three Years to Book Hermès) with Poy T. Granati
Poy T. Granati of Summer Space Studio returns to Paper Talk Podcast for her third appearance, joining co-hosts Quynh Nguyen, Jessie Chui, and Sara Kim. If you have followed Paper Talk for a while, you will recognize Poy from Episode 8, where we first introduced her, and Episode 135, our Pinterest deep dive that is still one of our most referenced episodes for paper flower artists building organic traffic. This time she joins us from her new home in the Hudson Valley as a new mother.
This conversation is the most honest one we have had about what it actually looks like to rebuild a creative business after motherhood. Poy walks us through the structural changes she made to Summer Space Studio: training two instructors to teach her workshops, narrowing her offerings to corporate workshops and brand partnerships, and using Pinterest batch-scheduling to keep her business visible during her hardest months.
If you have ever wondered how to pitch corporate workshops as a paper flower artist, this episode is a masterclass. Poy shares the exact three-year follow-up email sequence that landed her a brand partnership with Hermès, breaks down the seven-follow-up rule, and explains how to tie your seasonal offerings to a brand calendar so your cold pitches feel relevant instead of random. She also gets into the corporate workshop markets most paper artists overlook: real estate buildings, breweries, residential properties, tech companies on LinkedIn, and team-building events at companies that have nothing to do with flowers.
“I've been emailing Hermès for three years. Following up is the biggest part of not just getting clients, but getting comfortable talking about your offer.” - Poy
The second half of the conversation moves to Substack for creative small business owners. Poy launched a new channel called Take Scenic Route, separate from Summer Space Studio, as a digital journal and creative outlet. She gets vulnerable about postpartum anxiety, the question she journaled at three in the morning that changed everything, and her dream of using Substack to build toward a tropical paper flowers book. Quynh shares her own Substack journey with Back to the Basic, and Jessie and Sara weigh in on how to add Substack to an existing creative business without doubling your workload.
This is an episode for anyone in a season of figuring it out: new mothers returning to creative work, paper artists pitching corporate clients for the first time, and creative entrepreneurs wondering if their messy, unfiltered self is actually the version that connects.
What You Will Hear in this Episode:
- Why time scarcity after motherhood can actually sharpen productivity and creative decision-making
- How Poy restructured her business to focus only on corporate workshops and brand partnerships
- The exact three-year follow-up cadence Poy used to land Hermès
- How to tie your seasonal offerings to a brand's calendar when cold pitching
- Why Pinterest batch-scheduling saved her business during early motherhood
- The two types of workshop clients and how to serve both
- How to use LinkedIn to find HR managers and book team-building gigs at tech companies
- Hidden corporate workshop markets: real estate, breweries, residential buildings, nursing homes
- Why Substack is a low-barrier alternative to Kajabi, Teachable, and Thinkific for creative entrepreneurs
- How to use Substack as a digital journal, blog, and newsletter without creating more work
- Why showing up imperfectly is the actual brand strategy
Learn more about Poy
In 2018, Poy T Granati founded Summer Space (translated as "a happy place") after completing her inspiring "100-days of making" project, where she crafted one flower per day for 100 days and discovered her passion for paper flower artistry. Since then, she has been dedicated to spreading joy through her exquisite and meticulously crafted paper flowers. The artistry of Summer Space has been recognized and featured on the Today Show and Adobe, and the studio has collaborated with prestigious brands such as Papersource, Helix Sleep, IBM, and Maman NYC. Summer Space is currently based out of Hudson Valley, NY.
Listen to Poy in Episode 81 for her introduction, and Episode 135 for our Pinterest
Website: Summer Space Studio
Instagram: @summerspacestudio.
The Best Thing We Bought that Bring Us Joy
- Quynh: Squeakers for dog toys
- Jessie: The School Memories Book by MaVie
- Sara: Rifle Paper Journal
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Keywords: how to pitch corporate workshops as a paper flower artist, cold email pitching for handmade artists, paper flower workshops for corporate team building, Hermès brand partnership paper flowers, starting a Substack as a creative small business owner, rebuilding a creative business after maternity leave, tropical paper flowers book project, Summer Space Studio Poy Granati
