Meet Carolyn Kamii | Publicist, Garden Designer & Yogi

We had the good fortune of connecting with Carolyn Kamii and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Carolyn, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
The process started when I realized I was managing the majority of the PR agency’s key accounts and my boss was away quite a bit, leaving me with a lot of decision making and client interface. Clients would comment to her, “Now you can go away more,” implying she had found someone reliable to “handle things” while away. I had been accompanying her to business meetings and started to understand client prospecting and client management better, so felt more comfortable developing these skills. I also had a wide range of interests and abilities to work across multiple industries, so I knew that I could be successful in gaining coverage for a variety of industries, both B2B and B2C.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I started Carolyn Kamii Public Relations 2 decades ago after working for boutique public relations agencies a total of 4 years representing clients in beauty, health, wellness, restaurants and hospitality. While I didn’t know everything about PR then, I had enough experience working with high-profile clients so that I could rise to the challenge of starting a business. On my own, I expanded my roster of clients to include arts, culture, design, mobile apps, tech consumer devices, educational technology, and financial services.

When I started, I did not set a goal or expectation of revenue at the outset. But I committed to a strong work ethic by waking up at 6 am so I could start work each day at 6:30 and complete at least 4-5 hours in the morning, before taking a break. I would then work at least 5 to 6 hours in the afternoon and evening.

To build my business, I invested in marketing by building a website, hiring a designer to design a beautiful logo and business card, and telling as many people about my business to spread the word. All this effort resulted in my first year bringing in a six figure revenue, which was gratifying, and my business continued to grow. Through networking and self-promotion, I was lucky to receive business referrals from reps working at local magazines, friends and former clients who were happy I went out on my own. My results — in quantity and quality — surpassed the work I had done while working for others, and this put me on the map.

One of my goals when starting out was to focus on working with creative people, as I was also a practicing artist who had attended art school for 2 years and studied a lot of art and architecture history. While my early years working for agencies exposed me to working with hip hotels and restaurants, acclaimed chefs, furniture companies, jewelry designers, spas, salons, and doctors, I wanted to work more with artists, product designers and architects.

So my very first client was a super modern, luxury kitchen and bath manufacturer from Italy, which just opened a magnificent and costly West Coast showroom in downtown Santa Monica, but had absolutely zero foot traffic because their brand and history were absolutely unknown in the West. I had seen their work when I lived in Italy and knew something about them. Knowing they needed to build awareness, I showed them my portfolio and proposed my services. The Italian client took a chance on me, and I won their account. Within 2 years, they became the hottest showroom for kitchen and bath products in LA, and they were hosting so many spectacular food, wine, and design events, plus they received a multiple page feature in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, along with numerous features of their products in top architecture and design magazines. They referred me to their sister furniture showroom in LA, which introduced me to working with over 25 luxury European furniture and accessories brands.

The next thing I did was to promote my own work as an amateur garden designer. I had studied the history of garden design in college and loved visiting Japanese gardens and modern gardens wherever I traveled. After I bought my first home, I set out to design the backyard which was overgrown and there was a giant tree in the middle obstructing views of the yard. I had everything cleared out until there was only dirt, and I started sketching a modern, geometrically arranged Mediterranean garden with a large water fountain, using a palette of soft pastel colors for the plants. I asked a landscape installer to help resource the plants and hedges, and construct the concrete water fountain. Everything turned out beautifully — way beyond my expectations. The fountain was extremely soothing to listen to while I worked from home. I submitted my project to Sunset and Garden Design Magazines and won their top garden design awards and was published with top recognitions by both! It was a proud moment. Recently, I updated my original design by adding a wabi sabi-inspired trio of black basalt fountains.

As part of my goal to work with more creative people, I became the publicist for a top restaurant in Santa Monica. The chef was already a celebrity before we started, but had not yet received a Michelin star, nor a James Beard award. We set out to focus on building his profile to help set the restaurant up for being recognized as an award-winning destination restaurant. It soon received a Michelin star, and a few years after we stopped working together, he received a James Beard nomination.

I found that, as an agency owner, it’s best to diversity your client base because, when there is a recession or downturn, it ends up affecting some industries more than others. I saw it was hard to gain architects, designers, and restaurants as clients in soft economies. People were cutting back on spending. Luckily I had always continued my work with the beauty industry, and along the way, I gained a high-end hair tool client who ended up becoming my biggest client during the early years of my agency. We worked together to build the business from being a small domestic business doing 6 million in annual revenue, to becoming a global business doing over 60 million in annual revenue. At its height, the industry’s most respected hairstylists for internationally known performers and actresses were using its hair tools, and the company began meeting with these influencers so they could explore partnerships and create celebrity product lines.

Keeping an open mind to diversification and working with new industries also helped sustain my business during the pandemic. After I transitioned to working with mobile apps and tech device clients about a decade ago, which I had no previous background in, I was hired to promote an award-winning children’s educational device company which used AR (augmented reality) to teach coding, math, spelling, reading and writing. After a couple of years, I was hired as their publicist and replaced the PR agency of record. When the pandemic closed schools and parents had to educate their kids at home, many turned to using the client’s supplemental learning products, and there was incredible demand. I was busy throughout the pandemic promoting at-home learning and was hired by their parent — an international edtech company that taught kids coding online. Further, I was hired by a yoga platform to promote online yoga, which was a big thing since gyms were closed during this time. Making small pivots to adjust to changing econonic situations is a good thing, in my opinion.

My biggest asset or top skill is being able to tease out an extremely timely angle to an already existing story that will further resonate among the masses. My biggest win during my first early years was to nail the Botox party story, focusing on a new demographic — ordinary LA housewives who were getting in on this trend to use Botox. Prior to this, Botox parties were reserved for celebrities or ultra wealthy guests. My first ever Botox party promotion became a huge story in the Los Angeles Times and was read around the country. All of a sudden, the small agency where I worked was overwhelmed with TV and radio shoots on a weekly basis from outlets like People, NPR, Good Morning America, and so forth. Even nightly national news programs which you would not really associate with stories like this were requesting to fillm a segment on this Botox party phenomenon.

Later on, I applied this tactic to show how ordinary people could experience luxury spa treatments when I launched a mobile app which bought 5-star massage therapists to your home. I showed how an app could deliver a luxe personal service in a simple click and at an affordable price. Anyone could then indulge without having to drive to a spa — this changed consumer behavior and perceptions about being able to indulge in spa services on a 24-7 basis. We went on to launch this app in over 60 cities worldwide, and I ended up working with them over 5 years.

Recently, my publicity business expanded to include the financial services industry, which is a growing area. Although I would have never imagined working in this sector when I started out, I suffered a lot of loss during the Great Recession and felt that it’s important for all people to be financially educated. I am extremely proud of my newest client being featured in The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Investor’s Business Daily, CNBC, Money, Fortune, U.S. News and World Report, CNN, Yahoo Finance, and many more places. It’s been a blast for me to learn about new things, and it feels great to help clients achieve the type of quality news coverage they deserve.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
There are so many amazing places in LA:
-Hiking at La Jolla and Sycamore Canyons offer some spectacular views of the Malibu coastline and Pacific Ocean
-Visiting the Huntington Library and Gardens if you want to see some spectacular plants from all over the world
-Seeing the J. Paul Getty Villa in Malibu which houses an amazing collection of Greek and Roman artifacts plus beautiful gardens while overlooking the Pacific Ocean
-Seeing the views of LA from the Griffith Park Observatory
-Visiting Hollywood and Highland to see vestiges of Hollywood’s grand past and tributes to famous personalities at the legendary Walk of Fame
-Walking around Venice Boardwalk and Santa Monica Pier to see the sunset and feel the cool ocean breezes
– Trying a variety of ethnic flavors around Los Angeles: Thai food at Lum Ka Naad Northridge, Japanese tapas at Sola Izakaya in Encino, Lebanese food at Sunin in Westwood, Oaxacan food at Quiadaiyn in Mar Vista, Chinese dim sum at Lunasia in Alhambra.
-Drinks at Isla on Main Street in Santa Monica, their bar director makes the best cocktails.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to dedicate my story to all the Japanese Americans who came to this country in the late 19th and 20th century and worked hard to create a new life and identity as “Americans.” Unfortunately their loyalties were viewed with skepticism by the U.S. government and fellow Americans, and there was a lot of prejudice against them in the West Coast cities where they lived. Many were sent to internment camps across the U.S. and stripped of their rights. Others lost everything they had worked so hard for by coming to this country. They really fought to maintain their integrity and defend their loyalty to this country. My immediate family members joined the U.S. Army and fought for the U.S. My dedication is to all these people who immigrated here, worked hard to be Americans and persevere — they inspire me.

Website: https://www.carolynkamii.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carolynkamii

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolynkamii/

Twitter: https://x.com/carolynkamii

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carolyn.kamii/

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=lbBtq52my4aL2fIkpmK8WA

Image Credits
All photos copyright carolynkamii.com