Maria Killam, Maria Killam Colour & Design

Building your dream home with timeless design and color expertise.

Maria Killam always loved to decorate for her friends and family, but when she founded her business in 2000 she had no idea she would become a leading color expert in home design. In doing thousands of color consultations for Benjamin Moore as a part time gig when she first started her business, she discovered her Killam Color System. It wasn’t until she began blogging about her work and ideas in 2008 that her business began exploding. She’s now got a team of nine team members, a seven-figure business, and a career that she’s deeply passionate about.

We sat down with Maria to learn more about her entrepreneurial journey and the importance of building connections. Read the full interview below.

Q&A

What led you to start your business?

All through my 20s I decorated for friends and families and worked in corporate. When I hit my early 30s, I decided I had to be creative or die, because I was filled with anxiety working in different corporate jobs and I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do. 

I decided to focus on redesign, which is what we did before staging was invented, so I placed an ad in the yellow pages which said I was an expert colour consultant. The ad worked and one day a woman called and asked me about the different undertones of beige, and I had no idea what she was talking about.

I found a course in San Francisco, flew down, painted for five days, and when I came back I decided I was going to be an internationally known color consultant. It was when I turned 40 that I decided that I was going to write a blog. Business was dead, it was 2008 when the crash had happened and designer friends of mine that had their own brick and mortar locations shut down. There was this online conference and I decided I would sign up for it. One of the speakers said every designer should have a blog, because it’s an extension of your portfolio and it gives people a sense of your personality. I decided to start one and I named it Color Me Happy. I started writing that blog and that changed everything for me. It absolutely transformed my entire world. Then we launched the Color Workshop on the blog and we’ve never looked back. Fast forward to now and it’s a seven figure business. 

What I teach is a system for understanding color. My work should be in design schools, because color theory doesn’t actually help anyone choose a paint for their house. I have a team of six people that work in my e-design department. We do new builds, renovations, exteriors and more for clients all over the world. My blog is now 16 years old so what usually happens is people start looking for advice online, and find my blog and realize they don’t know what they’re doing.

What’s a typical day look like for you?

A huge part of my job is doing social media. You’re either spending a lot of money on ads or you’re doing social media to bring followers to you. That’s a big piece of what I do. I don’t do any one-on-one consulting anymore because I’ve scaled my business, so I have a team that works on e-design projects all over the world. Each day is spent doing videos, doing social media, managing my team, and writing my blog. 

I started a YouTube channel a year ago so I’ve been working on that. I’ve never worked harder in my life since I started doing YouTube. That is the hardest platform to crack. It’s a lot of work doing videos. I think a lot of people think that if you do what you love to do, then your day consists only of what you love, but that’s not true. It’s maybe 20% of your day actually getting to do what you love to do.

What was your experience prior to starting your business?

I was in sales and marketing in hotels. For a while in the beginning I had my business on the side, but it wasn’t paying the bills, so I was working in a furniture store for a while as a color consultant. I did thousands of consultations working for Benjamin Moore because back in the day people would just walk in and ask for color advice. The local store owners would hire decorators to help people and pitch in person color consultations. Because I did thousands of consultations over the 4 year period of working there, that’s how I invented my whole system. Fast forward, I hired a design firm to help me design my website. They were the ones who said, ‘You don’t have a color wheel or tool to show your system.’ That’s how my neutral color wheel was created.

What’s a lesson you’ve learned in entrepreneurship?

One of the biggest lessons is you have to be really passionate about what you’re doing. You have to really believe in what you’re doing. This is not for the faint of heart. I work all the time. My day off is Friday afternoon and Saturday, and then Sunday I’m working again. Since I’ve started my YouTube channel I’ve never worked harder in my life. All those people online that make it look easy, but it’s not easy at all, so if you don’t believe in the product you’re selling or whatever it is you’re doing, you will bail.

What makes you passionate about your work? 

I love what I do. It doesn’t bother me that I’m working all the time because I really love what I do. I love helping people and inspiring them to have a home that they love. My other niche that I’m always talking about is timeless design. There’s so much waste in the world of trends, so it’s timeless design that has people find me, and then they stick around because they’re like, ‘Oh, I’m also going to get my colors right.’ 

Why is an organization like WithIt important for you and your work? 

I think it’s amazing that there’s a community of smart, talented, and brilliant women you can reach out to if you need anything. I think that you get farther in this world through your connections. Having those connections in the industry that you’re in is very powerful because proximity is power. It’s about who you know usually that’s going to get you a lot farther in this world.

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