Creative Genius Podcast: Recent Episodes

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People have many reasons for why they do the jobs that they do. Certainly, some may have more options than others. Yet, time and again studies, personal accounts and memoirs attest to the fact that people who devote themselves to doing what they love—even when it involves great sacrifice—experience the greatest satisfaction from what they do and while they are doing it. And often, they eventually achieve high levels of success.

In this episode, Gail talks with multi-media artist Dawn Sweitzer, of Dawn Sweitzer Studio in High Point, North Carolina. Dawn started her arts career in the mid-90s with a product design firm called Notre Monde. She currently designs for a number of top brands, including Banana Republic, Art House Furniture, Crate and Barrel, Anthropologie, and others. Her work includes painting, textiles and other forms of decorative art.

Dawn said one of her key attributes in working for major brands is that she is good at understanding and maintaining the aesthetic of the company. She also works with interior designers and their clients, both residential and commercial.

Gail and Dawn talked a lot about the creative process and how one keeps going year after year. Dawn said she is discovering and experimenting with new techniques all the time. That helps to keep her creative process fresh. Having her studio space, which has separate areas for different types of arts, helps to inspire her. She is surrounded by creative projects and possibilities.

Dawn acknowledged that she did not always have such a high level of confidence in her work. She was concerned about how others might judge it. In time, though, she learned to let go of that doubt and to be content with what she can produce. “If it brings me joy, then that’s enough,” she said. That has given her the confidence to try new things. “When you feel solid in what you’re doing and you share that with a fearlessness, I think that’s contagious.”

Gail asked Dawn what advice she had for listeners who perhaps are experiencing some doubt about their work. She said,

• Believe in yourself. Trust your instincts.
• Put yourself out there. Work really hard on your vision.
• Start somewhere. Do something.

As a final thought, Dawn added, “Stay true to your vision, because your time will come.”

For more of Dawn’s story, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s11e4-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Dawn and her work, go to her website at www.dawnsweitzerstudio.com.

Gail mentioned the book The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday. You can find out more about it at theobstacleistheway.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_ObjBp9Yio&pp=ygUQcGVhcmwgY29sbGVjdGl2ZQ%3D%3DEpisode TranscriptNote: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Click to show transcriptHello Dawn, welcome to Creative Genius podcast. We are so excited to have you on today. Hi Gail, thanks for having me. Well, it’s a pleasure having you and I understand this is you are a virgin on podcast, which is awesome. I think it is great to have somebody who’s brand new to it, but you’re such a natural. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun today. We had the pleasure of visiting your studio at High Point in North Carolina at the most recent market.

And we really appreciated your generous hospitality and seeing your space and your whole process. How did you find your path to becoming a multimedia creative? Cause I think that’s kind of what you are. You know, I, as far back as I can remember, I was always a creative person or appreciated the creative process. And, after I had traveled a while and I came back to the States, I’d lived out of the country for about

five years I came back to the states and that’s when I. You know was trying to figure out what what it was that I wanted to do and I started a company. Called no tremont which was an accessory company started out with trays mirrors accessories and then morphed into furniture and while I was doing.

you know, starting that company to supplement my income, I would paint murals and facilitate my income with, with, know, painting murals and stuff. So I, I started back in, you know, the early nineties, mid nineties when I, when I started, and that was with it, it all sort of started with no Tremont, my accessory company.

Well, and you were so kind to show us your process for thinking about how you develop your ideas. And we’re going to get into that in a second. But I’m just really curious why High Point High Point is not a place that one would think would be an artist area destination. Well, that’s a funny story. So, you know, I’d always come to High Point with my accessory company, No Tremont, you know, twice a year. They have the High Point furniture market.

And then I was, I met someone, another artist, and he became my partner and he was living here at the time. And so I decided that I would move here. And that’s what brought me here was that relationship. I found this beautiful studio space, which was an old warehouse, an old mattress factory.

about 18 ,000 square feet. so I found this great space and I just, mean, it sort of blew the doors open for creativity and me to explore different, you know, categories and things. And I just, yeah, so I started, you know, when I came to High Point, that’s when I really started to explore different avenues outside of my company, Notre Monde. What brands do you design for?

So I designed for several different brands. I designed for Banana Republic. I designed for R House Furniture. I do a lot of art for Creighton Barrel, Anthropologie. I’ve also designed in the past for companies like Mitchell Gold, which is no longer existing, but that was…

in the past, but also on a global level. I worked with Harrods in London and higher end brands there. yeah, so I’ve worked with quite a few different brands. Yeah. And it’s so fun to see some of the projects. We had that chance to wander around and see some of the things you’re working on. was really exciting. Did they find you or did you find them? Well, it was kind of both, you know, I’ve been in this industry for so long that

you know, when you’re when you’re working in an industry like this, it’s really, you know, one of the important things is about creating relationships with people. And, you know, in this industry, you know, there can be a lot of movement with buyers and, you know, designers and creators and CEOs and things like that. And I, I’ve always, you know, and I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve always had wonderful relationships with people. And so, you know, we

we sort of knew each other in the industry. yeah, so they would seek me out for my aesthetic and integrity in the industry. And I also, one thing that I think that I’m good at is understanding the aesthetic of each company, is they’re all different, right? And maintaining that aesthetic. think there’s a mutual respect.

you know, working with buyers and collaborating with other creatives when you’re working with larger brands. you work with interior designers directly on their projects? do. I do. love working with them. Yeah, me too. You know, I love collaborating. love, you know, and I also work with their clients as well, you know, and they’re, know, through them, you know, it really is a collaboration when we’re doing

you know, when I’m doing commissions and stuff, because I love the fact that not only the designer, but the client who’s living with the artwork or the textile or the mural, you know, they, they help collaborate and create, you know, they’re part of that creative process, which I think is wonderful. So it’s not only that, you know, we, I help them understand it. So when, you know, they’re living with the art or, you know, that

bespoke piece, you know, they have, they’re part of that story. What type of work is most appealing to you?

Gosh, you know, see, the truth is, is that I’m discovering different techniques all the time. You know, I don’t just work in one medium. You know, I, one thing that I find fascinating is, you know, being a painter and an artist and a creative, but also seeing how that translates throughout, you know, different categories. You know, whether it is, you know, rugs or tabletop or

you bedding, you know, or a wall mural or, you know, because really when you look at what you’re surrounded by, it’s designed, it’s touched by whether it’s a glass or, you know, a table, a chair, whatever. So, I like to work in different mediums and I like to discover how, you know, it usually starts with a painting or a moon board to get.

I get, you know, a vibe and an idea down. And I usually start with I start with a muse. He’s always this woman who, you know, well, is my muse and inspires me. And I sort of live vicariously through her. Like, what would she wear? Where would she travel? What does her house look like? What does she eat?

You know, what is she, what music does she listen to? You know, so that’s, that’s where it starts when I, when I start creating and then I see how, how it translates throughout, know, whatever it is I’m designing. you might say she’s your alter ego while you’re working. Yeah, probably. I love that. Yeah.

I can be from South Africa, I can be from Indonesia, I could be all over the world. Because what really inspires me ultimately is the beautiful cultures on a global level. That really is something that I value. Do you ever get stuck in your process? Do you find that you might start on a project and all of a sudden you don’t know where you want to go with it? All the time.

Okay, all the time. Yeah, and part of it, you know, I think that’s part of the process of a creative. I think you have to get stuck in order to sort of appreciate what it is that you’re trying to do, or what you’re trying to move through. Because I feel like every time I get stuck, it might not be the most pleasant feeling when you’re in it. But as you move through it, you know,

you’re in and if you’re open to moving through it you’re constantly learning like i feel like i have to i have to have it i have to move i have to rethink sometimes i have to just step away and let me for a minute and then i’ll revisit it but there are there many times where i have an idea in my head and it’s not translating the way it did in my head you know on canvas or or fabric or whatever and i have to rethink it and

inevitably what happens is, you know, something comes up that makes it more interesting. You know, whether it’s it’s the dying process or, you know, the way the colors melted together, which was unexpected, or the way the paint hit the glass, and it reacted with, you know, solvents or something, you know, so there’s. So I when I used to get frustrated with being stuck,

Now I sort of embrace it, you know, because it really helps me move through it. And I learn something and I get stronger and there’s more information. yeah, I definitely, I think all creatives get stuck. Well, it’s interesting because you never really think about it with an artist. You just think it just flows right out of them and it’s an easy thing to do. I guess that’s a good time to go on vacation, isn’t it? Yeah. I was just at the beach.

And I’ll tell you what, full disclosure, I was feeling a little sort of creatively depleted. Like have tons of ideas, but I was like getting stuck. And so I ended up going away for like four days with some dear friends. we just, I took long walks on the beach and just sort of spent some time alone and allowed my head to clear.

And it really helps, you know, and therein lies within that simple walk, like, you know, you’re surrounded by inspiration. You know, your senses are open, you’re, you relax, you, you don’t try to fight, you know, making something happen. It’s sort of, you allow it to happen organically, which, which for me is, is a part of the process that I embrace.

because I have a lot of different projects going on at the same time. And so when I pop back and forth to different projects, it helps me sort of step away from one so I can get a little more clarity when I revisit it. But completely stepping outside of the studio from time to time is really helpful. Well, it sounds like it’s very much like life. We all need a break every once in a while. We can’t keep going.

as the old saying goes, balls for the wall, you can’t do that. It’s just really impossible to continue to push yourself that hard. You have to have that space to think and also to let your right brain settle. Yeah, absolutely. How often do you communicate directly with a patron and how often do you work just with a designer to develop your art? So most of the time it’s with a designer. And then what we do, just

What the designer will do once we get to a certain point is we all sit down together and collaborate. The designer sort of facilitates the initial concept or the piece that the client responds to of mine. And then what we’ll do is we’ll sit down and figure out what they love about the piece or for me, when I do their commission. Because a lot of times it could be custom sizes, custom colors or finishes.

And so yeah, so it’s more, starts with a designer and then I with the patron or client. Yeah, then I work with them as well. We all work as a team, so to speak. Well, I’m sure it’s a fun process from your side. Yeah. It’s very much about getting down to that personality of that person and making

some connection with the art that you’re creating so that it really reflects that person. Wouldn’t that be true? I do. And I think it’s absolutely true because we only know what we know, right? So when people come into my studio, I love to have clients come into my studio and see the process because I’m so excited about the process. And I love to share that with them and they think differently.

Right? They look, they sort of turn it inside out the way I do. They don’t just see it for what it is. And I think that’s interesting to them. it’s one of my favorite things when I can share, you know, the different layers and levels, because a lot of people on the outside of creativity thinks, like you said earlier, that it just happens, right? We just are in here creating. And that’s not the case. mean,

literally there will be times where I’m dying fabric and I’m waiting for things to absorb and stuff and I’ll walk over to another area of my studio and grab some handmade paper and start, you know, dipping it in the dye and manipulating the paper with inks and the actual dye and see the way it responds to what type of paper it is, what brushes I use, how long I keep it in the solution. And so that’s always, you know,

learn, you know, it’s always evolving into different things. So like when you guys were here, and I could share this whole process, because it’s hard to wrap your head around, the layers of it. When you come in, you peel it back, and it all makes sense. Like it may start with a painting, but then you see how that translates to paper to fabric to

You know, and that’s what I, that’s what I love about having people in my studio who appreciate that process, especially clients when they’re, you know, they want to surround themselves with beauty, but they’re not quite sure, you know, how to get to that place unless they, you know, say, I want that painting or I want that vase, or I want that, you know, table decor, whatever. But when you see it, then you can start saying, let me add some of this finish to this. And I love that color on that, you know,

painting. yeah, it’s. Well, I think one of the things that’s very exciting about what you’re doing and when you bring somebody to your studio, essentially that becomes part of the story behind the artwork, because people will go to their home and say, that’s really interesting. Tell me about this art or this artist. And then if they can share that experience of getting to know you and your process, I think that is part of the.

Just the excitement for people is to be able to share that. Yeah, I agree. I mean, when I purchase something, whether my bracelet, for instance, you know, it’s a dear friend of mine who makes most of my jewelry. You know, he made this piece as well and all handmade beads and things. This is also a peretti, but, know, and so what I love is I love to tell the story of this wonderful human being who, you know, started with nothing.

And then fast forward six months to a year, he was designing accessories for Donna Karan and Rick Owens and traveling to Paris, working with other designers. And so for me, these are special pieces that I wear every day. it’s important for me to appreciate the makers and the creators of everything that I purchase as well. That’s a great story.

I’m sure you can’t really say that there’s any number one project that was your favorite, but maybe one or two that you enjoyed working on quite a bit. Could you share about that? Well, a couple projects. One of the projects that comes to mind was a project that I did for Katara Hotel in Dubai. So I was commissioned to do 50 pieces for all of these suites.

in this hotel. we did large scale. did a large scale. They were approximately 15 feet by five feet. And I worked with this wonderful company that a gentleman who used to work for Sotheby’s started this company in London. And, you know, I worked with their team of people to complete this project and it was just an absolute pleasure. You know, and I love, you know, I’m fortunate enough to be able to have relationships where I can work.

with these hospitality projects and these global teams of people. And so that was wonderful. I loved everything about that project. And then another project that I worked on, this was about, and I still work with them, but it was about a 10 year project, was a company, a Belgian company called Ethnicraft. And that was, I started,

Earlier I said, you know, I had the company No Tremont. And then when I, I met the owners of Ethnicraft, we decided to develop a whole line of products and it was quite different from what they were doing. And so what it did was it gave me the opportunity to just really focus on the creative side and all the logistics and everything that I was used to doing with my other company. You know, I’ve worn 50 hats, you know, it was everything from.

you know, packing boxes to silk screening the actual product and paintings and doing all that to just really, you know, focusing on, on creative content, building collections and working with, with, know, their development teams. And so that that’s been a pleasure as well. I mean, they’re a wonderful company and I’ve, I’ve, I’ve learned a lot throughout, you know, the years working with them. that.

You know, and all the bespoke projects, have to say, you know, they’re kind of like your children. So I feel like I have like thousands of children out there, even if it’s a cushion or a painting. You know, I take it so personally. It’s something that I really, you know, every single piece that I create, you know, is important to me. You know, and I want to make sure that, that I’m, you know, doing it properly and, and

It’s something that is, you know, someone else finds beautiful and, and, know, they appreciate it as much as I do. It’s a couple of projects. It’s so fun. And all of the things that you’re doing are so different. And that’s what I loved about seeing your studio and seeing your process, seeing the different areas that you worked in. And I can just imagine that you

you shift your energy from space to space, depending on what you’re working on too. my gosh, constantly. am literally, you know, I don’t count myself. should count my steps during the day because they’d be, you know, the tens of thousands because I am literally moving. Well, you’ve been to my studio. So the way I have it set up intentionally is I compartmentalize, you know, I, there’s a dye kitchen.

where I do the weaving and dying. I have a weaver, don’t weave myself, but I design everything and then I dye everything myself and pull all the threads and do all that. But then I have another area where I do smaller samples, whether it’s aged mirror or working on wallpaper patterns, things like that. And then I have my larger studio in the back where I do all the painting. So what’s great, and then I have…

another segment of my studio where I put the finished pieces and start to sort of pull collections together from all of those sort of separate studio spaces. And so, yeah, I’m constantly bouncing around from space to space because again, when I do get stuck or I do feel that I’m at a point where I can stop for a moment and then revisit, I still am being creative. It’s just in a different.

you know, different genre or different area of the studio. And so for me, I have this energy that I just, you know, it’s, it’s, I feel like it’s 24 seven. I’m constantly thinking and, and I look at things in a different way, even, you know, on a rainy day, like today, you know, the clouds are so beautiful. You know, I was, you know, took my dogs outside and I was like, wow, that’s beautiful. I’m doing this whole series of,

paintings that are vistas that are very textural. They’re not really, some could say they’re abstract, but they’re very serene, very simple, but it’s more about the texture and the materials that I use within the paintings. So I find myself now really looking at cloud patterns and colors and things in nature. So yeah, it’s.

It’s, want to come hang out with you at your studio for a month and I want to play with you. You should really, if you’re not doing it yet, maybe, maybe you can do some workshops and classes for that. Yeah. So we, we plan. So one of the things, that I’d like to do and I

is because I do so many different mediums, everything from silk screening to painting, dyeing, you know, all these different things, you know, I would love to, on a more regular basis. I’ve had a couple workshops here and there, but I’d love to do that on a regular basis here because I feel like this space lends itself to that. And it also, you know, I feel like everyone that comes in this space, including myself.

is so inspired because there’s, know, I feel like I could be having a bad day or whatever. And I walk in that door and everything just melts away. And I’m surrounded by everything I love. And, and I just jump in there and just really start messing around and playing around and see where, it evolves from there. And so when people come into the studio, they see that it’s not, you know,

I sort of bring it to earth, right? Like, and share what it is. And it’s really just putting yourself out there and just doing, doing what you love. I mean, for me, I don’t care if you make safety pin lampshades, as long as you’re doing something that you love. To me, that’s just as valid and important as a creative, you know, as creating a sculpture for a museum, you know, or having a painting hang in the mess.

You know, some people would beg to differ, I really feel because I’m not, you know, I don’t have a art degree. I’m self -taught. For me, you know, not only the joy that it brings me and the freedom to be able to create, you know, it’s a really grounding, special place to be when you have a space, regardless of the size that has things that inspire you in it.

you know, then you just, you know, you create and you start making things. mean, psychologically, that gives so much back because you’re putting yourself out there, even if it’s just you in that room, and then you are strong enough to venture out and share it with other people and get feedback. And then it just sort of creates the snowball effect, you know, where, you know, how many times, I mean, I know I have with

with friends and family and stuff where I’m like, my gosh, I had no idea you were a writer or that you sang or that you were a painter or that you, because we all have these massive insecurities, especially around creative things because you’re constantly judged. You know, I think that’s just part of our society. But when you feel solid in what you’re doing and you share that with a fearlessness, you know, I think it’s contagious, you know.

I love that. And that imposter syndrome, it affects so many different people. And it sounds like you’ve had a little bit of it because you weren’t a trained artist, but you are a naturally gifted person that has an eye that can bring that to the table. And to me, that’s not an imposter, that’s a creator. And so you are a creator. So I love it and I love hearing that.

Maybe you still had a little struggle with that. And I guess all creatives have to have a little struggle internally. think, think you do. I think that’s just part of being a human being, you know? And I think when I got past that I had to be something for somebody else, this was years ago, but I struggled with that for a while, that I wasn’t good enough, that it wasn’t, you know, I’m not Picasso. I’m not, you know, some, but what for me, it’s enough.

If it brings me joy and I feel good about what I’m doing, that’s enough. And if people around me want to share that or be a part of it, what a beautiful thing that is. And so when I stopped doing what I do for other people and just, you know, went into myself and did it for myself, that’s when the good stuff came. That’s when it really started to evolve, you know, because it’s, funny when you try to rep.

know, one thing that I am fascinated by and love to do as a creative is I love to meld the concept of art and commerce. You know, there are some artists that think that, my gosh, it’s like sacrilegious. How dare you sell your artwork as a reproduction or put artwork on a rug or a bed sheet? For me, it’s all art, you know? you know, I’m not in a position to buy a hundred thousand dollar original painting.

You know, but I do love this beautiful textile that was created by artisans that I can appreciate, right? So, so I feel like if you just come from a place of authenticity, I think that’s, and you allow yourself to make the mistakes and fail and succeed and fail. And for me, that’s where most of my successes come from are my failures, because you’re just constantly putting yourself out there.

So it’s a pleasure for me to fail. You know, it’s not a bad word. If you’re failing, you’re doing something right. was just going to say one of my favorite books is The Obstacle is the Way. And it really is exactly that. If you hit the obstacle, that is the direction you need to be going. Yeah, it’s true. And it’s true. I think, you know, part of struggling through that and allowing yourself grace

to just be with something, if you’re invested in it on some level, something good comes out of it, right? And it doesn’t have to be accepted or acknowledged by anyone else. mean, as long as you feel that you’ve put everything that you possibly could into whatever ever that notion is or idea, I feel that that’s enough.

And I think that’s one of the reasons like when I work with my clients, whether it’s like a big box client like Banana Republic or, or, you know, whether it’s, it’s a, you know, a client where I’m doing a commission for their home. I put as much energy into the big box client as I do into the, like into the, the patron that I’m designing something for their home.

For me, it’s about, again, having integrity and doing the best I can do for that particular opportunity. What do you love most about what you do?

I would say I love the freedom that it gives me and I love, I love being able to explore and evolve and learn. I feel like I’m constantly learning literally on a daily basis. You know, I think that’s such a beautiful thing. You know, I, even when I’m stuck, I’m learning, you know, even when I’m soaring, you know, I’m embracing that, you know, cause

You know, what goes up comes down, you know, so just hang on and ride that wave. And I love being able to experience all those emotions and in an environment that I create, you know, it’s under my terms. And I think that’s one of the things that I love most. And I love being surrounded by beautiful things. So. And you create them and get to keep.

making them. That’s the best part. Then you can be in love with the next thing that you create. It is funny because when I’m creating, like I’m so into that particular thing, right? And then when it’s finished and it’s created and off it goes, it goes to its home. And then I’m ready to, you know, raise my, create my next child. You know, create that next.

You know, because you really look at it like that, like it’s really personal. You know, some people are like, it’s, you know, it’s, you know, let it go. It’s just this, it’s just that. But for me, it’s really personal. Like when I’m mixing, you know, it could be mixing colors. I could be laying texture. might look like texture, but it’s very, very, you know, when I’m things down, like it’s, it’s very intentional.

You know, it’s awful. It may look like something that’s simple. know, I know I always hear sometimes with people who go to galleries or music. my, my daughter could do that. I could do that. You know, well, are you doing it? Like, so do it. That would be wonderful. You know, but what happens is those, those modern pieces, the pieces that sort of engage people and make people think, you know, those are just as complicated.

as the, you know, the realistic things that people can relate to immediately. You know, it’s for an artist to stand there and, you know.

create an abstract painting each drop of paint on that canvas means something to that artist. And so I have a enormous appreciation for all different types of art whether it’s something that’s my aesthetic or not so. So my thing is being able to create freely in a space that I’ve. You know that I created.

And that’s the best part of this. And to be able to make a living out of doing what I do. It’s just, it’s a dream come true. That sounds so fabulous. And like I said, I would love to play in your paint shop. Yay. Well, what are three takeaways you’d like to share with us today? I know we’ve talked a lot about creative process. We’ve talked about

the work that you’ve done, but just maybe three things that you think would be worthy of mentioning again.

Well, would say like three create or three takeaways is, you know, in a creative process. think, you know, you know, believe in yourself, trust your instincts. You know, it’s, it’s a lot easier said than done. But once you get in there and you get a little dirty and messy and stuff, you know, it’s kind of a metaphor for life, right? We all have to get a little messy.

Right. then something beautiful comes out of it. So I think trust your instincts, you know, put yourself out there, work really hard at your vision or idea and start somewhere, do something. It doesn’t matter, right? It doesn’t matter what it is. If you sit down with a little notepad and a pencil and you start doodling, you know, or write your vision down.

or play a few keys on your piano or whatever it is. Like that’s the takeaway that I would do. Stay true to your vision because your time will

I love that. Well, Donna, it’s been a pleasure having you on the Creative Genius podcast, and we look forward to sharing this with our listeners. And I keep creating. Thank you, Gail. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate you and Pearl Collective. And I can’t wait to have you guys back at the studio. We’ll be there. Good. I’ll have the roast. And I have to say, you do the most beautiful spread of food I have ever seen.

thank you will find fun fact before we leave so what on that note i’m creating i’ve created an event venue i bought some property next to my studio in this beautiful nineteen twenty seven building there’s several buildings on the property and so i’m creating. Because i love.

to, you I want to create an environment for people to walk into that’s beautiful with the food, with the music, where they’re surrounded, you know, all their senses are open. And so that’s another offshoot of my brand, of my creative brand, you know, Don Switzer Studio. It’s called HQ and the Gallery. And so thank you for that. I appreciate that. But that’s something that we’re doing. That’s our vision for the near future.

We will be in touch about that because we do events all over High Point Market, every single market. we’ll be in touch about that. I love that. That’d be wonderful. Awesome.

Are you doing what you love? And if not, what’s holding you back? Hopefully Don’s story inspired you to incorporate more of what you love into your work, even if you’re not good at it right away. Join us again for the next episode where Gale talks with Denae Branson, founder of Elite Design Assistance.

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Alas, there is no magic formula or time-tested blueprint for running a successful interior design business. One reason is that, despite a number of similarities, each interior design business is unique. Yet, struggling business owners often look to their competition to try to figure out what they should be doing. Instead, they should be asking themselves what will make their particular business profitable.

In this episode, Gail talks with Ali Faulkner, principal designer, AEF Interiors in Orange County, California. Ali opened her firm only five years ago, not long before the COVID pandemic rocked the industry. She’s had a lot of ups and downs, but has managed to hold on and grow her business into a highly successful firm with a team of seven in a relatively short period of time.

Ali explained that when she first started operating her business she made a lot of mistakes. A major one was that she kept turning down smaller projects in the hope of landing some really big ones, because that’s what other firms in her area were doing. But, those big projects didn’t materialize. Finding her business on the ropes with little money in the bank, she realized that she could be a lot more successful doing many small but profitable projects.

Ali says owners need to ask themselves, What does my business need to be profitable? “It’s crucial for you to have an understanding of what size project you need and how many you need.”

To do that, Ali said, you have to pay attention to the business side of the firm. Know how it operates and know your numbers. “If you have the interior design skills and you know the business, you have a double whammy,” she said.

Another important component is to have a clear vision for your firm. She said she knew early on that her vision was to use interior design to help people better. “Getting clear on our vision is what has propelled our growth,” she said. “What makes us all different at the end of the day is who we are and the level of service we provide.”

Gail asked Ali what advice she had for other design business owners. She said,

• Lean on your resources. Use whatever is available to learn on the fly.
• Know your data and know your business.
• Hire people who are smarter than you and then get out of their way.

To hear how Ali got stays motivated despite her setbacks, and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s11e2-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

To learn more about Ali’s firm, go to the website at aef-interiors.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV3lT2vcZ3M&pp=ygUQcGVhcmwgY29sbGVjdGl2ZQ%3D%3DEpisode TranscriptNote: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Click to Show TranscriptAllie, it’s so great to have you on Creative Genius Podcast. Welcome. Thanks for having me, Gail. it’s our pleasure. So.

I would love for you to tell your story. How in the world did you get started with interior design and tell us about your story in Orange County, just a little bit about you. Gosh, okay. Never very good at making a long story short, but I’ll try my best here to give you the spark note version. I used to work in luxury hospitality and consulting. So I used to come from a service -based background and worked in operations. I moved to Orange County six years ago.

for another job. It was my first opportunity in being a part of a startup and actually building a company. I was with them for two years and life happens. Unfortunately, I was a part of a layoff. You take the chance by going to a startup and I had the opportunity, this was like early 2019,

where I started to think to myself, I really enjoy building and a lot of the startup companies I wanted to work for, they were all located up in San Francisco and remote work like wasn’t a thing. My husband being the like amazing person he was, like, Ali, like I really love where we’re living now in Orange County, like you should look at starting something of your own. And I was like, okay, well, what am I passionate about?

What does it require like a ton of capital to start a business? And I was like, well, you know, what I’m really passionate about is like serving people. And that doesn’t require a ton of money to start that type of business. And I believe in myself. I had a strong like belief in myself that I could start something. And so I started to think to myself, like, at the end of the day, like I have a good eye for design people, you know, would say I had cute outfits and I had like

you know, furnished our home and renovate our little $25 ,000 kitchen. And during that time while I was interviewing for other jobs, I would be like trying to take a phone call to take this interview. And the guy who would be showing up to do my tile would be like, Hey, before you go, like what color grout joint and what size? I was like, okay, this process of interior design, like this was terrible. Like the level of like experience and service, like I could make this better for people. So.

I had that light bulb moment in my head. was like, okay, you know, everyone has always said like, you have cute outfits. I had done our home. And it dawned on me that like, I could get into interior design. And while again, I wasn’t necessarily accredited, hadn’t gone to school for it. I knew what it took to build something from the ground up. And I saw

myself and 10 other people do it at the startup company. So I really had the confidence to believe in myself. So I did a little bit of research, right? And I was like, okay, what, how do you make money doing interior design? And I learned, you know, there’s, you know, products that you sell and then there’s service. And I said, I’m really good at service. I used to work in luxury five star hotels. I built at client experience before I can build this business.

So that’s the spark no version of my journey. And so I started the business in October of 2019, had no idea what was about to happen to the home industry. And I really have take it. I would say like I rode the tailwind of COVID. And I really think that now being in 2024, how we have grown so much of that is me taking risks, but I would say very calculated risks by looking at my data.

which has allowed us to propel and be where we’re at, you know, in the less than five years that we’ve been around for. That’s so crazy. Well, how many people on your team now? good question. So it’s me plus seven now, which is just like, yeah, it’s, I’m so grateful and I never ever would have thought like, we would have the team that we do at this stage of the company. But yeah, me plus seven says, it sounds really weird to say.

Yeah, not bad for just a very short period of time So how did you have this confidence? Where did that come from? Did you just grow up you just born with it? What is it? What I’ll say is that I moved a lot growing up I went to three Let’s see here two different elementary schools three different middle schools and two different high schools. So I have realized that because of the environment

that I grew up in and I was constantly being thrown into these new spaces and like having to like not eat lunch alone every time I went to a new school that I always kind of just put my best foot forward and knew that like, I’d make a new friend, I’d figure out how to like navigate the new school. I can’t tell you how many times like, I think I tried out to be on like a dance team, basketball team, ran for student body president twice and like.

I was treasurer once, so you could say that I succeeded. to me, the way that I think a lot of people think about failure and trying to do things, I think because of how I grew up, it’s not really my perception of failure. As long as I learn something from it and as long as I’m not doing the same thing over and over again, expecting the same results, that’s truly insanity.

As long as I’ve learned something by trying something like I’m winning at the end of the day, which sounds really lame and really cliche, but I think that’s what gave me the confidence to try to go out and build this business is like I had the resilience to know that like I would figure it out. Like I would find a way. And what I’ll say too, cause I did a little bit of research before I got into the industry and there was 2 ,500 interior designers within 25 miles of coast to me. What that means is it’s not only a really

I think mindset, this goes back to like what you always talk about, but like a lot of people could be like, 2 ,500 interior designers within 25 miles. Like, how am I ever gonna stand out? My mind, I was like, my gosh, there’s gotta be a lot of resources here then. Like if there’s that many people, there’s probably that many people trying to sell to those people and teach these people. like, so I looked at it as like, wow, there’s probably a ton of resources that exist here.

And that’s really what I did. Like I listened to podcasts and I learned about all of these, you know, showrooms that existed and third party, like I would say like purchasing houses. Like I learned from my curiosity of the resources that existed. And that’s what gave me the confidence is like, I was like,

I just need to know enough to be dangerous and I’ll learn everything else on the fly. Like, right? You’ll figure it out. You’ll figure out that you need a P trap when you have a floating vanity because you’ll know someone who knows the right information. it was just knowing that all these resources existed here and not being discouraged by how saturated this Orange County market is because it really is. It’s very saturated. Well, obviously it has not slowed you down. they’re in your company, obviously you’re well,

over a million, probably more. And so we know that when you get to that point, that you have to have some sort of foundational knowledge that has supported you to make a success of what you’re doing. So how do you think you learn so much about business so quickly? Besides the curiosity? Yeah, besides the curiosity. So I think it does come rooted from like just being a curious person. There’s multiple parts that I’d like

learned on the fly. And I think a lot of people have a misconception of myself right now. And they hear like, Ali, you worked in consulting, you worked at Deloitte, you must have like looked at PNLs all the time. Like, no, I didn’t like, I, you know, I would help with like, budgets and things like that. But like, gross profit margins and like net profit margins, if this sounds like a foreign language to you, let me tell you it was for me as well. Like as of two and a half years ago, this was

stuff that I knew that I needed to know. really the curiosity is what like the curiosity and being really tired of making no money was really what drove me to start trying to figure out how to do this. But I knew how to build a client experience and client journey. I knew how to like build the operations side of the business, but I didn’t I knew that I didn’t know the finances of

a business more or less an interior design business. So that’s when I started to like look at like maybe a fractional CFO and started to explore that route. And then when you get to the point where you’re tired and you want to make more money, you also think to yourself like, okay, how do I do less? And you think about hiring and it kind of becomes a domino. And then you go start to to recruiter and they say, hey, you want to hire, how much can you spend? And you’re like, well, I have no idea how much I need to spend.

That’s what led me to you guys full circle, right? Is I wanted to hire someone I wanted to make more money. I didn’t know how much I could afford to pay someone. someone, Ken was like, Hey, you got to go over here. And I was like, okay. And I took the course twice. Like I took the financial course twice. And I will say that

everyone can hear the same message, but I heard it so differently. And literally like my husband and I would put you up on my TV in my living room on a Sunday and like go through the business model of interior design and like it. And then I started, I took that information and I applied it to my own business. Okay. Based off how much you want to make per year, this is what your top line revenue needs to be. And I worked backwards and I was like, okay. And it’s really, it also is like failing.

It was also a lot of failure that really pushed me to try to figure this out. I can talk more about that. that’s… Anyways, it was like falling flat on my face that really caused me to say like, you really got to figure this out because you left like a great salary working at Deloitte, working at the startup. Like you did not get into this business for a hobby. You did this to create a life for yourself and your team. And you’ve got to figure it out.

And I knew the whole was the financial piece for me. And I had to figure out how to live it. Sure. Well, I’m glad you took the class twice. I’m little embarrassed that I was on your TV set. Living room? That’s so funny. Well, I think you hit on this, but why is it so important to learn how to run a business versus just being a great designer? I think for me,

have not gone to interior design school. I didn’t work at another firm before. And I think if you have that skill set, like, and you know the business, like you’re a double whammy, right? But I think in order to really have an understanding of like, how you are going to get to where you want to be in life, like, and how you want to support your family or

support your lifestyle. it’s so you do have to work backwards. Like if you want to live a certain way or be able to provide for your team, like it’s so crucial for you to have an understanding of like what size project do you need and how many of them do you need? For me, more than anything, what I’ll say is that like, okay, so I’m too, this was two and a half years ago in the business and I’ll tell you a story.

I got a new office space and I hired a new person and I did that very blindly. Let me let me throw that out there. I was just like, I’ll figure it out again. That like unbeknownst confidence that I have. was like, figure this out. And what happened was that I had two employees, a new office space, and I had it within six months. I had nine bids that I sent out. And up to this point, I had been signing everything.

Well, what I didn’t realize now is I was kind of moving into a new clientele. And of those nine bids that I sent out, I only signed two of them. One was my mother -in -law’s guest bedroom. And I think she really felt bad for me. And honestly, like she probably felt bad for me. And in that moment, not too long after too, I only have two jobs. I thought I was going to sign them all. get all this overhead and I had a project put, you know, a whole home of furniture on hold. And it really made me realize like Ali, like,

You have $30 ,000 in the bank account, which full transparency is not all profit and it’s not yours. Like you have got to figure out like what size projects for your size firm do you need? And I was chasing all of these, like the nine jobs that I was chasing while I was getting considered for these larger projects. I was writing off all these small jobs. Like, and when I say small, mean like.

You know a living room when in reality like the size of the firm that I had like those smaller jobs would have been profitable for my firm so I really had to take a lens and look at my business and say what is my business need in order to be profitable rather than just chasing all of these big jobs and not building to understand that like. It takes time to to get that level of job and.

you don’t need that size job in order to run a profitable business. And so it took me like that experience of falling flat on my face and having only $30 ,000 in the bank account and just writing off all of these potential jobs that would have been really profitable for me because I was chasing all the big ones, not realizing like what I needed for my size business to be able to like continue to grow.

that’s probably a really good example of why I think you should know your business and what your business needs in order to not only run but be profitable because it’s so different from firm size, location. It’s really important for you to have an idea of what are the numbers you need to do in order for you to grow your business. I would even say just break even.

Well, exactly. And if you look at the stats for all businesses, it’s only, I think it’s 40 % are profitable, 60 % or not. So we’re talking across the country, millions of businesses. That’s true. And so the reality is the fact that you’re thinking about that is a different mindset than almost all designers out there. So I hope everybody listens to that and pays attention to that because honestly, you’re in the business to make money.

And you just happen to be doing something you love. So enjoy that. But just remember, this is a business. It really is a business. And if you do it the right way, you’re going to have a make a lot more money. And we have had so many people make so much money in this business. This is probably one of the most lucrative lucrative businesses that you can possibly run. And so if you know how to run it optimally, you’re going to do very, very well for yourself.

It’s a complicated business, too. I’ll say yeah, it’s really complicated. but it is it’s unique. Like what businesses do you have the opportunity to not only sell the service that you’re doing, but also sell product. It’s really unique. And like, I can talk like numbers all day. But like, the reason I ended up getting into this business is, you know, I come from a hospitality like

want to truly help people better. And like that’s my like sole mission in life. It just so happens that interior design is something that I naturally had a good eye for. But like I probably could have gotten into any business that allowed me to help people better. And when I say help people better, it’s not just about it’s about creating a seamless and stress free client experience. It’s about giving them a more personalized design and saying like, hey,

Are you on the left side of the vanity or the right side? Are you left handed? So we’ll put the hairdryer on the left hand side of this drawer. Like, it’s about helping people better. And it’s not. And I really could have done that in any business. But that’s truly what I’m passionate about. And if I’m going to use my passion to also, you know, generate income, like what better thing to do it with than something that you really deeply care about? So yeah, I

sometimes I feel like I can go down this like numbers rabbit hole and everyone’s like, my gosh, this girl’s just trying to like grow. But it’s like, I’m truly just so passionate about people and this business. It really is like that’s what makes us different at the end of the day. I don’t mean to poo, but like interior design, like we all are providing like a commodity and a sofa. So when you think about it, it’s like, what makes us different amongst each other is

how we provide that sofa. Is it an English rolled arm? Is it the way that I take you to our workroom and let you sit and experience it? I really think that interior design at the end of the day, what makes us all different is truly who we are and the level of service that we provide that’s connected to that commodity, like a sofa or a house. I couldn’t agree more. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with that one. Well,

Let’s talk about inspiration. So what inspires you besides travel, popcorn and plants? believe those are the things you mentioned before. Yeah, no, that’s a really great question. I’m really inspired by like, if you were to scroll through like my TikTok or like my Instagram, Reels page, like I’m really inspired. I think from a travel side of things, like English and like old world design is really much at the forefront of like.

where I’m pulling inspiration from, from a design lens. I just think that we have so much of the timeless materials that are used when we look at old world design that can be so much a statement, but also something that’ll stand the test of time in someone’s home. So from like an inspo travel standpoint, there’s that. The other thing that you’ll see as I scroll through my TikTok is I’m very inspired by like kind leadership.

And it’s something that when I talk about helping people better, I’m so passionate about serving my clients, but I’m extremely passionate about serving my team. And that’s really what like it kind of you can see my arms, I have goosebumps right now. Like I just, I’m really, I want to serve people better. And it’s not just my clients that serve my team and give them a place that they really love to work and give them a place that they, they,

feel like they’re getting paid fairly, that they’re happy, that they are excited to help us grow. Being a kind leader is something that really inspires me to support my team and not only support the growth of our business, but the growth of them, each as individuals. What’s your big vision for the future? Remember when I told you that moment where

I had only $30 ,000 in the bank account and I was like, okay. So when that moment happened to me, I was like, okay, we’ve really got to like figure this out. And I went through a lot of, I used your lead tracker form. Sorry, I’m like giving you a lot of good notes right now, but it’s so true. I was using your lead tracker form and I realized that 50 % of my business was coming from Instagram. So when you asked me about my vision of the company, I got really clear like,

two and a half years ago. And I really do think that getting so clear on my vision is what has like propelled our growth. And what I did is I was like, okay, a 50 % of our business coming from Instagram, how much billable time am I spending on that? Great, I’m gonna outsource this and pay someone to go do that. Because I need to buy my time back to work on other parts of the business. Well anyways, when I hired someone to help us with social media, I said, hey, her name’s Anne, she’s full time with us now. And I said, Anne,

I know what my like 10 year goal is. I know what my big vision is for this company. I in everything that we do our why is helping people better. So I was like, let’s position ourselves on Instagram and tell people like tell our ideal clientele like, here’s how we’re going to help you better. Here’s what our client experiences. And then I was like, I do want to help like, you know, other people build their businesses better one day, like, again, that common thread. So it’s like, why don’t we put out this information, I think

I think other interior designers inherently will be interested in how we operate. It’s not gonna be marketing material that speaks to them, but I do think it’s gonna help them. So I was like, okay, let’s build the interior design firm that’s gonna help our clients better, help our team better. Let’s then look at the second vertical. It’s like, I don’t know what it entirely is right now. Maybe it’s something to help interior designers better. And I don’t know if it’s like a template that we’re selling on.

I right now speak at workshops and that’s really fulfilling for me. I speak at local colleges. And then my third vertical that I want to build is like, okay, if I’ve helped all these people build businesses, I want to give them a tool to run their businesses better as well. So my big grandiose vision is like, is it a tech platform that helps them run their businesses better? Everything when I think about the big vision of this company, it’s all tied back to that.

And going and I will say almost hitting that like rock bottom in that time of my business made me really intentional with like, why was I doing this? And how was I going to think about the growth of the company? And it needed to be all tied back to something. wish me luck. I know I’m going to do it. You’re going to totally do it. I know it.

All you have to is have that vision and just have a plan. If you have a vision and a plan and you’re determined, you’ll do it. So I’m not concerned about it. Yeah. So my vision is get all of the right team into place right now. That’s like really my vision and focus is like really building a strong team so that I can then start to, you know, over the next few years, look at how to create those other verticals that I was talking about. Absolutely.

Well, how have you built such a big following on social media so quickly? So I would say it again, it’s like when you hit a lot of the times when you almost like hit rock bottom, I genuinely to like, I guess it was not, it was like a year and a half ago that this all happened. Like I thought the business was either going to grow or die and I had to do something different. Like I couldn’t keep doing the same thing over and over again. I lost seven jobs. Like

I needed to do something different and I think it goes back to like my confidence of just I knew when I started this business, like if I’m gonna do this, I am going to be unapologetically myself. Like especially when it’s a service -based business, that’s so much an extension of yourself. And I thought about like, should I show that I drink?

monster energy drinks and this is my toxic trait. Should I show people that I eat Taco Bell? I do curse a sailor from time to time and do I show that? Yeah, do I show that on Instagram? And I think that it’s so much easier to just be yourself more than anyone else. And I chose very early on when I started building my Instagram that I wasn’t gonna try to be everything to everyone.

Like I was like, if that turns someone off, they’re probably not gonna be like the fun client that I wanna present to and make a margarita for later. And I think that the following really came into play too when I looked at how my time was being spent and when I hired Anne and I said, I really want to show people how we do things differently, not just the pretty photos. And that’s really, took us,

I will say this from like a social media standpoint. I have people ask me all the time, like, how did you grow? Like I hired Anne and it took us nine months to grow 2000 followers. It’s taken us in a year and a half. We’ve grown like, like 30 K and like the past year and a half, but nine months in the beginning, it took us two. We only grew 2000 followers. It takes time to like build your audience and realize like,

But why I stuck out those nine months is not because our follower count didn’t increase, but our leads had doubled. Our leads had doubled. So it was worth it. But I really think the growth was tied to showing people how we did things differently. And it was something that a lot of people weren’t doing on Instagram in interior design. Like people were not doing reels of their construction binders. People weren’t showing people like.

the process of how to work with them. And I think it was unique and it was interesting to not only clients, but also the interior design industry. Well, and I think that’s, I think that’s brilliant because that is the defining difference between you and other people is how you do things, not what you do. Because what everybody does as a designer is pretty much the same. Maybe you have a different aesthetic and maybe you have a different,

you know, selection of vendors and subs that you work with, but in the end, you’re doing the same process. It just has to be, there has to be that defining differential that makes you the best at something. But here’s something else that I will say, and that is, listening to you, is that your interest in the numbers part is helping inform your decisions. And I think that’s a real critical factor that people need to think about.

is if you’re not comfortable with understanding your numbers and that’s everything, whether it’s social media, whether it’s how much billable you’re getting out of your team or whatever it is, you need to understand that numbers are, that’s the heart of the business that makes it work. And if you don’t know that part, then you’ve got to go figure out that piece. And you were very smart to latch onto that very early.

Yeah, like I said, this great group called the pro collective helped me with all these resources. But serious, it’s, I do think that the crutch of it all is like, what helps you make take these risks is like, they’re informed risks. Yes, like, there’s no doubt that like going and hiring, you know, someone for social media, that’s a risk. But if you have the data that saying like, hey, that’s

If your time would be a lot better spent doing something else, go hire someone to go do that part. And I think that’s just like so crucial to like grow. How else are you going to grow? You’re going to keep doing the same thing over and over again if you aren’t paying attention to the numbers. Absolutely correct. Well, I love it. You’ve given us a lot of great nuggets and I’d like you to pick three that you would like to highlight.

that you think are the most important things for people to pay attention to from this podcast? Yeah, what? Okay, let’s see here. I would say number one, you just need to know enough to be dangerous to start. Lean on resources. There’s so many vendors, coaches, people who want to work for other people. There’s so many resources out there to allow you to learn on the fly.

The second thing I would say is know your data and know your business. Because again, 2 .5 years ago, I was chasing all these big jobs because that’s what the other firms that I wanted to be like were doing. those jobs didn’t end up working out for me, I overlooked all of the jobs that were actually extremely profitable for my size firm.

Try to say know your data and know your business. And then three, what would I say? I would say that hire people who are smarter than you and get out of their way. Perfect. Yeah, hire people. Hire smart people. Absolutely. And get out of their way and let them do their thing because the more that you empower them and…

It’s just going to go a long way to not only giving you the fulfillment of seeing your business grow, but also fulfill them and letting them use their superpower. Awesome. Allie, this is great. Thank you so much for being a part of our podcast. We appreciate it. I know a lot of people will be inspired from what you shared today. Absolutely. Well, absolutely. I hope I inspired people. Not absolutely. No, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Of course.

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Perhaps at one time or another you’ve considered using a recruiter to help you with a difficult or timely hire. Perhaps, too, after reviewing their fees you decided to conduct the search on your own. Understandable — but did you factor in all the elements involved? A recruiter can do a lot more than helping you find possible candidates. They can make the difference between making a satisfactory hire and making a great one.

In this episode, Gail welcomes back to the podcast Ken Roberts, principal with Interior Talent based in Orlando, Florida. Interior Talent specializes in talent recruitment and retention for firms in the architecture, interior design, engineering, retail and manufacturing industries nationwide. The firm has been serving those industries for 21 years.

Ken said he and the team at Interior Talent think of themselves as “career matchmakers.” They help clients find the best candidates for their firm and candidates to find the best fit for their career plans. He pointed out that for most employers conducting their own search, the process can take up to six months. Their firm usually can fill a position in one to two months.

Ken explained that a recruiter not only can save employers time — time they can better devote to growing their business — but they have industry knowledge and contacts that give them access to candidates who might be a great fit but who are not responding to job postings. They also can help with other aspects of hiring, such as conducting skills assessments, onboarding and retaining employees.

Ken acknowledged that a recruiter is not for everyone. He said, in general, they are best called upon to fill more senior-level positions and in firms with five or more employees. But, he said, clients need to be ready to make the commitment to work with the recruiter. They need to devote time to the process and communicate responsively.

In the second half of their conversation, Gail and Ken talked about succession planning. In particular they discussed what’s involved in identifying and, if necessary, recruiting the right leadership to take over the firm to ensure its future success. Leadership goes beyond competency, Ken pointed out. What makes someone a great designer does not necessarily make them a great leader. In selecting someone to lead the firm, clients need to have a good understanding of where they want to take the company.

For more insights, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s11e1-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

You can find more information about Ken and Interior Talent on the firm’s website at interiortalent.com.

To listen to Ken’s previous appearance on the Creative Genius Podcast, in which he talked about hiring and retaining employees, listen here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSf2gEe70zM&pp=ygUQcGVhcmwgY29sbGVjdGl2ZQ%3D%3DEpisode TranscriptNote: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Click to Show TranscriptKen, welcome to the Creative Genius podcast. We’re glad to have you here with us. And for those of you that don’t know Ken Roberts, I’m going to have him share his story. How did he get into being an executive recruiter? Gail, so great to see you. I love spending time with you. So thanks so much for inviting me to be part of this. My pleasure. I know your listeners will be always hopefully get some more exciting stuff like that. You always like to share, but

A little bit about me. Well, I am one of the principals of Interior Talent. We are an international recruitment company based in Florida, but we nationwide and 21 years. And we got into the business. My partner happens to be my wife and she actually started the business. I came on about a year later because I had a lot of experience in the recruiting world, but more recruiting from my team. I managed about 500 employees in the West.

And so I took that experience and kind of joined on forces with her. had some good sales background and always loved what she was doing. And so we took her interior design recruitment specifically business and we expand a little bit more and we started working with architecture firms. And so I jaund on and we said we would do it for a year and if we could still stay together, we’ll continue. And here we are 21 years later, still working together and loving everybody. And still married. And still married. Yes, still married.

Good point. Yeah, well, especially there are so many couples that work together and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. So it’s a good sign that you’re 21 years in. So congrats. No, it’s great. I love her. Yeah. Well, let’s talk about what a recruiter is. A lot of people have not used a recruiter and what is it? What do you do? And when is it best to hire somebody to help you with hiring somebody? No, thank you. Great question.

You know, over these 21 years, what’s amazing how we’ve seen, specifically for this industry, more on the interior design side than on architecture, but on the interior design side, lot of companies didn’t know what a recruiter was. And we basically, we are that talent acquisition arm for a company. You know, when they’re looking to hire, it’s a lot of work and takes a lot of time, especially for smaller firms where like the principal and owner is really in the thick of the business to kind of take the time to look at bringing on some additional talent.

So a recruiter like us, we’re a niche recruiter, only work in A &D. We are really that resource that you go to when you want to find the very best talent. So we are a team here in Orlando and we have some remote employees that we have great relationships and we take those relationships to help navigate the waters of maybe the candidates that are not qualified to ensure you’re getting the best qualified and interested candidates in front of you. And we really take

Because we’re so specific to the industry, we really understand this world and we can talk the language. We can be great ambassadors for our clients. And so I like to say we’re matchmakers. We are career matchmakers. We’re taking great talent with great companies, putting them together. And the whole idea hopefully is to be able to make it a great match. But more importantly is to save the employer, aka the principal, all that time and energy it takes to kind of weed out through all the

Not so great. It is. It is a hard job to hire and find the right people and ask the right questions and go through all the. Resumes and read through it and I know that your expertise and especially 21 years in you have so much knowledge about how to read a resume and probably see things that we don’t see that if we’re not in the recruiting business, of course we’re not going to know all the things that you look for.

Yeah. And you know what it is too is that, know, a lot of people and it’s no, it’s human nature. want to hire people that we like. Right. So sometimes we can help ensure that the, let’s say the qualifications or the technical aspect of that kid, its background is already a match when you’re meeting with them so that you can focus a little bit more on whether or not the personalities and culturally they fit within to your company culture and they kind of jive with them.

So it helps kind of, it does speed up the process for sure, but it allows us to, because we look at so many portfolios and so many resumes, we can weed out things a lot faster than most companies can because we just do it all the time. And so you’re right, know, it’s just a lot of, sometimes a lot of things that they miss and we try to weed through that so that they can really just see the best, you know, the best candidate possible, right? Well, I’m sure you’re not for every firm.

because it is an expensive thing to hire, of course, to pay fees to you all. But what size of firm is a good firm size to be working with you? You know, I think it comes down to, well, I would say that typically when we see firms that are maybe about five or more employees, right, typically, because usually at that point, they have a little bit of more structure to them.

You know, when we get the 10 or 15 or 20 employees, they’re even more structured, of course, typically. But, you know, when we first started Yelp, we worked with five -person and three -person firms, and we still work with those small firms because they have the least amount of resources. But I think where the right size firm really comes down to understanding how we can work best together and how we can be the ideal partner to support that.

And we understand that, yes, we are not the most inexpensive service that you can hire. We try to do everything we can to let them really see the value in that. But more importantly is making sure that we can truly be partners that really understand what their needs are. And there’s time and time again that we tell our clients, especially the smaller firms, like that’s not what you need. You don’t need that much or you need something different or you can pay less. We really want to help them to understand rather than just trying to get a placement.

Our reputation and our commitment to the industry is way more important than making a placement. Yes, we’re a business. We got to make money. Of course, we got to pay the bills. But we know that those those quick placements are not really why we’re in business for 21 years. So I don’t know. That’s a long way of answering your question. Hopefully it does. Well, yeah. And I think because it is an investment, then somebody has to be willing to pay that price.

But when you think about how much time you have to spend going through the recruiting process and placing ads, which you do on their behalf, and then you have to review the resumes and the job descriptions and go through the initial interviews and set those things up and then help to negotiate the deal. There’s a lot that goes into what you do. And so, of course, that’s that’s something that you can’t necessarily know exactly how long it’s going to take. And so therefore,

I think your model of giving a percentage of whatever their first year’s salary is, is the way you work. And so based on that, that’s, you have to be prepared for that. For sure. And we really make sure that in upfront, when we talk to someone that wants to work with us potentially or has the need that we let them understand, you know, really how do we navigate those waters and to make sure that’s upfront. We we’re not going to

We want to make sure that everyone knows upfront what they’re walking into. And then we try to help navigate. We understand cash flow, and so we can do some things to kind of help spread out payments a little bit. We work with those companies. But more importantly, is to your point, is how long have they been looking? Usually they come to us after they’ve been struggling, right? So they’ve been looking for three or six months or longer and think how much time that was. Whereas if they would have came to us upfront, they would have had all that time to build their business.

And we could have find them that great person that would have been adding that additional revenue or support. it’s hard for sometimes for companies if they ever used a recruiter to understand, to put their toe or foot into the waters. But what’s great is we’re so honored and feel so privileged that once we do get to work with somebody, they do see the benefit. We have a wonderful repeat clientele because they understand that.

They don’t have to wait three months to get somebody. If they come to us, typically it’s a month, a month and a half, sometimes a little longer depending on the position or location, but they can move a little bit faster so they can really forecast and plan a little more effectively. To your point, you know, you bring out that right senior designer, how much more money you can bring to your job line, right? So, we wanna try to help companies with that. Yeah, and for sure, like you said, if it takes six months and you can help somebody.

Within a couple of months, get somebody in place. That’s four months of revenue. And if it’s three times, whatever their payroll is, then you have that opportunity to make that if you them on sooner than later. So I understand completely. Yeah, exactly. But you’re not a fit for everyone. And we’ve talked about this a little bit. Some firms is just not the right fit to work with a recruiter. And it’s not necessarily just size, but let’s talk about what are the things that would get in the way of having a good recruiting

situation or a scenario happen? think, well, that’s a great question. And you’re right. Unfortunately, we’re not ideal for everybody. And we get that. And I think what it comes down to is a couple of things. One is that they understand how our process is and work within our process. It is a process. We have a five step process to ensure that we can really make sure that we can have the most success with a company. And so if they’re not, you know, if they’re not giving us great feedback,

They’re not comfortable being a strong communicator with us. They have to really be make sure that we stay to that process and make sure they go through a proper interviewing schedule. And if they just want to be a little more shoe from the hip, little more… It’s a commitment of time on both sides. And sometimes there’s too busy.

So A, if they’re too busy and they don’t have time to kind of stop and help us through this process, that’s going to be challenging. Secondly, is I think that if they’ve never hired before, there are sometimes small firms that have never hired before and they don’t know what to do. I’m always happy to give my professional experience and share with somebody, but we may not be the ideal recruiter or maybe a recruiter is really not right for them at all.

And I think it really comes down to communication, being a great communicator on both sides, because we over communicate probably sometimes, because we want to really make sure they understand what’s going on. And then secondly, as I think is making sure they commit the right time that’s important to be able to do this whole process. we can only bring the best candidates to our clients. From there, they do the hiring. So they have to go through the processes.

have to let us guide them through, maybe they have to add a couple of more steps in there rather than to rush through it. And that’s really, we get a really concern when companies wanna do like a one and done, we call it like one interview and one hire. We don’t encourage that at all. Most recruiters are all excited about that in the recruiting world, but we’re not because we know that there’s so many things that you could be missing after that. And we wanna make sure we go through the process. So once again, that takes a commitment of time.

So hopefully allowing us to walk them through that a little bit more. Yeah, mean, listen, and financially, there’s always that aspect of it, too, that, you know, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to them. And listen, if it’s a really junior person, I tell my clients, like I tell potential clients, I’m like, save your money. You can find those people typically on your own. It’s when you get to those strategic senior, you know, high, mid level, senior level, executive level, director level, those where we can really be

magical partner to really find those people that are gainfully employed and now bring them bring your company their company to light to understand what they could what that can offer them. Sure. Yeah. Well, and also just to remember it to set expectations because you as a hiring person, it’s not the recruiter’s fault if you didn’t go through all the steps and do thorough interviews and maybe have three interviews and put them through actual tests like

Maybe a design example or some sort of scenario testing their ability to check details, checking their references. You still have steps that you have to take and you cannot expect the recruiter to do those things for you. Right. But if they are like, we try it when we look through our discovery process, when we work with somebody, we walk them through that. Say, what is your hiring process now?

A lot of times with firms that have never used a recruiter, kind of, some are more organized, but some are just like, I meet them a couple of times and I make a decision. Well, let’s, is there a design shred? Is there a CAD test? Do you want them to redline some documentation? Whatever that may be, that’s an important part of the job. Like you just said, let’s slow to go fast. Those extra steps, it’s amazing what they can find out through some of those little extra steps.

usually not a lot more commitment of time on their part. just does extend the process a little bit, right? So it’s huge. but yeah, we get, you know, a little frustrated sometimes when they want to rush them and don’t want to do those things. Or if they’re on the other side, it can take too long. Right. So someone that is not available, that extends the process of interviewing.

let’s say they’re traveling shows, they’re just not available. That also can be very frustrating because it’s very difficult to get a candidate to say yes. Once they say yes to want to meet with a potential company, if we don’t keep that time of engagement, that process moving, they can lose interest. And so we got all this way to get a great candidate in front of you, but then they get one interview, then they have to wait a week or two weeks before the second interview. That also can be…

challenging as well. So you need to do this when you’re ready in your business and you’re not going on vacation for three weeks to Europe. You’re not on sabbatical. You’re not going to a big show in the middle of this whole process because crazy deadlines, crazy deadlines. Absolutely. Because when you get down to it, the candidate needs to feel like they’re your number one priority when you’re hiring. Even if they’re not, you have to make them think that because

you have to convince them that you’re a place that they want to work. And a lot of it is how you respond and how you react in those interviews. yeah, absolutely. So true. You know, it’s still I mean, it’s not as crazy as it was during kind of COVID and stuff, but it is still a candidate centric market. So to your point, you do have to I don’t like using the word woo, but you kind of have to really make them feel at least you’re very interested until you’re not.

Meaning that maybe you’ve gone through the process and they’re not the ideal candidate. But up until that point, you have to show interest in the way you show interest is keeping the process moving along, making sure you set aside that time like we’re talking about and making sure that you’re giving the thorough amount of time when they do come in. Especially that’s a big time is when they come into your office. We sometimes will see candidates will get in there and they only get like 20 or 30 minutes like.

They just drove, they left their day or office early or what have you. And making sure there’s ample time that sometimes can send a wrong signal. And this is a funny industry because we feel like there were not only matchmakers, but sometimes therapists. so we hear all from both sides, both candidate and client, all the things that are challenging them and things that they are frustrated about. So those are sometimes things we hear from candidates that like they felt like they were, I wouldn’t say dismissed, but it was just very short.

They take that as maybe they’re not interested, even though they just might be busy. Yeah. Well, one of the things that we try to enforce or explain to our clients is your internal client is your employee, is your team member. And those people, if you don’t put them first, then they will not put you first, nor will they put your client first. So in order for you to have a happy culture, you really do need to take care of them and make sure that they feel important and heard and.

Appreciate it because today people have choices and they can they’ll jump ship in a minute if they don’t feel comfortable with the culture. It’s so true. It’s very, very true. Yeah, yeah, well, it’s good point. I love that. Well, let’s shift gears because you and I have a topic that we’ve been talking about offline for a while now and that is the session planning. So first of all, why don’t you define what’s the session planning is? Absolutely.

Well, this is a very big topic. And succession planning is really, is how are you going to change the leadership and kind of direction of your company by that new leadership? you know, people think of it as, you know, just if there’s going to be a new president and new owner, but not necessarily. We don’t like the use of the word owner. We like to use the leadership because, you know, there has to be the right person at the home. And if someone’s looking at

retiring or just changing directions and you know as far as their day to day you need to have that right leadership in place and successful planning is typically not just one person it could be a team of people and so successful planning is really is guiding your company in the direction of getting that new leadership in place so that it can continue to succeed and thrive in your absence whether it’s day to day or all together.

Well, we all think we’re invincible, but we’re all going to leave the business one way or another. And I remember years ago, one of our young boardroom members, she was in her early thirties and we were talking about succession planning because a lot of the people in the group were older. And she said, I’m not even thinking about that yet. I just started my firm. I said, you should think about it now because you need to think about where you’re going in the future and think about what’s the structure going to be so that I’m building that team.

and having that in the back of your mind as you’re building your team. It’s so true. know, it’s a session planning takes time and you know, it’s a minimum of five years in that seat. You kind of take that’s what we’re seeing is to really feel confident that person can take over, but there’s nothing more. So we have a person on our team that’s been with us for a number of years, about six years, and we are been grooming him at all this time.

to continue to learn and guide the company. there’s nothing better when you can take an employee that’s maybe started from, and you like use the bottom, but in a more junior role and continue to grow them up into a position of leadership because that person has so much buy -in, so much knowledge been exposed, can understand all the different levels of positions that you might have in your company. And I always like to tell these companies that we work with is that you always have to have the end in mind because

I don’t want to work forever. Maybe you do, Gail, but I don’t want to work forever. Well, I can’t work from the grave, so I do have to think about that. Exactly. And so it’s kind of nice when you plan to know that, I think I may retire at 60 or 65, whatever that may be. And you don’t have to, but at least know that’s the plan. So if she was 30, OK, does she have 30 years to kind of really think about that? And when does she want to start implementing in certain key roles to kind of help?

And I also say that succession planning can also be where you move out of that seat of, you know, really kind of the encompassing leadership role, the present role, CEO role, and maybe you take a different role in the company and you can have someone else take that seat. So maybe you just want to be in the business development. You want to just be in the creative side. Maybe you want to focus on your new furniture line and all the merchandise that you’re developing. So there’s different seats they can take. They don’t necessarily have to be out of the company, but

it does take time to kind of, first of all, look at that, see if there’s anybody that’s on your team that can potentially be in those, you can see in those seats. And then what is the plan for them and for you to kind of know that at some point you have to start giving off some of those responsibilities and guiding, giving a little bit more. We just talked about this just the other day. Where you’re kind of putting off these little responsibilities that wind up being

that add over time to really make sure that they’re ready. Yeah, I’ve been working on it for really about 10 years, but the last five, I’ve really sped it up. And now every six months, I’m taking things off of my plate and starting to hand those to the leadership team. So for example, the other day I put in a list of six things. said, okay, guys, here we go. Next year, these are off my plate. So we need to start planning for this now.

And you need to be aware of that. You have to take some things off of your plate. So figure out how, who and how you’re going to make room to take on these other responsibilities, because for you to step into the leadership level that I need from you, you must do that. So it’s an interesting process teaching people to do that. And one little tip that I would suggest is to give someone that is on your leadership team. hopefully you do have that by the time you’re starting succession planning.

If you think those people will be your long term people, then start giving them big tasks and big projects to work on. So, for example, I turned over, I opened up all the financials to my two people who are on my executive team. And so I have an executive team and a leadership team with one additional person. But as the executive team, I handed off the project of doing the budget and doing budget cuts and doing other things. And I said, this is on you.

You all need to learn this and so I’ll walk you through the thinking process and now I want you to go take that and figure out how you’re going to do this. And they came back and it’s like a complete shift in their mindset about the business because now they totally understand the things that I’ve been working on for years and had to deal with all by myself. And now I’m sharing that with a leadership team. So you have to be open and you have to be willing.

to be transparent in some of the things in your business that you’ve kept to yourself for a long time. And guess what? You’re not alone. Right. And then here’s the other side of it. Sometimes companies don’t have those people in Right. Right. So you have to go find those people. And so part of what we’re talking about is when you start really thinking about that, because maybe there are some we have an executive search division that helps with a lot of the succession planning for those real leaders.

bringing in someone as a president, bring someone as a CEO, what have you, but sometimes you don’t necessarily need to bring them in at that level. You bring them in as a senior designer or senior project manager and they groom into that position. But, you know, sometimes you just don’t have that person on the team that has the skillsets to kind of really kind of you could that you see can groom into that. Or maybe that person in your team has no interest. And that happens a lot. We’ve seen that where they’ll have a team member, they’re

But they have no interest in leaving as a designer or a project manager or an architect They just want to do that and that’s okay, too. That’s amazing to have that person But so when you have to look at finding that person outside, well that takes some time, you know and and that process can be you know when There’s a couple of sides one it can be very almost emotional for someone to be able to find someone that’s gonna take their company over right and so

We try to help navigate that part of it. But more importantly is to really understand the direction they want to take the company. Because I can tell you there’s things about me that I wish I, you know, as far as my attributes, know, professional attributes, I wish I would do somewhere different because I probably would have done things differently. And so how do I find someone that can enhance the things that I feel that I’m not as good at or I wish I were better at? And finding that person is what we try to do is find those things that can help fill in those gaps of where

Maybe things were not all there. But that’s a tough process when you have to now look for that person. And that typically happens when they really haven’t thought about succession planning. And now they’re at a point where like, listen, I want to retire in three or four years or five years. Right. And so now what do I do? And really we don’t want to. This industry, as big as it is, there’s so many incredible design firms out there that it is a

we’re seeing a lot more owners that are aging towards retirement. You know, mean, the statistics are was at 33 or 32 % of the US population will be at retirement age within the next, I think, five years. It’s a massive number. So we’re having like a silver tsunami happening. So that doesn’t mean people have to retire at 65 for sure. We’re seeing people work a lot longer age, know, people living older, longer I say, but

people may not want to work, right? And if you don’t want to work past that point of all, you got to get things ready. And so finding that right person takes a little bit time, we can support with that. And, you know, it’s, it can be, like I said, a little daunting for a company to think about that while running their business. Yeah, and I’ve seen some really interesting things lately, because I have some clients that are interested in selling their businesses and trying to get prepared for that. And I think one of the keys that I would say that I’ve seen lately, and I’m

curious about your thoughts on this is that you can have somebody who’s got the skills and the interest, but if they don’t fit the culture, is that the right person to be on your leadership team for succession planning? can a person make shifts and adapt to the culture and correct their issues? Is it possible? I mean, I guess anything’s possible per se. I don’t agree with that as a strategy.

But what I’ve seen happen is that if you have someone that really from an operational perspective and understanding the business, really incredible design eye, creativity that has that part, then you find the person that can help be part of that company, maybe in a different role that can be that more culturally kind of to kind of keep things a little more together per se or be a little bit more.

On that side of the business, you maybe this person is more than the creative and you bring that more operational person that kind of help kind of to kind of fill that gap in. We’ve seen that and that can work well, but to your point, I don’t know. I don’t know how comfortable I feel. If I had someone in my company that I feel could do the job. But culturally, one was going to take in a different direction. Right, maybe not even a different direction is just a.

the personality doesn’t fit. And if you do the analysis of the culture words that you have for your business and that person doesn’t meet those culture words, can they change? I don’t know. And also here’s the thing is how long they’ve been with the company. And if they haven’t changed by that point, there’s probably a good chance they’re not going to change. And I think that, you know, well, first I would be concerned is how long does that person move with your company and they want a cultural fit at beginning, right?

That would be a little because I think that’s a really big part. You can teach people skills. I think it’s harder to teach them to change who they are as a person. Right. You know, people have innate characteristics that, yes, I think people do can change. They become more compassionate. They can be more caring. There’s a lot of things you do. But sometimes that, you know, they just don’t want to. That’s not a maybe they’re too very conservative or maybe they’re too liberal. They just want to be more relaxed. And maybe that’s not the culture of your company.

So those things are sometimes harder to change because that’s who they are at the core. And yeah, but I mean, listen, I do believe anybody can change. I just think that it’s probably harder to do that. know, it’s a, it’s a tough one, especially if you’ve invested a lot of time and energy into somebody and you would have a hope for them, but they really just can’t seem to quite fit into that culture the way they need to, because you really need to have a hundred percent cheerleaders in your.

In your leadership team is my view of it. They represent your company and so they have to represent you exactly the way you want to be seen whether you’re there or not. Yeah, so you have someone that’s you know that they have this employee that is already doing this work. They’re doing credible. They’re the model of getting the job done work ethic just incredible. But there you know the deep down side their culture like to this conversation. They’re not right and then.

You really have to go through this dilemma of like, do I supersede them with somebody else? Right? Because they think that employee thinks that they’re the next in line because they’re doing everything that they to their eyes, they’re doing everything right. And so now you realize that that person is really not the person that would be best as the top leader, the president, the CEO, the person at the very top of the food chain to kind of ensure that

Like to your point, everyone, the cheerleader, the mentor that everyone is expecting. And that’s a really tough one. You know, and so, you know, that’s where tough decisions have to be made because, know, they. To my point or other, you can teach someone a lot of skills and you can teach them how to do the job. But can you teach them to be the right representation and ambassador of your company to your employees at Towson as well, but also to the biggest employees because

You know, listen, we see a lot of times that if it’s done incorrectly with succession planning, a lot of employees will leave because they don’t feel the faith and confidence in that leadership. Because that is one of the main reasons why people leave companies in the first place. They don’t feel the leadership. if it’s not done right, it could be a real problem. So it takes time and effort. know, I think there has to be lots of conversations to understand what that looks like. know, one time we would get

pleasure of working with a company that’s looking for that succession planning of a leadership position. President, we go through a very extensive process of really analyzing. We talk to all the employees, we go into their work environment to really see and we spend time with them to understand the day in day out, to really make sure that we have a really clear understanding of the representation that’s going to be necessary for that person coming into that seat. Right? Because it’s

It’s more than just can they do the job. We know that. Well, and that fit has to be not just for the temporary. we know that some everyone shows their best face when they’re interviewing and they may or may not exactly be that person in reality. So that’s one of the reasons to do those multiple interviews and have your team do it. For example, I have somebody on my team that’s great at reading people. So I want her to talk to everyone because she’s going to give me a different

take on the person, then I will have. So you need people like that who can help you make good decisions and choose that right person because it is so critical to have a great fit for your people. So true. I love period of views. One of my favorite things we do here, we recommend it to companies when they not everyone’s comfortable with it, but we love period of views because I think that’s it. There’s such a different perspective that is that is taken from your team.

that you would see or wouldn’t see. And I believe that when people meet someone that’s not in the hiring decision maker, that that person, their guard goes down a little bit more. So they be able to your point that a little bit more, maybe themselves, they’re not so buttoned up per se, and they can be a little more relaxed. So they sometimes will hopefully not slip things out, but sometimes they do. They say things that are like big red flags. And other times then you can really see them

shine, right? You see them in that environment and they even shine more because they’re their employees like, love this person. I can totally see myself working with them. I would love to work with them or for them. So it can, you know, a lot of times it’s more of that. But, you know, there are times where they’re your employees are incredible. They do. mean, to like you said, you know, if you have that person that can read people, but really is a great, they understand who pro collective is. They can really

they understand what’s going to be the right and what’s not going to work. To have someone that can kind of sense that out is really special. So, yeah. And people, your team feels really empowered when you do. They feel like, yeah, I’m part of this company. I’m going to make sure that the next person that’s sitting in any seat is someone that we’re all going to be able to get along with, going to work well together, someone that’s going to help make everyone’s job a little bit easier and more effective and the company’s going be

happy and growing together. So yeah. Well, here’s another big question. And this one is, how do you know if somebody can grow into a leadership role? I know. Well, I like to look at their history, right? So I like to look at where people have been previous. so, you know, this is obviously not going to work for, when you’re hiring a junior designer. let’s say you’re hiring a senior designer.

I like to look at their previous roles. like to look at if whatever did they mentor? they with how what who and what were they managing as far as size of teams? Were they managing just for a project? Were they managing certain aspects of the business? They were responsible. Maybe they were just responsible for, you know, making sure they had enough supplies for the supply closet to whatever responsibility that they had responsibilities that they could take care of.

You know, time and time again. But when you look at someone’s history and you see the roles they had from the very first job they had to the job that they’re in and see a progression of how they can be a team player, how they can be a problem solver, how do they take initiative to help make a better process as opposed to just doing what they’re told? Right. I think all those attributes together can.

help. The other thing is really understanding us how do they play in the sandbox? Do they get along well with others? Are they an island or do they want to be part of the team? Right. So when we look at employees for our clients, in going into leadership roles, we look at that history, even though they may be a design director now. That’s great. But a design director at one company is very different from another. And so

We try to look and understand that history and look at how it’s progressed. I hopefully progressed and to look at some of those things. mean, there’s, there’s other attributes. I mean, look at people’s, what are they, where do they see themselves? What do they want to do and understand if they gonna, are they going to strive for that position or are they comfortable being here? Like I said before, maybe they just want to be a designer and that’s okay. So that’s obviously not someone that’s going to probably be a great leader, even though they may have continued to excel in the company from

taking on bigger projects, client retention, just been a rock star, winning awards and time and time again, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re gonna be a great leader. Sure. It is, you never totally know. sometimes it’s so interesting, because I had one person that other people on the outside were saying, I don’t know if that person can be a leader or that person can do X, Y, Z.

I’m thinking to myself, I don’t know. think this person does have that capacity. And I just was determined to find out. And thankfully, it did work out. And it’s not always what you think. So you have to go through a process and trust your instincts on it, too. So sometimes listening to others, you’ll have to put that aside and make your own judgment, too. I agree with that 100%.

I think that that’s the core of it all. mean, you have to listen to yourself. You know your business better than anybody else, right? Right. But, you know, here’s the thing is that I think someone’s personality, they have the fire and excitement and are excited about taking a bigger leap. You know, that’s that says a lot, right? They may have to still learn the the ability to do that. Maybe they’ve not managed a lot of people may have managed no one.

Maybe they haven’t worked directly with clients, but they are excited about it. They want to learn. They’re ready to stumble and pick themselves up and learn and continue to get better. That’s where you, you know, that’s what I get excited about. When I see someone that’s like, just teach me. Yes, put me in coach. Yeah. And they take feedback. have to be able to take feedback. People that are going to make it to leadership must be able to take honest feedback and corrective action when necessary. Totally.

You know, I think one of the biggest attributes I find with anyone that’s moving into a leadership role is, are they a problem solver? A real problem solver, not do they, you know, look at a problem and then like, you know, trying to go ask people for solutions. They’re coming up with solutions and coming up with trying ideas to try to make things better. Whether it’s a process or whether it’s a real problem, right? I think that’s the, know, in life, life constantly hits us with problems, right? Challenges and

How do we navigate through those? And we think not a lot of people are comfortable in that. They want to be told what to do. Right. How do I solve this? What’s the solution? Where’s the playbook? Give me the instructions. Right. Or other people like, you know what? I got the instructions, but I think it’s better. I can do this way. Be faster, cheaper and result will be better. I love that. That’s yeah. I love that. Well, we’re at the end of our time. So I would love if you would give me three takeaways that you

think were most important from this conversation today that you’d like to share? Well, if you’re going to want to work with a recruiter, know that it takes two to tango. You have to make sure you have the time and commit to understanding a better process, right? Sometimes it’s a better mousetrap to be able to find and secure that right next new employee. Secondly, I think from a succession planning is start early, right? The process takes way longer than

You think to groom an employee to the place where you feel most comfortable that they can step into that leadership role. And then if you have to go on the outside to find that person, is that really understand where you want to take the company and look at the attributes that are going to be important. Someone’s going be the right ambassador, someone that can be the right leader, the mentor, the cheerleader, and get the support you need to be able to find that person. That’s also going to take time.

takes way longer than we all anticipate. We always wish it takes a lot less, but it takes longer. So I think those are the three things I would say. And this has been wonderful. Thank you so much, Ken. It’s always great to chat with you. And I know we have several other topics we should probably come back and visit about. I would love it. I would love it very much. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise. My pleasure. Thank you.

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Fear can be a positive emotion, protecting us from danger. Fear can also be a hindrance, holding us back from achieving our best, true selves. Deep-seated fears and traumas from the earliest years of our lives may influence our choices and relationships without us even being aware they are doing so. In the name of keeping us safe, they create barriers to growth. Recognizing and getting free of these fears can allow us to live more positive, productive and satisfying lives.

In this episode, Gail talks with Master Life Coach Rhonda Britten, founder of the Fearless Living Institute. The Institute offers coaching and programs to help individuals identify and master their fears. It also offers training and certification for those who want to become coaches. Rhonda is also an Emmy-winning TV host and the author of several books on living fearlessly.

Rhonda related her own traumatic past and how it colored her sense of self and choices into adulthood. Her decision to change led her eventually to understanding the critical role fear plays in our lives and how one can break free from fear.

“Everything comes down to fear,” she said. “Fear loves you. It wants to keep you safe.” That might seem a good thing. But as Rhonda discovered, fear cuts you off from your essential nature, from the activating principle that wants you to live the life your soul intended.

What we normally think of as fears are what Rhonda referred to as fear triggers. The kind of fear she is talking about is a more deep-seated core fear that develops sometime before we reach age five. She identified 10 of these core fears, one or more of which most people are affected by.

Gail asked Rhonda what are the keys to living fearlessly. Rhonda stated five:

• Truly believing that there’s nothing wrong with you.
• You do have a soul mission—a calling or purpose.
• You are exactly where you need to be. Be willing to forgive yourself for your past.
• Recognize your brain is your friend when your brain is in freedom and your brain is your enemy when your brain is in fear.
• Ask yourself, Am I making this up or is it true?

For all the details of Rhonda’s story and her insights into living fearlessly, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e10-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Rhonda, the Fearless Living Institute, and her books, go to the website at fearlessliving.org. You will also find her podcast and blog on the site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv6CO-n0vCEEpisode TranscriptNote: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Click to show transcriptRhonda Britton, it is so good to see you and have you on the podcast today. And well, thank you, Miss Gail. Yeah. And here we are. It is July in two thousand and twenty four. I can’t believe this. We have known each other almost 10 years. Get out of town. No, I know. Wow. We met each other at a mastermind retreat years and years and years ago.

You’ve done a lot of different things over the years and I can’t wait to talk to you today about what you’ve been doing and what you’re planning to do. But, and I almost hesitate to start here, but I think your story is so powerful and I would really love for you to share this with listeners because the minute I heard that, I mean, I just felt it all over my body and, and every time I hear it and I’ve heard it so many times now, but it just,

touches me deeply and I just really feel like it has a powerful message to share with other people. So would you mind sharing? No, not at all, Gail. Of course, I’m happy to. I know you’re referring to the worst day of my life, right? Because most of us, most of us, the worst day of our life actually becomes the vehicle in which we blossom. You we don’t we don’t necessarily look at it that way for maybe a few decades or, you know, could be years, could be decades. But, you know, eventually when we look back on our

we can see how the seed of our purpose, the seed of who we are meant to be, the seed of, you know, our convictions is usually birthed on the worst day of our life. And for me, that was when I was 14 years old. And I grew up in this little tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny town in upper Michigan, 365 inches of snow a year, two restaurants, know, Douglas house, hotel buffet and big boy. It’s all we had. No McDonald’s, nothing, nothing, zero, it Joe? And my parents were in the middle

getting a divorce. And my it was Father’s Day and my father was coming over to take my mother and my me and my two sisters out for Father’s Day, which is a big deal because there’s five of us and we really never went out to eat. And so we’re going to go to the Fancy Douglas House buffet. Very excited. And so I’m in my mom’s bedroom. You know, she’s fluffing up a beehive hairdo, putting on a blue eyeshadow, rose color lipstick. My dad, you know, I can hear him coming in the front door. Come on, come on, come

you know, my mom looks at me and I’m like, okay, I’ll go. And so I start walking towards the back door with my father and he starts, you know, yells to my sisters, come on, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. So me and my mom start walking towards the door. My sisters are still in the bathroom. We have one bathroom, so they’re fighting for the mirror. And as we’re going out the door, my father, starts raining.

And my father looks at us and says, well, I’m going to go get my coat from the car. And so me and my mother start, you know, walking out gingerly through the rain and my father opens his trunk. And I noticed out of the corner of my eye, he hasn’t grabbed a coat, but he has grabbed a gun. And he starts yelling at my mother. You made me do this. You made me do this. And he fires. Now

start yelling, what are you doing, dad? What are you doing? Stop, dad. What are you doing? Stop. And he cocks the gun for a second time, points the gun at me. And I absolutely believe I’m next. He blinks, I blink. He blinks, I blink. We’re just frozen in that time moment. And my mother, with literally her last

screams out, no, don’t. And my father realizing my mother is still alive, takes that bullet intended for me and shoots my mother a second time. And that second bullet goes through her abdomen and out her back and lands in the car horn. And it just starts wailing. And then my father cocks the gun again.

drops to his knees, puts the gun to his head and fires. So in a matter of minutes, know, two minutes, I was the sole witness of watching my father murder my mother and commit suicide. Now, I don’t know how other people would respond to that, but this is how I responded. It’s my fault, right? I did nothing heroic during those two minutes, right? I didn’t grab the gun. I didn’t jump in front of my mother. I didn’t, you know, kick his shins. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t do anything heroic.

And now my mother is dead. And so from that moment, I understood that I don’t get to be happy. Right. don’t, I don’t get to have true happiness. That’s out, that’s out the door for me. You don’t get happiness when you don’t do the right thing, right? When you don’t save the person you love, you just don’t get that. And then for the next 20 years, you know, I lived two lives. On one hand, I got a scholarship to college. I graduated, my class, you know, so on the outside I was

I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. But in the inside, I didn’t deserve to be alive because I should be the one that’s dead, not my mother. I should be the one. I should be the one. So then for the next 20 years, I lived this double life. On the outside, I pretended everything was fine. Like I said, I got a scholarship to college. It was fine. But in the inside, because of the destruction in my own mind,

and so much fear I was in, even though didn’t think it was fear. I never ever uttered the words, I’m afraid, ever. I don’t think many of us were trained to say those words, and I definitely wasn’t trained to say those words. So for the next 20 years, I tried to kill myself three times. I became an alcoholic. I had three DUIs, spent a little time in jail for that third DUI. And it was that third suicide attempt that I realized something.

I realized that I’m not very good at killing myself. not good at it at all. shouldn’t laugh at that, but it’s… Yeah, but it is, but I didn’t, I’m not good at it, right? And that third suicide attempt, by the way, they put me in a psychiatric ward to evaluate me because now it’s my third time. So now they’re gonna take me into the hospital. And I don’t remember how many days I was there, three, four, five days, and a little straight jacket next to me just in case, little lockdown facility. And I remember my older sister, Cindy Cumming,

I’m in middle of three girls, my older sister Cindy coming to see me. And have you ever experienced Gail, somebody losing hope in you? know, somebody looking at you and realizing that there is no hope that maybe you are damaged goods, that you are never going to change, like you’re never going to get over this. Well, that’s how my sister looked at me. Wow. And

I could see it, you know, could see it. And I was sent home, my sister leaves, she doesn’t live where I was living at the time. I go home to my little tiny studio apartment. And I realize that I have to start over. And so what I do, I think I have a thought. What are you doing kindergarten? And

Well, you get gold stars on a calendar, right? So I actually went to the store, I got a calendar, gold stars. And for the next 30 days, I put a gold star next to anything I did, anything good, anything good. And I’m talking about good meaning I got angry and I didn’t break anything. That’s where we were, right? Like that’s where I was in my life, right? Like, I got angry, right? Or, you know, I didn’t have a drink, you know, instead of getting drunk, I didn’t get a drink, right? So I’m talking very basic things, very basic foundational things. But after 30 days,

and I had gold stars, I realized I was worth saving. And I began to do the hard things that changed my life. I was willing to see myself, I think, most importantly, clearly, because I think I wanted to blame my dad and I wanted to blame my mom and I wanted to blame the world and I wanted to blame men and I wanted to blame the society and I wanted to blame the government. I wanted to blame everybody.

But that day I realized that all of those things don’t have power over me, I do. And that was humbling, mortifying, vulnerable, devastating, and the seed of life. Changed my life, that moment of being willing to see myself through no eyes and be willing to be wrong about myself.

That has such a powerful story. And I just look at where you are now and what a happy and vibrant person you are and all that you have to offer. And you’ve started the Fearless Living Institute. And so that is a real mission for you, which I love. And I think there is a huge need for what you do. So tell me a little bit about that and what it’s done to help support your growth and your journey from this dark moment.

Absolutely. So, you know, God gave me the title fearless living because I was like, you know, what do you what I call this, you know, after a few years of doing it. But, you know, I was working, you know, so there are a years past, obviously, and now I’m, you know, I’m taking classes, I’m doing workshops, doing all these things. And during those 20 years, by the way, I also took workshops in class, because I’ve always been a learner, but I just couldn’t kind of get over the hump, you know what mean? But what really transpired is

I was working for a coach and I was doing PR at the time and I was helping him. And he would always tell me, he was one of the very first coaches, and he would tell me all the time, you’re going to be a better coach than me. And I would look at him and go like, did you forget about the three suicide attempts, the three DUIs, the time in jail and the alcoholism? wait, and the murder -suicide? Did you forget about that? Because I really, really, really believed, and I think this is one of the most important things that I hope.

your listeners here is that I really believed that I didn’t earn a different future because of my past. Now I had heard all the stuff, I’d gone to church, I’d done all self -help. I knew that that, you know, everybody’s, you know, I knew that logically, but I really fundamentally still was tied to my past. And so I remember being at his house and again, he’d been, been taking classes now, I’ve been doing great, you know, doing learning and growing and you

And he would just call, tell me that. And I’d be like, you’re crazy in my mind, you know, and I’m sitting in his office and I’m sitting on the couch and he’s at the board and we’re brainstorming some workshop he’s going to come up with. And all of a sudden, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you the story, Gail. All of a sudden, through the corner of my eye, he’s going to cut a little, a little crazy now, a little crazy moment. The sky opens

a cloud comes out with a book on it and the book comes out and it goes like this. shuts, right? And it goes back into the cloud. And I’m like, what just happened? What am I hallucinating? I haven’t been drinking. I don’t drink anymore. What the heck? What’s going on? And I look over at my boss, know, the guy, my client.

And think, well, it must be for him because it’s not for me because I can’t, I can’t do that. And he’s talking, he has no clue. And then I turn around because I can’t, I’m convinced it’s not for me. So I turn around and I’m like, somebody must have come in and I just, you must be overhearing them looking everywhere. And there’s nobody else but me and him. And he’s completely oblivious. Well, Gail, the message was, the download I received was the answer to every single question I’ve ever asked. And the direction that you must now go share.

Me? What are you nuts? Did you forget about the DUI? Did you forget about all that? And thank God I was in a program, four year practitioner program. I had to become a spiritual counselor and I run to my minister the next day. They got an appointment and I told her this whole story and went like, what? Crazy. And she goes, well, it sounds like you got the call. And I’m like, call? She goes, well, you got the call. And I’m like, yeah, but I have three credits left to

bachelors I haven’t finished. I need to get a master’s, I need get a PhD, and then I need to write a book so it’s going to be for seven years for sure, like seven years for sure. And she just kept saying to me, well, if you got the call, you’re ready. And I was like, no, no, no, don’t understand. Okay, I got that. I got to finish my semester, the guy comes in, and I got today, I go, I go, it’s going to be seven years for sure. And she just kept saying, you got the call, you’re ready. And I remember it took me about six months to surrender to even

have an inkling that this was for me, that I was meant to support people. Because again, I loved supporting people, but I thought I was too damaged to do that. So, you know, what that message was, was basically everything I teach today. It talked, of course, about also, you know, that was the seed of it. And then obviously I’ve and moved, expanded beyond that. But inside that message was the seed of everything.

And the seed was everything is fear, right? So, you we can talk about procrastination, we can talk about overwhelm, we can talk about not being supported, we can talk about, we can talk about any reason that people aren’t moving forward in their life, whether in their business, whether, you know, personally, how they view themselves, you know, their, their self perception, their self acceptance, self love, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, mindset. We can talk about any of the reasons why that’s happening. And again, you know, everybody knows why they don’t, why they’re not moving forward. Everybody knows that part.

and they blame it and they believe, the psychiatrist, believe wholeheartedly it was for clear reasons. You know what? Well, look at these reasons, right? And people will be like, well, yes, those reasons are really good. But when I got that download and beyond that, I really started understanding everything comes down to fear. And until you understand how fear works for you personally, because we all, we have a, I call it the wheel of fear, but it’s personalized to each person.

So once you understand what your wheel of fear is and how fear operates through you and as you and on you and at you, it’s always gonna trick you because it’s masterful and it’s meant to keep you safe and it is fighting for your life. It believes that it’s fighting for your life, but it’s not the life of possibilities. It’s not the life of joy. That’s not the life. It’s the life of safety.

and it’s literally fighting for your life. So it’s got the greatest stories. It’s got the greatest proof. got the, it knows your whole life. knows everything about you, right? And so it’s got every message you need to hear to stop you in any way, or form. So, so that is what I’m devoted to. I’m devoted to people’s helping people master their fear. And I’m also devoted to helping people help people. So I train coaches.

I train, I have a new program coming out that I’m excited about for all coaches and all therapists and all wellness practitioners. But you know, so I support people in finding their wheel, moving them to the life that their soul, I say live the life your soul intended. And of course train the coaches that help them do that. That’s so great. So this is really, I love that it’s a calling for you and I can definitely tell that it’s a calling for you. And I think that helping people

address their fears? How do you do that? What is the way that you help them figure out which one is the one that’s dominant and the one that is keeping them from really achieving whatever their potential is? How do do that? I thank you for that question. And the first thing I want to say is most people think they know what they’re afraid of. Like if you come to a class of mine or if you work with me one on one or work with one of my coaches or read my book Fearless Living, Whichever way you do it, you can do it through the

You can do it, like I said, a class, a workshop, online and with Miami as a coach or other coaches. The first thing is that people think they know what it is. yeah, I know what it is. Yeah, because my mother always called me lazy. That’s what I’m afraid of. Or I’m afraid, I don’t want to fail. I’m petrified of failure, right? And so people think they know what it is and good, yay, yay, you know something. And what I would say is that’s a fear response. That’s actually not your core fear.

because that’s the thing fear’s letting you see, right? Now for all of us, the generic version that we all, most of us use words like this, but it comes down to not being good enough, right? Not being, some form of not being good enough. And so that’s what most people come with, you know, and again, they may come with, yeah, I know, I already know what it is, I already know what it is, I already know what it is, and I’m like, mm -hmm, mm -hmm, yeah, okay, mm -hmm. You know, I always go, yes, maybe, let’s find out.

And then I put people through a series of processes and through the processes, it’s kind of like the curtains part, right? The fog parts. together, it becomes evident. It becomes so clear. And what the response

most everyone that does this work with me and in workshops, I said online, they feel at the moment they get it, the moment it becomes like, my God, they say, now I understand my whole life. I understand why I quit that, why I married this person, why I divorced that person, why I went to school, why I go to school, why I left that job, why I took that job, why I stayed at the job, why I won’t do this. It kind

clears the path and it takes it away. And this is really, really important. It takes away the self blame. Right? Because, I didn’t do it. I’m lazy. I, I just didn’t have the courage. You know, I didn’t have the support. I didn’t have, well, okay. Or maybe it’s just, you’re afraid to do it because it’s literally the wheel of fear tells you you’re going to die if you do it, you know? And again, it doesn’t say those words, right? But

on some level, and again, you’re not even aware of it most of the time. It’s just really good at distracting you. know, like squirrel, yes, okay, like it just gets you off track. But that’s what fear’s job is. And fear does a really good job. And this is what I want, you know, everyone who’s listening to us right now to hear is that fear loves you. It’s not doing this because it’s evil or bad. It just loves you and it just wants to keep you safe. So, but when you can rip the, you know, rip the bandaid

and actually see fear for what it is, it becomes a huge asset and it becomes something that becomes fuel and it actually helps you point the way. So we’re talking fear of failure or fear of success. Which one is it? is it both? Yeah. Well, it’s so fascinating because let’s just look at it. So fear of failure.

is actually, I hate to say this, because I know a lot of people have think they have that fear. And again, it is a fear they may experience as what I said, like a fear response. So most people think of it this way. I bet most people know what their problem is. If you ask them, okay, why? Why do think you’re not as successful as you’d like to be? Or why are you don’t you have the love you want? Or why aren’t you making the money you think you should have? Or, you know, you you’re dying for? They’ll say to you, well, it’s because I’m afraid to do this. And they may not use the word afraid,

because we’re talking about fear, I’ll say it, but they’ll write a list. You know, like I procrastinate, I’m, you know, I haven’t been able to get over this. I, please, I care too much about people think of me. I compare my, I compare myself. Like they all know, like a lot of people know what the, what I call fear responses are. And those are the things that fear allows us to see. we get distracted by those things. So we don’t see the actual.

what I call the trigger fear, the core fear. Because as long as I keep you busy with the fear responses and you keep trying to solve the fear responses, just like the chairs on the Titanic, you’re not going to focus on, you know, the big hole in the bottom of the ship. You’re just going to keep on like, if I just get a better view, I’ll be fine. Right. So, I’m going to grab the 10 and let’s just have fun here. So there’s, let’s just, yeah. So there’s a, there’s a trigger. There’s a trigger and the trigger.

is that thing that is your core fear that is unconscious, hidden, and was developed by the time you were five. So you’ve had it your whole life. And you have been masterfully crafting it. Okay, you’ve been masterfully crafting it. So you’re really, really agile with it. And that trigger, whenever you get that, whenever you get triggered, again,

As you become awake to your trigger, you’re start being able to see when it happens. But in the beginning, you’re not even, most of time you’re not even aware of it. All you’re seeing is the fear responses, like, the procrastination, the overwhelm, the perfectionism, the people please, et cetera. So then you start doing the fear responses, right? And when you do those fear responses, we all know what happens. We hate ourselves, right? We dump into the core negative feeling. It’s like, my God, I did it again, argh. And we have the feeling.

Okay, this is what I say is the feeling you’re afraid to feel, the feeling that’s running your life. You don’t want to feel it. And then when you feel that feeling, most of us have experienced what I call self -destructive behaviors, right? We’re like, go down to the pity party. You know, I drank, right? So, you we all have our things. So we want to be able to identify the trigger is the key because once we can identify it, we can sniff it out before it moves us into a fear response. So what are some triggers?

let’s just see what some triggers are. now this isn’t, know, me reading this out loud is not you getting your trigger. This is just one kind of having you think about it, so to speak, right? So if you think about somebody that you love and admire, somebody that you, you know, and I don’t care if it’s person dead or alive, I don’t care if it’s fiction or nonfiction. It could be, you know, somebody, character in one of your favorite books, or it could be Jesus.

Right. Doesn’t matter to me or could be your great uncle. But think of somebody who really matters to you and their opinion of you matters to you. And if you say there’s nobody like that, I’m going to, I’m going to push back on that, but okay, just try to think of somebody. And would you be devastated? I’m just going to read the 10. Would you be devastated if that person you admire really respect and really how they see you matters?

If they came to you and said, know, G Gail, I never, I never wanted to tell you this, but the real reason you’re stuck where you are and you’re not able to move forward is at the heart of it all is you’re selfish. know you look generous. I know you’re, I know you look like you’re a giver. get that you’re good at covering it, but you and I both know you’re selfish. Now, right. So most people will say, well, I I’m not selfish. I’m not selfish. You know that because you’re running from selfish. Right.

Right, when people protest too much, right? Well, I’m not selfish, I’m a giver. Mm -hmm, yeah, yeah, because you’re petrified to be selfish, you’re petrified, right? So, selfish. The next one, think about the person you love and admire, stupid. Is it okay to be called stupid? Is it okay to be thought of as stupid? Is it okay to be thought of as weak? Okay to be thought of as incompetent?

Okay to be thought of as ordinary, just like everyone else. Okay to be thought of as a loser, by the way, that’s mine. You know, could smell loser a mile away. Yeah. Yeah. Mine’s all loser stuff. Loser, by the way, are people that, you know, give all they got, but never finish the line, never get over the finish line. Right. That’s not true when they’re in freedom, but when they’re in fear, that’s what happens. Fake. You know, if you’re a person that you really admire was

you know, at the heart of it, you’re just faking your way through life and you think you’re so authentic, right? Lazy, lazy people, by the way, are people that keep extremely, extremely busy. It’s not quality of busyness. It’s just quantity. Invisible, you make yourself invisible, but you’re dying to be seen or rejected. So you reject yourself before anybody else rejects you. So those are the 10 triggers. And, you know, maybe one or two or three

popped up for you and I don’t know if you want to share if any popped up for you, Gail. I’d probably say rejected. Okay, okay. So yeah, so when people identify their wheel of fear, what ends up happening? let’s just say yours is rejected. Mine is, like I said, loser. Again, like I said a little bit ago, it really opens up a world for you because then you can see all the places you’ve avoided, all the places you’ve

bypass all the places that you haven’t done A, B or C because of that core fear. And again, your core fear is very, very subtle. So, you if I was working with you right now, I’d be like, okay, so how does rejected show up for you? You know, I would want you to prove it to me, right? I want you to prove that that’s your trigger because usually what happens is again, some, let’s just say a 1 % of my clients, if that, and I know everybody listening to us right now thinks they’re in the 1%. So

1 % of my clients get it the first time. 99 % of my clients don’t. Interesting. So yeah, because it’s like fear goes, let Gail think it’s rejected. Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, that’s a good one. Okay, let her get that one. But maybe it’s really ordinary, you know, or maybe it’s really selfish, or maybe it’s really incompetent and whatever. And then we move through the different fear responses, core negative feeling, et cetera. But then the good part comes, Gail. We then identify your wheel of freedom.

And the Wheel of Freedom also has four components. the most important one, key one on the Wheel of Freedom is your essential nature. And this is the part of you that you cut off and learn to hide by the time you were five. You give it to everyone else, but you never give it. You very rarely give it to yourself. Now, before I move on, I just wanna say one more

We’re not all in our wheel of fear all the time. There’s probably tons of areas of your life, Gail, where you’re amazingly fearless. And I too, have areas of my life where I’m tremendously fearless. You have people in your life that you can be fearless with, right? But then there’s that person or that job or that client or that opportunity or that whatever, that fear goes, shut her down, shut her down, shut her down. This is not safe, shut her down, right? And this is where we need to tap into our essential nature, that part of you that…

was hidden long ago because that essential nature is actually your activating principle, your brilliance, your light, your access point. Interesting. Yeah, so mine is authentic, just to give you an example. And I just want you to think for a minute, if my trigger is loser,

Do you think that I think that I should be authentic? No, no, no. So the way that I’m wired and the way that you’re wired is fear and the will of freedom, will fear and will of freedom have us so wrapped, so tied, because the very thing the essential nature asks us to do, i .e. be authentic, will expose loser. My fear, right? I will fear that it’ll expose loser.

I have always, ever since I was younger, I was one of those girls that wrote poetry, know, like, and copied poetry and, you know, and just, you know, all that. That’s just want to be authentic. My favorite saying growing up when I was 12, 10, 13 was C .C. Cummings, now I’m going to butcher it, is, you know, to be yourself night and day is the hardest battle of all. And again, I butchered that. But I was 12 years old.

I was 12 years old, right? 12. My favorite book when I was 12 was, am I afraid to tell you who I am? What? So being authentic was, that just was not welcome. being authentic is

greatest asset and it’s also whenever I move into a new area, still my greatest, you know, the thing that I must move into because it’s a very, because again, your will, fear and will freedom don’t change and you’re always going to expand and distract risk die. So you want to keep growing, right? You want your, you actually want your comfort zone as big as possible. every time I move into a new area, there’s, there’s good old, there’s good old loser coming up and they’re good old practice authenticity.

Well, that’s really interesting. So I’m have to read your book. I haven’t read this book. I will put that on my reading list, which I love to read and I haven’t been doing as much lately. So be right up there. So in all of these cases, how long do you think it takes people to go through the process of really getting a handle on whatever it is that is their trigger? Well, you know, I have a preferred

process, okay, so my preferred process, my preferred process is you come to a, you know, a weekend or a two day online program because I take you through a journey for two days that not only has opens you up to find the best wheel of fear and the best wheel of freedom for you. So if you go through the weekend, you know, I’m not only going to take you through the process of discovering your wheel of fear and will freedom is I’m also going to give you tools.

and skills, I’m also going to guide you how to pop out of that two days with a toolkit of how to move forward, right? Because you’re going to be going into the world as you’re on your wheel of freedom. And that’s a different experience. Now, again, with some people, you’ve already been on your wheel of freedom, but other people are going to be like, what, what are you doing? You know, like what you’re going to be, know, right? so to have that toolkit, so my preferred way is

come to a two day and work with me and my coaches through the process. If that doesn’t support you, I have an online program, go through the online program. Just do it, maybe do it with a friend, but go through because when you go through the online program, you also have me really giving the hints and tips like I do in the workshop. I take you through the whole process. Now, obviously the shortcut is hiring a coach and just having them do your wheels.

But I’m going to tell you that that can be done in three sessions, two or three sessions.

And what happens is it just becomes like your astrology chart, right? yeah, I’m a Sagittarius, right? I’m an ordinary, you know, I got an art and it doesn’t actually, you don’t actually learn how to use it. So it just becomes another thing you got under your belt and what you can call yourself. So I really encourage people. And again, you can do that. And if you believe you’ve done all the work and you, you know, again, you know,

then awesome. The other thing I say is if you, you know, it’s usually, you know, tricky to find, you know, so I do encourage like that’s another thing to come to the live events because we work through them and we kind of get to the heart of it together, so to speak, and working with a coach. you know, you can go through the online program and hire a coach for three sessions and that would be fantastic or, or work with a coach for a certain number sessions to help you integrate

So that’s the thing. You can read the book, you know, and you read it tonight. Just read chapters two and three and you’ll have your wheels, right? Or what you think your wheels are. But again, it’s about the integration rather than just the knowledge. Yeah, it’s so important to do that. I have my cat behind me. Are you hearing her? Yeah, but I love it. It makes you human, Gail. I love it. So she decided that she needed to be part of this interview and say hello to you.

I love it. funny. I’m going to mew or meow back. my gosh. I’m sorry about that. Anyway, no, never apologize for a kitty cat. So funny. All right. So obviously there’s a process and obviously there’s some more people have to do and understand that. Like you said, knowledge is not really the thing that you want. You want the application of that knowledge so that you actually make a change for yourself. So I think that all makes total sense.

So what are five keys to living fearlessly? That’s fantastic question. Number

truly believing and taking this on that there’s nothing wrong with you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. It’s just fear. Two, you do have a soul mission and you do have a calling and you do have a purpose. And the only thing that’s stopping you from experiencing it is that darn wheel of fear. So, you know, take up the mantle of live the life your soul intended. So, you know, actually walk around and say, I’m willing to live life my soul intended and see how that vibrates in every cell of your being.

And just imagine if you said that as a mantra for, you know, heck a day or a week or a month, I’m willing to live the life my soul intended. I wonder what would come for you. I wonder what would come for you. Three, that you are exactly where you need to be, that there’s no nothing wrong, like I said, wrong with you. So exactly where you need to be in order to move to the next place. So be willing to forgive yourself for your past. Forgive the wheel of fear.

Forgive whatever needs to be released so that you can let go of your past and move into your present for This is something that we haven’t talked about but I’ll just gently gently and quickly touch on it The fourth thing is the key is to recognize the brain is your friend When it’s in freedom and the brain is your enemy when it’s in fear, right? so we’re going to use the assets of the fear, excuse me the asset of the brain to actually work for you rather than against you and

Lastly, I would say I want you to take up this mantra as well. Am I making this up or is it true? Because whenever you’re faced with a situation and you’re being triggered, if you repeat immediately, like am I being triggered right now or am I making this up or is it true? Really, really be willing to be wrong about everything. You must be willing to be wrong about everything to find the right life for you. I’ll say that again. You must be willing to be wrong about everything to find the right life for you. So am I making it up or is it true?

probably 90 % of the time when you’re not feeling it, you’re making it up. And find the truth and learn the skills and receive the courage, live on that wheel of freedom so you can live the truth, your truth. Because we’re all here for a particular reason, we’re all here for particular path, we’re all here to live our destiny, whatever that is. So it’s either fear or love, gang, so your choice, I choose love. Love

You are a beautiful soul, Ms. Rhonda Britton. Thank you, Gail. Thank you so much for being here today on the podcast. It was a pleasure as always, and we need to see each other sometime soon. Absolutely. I can’t wait. All right.

View Details

In many parts of the world, life expectancy is increasing. Many adults in the U.S. today can anticipate living into their 80s and possibly beyond. Maintaining a high quality of life in one’s later years requires taking steps now to ensure your future physical, mental and financial well-being. With a sound foundation, the second half of life can be just as fulfilling and rewarding as the first.

In this episode, Gail talks with Michael Clinton, author of ROAR: Into the Second Half of Your Life (Before It’s Too Late) and founder of Roar forward. Prior to transitioning to the second half of his life, Michael worked for many years in the magazine publishing industry, holding top-level positions with GQ, Conde Nast and Hearst Magazines. He is also a writer-at-large for Esquire and a regular columnist for Men’s Health.

Michael chose to leave his publishing career and devote himself to promoting and advancing what he calls “the new longevity.” People in a number of countries are not only living longer; they are healthier, better educated and better off financially than the elderly of past generations. They can take advantage of many new possibilities in the second half of their lives.

Michael created the acronym ROAR to sum up his blueprint for successfully aging well into one’s 70s, 80s and beyond. It stands for Reimagining one’s life as one ages, Owning your numbers (assessing your current health and financial status), Action plan to realize the life you want for yourself, and Relationships (found to be essential to happy, healthy longevity).

A key to aging well is engaging in activities and endeavors that are fulfilling and help you continue to grow, such as lifelong learning, exploring, traveling, and spending time with family and friends.

Michael offered three observations on how to capitalize on the new longevity:

• Release yourself from self-imposed ageism.
• Reimagination and reinvention are possible at any age.
• You are probably going to live longer than you think. Are you prepared for that? How is your physical and financial health? Do you have a sense of purpose for the second half of your life?

During their conversation, Michael also talked about how the new longevity is affecting the economy and how interior designers can take advantage of the new longevity 50+ market for renovation, redesign, second homes, and home building. For all that and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e9-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Michael and his book, go to the website for Roar forward at roarforward.com. You can also sign up there to receive the newsletter Michael mentioned at the end of the podcast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnV0HOME314Episode TranscriptNote: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Click to Show TranscriptMichael, welcome to the Creative Genius podcast. So I’d love to know a little bit about your background and then what led you to write the book Roar into the second half of your life before it’s too late. Thanks, Gail. It’s great to be with you and to see you again. Well, I spent about 40 years in the magazine publishing business in New York City. I was the longtime publisher of GQ. Then I was a senior VP, exec VP at Conde Nast. Then I went over to Hearst.

where I was on the team that launched Oprah’s magazine and we launched Food Network and HETV and built out a lot of brands. And I was for the last 10 years, the president and publishing director of the company. And I had a great, wonderful career. As I like to say, I was maxed out. I was ready to sort of think about what’s next. And as I was doing that, what I was reading and listening to and hearing out there in the world at large was,

Are you going to retire? you going to wind down? you got to like, wait a minute, that’s not on my agenda at all. I don’t even like the word retire. It’s a false construct that was created by the government 90 years ago. And, you know, people before that used to work and then they died. mean, they worked until they died. So I said, I’m ready for my next act. And I started to do some homework. And I said, I want to write a book on this

And part of it was really to get something off my chest, quite honestly. But what was interesting is I found, you know, I interviewed 40 people and I found people who were very like -minded. And since then I found many, many, many more people who, like yourself, who have said, you know, I’m far from finished. And the other thing that sort of tied into that was this concept of the new longevity. You know, if you’re 60 and healthy, you’re probably going be 90.

And if you take care of yourself, that’s a whole lifetime of, you know, another 30 years of living. And, you know, at 70, another 20, 30 years of living, you know, et cetera. So we can all accomplish a lot more than you’ll pardon the expression sitting around and or playing golf. Right. So the book, the book was really designed to sort of stimulate that thinking for people in terms

this concept of the new longevity in combination with all the possibilities in the second half of your life. So that’s what took me there. Well, I love it. And thank you for speaking for all of us who are in the more seasoned years of our life. We’ll just say it that way. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what does Roar stand for? So when I conceptualize the book, I wanted it to be, I didn’t want it to be homework.

know, because a lot of people like groan and go, okay, this guy’s gonna lecture with me and so forth. I wanted to be informational, entertaining. I wanted real practical tips and action points that people could follow in their own way in their own life in their own pacing. So we created so roar is an acronym. It stands for how do you start the ours? How do you reimagine and the reimagination process for yourself? The own

The O is owning your numbers, owning your health numbers or financial numbers, your owning your age, owning all the numbers around your life. The A is the action plan and that’s life layering is the core to that. And then the R is the relationships that you have because so much of what you’re gonna do next is gonna be, you’re gonna have to rely on support and your community and your family and your friends to really help you get to where you wanna go.

The book was in four parts and had component parts. And I love the feedback I’ve gotten from people when they say, your book is a blueprint. It really is a nice blueprint for me to follow. And it’s not homework and it’s not, you know, it’s too, you know, high in the sky, if you will. yeah, so that’s the Roar concept. I love it. And I remember you sharing at the retreat when we saw you earlier this year.

that you are getting ready to, I think, run a marathon and you are, again, seasoned. Meaning a few years under the belt, but in a very healthy way. And it’s very obvious that your mentality has not slowed down, even though you have reached this level of maturity and you have just so much to offer. So I really appreciate you being this. I would say just later in this particular area of

that all of us should be concerned about at some point. And probably a lot of people aren’t even thinking about until they hit about 50. But it is a very vital topic that really should be covered because I don’t believe people need to act old, look old, be old at whatever age they are, 60 plus. Yeah, no. I think, thank you. I think I’ve become the accidental role model. That wasn’t my plan, but I’m sort of I’m proudly wearing the moniker.

because what I’ve realized, and I like to make, know, the new longevity movement is really a social movement. It’s really being driven by people who are redefining the second half of life. And I always make the analogy that the women’s movement, you know, in the seventies, when it really changed the role models for women as to who they could be and what they could become and the choices they could make about their lives. Today,

Today’s 25 year old woman looks at so many different kinds of role models that she can choose from and say, you know, I want to launch my own business. I want to be a CEO. I want to be a senator. I want to be on the Supreme Court. know, pick your ambition. What I’m hoping is that people like me and others are creating the role models for not just ourselves, but for for younger people who look at us and say, I didn’t realize you could do that at 60.

I didn’t realize you could start a new career or launch a new business or run a marathon or, you know, pick, pick whatever subject it is. So I think it’s important. You know, there’s this great line, Gail, you can’t be it unless you see it. And, know, right. And think about now, think about so many of the role models that are already there in the celebrity culture. know, Oprah just turned 70. You know, she looks amazing.

You know, if you look at Jennifer Lopez, she’s in her 50s. If you look at Cindy Crawford, she’s about to turn 60. I mean, the redefinition of what 60, 50, 60, 70 looks like is changing before our very eyes. And the behaviors that go with that, possibilities of things. I was just at a graduation ceremony for a friend of mine. She just graduated from veterinary school and she’s 60.

I love it. you know, she said, you know what, I’ll be a veterinarian for 20 plus years. that’s perfectly fine. And another friend of mine is 90 just got remarried. So, you know, it’s all it’s just it’s creating the possibilities of what might be and then figuring out what works for you as an individual. So that’s the exciting part. I think it’s very exciting. And I think as long as we don’t look at it as.

a number that we should stop in the ELEKA stop sign and just look at it is just, okay, we’ve got to make some changes here, but those changes hopefully will be positive things and healthy things for us as we go into our sunset years. So what is the new longevity? So, you know, the new longevity is now a concept that is sort of hitting, I’ll call it the global zeitgeist.

It is this recognition that, you know, let me step back. 90 years ago, the average life expectancy was 62. There were 7 million people that were 65 or over in the United States. Today in the United States, the life expectancy hovers around 80. In Asia, it’s almost 90. In Japan and Korea and so forth. Today in the United States, we

60 million people who are 65 or over, and we’ll have over 80 million in the next 10, 15 years. People are living longer because of medical advancements, because of healthy lifestyles, because people aren’t smoking as much, people are paying attention to nutrition and exercise and fitness and all of that. And it’s created

this gift of extra time, this new longevity that is scrambling everything up that used to be perceived as what you were at 65. And as you know, I’m doing a lot of writing for Esquire and Men’s Health and others. And I wrote a piece called Why 65 is No Longer the Number. Because we’ve been programmed that you’re supposed to stop at 65, right? And I would say,

the new longevity is just the opposite. Rethink that. And you can go onto our website, workforward .com under the Thought Leadership tab and see that story and other stories around the new longevity. I joined the Stanford University Center on Longevity Board. And I think we talked about this in the past. Today’s five -year -old has a 50 % chance to live to be 100. So the 100 -year life is gonna be normalized

Maybe in our lifetime, but certainly in our children or grandchildren’s life, it’s going to be, it’s not going to be a quaint news clip on the local news of Mrs. So -and -so who just turned 100. It’s not a novel idea. It’s going to be more normalized and there are going be more and more people turning 100. So this has huge impact for individuals and cultures and society and business and media.

So it’s part of this, it’s the social movement that we talked about. So yeah, that’s the new longevity. I love that. So what is the outdated archetype? Well, you know, we could do a whole hour on that. You know, what happens in media representation and advertising representation is, you know, moving slow, the images of people who are like moving slowly into the sunset, holding hands, know, petting the cat, you know,

very old fashioned dressing. The problem is a lot of creative is done by people in their 20s. And what happens is they default to stereotype because they’re not 50. And so you need more people. It reminds me of the Mad Men era when you had a bunch of men sitting around the table deciding what women wanted in advertising and with the image of women.

And then that all changed. You need 50 and 60 year olds around the table to say, wait a minute, what you’re what you’re showing is so stereotypical and so wrong and just so bad. so the art, the old archetype, they were all built, you know, when life expectancies were in the 60s. And so the new archetypes are being built by more progressive companies, media brands, et cetera.

And I think you’re going to see that. I’ll go back to the women’s movement, the similar analogy. If you look how women were depicted in advertising in the 50s and 60s, you shudder when you look at it today. It’s going to be the same thing with people over 50. It’s going to be a very new archetype that’s going to be created. Well, thank God for that. No kidding, right? Right. Well, you’re officially one of the

Imagineers that you talk about. What are some of the adventures that you’ve been pursuing besides the going on? Hip fitness quest so so You know, I believe You know, I we use the word refire or rewire in our in the book and you know when I was 64 I went back to school and got a master’s degree

from Columbia University. I was interested in nonprofit philanthropy and all of the topic. And I became a student again, is, you know, lifelong learning is so important. You don’t have to go get a master’s degree, but you have to constantly be learning new things. our neuroplasticity going. And the more complex, the better, because that’s what keeps brain health. You know, when the idea of doing a crossword puzzle is not the answer, that does not stretch your brain.

It’s an old fashioned idea. If you talk to scientists and medical people, know, crossword puzzles are that doesn’t do it. You got to do complex things like study a new language or, you know, take on a new topic that you’re exploring. Or in my case, it was going back to school. So one example, you know, I became an entrepreneur, Gail. I launched a business off of the Roar book and RoarForward .com is an entrepreneurial business with a team of six people. And so I became an entrepreneur.

you know, in a very not not planned in the long term strategy. So there was that. I think you remember the story. I did a nine day hike to the Everest Base Camp and ran the Tencent Hillary Marathon down. So I did that just to show that I could and that I can continue to push my my boundaries physically. And so those are just some examples. I think the the re imagineers.

We are, we talk to them about people who are reinventing, rethinking, and it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as going to Everest by any means. What is it that works for you as an individual and taking a first step in that space is really what it’s about. I love that. Yeah. It’s interesting because I think at this, when we get to the season time, this is the time we’ve, have that wisdom to bring to what we’re doing.

And maybe because we have the wisdom is from looking backwards and realizing we could have connected those dots differently, but we learned a lot from whatever we went through. So that gives us that opportunity to explore new things. And I I started this business at 52. So that was not exactly a young age to start a new business, but it was what I did. And here I am several years later. Great example. Yeah.

So what is your goal? How do you want to be when you grow up? I’m going for 100. I’m going for 100. Listen, think if you pay attention to your health span and you pay attention to your wealth span, then you have great lifespan. another story I wrote for Esquire was called, You’re Going to Live to Be Ninety.

Congratulations. How are you going to pay for it? And I think this notion of having the financial resources to live a nice life, you know, of course, when I give speeches around the world, the country and the world, I always ask people, how many want to to be 100? And I get, you know, a decent amount of hands. And then I say, how many of you would like to live to be 100 if you had your wits about you, your mental and your physical

quality of life, we’re operating at a high level and all the hands go up. Because what we don’t want obviously is to have a sort of back end of life experience. So if you take care of yourself in multiple ways, you can have a very long, healthy lifespan and do a lot of the things that are important to you. And I think that’s the track that I’m on. That’s how I think in terms

the rest of my life. The other good news, which you probably know, the older you get and the healthier you are as you get older, the longer your life expectancy tends to be. some of the signs I’ve read is if you get into your late sixties and you’re healthy, your life expectancy is pushing well into the eighties already. you know, that’s, that’s a really interesting phenomena in terms of the compounding effect of healthy living

you know, doing good things through your mind, body and spirit. so now that I’m sort of a you know, all my my family teases me and says, well, you know, you have to live long because you’re preaching this. you like if you if something happened to you and you like drop dead, that would not be good for your message. I’m like, you’re right. So I’m going for a hundred. OK, I think a hundred is a really good target. That’s a good number. What do you want to do to celebrate your 100th birthday?

that’s a good question. You know, I watched the first 100 year old man cross the finish line of the marathon with the Toronto Marathon, which I had run. I’m not so sure I want to run a marathon at 100. I’ll be honest. But we’ll see. We’ll see. But, you know, there are other physical things. I mean, there’s an amazing woman named Betty Russell who just turned 99. She’s breaking all kinds of records as a master

So I want to be agile and balanced and physically fit in whatever shape that is, is the end of the hundred. So I think for sure, I want to do that. I want to be a lifelong learner. I always want to be learning. I was going to be exploring. I was going to be traveling. I always want to be spending time with my family and friends because community is so important to us as we live longer. So I think there’s an alchemy there.

that can keep us very engaged as we live longer. Well, maybe you’ll be jumping out of an airplane at 100. Could be. I did that when I was 19. I swore I’d never do it again, but I might do it at 100. Well, it might be worth it. Maybe that’ll be the way you go. There you go. Go quickly. Yeah, exactly. How is the new longevity affecting the economy? my God, it’s a huge subject. There are some stats that

You know, today, 35 % of the population in America is over 50. And if it was its own country, the spending power is $8 .3 trillion, would be the third largest country in the world. And in 2030, the first millennials start turning 50. That’s in six years. That’s pretty astounding when you think about millennials turning 50,

And that spending power goes to 13 trillion. And so and all of the wealth in this country, about 70 % of it is held by people over 50 spot stocks, bonds, real estate, all the above. So it is an enormously powerful economic group that oftentimes gets ignored by marketers, which is a big mistake because of just the sheer you touched on it earlier.

You know, we have the people in that group have less. They’re pretty much done with child rearing years. You know, they hopefully have accumulated some money. They’re spending it on themselves. They’re traveling. They’re buying products across all categories. It’s it is a it’s having a huge effect on the economy and will for decades because in the generational transfer of wealth, it’s going to happen over the next 20 years.

the Gen Xers and some millennials who are inheriting the next wave of money, they’re going to move into their 50 plus years as very different kinds of consumers. So you want to tap into that group because overall as a group, going to be a very wealthy group. Obviously, not everyone is going to have that experience because we always have inequities. But overall, the numbers are pretty powerful.

How do you think this new longevity is affecting the world of interior design? Well, the numbers we see, you know, all of the renovations and all of the design expenditures and even the new home buying is all happening in the 50 plus. That’s where the action is. And, you know, I think I shared with you a story of some neighbors who I met recently where he’s 90 and she’s in her 80s and they just built a new house.

in nearby and I said, wow, this is pretty amazing. Tell me why. And they said, well, because we can. And we also wanted a modern house that was very high tech. And, you know, I took a tour, it was beautiful design that hired an architect, they hired a builder, they hired a designer. They spent a lot of money on the highest end product. And, you know, to me, that was just a great example. Oftentimes the thinking has always been, well, I have to go chase

that younger consumer because I might have them as a long, long customer. And that’s good. And of course, you should develop new clients. But I would argue that people over 50 are doing a lot of expenditures in that world. So tap into them because they might renovate in their 50s and renovate again in their 70s and then build a new house when they’re 90. So, yeah, that’s a long.

That could be a long trail of a client retention, you know, as opposed to chasing a 25 year old who has no money. Exactly. And it’s funny that you should say that because my husband and I just in the last six weeks put made a contract. We’re building a house and we are putting everything we want in it. And we’re not going crazy. But as a husband, this is the time

I really want to do the house the way I want to do it. I want new furniture. want draperies. I want all those things. And why save this money? We don’t have kids, so we have the opportunity to really enjoy our lifestyle. And he was all for it. So I love it. Great example. It’s really great. Totally great example of what I’m talking about. think you’re going to see more and more of this in general. I think so too.

How can interior designers capitalize on this? Because since, like you said, if you think about it, you’ve got such an opportunity. If people have 25 or 30 years left, and you’re right, and a lot of people move every seven to 10 years, you’ve got probably three projects, four projects with somebody at the very least. And I know, for example, in my situation, I actually said to the person that worked with us on the selections for the house, I said, let’s go ahead and put blocking in the walls

future grab bars just in case. And it is a one story this time. So we’re moving out of a three story into a one story. And we’re thinking ahead because we know that it only makes sense to do that. We hope we never need that, but just in case it’s gonna be there. But obviously I come from design, so that’s what I’m doing. So how would you direct everybody else that is in the field, but really wants to serve this audience?

Yeah, I think some of the things that you just described for yourself are very practical and make a lot of sense. And of course, those are things to consider just in terms of long term strategy. But I think the headline I would give is don’t treat people like they’re old people. Right. Because, you know, if I’m and I have many, examples of anecdotal examples of friends and so forth, they when they’re doing new design in their home.

whether it’s hard goods, appliances, redoing kitchens, bathrooms, software with materials, et cetera. They want the newest technology, the newest innovation. They might have a sensibility for sustainability. They really want to be learned consumers, and they also have the money to spend. So

treat them as if you would treat anyone that you’re doing business with. Age should not be a filter. I have another couple of friends who we know through our families who are in their 80s and they live in New York. They have an apartment in New York City and they are rebuilding a house in Oaxaca, Mexico. And they’re in their 80s and she’s actually in the design space.

as a designer and of tabletop and flatware and so forth. And they’re doing like exactly the way you described it. They’re doing everything that is top of the line, the newest technology. They’re very tuned in to materials. And so I think don’t make the mistake of using age as a filter when you’re working with a client. And that I think is a way to capitalize in on this being one of the

I think it would be a great idea for some people to be focusing on that particular market and marketing to that. I think there is potential out there. Well, the analogy I would use, I’m writing a story right now. I just did the interview with men’s health for men’s health, the world’s oldest fitness instructor. He is 81, but he only trains people 60 and older. So his niche.

has been to keep people healthy. And it might be something in stretching and balance and weight training. And so take that concept in fitness business and translate that over to the design business for second, third homeowners, new homeowners who are in their 60s or 70s who want to trade up. And I think the other thing that’s happening is people aren’t necessarily

scaling down, they are also scaling sideways and they’re scaling up, then they’re scaling, they might be making choice like you, I don’t want three stories anymore, I’ll go to one story. So I think those are other ways to tap into it. Well, yes, and as a matter of that is exactly what we did. We’re scaling up, we’re going 2200 square feet to 3700 square feet, because we’re ready for some more space and we want

to have that freedom and flexibility within the space that we have. So it’s a different mentality now. And I just, wasn’t sure my husband would be on board with it, but he jumped right on and he said, okay. So what would you tell your younger self at 25, knowing what you know now?

Well, first of all, I didn’t really, you know, when you’re 25 and you look at 60 and 65, it’s like really, it feels really old and it felt really, and the people that were 60 and 65 at that time did live archetype, you know, outdated archetype lives. So I think, you know, and I talked to a lot of young people about this who are 25, who are very anxious and have a lot of anxiety

their career and what are they gonna do and like, know, the pressures from their peers and I’m like, stop, you’re 25, you may live to be 90, you have a longer runway, you do not have to boil the ocean, you know, in the next year or two, the way my generation did. You know, we felt like we had to get on a career path, we had to, you know, find a partner, we had to have children, we had, if we chose to have children, we had to buy a house, we had to do all that before we were

And today, you know, I think there is much more of a long of an elasticity to that in in as well as making choices that you never don’t ever want to get married or you don’t want to have children or you don’t. You know, I’ve got plenty of people in the family, myself included. We have no children and many people in the family who are in their 20s and 30s who making decisions. They don’t want to have children. And, you know, you can make you can.

If you go back 40 years, it was really hard independently to make those kinds of decisions. But now it’s very so I wish I I wish I had had the foresight, but I didn’t have enough wisdom to sort of break through the cultural barriers that were there to say, yeah, you know, I, can do a lot of different things. So I would have probably I wish I had that wisdom. So now I’m trying to impart that wisdom to 25 year olds.

I love that. That’s great. Well, somebody needs to that because I do see a lot of anxiety in the younger people right now. We have a lot of people we serve in our community, some are in their twenties and thirties and you can see the angst on their face. I really feel for them because in the end, you’ve got to really enjoy life along the journey and the journey is meant to be not easy.

But if we take our time and make good decisions based on values, we’re going to be happier. So happy based on money and all of the things that would please other people. need to please ourselves. Exactly right. Well, what are three takeaways you’d like to share with our listeners today? I think the top takeaway around this conversation is release yourself from self -imposed ageism, self -imposed ageism. You know, we get

It’s changing, but we still get so many cultural cues around aging and therefore ageism is embedded in a lot of our culture and society and what we get, the input we get from the world around us. It’s just the opposite in Asia. If you go to Singapore, you go to Japan, once again, there’s a whole different attitude about it. But if you release yourself from self -imposed

The byproduct of that is you don’t get stuck into this thing of, that’s not age appropriate. You get stuck into a vision that I want to be, it’s person appropriate. That in fact, you may want to build a house, you know, a new house in the second half of your life. You may want to do many things that you’re holding yourself back from doing and the barriers are your own. So release yourself from those barriers. And that’s part of the art of your re -imagination.

process. I think the part two of that is reimagination and reinvention is possible at any age. You can do it at 30, 50, 70, 90. You can reimagine your life and your life path at any age. And oftentimes we once again put that barrier in front of us and say, well, I can’t do that because. And then my last takeaway would

you are probably gonna live longer than you think. So are you prepared for that? Are you prepared to, do you have purpose? Do you have a reason to get up in the morning? Are you healthy? Are you watching your numbers? Are you looking at your financial security? Like, you prepared to live a long life? And once again, you know, if you’re healthy, you may live a much longer life than you think. And you often hear these stories of people

saying, I didn’t think I was gonna live this long, or I didn’t think, or I’m afraid the number one concern is people are afraid they’re gonna run out of money. So are you prepared? Are you doing the things that are gonna give you a nice and lovely life as you live longer? And that may mean you and I are from the same bolt of cloth. We wanna work forever and do our respective businesses forever.

You may want to work longer, but doing something that you really love and you’re passionate about to make additional money, et cetera. But be prepared to live a longer life because it’s here. It’s here. I love it. Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your book. And I am so glad you’re doing what you’re doing. And I do encourage everyone to read the show notes. Go check out Michael’s website, read his articles and join the join the movement because.

Honestly, it’s huge and I think the opportunities are amazing for all of us. So Michael, it’s pleasure. up for our newsletter. It’s a freebie. Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Michael, and we look forward to seeing you around, hopefully in New York. Gail. Great to see you. Take care.

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Many interior designers today maintain one or more social media accounts as a means of promoting themselves and their firms. Many also say they don’t get much new business from their social media efforts. In part that may be because they’re not really familiar with the best ways to leverage their social media presence.

In this episode, Gail talks with Laurie Laizure, founder of the Interior Design Community (IDC). As the name implies, the Interior Design Community was established to be an online place where design industry professionals come together and share tips, tricks, and industry information, ask questions, or just vent. Today, with some 94,000 members, the IDC has a presence on Instagram and Facebook. Its activities include offering questions of the day to encourage designers to share and learn from one another, spotlighting interior designers doing exciting projects, and sharing the industry news or initiatives that matter most to its members.

Laurie’s expertise with social media goes back to the early days of Google+ a decade ago. She has been experimenting with and testing various social media technologies and services ever since. The key to any and all social media success, she explained, is commitment.

“If you really want to be great at social media you have to spend a lot of time at it,” she said. “Don’t do social media if you’re not going to do it well.”

That involves not only keeping your content fresh but also making time to interact with viewers, followers and queries. It’s called “social” media for a reason. “Engagement is everything,” she said. People coming to your social media channel or page are not just passively eyeballing images, videos and other content. They are looking for a response from you.

What kind of content should you post? “Share what you know,” Laurie advised. Don’t just post photos of projects with no information or explanation. Viewers want to know how you did it and why you did it. Combine great visuals with storytelling. Think “infotainment.”

Be clear about who you are trying to reach. “Designers often make the mistake of posting as though they are posting to other designers, not to potential clients,” she said. What do potential clients care about and want to know? Take time to understand what their problems and challenges are. Offer them solutions, and demonstrate how working with you can save them time and money.

Laurie also shared some best practices for posting on different platforms, as well as strategies for growing your following. For all that and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e8-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

To learn more about the Interior Design Community, go to the IDC website at interiordesigncommunity.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c394j8tiI1sEpisode TranscriptNote: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Click to show transcriptWelcome, Lori. We have known each other for so many years and I’ve always admired your commitment to the interior design industry. So I want you to tell us a bit about your background. How did you get involved in the industry in the first place? Well, it was sort of by accident. I came into this industry from the printing industry. I worked in the fine art reproduction industry for a long time. I knew that industry very well, knew all the players in that industry well.

And I’d run across this material that was at the time very new that you print on it, stick it onto a wall and peel it off. was a peel and stick wallpaper material. Back when digital printed wallpaper was like not even out there yet, really. And I recognized it was something that would be kind of interesting to do. I thought it would be, you know, something that would take, you know, as far as if you’re thinking of the fine art reproduction market,

you don’t have to frame it. don’t have to, you’re really just cutting the pieces, rolling them, boxing them and shipping them rather, very little finishing goes into it. but there, and there’s a lot of quantity of materials used for wallpaper. So I thought this is a really interesting product. And I think that I might want to do something with it. At the same time, my brother was an addict. And unfortunately we, my husband and I had to take custody of

He had three kids, we had one of our own. And so overnight we went from a house of like one family of three. And I, at the time worked for a company where I had to do some traveling, my husband worked for a company where he was doing some traveling, so we were juggling that. And we got custody of these three little kids who needed a lot of help and care. And we loved them so much, we wanted to give them as much attention as possible. So it kind of seemed like…

well, this is the right time to do this. You know, let’s just go into this wallpaper business. When I wasn’t really a hundred percent committed or prepared to do that. And so I thought, you know what, one of the things I hit on really quickly was condo complexes. And I got a bunch of them in the local area to put our samples in and we started getting orders from those people. But I knew I needed to invest in website and I needed to invest in social media.

and that was brand new and I needed to get in touch with people that would specify this kind of material. And so I kind of thought it’d be great. I joined a couple of interior design chats on Twitter and I just found it was really like there was nowhere to go to share information. I was really starting to get super fascinated about digital marketing and websites and like I just fell into that bucket and just like absorbing as much as I could and

and paying attention to it. And I had felt like I had information to share and that other people probably had information to share. And I didn’t, how do we, there was nowhere to share it. Like Twitter was just not a space that allowed for you to go into deep conversation. Like, are you using the scheduling tools to get onto Pinterest when Pinterest was brand new? And how are you getting conversions from

emails and how are you doing? You know, there were just so much of it out there and, you know, so many tips and tricks and so many new emerging products that I, you know, I felt like I could share some information I could learn from someone else. And then at the time, Google Plus was the place to be because they were, you know, they’re they’re they own search. Right. So like 90 percent of search happens on Google. And

At the time, their social media network, Google +, if you put a link in it, it would automatically index that link faster. They were doing really neat things with this thing called authorship, where you’d have a picture of your own face on your blog to show that you had authority on a specific subject, which was awesome. And they started this thing called Communities. And I thought, okay, I’m gonna start this thing. I’m just gonna do it. I didn’t care what would happen to it at the time. I was just

I’ll have a spot. I’ll invite some people I’ve met through Twitter and whatever to come into this group and see where goes. And I didn’t really have any expectations. I just started interior design community and within a day we had over 200 members and it just never stopped growing wherever we put it. I mean, it just, and it sort of became a bigger focus and more, I became more passionate about it than the wallpaper business. So I ended up selling the wallpaper business

focusing on that. So that’s really how I jumped into it. Long story, but. Wow, that’s great. Well, and you’ve got a real passion for it. And you also have a passion for social media. I’ve seen you everywhere for a very, very long time. And so how did you learn how to use it so well, so quickly? I think it’s a lot of mixture of reading from reliable sources that are

doing or developing these products and also testing for yourself to see what works. I’m gonna be straight up with you. Like if you’re really gonna be great at social media, you have to spend a lot of time doing it because they want you on the platform. So you have to be able to have the time to do that. So my kids would be at school or when everybody’s playing video games, I’m on there doing

testing a post or responding to someone or in DMs or putting a story up or making a graphic or something like that. So I was always trying to figure it out and trying to see what worked and what didn’t work and how that tested. I’m a very analytical person. So I would definitely look at the analytics and see what worked and what wasn’t working and what people responded to versus.

what they didn’t respond to and how I could grow. I actually really liked the process of growing, but I also liked how rewarding it was to help as many people as we were helping over time. It’s such a wonderful thing when you’re like, hey, you could do this an easier way and you tell someone and then they come back to you two weeks later and they’re like, thank you so much, that helped me so much. You’re just

It’s like a little drug almost, you know, that endorphin that you get from like helping someone solve a problem. And we just did that over and over and over and over and over again, thousands of thousands of times. So it just, it was exciting. fun. What platforms are the most important ones for designers today? You know, visual platforms I think are still the most popular. So if I were investing in, you

in social media as a designer today, I would still be on Instagram. think that leading into doing more video content and duplicating that video content onto TikTok, because I think TikTok is the fastest growing social media network there is right now. So and you can it’s do it’s duplicate. So you can put it on as real. You can put it on as a TikTok. You’re not spending more time doing it. It’s just one piece of content. Plus, I think that there’s just really

a great way to use video to tell a story. People are not expecting and actually there’s science that goes along with this. They don’t want polished videos of you with professional videographer making it look sparkly and like a commercial. want real, like, tell me the truth. How does that work? They want the real advice. They want that realness from you. And there are so many…

points in a designer’s day that I just see that that’s content. That’s content right there. You when you came in to your client site and you know, the tile was the wrong tile. That’s content. And not only are you creating content for your audience, but you’re also teaching your potential next client how you work, what the process of design looks like. You you can’t complain.

that like HGTV or the TV thing is is unrealistic for designers and then not provide another alternative. And the alternative is share what you know. And it’s beyond the pretty picture. It’s beyond the finished, everything’s curated image, which we all know if you’ve ever been on a Photoshop or design, all the other rooms around it look terrible while

propped everything up to a perfect in this one little picture, the reality of design. Why did you choose the things you chose? Why did you do this in this way? What is your process? What are you saving your client from thinking about just because you have these thoughts in your head? So it’s so much content that a designer can bring to the table that visually and storytelling can entertain.

their audience, but also educate them. So edutainment. Yeah. Yes. Infotainment is, guess, infotainment is the way to go. OK. So also just a question, since you mentioned that you should be posting also on TikTok. What about Facebook? What about LinkedIn? What do you think about those platforms?

I would think different for LinkedIn. mean, I think that there’s ways to be strategic on LinkedIn. You you could link in with business owners in your local area. You could link in with editors for magazines you want to be published in. You could link in with brands that you want to work with. You know, there’s a strategy there too, a thoughtful strategy and reaching out and one -off

and showing what you do on every platform has their own strategy and you can be successful on every any platform you choose to to go for. But they’re all different on Facebook. I think ads are a great way to do it, but really super, super targeted ads. So if I were a designer in where I live, I would put together instead of like women from, you know,

40 to 60, I wouldn’t make that a broad, you know, an audience. I would make it like men and women, a certain age. would make it people who follow the local boarding school or people who follow, who are, who like the Mercedes dealership in my town, who like the Land Rover dealership, people

are belong to the Manchester Country Club. Things like that, where you can create these small little pockets of ads. And then I would do an ad of what, with my best photography and my best pictures of what I do and advertise that, are you looking to renovate? Are you da -da -da? And be the solution and think about, oftentimes I think about marketing from,

The way I market is different than the way a designer should market. And that sometimes I always, have to bridge that gap. Like this is how you, I can give you all the tips on how you could get designers to follow you, but they want clients, potential clients to follow them. And so they have to start thinking in the mindset of not designers. I see this all the time actually, is designers will make a mistake of posting like they’re posting to other designers.

and they relate to their peers and not to their potential client. And they have to think about what is my potential client care about? What matters to, I think about that from designers. I think what do they care about? What are they afraid of? at this point we have 11 years of doing this. I’ve heard from hundreds of designers. So I know what they’re passionate about. I know what they fear.

I’ve had heart to heart conversations with designers. I’ve had phone calls with tears. Like I’ve heard it all at this point. know, I know, I know designers very well. I know a lot about them and you need to know that much about your potential clients. You need to know, you know, are they overworked? Are they tired? Are they, you know, do they have easy time communicating, a hard time communicating? How do they like to be communicated with? You know,

Is it the man making decisions or the woman making decisions? Do they have kids? Do they have no kids? Do they love sports? they value having free time or they really workaholics? All of the things that you can think of that encapsulates a client. You have to think about how to categorize them and how to meet

in their needs, you know, and how you can work with them. And I think that’s a lot about like, that’s really all marketing is, is knowing who you’re talking to, you know, at the end of the day. Sure. And understanding their problems and having a solution for that. Yeah. Right. Because, I mean, that’s what they’re buying, right? At the end of the day, they’re buying that solution to the problem. So, you know, and understanding what they’re going through in the process, I think

Sometimes the design gets this bad rap that it’s very exclusive and prices are gonna go start going up. But the reality that I see in design is that it’s a navigator in the process of construction that saves money and time because they’re able to, they’ve done this.

so many times before, so they know the process and they know where you can fall into problems and they know how to get you to the right conclusions that are gonna give you the best results. And that saves you money and that saves you time. And I think that’s rarely talked about in design. It’s always like the luxury of it when really there’s so much more that goes into thoughtful decisions that really save time, save money.

Those are all very true statements. And I think that’s a really good point, which helps people not just in their social media, but also thinking about how they close a client deal. Somebody comes to them and they talk to that client. That’s what the client needs to know is what is that connection? What can they do saving the money, saving the time? All of those things are really critical to buyers too. And it’s many closings of a deal. It’s not just one closing of the deal, the closing of the deal.

where yes, they’re now your client, that’s one closing, but then you have hundreds, if not thousands of closings of sales every time you talk to them. You’re selecting lamps, you’re selecting sofas, you’re closing, closing, always be closing, you’ll be seized. That’s definitely a big part of it. So let’s go to this next question, which is really talking about how much the algorithms have changed for a lot of the

platforms, including Instagram and Facebook and all of those. So what are some of the keys to growing your following since today it’s not as easy as it was even five or 10 years ago? You know, the real thing that’s really helping me grow is video. I do as if you follow Interior Design Community, we have two posts for you normally do, which is one is a meme, funny video post, and

get me followers. They do, because they have and they get a lot more traction than my questions. But the questions get more comments and more conversation. they’re two different vehicles that I drive. One is going out there to people I don’t know, know, so that video gets shared. You know, we have videos that get shared a thousand times, two thousand times. So not only are my followers seeing it, but

their followers are seeing it, if they’re sharing it. So that’s how I will get new followers through video, especially videos that have information in them that people wanna share. So something funny, something interesting, anything that will get you shares is going to get you more followers, but then you still need things that you don’t always, that doesn’t have to be, you don’t have to use the same tool every time. And so we do questions, which maybe they don’t get as much,

new followers from our questions, but we get great conversations that are happening with the people that are in our tribe. So, you know, I think that they’re both very valuable to what we’re doing here. know, one is that like comic relief and making people feel like they’re not alone. And the question also like makes people feel not alone, gives them education, helps them.

navigate a difficult situation, those kinds of things. Should our listeners focus on one platform over another and or that should they just focus on one platform like Instagram? You know, I think it depends on what what they have time to do and what they want to do. You know, if you really hate social media, you don’t have to do social media. There are other marketing avenues for you. Maybe maybe you would like

Pick up every magazine that’s local to you and national for you. And you want to write down every writer and every editor and you want to link in with them and you want to really work on getting yourself in magazines. That’s like that’s what you want. You want to get in blogs and you want to network with like like minded businesses. know the people that would have clientele that would attract the same clientele that you have. Like maybe you’re going to network with the owner of the local steakhouse because

he’s bringing in that luxury client too. And how can you, maybe they do an event where they have a wine food pairing thing and they have a little talk or something and you’re at the golf club and they have maybe a little women’s group that comes in or something. There’s always networking opportunities in your surrounding area that are boots on the ground, go out and meet people. If you don’t like social media, you don’t have to use

You don’t have to do it. I people feel like it’s a must. It’s better to not do it if you’re not gonna do it at all. You know what I mean? Like if you’re just gonna once a year do a post, it’s confusing to people. Like, are you in business? Are you not in business on here? You know, those kinds of things. And then you have to remember it’s social. So there is a component of

that doesn’t shut off and that can be annoying. like there is, I’m communicating with designers and all hours of the day. Sometimes I’ll have a designer bring a problem to me when I’m going through a problem myself, personally. So there’s things like that that can happen and you try to have to like, but there’s still that job of that, of that communication. They don’t know that they’re talking to you at a time when…

whatever just happened in your own life, those kinds of things. So because of social media, it is not real life. It’s not, these aren’t, it’s part of your life, but it’s a very visual, this is what I’m sharing. This is what people see. There’s a whole other part of it that people don’t see and that’s reality. So I think it’s just, it’s about what you choose to do. And then making a plan.

like us being strategic about it and how are you gonna go about it to get the results that you want? So if it is picking one, that’s the time that you have to dedicate to it. Looking at all of them, thinking about where strengths and weaknesses lie. Like, are you better on email than you are on trying to get on a video? Maybe LinkedIn would be better because you can like network with people.

locally or Facebook groups would be a good way for you to interject that you’re a designer or maybe you’re not great at taking any, you want to be able to participate in content, don’t want to produce content, things like that. Being honest with yourself about

Well, and it’s interesting because our team, I like LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn most days. Erin is on Instagram every day and we haven’t touched Twitter in years. Facebook, well, you know, might get a little attention. either. I haven’t touched Twitter in years. TikTok. So we’ve kind of picked our areas and I just happen to like LinkedIn because I’m more business oriented and she’s more visually oriented. So we kind of split our

responsibilities. So maybe you can find somebody within your own company that has an interest in one or the other and they can be the chairman of that particular. I think that’s a great idea. You know, I mean, it doesn’t have to always be you, you know, and then sometimes you can use resources or ideas to like get your content calendar put together too, you know, so that you’re, you know, if someone else, if you’re not great with video, but maybe you have someone on your team that is great on video.

you allow them to do some video content for you or you think about how you can fit that into the content calendar for the year, you know, and how that could work. I hear you. Okay. Social media impact SEO on a designer’s website.

Well, there’s lots of ways that it doesn’t necessarily impact SEO because they’re not really super linked. You can put your Twitter link and your Instagram and your LinkedIn and all of those on the bottom of your page, but they have their own search optimization. People do search now on Instagram for, it is its own search engine.

It’s almost they’re disconnected in that way. SEO works just as, I mean, that’s really where Instagram and LinkedIn have gone is to create their own, basically it’s like their own Google. So you can search that way. You can find people that are in your area that way. A lot of people vet designers through social media without even ever going to a Facebook page or website. And I have designers who don’t have a website at all. They just have social media.

So, but it could be great for us for how interior design community, I use sometimes the questions of the day as a springboard for blog content. So they’re great because they have great, know, our members contribute such amazing answers that we can create a blog article around that topic. And we can pull quotes from

our members about what they said about certain topics and we’re able to include, give them a link back to their Instagram page. So we’re pushing people back to look at them. But it’s really solid, amazing advice from people that are experienced in what they do. So it helps us for SEO that way. I see.

What are some of the best practices for posting and how often and what type of posts get the most engagement? I know you talked about video being really important today, but besides that, what else? I would say it depends on the platform. So sometimes the best case scenario is working in a group, like in one of the groups. LinkedIn has some amazing groups, Facebook has some amazing groups, and sometimes networking in those groups is the best way to

to get engagement. And so you might go in in the morning and just chit chat about certain things and, you know, answer questions. And then that shows you as an expert and people want to hire you. Sometimes it is creating great a video that is showing what you do and how you do it. You know, I follow this, this woman, I think her name is Erin Setzer, something she is Holmes and she works with

She does a lot of like, she’s more of a contractor type and she does a lot of videos on how they do certain things, like how they hide the outlets or, I remember her doing one on pocket doors where she talks about painting the interior black so that when you’re opening it and closing it, you’re not seeing the guts of the pocket door.

when they put that together, when they’re putting it together, they paint everything black on the inside. And I was like, you know, just these little things that designers think about every day, you know, just little moments that they’re creating. You know, I remember a designer years ago talking about how she’d worked with this fabric and it would snag. And so she didn’t like to send it out to the workroom to be hemmed. She’d have the workroom come and hand hem it.

because if you didn’t do it that way, it just wouldn’t hang correctly because of the way the material worked. so she’s thinking ahead of the game, what can I do to alleviate any kind of worry from my client down the line that I don’t know how to handle these situations. I’m gonna head them off. Well, all of those things that you do,

are also really great content. And what it does is it shows that you’re an expert and you know what you’re doing and how you’re thinking about the process of how you order. Like you have to order the sink before you’re ordering your countertops because you have to give your sink to your countertop fabricator so that it can be under mount, so they can measure it so it can be cut properly to be undermounted.

And some people don’t know, you know, if you were just, they don’t know that your client doesn’t know that, that these are things that you’re thinking about ahead of time, because that’s the process of putting in a kitchen. They just think, you know, I’m giving you the money for the check for the kitchen, you know, and when is all this going to be done? You know, so if you’re showing them, you know, how difficult it is or what the steps are, these are, these are the things that need to happen in this order.

It also educates them about what the job really is and why it takes as long as it takes and what the steps are to go through the process of design. And I think there’s just not enough content out there about that. I think that we could do a lot better job, you know, showing that part of the process and really showing how brilliant designers are. They’re always thinking about

creative solutions to really, you know, difficult problems within a home to provide a client with such a great experience with their own home, like how they live their lives. So it’s just, it’s interesting to me that designers will sometimes choose to just like, just do profile pictures and portfolio pictures over and over and not get into the nitty gritty of like, okay, here’s how that was done. You know what I mean? Like here’s.

here’s what I did on this project, you And even in websites, you know, how often, Gail, do you look at someone’s website, a designer’s website, and their portfolio has no words in it? None. It’s just like the pictures. Which they’re great. Yeah, they’re great, but it’s like, what happened in that project? Like there’s a whole story there. There’s a

story, a huge part of that designer’s life went into those pictures, you know? Tell people what it was. With who they were with the clients, what did they want from you? And these are the same practices you should be doing when you’re pitching to get at your work in magazines too. Like feed the story to the writers. You can go in any magazine and it tells you who the writers are. You can write to that magazine and they’ll send you the editorial calendar.

you can write to them and say, hey, I think this would work for your June issue next year. You’re going to be talking about outdoor kitchens. And we did this beautiful outdoor kitchen in the Hamptons. we did this, here’s the client. They had this problem. We came in and we came up with a solution. And we wanted to position the stove in such a way that the

The fumes from the gas grill wouldn’t reach into the home or into the pool area. You know, we were, this is how we solve that problem with events. And, you know, we put these plants here to detract from mosquitoes and, you know, all the things that you do think about in design and then feed that feed it as a story and then put in like, obviously like brands really liked because you’re that brands love a shout out, you know, you’re building partnerships.

You know, certainly if you’re pitching to a magazine, think about which brands you use, their advertisers, they care about, mean, that’s what they care about, you know? So, and you have to think about these things. If I were coming onto your website, what would I want to know about you? What would I want to think? You know, how am I going to learn about what you do if you’re not telling me what you do and what your process is? So I think the more we are open about the process

letting that and letting ourselves be vulnerable in that because it is hard to do. I’m not going to say it isn’t to be vulnerable and to share yourself in that way and to mess up a little bit and maybe not look perfect when you’re telling the story, but you’re getting out the story. I think it’s I think it’s really charming and it’s it lets people know who you really are. And that’s who they’re working. That’s who they want to hire this you the person, you know, so and you the team.

So knowing a little bit about that is really good. Sure. How important is engagement on social media? I think engagement is everything. I honestly think it’s, you know, it’s about we’re all people. Social media is should be social. You know, it’s it’s about knowing people and getting to, you know, I have met so I mean, you know, we met so many wonderful people on social media.

and that I never would have, I I live in a small city in New Hampshire. I would not have met the people that I’ve met in my career if I had just stayed in my little bubble and not had a social life beyond it. I have lots of local friends and lots of local family, but in order to be online and to do this online, you have to give of yourself and you have to learn about other people and be social with them.

and engage with them and talk with them. If you’re putting out content and you’re never giving back to the people that you’re just putting something, you’re not going to go anywhere. People want someone responds to them and wants someone who listens to them and cares about them. And it’s gotta be kind of, I mean, it really does have to be genuine in that way, you know? And that’s a really wonderful thing is designers really love what they do.

So that’s not gonna be hard for them to share. Like this is what I do and this is what I love. And then like, just let that be, the work is the work and just let that live there and people will like it or they won’t and don’t be so afraid of that. If someone is just starting on social media, hasn’t given it much attention, how important is it in the marketing arsenal today? I know you said that

People don’t want to do it, don’t do it, but if you’re counseling somebody, what do you say? You know, I should say, if I’m a student, if you’re a student and you know you’re in the world of design and you, I think the very first thing is I would tell people, claim your social media, claim your web address early, start thinking about that stuff from an early standpoint.

and really giving it some serious thought, because I know so many designers who’ve regretted the decisions that they’ve made with branding. And there are lots of schools of thought on it. Like, you want to be, from my name, Lori Lasher, do I want to be Lori Lasher into your design? Do I want to be Lori Lasher Studios? Do I want to have my name in there? Do I want to have like,

Maybe I just want to be, you know, spotlight design or something like that, you know, and what play out the scenarios of that, you know, so how could that work? Like, for instance, what if you get married and your new name is not that name you picked? What if you get divorced and that name is doesn’t feel like your name anymore? What if you hire people and then they don’t? mean, the school thought was always your name plus design and

I don’t know that that is a really the best strategic plan anymore because of so many life changes that can happen. And I think that also like you’ll have, you know, junior staff come on and then maybe they don’t want to deal with the junior staff because your name is on the, you know, you’re the name that they hired and they want you and how do you get them to respect the junior staff as well as they do you. And that stuff kind of plays

in several scenarios over and over again. We’ve seen it from, you know, people who have their children on their team or people who have spouses on their team or just people that they hire on their team. And it’s hard, it’s a hard transition. And then to build a business that is, has a succession plan from the very beginning, thinking about if I wanted to sell this business in 20 years, how am I going to be able to do that? So thinking about these things, I know it sounds

crazy as a person who’s just starting the idea, but you’re buying real estate and you’re even if it’s free, these are you’re picking your handle. You’re picking your website. You’re picking those things and you’re kind of thinking like, what do I want my future career to be? And you could do a few of them because you just have different plans. Like, do I want to go with my name? These are free to do. So why not? Your name design, your name.

you know, buy the URL and then buy another name you really like, you know, maybe your mom made name and, you know, house or something, you know, whatever you like that could look like a plan for your future. And then if I was a student, I would be networking with people that could give me a job. When I get out of design school, I would be posting what I am learning. You know, we did a post a while ago that was asked our

our community, what would you be looking for in a hire from a design school? And they said, we really like people who know social media. We really like people who know CAD. We really like people who are team players. So show some of these qualities while you’re networking, while you’re in school, because you have content. Once you graduate, your content kind of disappears a little

You don’t have those weekly projects that you’re supposed to, or monthly projects that you’re supposed to be working on for school. You don’t have access to the samples. You don’t have access to the CAD programs that you have for free. All of those things that you were playing around with for school are content to show that you know what you’re doing, that you’re building knowledge. So I always tell people, it’s free to do this. Why not sign up and get your names, put those all in a, you

in a file that you’ve got like, you’ve got claimed URLs on everything. If you don’t use them, you don’t have to, but you have them if you want to use them down the line. Okay. Well, you’ve given us a lot of tips. So let’s pick three that are your favorites to share to end the call today. Sure. I would say, well, that one, like claim your spaces, especially if there’s something new comes out. Like even if you’re not going to use it, I remember when

when threads came out for Instagram, that same day, I’m not a big Twitter person anymore, but I was like, I’ll just sign up for threads. what they did was they had everybody who follows you automatically followed you on threads in the beginning. I don’t know if it still works that way, but so you’d get the followers really quickly because they already follow you on Instagram. If they signed up for threads, they’d automatically follow you on threads. So if there’s a new social media that you’re

that’s interesting. Get your name right away. Why not? And start to recognize what you’re good at. I think the second one is start to recognize what you’re good at, what you like to do, what the resources on your team look like, and divide the marketing plan that makes sense for the skills that you have. And third, always remember who you’re marketing to. Always. Because you’re not marketing to your friends or your family or your fellow design.

friends out there, you are marketing to a potential client and you really need to think about that. Like you’re on, you know, criminal minds and you’re an FBI agent trying to profile someone. You need to build a profile for your client and you need to know who they are, what they want and how they, what they respond to and think about content that goes along with that, know, educating them about what goes along with that, not just what you want to share, but also what they want to

Awesome. These are great tips and I really appreciate it so much. I think this is really interesting and I’m sure we could spend hours having conversations about social media. But thank you for being on the podcast. Yes, thank you.

View Details

As with any major transaction, many things can go wrong when selling a business. You need to be well-informed and diligent from the very beginning. Some mistakes or oversights could end up reducing the value of your firm or saddling you with a high tax liability. Working with qualified professionals from the start can help ensure you get the most value and other conditions you want from your sale.

In this episode, Gail invites attorney Manny Clark to the podcast to discuss what factors owners need to consider and plan for when deciding on their exit strategy from their business. Manny is a corporate and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) lawyer and shareholder in the firm Winstead, P.C. His practice is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Manny stressed the importance of developing an exit strategy as early on in the creation of the business as possible. He also recommended that when it comes time to execute that exit strategy owners engage the counsel of qualified professionals at the start. Doing so can help prevent costly mistakes or delays and ensure that the seller gets the best deal possible.

Gail asked Manny what owners should ask when seeking a professional to work with. First, he said, ask them about their ability to handle your transaction.

• Do they have experience in your industry?
• How many sales or mergers of your kind have they performed before and what was the outcome?
• Ask them to explain what issues are involved in the transaction.
• If you are working with a firm, find out who is going to be leading the transaction and doing the actual work; a senior member or a junior member?
• How much experience does that person have with your kind of transaction?
• What fees can you expect and when will they be due?

Manny then walked through the three major stages of executing the exit strategy. “The single most important thing you have to do is consider that you have to exit your business,” he said. Be clear in your mind what you want your exit to look like and who should be involved in it. That includes putting together a team of qualified professionals to help you with various aspects of the process, such as an M&A lawyer or broker, investment advisor, CPA, and evaluator.

The other stages involve setting your house in order, especially your financials, and organizing your business. “You ultimately have to understand how your business grows,” Manny said, and what are the prospects for future growth for the buyer.

Manny also listed some of the biggest mistakes sellers make in exiting their businesses as well as some of the challenges of trying to sell a small business. For many more details, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e7-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Manny and to contact him directly, go to his page on the Winstead, P.C. website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2_OralVUxUEpisode TranscriptNote: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Click to show transcriptHi, Manny, thank you for joining us today on the Creative Genius podcast. You and I chatted a few months ago and I thought it would be of great value to our listeners to think about their exit strategy. We’ve had a few other people on our podcast to talk about their experiences as sellers of businesses and we’ve had people that have been on that are actually brokers for businesses. So now we’re going to talk to you from the aspect of you being an attorney.

So welcome to the podcast. Awesome. I’m so glad to be here. really appreciate the opportunity, Gail, and so excited to talk to you and to speak to you, the creative, genius listeners. All right. Well, thank you so much. Well, let’s talk about your role and how you’re involved with business owners in the process of exiting their businesses.

Absolutely. So, you know, from my perspective, and I’m an &A attorney, very often I’m counseling both buyers and sellers in connection with their &A transactions. And quite a lot of my practice involves counseling sellers as they are preparing for and ultimately implementing their exits from their business. And there are all kinds of different exits. And I’ll talk a little bit more about, you know, what different kinds there

today. But within that role, I’d say I really do three things. know, one, I am primarily there to consult with the seller about what are their objectives with respect to their exit and also to help them understand what is possible in connection with their exit. And I can give a bit of an example for that. So you may have some sellers who are interested in ultimately retiring. They see their exit as a plan

you know, obtain kind of final exit liquidity, you know, infuse their retirement nest egg to prepare for, you know, going off into the sunset. And for those kinds of sellers, counseling them in connection with their transaction may mean helping them enumerate legally, you know, a successor to the business. So that may be in the course of, you know, sale negotiating alongside a buyer for

employment contract to keep the employees associated with the business. It may also involve ensuring that non -compete terms, indemnification terms, which are basically the ways in which a seller covers a buyer for problems with the business that occur, that arise or result from some of the pre -closing activities of the buyer, that those things are appropriate for someone who is ultimately

be leaving the business. So that’s one thing I do it. I try and ensure that your objectives are met in connection with the sale transaction. Secondly, it is advising you with respect to what exactly it is within your buyer’s offer. So as sellers, we obviously as lawyers understand you may not be intimately involved with all of the dynamics of emerging and &A transactions.

However, it’s important to note that it is very much a transaction that sits squarely within the realm of corporate finance. The professionals who are frequently involved in creating their entire lives as finance professionals. is very often corporate development professionals, chief executives, CFOs, who often leading this process within strategic buyers that is companies.

Folks from private equity or very frequently folks who have been analysts and investment bankers at very large investment banks throughout the country. And so the folks you were dealing with are used to certain kinds of transactions or willing to give and are willing to enter into certain types of trades when it comes to a merger and acquisition transaction. And so my job is to help you understand what terms attend those trades,

you can get and what may be unrealistic as a part of that. And then finally, it’s to negotiate on your behalf and ultimately seek a closing on behalf of sellers. So that is, I will try for my position as an &A attorney and with my knowledge to seek the best deal for you, to try and implement whatever exit strategy you would like to implement and that’s possible alongside a buyer and ultimately do all the things that

help you get to a closing, including we need to refer in different individuals, either from my firm or from outside firms to assist. And that’s lawyers, accountants, investment bankers. It is helping you sign things. We’ve done pretty much everything. is core your services at midnight to get signatures if necessary. So that really is my role within the &A process. OK, so you’re babysitting the whole process, in other words. Exactly.

That is that’s precisely it. And we enjoy that. And I enjoy that my pride is this is difficult. And you know, I know it is a trade. It’s a financial trade. And so it is something where someone who is not accustomed to this kind of trade does need a little bit of hand holding. And that’s fine. Everyone needs experts to, you know, to refer to. And in this case, we get to be that for our clients.

Well, it’s very complicated. just finished a podcast with someone else who just sold her business last week, closed on it and is done. And ironically, as an interior designer, she actually has, she was an investment banker first. And so she came into this with a lot of knowledge, but it was so interesting having the conversation and understanding from her perspective that even with that knowledge, she didn’t know all the things that she was going to encounter.

And her comment was that the transaction attorney was the most important part of her whole process of having somebody who really understood the ins and outs of the agreements and how to negotiate those and what the contracts meant. And I just thought I would share that with you because we literally just finished that podcast about an hour ago.

So it is it’s wonderful to hear that. I’m sure that there are clients who, you know, view who share her feelings. You know, from my position, I certainly think it’s the case. We we hold a really interesting position in the set of advisors in the sense that we are, you know, an advisor who, you know, due to our ethical obligations are required to represent you zealously to look towards your interests in either the seller or the company’s

before our own and additionally, even where it may implicate potential conflicts. And we have to get rid of those conflicts from our perspective. in our view, we need to be intimately into what it is you want out of your transaction and fighting for that at all times. So I’m glad that she got that in Connection Threat Transaction. She She ended up with a very successful sale.

She’s very organized and very thorough and luckily has super clean books. So she knew what a lot of what she needed to do to go and prepare for this. Thank goodness. She made it easy on everyone and herself. Well, it wasn’t easy according to her. So that’ll be interesting for everybody to hear that conversation with Kirsten Kaplan. It’s her name. So how soon should you as the transaction attorney be involved in the process of the sale of the business and why so soon?

Sure. I will note, I think there are differing opinions about when to involve a transaction attorney. I would say, I think the preference, this may be the preference among lawyers, but I would say it also, there are quite a lot of number of benefits to it, which is, I think it is important for clients at the start of their entrepreneurial journey to try and establish a relationship, even if it is a small one, with a competent business law

That business law firm can do small things for you. Hopefully that you do not find to be quite taxing when it comes to fees. But having that relationship allows that firm to give you counsel from the beginning. That counsel helps to ensure that what you’re preparing when it comes to your own organizational elements, end up being at the end of the deal or during the deal, one of the most important things that you can do, you make representations to it that often

you know, become what are called fundamental representations in that, you know, a buyer will want coverage for it almost forever in some instances. Having a law firm back you at that stage creates a lot of institutional knowledge for that law firm, such that in connection with the sale transaction, they know where everything is. They know where the contracts are. They need to have written the contracts. In many instances, they may have prepared your organizational documents and can assure you

Pearl Collective (09:48.526)
what you have is something that a buyer would appreciate. I think there’s that benefit, certainly for sellers, and it just, makes it easy for these deals to close. However, I know a lot of sellers probably will not take that route and that’s fine. I would say, barring that, a great place to start with a transactional attorney is probably at the start of the year or 12 months before you believe you’re gonna enter your sale transaction. That’s likely.

around the exact same time that you may have also hired an investment advisor with respect to your transaction. The benefit there is that that is the place where your investment advisor and your lawyer can work together really collaboratively. If you are say, you’ve hired an investment advisor and then investment advisor has determined, look, we think your best price could ultimately be obtained by going to auction, which

your advisor is going to make a blind item, send it out to a number of buyers. You you’ll ultimately produce an information memorandum that will also go to buyers. And eventually you will whittle down to a set number of potential buyers in your transaction. At some point, your buyer may say, look, we want to get anyone out who we don’t think is going to help us get to the best deal. They’re tapping your lawyer to say, I want you to draft a bid.

you know, purchase agreement, which is effectively your version of what a perfect, perfect document will look like. that puts you in a really good position. And that’s something that often can occur six, five, six months out from an actual sale. This is where buyers are taking a look at it and saying, you know, Hey, I think I can live with this. I don’t think I can live with this. but at that point that you have secured that lawyer so far ahead.

They’ve had the opportunity to really dig into your books, get a sense of where the holes, how can we fix them? They may have prepared purchase agreements for you. They may have otherwise done things to help you get ready for your sale transaction. And ultimately they’re helping you negotiate your LOI. LOI, that stuff right there. I apologize for that too. A letter of intent. that

Pearl Collective (12:08.738)
That’s generally the document that you will execute with the buyer that puts you under exclusivity, which is your agreement with the buyer that you will not go out and try and sell your company to someone else. that, you know, having being in that position as an attorney to advise you with respect to all of those aspects, including your LOI, we get to help shake the deal for you. Often I find that when clients select us after the

we’re inheriting a deal that takes the shape that the buyer wanted it to take. And sometimes that doesn’t have the best consequences from a tax perspective or legal perspective from your indemnification. We want to put you in the best position possible. And that’s why I suggest earlier is a little better here. And you also mentioned another &A, which define that because some people don’t know what that means.

Yeah, &A is mergers and acquisitions generally. I use that to refer to all kinds of different transactions that a seller would ultimately enter into that involves a transfer with respect to the business. And that transfer could be I’m selling equity in my business, which is stock or my membership interest in my LLC. I’m selling the assets of my business. So someone, a buyer out there may say,

Well, gee, I don’t want to buy everything in the business, but you may have some really great ideas or a great IP related to something out in the world that they can generate cash flow. And they may just buy that. That’s still an &A transaction. And so it is any sale involving a major portion of your business or all of your business. OK, very good.

The other thing that I think is important here is in finding the right professional to work with you in your transaction, what are some of the questions someone should be asking to make sure they’ve got the right person on board? Absolutely. And I’ll note with respect to these questions, I think the key thing to look for when you’re talking to a lawyer is you want specificity about their ability to handle your matter.

Pearl Collective (14:29.848)
how they would handle it and what they think is important that you should also find important in your manner. So I think the first question is really, have you done deals of a similar size involving similar businesses that you can talk to me about? And what you would wanna hear from your lawyer is yes. And they may be able to tell you, I’ve done these deals, if you’re looking at or you believe your valuation is somewhere around

you know, $10 million, you know, $10 million in total, you may say, hey, I want to hear that you’ve done $10 million deals pretty often that you may do them pretty frequently and for similar businesses. The reason for that is that there are different issues that attend different businesses. You know, a sale of a manufacturing company that, you know, manufactures some product that may be highly explosive, for

The issues that attend that are very different from the issues that attend the sale of an interior design business. And you want an attorney who knows how to deal with those issues, knows how to also assuage the feelings of a buyer who may say, hey, I don’t feel comfortable with the particular issue that has come up. What comfort can you grant about it? So I think that’s the key. And you want to hear specificity about someone having done similar deals.

The second thing that I want to get a sense from is what does the person think are the principal issues associated with your transaction? Some of this is going to be dependent upon what kind of trade, what kind of transaction you’re ultimately interested in. If you’re being bought out by another company, similar to yours, that may be a competitor, the issues that attend that transaction may be very different from the ones that attend a

that is led by a private equity sponsor. So in that case, want your buyer to be able to, not your buyer, but your attorney to be able to suggest to you, here’s some of the issues you should be aware of in connection with a strategic transaction in this industry. For a strategic, in many cases, they’re gonna say, well, we may not actually want you as a part of the business. We may wanna close it. And that may, or your exit strategy may not be something you

Pearl Collective (16:51.214)
It may be the case they view, hey, we take you out, you know, the cash flow that we’re able to generate from grabbing your business, you know, sufficient for our purposes, but you look at your business say, I want my employees to continue. want, you know, I’m intending to for this and my legacy to continue through this business. And so you want your lawyer, you want to hear things from your lawyer that suggest here’s what you should be thinking about while you enter into your deal. And then the last thing that I’d want to get a sense on

who exactly is going to be leading this transaction and who’s going to be doing the work? The reason is that, and I’m a law firm attorney, I just know the damn dynamics of how we prosecute these kinds of transactions. Some transactions are ones where you’re going to be able to demand the attention of the partner associated with the transaction. So that is the lawyer with the most experience in most cases. It’s not always the case that they’re the most experienced, but they may be.

And there are other transactions where it may actually be beneficial for some of their associates, a talent, some of the younger talent to be doing a lot of the work with the transaction. You want to get a sense, how do they want to approach it? And what are the fees associated with those folks? What can they provide an estimate on what they believe those fees are? And you want the approach to make sense to you. In many cases, or particularly smaller companies,

Entrepreneurs want the most senior person on the deal close to them that they can ask questions to. They want to be walked through this. It’s their first &A deal and it makes complete sense. You should pick the team that gives you that confidence because at the end of the day, you will be reliant very heavily for your own sanity on having confidence in your legal team. So I think those are the three key things I would ask. OK, great.

I know it’s very different, but let’s just say in our industry, the typical size range of company might be two million to say $8 million. So if that’s the case, percent of what dollars should somebody set aside to do a transaction with you or with your firm? Absolutely. And so I think this is likely going to apply to my firm. And you know, some firms may disagree. I think this will apply pretty commonly across the legal industry.

Pearl Collective (19:14.798)
I would say take your transaction, what you believe to be your transaction value. So if you are an $8 million company or a $10 million company, and you would say, what is between maybe 0 .5 % to about 2 % of the transaction, that’s probably going to be your legal fees. If you’re on the smaller end, we get a little bit closer between 1 .5 % to 2%. If you are closer to $8 million or $10 million,

you’re more likely to be around 1 % or less. I’ve done a $2 million deal this year. We came in somewhere just under 1 % ultimately than what we charged. And some of this also is dependent on what kind of transaction you’re entering into. If ultimately you’re entering into a transaction where the sale really is a management buyout. So you have really sophisticated

you know, really sophisticated management team, they want to take this business over for you. They may not need all of the same things that another buyer needs, in which case, you for our purposes, legal professionals, we don’t need to dig in with you or with the buyer about all of these same things. And so our fees are less. So depends on the trade, but I’d say 0 .5 to about 2 % is, you know, generally across the

Okay, great. At least it gives us a number to work with because there are so many people involved in this whole process that somebody needs to know before they go into the sale. What am I going to have to pay? How much do I have to pay upfront? How much do I have to pay at the end of the transaction just so they can plan and know what their exit dollars will be? Absolutely. Okay, so another question is prepping for the sale.

If you were to break it down, and I don’t know if 10 steps is the right number, but you can tell me what you think the right steps would be, what are the vital things to prepare? Absolutely. So, you know, I tried in preparing for this, I tried to prepare an infographic that I think may be helpful to your listeners. I’ve entitled it, 9 Best Practices for Maximizing Sale Value. I think you should be able to get alongside your show notes.

Pearl Collective (21:37.358)
And I’ll talk a little bit about this here, but I’ve broken it down into three sections. What you should be doing three years out from your sale, what you should be doing about a year out from your sale, and then what you should be doing roughly six to three months prior to your sale. What I would say at the forefront of this is that the single most important thing you should do is consider that you have to exit your business.

everyone will exit their business. so it is important at generally at the forefront, when you establish your business or at some point you’re doing your career to consider what do I want my exit to look like? Who should be involved in it? Having those things in mind will help some of these other things come into focus. so that really, that’s the first point. It’s really understanding what is your exit strategy.

you know, to ultimately pass this business down to someone else, like a son or a daughter, or some person on your management team. Are you trying to seek maximal value, you know, out of the sale of your business? Are you, you know, potentially a person who says, I’m ready for the next go, I want to grow this to be so much bigger. And in actuality, I think what I really need is a capital partner. Getting that clarity will help determine quite a lot about what your ultimate exit looks

and will help also shade how you direct your business for the future. So that’s the first point and the first item. Point number two is getting your house in order. Getting your house in order is about doing all of the cleanup things you need to do to prepare for a sale. I think firstly and primarily is the case that among lower middle market businesses and lower middle market is these are generally company between five million to $50 million.

of annual revenue. Among those businesses, it is often the case that they are operating with the intention of doing financial reporting that is for their taxes. And it is to reduce ultimately their tax burden every year. And that’s fine insofar as you’re not trying to sell your business. But when you’re trying to sell your business, you want to be as clear with the buyer about, here is how I choose revenue.

Pearl Collective (24:02.412)
you know, here is the certainty you can have with respect to that revenue. Here are my expenses. And you want to do it in such a way that is generally accepted by the buyer. And the way that we often counsel clients is if you’re going to prepare for a serial transaction, one, if you’ve been using tax basis or cash basis accounting, you really need to move to an accrual accounting system and try and get

your financials in line with GAAP. Often we will recommend to clients and sometimes they are not happy about the costs associated with it or the timing, but audited financials are the best way to do that. Audited financials, apologize. So these audited financials, so that is having an independent public accounting firm come in, review your financials to ensure that they are in compliance with

they go through an exhaustive process to be able to do that and ultimately produce an audit report. When a buyer sees an audit report, they understand the seriousness of the seller. This is a seller who has been maintaining their books in a way that they can want, that has the attestation of an outside accounting firm, and they can put a lot of trust in the financials associated with the business. So I’d say that’s a primary item of getting your house in order. And then it

there are kind of things you may need to do as a seller of a smaller business. Sometimes sellers will commingle assets a bit. So maybe you’ve been running your business out of real estate that you go into on the side. Or alternatively, if you have a car that either the business pays for, getting some of those things out, taking some of these things off of the balance sheet, this is a good practice prior to your sale. Some buyers are willing to deal with it, some are not.

But separating them out, think it’s helpful. And then, moving into the third step, it’s really organizing your business so that it helps to implement your long -term growth strategy. So that is, you ultimately need to understand how is your business grows? How do you achieve more customers? How do you achieve more revenue? And in the three -year period prior to selling, you wanna execute on that such that when you come before a buyer, you can say,

Pearl Collective (26:26.638)
Here’s how we’ve executed. Here’s how we’ve grown. And here’s how I can pass the business to you and what you can look forward to in terms of future growth. So I think those are the first three points. We’ve touched on some of the others in the second section about what you do in 12 to nine months out. You wanna retain professional transaction advisors. Another important item here is you want to get a professional internal deal team. That doesn’t have to be all your employees.

It can be select employees. can be someone, one employee who you feel is very close to you. The reason I recommend this is that the sale process is daunting. It will take up a lot of your time. It can distract you from the business. It is very often the case that businesses following the sale may suffer a bit because the owner has been distracted trying to implement the sale. And so it’s important to have people who you can delegate to and say,

Hey, I need you to handle this while I’m handling this part of the sale process. Or maybe this isn’t a part of the sale process I should touch. Maybe I have an internal expert who can deal with this item. Those people can help you implement the next item, which is number six within the infographic, which is helping you just gather and organize things to get ready for the sale. From there, the last three things you should do six to three months out. One, you’ve got to nail.

your management presentations with potential buyers. They care. You know, they care about these management presentations. They make judgments about whether to buy companies based on the success of those presentations. And the presentations themselves are not merely what you present, you know, in a formal meeting with the buyer. It is also how you and your company behave off the clock when you are attending dinners, you know, with buyer parties. It’s important that you get that

because it ultimately helps you get the best offers and determines if there are offers out there to get. From there, in connection with the process, is once you’ve set up your internal team, it’s leveraging them throughout the process. You will find at some point that you’ll get exhausted. We got a term for it within the law, which is deal fatigue. And it hits generally around the same time. Every deal, it’s about a

Pearl Collective (28:54.668)
to three weeks prior to a deal closing. There’s deal fatigue and it’s real and sellers experience it in a number of different ways. Some walk and say, or I wanna walk from a deal. Some cave on positions they may have otherwise felt strong about. Having that internal deal team to support you emotionally, as well as physically with doing things that’s so important. And then finally, is continue to keep your eye on the ball with respect to the business.

You have to continue to run the business efficiently, not only to help meet the goals of the sale so that you can achieve everything you’re looking to achieve from your purchase price, but additionally putting your business in the place such that when the buyer inherits it, they’re able to achieve what they need to, particularly if you have something like an earn out, which is functional, it’s an agreement that they will pay you based on future success with business. So those are my nine keys. I’ve also got a couple of books as recommended reading.

in there and a few articles. so I definitely would recommend to your readers, take a look at it. I think there’s, I’ve got a little bit of wisdom and then there’s a lot of wisdom in those books. Well, I think a lot of wisdom on your part and I love that. The answers you’re giving, very, very helpful and tactical, which is perfect for this. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see business owners make in the sale process? Absolutely.

The single biggest I’ve actually seen tends to relate to the tax planning. This is very often a multi -million dollar mistake, unfortunately, particularly for folks within the professional services industries. I would say one, if you are a seller and there are many sellers who I would imagine are architecture, interior design firms who have elected to be S corporations, I want to counsel you right

go and talk to the tax advisor and ensure that you and your tax advisor feel comfortable with your historical reporting and your tax practices, your corporate and organizational documents. The reason I say this is I have encountered even recently on transactions, sellers defaulting their S -elections. And so that is your election to be an S -corp and it can result in disastrous consequences in connection with the deal. Some deals will just not close. The buyers will walk away.

Pearl Collective (31:15.596)
because of the tax issues associated with them. And some will ultimately price much lower in the course of the deal. So that is tax planning is key. And I have seen sellers mess that up. I would say, the next one may be misalignment among stakeholders or shareholders within the firm. So if it is the case that you’re on the out with some of your partners and you’re considering a sales transaction, this may be a good time to find a way to get back in with

Because to the extent that they have any ability to demand something in connection with the sale, they’re probably. And we’ve seen that in transactions and it can become emotionally very difficult. Negotiations can be difficult. And additionally, you have a buyer party maybe on the other side saying what is going on. And so it’s crucial that you try and gain as much alignment as you can.

And it may not just be other shareholders or partners, sometimes it’s key employees of the business. It’s, know, assuring them, here’s what we think your place is going to be within this new organization. Here’s what we need you to do. Companies that have the strongest sellers like have this, like there’s no question about it. And we move forward really quickly. The ones that don’t, that’s where we see quite a lot of deal, you know, issues. And oftentimes we see an owner having to make concessions that they wouldn’t.

otherwise have to make with that kind of stakeholder. And then I think it’s really just planning failures with respect to the sale process itself, which is one of that thing. It’s hiring advisors too late or starting on the sale process too late. Starting with sale process too late really being if you’ve not truly considered how your exit will look in the future, when you want that exit to happen, it can sometimes find you.

And sometimes the way it finds you is, hey, your business is doing, you know, it’s returning poorly enough that you feel you may need to seek a sale. And in those situations, buyers, you know, understand that you may not have other options and they approach you with offers that contemplate that. Otherwise not planning to be hiring advisors too late. You know, if I’m hired,

Pearl Collective (33:38.996)
after the LL. I. period, it’s not the case that I can do much with what the deal will look like. So we may have been able to fight for a deal that didn’t involve a really significant chunk of your exit proceeds being treated according to ordinary as ordinary income, is you basically for your personal tax purposes taking that income at one of the highest individual tax rates.

We could fight for that, you know, prior to an LOI and after an LOI, some buyers are really low to retrade. So it’s important to plan for this, grab your body early, you know, be in a position to be knowledgeable about all aspects of your deal and be proactive. I think those are the key, you know, key items that CCOs fail on. You know, but I’m hopeful after

that the creative genius listeners will not be among them. Let’s hope not. All right. So the statistic is not very good for the number of businesses that sell. I think it was something like 20 % overall, which is not very many. And I’d like to know why that is and what can be done to ensure that a seller is able to go through the process and have a successful exit. Yeah, there are, I would say,

probably macroeconomic and other forces that attend why that is the case. One, a lot of businesses fail. I think the statistic that’s thrown around is most businesses actually shutter. Like 80 % of businesses will shutter really quickly after they’re ultimately formed. So think that’s one way that takes out the majority of potential businesses that could see an exit transaction.

For smaller businesses, will say finding a potential buyer willing to write a small check or a check that is appropriate for the size of a smaller business may be difficult or may be difficult to find as a sale at the market value of the business rather than another kind of sale. Like for example, an aqua hire transaction where the buyer says,

Pearl Collective (36:03.114)
you just don’t make enough, you know, for me to really buy your business. I take people. We’ll take what I take your I take your people. I will take the folks associated with your business and bring them on as employees. But I might not buy the business yourself. It is, you know, I am preparing for this. I read some of the materials that I suggested within the the nine tips

You know, of the folks there are private equity investors and they know we are sometimes loathe to write those kind of those checks for smaller businesses. They would rather see a business that has grown and is robust, has reached the growth stage of its business cycle rather than emerging companies. smaller businesses, it’s just hard to write those checks because ultimately this is a business that has not yet achieved sustained profitability. So that’s why a lot of sellers don’t see their exits.

So the reality is to combat that. You know, I think one for sellers is prepare early, you know, and really understand a growth strategy and execute on that growth strategy. And there are a lot of different ways that you can execute. It’s not just simply customer acquisition. There’s, you know, quite a number of commentators who say you should, you know, seriously be considering, you know, buying versus building.

So that is going out and doing some acquisitions on your own. And there are capital providers who will assist with that. But implementing that growth strategy so that you can get to a place that you’re an attractive exit option, I think that’s the key. Interesting. OK. Well, that’s a good one. What I realized is you have so much information here.

I would love to ask you if you would do a second interview so that we can get to the last section of these questions at that point. And why don’t we then end this session today with three takeaways from what you shared earlier in this session. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you again for having me on. think the most important takeaway, number one, is you need to be planning on this from the beginning.

Pearl Collective (38:26.378)
And so maybe it’s the beginning of the business. If that’s not the case for you as a seller, then you make it the case now. What do I want my exit to look like? How do I want it to look like? And that is going to help you make decisions about what kind of advisors you seek, what kind of buyers you’re looking at. so taking that opportunity now will help you get to that place. I think number two

you know, likely it’s finding, going out and trying to find those advisors to help you to get to those places. There are, you know, and I know folks who are sometimes love to go out and grab, you know, an outside consultant or an investment banker, you know, and, and really talk about how do I get to growth, you know, within my business, but they’ve got great ideas. And, you know, seeking them for their great ideas, seeking them for advice about, you know, how

implement my growth strategy, how I develop a growth strategy is important. And I think it helps companies get to a place where they’re able to actually exit. And they’re not just simply shuttering their business. And then finally, it is in connection with a sale process. It’s ensuring that you have already built around you a team of internal and external advisors who are aligned.

on your ultimate exit strategy. And that alignment piece is key. Not only do you ensure that your folks internally are helping you drive there, but that everyone is getting what they’re looking for out of the transaction and no one is seeking something different. We’re all rolling in the same direction. Awesome. Well, this has been so enlightening and there is so much need in what you just shared with us today.

Definitely will be in touch and we will be have you back on the podcast for the second section. But thank you again for your time today, Manny. You were just outstanding. And I again learned so much just in that short conversation. Well, I really appreciate the opportunity, Gail. It’s my pleasure. I very much look forward to coming back and talking more. All right. Thank you again. Take care, Manny. Take care.

View Details

You’ve invested a lot personally and professionally in growing and sustaining your firm over the years to make it the thriving business it is today. When it comes to selling your business, however, the value for prospective buyers is not how the firm has performed in the past but what prospects it has for the future. To get the most value for your business when you’re ready to sell, make sure it’s in tip-top condition to set up the buyer for success.

In this episode, Gail talks with Kirsten Kaplan, founder and former owner of Haus Interior Design in Rockville, Maryland. Kirsten just recently sold her firm to one of her employees. It was part of her plan from the beginning when she decided to start her own design business.

Gail asked Kirsten what steps she had taken to prepare her business for sale. She said that she had started four or five years ago, knowing that she wanted the financials to be really strong at the time she put the business up for sale. In addition, she focused on what she referred to as the four pillars of maintaining a healthy business:

• Finances – making sure finances are spotlessly clean, with no intermingling of personal and business expenses or other questionable practices
• Operations – everyone on the team is consistently performing every task correctly, in the same way, and according to company policies and procedures
• Team – making sure there is proper alignment of personnel with duties, responsibilities and level of expertise and experience
• Client – providing a high level of quality service, maintaining contact and clear communication, ensuring clients know they matter and are valued

Gail asked if there were any lessons learned or unexpected developments Kirsten had encountered during the selling process. She said she had underestimated how important the quality of the buyer’s legal and accounting team was. No matter how good your team is, she said, if the buyer’s team is not as good or experienced, that will slow down the process and can result in delays or dead ends in the negotiations.

Asked for her advice for other designers who may be thinking about selling their businesses, Kirsten offered:

• Be really clear about what you’re selling. It’s all about what future you’re offering the buyer.
• Never stop marketing and growing the business during the sales process (which can take years to complete). You want the business to be as healthy and strong as possible at the time of sale to get the most value for yourself.
• Document the value of the business, both tangible and intangible. Don’t expect a broker or evaluator to tell you what the business is worth. You need to explain to them why the business is worth what you think it is.

During their conversation, Kirsten also talked about some of the professionals she engaged to help her with the selling process, what type of sale and what method of evaluation she chose, and why she decided to stay connected to the firm as a consultant and advisor post-sale. For all that and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e6-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Haus Interior Design, go to the firm’s website at www.hausinteriordesign.com. Kirsten mentioned that she chose to use a method called Seller Discretionary Earnings (SDE) to evaluate the firm’s worth and what advantages it had for her as the seller. For more detail, you may find this article helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLIqabeif00Episode TranscriptNote: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Click to show transcriptWelcome to the Creative Genius podcast. Kirsten, it’s so great. Great to have you on today. It’s nice to here. Yeah, it’s so fun. And you went through our program a few years ago. And I remember pretty early on that you wanted to sell your business, but you’re still so young. Why did you want to sell your business? It’s a good question. And I remember that too, when we first started, that it’s always been my plan to sort of have this as an exit strategy. And I, you

when you’re river rafting, you know, go through all different kinds of terrain, right? And I think running a business is really similar. So you have those times where you’re paddling like crazy through the rapids, other times where the water’s really calm and you can just sort of enjoy it. Other times where you’re having to portage your raft over the dry spaces. And I really think after doing that for 20 years and loving it, I was just ready to pull the raft off the river and take some time to enjoy the scenery.

So a whole bunch of things just sort of aligned, which we can get into, but it just, was the right time. That is so great. Well, how did you get into designing in the first place? Tell us a little bit about your background, how you got here. Yeah. So, unconventional. So I was an investment banker and, after business school and realized what I really loved was at working on interiors. And I really had a passion and still do for the ways

our built environment can influence people’s lives. And so I always had a passion for understanding how people wanted to live and what the roadblocks were that they were experiencing to creating that kind of a life. And then, you know, having the skills to really tackle that for them. So that’s always been my driving interest. Well, the investment banking part that had to help you when you were starting to get ready to sell the business, right? It did.

It did. think, you you and I always talk about the numbers and having been a banker and understanding the numbers and understanding the accounting just gave me a level of confidence that I think I wouldn’t have had otherwise. You’re kind of unusual in the industry to have that kind of a background and then come into the creative. So you and I have work hindered spirits with my finance and banking. We are. Yeah. So when did you know it was time to sell? What was your trigger?

You know, I think that’s going to be different for everybody, but for me it was, you know, I had a really amazing team and I had gotten the business. Thank you to you and to several other people to a place where I really felt like there was value in the business that wasn’t just me and those there are certain pillars that I think need to be really sturdy. You need to have your operations,

finance, your clients, your team, all of those have to be in a really good place so that you, when you’re selling your business, you are setting the buyer up for success. And so that kind of came together thanks, you know, in large part to my experience with Alliance. And, you know, it also just so happened that I had an employee on my team who, you know, made it clear from the very beginning that she was interested in running the firm and that this was why this opportunity was so

you know, to work for me was so interesting to her because she knew that she was going to get that opportunity where she may not have had it otherwise. Sure. Well, and that’s one of the best ways to sell your business in this industry is to somebody else who’s working for you. What helped you prepare the business for sale? What were some of the things that you went through? All the steps that it took? I know you are so close to it since you just closed like maybe a week ago. Yep. So.

Right. So this is fresh, hot off the press. So now that you still remember that, what are the things you did? Yeah. I think, you know, I really think it takes about four years if you’re starting from scratch to being able to sell the business. the reason that I say that is because when you sell and do the valuation, the business broker and the buyer and whomever else in the lender who’s looking at your deal,

is going to want to look back at at least four years of financials. Sometimes five, but usually four is a good number. So if you’re starting from scratch and you really haven’t done anything, what I’m doing is preparing some checklists that would have been helpful for me in each of those four categories that we talked about. So finances, operations, team, and clients.

you know, it can become clear to somebody what the roadmap is. And if you’ve been working with you and Alliance or boardroom and you already have a running start on all those financials, your business is probably operationally very efficient and runs really well. Then, of course, the timeline is much, much compressed. So there were steps that I took.

you know, along those along the timeline in each of those categories. And I would say that within operations and cut me off if it’s too much information, but within operations, I wanted to be sure that my team was repeating the same process consistently and professionally every single time it came up. we weren’t making decisions anymore ad hoc, you know, each individual circumstance.

When there’s a claim, there was a certain process for dealing with it. When there was a client question, certain process for dealing with it. And those processes were the same every time. So we had a lot of consistency within our team and we just knew, we knew how to do our jobs very efficiently and the operation could run without any one of us because all of us worked together and understood that. From a finance perspective, I think,

One of the steps I took is a little bit controversial and other designers may run things totally differently. And the caveat I would want to say first of all is this was just my experience. This is not saying that this is the one and only way anyone can ever do this. This is just how it was for me. But when I was going through the process, I discovered that my own characteristic of being frugal

and being careful and having really clean books became an advantage. And you and I have talked about that a lot. I don’t run a lot of things through the business that would be considered iffy. And I know that that’s not necessarily the way everyone does it. But for me, it was really, really clear. So that when it came time to the valuation.

There was no question what a certain expense was, whether it was really business or whether it was really personal. was so clean and thanks in large part to you and to Monique Stemper and her team. My books were just like clean as a whistle. And, you know, the broker even said, wow, like I never see small businesses that are run like this. So that was a great testament to everything you’ve taught me. So and then in terms of the team.

You know, was not only my employees and team who I really wanted to make sure understood and could run the business, but it’s the broader team, right? It’s my contractors, my subcontractors, all of our vendors, our accounting team, our community within Alliance, Stemper and her team. It’s sort of everybody understood the ethos of our firm and that we operate by whatever’s best for the client is what we do.

And so we were all in alignment for that. And I think if you don’t have that, it would make it much harder to sell. So that was a big advantage to us. And then clients, know, the things you have taught me and drilled over the years, which is, you know, let clients know how much they matter to you. Let them know that their lives are important to you. Always go the extra mile. Thank them for their business. Stay in touch with them frequently. Make

make your client service such that clients will enthusiastically recommend you without reservation to anyone they know. And so I know that’s a long answer to what steps I took, but that’s why it can take several years to sort of get things if they’re not already there to get it ready to sell. Sure. Well, it’s a big job and I’ve been thinking about it myself for probably 10 years. And in that 10 year period, I’m still, I don’t have a target date yet for when I’ll exit.

But I do know that it takes a ton of work and in all cases, even my team, my leadership team in particular is very clear about we we’re prepping. And whenever I decide we’ll be ready for it because we know that they know what needs to be done to get it ready. So yeah, I think it’s really critical that you’re open and in your case, you have a small team and.

That was your buyer was your team member so that she knew she knew from the inside that you were running a great business. So she got a great deal. Yeah, I hope so. I and some people choose to do an employee buyout and others choose to, you know, just put it on the market and basically, you know, let it be up for sale. And this was just the way it worked out best for

Actually, it’s a lot easier in a lot of ways and you may or may not get the same value that you would get if you were to sell outside of someone else. But you know who’s running the business and I just have a feeling you’re probably a little like I am. You want to make sure that it continues after you’re gone so that there is a legacy behind what you did. Right. Absolutely. Well, let’s talk a little bit about the professionals that you engaged in the process. I heard you say business broker valuation.

your CPA, your bookkeeping team, who else did you have to hire? And at what point did you bring them in on the process? Yeah, so the first person that I hired was a broker because I had no idea how to value the business. Okay. And I can, you know, I know we have another question that we want to talk about valuation so we can do more details and deep dive when we talk about that if you want,

That was the first person I brought in because I needed to understand what was the business worth? Is it worth anything? And how does it get valued? And so that was super, super helpful for me. It took a couple of months to get like all the documents in, to get all the finances sort of straight with my accounting, to be sure that I was providing the right raw data. And then once the broker came up with evaluation, then I kind of knew, okay,

I can run this by the buyer, talk about whether we’re on the same page. And then if we are, then it’s time to move forward and get the rest of the team assembled. So on my side, I had a lawyer who was a rock star, amazing, at doing deals. And she was, I would say she was probably the most experienced person on the team. She was probably more experienced than the business broker even.

So I, and I lucked out on that. just researched and interviewed several and felt like I had great communication with her, you know, almost the same way our clients do with us when they interview designers. so I just felt like we had a great working relationship and she certainly had the experience. And if I had not had a lawyer with that kind of experience, it would not have worked. Interesting. She was the linchpin.

So why do you say that? What is it that made that role so critical? What I thought would be relatively simple as a transaction actually turned out to be far more complicated than I ever could have imagined. There were so many negotiations, so many little details that had to be addressed, so much back and forth, know, provisions that protected me going forward and protect the buyer going

And if you don’t have a lawyer who really knows deals and knows how to do it, it just won’t work. And you’ll end up, I think, in a worse place with more potential liability. this way, having a deal lawyer who’s very specifically versed in this was everything. And how did you find this lawyer? I Googled. Okay. Well, Google’s a pretty good resource.

the interview process. So how did you vet her? Again, having some investment banking experience was really helpful. So I knew the questions to ask. And that was one of the things I’m thinking about, including on my checklist too, is like questions to ask the team, you know, when you’re putting together your team to do this. But I knew I just wanted someone who was really experienced. And I kind of had the sense once I talked to her, she was just…

She was so smart, so on top of it. It seemed like she hardly ever slept. I mean, she was so, she just was energetic and really hardworking and she knew what she was talking about. So I got lucky. Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, what do you wish you had known looking back? What would you have liked to have known prior to beginning this process? You know, a lot because it’s one of

It’s one of those things you just don’t know till you go through it. Sure. And I completely underestimated how important the quality of the buyer’s legal team and accounting team was. I really somehow had this naive impression that if my team was really good, that it would all be fine. And so I had a lot of confidence in mine, but I think it would have been

easier if I had also paid attention to her team and had had worked collaboratively with her to say, hey, let’s build the team together. I know that some of them are going to be representing your interests and some are going to be representing mine. But the mismatch, I think, between the skills and experience of the teams slowed things down more than it had to.

And sometimes what happens is people will pick someone and they don’t really have that criteria. And they also, maybe they’re trying to save some money and not spend a lot and they find a less expensive resource. And then in the end, I think what you found is that the best people are the best people and it’s worth it to spend more to get the right people on your team. Absolutely. And that’s your mantra that you taught

from the very beginning. And I think that’s absolutely true. It ends up taking more time and money as it does with a designer. I don’t know why that was like a newsflash to me because that’s how we run our whole business. yes, you know, trying to save money by hiring an inexperienced team is not gonna work. In the end, this is such a complicated thing. Like you said, it’s very difficult and it’s emotional. We’ll talk about that next, but it is so difficult.

And if somebody does not have the amount of experience that you need, then you’re paying for them to learn it on your dime. And in the end, costs you more money. You’re going to spend more with somebody who’s less experienced. So I would opt for going for the best person you can possibly hire. Yeah, I think so too. And even, you know, I remember when I found my lawyer, she said, you know, if Becky needs a lawyer, I have lawyers that I work with on deals all the time and

I, you know, I mean, I’m not a big one for regrets. think you make the best decision you can at the time with the skills and the circumstances that you’re in. But that would have been easier to have lawyers and CPAs who knew each other professionally, because there’s just a shorthand that they can achieve where maybe people who have less experience or, know, are not connected. It takes much longer. Right. It’s kind of

going down as you were talking about the rafting experience, you want a very skilled guide because they have your life in their hands and your business, your finances are in their hands. So absolutely this is critically important for people to get the right people. Absolutely. Now let’s talk about emotional because the emotional part of this process and maybe, maybe that wasn’t your first intent to think about that, but what was it like through this whole process? I’m sure there was, there were times that you

wondering. Yeah. yeah. There were so many ups and downs. and my buyer initially had a partner, a friend from elementary school who was like, this sounds fun. I’ll do this with you. I’ll buy the business with you. And so, you know, that was sort of exciting and we went down this whole path. And then for some reason her friend couldn’t pass a credit check and had to drop out and the process had to start all over again. So there were

So many times that required the best coping skills I have developed in my life. And you know, I had to, I tried to stay really balanced and detached from the outcome. And that’s, if you know me, you know, I’m not very Zen like that at all. That is not who I am. I care so deeply about everything I do. So I tried to just adopt this posture that if it works

And it sells here are the great things about that. If it doesn’t work out and I end up continuing the business, here are the great things about that. And I had to remind myself of both of those sides constantly as a way to not get too tossed around by all the ups and downs. And there are and there always will be a lot of ups and downs. There will always be moments where you think it’s a disaster and then other moments where you think this is so exciting, it’s going to work.

And I think you never really know until the check clears in the bank. Well, and that’s exactly right. You can’t count it until it’s in the bank for sure. So and I’ve heard so many people go through this. I helped another firm kind of go through their negotiations and that it kind of happened and then it fell apart and. It just ended up with a owner going back and running the business again, but now she scaled the business back and started different or looked at it a different way.

But you know, sometimes that’s for the best too. Whatever happens ultimately is for the best. Some people actually just close the business down. That’s one way of exiting. And it’s maybe not the best, especially in your case. For sure there was a value to the business. So there was something for you to gain financially so that you have that freedom to do what you need to do in your life and also to do what you want to do in your life. So good for you. Thank you.

And I think the other emotional thing is that, and we’ve talked about this before, is running the business, you’re always running at 100 miles an hour. You don’t take the time to congratulate yourself on what you’ve done or to sort of be proud of yourself for what you’ve built. And so I made myself take time out during the process to say like, wow, I really built this from nothing.

Like I had nothing when I started this business and now I have something that’s worth value, you know, for someone else to continue, you know, and create their own value from it. And so that I tried to take at least a couple of minutes to be proud of myself during the process. Well, good for you. should for sure. Well, you, mentioned something earlier and it was, that the, the buyer’s team also has to have great people and

I just think that that’s really critical that you shared that. But also, I think in you as a seller, you had a lot of things in order. You knew what you needed to do. So you were more prepared than most people. And you talked about the four areas of the business that you needed to prepare. But again, there are probably some other things that you would have said, I should have done these things too. I should have had these things ready. So what were, what are a few of those?

There were several and you harp on this all the time and it’s really so, true. Knowing the numbers inside and out, back and forth. Most of the people on your team, the lawyer, maybe even the CPA, I mean, certainly not Monique. Monique and her team know everything. They are like the gods when it comes to this. But you have to understand yourself.

how every piece of cash flow and accounting transaction works in your business. From the minute you propose an item to the minute it gets delivered, you have to understand in your sleep the accounting ledger entries that go along with that. Because there will be many times during the process where you may have to explain to your lawyer or the other lawyer or the CPAs or whoever else is on the team.

No, this is how the accounting works. This is what’s behind this number on the balance sheet where it says client deposits. You may have to explain to them what that actually means, what that number consists of. And if you don’t know those, you will end up leaving a lot of value because the way interior design businesses run is not very typical to the way other businesses run. We have a lot of work in process.

We have a lot of sort of transactions that are a little bit in limbo, you know, after we pay the vendor, we’ve got the client deposit, but we’re waiting for something to come in. So you’ve got to understand the numbers. And so I would say like, start with accounting, schedule a session with the bookkeeper, schedule a session with you, like understand the nitty gritty behind every single number. And the other thing I did was I did this early on when I was

when I was approaching the broker about evaluation. How do I say this? No one in the process is your friend. And what I mean by that is you, everybody that you speak with in every interaction through the sales process, you need to have an agenda in the back of your mind of what you are hoping that person will come away

So the person who’s doing the valuation, for example, you can say, well, here’s the numbers. I don’t really know. I don’t really, I mean, I guess we’ve been successful. I’m not really sure, but you know, this is kind of what it looks like. What do you think? Or you can go into the valuation and your first meeting with a business broker, you can present a document of due diligence, which is what I did that said, here are all the publications we’ve been published in. Here’s how many years we’ve been in business.

Here is the percentage net income we’ve had for the last five years. Here are the number of clients. Here are the areas where we work. Here are, you know, and I laid out every single advantage of my business and how my business was special and how my business was better than everybody else’s, even if I didn’t really think it was. And I positioned it to him like that saying like, this is an incredible business for someone to take over. And here’s why. So

If you go through every one of your interactions with your team like that, I think you have a better outcome. So that due diligence document kept me motivated for sure. that’s great. I love that. I’ve never heard somebody do that before. Of course you would do something like that. Missed organized. All right. So did you choose to do a stock sale or an asset sale? And if so, which one and why? Yeah. So again, disclaimer, I’m not a CPA. Okay. So

Please ask your professionals. So we did a stock sale with a 336E election. So it’s complicated. Sellers would rather usually do a stock sale. Buyers would usually rather have an asset sale. And the reason is that in an asset sale, if you are the buyer, you can depreciate the portion of the purchase price that has been allocated to Goodwill over a certain number of years. So it provides you tax advantages.

The benefits for the stock sale are to the seller because the proceeds are classified as a long term capital gains and taxed at that rate rather than as regular income. In an asset sale, the seller would be taxed as regular income. So buyers and sellers usually have different objectives when it comes to the structure of the sale. And that’s a really huge point of contention, like right up front.

Because I’m an S -Corp, which also turned out to be a great advantage, there’s something the IRS has called 336E election. And what it is is allows it to be a stock sale treated as an asset sale for the buyer’s taxes. So it’s a sort of a hybrid and totally legal only for S -Corp, I believe. But again, ask the CPA. And

In the stock sale, the things that make a stock sale a little bit easier is if you have vendor relationships, which we do hundreds and hundreds of pre -existing with pre -existing terms and all that, those don’t need to be renegotiated. In an asset sale, it’s debatable. So in a stock sale, all those relationships just go with the company, House Interior Design, Inc. All your client contracts don’t need to go through due diligence.

don’t need to be rewritten, don’t need to be renegotiated. Those also go with the corporation in a stock sale. So in a business like ours, where those relationships are a key asset of your business, the stock sale makes it a lot easier from the due diligence perspective. for us, we got lucky that this 336E election is available for precisely this kind of situation. Wow, that’s really good. And something else you mentioned, which

had actually forgotten to ask you about is that it was not in your name. The business is under house interior design. So you smartly already had the company set up so that it wasn’t selling your name with it. Yeah. And I did that from the beginning, knowing that I wanted to do that and knowing that I didn’t want the business to be just about me. And I knew that if my name was on the door, I might have a harder

hiring good talent if they felt like, well, I’m always going to be second fiddle to her. And I knew that it would be easier to sell if it wasn’t my name because there’s a huge perception in interior design businesses that it’s really just about the one designer and why buy an interior design business if that designer is no longer going to be on the team. What’s left? So I wanted to be absolutely sure that we had done everything we possibly could to avoid that misconception and

trademarked the name would be the other thing that we have. when, when, you know, we sold or when I sold, it was not only the vendor contracts with her, which are worth a lot because those were negotiated when vendors were really willing to open a lot of wholesale accounts and those are long standing, the portfolio, the trademarked name. So there’s all of that sort of goes with the business. And I’m super, super thankful that my name is not on the door.

gosh, yeah. Well, very, very smart that you had it set up that way. you also had a little bit of background before you came in to know what you should do. All right. So here’s a big question. And that is, did you finance any part of the sale? Yeah. So when we talked about negotiating, right, and why you need to have a good lawyer and what what is there to it, I thought it was so simple. I thought it was like, OK, here’s ten dollars. Take the business here. The keys. OK, bye. So every little piece has to be negotiated,

including the financing in some cases. So your buyer may be getting an SBA loan, which requires certain terms, 10 % down or whatever, but they may not be able to qualify for the full amount that you have valued the company. It’s very, very typical for a buyer to want to place performance metrics onto a seller note. So if the seller finances a portion of the price,

It’s common. fact, it was in our initial negotiations that the buyer and buyer’s lawyer initially presented to us said, OK, if the business hits this revenue, then we’ll repay the note. But if the business falls below that revenue, whatever that number was, the notes totally forgiven. And so and it was a little more complicated than I’m making it sound, but that’s that’s very, very common for the buyer’s side to want to put performance metrics.

On to that note, and I only knew to anticipate this because of someone in boardroom that I had talked with a lot many years ago who said don’t ever do that. And so she saved me because we came back. You know, my lawyer just said, look, if my client isn’t going to be in the position to be making the business decisions, there’s no way she can guarantee what the business is going to do. So if you are not in control of your business,

you cannot possibly live by performance metrics. So yes, there’s a seller note for a small percentage of the price, but it has nothing to do with performance. Great. Okay. That’s really important. So if she has an SBA loan, she has your partial loan, she puts some money down. Yep. Okay. All right. Well, that’s good to know. And is that over a long period of time that she’s paying you

She pays the, so normally when there’s a seller note, it’ll be subordinate to the SBA note. Right. Right. So anytime you buy a business, have to pay back the SBA first and then you pay back your subordinated debt. So I’m the subordinated debt. So it’ll just be, I’m right behind the SBA. Okay. And yeah, which is fine. I have a great, I have an interest rate that’s reasonable. That’s good. So it starts accruing interest immediately again.

That’s where a good lawyer will be able to tell you how to structure that note because I really didn’t know. And so the structure of the note is beneficial to her and beneficial to me. And if she pays off the SBA sooner, she can pay me off sooner too. There’s no penalty for prepayment. Okay, great. When we did the deal, you know, and it’ll be different for everyone, but I had to really think about what financially my goal was and

What I decided my overarching goal was I wanted to maximize cash at closing because a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So that was just what I wanted. we structured the deal through many negotiations so that I felt comfortable with the cash at closing that I was getting. And she felt comfortable with the seller note obligation on her end. great. And in the case of SBA, is it a 30 -year note for her?

No, no, I think the terms are maybe 10 years. No, it’s not very long. And so then you’re you start getting paid at 10 years. I think so. I think so. I’m not going to live another 30. I guess you will. You’re going to live to 120 and that’s probably 50 years at least. Right. Yeah. Well, actually more than that. There you go. OK. So.

What other bumps or surprises did you experience along the way? You’ve mentioned several already. I know there were a lot. You know, there were there are always there are always going to be bumps and things you can’t anticipate. one thing that I really I don’t know how we did it. I wish I could tell you a formula. I’ll have to think about that.

We, the buyer, because the buyer is on my team and I’m still running the business, I don’t know how it worked this way, but we managed to maintain a really friendly, really encouraging relationship throughout this process. And this has been like a two year process at least to get to this point. So we just continue, I think we both just wanted to continue to work together in a really healthy, productive, friendly way.

And it just didn’t disrupt our business relationship. And I think we were still able to deliver on the same level that we always do for clients and our team still functions really well and is happy and like very close knit. So that, that I would say in spite of all the bumps of which there are many, that is one of the best outcomes that I couldn’t have anticipated. you still involved in the business for a period of time or are you out the door?

Yeah, that’s a great question too. So I offered as part of our negotiations, I offered 40 hours at no charge of transition assistance. So what that means is anything that my team needs related to transitioning the business, I will do 40 hours at no charge to make sure they get up and running, whether it’s, you know, submitting work for publication or walking them through how I do a particular thing or

the key performance indicators we look at or anything like that. I’m happy to do any of that 40 hours, whatever they need. Because it’s important to me that they’re successful too. And then there’s also a consulting arrangement that’s part of it. So past that 40 hours, if I’m needed on any projects when they get in a tight spot or for example, one of our team members is out and just had a baby. So if I need to fill in, then I have a consulting arrangement

the new owner will be able to pull me in and say, hey, I need you for five hours this week. Great. Yeah. That gives you a little bit of a taste of what’s going on and, and still you’re connected a little bit. So that’s all good. And I think that positive relationship helps that because it’s so easy for these things to become adversarial. And then you kind of, the separation isn’t as nice or, you know, as collaborative. Sure.

How did you come up with the sale price? We did. So there are lots of ways to value your company, right? So I can tell you what we did. If it’s interesting. Sure. We used something called seller discretionary earnings, SDE. You probably know all about that. That was a little bit new to me, but this is where you get into the fact that the cleaner your books are, the easier this is. Right. So SDE means how much money?

basically is at the disposal of the owner every year. if you, let’s say if the only things you run through your business as an owner, you get a salary, you get your health insurance paid and maybe your car and your cell phone. Those are super easy numbers to come up with. You just add A, B, C and D and you’re done. That’s your seller discretionary earnings.

If you run the business so that I can’t even think of like what are other other things that you can legally run through your business but just get a little bit messier. I couldn’t even think of what they are because I just don’t run it that way. having my books be really clean and only running things through the business that were just a very few categories that were personal things but there were still legitimate business expenses made coming up with that SDE number really easy.

So you look at the last five years of your business and you see your SDE and let’s say your SDE is a million dollars, 700 ,000, 500 ,000 and then 1 .2. Like it can be all over the place. So you can take a straight average of those SDE numbers or you can say, well, this was a slow year and this was a really outlier big year like COVID. So instead of just doing a straight average, we’re going to wait

these years based on how indicative we think they are of the normal course of business. So that 1 .2 maybe an outlier. So rather than allocating that a 25 % weight, let’s allocate that a 15 % and the same with the low year and then the other year’s more normal. So you come up with this average, right? That’s your SDE. Let’s say it’s 500 ,000 is your SDE. Then your business broker will look at metrics of similar companies that have been sold.

and look at the multiple of SDE that those businesses sold for. Could be two, could be three, could be 2 .9, could be 2 .7, whatever that multiple is. And then you take your SDE times that. And this is an oversimplified way of doing it, but the broker will do this. But this is the method that we chose to use because SDE for us really gave

buyer a better view into how much money would be at her disposal to allocate as she wanted to rather than revenue because you can you can have a huge revenue number and be terrible on that income. SDE is the is your net number. So that’s how we did it. That’s how we came up with the valuation and the valuation. Keep in mind is the first step, right? So the valuation gives you a number. Let’s say it’s four million dollars.

That’s not necessarily how much you’re going to get. No, you might get a little bit more. You might get a little bit less. There may be other things you negotiate like so, but it just gives you a starting point to say, hey, are we kind of in the neighborhood? And then if you’re in the neighborhood, great, you can go forward. If the, if the buyer says, my gosh, I thought I was going to pay 10 ,000 for this business, not 4 million. Then you know, okay, I may need to go a different direction. Sure. Well, and think it’s important to know

pretty quickly when you’re in the conversations with people. So in the case of the SD, the seller’s discretionary, not income, what is it? Yeah, so expenses. So when you’re multiplying that and you’re talking multiples, so just want to be a little bit clearer for the listeners. So say your multiple is two times whatever that amount is. So say it’s a half million and it’s two times

then the valuation or the amount that you’re asking is a million dollars. So that’s how that happens. And the more profitable your business for a longer period of time, the higher the multiple is. And again, that depends on the industry too. It does. It really depends on the industry and it can depend on so much, but it will give you a ballpark. And then you negotiate based on all the other things that you want to include. Sure. Okay. Well, I have to ask you this question.

Do you have plans for what you’re going to do now? Now that you have sold your business, you the cash is in the bank, you know what’s coming up. What’s what’s next? Yeah, you know, I love design. I never got tired of design, which is the other really big piece of advice. I would say if you’re tired and burned out and that’s why you’re selling the business. I think that’s a tough road to hope because this is an exhausting process that can take a couple of years.

major ups and downs, major bumps and derailments, it is not a rejuvenating process to go through. It’s a second job in addition to your normal design job. if you let it get to the point where you’re so burned out and so tired and you just can’t do it another day, I think you’ve done yourself a disservice. Like sell before you get to that point while you still enjoy it because you have to run through the tape. And I told myself that every day.

Run through the tape, run through the tape. Do not stop. Do not stop with client service. Don’t stop trying to get new business. Don’t stop anything I was doing, you know, just full on through the finish line. Because if you stop, you risk harming your future and harming the deal. Sure. So that’s a long way of saying I still love design. I’m sure that I will do something design adjacent. I would love to coach.

And I’ve already talked to GW Corcoran School of Design about being a guest lecturer. I’m sure I will do something design adjacent. Okay, great. Well, we expect you to be on the coaching team. I would love to. Yeah, we’ll be doing it soon. So we’ll chat. So anything that you would say to people to manage the stress during this process?

exercise and get lots of sleep. Yeah. Well, really, yeah, I really think those are critical. I couldn’t have done it without, you know, the gym and doing a sauna every day. know, you have to take care of yourself through the process. Awesome. Well, let’s end this with three key takeaways. You gave us a lot today, but if you were going to pick three, what would they

I would say, you know, one would be be really clear about what you’re selling. You’re not selling your past performance. Make sure that you are selling something that you believe in, that the buyer can be set up for success to make it work. Don’t sell on your past. Sell on what you’ve created that creates a future for somebody. I think that due diligence document was important, not just because it guided my conversations with my team, but because when I had doubts,

I could look back at it and say, my gosh, like this is great. Look what, look at what business I’ve created. And it was sort of like my own little hype document. So I think that’s really important. And the other one, you know, which, which you also told me, which has to do with run through the tape is you, you were very clear about never stop marketing, never stop building the business, never stop seeking new clients, never stop providing excellent client service. So I think those are my

takeaways. that’s so great. Well, congratulations. That’s a big accomplishment and I’m so excited for you. And I look forward to you being on the team with us. I know you’re going to help a lot of people. We have several that are interested in selling their businesses. So this will be great. I’m so excited. Community is like the best part of, what you do. And I love being in touch with all designers from all over because we all face, you know, similar challenges. So I really enjoy that.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being a part of our podcast today. And I know that this will help a lot of people. Great. Great. Thank you, Cale. It’s always a pleasure. Of course.

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If you’re looking to grow your firm’s revenue and profit, consider diversifying into other areas. That can take many different forms, depending on your interests, creativity and the opportunities that come your way. But be careful. A new enterprise can become a distraction and put a strain on your business. You want to choose those that support the main business and increase its value as well as its bottom line.

In this episode, Gail talks with Julia Kirkendall, owner and principal designer, Kirkendall Design, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Julia has been practicing design for more than 40 years and has operated her own firm for more than 30 years. Over the years she has explored various ways of diversifying into other enterprises to generate more revenues and higher profits, including opening a retail store, offering design/build services, and, most recently, creating a studio space that hosts design and lifestyle events and activities.

Gail asked Julia about her biggest challenges in starting and growing her own business. Julia said her main challenge was figuring out how to understand the value she provided to clients. Related to that, she said, was changing her mindset towards money. She had assumed clients would be more focused on price. She soon discovered, though, that “clients weren’t looking for something less expensive. They were looking for me to do a really good design job.” That gave her the confidence to charge what she felt her services were worth.

The other lesson Julia said she learned along the way was to stop trying to fix every problem that she came across in her interactions with her clients. “There are a lot of similarities between being an interior design and being a counselor,” she said. She realized for her sake and her clients’ sake, she needed to just provide a service and not involve herself in other peoples’ problems.

Julia said one of the reasons her business has been so successful is that she decided to seize opportunities when they came along. “You have to be bold,” she said. “You have to look for opportunities and jump in.” She encouraged other designers to do the same. “Don’t be afraid to walk through those doors.”

Gail asked her what other advice she had for designers looking to grow their businesses. Julia said to recognize that growth and change are good things. Also, work hard at building the team that supports your dreams, and then work hard at supporting their dreams.

Toward the end of their conversation, Julia talked at some length about her latest project, The Studio at KD. She emphasized the importance of diversifying into different revenue streams, but also ensuring that those ventures support and reinforce the main design business. “Feed the mothership” is her motto, she said.

For more details about The Studio at KD and more insights from Julia, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e5-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Julia and her firm, visit the website at kirkendalldesign.com. Learn more about The Studio at KD here.

Julia mentioned a tool that Gail had introduced her to for evaluating whether to undertake a new project or venture called an impact filter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NB3yuXn5FUEpisode TranscriptNote: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Click to show transcriptWell, welcome, Julia. I’m so glad to have you on the podcast. And I’d love for us to just start and talk a little bit about how you got into interior design. Sure. You know, it’s been a long road. So that’s been over 32, probably closer to 40 years. But I’ve had Kirkendall design for 32 years. So of course I was doing it part time way before then. And

realized I was in a whole other career path and realized that design and creating home was a natural gift for me and that after coaching and helping a lot of friends along the way, it just became something that I picked up and was doing and loved it. And so what started out to be just kind of a fun hobby ended up being a career

Well, I think you’re probably not alone with that. A lot of people do that. I good for you. At least you have built a very successful business over the years as a result of that. Yeah, yeah, it has been. It has been really a lot of fun. And, know, we are constantly pivoting and doing new things, and that’s what’s kept it fun and engaging. No, that’s great. I can’t wait to dive into that with you today. So.

Let’s go back a little bit and I can’t remember exactly what year we met, but I do remember meeting you at High Point Market where I meet a lot of people and I remember our conversation. I’ll never forget it. You came up to me at the end of it and asked me some very pointed questions, which were great. So why don’t you decide why you decided to work with us or why don’t you share? that was quite a few years ago, but yes.

You know, Gail, you are probably one of the very first out there in coaching designers and it was such an intriguing opportunity. So it took me quite a while to really investigate if you would and kind of get to know you before bringing my business and trusting somebody to take my business from the level that I had gotten it to a new level. But I knew

that I needed that help. I just didn’t know where and how. And listening to you and your qualifications and your experience really helped me feel comfortable. And like you said, it was several questions. I didn’t dive into it very quickly. It took me a little time, which I think is how I approach about everything. And then, you know, we got started in a coaching

coaching situation for quite a few years. And you absolutely helped me grow Kirkendall Design to a whole new level. Well, that’s so fun. And it’s been fun working with you. I just remember you calling me the principal more than once. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I like to have somebody who would have the wisdom and knowledge and direction that you could give because I respond really well to that as I

You made many mentions of you’d give me an assignment and I’d turn around and I’d get it down because I was so eager to learn, but also I respected what you had to say and your direction and it made total sense to, you know, explore and do the work to be able to get the results. Well, I remember I gave you one time when we were talking, I gave you some things to work on and I specifically remember telling

You’ve got about six months to get this done. And when we had our conversation, you had it all done. It was a month later. You were so funny. I just thought to myself, that’s Julia. She is going to take the bull by the horns and she’s going to go take action and get it done. That’s kind of how this whole thing started. You know, I started a Kirkendall design with $200 and just some idea

what I could do with that. And quite honestly, I never looked back or even looked to calculate or count how much money I had at that point. I just knew I was not, there was another level. And when I met you, which was several years into my business. And like I said, at that point in our industry, there were not very many people out there who knew how to, or had the skillset to coach.

coach interior designers and, it was a great, great find and connection and yeah, it really helped. Well, thank you. Well, and you did the hard work though. So let’s talk about some of the hard work you’ve had to do. What are some of the biggest challenges that you’ve faced over the years? So for a long time, it was just understanding my value because it was such a natural gift. And I think that runs true.

Even today, I still have to remember that what I do has intellectual value or transfers to monetary value. I think understanding my value and making sure that I took care of that and treated that respectfully for myself before I could somebody else. And therefore, that also meant changing my mindset about money.

and thinking that I could do something less expensive and better when what my client was asking for was just they weren’t looking necessarily for less expensive. They were just looking for me to do a really great design job. So I had to change my mindset. And that was a big deal. That happened many, many years ago.

And then I had to, course, like a lot of us, we, had to stop trying to fix every problem that I came into. And as we know that being an interior designer, has its, its correlation. There’s a lot of similarities to being a counselor and you’re right in somebody’s home. You get intimately involved with them, their family, and you start doing things outside of the scope of not only your work, but all even your profession.

So you just have to back out and realize that you’re there to do a service and do it really great and provide that service and not try to fix everybody’s problems. Yeah, for sure. Well, yeah, and I think the challenges too, that I just know that you had some periods of time where it was challenging with some of the clients you were getting. I think everybody goes through that where they have that difficulty.

And then also just really achieving the profit margins that you needed and wanted to have. So just moving your business to a point where you had the confidence that you could ask for some of those higher numbers. That took a bit, didn’t it? It did, but we’re talking 15 years ago. So for me to reflect back that long, it is interesting when I look back on my business.

statistics because you know I love to gather data and I keep quite a bit of data that that that has been close to 15 years. So, David think back then now I’m disappointed I wasted the first 15 but the last 15 have been really good and the next 15 are going to be better. that’s great.

Well, I remember too that when we first started working together, you had a retail store and I’d love for you to share about that experience. A lot of people have that dream to start a retail store. Yeah, well there again, that was quite a few years ago. Probably looking back now that was about 25 years ago. Because when we first started, I had already had a retail store for about 10 years and it took us a few years to realize. I wasn’t long for you to realize that it wasn’t a profit.

my profit margins were long, were really short, but it took me a longer time to then transfer that business to design and close that retail business and then spend all my energy into design. And you know, the retail market 20, 25 years ago was a lot different than it is now. And so, no, I don’t have a retail store, but it was at that point a way that I started my design business.

Definitely is not that way to start a design business in 2024. I would agree with you. I think it’s got even harder. I have one client left, I think, that still has a retail. Well, no, that’s not true. Another one just started one. But that’s a passion project for her. So everyone has a desire for some part of their business to be a real passion project like that. And I think everybody’s got

try it and get it out of their system. So. Agreed. Yeah. I believe that it was a pathway to design for me, but like, like I said, it was not profitable. And since, at this point, probably not the way I would ever advise anybody to go retail. think retailers have to be retailers in order to make that a profitable business. Business. That model is totally different than a design business.

It totally is for sure. Well, let’s talk about your newest venture, the Studio at KD offerings. And I’m really excited to hear about it. What inspired you to start it? Well, the Studio at KD just kind of birthed itself like many things do. think when you allow yourself to look outside of the box that you are working within and look beyond, you start expanding the opportunities.

We knew that we needed to change our location based on some of it was demographics getting in more of a central location, but also just growth. And so we had that in our mind. We knew we were looking for a space. And during that time, we, me and myself mainly,

I was continually traveling around the country and I came across a piece of property called, an inn called Julep Farms and it’s in, it’s in Dalton, Georgia, I believe. And Julep Farms was just very inspiring. It wasn’t that, that’s what I want to do because their design, they didn’t have really much of a design

But what it showed me was some different avenues that I could take design and grow my business in some different revenue streams and breathe a little life in it for myself so that as a seasoned designer and a business owner, I was doing something new and exciting and therefore regenerating my business. And so the studio at Kirkendall Design

really, really came to fruition when we came across the piece of property in Tulsa that was larger than what we needed, that had all kinds of potential. And we decided, I had to decide in an hour to purchase it. And that’s one of those times when it, had to, I already had the thoughts, we already had the dreams, we already had the vision of what we wanted to do.

We had no idea that would be where we would do it. But I think that when you as a business owner and a visionary take the time to dream and look at the what ifs and the potential, then I believe that as you are going about your day -to -day business, which is what happened on that day, things will come across your path that align with that, and you just jump in and go for it. And that’s what we did.

So it turned into what did I buy because I bought what was a old nursery, a building that was beautiful building, wasn’t all that old, but needed totally to be turned into design studio offices. And then start dreaming about all the potential that came with it because there was five acres of agriculture land, zoned land in the middle of Tulsa.

I had no idea what I would do with that. Since then, we have developed the Studio at KD. Probably one of the most important things to talk about is that it only supports, its function is to support our design firm. Anything that we do at and in the Studio at KD has got to support.

Perkindale design and that is another great lesson gal that you taught me In our coaching sessions was to use a tool called the impact filter And to this day I use the impact filter all the time so that I anytime that I as a visionary would have an idea or get a thought of This would be a lot of fun instead of chasing or those thoughts are overwhelming my

I do take that time and fill out that impact filter and look at how that would affect the main business, which is Kirkendall Design. So as we’ve processed through owning the studio at Kirkendall Design, the different revenue streams we built have all helped. They all relate back to developing the business of Kirkendall Design.

Okay, well talk about some of the things that you’re doing now. What are your revenue streams that you’re? So some of the different things we have that we offer is we have a large building. We built a design loft on a second floor and our whole lower lower level of the building is being used during the week and on the weekends in different ways. One of the ways that we use it is for photographers to be able to come in during.

anytime and use our studio for photographer sessions for branding, for corporate, for business. We’ve been very successful with that. And that is just one revenue stream where they come in and they rent out our studio for their photography sessions. So that’s been fun. Another one has been for lifestyle.

workshops we call them and that’s where we have professionals that are around our area and region that come in and teach different workshops such as how to make a wreath for your front door or how to you know all the different we had a really successful sourdough making class and then we have had a really great class on tablescapes and all of those things relate right back to the home.

We offer for our clients and associates the opportunity to use our space for signature events such as like retirement parties or bridal showers, but it is limited to our client list as well as our affiliates. So that makes it a little bit more of a privilege to be a client of Kirkendall Design. There are a lot of pluses that come with

We have planted a beautiful flower garden, which our clients reap the benefits of that all the time. We are bringing fresh flowers with us all the time for their home and just kind of another touch that we get to offer to our clients. Along with that, then the other four acres that we have, we have a flower farmer who grows flowers on that area and

sells them in the different farmers markets around our area. So we have been able to lease out the land that we’re not using right now and get an income from that and allow somebody else to build a business, which has made it a real beautiful active area. So it’s kind of fun to see that develop for now. So as you hear, there’s several areas that we have developed Kirk and all design.

through the studio at KD. Every time somebody walks into our studio, they’re surrounded in an environment that reflects our brand, tells the story of who we are, and it welcomes them in and gives them opportunity to get to know us before they even begin to pick up the phone or get on the website and have a discovery call or an initial consult with us. That is so great.

Well, I can’t wait to see some new photos that I’m sure by now all those flowers are even more beautiful than when you first start building. They are. So you also have years of experience in construction and your husband was in that business. So how important has that design build part of the business been for you? You know, it is a huge, huge part of Carcandall Design

because as a design firm, we can do a full service turnaround. We can offer complete services for any of our projects. However, I would have to say the pro is we can control the schedule and solve the challenges in -house, but the con is there’s not near as big of a profit margin in construction as there is in design. So you have to have a significant volume of business.

to make it worth it. So there’s a benefit that we have that we take certain level jobs, we take certain jobs that we know that we will serve well, but that is not the area that we really make our most profits. It too is an area that really reflects back to Kirkendall Design and helps build Kirkendall Design.

That’s fabulous. I think you’ve done a great job of diversifying your business with some very unusual things and maybe not the common grouping of things that most people have done before. How has that helped you through the challenging economic times? And we’ve had them several years. We’ve had them. Yeah. I think that that’s important for any business is to diversify. And I do believe that designers

are finding new and unique ways to do so. I think that we shouldn’t jump on the same bandwagon as what you’re seeing happen. I believe we’re creatives and visionaries. So give yourself the opportunity to look and see what’s important to you and your clients and explore those things and open those doors so that you’re able to find areas that serve your business best.

Go have fun with it. It will keep you engaged. It will keep your clients engaged. My staff is loving our new space. They love all the energy that people coming in are bringing. They love the opportunity to go out and sit out in the flower field or out in the garden and work for a while or meet with a client. So I think you just have to be bold. You have to look for those opportunities and jump

Well, you are certainly bold and courageous. And that is always something that I think about with you. So good for you. Thank you. Well, what is your bigger vision now? Is there something beyond this? Do you have ideas for colliding? Well, yeah, of course. There again, I better get out the impact filter a second, see if they’re really going to be viable. Right. You know, I do. There’s there’s a lot of opportunity ahead.

Every year, the big question is, okay, well, what’s your end game? What are you, where do you think you’re going? And how long will you be doing this? And the answer is just so, so varied is I don’t ever see myself retired in the conventional way of retirement. I having my whole life, including my family and how we are a family together.

all are kind of embedded in this business. So I had to step back and get an idea of, you know, in purchasing a building, gaining assets and looking at everything that I had, what was going to happen with this building if I wasn’t around. And we developed an employee and ESOP, an employee -owned program. So we are in the process because I have great employee retention.

that our employees are going to own Kirkendall Design and be able to take it on and beyond. So that’s an excitement for me to know that there is a future. And then what we do along the way, there are just so many opportunities, Gail, that are presented. Now, I think a lot of that has to do with having a

good established business, which is our main business being design, getting the opportunity to now branch out and find other things that we are enjoying to do. But with the understanding that they all have to help develop business for Kirkendall Design. think that’s where that’s the magic in it. It all has to feed the mothership, as I call it all the time. So,

That’s very, very bright. honestly, the same thing with the design build because that does feed the design part of the business, which is, we didn’t do design build in my firm. We did a construction design department, but that fed our residential design business. So it was a natural partnership. Yeah, for sure. For sure. So we have got some great, exciting things to explore.

But I think the important lesson, of course, is always feeding that design business, but looking at all the different opportunities you have to do that. And for every personality, for every designer out there, it’s going to be a little different. And don’t be afraid to explore it because it could be the biggest thing that takes your business to the next level. I love that.

Knowing what you know now, what would you suggest to designers that aren’t as far along on their journey as you are? Just that. Be bold. Look for opportunities. Don’t be afraid to walk through those doorways, but always take the time to make sure your energy is only going to be building your business and not just a hobby, not just for fun. For sure is make sure it all.

it all can be transferable to your design business. And you can make a great living as a designer. absolutely. Yeah. And in fact, you can make more money as a designer than in a lot of professions. to me, that’s true. Yes. That’s a big part of it is design. The profit margins in design are very healthy. So that is what you want to, you know, you’re doing this to make money. So that’s where

Profit margins are healthy there, so make your money in design. Enjoy the journey. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so my final question is, what are three takeaways you’d like to share with our listener? And I think you said one, which is be bold and courageous. So that’s number one. How about the other two? I would tell you that, which is bold and courageous. Growth and change are good things.

These are things that people sometimes get concerned about and they don’t do it because they’re a fear. And I think you’ve got to look at growth and change as being good things. I think that you have to really work hard at building the team that supports your dreams. And the big, one of our big things that we’re really emphasizing and have been for a couple of years now

I have a team that is supporting my dreams, but in turn, I support their dreams. And that keeps them engaged. They understand that it is important to me that they’re happy and that they’re working and we’re all working, but we’re all starting to see our dreams, our own individual dreams come true. And when you do that, it builds an enthusiasm that is contagious.

So our big motto these days is keep dreaming, keep looking, keep looking for what that next step could be. And I think when you do that, opportunities and growth come right with it. That is a perfect end to the podcast. Thank you so much for the inspiration and the information that you shared with everybody. I hope everybody is inspired to go out and be bold and courageous just like you have been.

Sure, thank you. glad I got an opportunity to share with you. And of course, you know that you, your team has been very integral part of growing Kirkendall Design and we couldn’t have done it without you. So thank you for all that wisdom and advice. Thank you so much, Julia. Love you and wish you all the best for the future. You too.

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Even in the best of times, running an interior design business presents many challenges. You can view them as obstacles, or you can view them as opportunities that drive you toward new possibilities. If you fret about the negative, you can cloud your mind with anxiety or worse. If you maintain a more positive, even optimistic, attitude, you can tap into your problem-solving skills to explore new, perhaps also better, options.

In this episode, Gail talks with Cindy Aplanalp Ruzicka, principal designer with Chairma Design Group in Houston, Texas. Having begun practicing interior design in mid-life working for another firm, Cindy started Chairma Design Group ten years ago. Today, it is a highly successful, thriving, multi-award-winning firm, specializing in exceptional residential interiors “for the sweet spot of life.”

Acknowledging the many challenges Cindy has encountered during her interior design career, Gail asked her what she considered the keys to success in running a great interior design business. Cindy said:

• Be open to possibility.
• Have a sincere understanding of your financials.
• Know your ideal client profile.
• Embrace the “perfectly imperfect.”
• Nurture your team.

“What will drive you crazy in design are all the things that are out of your control,” Cindy said.

Many years ago, she recounted, a contractor gave her some advice that she has held fast to ever since: “This or something better.” Rather than focus on how things could get worse, assume that they can only improve. Something you are not aware of or expecting can turn up and change everything. “The universe is always conspiring for our good,” she said.

Cindy noted that when you develop a level of detachment from yourself and the situation, solutions begin to present themselves. You can tap into your deeper self. “When you get out of the way and don’t resist,” she said, “you have no idea what the flow state does.”

Gail and Cindy talked at length about some recent challenges and changes in Cindy’s life. To get the full story and her lessons learned, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e4-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Cindy and Chairma Design Group, go to the firm’s website at www.chairma.com.

Cindy said her favorite book is Change Your Mind Change Your Destiny: The eight habits of success that will help you create better relationships, more health, more wealth, and more happiness by Dr. Jay LaGuardia. It is available from online booksellers in various formats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QU90GoR36c&pp=ygUXcGVhcmwgY29sbGVjdGl2ZSBwb2Rhc3Q%3DEpisode TranscriptNote: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

Click to show transcriptCindy, I am so excited to talk to you today. We have known each other for years now. Can’t even remember how many years, but it’s been a wonderful time that we’ve gotten to know each other. And I think of you as a friend at this point, and it’s just been so fun to watch your progression over time. And I’d love to just start with, how did you find me in the first place, and how did we end up working together?

So the way I found you, Gail, is when Southern Living Magazine used to have like designer network and you were one of the speakers and I want to say it was in someplace in the South and you spoke and I waited a very long time to talk to you because you, I was like, okay, this woman has what I need because you had the ability to understand the design world and have walked a mile in our shoes,

but you also had the financial background to really help us understand what was happening with our numbers and how this can really be a profession. If we treat it like a profession, you know, like it’s a serious profession, you can make some really good money doing this. You can support your family. You can educate your kids. Like, you know, I always tease that my kids have straight teeth and are well -educated, like thanks to you. And, you know, to turn it into a real business. And even though I had a great business manager,

They didn’t understand the nuances of design. And it’s really, really different because our forecasting, we’re not selling somebody else’s product. We’re not selling into the same group of clients, know, the same thing. Like we’re not selling widgets. We’re selling creativity. We’re selling one of a kind. We’re selling things that we don’t even know about yet because we’re creating. And oftentimes we’re creating on the fly.

So figuring out what the framework is for that creativity to be able to live and prosper and grow and expand was really helpful. And you helped me do that greatly. that’s so good. I’m so excited about it. And you’ve built a really great design business. We’re going to talk about your second business in just a couple of minutes. Sure. Let’s talk about how you originally got into being an interior designer. well, that was I used to clean houses. was I nobody should ever trust me with their kids.

because I was terrible babysitter. One time I locked my cousin, I was supposed to be babysitting and I locked all my cousins out of the house and one of them fell out of a tree house and almost died. So I should never make, no one should trust me with children. I can’t even believe God trusted me with children. I have two of my own and they’re fine. so I started cleaning houses to earn money, right? And so I would take all the stuff off of his shelf.

and dust it and then put it back and put it back differently. And I kind of, got good at that. I got good at personalizing those types of things. Cause I, really mattered to me what was on those bookcases and how they were displayed. And could be a nightstand. It could be like all those things, right? All those personal things. And I was really crafting, like I was seeing the memories or seeing the life that my health cleaning clients had.

and I was putting it in a format that was really expressive to them. So maybe something tender by the nightstand or some, know, putting their life in their bookcase. So I could see their travel and their family and like things that were important to them. And that became meaningful to me. And I got a lot of clients doing that. Like as a kid, I’m like 14 years old and I have a house cleaning business. so, but I didn’t know it was a profession.

I never thought it was like a way that I could make a living. And so when I went to college and, you know, life happened and I have a degree in business management and I just moved that direction. I did a bunch of marketing stuff, but in the background I was always doing my own projects, like flipping, flipping stuff. I’ve painted my cabinet several times, incorrectly mind you, like all the learning curve was on my dime.

I flipped a lot of houses, never made any money because I always put too much into them because like I’m going to live there. So, right. was terrible at that, but I had a lot of experience and then, I, I was a single parent. had one child, one daughter, and then I married a man that had four children and I had, I had, like a not very nice stepmother.

And I wanted to have our home have a completely different dynamic. Like I wanted us to be a family. So I would use space and how the things that we were created to be able to house like the kinds of memories that I would like to make with my new children and our blended family and all that kind of stuff. So they really had a living laboratory of how to manipulating space and elements and color and time and sense and all like all these things, right?

had no idea that I was crafting my next profession. And I was married for like 10 years, tennis years, and the writing was on the wall, but that was not gonna be a long -term situation. I kinda joke and I’m like, well, I went to design school in my mid -40s. I moved from my Rolex neighborhood to the Timex neighborhood, which was separated by a street. And I got into design.

And I had no idea that all that stuff, all that living that I had done in the past counted. It was credible. It was important in my evolution as an interior designer. And I think that that life that I lived really helped me come to an understanding of how much space a home takes, how you really, I really didn’t want to concentrate on, is that going to soil my fabric or is that going to leave a

right, my countertop or whatever, I wanted to concentrate and focus on what am I doing in these relationships? Am I showing it? Am I making love? Am I holding the space for love and meaning and purpose to happen? And I wanted to get all those things out of the way. I wanted it to be beautiful and comfortable and welcoming and warm and like think of every other good word, right? That’s what I wanted to create. And so I was, I had years and years of that experience.

And then somebody that didn’t even like me mentioned that, you know, you’re really good at this. You should, you should go to school for interior design. And I’m like, I never thought of that. And so that’s what I did. And 10 years later, well, actually it’s more than that. Cause I worked for another firm for about seven years. So would, chairman just had our 10 year anniversary. So 17 years later, ta -da. That, mean, it’s crazy how life happens like

That’s so crazy. So you did design before you knew that you needed to be a designer and before you knew that it was a profession. I love that. But you know, sometimes we have to live organically in our lives to find our true passion and to find what’s really right for us. And I am so excited for you that you found this this path. And of course, now it’s deviating again. And I can’t wait to talk about that. So since you’ve

run a successful business for a long time on your own, what are the five keys to success that you see in running a great business?

I would say there’s more than five, but I can probably, I’m going to tell you one story really fast that comes it all up in a nutshell. All right. So I had this like on my learning curve, my son Dakota, who’s now 28 and it’s a good thing he was so cute when he was little because when he was three years old, he caught our house on fire and he flooded our house and it was thousands of dollars of damage.

like wiped us out, right? And my contractor was very handsome man named Joe Caffaro. And Joe was, he always smelled good. He always dressed nice, you know, and he always like showed up with, you know, just in the nick of time. And this was a really distressful time for me, but he would, he would always say, Hey, Cindy, this or something better. Like when something would happen that was like unexpected, he was like, it’s okay, this or something better. And I will tell you in business,

That has probably been the thing that I’ve told clients when something happens that’s unexpected or something doesn’t come in or I have an employee that is not working out or it applies to every situation. If you hold the door open for this or something better, but you leave the room for that something better to show up and you don’t get so attached to it has to be only this way.

You know, like it’s the only thing that will work. When you get so bound up and tied up with it only being in a small tiny ball, you miss that possibility of expansion. And so like Joe Cofaro, those like my kids teach me all the time, like that’s probably gonna be on your tombstone. You know that, right? And I’m like, yeah. And I’d be okay with that. Cause I’m going someplace better. Again, would really say that attitude and

the ability to share that attitude and have that be the energy that you project, like always leaning into the positive, because what will drive you crazy in design is all the things that are out of your control. And I do know every designer’s heart is one of service. We tend to be people pleasers. We tend to be perfectionists. And it will drive you crazy when things don’t work out as planned. If you don’t,

leave the bandwidth open if you don’t hold the door open for the something better. And I can tell you countless times there’s not a single time that the some, you know, when this didn’t happen, the something better wasn’t like, my God, I never would have thought of this. This never would have happened had it not had, you know, I exhausted all the possibilities or like close my mind for that. I would have missed out on, you know, all the something

So I’m effervescent on that because if people listen to this and they take away one thing, I would say it’s that attitude of there’s something better, this or something better. Love that. Yeah, it’s all true.

Yeah, like don’t think you my head like of all the something betters that I’ve experienced in my life, right? And it’s been crazy. It’s so crazy. And having known you for so many years now, I just think about your journey in the time that I’ve done you and how much has happened to you. And so many ups and downs and where you are now is just so fun to see. So let’s go back to the keys for success. You have this or something better.

And what are the other four that you’d like to touch on? I would also say, your financials. Like have a very good, sincere understanding because we can do a lot of really great things if we know where we are. Right. And so, and so if you know where you are in your financials, you know when you need to hire that next person. You also have that safety net of having

being able to sustain everybody that’s in that room if the bottom falls out tomorrow for a period of time, like our business goes on. I can also sleep at night, because I know that I’m not commingling client funds with my funds. I know how much money I’ve, even though there’s commas and zeros on my checking account, it’s not all mine. I would say that. One of

Biggest things, Gal, that you actually taught me and I use this every day in multiple things is ideal client profile, like knowing who you serve. And I can tell you over and over, when we’ve deviated from our ideal client, it’s a buzzkill for everybody. For the client, for our team, for the stress that it puts on my team, like as a leader, really narrowing down that scope

Hey, this is our sweet spot. We hit it out of the park with these people because if we say yes to a person that’s not right for us, that means we have to say no to somebody who could be right. So it’s worth just, just pausing and really having your true intent of who you want to serve. And those people will come if you just hold that edge. Okay. So that’s three and number four. I’m really pushing you today.

I know, let me think.

I would, it kind of relates to this or something better, but it’s that attitude of perfectly imperfect. so as you progress in life and you’re looking, I only know this by looking backwards, that all the things that seem to be like a bust or didn’t like, you know, it was not happening as quickly as I wanted it to now with, you know,

almost 62 years under my belt, I can look back and say, that was perfection. That was perfectly imperfect. And it was all unfolding to what I needed it to be. And

I can see that in my business too. originally when I wanted to buy the firm that I worked at for seven years. And when that transaction didn’t come to fruition and I was really upset about it, right? Cause that was my plan, right? That was my perfection. And when that didn’t happen, then chairman happened and that all rolled out and I would have ended up spending a lot more money than I needed to, to buy a preexisting business

the creation of chair mode was at my fingertips. Like I could do this. Does that make sense? It does. It totally matters. And so don’t get so caught up into it has to be one way. Like give yourself the room for it to be like, yeah, it feels imperfect. It’s perfectly imperfect because these are the things that I need to know. This is, these are my lessons and they are extracting gifts and talents that I didn’t even know I had. And that’s, that’s what happens. That’s great.

All right. I have one more. good. And I have one more because I have five. And I would say that learning that my team that’s in the other room, that’s my client. That’s my number one client. If I don’t have them, I don’t have a business. You’re absolutely right. And so so nurturing their nature, like understanding their nature, understanding who’s in that room

and what their nuances, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, and being a leader that leads with that level of understanding and care for my staff, because there’s not a road roadmap to this skill. Like every project’s unique, every client’s unique. It’s not like we’re selling widgets, right? We’re not selling windows and doors. You know what I mean? Like it’s all so important as far as the team member.

the client and even the whole environment of how we’re solving problems and serving others. And it really, as a leader, it really matters. Because I, people being mean to my team or disrespectful to my team, right? really, can. You have to protect your team because if somebody is treating them badly, they don’t need to be the ones that are providing dollars in your business. In fact, to me, that’s painful money. Yeah.

I agree. I gave you five. Okay. I love it. You are such a good podcast guest. Thank you. it’s so funny. Well, I want to talk about your personal life a little bit because there’s an intersection here with your business that I think is so interesting and valuable. And all the things I wanted to talk about as we came on to prep for the call today, I was thinking, I’m going to

the questions that I had for you. And I’m going to go back to the questions that I’m most interested in hearing about. And I think our audience will also be interested in hearing. So let’s take a segue and talk about your 100 dates. Yeah. That was so fun. So we were actually at the genesis of 100 dates because we were in like Del Mar. And so I was I was about to have a significant birthday and I was like I

had really been single for a period of time and kind of made a decision that I was, okay, so you know the movie, Runaway Bride? Yes. Where she doesn’t know how she likes her eggs, like that’s the thing, right? Like one guy says she likes a fry, the other guy’s scrambled, the other guy’s over easy, right? And she’s like, I don’t know how I like my eggs. So I was figuring out how I liked my eggs. I was saying, okay, I might give love one more try, maybe.

But first of all, I gotta know me. And so I really spent a year just dating myself. I got the car I wanted, I got the bicycle I wanted, I did some good girl trips. I like really caring for myself. And I also had the idea of, okay, I’m gonna join a dating service and I’m gonna have a hundred unique men, but a hundred celibate dates, right? So I’m gonna take that off the equation, like out of the room, right?

I’m the table and I’m just going to be gut level honest. And I’m just like showing up with, you know, me, all, you know, all the things that have made me me, how I, how I got here and just being gut level honest. And so I started out on that adventure and the last line in my Bumble profile said, seeking epic equal. Okay. And so I’m like, okay, that’s pretty good line.

And I’d written a lot of things down, right? Who I wanted to be, like what this epic equal would look like. And a couple of the things were they had to have peace in all their relationships. So if they had been married, they had to get along with their ex, peace. They had to get along with all of their kids, their parents, their brothers and sisters. Like I needed to know that they valued relationships like I do. That they had long -term friendships, that they

you know, 30 and 40 year friendships, right? To be able to maintain that, that was important to me. And another one was they could never break a commitment to hang out with me. Like if they already had plans, they need to keep those plans because commitment was a big deal to me, right? And because that’s how I would respond. Anyway, those are just three of kind of things. So my third date was with Dion.

And we met and I told him all these things. First of all, I gave him the wrong restaurant to go to. Then I was like, hey, that was one. And then second, I’m like, and I’m going to have 100 celibate dates and blah, blah, blah. I told him the whole thing. He’s like, whoa, lady, that’s a lot. Sure, sure, ma ‘am. And then I shook his hand at the end of our night. So he had really, he was going

another trip and I was going on a trip. just like texted like maybe twice and I didn’t hear from him. You know, we didn’t talk to each other for like three months. And then out of the clear blue, I get this text. Hey, I’m in clear. Like, can you fit me in? And I’m like, not for me. Like, clearly not for me. He was, he was contacting like a lady that gave him massages. And so like days later, I respond, Hey Dion, and he’s like, Whoa, Cindy. Anyway, our second date was August the

at 8 p .m. and we’re essentially still on our second date because he never went home. We got married 21 days later and now a year and a half later, we’re still married, still wildly in love, but that last year and a half has been nuts. Frickin’ nuts. So he was my, so the third date, our second date was really my 64th date. And so I didn’t make it to 100, but I learned so much about myself and so much

about women in general and men in general. And I will tell you that women, we’re in our heads so much and we tell each other so many stories, ourselves so many stories. We’re a mess. we are a Guys that have done the weird are so much better than we are. Like I’m just generalizing. nobody don’t send me any hate mail. I’m generalizing, broad strokes, right? But as a gender,

We tend to live in our heads more instead of in our hearts. And we tend to storytell and make stuff up and have our fears become so real and such roadblocks. And it’s so needless. It’s just a big, huge waste of energy because there’s really just love for us and all the things like it’s just really perfectly imperfect. Like all the things that got you here, all the imperfections that like all the bumps and all the twisty windy roads.

that landed you here right now, it’s perfect. You’re exactly like, this is a perfect exchange of five years of being friends, right? Six years of being friends. This is what it landed at. Perfectly imperfect, right? Okay. What did you learn about men? That they really just want to be loved. They want to be seen.

And they don’t expect us, they don’t expect perfection. They don’t expect physical perfection. They don’t expect us to get it right all the time. They just want us to be who we are and to be authentically ourselves and allow them to be authentically themselves. And when you forgive something, really forgive it. Don’t keep it in your hip pocket to come out and, know, beat you over the head with later, years later, whatever, right? Let it

Because I can tell you, felt like I didn’t really want to tell them all the roads that it took me to get here, right? But when I was gut level honest, they were honest too. nobody judges anybody at this point. There’s no point in judging anybody. You just appreciate that this is how you got to here. Well, OK, that’s how you got to here. Whatever. It doesn’t really even matter what it was.

how you got here as your true authentic self, like be the best version of yourself right here, right now, today. That’s all. And so I think women, we don’t have that love of allowing with ourselves. That’s just me. I love it. And I love the fact that you’re so open and authentic.

I think what’s so interesting, you’re talking about being in your head. So that implies to me very much the judging, self judging, of course, and a little bit of left brain thinking. And one would think that as women, we lead with a heart. But sometimes I think we do lead with a brain. And I just love that you said that. So fascinating. Tell ourselves so many stories like we make up stuff and

You know, like I’ll tell Dion like something my husband now, like I will tell him something that I’m thinking and like how I got there. And he’s like, that’s what you thought. Like, how did you get from here to here? Like, like that. And I’m like, that’s, that’s what I do. And I think that’s largely what women do is we go from zero to 2000 like that. And even though something is not true,

I have a dumb story. I was traveling a lot and I do a lot of breath work and I had a blister in my nose because I was in a dry climate and I was breathing hard, like on purpose, right? And I have a little sore in my nose. Like it’s just tender. It’s not a big deal gal. Like it’s so nothing. And I went from, I have a little sore spot in my nose to, my God, I have nose cancer. I’m gonna have to get a prosthetic nose. Like,

from here to there. Oh my goodness. less than 20 seconds. And I told my husband, he’s like, you nuts? Like, you’re fine. And I’m like, I know, but this is what we do. This is what we do. And even though I’m fine, my body’s not fine. My body went through the whole experience of, my God, I’ve got a nose issue. I have a serious problem. It couldn’t have been further from the truth.

I’m fine. I have nothing wrong with my nose. But I had that whole experience and that’s just a real life situation where it’s completely nuts, completely unfounded, totally made up in my head. Well, good for you that you’re just totally fine. I’m totally fine. I love that you just shared that with Dionne. And that must be very interesting on the outside for a man to have that visibility into the way you think.

especially when it seems so odd that we come to such odd conclusions, right? So crazy. I, so this journey has been interesting. Like lots of things have happened and that coming, the self -examination and really allowing to see where those feelings come from and see where those thoughts come from and see what that programming is. Like, how did I get from here to here? You know, that was fear.

And to be able to catch it, to be able to stop that runaway train before it has a whole life of its own, right? Like it’s a whole road show of its own that’s running rampant. That’s not even me. It’s not my conscious self. That’s my subconscious going like ham on some fear. Being able to catch that has given me a new life. It’s given me a new life.

this makes me think of is what if someone like a writer who writes for movies could interview women about all these crazy thoughts they have that take them from zero to disaster and write a funny movie about it? I think it would be great. Just put that on your list. read that down zero to disaster. Zero to disaster. Because that is exactly what we do. And actually,

Sometimes when in my dream space, I’ll see myself like as a, in a sitcom and I’m like looking like, this is how I dream. I dream really vividly and I’m looking down and I’m looking at what I’m doing in my life, you know, like some goofy thing. And it’s, it’s like, I’m like cringing at the character that I’m playing. Like, don’t do that. Don’t do that. Like, and I’m seeing, I’m seeing this character of Cindy do it was such love

like she’s bumping into things that are avoidable. And so now as I’m the director, like this is my show, Cindy’s show, right? I’m now the director. Now I’m the writer. Now I’m the author of the script that’s happening. And so I’m informing this character much better. Love that. It’s true. That is so great. You’d ask me, like my favorite book, like that was one of your questions.

And I would say it’s probably J .R. Spina, change your mind. Because having the ability to see yourself not so personally enamored and ego and not so attached to anything, you know, that this character does, even a thought, that level of a detachment has given me unconditional love for myself. Because I’m, I am, I’m able to see

how this is playing out. I’m able to make better decisions about my behaviors and my thoughts and behaviors because I’m looking down on myself with such love and admiration and honoring the courage that it takes for all of us to have a human experience. Are you kidding me right now? And to do our job, like our jobs are challenging and we, to be able to do design as a job.

You have to really be able to live on your heart and really, really be willing to put it out there. And I think we’re brave. I think we’re incredible, particularly in this field. That’s just my taste of that. not have heard more. I think you’re absolutely right. And let’s talk about courage because right after, it wasn’t that long after you got married that you found out that Dion was ill. So tell me what happened and the journey that you’ve been on since

So we got married August 29 of 22 and by October of 22, he was really sick, like had lost 30 pounds, he was just out of gas, could barely make it through the day at work. His lymph nodes were always swollen and he had had a lot of dental work. So we’re thinking, oh, it’s related to that. And they kept telling us it’s not cancer, it’s not cancer, it’s not cancer. And then,

Christmas morning, he woke up with this dream. He was supposed to take super cold baths, right? And we’re like, that sounds awful, but if you do, I do. And we didn’t know until January where he finally had his lip nodes biopsied that he had lymphatic leukemia. That’s why he’d been sick and he lost weight and all these things, right? And so that weekend, we just researched everything that we could and we found deliberate cold exposure. This guy named Wim Hof, we also learned

It was just like YouTube University. Like, what are we doing? Right? Like, what can we do to get better? Because we were really, really desperate. And fortunately, we found some good people that were lifelines for us that we didn’t know, but we knew their work. And we knew there was a guy on Wim Hof’s, like we watched every video he’s ever made, and a guy that had cancer. And he was talking about, you know, he was doing traditional medicine. He was really, really sick. But he felt

deliberate cold water exposure, that was the thing that he could do that he felt in control of his body. So that really spoke to us. so we started doing that. And we started getting in really cold water, like a big tub, like a bathtub. And the water’s like between, let’s just say 45 and 38 degrees and staying in there for a period of time, like a minute to three minutes and then warming up and then

getting in a sauna, like warming up naturally and getting in a sauna. And so that’s called contrast therapy. And we didn’t know at the time about contrast therapy, but what it does is it helps your nervous system. It helps you to calm down. So you get out of your head, you get out of that to be able to maintain cold water, you have to learn how to breathe. And when you learn how to breathe, you learn how to control your nervous system. So you can get out of that fight or flight state.

and get in the parasympathetic, which is rest and repair. But beyond that, you learn how that rest and repair state feels. You understand what it does to your physiology. You understand what it does to your heart rate. You understand what it does to your breathing. So even when you’re not in cold water, you have a roadmap back to that state, that feeling. You can get there any time. You can slow down. You can take a beat. You can pause.

you can focus on the perfectly imperfect things, right? The perfection in your life or the something betters that are coming your way. Like it just, for me, it just cleared the slate. It just gave me more, it gave me spaciousness in my mind. And I can’t tell you how great it is. Cause that spaciousness gave the opening

the something betters to show up in my life. And the something betters have just been incredibly profound. So the something better is an evolution. So you started here and in getting that really difficult news, you just got into action, decided to solve things for yourself, which I find very fascinating. And I know that

Let me tell you about that for a second. can tell you, Gail, was when we got that news and the way that we found out he had lymphatic leukemia is my chart, not a phone call, you know, like these big scary words, like all of your lip nodes all over the place. And that was so frightening without a back, know, like no phone call, no face to face. Like that system’s broken. Like I don’t want to diss on that system, but it’s just broken.

So don’t expect anything from that community, right? That, you know, because they’re doing the best they can, but it’s broken. When we got that news, it was like an immediate, had a, like Dion had that dream to take called Baz, but I had this impression. just like filled me up. It was like an energy that came over me that said, this is a gift and you’ve been

and you’re not going to blow it. Don’t worry, you’re not going to blow it. And I mean, I was like, okay. And that, that encouragement, that, that knowing helped me pivot, like to turn away from the fear and to look forward to the something better.

That’s crazy. I mean, you know me like that’s not even like, I’m a mess. I freak out. I write but something came over me that was like, you’re going to be okay. You’ve got this. And it was it was literally like, this has been entrusted to you. I almost had the impression that I was had been preparing lifetimes for this. Like, you got this like it’s been

The path has been uphill, but it’s been smooth. Like whatever something, you know, disappointing has happened, there’s always been a push from behind or an encouragement or something else that really good has prospered from it. So I do believe it’s this or something better. And I know that we’re not going to blow it because the things that have opened up to us.

And we didn’t mean to do any of this. We didn’t mean to start lowly. I was doing fine with Chairman. And then I didn’t mean to do any of this, but it just unfolded. And I think that’s the wonder and the magic of life is that when you get out of the way and you don’t resist, you have no idea what this flow state does.

water’s most powerful element there is, right? And I feel like this water has just pushed open doors and it’s just been, it’s been nothing short of magical. So you started lowly. At what point in this journey did you start lowly? Well, okay. So we needed to, we had two places that we were going because we needed to do this cold water thing. We did it in our bathtub and we tried to, you know, we live in Houston, our water’s never cold here, it’s not like Colorado, right? Right.

So we’d like ice, we’d put like ice packs, and we’d like freeze milk containers to put in our bathtub, and that was unsustainable. Plus I’m too bougie for that, so that’s not gonna work. And so we found a couple of places to go, and one place was great, their water was always cold, but it was about an hour to get there, and they didn’t have a towel service, always had wet towels in my car, all for a week, week long, and

It took about an hour to get home. were getting home at like 930 or 10 every night. That’s not sustainable. And then another place, their saunas were really hot, but their water wasn’t cold enough. And we live in a high rise. because of that, the good place was too far away. Dion started to get sick again because we needed to do it every day or like with a high degree of frequency. And so he literally bought two plunge tubs on his way to work and was like, babe, figure it out.

I don’t know how, but I have to do this. And we figured if this was working for us because some big changes had happened, he had a major health tick, like he started getting better quickly doing this. Well, I started getting better too. Like the thing that I started getting better about is that I started being calmer and sleeping better and not being so frazzled when things weren’t.

perfect and being kinder and more generous and more loving to myself and to.

forgive myself of the past and when things didn’t work out, you know, as I had planned, right? I became far more accepting and I’m like, what’s happening here? And I was able to release on some really big things. Like one of the things that was, I was able to release on was alcohol. And that was a big thing for me. Like I was a daily drinker. And I think a lot of people, like women, especially, especially women my age,

In my profession, particularly, use alcohol to relieve stress, to calm down, to sleep, and socially. And it’s really prevalent in our industry. And alcohol, if you study it, it doesn’t do any of those things. It’s the anti -relaxation drug. It’s actually the anti -social thing. It’s like a lot of things. And I’m not dissing on that in moderation.

I’m just telling you for me. And for me, it was something that I was able to use cold and mindset and breath to just let go of things that weren’t serving me. And that was something that wasn’t serving me. was damaging my, it had damaged some of my relationships, particularly with my kids. It wasn’t good for me. Like if you saw a picture of me two years ago, I was

Like I was 38 pounds heavier and I was all full of inflammation and my neck was always red and it was inflammation. So it was like one of those things. So we, learned that, wow, okay, well, if it can do this for me and then, you know, the whole uptick of mental health stuff, cause we would do this every day together. So we’re in this red light glow of, you know, a sauna together and, and your cell phone won’t work in there.

You know, so you’re not distracted and you have 30 to 45 minutes of just talking, just doing something good for your health together. And you get this dopamine hit because it feels really good because your nervous system is now under control and you do this with your beloved and you’re stacking like these good feelings with these good behaviors. And it just, it just took off. It took off in our relationship and it expanded.

the possibility, well, if this works for us, probably work for somebody else too. Like if we create a place that we’re the very best clients, it works for us, and we’ve had documentable, know, provable results, then why wouldn’t this work for everybody else? And that’s what’s been happening. And beyond that, you know, now the merging of what I’ve done in interiors,

home lifestyle, wellness lifestyle, longevity strategy, because we’re all living longer. It’s like, man, I really want to bring this knowledge base and these experiences into my residential design work, because I want everybody to feel as good as I feel. there’s support. Like, our bodies are amazing. They want to support us. There’s self -healing. We’re incredible. We just need a little more support.

We need a little more sanctuary in our homes. That’s what I’m learning how to do. That is so great. Isn’t this cool? It is so cool. And I want you to share how Dion is doing now. Well, so he used to go to MD Anderson every three months. there was a time where he had, before we knew it was leukemia, he had a pick line with antibiotics that were like little grenades that he had.

really powerful antibiotics, right, which is napalm to your gut bio. And he was, he was having that experience, right. So, and he had lost 30 pounds. Now, now you’ll have to look on our Instagram. He’s up for Mr. know, Mr. health and fitness kind of thing. He’s, he’s a pitcher of health. He’s really doing great. And it’s, it’s like all the things it’s not one thing, but I will tell you our bodies are incredible. And

Cold water is legitimate. It’s like dipping in the river Jordan. It’s like simple science. It’s a simple thing that’s available to anybody because what it does is it energizes your mitochondria, which is the power supply for our cells. And we are just the health of our cells. So if we can strengthen that, then it makes sense that everything would get better. Like everything.

your attitude, your sleep, your tone, your fitness, your weight, you your overarching, how you fill in your mind, in your head. It’s been incredible. It’s amazing. And so he’s cancer free now. Yep. Yep. He goes back every six months now. And so he’ll go again in June and his doctor is like, I don’t know what you’re doing, but you do you because, you know, I don’t even know. And so MD Anderson tracks his progress.

He’s had not one single drug. I’m almost 62. I don’t take any medication at all. I don’t take anything for high blood pressure. don’t take any hormones. I don’t take anything. Not even an aspirin because I don’t need to. I’m not against those things. I just don’t need to. That’s so amazing. And I used to do all those things. That’s so interesting. And I remember seeing your post on Facebook several months ago when you stopped drinking.

and you showed your before and after picture and I’m looking at your face right now. And for those of you that are watching the video, you’re going to see she is glowing and she has this wonderful, healthy face and it is a difference. It is a significant difference. So it’s totally different. Yeah. It’s completely different. And if I hadn’t lived it, I would, I really wouldn’t believe it. And I also, it hadn’t happened to me. I would think it was so hard.

because the reason I didn’t ever quit drinking was because I didn’t think I could. Interesting. Interesting. And now I feel as if I can do anything because I getting in cold water, it’s hard. 38 degrees is cold. Every time it’s cold, it never gets easier. Never gets easier. when you get good, like you get good, you know that you’re good at doing hard things, right? It makes like the next hard thing. Well,

Well, I already did that, so I can do this, right? It just gives you, it kind of gave me like a point of like, okay, I did that, so now I can do this, right? And it’s not going from here to here, but it’s just little increments. It’s just little drops of, okay, like courage, encouragement. And pretty often when I’m getting in water, like I’m thinking, okay, what is an attitude or a weakness that doesn’t really serve

Like what am I leaving behind before I get in? And when I get in, I’m installing something new. So it might be procrastination that I’m leaving behind. I get in that water and my self -talk is I’m a woman of action. I keep my word. I’m good for it. When I see a problem, I look for the solution. Like I can feed myself all these things that I would love to have in my playlist, right? Just my automatic, my go -to. This is my cartridge.

that I’ve taken out something that doesn’t serve me and I’m installing because I’m shocking my body so my mind is open. It’s almost like self hypnosis a little bit. Like if you know much about that, it’s like when your body is in a shock, you’re in an open state. So you can accept something new. I mean, but how great is that, Gil? Cause you can change anything if you have a tendency

be think that people are like their motives are skewed. Like, well, she’s just like, like maybe like a something that you’re always glass half empty instead of glass half full about a particular person. But, and maybe that person’s your daughter -in I don’t know. Right? Like let’s do something hard. That’s not the case Morgan. That’s I’m not talking about you at all. But, but I’m okay. Maybe you have a hard

and you want to give it a chance for it to prosper and grow and do better, you can leave those negative emotions and those predetermined stories that you’re, the playlist that you’re running in your head. You could stop that. Like we have that kind of power.

This has been so fascinating. And I could have talked to you for hours about this topic. And I had other questions, but we’ll just leave those behind because I think that the message that you had from what we talked about today is so incredibly helpful for everyone. And I want to just share that I think that there are a few things that just stood out to me in this. So if you’ll allow, I’ll just share what I thought was so amazing. Yeah.

First is action, taking action, just making a decision that you are not going to let anything stop you no matter how bad it seems is so powerful. And the courage that you talked about. So that’s the second thing is having the courage to do the hard things because those are the things that change our lives. And I think that last one was about this or something better. And I will continue to remind myself of that because

That’s a great message for all of us, no matter where we are in our lives or careers. We need to remember that whatever doesn’t happen the way we think it should is probably for our good. And gosh, Cindy, this is so great. Thank you so much for your incredible insights today and for being so open and vulnerable to share your stories with us. Absolutely. And if anybody wants to reach out, if they’re struggling with alcoholism like I was, I’m glad to talk with you personally.

And it really is true this or something better that mantra. If there’s not one single situation where that doesn’t level up, it’s like the universe is always conspiring for our good. And just know that even though it doesn’t feel that way sometimes, that’s really the truth of it. my gosh. So wonderful. Thank you so much for your time today. And I look forward to sharing this podcast with everybody. I love you, Gal. Thank you for all your help.

a life gift for

Love to you. Love you. God bless.

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No matter how creative or talented you are, the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. At the end of the day it’s what you deliver to the client that matters, not what’s on the design board. Turning inspiration into reality involves a lot of steps and orchestrated execution. Ensuring all that goes smoothly and according to plan is the role of the project manager. Whether that’s an individual or the function of some individual, they are critical to the success of your business.

In this episode, Gail talks with Sarah Kimball, project manager with Brighton Studios in Staten Island, New York. Brighton Studios is an interdisciplinary studio focused on creating window displays, scenery, and creative visual merchandising for luxury brands, boutiques, museums, and exhibitions.

In discussing her role, Sarah stated that design firms need a combination of someone who is a visionary and someone (or someones) who can execute the plan to achieve that vision. The project manager serves as a bridge between the two. She does the planning and prep work to ensure that the team is “set up for success” before delegating specific tasks and goals. “I love starting new projects,” she said.

Sarah described some of the characteristics of a good project manager and a not-so-good project manager. In essence, they need to be solution-oriented and see each part of the plan through to completion. They also need to be able to communicate well and get along well with the rest of the team.

A challenge for the project manager is keeping the rest of the team on task. “You have to understand your team,” she said, to know what motivates them, how much information to give them, and how they like to work. It’s also important to set achievable goals for them (by day, by week, by project) and to prioritize the most important tasks. She’s found that explaining why a particular task is important or why it has to be finished at a certain time helps them stay focused.

Gail asked Sarah what the keys are to effective project management. Sarah said:

• Creating a clear plan from the start
• Creating an environment of clear, transparent information and communication
• Anticipation, thinking ahead to what needs to be done when and why
• Taking ownership of the project schedule
• Checking in with the team on progress and any issues they may be dealing with

Gail also offered her insights on the importance of good project management. Listen to the podcast to hear their entire conversation.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e3-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Sarah and Brighton Studios, visit the firm’s website at brightonstudiosllc.com.

Gail recommended the book Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Businessby Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters. It is available from online booksellers in various formats.

Sarah stated that the project management software she uses is Asana. She also mentioned Monday, and Close, which is a CRM software that includes project management components. For contracting, Sarah said she uses Smartsheets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6BgX2_dL7U

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With 13 blocks of home furnishings, over 2,000 studios and showrooms, and a calendar full of events and educational sessions, High Point Market can feel overwhelming to first-time attendees. Don’t let the magnitude intimidate you. With a few pointers from an expert, you can customize your High Point experience to get the most from this one-of-a-kind industry showcase.

In this episode, Gail talks with Tammy Covington Nagem, chief executive officer, High Point Market Authority in High Point, North Carolina. Tammy has been with the organization for 22 years, first as director of operations, then as chief operating officer. She assumed the role of CEO last year when the previous CEO retired.

Tammy said that one of her main areas of focus as the new CEO is the importance of the guest experience. She not only wants to attract new attendees, she also wants to ensure that all other attendees come away feeling that their visit was worth their time and money so that they will come back again.

At the heart of the Market experience is the connection between the people and the product. Home furnishings, she said, are something best experienced in person. “We are here to connect the buyer and the seller,” she said. Part of that connection is providing the seller the opportunity to tell the story behind the product, which is a crucial component of its value.

In recent years, interior designers have become a more essential customer at Market. “Consumers are understanding the value a designer brings,” said Tammy. That translates to value for the manufacturer or vendor. Designers have an opportunity to discover products that they otherwise might not find elsewhere. It can set them apart from the competition who don’t attend.

Gail asked Tammy what her advice was for designers who are thinking of attending Market for the first time. She said,

• Register early. First-time attendees must go through a qualifying process to be able to register. Once registered, you will receive a series of emails that will walk you through all the steps you need to plan and prepare for your visit.
• Use the Market’s concierge service to book your hotel accommodations. Their highly knowledgeable staff will help you get the best booking for your needs. Don’t fear the lack of hotel rooms on other websites – those have simply been reserved for you already!
• Sign up for a half-day tour to get an overview of Market and helpful tips from a seasoned attendee.
• Leave time for discovery. Don’t over-schedule yourself the first time out. Allowing yourself time to explore can lead to some incredible finds.

On the practical side, Tammy urged attendees to bring a different pair of comfortable shoes for each day they will be on site. She also described how to set up the Market app to help navigate onsite and keep track of sessions and events. For more helpful tips from Tammy and Gail, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, see the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e2-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about the High Point Market Authority, visit the organization’s webpage at www.highpointmarket.org/hpma.

For more information about High Point Market, how to register, and planning your visit, go to the Market’s website at www.highpointmarket.org.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RuUnwC0VPs

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Every entrepreneur and small business owner needs help now and then. Peer groups can be a great source of information and support. Books, blogs and podcasts can provide new approaches, strategies and valuable lessons learned. Sometimes, though, your best option is to seek out an expert who can work with you one-on-one to identify the source of the problem and create a plan to move forward.

In this episode, Gail talks with Brian Kerlin, founder and chief executive officer of Optitude, a business consulting firm based in Denver, Colorado. The firm primarily focuses on assisting professional services companies that are entering their second stage of business development and looking to grow their revenues, profits and client pool.

Gail asked Brian, from the perspective of a small business owner, when is the right time to hire a consultant. Brian said that it’s when you recognize that you have a problem. Maybe your business isn’t growing because it’s not generating sufficient revenue. Or maybe you’re having difficulty attracting and retaining new clients. Whatever the issue, you want to look for an experienced individual who has that specific expertise and a proven track record of helping other business owners.

Businesses go through different stages of growth, Brian explained. What may have made the entrepreneur or owner successful at one stage may not guarantee continued success at a later stage, when the challenges and needed skills change. Owners need to be constant learners, he said. They need to acknowledge what they don’t know and seek out the information and insights that are required to grow the business at each stage of its development.

Working with a consultant is a commitment of time and money. Gail asked Brian for his advice on how to get the best results from working with a consultant. Brian said his firm performs what they call a “collaborative diagnosis.” They work closely with the owner to understand what is the current situation with the business. When they have identified the issues that need to be addressed, they then establish a scope of work for how they will be resolved. The scope of work includes checkpoints and milestones, to ensure the plan stays on track and meets its goals.

Whatever the situation, Brian said, it’s best to learn by doing rather than searching for the perfect solution. His firm has found that one of the factors that make great companies have better results is that leaders are willing to act and go quickly while making mistakes, but keep moving forward. In other words, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

For more on those and other insights, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s10e1-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Brian and his firm, go to his company website at www.optitude.co.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNkFN9NJUNM

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Whether you’re a sole practitioner or running a large interior design firm, technology can help it operate more smoothly, efficiently and reliably. From managing projects to finances to human resources, technology can standardize policies and procedures, speed up access to information and documentation, and ensure proper compliance with laws and regulations. No matter if you are a tech newbie, a tech pro or a technophobe, you can find products and services to suit your abilities and the needs of your firm.

In this episode, Gail welcomes back to the podcast Klaus Baer, chief operations officer, WRJ Design in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Klaus is a huge proponent of using technology to improve business operations, having seen it benefit WRJ Design over the years. He currently employs 14 different IT systems in the 25-person firm. Some of which he has used for more than 15 years and some he has adopted more recently.

In his experience, Klaus said, technology helps the business to run more smoothly and easily for everyone. In addition, the technology can provide you with tracking capabilities, easy-to-access files and documentation, and reports and visuals to help better understand what’s going on in your business from the macro to the micro level. “Once you get the data in, it’s amazing how you can slice and dice it,” he said.

Gail asked Klaus which of the systems he uses he would most recommend to other design businesses. He highlighted six:

• Asana – for team and task management
• Ignite – for cloud-based storage of files
• Trainual – for onboarding and training employees, documenting HR policies and procedures
• LastPass – for managing and organizing passwords
• Keap – customer management (CRM)
• BambooHR – for HR management

Klaus also mentioned an online program, Lucidchart, that he uses to convert data into diagrams and charts. He finds the visual information more accessible and revealing.

All of these technologies have a cost and a learning curve, of course. Klaus recommended a gradual evolution in technology adoption. What does your firm most need now? Pick something that works best for you. To get the most value, he suggested, “Think about things you can scale,” with good customer support and active community forums.

For more details about each of these technologies, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s9e10-shownotes

Mentioned in This PodcastTo learn more about Klaus and WRJ Design, go the firm’s website at www.wrjdesign.com.

You’ll find our previous podcast with Klaus, on what highly affluent clients really want, on our website or wherever you get your podcasts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khmVLL_jixc

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Who are you designing for, yourself or your clients? Of course, you have a desire and an obligation to deliver the best design outcome for your clients. But they can choose from any number of designers. Rather than try to morph to accommodate the tastes of each individual client, be your authentic self and find the clients who want what you have to offer.

In this episode, Gail talks with Kati Curtis, founder and principal designer, Kati Curtis Design in New York, New York. Regarded as one of NYC’s top designers, Kati and her team of six do both residential and commercial projects. Kati is an active member of a number of interior design-related organizations and has volunteered her talents for the Kips Bay Show House and for DIFFA’s Dining by Design fundraiser.

Kati said she is driven by a desire to develop a unique style and vision. “I want what nobody else can have,” she said. For her, design is about being who you are authentically. “When a client says, ‘I want what you have to offer’, that’s when we have the most successful projects.”

Looking back on her career up to this point, the one thing Kati said she would have done differently would have been to tout her own style more in the beginning and to not have been reluctant to push it as much as possible. Her advice to designers just starting their businesses is, “Find your own voice and scream it as loud as you can as early as can.”

Kati comes from a built environment background. And although she loves what she does, she acknowledges that interior design is hard work. “I say to people, we make at least 450 decisions a day.” Projects can take a long time to complete, and along the way the clients and others involved can begin to run out of steam and lose focus. Part of her job, as she sees it, is to remind them, her team, and even herself sometimes of the goal, which is the amazing finished project. Her mantra? “Remember the magic.”

Several years ago, Kati’s husband, Simon, who has a background in tech, joined the firm as chief operating officer. She talked about the adjustments that both of them had to make. The arrangement has been working well so far. Still, Kati cautioned anyone considering going into business with their spouse. “Think very hard before you work with your spouse. It can be the greatest thing and the hardest thing at the same time.”

Kati also spoke on her experience doing the Kips Bay Show House, what she has learned about running a business, and what inspires her as a designer. For all that and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s9e9-shownotes

Mentioned in This PodcastTo learn more about Kati and work, go to the firm’s website at www.katicurtisdesign.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EORJG0x7Ojg

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Who cares if your business fails? Hopefully, you do. But are you paying attention to what’s going on in your business, especially on the financial and operations management side? That’s where many small businesses fail. Often it’s the unexpected calamity that can undo a business. You need to put safeguards in place and keep a close eye on your cash flow and reserves. Because nobody really cares if your business succeeds but you.

In this episode, Gail talks with Philip Allen, chief operations officer for Lisa Kahn Designs in Naples, Florida. Philip, who is also Lisa’s husband, joined the firm in 2011 after a number of years in the construction industry. At first, he performed a variety of tasks and roles. Eventually, he settled into the position of COO, introducing more formal financial and cash management policies and processes to the firm. His job, he says, is to help achieve Lisa’s vision.

The nature of the design business is that the workflow tends to be either feast or famine, said Philip. His first goal as COO was to try to stabilize the work and cash flows in order to level out the peaks and valleys as much as possible. He established metrics such as the number of projects on the board and in the pipeline and the number of total square feet under contract at any given time. With those readings he can then go to the design team and say “we need to step things up a bit” or “we need to dial things back a bit to maintain a more even demand on the team and the financials”.

Philip stressed the importance for business owners to stay on top of the financial condition of their business at all times. “You need to look at the numbers, and you need to understand what they mean,” he said. “If you’re not looking at your business’s financial health, there’s nobody else who will.”

Philip acknowledged that many creatives have an aversion to financial statements and that they claim they can’t make any sense of them. The reality, though, he said, is that anyone and everyone can learn to understand the financials. It’s simply a matter of learning to think differently and not being afraid to ask questions. “The biggest obstacle for creatives to understanding financial concepts is shame,” he said.

As examples, Philip recounted a couple of instances when Lisa’s firm got into serious financial trouble from wholly unexpected situations. Better financial and operational oversight might have mitigated, if not completely prevented, the impact of those events on the business.

In addition, Philip shared some thoughts on what a couple should consider before going into business together and his advice for design business owners. For all that and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s9e8-shownotes

Mentioned in This PodcastFor more information about Philip, Lisa and her sanctuary approach to design, visit the firm’s website at www.lisakahndesigns.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYqVMWVud7k

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With two working spouses, finding a career-marriage balance can be difficult. When taking on a business partner, negotiating work styles and roles can be tough. So when spouses decide to go into business together, one might expect the challenges could be exponentially greater. Some couples, though, find a way to make it work. Some even find it rewarding.

In this episode, Gail talks with Karen B. Wolf and Matt Brown of K+CO Living interior design, based in Short Hills, New Jersey. Karen is the owner and creative principal. Matt is the chief operations officer. They also are wife and husband. Karen recently rebranded her firm from KBW Interiors to take her name out of the firm’s name and position the firm as a modern coastal look leader. Having decided to leave his business in the food industry after more than 20 years, Matt joined the firm to provide much-needed managerial support and free up more of Karen’s time to do what she does best—create.

Gail asked Karen and Matt what sorts of issues they had to consider when deciding to go into a business partnership together. On the plus side, said Karen, their personalities and skill sets are uniquely different and complementary. At the same time, they share the same common values and their personalities are compatible. Also, they have clearly defined roles in the business, so they don’t compete with one another.

The COO role is to support the CEO and their vision, explained Matt. His job is to take care of the back office and let the designers do what they do best. He has no facility for design, he said, and stays out of that side of the business. On the other hand, he has more than 30 years’ operations management experience and knows that Karen trusts his expertise and judgment in those matters.

As partners and a married couple, it’s important that they maintain a united front when interacting with the rest of the team, said Karen. “We need to be on the same page and avoid having disagreements in front of the staff,” said Matt. Karen added that they also have to be careful about how much personal information they share in the workplace. They are partners at work and spouses at home.

Karen also talked about some of the challenges she’s had to overcome in building her firm into a multimillion-dollar business and about her future plans for the business. For that and more insights into what makes for a successful couple-partner relationship, listen to the entire podcast.

Mentioned in This Podcast

To learn more about Karen, Matt and K+CO Living, visit the firm’s website at kandcoliving.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWPKzIqryFc

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Business partnerships have something of a bad reputation. And not without good reason. An estimated 70 percent of all business partnerships eventually fail. On average, partnerships last no more than eight years. A majority last five years or less. However, with the right formula and constant care, partnerships can survive and thrive for many years.

In this episode, Gail talks with Christi Barbour, founder and partner, Barbour Spangle Design in High Point, North Carolina, which specializes in both residential and commercial design. Christi and her partner Christi Spangle started their design firm 24 years ago and are still going strong. Over the years they’ve learned how to draw on and complement each other’s strengths to drive and grow their highly successful business.

Christi told Gail that in the beginning she and Christi both tried to do everything. But in time they realized that they each were good at very different things. They shifted their approach to focusing on their respective strengths, which proved to be a more effective way to run the business.

The one area in which they constantly coincide is their values. “You have to know your values align,” said Christi. That applies to the members of their team as well. When everyone believes in and shares the same values, then you can work together to achieve common goals, she said.

“You have to treat it like a marriage,” said Christi. Partners have to have a high level of respect for one another. You need to know how you complement one another, where your respective strengths are, and how you can support one another. Moreover, you need to truly care about each other’s welfare, be willing to take the bad with good, and be compassionate.

Christi also talked about some of the things she’s learned along the way that have contributed to the business’s success. “Initially, I didn’t listen to my gut,” she said. “When I started listening to my gut, there was a shift.” In addition, she mentioned learning to have hard conversations for the greater good and surrounding yourself with people who are smarter than you and share your values.

Gail and Christi touched on a number of other topics during their conversation. They include how she has created an award-winning workplace culture, her role in the firm, her future plans for the firm, and her charitable activities. For all that and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s9e6-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

To learn more about Christi and her work, go to the firm’s website at www.barbourspangle.com.

Christi mentioned a book Gail had recommended to her, Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters. It is widely available through online booksellers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO6Db0mz1j0

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Drawings, plans and renderings have always been an integral component of the interior design process. Beginning in the early 2000s, advances in computer technology and software made it possible to create stunningly realistic detailed renderings of architecture and design projects. Soon followed 3D, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) renderings. These allow viewers to immerse themselves in a space before any construction has started. They can be a powerful tool for presenting your vision to clients, funders and stakeholders.

In this episode, Gail talks with Jing Johnson, president of PRISM Renderings in Houston, Texas. Jing has degrees in architecture and design from both China and the United States. After 10 years of working in A/E/D firms in the U.S., Jing recognized that there was great demand from realtors and developers, as well as from architects, engineers and designers, for high-quality, precision renderings. In 2000, she started PRISM Renderings, which specializes in serving the commercial real estate market and high-end residential A&D market.

Jing has seen demand for her company’s services grow over the years. Although the images today are startlingly realistic, “renderings are beyond pretty pictures,” she explained. Many of her clients use renderings to raise funds for their projects and to expedite the design process.

“For designers and architects, renderings can save costs and also increase client satisfaction,” Jing said. Clients can better understand the materials being specified for the project. And they can see how they are being combined to create the overall design. That makes renderings a powerful sales tool. They also often help clients to make decisions quicker, saving time and money.

As an added benefit to the designer, said Jing, clients usually pay for the cost of producing the renderings. Some firms also charge a fee for the time involved in providing documents, reviewing the renderings, and walking through the renderings with the client.

Speaking from the perspective of an A&D professional, Jing urged designers to use not only renderings but all the resources available to them to ensure the long-term success of their business. Those include coaches, like Gail, consultants, specialists, and outsourced services like hers.

Jing spoke in detail about the process of producing renderings and also about some of the limitations of renderings. For those insights and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s9e5-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about PRISM Renderings and its services, visit the firm’s website at www.prismrenderings.com.

About Jing Johnson:

Jing Johnson, the founder and CEO of PRISM Renderings since 2005, leads an exceptional all-women team that produces advanced 3D renderings and animations for the real estate and architectural industry. Our work enhances project viability and marketability. With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture and years of experience in architectural firms, Jing’s expertise is foundational to our success.

Beyond her business, Jing is passionate about helping young mothers achieve work-life harmony, reflecting PRISM’s commitment to professional and familial dedication. Actively supporting the design industry and the community, Jing’s efforts span sponsorships, volunteering, mentoring, and aiding non-profits, underlining her impactful and meaningful contributions.

Jing balances her professional achievements with her roles as an architect’s wife and a mother to two sons and two dogs, embodying a holistic approach to life and work.

https://youtu.be/T-6NBecEOLk

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Decisions around compensation are some of the most difficult issues employers have to deal with. How do you determine what is the right level of compensation for a given position? How do you ensure compensation is equitable and fair across your entire team? To what extent should external factors such as inflation and market conditions bear on compensation levels? Aside from salary and basic benefits, what other forms of compensation should you be offering to attract and retain the best employees for your firm? A compensation specialist can help you make the right choices for your business and answer these tough questions.

In this episode, Gail talks with Sarah Lieberman, partner and chief human relations officer with The CEO’s Right Hand, headquartered in the Greater New York Area. Prior to joining The CEO’s Right Hand, Sarah was vice president of human capital services at TriNet, a national provider of human resources services and served as head of human resources at Brooklyn Academy of Music. She holds degrees and certifications in organizational development, human resources, coaching, and leadership development.

Gail asked Sarah about the most common mistakes that firms make in how they manage compensation. Sarah said,

• Not having a compensation strategy, OR
• Having a compensation strategy but not having a good implementation plan around that strategy, AND/OR
• Not having the compensation strategy documented and not having consistent administration around the process.

Sarah also said that it was essential that the strategy and policy are communicated to everyone in the firm who is being compensated in some manner, through offer letters, policy reviews and the employee handbook. “Always be consistent, document everything, and communicate clearly to everyone,” she said.

Preferably, said Sarah, firms should be evaluating their compensation strategy and policy on a regular basis. But, it is especially important to do so as the business grows and other personnel are added.

In addition to salary and basic benefits, employers can offer other types of compensation or incentives to attract or retain employees. These include bonuses, flexible schedules, additional healthcare or financial benefits, professional development opportunities, profit sharing, and stock options.

Gail and Sarah covered a number of other compensation topics as well, such as how best to attract and retain employees, how market competition impacts compensation, how to determine the proper level of compensation for your firm, policies for establishing commissions, what a typical salary increase might be for 2024, and what services a compensation specialist can provide. For all of that, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s9e4-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Sarah and her contact information, go to the company website at theceosrighthand.co/about-us/our-team/sarah-lieberman

Access a brand new resource from The CEO’s Right Hand, Human Resource Infrastructure 360°™ and get the following:

• The 5 components of HR infrastructure
• Insight into why human resource strategy is vital to business success
• Examples of real-life and preventable HR infrastructure breakdowns
• A behind-the-scenes look at the critical components of HR360°™
• An HR infrastructure checklist for self-assessment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgAZEkG0y28

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Four years ago the interior design industry came to a grinding halt as the pandemic swept the globe. And then, almost as quickly, the industry began to bounce back. Again, to most everyone’s surprise, it went from bounce to boom. Amongst all that turbulence came a lot of changes. Today’s interior design industry is not the same as it was four years ago. With the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, designers can expect more change ahead.

In this episode, Gail talks with Kaitlin Petersen, editor-in-chief of Business of Home. The website describes itself as the daily media of record for the home industry and the voice of authority for interior design professionals. Kaitlin has been with Business of Home for seven years but has been writing about the style and design trade for more than a decade. Her work has appeared in Elle Decor, House Beautiful, Metropolitan Home and Veranda, as well as Chicago, Texas Monthly, Time Out New York, and the international editions of Vanity Fair and Vogue.

Gail asked Kaitlin what changes she’s seen in the industry during her tenure with Business of Home. She said the biggest change she’s witnessed is that clients are getting smarter. They are more knowledgeable about design, products and the design process. They are well-versed in Instagram, Pinterest, Houzz, and other online sources of design information. As a result, they want to be more involved in decisions about design or aesthetics, budget and how the project should be managed.

A big challenge for designers, said Kaitlin, is that as a result of doing their own research, clients are not always well or properly informed. They may come to a project with misinformation and unrealistic expectations. Designers have to be prepared to educate or re-educate their clients so as to counter their erroneous preconceived notions about design and their project.

On the flip side, Kaitlin said, these more knowledgeable clients have forced more designers to re-think and justify their value proposition. More of them can now articulate and defend why they are billing as they do. They can draw a straighter line between what they bring to the project and their fee structure.

Looking to the future, Kaitlin said she thought the big thing for designers to watch is AI. She does not see AI as a threat to replacing designers’ talent and experience. However, it could have some upsides, as a useful trigger for inspiration and potentially to help streamline routine business operations.

During their conversation, Kaitlin also talked about how she had to overcome her anxiety about “impostor syndrome,” the 50 States Project she’s undertaken, and recent hiring trends in the industry. For all that and her advice for design business owners, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s9e2-shownotes

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Gail has been contributing articles to Business of Home. You can read Gail’s articles here.

You can take the 2024 Interior Designers Survey here.

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The launch of ChatGPT to the general public in November 2022 ushered in a new era in the ever-expanding reach of technology into the workplace and our daily lives. Suddenly people with no technical skills or knowledge of artificial intelligence (AI) could easily query an interactive assistant to perform various types of research, to synthesize large bodies of information, to generate content and images based on existing models, and more. Today, ChatGPT and other AI tools are used in many industries and are changing the way business is done, including marketing.

In this episode, Gail talks with John Jantsch, founder of Duct Tape Marketing, which specializes in marketing advice for small businesses. John is the author of seven books on marketing and business strategy, as well as the Duct Tape Marketing blog. He is also the host of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast.

Gail asked John what changes he has seen in recent years in small business marketing. He said the most obvious change is the use of social media platforms and online communities like TikTok for marketing. The bigger shift, however, has been in how customers shop and choose to buy. Because of those digital resources, they can now more easily do their own research. They tend to rely more on influencers and reviews they find online than on providers themselves for information. Consequently, they have already progressed fairly far along in their decision-making before they ever contact a manufacturer, seller or service provider.

Now, with ChatGPT and similar AI tools, customers can ask the tool to do their research for them. By doing so, they can skip having to do an internet search. That also means they no longer encounter the ads and optimized listings of sellers and providers who market through those search engines. Businesses need to adjust to the new ways customers are getting their information.

John recommended that interior designers become informed about ChatGPT and other AI tools to understand their basic functions and how others are using them. Then, he said, start playing with them to get a feel for what they can do and for their limitations. “Think about them like hiring an intern,” he said. “They can be an incredible assistant.”

Once comfortable with the technology, use the tools to expand your marketing outreach. He suggested producing a video first. Make a transcript of the video. Then use AI tools to produce that content in multiple formats and distribute it in a variety of ways throughout the various digital media platforms, exponentially increasing your exposure.

John also talked about the importance of having a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) function to strategize and coordinate all marketing activities for the business. For more information on that and other marketing tips, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s9e4-shownotes

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To learn more about John and Duct Tape Marketing, visit the firm’s website at ducttapemarketing.com. You will also find articles, a newsletter, and John’s blog and podcast on marketing for small businesses.

John mentioned the title of his first book, Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide (revised and updated in 2011). He also mentioned the title of his most recent book, The Ultimate Marketing Engine: 5 Steps to Ridiculously Consistent Growth, published in 2021. You will find information about all of John’s books on the website at ducttapemarketing.com/about/books.

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For small business owners, selling their business often is the biggest financial transaction they will ever undertake. It can be a highly emotional and stressful time. Sellers need to be prepared to undergo a multi-stage process that will demand a substantial amount of their time and attention.

In this episode, Gail talks with William Lieberman, founder and managing partner of The CEO’s Right Hand, a boutique financial and human resources services firm based in New York. Among its other services, the firm advises on and assists with mergers and acquisitions, exit planning, and corporate valuation.

Plan ahead. Get help. Don’t let the demands of selling your business distract you from running your business. Continue to maintain and grow the firm’s value. That, in a nutshell, is the advice William had for interior design firm owners thinking about selling their business sometime in the future.

“You need to start sooner rather than later,” he said. It takes time to plan ahead, to get the business in order, and to ensure it is valuable and profitable at the time of sale.

Prior to taking steps to sell the business, you’ll need to collect all the necessary documents, make sure all financial records are correct and up-to-date, and educate yourself about what’s involved in evaluating and selling the business. You also want to have an exit plan in place and know what you want to get out of the business in terms of cash, future involvement (if any), and rights.

William outlined an extensive multi-stage process for selling a business. It begins with selecting an advisor to work with. “You do not want to try to do this on your own,” he cautioned. It then moves through evaluating the business, identifying an appropriate pool of potential buyers, marketing to those prospects, soliciting and negotiating letters of intent, performing due diligence for both parties, and drawing up the necessary legal documents. If all goes well, you can then move to closing the sale.

In addition, William provided advice on how to select an advisor and a firm to conduct the business evaluation. He gave more detail about what preparations owners should make before approaching an advisor about selling the business. And he talked about some of the challenges owners may encounter during the sales process.

To get all the nitty-gritty, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s9e1-shownotes

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William provided a brief explanation of EBIDA (i.e, earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization), which is a measure of a company’s earnings and value.

To learn more about William and the services provided by The CEO’s Right Hand, go to the firm’s website at theceosrighthand.co.

The CEO’s Right Hand would also like to share the following tools with our listeners:

To learn more about what investors look for when valuing your business, and how to improve your valuation, check out TCRH’s free guide, ‘What Investors Really Want’.

And for a comprehensive overview of TCRH’s proprietary approach to holistic financial management, download Financial Infrastructure 360°™. FI360 outlines the 5 key components of responsible financial management, real life examples of avoidable issues, and a self assessment to jump start your financial planning. Download the guide here: https://theceosrighthand.co/resources/financial-infrastructure-360/

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Many interior design firm owners intend to never sell their business. Even in retirement, they plan to maintain some level of ownership and involvement. Yet, as we all know, stuff happens. Circumstances may arise that require selling the business. Or, as that once-distant retirement looms closer, disengaging from the business starts to look more attractive. Because you never know when you may need or want to sell your business, you should keep it sell-worthy at all times.

In this episode, Gail talks with financial advisor Marty Fahncke, founding partner with Westbound Road, LLC in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Among other services, his firm specializes in mergers and acquisitions.

Marty has been involved in the sale of several interior design and architecture firms. He explained that unlike other types of businesses that own a sizable amount of tangible assets (e.g., physical inventory, equipment or real estate), with architecture and design firms “their brain power is their asset.” That makes A&D firms harder to value and more complicated to sell. So, it takes longer than most owners expect to find the right buyer for their firm.

When designers do need to sell their business or choose to retire, Marty said, they often do so on short notice. For many, that may mean that they will not receive the amount of money they are hoping for. Ideally, you want to start preparing to sell two to three years in advance. Better yet, he said, “always prepare your business for sale, even if you never plan to sell it.”

Marty mentioned several business practices to have in place to keep the firm sell-worthy:

• Have a succession plan
• Decide what you want to accomplish in your business and when
• Clean up financials (e.g., separating business and personal expenses)
• Budget financials to ensure the business is profitable
• Have replicable systems that someone can easily adopt and employ
• Have a standard operating system and document all policies and procedures
• Remove yourself from the business (i.e., don’t use your name as the name of the business, don’t be the only one who can bring in new business)

Gail and Marty also talked about the different ways businesses can be valued, how to select the right professional to help you with selling your business, and what can go wrong when an owner has not properly prepared to sell their business. For those and other insights, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening to this episode on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s8e10-shownotes

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For more information about Marty and his firm, go to the company’s website at www.westboundroad.com.

Gail referred to EBIDA (earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization), which is a measure of a company’s earnings. Marty mentioned SDE (sellers discretionary earnings) as another commonly used method for valuing a small business.

Marty also mentioned EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System). It is a set of concepts and tools to help entrepreneurs get better control of their businesses and achieve their business goals. For more information, go to the EOS Worldwide website at www.eosworldwide.com.

If you missed it, hear Patti Julber tell her story of selling her design business in another episode from this season.

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Attracting and engaging highly affluent clients requires a special set of skills. You need to understand their particular needs and expectations. While some can be overly demanding, if you earn their trust and respect, they can be some of the most loyal clients you can have.

In this episode, Gail talks with Klaus Baer, chief operations officer of WRJ Interiors in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Founded in 2003, the firm has grown into a team of 25, with an enviable roster of highly affluent and influential clients. Klaus has degrees in both business and interior design, but prefers to focus on the operations side of the firm.

From the beginning, the firm set its sights on attracting highly affluent clients in the region around Jackson Hole who were looking for something other than the traditional western look. They were appealing to those who had an appreciation for quality and attention to detail.

Gail asked Klaus what advice he had for designers who wanted to break into the highly affluent client market. What is it that highly affluent clients really want? Klaus offered what he has learned from his experience:

• Trust — It’s important to develop a level of trust and discretion.
• Make things easy for them. Help them make decisions.
• Have fun. Be professional, but try to keep the mood light to alleviate any tension.
• Be respectful of their time.
• Be accountable — Own up to mistakes and present a constructive plan for moving forward.
• Manage expectations. Try to avoid delays, but notify them right away if a delay appears imminent. Explain the circumstances and adjust the schedule.

Klaus said that there’s a learning curve that only comes with experience. Still, it’s important to develop team members’ skills, especially soft skills like communication, so that they deliver the outstanding level of service highly affluent clients expect.

During their conversation, Gail and Klaus also touched on how his firm markets to highly affluent prospects, creating a balanced project budget, and tips for running a successful firm. For those and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s8e9-shownotes

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For more information about Klaus and WRJ Interiors, visit the firm’s website at www.wrjdesign.com.

For more insights into attracting and maintaining affluent clients, read our Ultimate Guide to Working with Affluent Clients.

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If your future plans include selling your business, you’ll want to be prepared well in advance.

You’ll have a lot of decisions to make, a lot of experts to consult, and a lot of paperwork to process. First and foremost, you’ll need to keep your practice thriving to make it attractive to potential buyers.

In this episode, Gail invites interior designer Patti Julber back to the podcast. Patti, who serves as director of coaching for Pearl Collective, recently sold her interior design business, Complements Home Interiors in Bend, Oregon, after 21 years. Gail asked her to share her experience and lessons learned from the process.

Patti said she knew it was time for her to sell when she realized she had lost her enthusiasm for the business. She first listed the firm for sale in 2018 but did not find a suitable buyer until 2022. Her first choice, she said, was to have a member of her team buy the business. But that turned out not to be an option. She then worked with a mergers and acquisition broker to find an outside buyer.

In the course of their conversation, Patti noted several key factors that owners should be aware of when considering selling their business:

• If your name is the name of the business, you’re likely to get about 20 percent less for it than if it has a corporate name.
• You want to be sure that you continue to market and attract new business. Buyers want to see a pipeline of current and future projects they can count on to start generating revenue right away.
• Have all your processes and procedures documented. All manuals, policy documents, inventory records, personnel records, and, of course, financial records need to be up-to-date at the time of sale.If it is taking you several years to find a buyer, make sure you revalue your business every year so the most recent valuation is current and accurate.
• Know what you want out of the sale going in, including what is an acceptable price.

Gail asked Patti what, in hindsight, she would have done differently. Patti said she would have asked up front for a checklist of all the tasks and paperwork she needed to complete and a schedule with the due date for each one. She also mentioned the importance of having good relationships with your bank, your attorney and your CPA. That can be a big help in moving the process along more quickly.

For more insights from Patti, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s8e8-shownotes

Mentioned in This PodcastYou can find out more about Patti’s coaching services on our team page. There’s a link at the bottom of the page if you want to arrange a call or appointment with Patti.

You can also listen to Season 6 Episode 10 of the Creative Genius Podcast in which Patti talks about the benefits of working with a business coach.

For information about Patti’s former firm, go to the website at www.complementshome.com.

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What’s driving your interior design business? Is it your vision? Or is it what clients—any clients—tell you they want? It takes courage and confidence to show the world who you are and let them decide if it’s what they want. Yet, the rewards can be great. You won’t know unless you try.

In this episode, Gail talks with Nina Magon, founder and principal, Nina Magon Studio, based in Houston, Texas, with offices in San Francisco, California and (soon) Austin, Texas. Along with her design practice, which includes residential, commercial and hospitality, Nina also has developed a number of award-winning lifestyle product collections for famous manufacturers and retailers. Her business skills earned her recognition as “Entrepreneur of the Year” from the Asian Chamber of Commerce. Recently, she published her first book, Evoke, exhibiting her unique style of design and fashion.

Nina had a background in business, finance and fashion before becoming an interior designer. They have had a profound impact on her practice and how she operates her firm. “If you don’t apply business to your artistic talent, you never really go anywhere with it,” she said.

Like many designers, Nina started out doing projects for friends, which led to her starting her firm. She recalled that she began as a traditionalist, because that was the style that prospective clients in the Houston area were looking for. But she had another vision for herself. She eventually gravitated toward minimalism and modernism. Later, she incorporated more luxury and glamour into her designs, evolving the style that she now is famous for.

“I learned a lot from doing it, more than anything else,” she explained. Trying new things and taking risks, she said, forced her to learn. She gradually made peace with the fact that not everyone is going to like what you do, and some will even criticize you for it. She chose to focus on her successes instead. “Every little win you have builds confidence to take that extra step or to move ahead.”

Gail asked Nina what advice she had for listeners who may be inspired by her story. She offered these pointers:

• Do what you like and what you believe in.
• You have to work on yourself. Self-awareness and self-reflection are critical for improving your interactions with others.
• You have to learn to let go if you want to grow.

During their conversation, Nina recounted how she started designing products, her vision for the future of her firm, and how she strives to provide excellent service to her clients. For all this and more, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s8e7-shownotes

Mentioned in This PodcastTo learn more about Nina and her firm, and to view her portfolio and product collections, visit the firm’s website at ninamagon.com.

Nina’s book, Evoke: Nina Magon, is available through online booksellers. For a look inside, visit the publisher’s website.

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To stay physically healthy you need to eat a balanced diet, exercise regularly and get periodic check-ups. The same is true for your financial health, whether for your personal finances or those of your business. In addition to monitoring your accounts and monthly P&L statement, you need to keep abreast of changes in tax and estate law at the state and federal levels. You also need a strategy for growing and protecting your wealth, so that you can enjoy the lifestyle you want when you retire or sell your business.

In this episode, Gail talks with Walter Russell of Russell and Associates in New Albany, Ohio. Walter has more than 20 years in the financial industry, working with many of the top financial organizations, including JP Morgan Chase & Co., Ameriprise Financial, LPL Financial, and Kestra Financial. A certified financial planner (CFP), Walter now operates his own financial planning and investments firm.

Gail asked Walter what kinds of financial matters small business owners should be concerned about. He said one of the first things he asks small business owners is, if you pass away, who owns your business? Most don’t know and haven’t even thought about it. He advised setting up a trust and designating who the ownership passes to and who the beneficiaries of the trust should be.

Unless Congress passes other legislation before then, a number of recent changes in the federal tax laws will take effect in the coming years that will increase taxes for individuals and reduce tax protections for heirs and beneficiaries. Due to the substantial size of the national debt, Congress will likely be looking to increase various sorts of taxes in the coming years to increase federal revenues and pay down the deficit. Many states will be doing so, too.

Walter said the three most important things individuals and business owners can do to grow and protect their wealth are:

• Start financial planning as early as possible. The earlier you start the longer you have for your investments to accrue and compound. Also, have a “Just In Case” plan so your loved ones know how to access your financial accounts should something happen to you.
• Discuss with your accountant and tax attorney what are your options for minimizing your tax liability—now, in retirement, and for your estate. This is especially crucial for business owners who are subject to the self-employment tax.
• Set up a Roth IRA and contribute the maximum amount each year. Assets from a Roth IRA are tax-free when withdrawn in retirement.

In their conversation, Walter also talked about what financial strategies individuals should adopt at each life stage, from their 30s to their 60s, and what questions to ask when choosing a CFP to work with. For these and other valuable tips, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on you’re favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s8e6-shownotes

Mentioned in This PodcastFor more information about Walter and his firm, go to the company website at russellandcompany.com. You’ll also find there Russell’s blog, which contains lots of useful information about financial matters, planning and taxes.

To download Walter Russell’s Just In Case Book, click the button below:

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Many factors contribute to success. Some we can control and some we can’t. But there’s one factor that separates the somewhat successful from the highly successful: setting goals and sticking to them. Whatever fortune or misfortune you may encounter, you have to stay laser-focused on achieving your goals if you want to realize your dreams. The place to start is by holding yourself accountable every day for accomplishing the tasks that will bring you closer to your goal.

In this episode, Gail Doby talks with businesswoman, entrepreneur and philanthropist Liz Elting. Co-founder and former CEO of one of the world’s biggest translation services providers, TransPerfect, she has appeared on Forbes’ list of the Richest Self-made Women every year since 2016. She recently published her first book, an instant bestseller, Dream Big and Win.

Gail started the conversation by asking Liz, when she first had the idea for her company, if she ever thought one day it would be worth more than $1 billion. Liz said not in those terms. She knew she wanted it to be the biggest and the best. She had the drive and a strong work ethic her parents had instilled in her. “I’m a big believer in grit, staying in there, working hard, and sacrificing,” she said.

Growing and running a business is hard, Liz noted. To stay positive and motivated, you need to derive pleasure from what you’re doing, such as achieving your goals and your purpose. Surround yourself with a team that’s like-minded and is invested in making the business a success.

In her book, Liz talks about the importance of self-accountability to achieving success and realizing your dreams. Doing always eclipses dreaming, she writes. First, she said, you need to nail down what your goal is. Then, identify the actions you need to take every day, every week and every month to achieve that goal. Finally, make yourself accountable to yourself to take those actions and complete those tasks.

“People can have big goals, but then they get distracted and don’t hold themselves accountable for achieving their goals,” Liz said. She cited a Harvard Business School study that found only three percent of people actually have specific goals, write them down and talk about them with others. Those people, the study found, earn up to ten times as much as the people who do not have and/or act on specific goals.

Gail and Liz touched on several topics during their conversation, including the challenges of being a mother and running a business, how best to manage employees, and the qualities of a great leader. Gail also asked Liz about her foundation and other philanthropic pursuits. For details, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s8e5-shownotes

Mentioned in This PodcastTo learn more about Liz and her new book, Dream Big and Win: Translating Passion Into Purpose and Creating a Billion-Dollar Business, visit her website at lizelting.com.

For more about the mission and activities of the Elizabeth Elting Foundation, go to the foundation’s website at www.elizabetheltingfoundation.org.

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You may not be thinking about retirement now. At some point in the future, though, you probably will want to leave your business and move into the next phase of your life. It’s never too early to start planning for that day. Even if it’s a simple one, every business should have a succession plan. And you should have an exit plan to ensure you can enjoy the retirement you deserve.

In this episode, Gail talks with Bob Rauf, a wealth management advisor with Meridian Financial in Raleigh, North Carolina. Bob has more than 35 years of experience helping his clients navigate their financial success. A strong believer in having a succession plan for your business and an exit plan for your retirement, Bob has been on the path of his succession plan since 2016. Come 2030, he’ll be ready to leave the company.

While it’s not necessary to set an end date for when you will leave the firm, Bob said that business owners should allow at least five years to carry out their succession plan. It’s important, Bob said, that you maintain and grow the value of the business over that time, up until the time you plan to leave, so as to reap the most benefit from the sale of the business.

For small businesses, he offered two possible scenarios for how that succession might take place.

In the first scenario, you bring on a partner who will eventually take over the business. At agreed-upon intervals, the partner will buy into an increasing percentage of the business. At the point at which you leave the business, you will still own 50 percent of the business, which you will sell to the partner to help fund your retirement.

In the second scenario, you have a team member who wants eventually to take over the business but does not have the resources to buy into the business as a partner. In that case you and the team member develop a long-term incentive plan under which they must meet certain periodic revenue growth goals for a specified number of years. If they have met those goals, at the end of the period they receive a lump sum cash payment, with which they can buy the business. If not, they receive nothing (other than their normal compensation during those years).

Gail asked what life is like after running a business for so many years. What does one do with one’s time? Bob said he always advises his clients to think about the question: What are you retiring to? You need a reason to get out of bed in the morning, something that gives you a sense of purpose. That doesn’t have to be work. It could be a hobby or some other desirable pursuit. But it does have to be meaningful and fulfilling. Decide on what that is before retiring.

For more on these and other strategies for a successful exit and retirement, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s8e4-shownotes

Mentioned in This PodcastIf you want to contact Bob for help with succession or retirement planning, you will find his contact information on the Meridian Financial website Team page at https://meridianfinancial.nm.com/team.htm

Bob recommended a book he recently read, 10x Is Easier Than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy (listen to our podcast episode with Benjamin Hardy here).

Gail suggested several books that could help business owners with their approach to succession planning, especially in regards to preparing their team to run the business after they’ve left:

• Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy
• Burn the Boats: Toss Plan B Overboard and Unleash Your Full Potential by Matt Higgins (listen to our podcast episode with Matt Higgins here)
• All In: How Great Leaders Build Unstoppable Teams by Mike Michalowicz (listen to our most recent podcast episode with Mike Michalowicz here)

All of these books are available through bookstores and online sellers.

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Imagine how much more successful your business could be if you could optimize the full potential of each and every one of your employees. Leaders in some of today’s most successful companies, large and small, are doing just that. They’ve adopted new ways of thinking about how they hire and manage their employees. You can apply those same methods and supercharge your team to higher performance.

In this episode, Gail invites small business author Mike Michalowicz back to the podcast to discuss his new book, All In: How Great Leaders Build Unstoppable Teams. A successful entrepreneur and former columnist with The Wall Street Journal, Mike is also the author of The Pumpkin Plan, Fix This Next, and Profit First, among other top sellers.

For his new book, Mike examined how leaders in some of today’s most successful organizations have created high-performance teams. He identified four components (summed up by the acronym FASO) that aid in recruiting and retaining great talent and raise the bar of the entire organization for everybody.

• Fit — Matching individual abilities not to titles or roles but to client and company needs, as well as to organizational culture
• Ability — Hiring individuals for their future potential, not just their past performance or qualifications
• Safety — Creating a work environment that ensures physical, psychological and relational safety
• Ownership — Instilling in employees a sense of psychological ownership where everyone cares as much about the success of the company as the owners / leaders do.

Mike explained that allowing employees to exploit their innate and potential abilities and talents results in higher performance and greater satisfaction. That leads to higher rates of retention and psychological ownership.

Gail asked Mike how an employer can identify a prospective employee’s potential abilities. He proposed inviting prospects to a workshop where they can experience first-hand—and the employer can observe first-hand—how they will respond to various tasks required of the job.

Employees rise to the level of top performers, or A-players on the team, when they are put in an environment where they can thrive. “Every human being on the planet is an A-player,” Mike said. “Just many of us are an A-player in waiting.” The key is finding the right fit and environment for each employee. The payoff is exponential. “One A-player can perform at the level of three B-players,” said Mike.

During their conversation, Mike also talked about the characteristics of great leaders, the leadership style needed for today’s remote and hybrid workplaces, and the five phases of the hiring process that will ensure a successful hire. For all that and more, listen to the entire podcast. And, of course, read the book.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s8e3-shownotes

Mentioned in This PodcastFor information about Mike and all of his books, visit his website at mikemichalowicz.com.

For more details about All In, where to purchase a copy, and request a packet of free resources to help get you starting building your A team, go to allinbymike.com.

Listen to Mike Michalowicz’s previous podcast appearances with us, about lessons from his book Fix This Next and Clockwork: Design Your Business to Run Itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVRaZo_ak9k

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If you aspire to attract more highly affluent clients, you may be surprised to learn that your interior design skills are not necessarily top-of-mind for them when hiring an interior designer. Other factors such as trust, confidentiality, professionalism, and how you operate your business may help to differentiate you from the rest of the competition. What those factors are will differ for each client. To earn their confidence and win their business, you need to get to know them and let them get to know you, too.In this podcast, Gail talks with Pamela Harvey, principal owner of Pamela Harvey Interiors, with offices in Northern Virginia and St. Petersburg, Florida. Her firm specializes mainly in high-end residential design, both renovations and new construction. Pamela is also a coach for Pearl Collective.Before studying to become an interior designer, Pamela worked as a corporate executive for Liz Claiborne, overseeing retail stores up and down the East Coast. Among other things, she said, it taught her the importance of knowing your customer. She learned to tailor the selection of merchandise available in each store according to the tastes and preferences of local consumers. Those insights have helped her in attracting and working with her ideal client in her design business.Gail noted that Pamela has been very successful working with affluent clients and asked her what designers who want to work with that type of client need to know about them. Pamela said trust was very important. “Affluent clients need to feel that they know you personally,” she said. In addition, “you need to be able to understand their lifestyle” and to talk with them about topics other than design, such as their travel. Pamela said she had met a number of affluent clients first socially, at the local country club and by working with local charities. Gail also asked, after more than 20 years in the business, what, in hindsight, Pamela might wish she had done differently. She said she would have tried to grow a bit bigger and hired more staff earlier on. Being cautious about not trying to grow too fast “probably held me back a little bit,” she reflected. She also mentioned that in the beginning she took whatever projects came her way rather than focusing more on projects she really wanted to do. “I went through a lot of years when the business ran me,” she mused.Gail wrapped up their conversation by asking Pamela to offer her advice in three areas:To interior designers who are single moms. Pamela replied that it was important to take on clients who are not too needy or demanding and to manage your time well.To new design entrepreneurs. Make a business plan, for five to ten years, to give yourself goals and direction, Pamela offered. Also, put systems and procedures in place to run your business effectively.To designers who are feeling the impact of the current economic environment. Pamela suggested following up more consistently with clients, keeping yourself relevant, reaching out to former clients, and asking for referrals.Pamela also talked about the challenges of setting up offices in more than one location and the business skills she has mastered over the years. Listen to the entire podcast for more details.If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s8e2-shownotesMentioned in This PodcastTo learn more about Pamela and her work, visit the website for Pamela Harvey Interiors.For more information on working with affluent clients, read our Ultimate Guide to Working with Affluent Clients.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwfBZGghcRo

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It’s good to have a backup plan in case something goes wrong, right? That’s the collective wisdom most of us were taught to factor into our goal-setting. But what if that thinking actually sabotages our ability to achieve our desired goal? Plan B, it turns out, is just a distraction from fulfilling Plan A. To succeed, focus on what you want, not on what you’ll settle for.In this podcast Gail talks with Matt Higgins, co-founder and CEO of RSE Ventures, an investment and innovation incubation firm. Among a number of other accomplishments and titles, Matt is the author of the recently published book, Burn the Boats: Toss Plan B Overboard and Unleash Your Full Potential.Matt related the story of his difficult early life and the insights he gained that have propelled him to success in a number of areas. He wrote the book to share those insights with others in the hope of motivating readers to change their mindsets and fulfill their true potential.He touched on a number of those insights in his conversation with Gail, such as:Focus on opportunity, not outcome or compensation. Use one opportunity to gain leverage to gain a better next opportunity by making yourself indispensable.Engage with problems to generate solutions. You will figure out what you need to do.Working for others is not more certain than working for yourself. If you’re concerned about security, you’re safer betting on yourself.If you change a behavior pattern that’s holding you back, you can change the entire trajectory of your business or career.Rather than plan to avoid risk, learn to process risk. That will free you to strive for bigger goals and fulfill your dreams.Matt mentioned that he dedicated the book to his wife and that he has great admiration for women entrepreneurs and leaders. Gail asked if he had any advice for female entrepreneurs and business owners listening to the podcast. He said they should not feel guilty about pursuing their professional goals, even if that takes time away from their family. (For more on this topic, read our article about Mom Guilt in the interior design industry). “The gift of self-sufficiency that you are modeling for your child,” he suggested, “is more important than the time you don’t spend with them.”Matt also stressed that any entrepreneur or freelance professional, but especially creatives, need to assert what they’re worth upfront. Don’t leave it up to the client to determine your worth. Establish the conditions for payment before you do any work.Along the way Matt shared his three steps on the path to success and the four steps involved in processing risk. To learn more, listen to the entire podcast. And read the book!If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s8e1-shownotesMentioned in This PodcastFor more information about Matt, his background and his RSE Ventures, visit the company website at rseventures.com and search under Team Members.You can get more information about Burn the Boats and where to purchase a copy on the publisher’s website.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj8Q5HbXUTM

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Highly successful entrepreneurs frequently comment on how many failures they suffered and recovered from along the path to making it big. No one wants to fail. Yet, many businesspeople will say they learned more from failure than from success. Rebounding from failure also gave them the courage to keep trying new things, which eventually led to discovery, innovation and making their mark.In this podcast, Erin talks with David Farris, president and CEO of Ted Scott Designs, a custom upholstery design firm in High Point, North Carolina. David came to the upholstery business almost accidentally after having pursued several other previous careers. That diverse background helped him to bring a fresh perspective to the business and how he manages the factory.David began by explaining that Ted Scott Designs is a direct-to-designer-only business, offering true custom services, including build-to-order pieces according to a designer’s specifications. The majority of their clients, he said, are small, independent designers who may buy only one piece at a time.David talked about the process involved in creating custom pieces and why there often are long lead times involved. He encouraged designers to tour a factory so they can see for themselves all the steps and craftsmanship that go into producing the final product.Although clients sometimes may balk at how long they have to wait to get a custom item, David emphasized that for interior designers, “custom is where you can make a lot of money.” The designer’s creativity and style results in a unique piece that can command a substantial mark-up.David explained that he has created a firm culture that puts his people first. The heart and soul of the business, they are both artists and craftspeople who must learn how to perform many different tasks involved in creating each type of furniture. Rather than making employees conform to a manufacturing routine, he chose to find a way to make production work around them to give them more autonomy and flexibility in their work schedules. While he cannot afford to provide employees with many costly benefits, he has created a workplace environment that few would give up for higher compensation.Erin asked David what advice he had for listeners. He said to learn to get over your fear of failure. Instead, contemplate failure. Make a plan for how you will get past or recover from failure, and then take risks and try new things. Fear of failure, he said, leads people to make bad decisions that they falsely think will help them avoid failure. It also stifles creativity.To hear what other advice David had for business and personal success, what designers need to know in order to properly order custom furniture, and how a career as a flight attendant prepared him to lead a custom upholstery company, listen to the entire podcast.If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s7e10-shownotesMentioned in This PodcastTo learn more about Ted Scott Designs, view their product lines, and how to order, visit the company’s website at tedscottdesign.com.https://youtu.be/N6ahSqrO9ac

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It takes a lot of perseverance, determination, hard work, and a bit of luck to operate an interior design business for more than 40 years. Where you end up may be very different from where you started. Along the way you come to realize that success comes from being true to your passions and following your dreams.In this podcast, Erin talks with Kathryn Greeley, owner and principal designer, Kathryn Greeley Designs in Waynesville, North Carolina, a firm she has operated for more than forty years. She is also the author of two books on design and entertaining, as well as a sought-after speaker at art and antique shows.Kathryn’s signature approach to her design projects is grounded in her design philosophy that they should be collected, not decorated. She is especially attracted to English country house design because of its layering of old and new, high and low, and use of the client’s personal treasures, some of which may have been passed down for generations.Erin asked Kathryn about her two books and how she came to write them. The first book, The Collected Tabletop: Inspirations for Creative Entertaining, published in 2011, grew out of her love of entertaining and creating tabletop decorations for clients. The second book, The Collected Cottage: Gardening, Gathering and Collecting at Chestnut Cottage, published in 2022, draws on her experience designing her own home as well as her affinity for gardening, cooking, entertaining, and collections. It is a celebration of creating a home that supports one’s desired lifestyle.A book can be a useful marketing tool, Kathryn explained, helping to attract like-minded clients who want the kind of look you design. (Although, she stressed, she works in many other styles of design as well.) She cautioned designers who are thinking of doing a book that they should not expect sales of a book to be a profitable revenue stream. She also noted producing a book is a difficult process, both physically and creatively.Along with promoting her book and speaking engagements, Kathryn blogs and posts regularly to Instagram and Facebook to market her firm. Even with all her other commitments, she writes all of her own material because she believes it needs to be in her own voice to be authentic. Erin asked Kathryn what advice she might have for listeners. She offered three takeaways:If you have a dream in your heart, follow your dream.Sharing your home is the best, most unique, personal gift you can give to family and friends.Don’t think your design career is going to be a straight line. Opportunities arise as you go along that may take you in different directions.To hear more about Kathryn’s career path, how she has built a successful design business from a small, rural location, and how to get the recipe for her much-sought-after caramel cake, listen to the entire podcast.If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s7e9-shownotesMentioned in This PodcastYou can find out more about Kathryn, her firm and her projects on the firm’s website at www.kathryngreeleydesigns.com.Although now out-of-print, you can order an inscribed copy of The Collected Tabletop: Inspirations for Creative Entertaining at www.thecollectedtabletop.com/shop/the-collected-tabletop. Used copies and a Kindle edition are available from Amazon.To learn more about The Collected Cottage: Gardening, Gathering and Collecting at Chestnut Cottage, and how to order a copy, go to www.thecollectedcottage.com.https://youtu.be/SzYuVl9csOQ

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Sure, design is your passion. But it’s probably not your only one. What if you could combine your love of design with some other passion, or passions, and create a dream business? It can be done. You just need to find the right kind of client.In this podcast, Erin has a sit-down at High Point Market with interior designer and artist Victoria Valentinas, president and principal designer, VLV Designs in Pinehurst, North Carolina. In 2020, Victoria decided to start her own firm, combining her background in interior design and the furniture industry with her love of art. She offers both interior design and custom art services, including faux finishes, painting and murals.While studying interior design at High Point University, Victoria got to learn a lot about the furniture industry. Upon graduation, she worked in the industry for a number of years, where she developed a love of textiles and upholstery. In her design business, she specializes in highly furnished areas of the home. She told Erin she hopes to have her own line of furniture someday.During the pandemic, Victoria found time to return to her passion for drawing and painting. She also began experimenting with faux finishing. As she became more adept, she started filming herself at work and posting the videos on Instagram. Suddenly, she found herself in demand for her artistic abilities as well. That led her to start her firm.“I didn’t really know what I could do until I had the time to do it,” Victoria told Erin. Starting a business during the pandemic was challenging but seemed like the right time for her. “It’s never a good time to take the leap, to do something risky like starting your own business,” she said. Nearly four years later, her blend of art and design has proved a successful formula.Victoria credits social media, along with a strong support network, with helping her to launch her business. “It’s a way for people to get to know you without knowing you,” she said.She is relying on social media again to help her break into the design market in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she and her husband recently moved. She would also like to do some commercial design projects, particularly hotels, restaurants and bars.Erin asked Victoria what advice she had for listeners. She mentioned three things:Develop your network and use it. Be both a good mentor and a good mentee.Look for unique pieces of art of use in your design projects. Support local artists.Be flexible with your plans. You never know where things are going to lead. Also be open to using experts who can help you. You can’t be an expert in everything.To hear more of Erin and Victoria’s conversation, which touched on a number of other topics, including the importance of networking and building relationships, marketing strategies and creating a support team, listen to the entire podcast.If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s7e8-shownotesMentioned in This PodcastTo learn more about Victoria, her firm and her mix of design and custom art services, go to the firm’s website at www.vlvdesigns.net.https://youtu.be/ycDDUFyt9Go

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What dream do you have for your business? Do you aim for national recognition? Do you want to be sought after for your unique design talents? Do you wonder what it would be like to have celebrities and the ultra-rich as clients? No dream is too big to be out of reach. Many successful entrepreneurs will tell you, if you can dream it, you can make it happen.In this podcast, Kansas interior designer and design TV personality Tamara Day drops by to chat with Gail and Erin at High Point Market. Tamara is the owner of Tamara Day Design, headquartered in Prairie Village, Kansas. She is also the host and designer on the highly successful Magnolia Network design TV show “Bargain Mansions”—now in production for its seventh season—in which she and her team bring all types of neglected houses in Kansas City back to life. Tamara has also collaborated with a number of manufacturers to design her own line of products for the home, including Kaleen, Varaluz, and Forum.Just prior to her conversation with Gail and Erin, Tamara launched a new upholstery line with Spectra Home Furniture. Gail asked her about her experience working with manufacturers. She said she has been very impressed with the product designers’ talents and the quality of the craftspeople who make the products. “I feel like I’m learning design again in a whole new way,” she said.Gail was interested in how Tamara started doing product design. She said it just happened as a result of relationships she had formed with reps at High Point. It was something she had wanted to do but hadn’t planned on. One collaboration led to another. She has a new one in the works and plans for more in the future.Ten years ago, Tamara said, she would never have believed she would have her own lines of products and a national TV show. “I didn’t anticipate any of it,” she said. “I just followed my instincts. It’s put one foot in front of the other every day and follow your intuition.” She truly believes anything is possible, so why not dream big?Erin asked Tamara if she had any advice for listeners. She offered the following:Hire someone to do the things that you don’t want to do or don’t do well.Invest in social mediaRest when you can. You can’t be productive every minute of every day.To learn more about Tamara’s product lines, her design firm, her plans for the future, and how she manages all her commitments and being a mom of four children, listen to the entire podcast.If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s7e7-shownotesMentioned in This PodcastVisit the website for Tamara Day Design at tamaraday.com to find out more about her design work, her “Bargain Mansions” TV show, and her lines of products for the home.https://youtu.be/U1gWApq9NEA

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Prospective clients turn to you because they have a problem they want you to help them solve. Show them that you understand their problem and have the expertise to solve it. Rather than present them with a list of the services and products you can provide, walk them through the process you will use to produce the result they are looking for.In this podcast, Erin talks with Kate Norton, founder of High Peak Growth, which provides strategic business guidance to help companies boost their sales and exceed their revenue targets. Her philosophy of serving clients rather than selling to them has been proven to drive significant bottom-line results. Her clients include Fortune 100 businesses as well as fast-growing entrepreneurial businesses.Kate said that her approach to marketing and selling had been influenced by Donald Miller’s book, Building a StoryBrand. Miller draws on universal elements of storytelling, such as the hero or heroine who is helped in their quest by an expert or guide, to create a different approach to engaging with prospective customers.Like the hero or heroine of a story, customers, too, have a problem they need to solve. Because they cannot solve it themselves, they seek out an expert or guide who can help them. The guide explains to them the process by which they can solve their problem and accomplish their goal.Kate has found great success using a similar approach when working with customers or when counseling business owners and executives on how to improve their sales. Identify the problem the customer needs help solving. Explain to them why you are the right expert to solve their problem. Walk them through the process of how you will produce the result they want.Rather than think about selling or promoting your services, instead take the approach that what your are offering is serving and solving.Showing the customer empathy, that you get and want to help with their problem, and giving them confidence that you are uniquely qualified to be the expert they need are key to this approach. “Our job is to make prospective customers aware of how we are the experts and how we can help them solve the problem,” explained Kate.Central to demonstrating that expertise is the process or plan you have created to provide the solution they are looking for. It doesn’t have to be completely original, but it needs to reflect your strengths and your perspective. Once you’ve created it, give it a name. “If you can name your proven process, then it starts branding it,” said Kate.Erin and Kate also talked about current methods of marketing and top marketing strategies for interior design businesses. Along the way, they touched on how to use AI to enhance your marketing efforts. For those insights and more, listen to the entire podcast.If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s7e6-shownotesMentioned in This PodcastTo learn more about Kate and her firm, go to the company website at highpeakgrowth.com.The book Erin and Kate referred to is Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller.https://youtu.be/VF8G3CWvQyg

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Your business doesn’t stop just because you’re busy. In addition to doing projects, you need to be working on your business every day. That includes marketing, scouting for new opportunities, building and maintaining relationships, developing your team, and keeping an eye on the bottom line. To manage all that, you have to have processes, procedures and routines in place to grease the wheels and give you time to deal with what most requires attention.In this podcast, Gail talks with Garrison Hullinger, president of Studio Garrison in Portland, Oregon. For over thirteen years, he has grown his business from a sole practitioner working out of his attic to a highly successful mid-sized design firm with at one time as many as thirty-four employees. One way Garrison looks out for his business is by keeping tabs on industry and economic trends and forecasts. They help him determine where new opportunities and challenges might arise. He advised looking beyond your market to indicators in related industries that can be bellwethers of future shifts in demand for design services. In particular, he mentioned the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) released monthly by the American Institute of Architects (AIA).Having forewarning of changes, whether good or bad, allows you to make contingency plans. That way you will be prepared to take advantage of new opportunities or to safeguard against downturns.Garrison also stressed the importance of being proactive. Don’t wait for conditions to improve and hope projects will come your way. “Go out and get the business that’s available to you,” he said.When business slows down, Garrison explained, he personally makes calls to top-tier clients and former prospects whose projects he wasn’t able to take on earlier to drum up new business. “Sometimes that’s all it takes to be relevant, to be top-of-mind,” he said.“Don’t wait until your pipeline is dry to fill it,” added Gail. You need to be working on getting new business every day.Toward the end, Garrison talked extensively about how he has focused his business around defining its scope and the deliverables it offers. For more details and other insights from Garrison and Gail, listen to the entire podcast.If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s7e5-shownotesMentioned in This PodcastTo learn more about Garrison and his firm, visit the website for Studio Garrison.For information about the AIA Architecture Billings Index and to see a schedule of upcoming release dates, go to www.aia.org/resources/10046-architecture-billings-index-abi.This is not Garrison's first appearance on our podcast! Listen to his previous episodes, Going Up! and Get a Bird's Eye View of Your Business.https://youtu.be/1uqrWFVl80A

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Every owner wants their business to be a success. But not every owner is willing to do the work and make the changes necessary to achieve that success. That includes making changes in one’s mindset and being open to new ways of thinking and doing things. A coach can help. They can motivate, challenge and guide you. They also will support you and join you in celebrating your achievements.In this podcast, Erin talks with Drue Lawlor. A long-time interior design business owner, Drue, like Gail and Erin, pivoted some years ago to training interior designers to be better at operating their businesses. Later, she joined Gail Doby Coaching & Consulting, now Pearl Collective, as a coach and contributor to the weekly email newsletter. She also has a long history of volunteering with the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) at the local and national level. She is the co-author, along with Michael Thomas, of Residential Design for Aging in Place.Drue started out her interior design career working with her mentor. It wasn’t until later, when her mentor retired, that she went into business for herself. She soon realized that, while her mentor taught her much about design, she didn’t teach her anything about the business side of running a design firm. She’s had a calling ever since to convey to other designers the importance of having business knowledge.“I tell them,” said Drue, “you either need to find a partner who is very good at business or learn it yourself. Or you’ll go out of business.”One of her favorite things to talk about with designers she coaches is changing their attitude toward marketing. “It’s always surprising to me that people do not like marketing,” she said.”They look at it as if it were some terrible roadblock.” Her approach is to get them to see that they can tap into their strengths and get really creative with their marketing.Another area that Drue likes to work on with her coaching clients is team building. For her, it starts with knowing what your values are and what the culture of your firm is. Then you build a team to fit that. “You can train for skills,” Drue advised, “but hire for attitude.”Erin and Drue talked a lot about the value of working with a coach and what it’s like to work with a coach. Before ending their conversation, Erin asked Drue what advice she had for someone thinking about working with a coach. Drue posed three questions:Are you willing to grow your business and do what it takes to get where you want to be?Are you coachable? Are you willing to give up trying to do it all yourself?Can you feel that you’re worthy—of investing in a coach, of finding the value in what you have to offer clients?To learn more about how working with a coach could help transform your business, listen to the full podcast.If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s7e4-shownotesMentioned in This PodcastDrue listed several books that she found useful in her work as a business owner, trainer and coach:Be Your Future Self Now: The Science of Intentional Transformation by Dr. Benjamin Hardy.Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy.Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz.The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz.https://youtu.be/NZCYEE-gjMg

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The notion that life is a journey is as old as storytelling itself. We talk about finding direction or pursuing our career path. They are all parts of the larger journey that makes up our life. When we frame our life, our careers and our businesses as a journey, suddenly it changes our perspective on the obstacles we’ve overcome, those who have helped us along the way, and the opportunities that lie ahead.In this podcast, Gail and Erin visit with David Santiago, owner and interior designer, Casa Santi Interior Design in Hackensack, New Jersey. In addition to his more than 20 years in the design industry, David is also a product designer, TV personality, philanthropist, professional singer, and the self-proclaimed Prince of Wallpaper. A past president of the New York chapter of the Interior Design Society (IDS), he is currently president of the New York chapter of the International Furnishings and Design Association (IFDA), and serves on the board of several charitable organizations.David began by talking about his design journey, from fashion and the window treatments industry to home furnishings and eventually to interior design and starting his own interior design firm. Having focused on residential design for many years, recently he has moved into commercial areas, such as designing TV studios and hospitality/residential blended spaces in a manner he’s dubbed “Hospidential.” Known for his use of bright, bold colors and distinctive wall coverings, David said he approaches interior design as the client’s journey, helping them to define their space, to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and to take a leap of faith that they will be delighted with the final result.Coming from a Latino background and having branded his firm Casa Santi, David is also a staunch advocate for greater diversity in the design industry. He is one of the founding members of the High Point Market Diversity Advocacy Alliance (DAA), which seeks to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in the home furnishings industry. He is also involved in the Kaleidoscope Project, which offers showhouse opportunities to up-and-coming designers from diverse backgrounds.Following another path, David related his journey from his student days when he was encouraged and mentored to study music and singing to his involvement in opera and his current activities mentoring young musicians through a project called myFace Celebrates.In his parting words of advice, David said, “Look back at your journey, it’s important.” Take time to appreciate where you’ve come from, where you’re at, and those who had helped and mentored you along the way.If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s7e3-shownotesMentioned in This PodcastTo learn more about David, his work and other activities, and his social media presence, visit his website at casasanti.com.You’ll find information about the High Point Market Diversity Advocacy Alliance at www.highpointmarket.org/DiversityAdvocacyAlliance.For more information about the Kaleidoscope Project, visit the website at www.thekaleidoscopeproject.com/myFace is a non-profit organization dedicated to changing the faces – and transforming the lives – of children and adults with facial differences. To find out more about myFace and the myFace Celebrates program featuring myFace musicians, go to www.celebrates.myface.org.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KJY9QRcqeg

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Textiles are one of the most versatile and eye-catching elements you can incorporate into your designs. Keeping up with the latest trends and advances in manufacturing, design and sustainability can be a challenge, though. Fortunately, there are industry resources that can help to guide you.

In this podcast, Gail and Erin talk with Carrie Dillon, managing director of the International Textile Alliance (ITA), a nonprofit business membership association of manufacturers and suppliers to the industry that works to promote the textile industry, educate members, and provide opportunities for networking and knowledge exchange. The ITA also operates an Educational Foundation that provides learning opportunities and scholarships to students and seeks to encourage them to enter the industry.

Interior designers may be familiar with ITA through its trade show, Interwoven (formerly known as Showtime), held each May and November in High Point, North Carolina. Carrie was instrumental in the recent rebranding of the event, which focused on improving the buyer experience and expanding the educational content. Although oriented toward major purchasers of textiles, such as furniture manufacturers, interior designers are welcome to attend, said Carrie. They are most likely to want to tour the temporary exhibition hall and the Trends Gallery, where they can see samples of how new textiles have been applied to furniture and other products.

Carrie explained that some of the exhibitors will sell their textiles as cut yardage for orders of fifty yards or less. She advised designers who are interested in purchasing textiles from a particular exhibitor to plan in advance to find out if they fill smaller orders and to make an appointment, as few allow walk-ins due to the high volume of traffic during the show.

Among its other activities, ITA is involved in promoting the recycling, repurposing and circularity of textiles to keep used materials out of landfills. They also collaborate with global trends forecasting agency Fashion Snoops to inform those in the industry about upcoming trends and help “connect the dots” from design to manufacturing to consumer buying habits.

During their conversation, Gail, Erin and Carrie touched on a number of other topics, including the range of ITA’s educational offerings for members and students, developments in performance fabrics and the hazards of PFAs, and the advancement of women in the industry. For these and other topics, including Carrie’s new dog’s mysterious breed, listen to the entire podcast.

If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s7e2-shownotes

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For more information about the International Textile Alliance (ITA), visit their website at internationaltextilealliance.org. On the same site, you will also find information about the ITA Educational Foundation and its support for students. You can also find information about Interwoven, ITA’s textile fair held twice a year in May and November at High Point, North Carolina.

Carrie referred to the Sustainable Leather Foundation. SLF supports the global leather value chain to learn, to improve and to protect for future generations, through the People ~ Planet ~ Profit principle. Their website features a Transparency Dashboard that is linked to an audit certification standard that assesses the compliance and performance of companies working within the leather value chain. It also maintains a page of information for consumers of leather goods and materials.

Gail and Carrie both mentioned Fashion Snoops, a global trends forecasting agency for the fashion, accessories, home decor, beauty, media, marketing and other consumer-facing industries.

Erin asked Carrie about the use of PFAs in textiles. Some PFAs (per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances) have been used in some textiles to enhance their performance,

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Change is never easy. But without change there is no growth. Change tests us. It helps us to discover what we’re really made of and to realize our untapped potential. To be willing to change takes great courage. To see change through to the end requires fortitude and the support of those around you.

In this podcast, Gail and Erin have an in-depth conversation with Nancy Charbonneau, CEO, founder & principal designer, Charbonneau Interiors in Woodland, Texas. Nancy is a long-time client of Gail’s and for nearly the past two years has served as a coach for Pearl Collective.

Some twelve years into operating her business, Nancy was dissatisfied that she was not earning higher profits despite having what otherwise seemed a successful interior design practice and retail window treatments store. She knew she needed help but wasn’t sure what to do about her business. She began working with Gail and some time later at a Boardroom retreat, got feedback from the other members that challenged her to make some significant changes. She took that feedback to heart and immediately set about implementing those changes.

Gail praised her for being so open and willing to change. “It was scary,” said Nancy. “It wasn’t easy. Staying the same wasn’t going to be easy, either. You have to pick which path you’re going to follow.” She and business partner, Kimberly, quickly pivoted, and, as it turned out, for the better.

“I think we grow the most when have to face these really difficult pivotal moments,” observed Gail, “where we actually have to find out who we are, what we’re made of, how much grit do we have, how much resilience do we have, and how much determination do we have to really break through whatever our current situation is and do something radically different. You don’t know how it’s going to turn out. You have to believe it’s the right move.”

Erin and Nancy talked about the challenges of being a working mom running your own business. It’s important, they agreed, to make time for yourself. “You have to have your personal core values that guide your decisions,” said Nancy, “and make boundaries around the things that are non-negotiable.” For her, that includes making time to work out, to restore and to relax.

Asked why she decided to serve as a coach, Nancy said it was her way of giving back to the profession and to Gail’s firm for all the help and support they have given her over the years. “I wouldn’t have made it without you,” she said.

Listen to the full podcast to hear how Nancy got her start in interior design, the changes she’s made to her business that have helped it thrive, and why she believes it’s important to give yourself grace in order to keep going in a tough business like interior design.

If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s7e1-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

To learn more about Nancy and her firm, Charbonneau Interiors, including viewing her portfolio, visit the firm’s website at www.charbonneauinteriors.com.

Nancy spoke highly of the book Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy.

Nancy also mentioned Dr. Hardy’s Future Self program. Along with his book, Be Your Future Self Now: The Science of Intentional Transformation, he also has some videos on the topic on YouTube. You can learn more about Dr. Hardy from when he was a guest on our podcast.

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If your business is not going as well as you’d like, if you believe you should be earning more, if you’re anxious, exhausted and burnt out, then consider working with a business coach. A coach not only has the knowledge and experience to guide you toward improving your business; she can present you with other perspectives to help you see what’s possible and how you have the capability to achieve your dream.

In this podcast, Erin talks with Patti Julber, owner and lead designer, Complements Home Interiors in Bend, Oregon. A long-time client and Boardroom member, Patti also serves as a coach and director of coaching for Pearl Collective.

Patti told Erin that she had engaged Gail as a coach because after seven years of running her own firm she knew her business was not where she wanted it to be. She also started thinking about the legacy she wanted to create with her business.

Erin said that what they frequently encounter when working with a new client is what she called the exhaustion factor. They are working as hard as they can but not seeing the kind of progress they’re hoping for. They need help with running their business. The VIP experience, said Erin, is like an MBA for an interior design business. Clients come away with a whole new understanding of what running a business entails as well as action steps they can begin to implement to start improving their business right away.

“Every interior designer runs a 100 percent completely different business,” said Patti. “But there are threads that run through each business which are identical.” Mastery of those business fundamentals is often what designers lack.

Having gone through the VIP experience with Gail and Erin and having seen the improvement in her own business, Patti approached Gail about becoming a coach in order to help other designers.

Today, Pearl Collective has six coaches besides Gail and Erin.

Erin asked Patti what she liked most about coaching. “I love watching people change their mindset about what’s possible,” said Patti. Part of her job is breaking down mental and emotional walls that are holding the client back. She tries to show them that whatever they can dream, they can achieve.

Patti also talked about her Boardroom experience and the great value in having a community of peers to connect and share with, and she offered some tips for those who have just completed their VIP experience. Listen to the entire podcast for her insights and more.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s6e10-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

To learn more about Patti’s firm and read her blog, visit the website at Complements Home Interiors.

For more information about Pearl Collective’s coaching program and the 3-day VIP experience, visit our VIP Program page.

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It’s a common dilemma encountered by many interior design firms—feast or famine. When business is good, they are so busy with the projects they have, they are not thinking about where the next projects are going to come from later. Consequently, their revenues fluctuate wildly, up and down, creating cash flow headaches. With proper business planning, though, you can get off the rollercoaster and keep projects flowing through the pipeline all year round.

In this podcast, Gail and Erin talk with JoeMcGuire, founder and principal interior designer, and Matthew Tenzin, principal interior designer, of JoeMcGuire Design, with offices in Boulder and Aspen and showrooms in Denver, Colorado. In addition to being featured in some of Colorado’s top publications, the firm received the Best Residential Design Award from the International Interior Design Association, Rocky Mountain Chapter.

Several years after starting their firm, Joe and Matthew found themselves struggling with managing projects and cash flow. They realized they really had very little knowledge of how to run a business. They signed up for one of Gail’s VIP sessions, which proved to be an eye-opener. Since then, they have turned things around, added staff, and have increased both their revenues and their profit.

Gail asked them what challenges they were facing that led them to her. Joe said it was what he calls the rollercoaster syndrome. They either had too much business or no business at all. It created all sorts of problems, and they didn’t know how to get control of it.

During their session with Gail, she impressed upon them the importance of having a marketing plan and of marketing consistently in order to create a steady flow of projects in the pipeline. She also showed them what they needed to know about the financial side of their business, such as profit and loss statements and the importance of regularly reviewing their cash flow situation.

Joe said one of the most important things they learned was how to get their financial processes, procedures and accounts organized so they could see how their business was doing. Tracking their progress gave them the confidence that they were moving in the right direction.

In the course of their conversation, Joe and Matthew talked about how they started their firm, where they hope to be in 10 years, and their most important project, True Home Design. True Home Design is centered on a holistic approach to design services to help people be more in harmony with nature and to use their homes as a means of evolving into their true, best selves. For more on these topics and their three pieces of advice for designers, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s6e9-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

To learn more about Joe and Matthew, their firm, and to view their blog and portfolio, go to their website at JoeMcGuire Design.

For more information about their holistic approach to design, visit the True Home website at truehomedesign.com.

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With inflation continuing to rise and governments pressing harder on the brakes to slow it down, it is all but inevitable that the economy in the U.S., and in many other countries besides, will go into recession next year. That will surely put a damper on the interior design industry. You can begin to take steps now, though, to mitigate the impact of a recession, possibly even to thrive in it.

In this podcast, Gail and Erin turn to one of their associates, Don Markland, to get advice on what designers can do to prepare for the coming recession. Don is an award-winning entrepreneur, sales coach and consultant, speaker, author, and a regular contributor to Forbes magazine. He advises businesses of all sizes on matters relating to revenue, marketing, sales and strategy.

Don said the first principle to keep in mind is “Never let a crisis go to waste.” Crises are fomenters of change, and with change comes the impetus to innovate. And with innovation come new business opportunities. A number of major companies have been born in times of crisis by entrepreneurs who had the vision to see an opening to provide something new.

One advantage designers have now is that they have time to prepare before the crisis begins. Instead of worrying about how their firm might be hurt, they should instead be thinking about what can the recession do for their business.

Don offered a few practical steps that owners can take now to safeguard their firms against a recession:

Cash flow matters. It is crucial to manage your cash flow and plan for any potential disruptions in the future. Make sure you have reserves, either in cash or via lines of credit, to get through a dry period.

Consider what you offer and who you offer it to. If current and past clients decide to cut back on discretionary spending, who else will need your services? What sectors do well or are not substantially impacted by a recession? Health care, for example, is one.

Consider taking on good debt. Good debt is that which allows you to invest in your business so that you can take advantage of new opportunities in the future.

Another principle to keep in mind is, when trying new tactics and strategies, “If it doesn’t work, don’t stop. Keep at it until it works.” Some take more time and effort than you might think.

Although it may sound counter-intuitive, said Don, don’t contract during a recession. Expand. Use the time to prepare for future growth.

In their brief exchange, Don and Gail had a lot more insights to share on how owners can overcome their fears and make the most of a recession. You’ll want to listen to the entire podcast to not miss a one.

If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s6e8-shownotes

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Being an entrepreneur is hard work. But it does have its rewards, if you’re willing to apply yourself, to be open to learning and change, and to stay focused on your goals. The key is to define and pursue your own path. Having a coach and a peer group can help a lot.

In this podcast, Gail and Erin talk with Georgia Zikas, founder and principal designer of Georgia Zikas Design in West Hartford, Connecticut—an all-women firm specializing in high-end residential interior design. Over the past ten years, Georgia has grown her business from a solo practice to a multimillion-dollar firm with seven full-time employees. Now she’s thinking about how and where she will branch out in the years ahead.

Georgia explained that she comes from a long line of entrepreneurs and creatives. It felt only natural to her to start her own business. She also was inspired by her parents’ exemplary work ethic. Through a lot of hard work, with support from her husband and children, and by being open to seeking advice and making changes to her business, she has managed to achieve many of her personal and professional goals.

Georgia also credits her team for the firm’s tremendous success. As an employer, she strives to provide a positive and nurturing environment for her employees. She hires only experienced designers with demonstrated talent and compensates them well. ”It’s important that employees are happy at work, that they feel supported, and that they have financial freedom,” she said.

Gail asked her what challenges she faced starting and growing her business. Georgia said she knew that in order to grow the business she needed to add employees, but that figuring out when to hire and the pace at which to scale the business involved a learning curve. When she started the business ten years ago, she stated, it was hard for a solo practitioner to get accounts from vendors. It took some time to develop trade relationships. Nowadays, she added, vendors are more open to working with smaller firms.

Always focused on her goals and moving forward, she recently has developed a partnership with a vendor to create a private collection of custom-designed products. Sometime in the next five to ten years she plans to open a second location for the firm and explore other areas for expansion. She also sees herself assuming more of a role as an industry leader and a mentor to younger designers.

Erin asked Georgia what advice she might have for listeners. She said:

Read a lot of books.

It’s important to have fun. Discover what in your work gives you joy.

Find a community of your people and stick with it. Peer support is invaluable.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Georgia also talked about why she values her role as a working mother, why she prefers being an entrepreneur, who are her ideal client, and more. Listen to the entire podcast for all her insights.

If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s6e7-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

To learn more about Georgia and firm, visit her website at www.georgiazikasdesign.com.

Georgia referred to the book, The Go-Giver: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea by Bob Burg and John David Mann, as one of her favorites that Gail had recommended to her. You can find out more about it at thegogiver.com.

Georgia mentioned in passing that she currently is serving as Vice President of Education on the Board of the International Furnishings & Design Association, New England Chapter. You can get more information about IFDA and its chapters at www.ifda.com.

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Being a successful designer can open the door to new opportunities for growing your firm’s revenue besides taking on more clients or projects or raising fees. Use your knowledge of design and product to explore licensing and partnership deals with manufacturers. Leverage your reputation on social media to generate revenue as an influencer or brand ambassador. Establish a retail business. Let your passion guide you to a rewarding new venture.

In this podcast, Gail talks with interior designer Bria Hammel, CEO and creative director of Bria Hammel Interiors in Mendota Heights, Minnesota. Bria also is the founder of Brooke & Lou, an online retail business featuring a curated collection of furnishings, wallpaper, décor and one-of-a-kind items.

Bria began her design business ten years ago as a small firm with just a couple of employees. Today, she has a thriving practice with more than ten employees, a highly successful retail business, and more than 200,000 followers on Instagram. She attributes her success, in part, to having a vision for her businesses, being goal-oriented, developing a strong brand, and being passionate about everything she does.

Gail asked her what were some of the biggest challenges she’s faced in growing her business. Bria said growth is hard. Over the years she has learned the importance of who you hire and how your manage your staff. “People stay for you, not the business,” she said.

In addition to her retail business, Brooke & Lou, which she named for her children, Bria also has developed partnerships or licensing agreements with some vendors. She only works with those whose products she knows, who are excited about working with her, and whose brand is in line with her own. The items need to be of high quality, at the right price point, and a great value.

At Gail’s prompting, Bria spoke at length about how such partnerships usually develop, from initial contact through to signing a deal and developing and selling the product. She said it usually is at least a two-year process. Sometimes she may be asked to invest in the development but often not. In any case, her firm earns a royalty on each item sold, usually between 6 to 15 percent. She also generates revenue by serving as a brand ambassador for some lines.

In closing, Gail asked Bria what advice she might have for other designers on how to grow their businesses. Bria said,

Understand what success means to you.

Set goals for things you can control, not those you can’t.

To hear more about Bria’s business ventures and her unique use of Pinterest for shopping for and planning her outfits, including her comprehensive closet board, listen to the entire podcast.

If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s6e6-shownotes

Mentioned in This Podcast

For more information about Bria and her firm, go to the website for Bria Hammel Interiors at briahammelinteriors.com.

To explore her retail store, Brooke & Lou, go to brookeandlou.com.

Bria mentioned several times that she is a big devotee of EOS — the Entrepreneurial Operating System. You can learn more about it at www.eosworldwide.com.

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Smartphones. You gotta love ‘em. You gotta hate ‘em. They’re wonders of technology that far outperform anything the crew of the starship Enterprise had in their kit. But their easy access and razzle-dazzle can lure us into wasting hours of our time each day. You can, however, break the smartphone habit and develop a more [...]

Read More... from Breaking Your Smartphone Addiction (Rob Krecak)

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Running a business is an education. You learn something new every day. Over time those lessons help you get better and better at managing and growing your business and at leading your team. It’s useful to stop once in a while to reflect on what they are and how you’ve changed. In this podcast, Gail [...]

Read More... from Best Practices and Insights for Interior Designers (Ted Bainbridge)

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These are unprecedented times for firms looking to hire interior design talent. The pool of active available candidates is small. Employees who already have jobs expect big returns in exchange for switching firms. Salaries are increasing at a rate not experienced in recent memory, and both employees and candidates are asking for more benefits. Before [...]

Read More... from The Inside Scoop on Hiring and Retaining (Ken Roberts)

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If you’ve never been to High Point Market, you don’t know what you’re missing. Yes, there are showrooms, design centers and expos where you can see some product and talk with a rep or salesperson. But there’s nothing else like Market for the home furnishings industry. Don’t let the size put you off, though. With [...]

Read More... from You Don’t Know Until You Go (Dawn Brinson)

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As businesses grow and change, employees’ roles need to change as well. Making that transition from a former role to a new one, with different responsibilities and new relationships with the rest of the team, can be difficult, for the individual and for the team. Leaders have a key part to play in making those [...]

Read More... from Those Tricky Transitions

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In this podcast, Gail and Erin talk with Lee Hershberg, CEO of DesignEdge. They discuss how designers and vendors can connect at his events. If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, read the full shownotes here: https://gaildoby.com/s5e9-shownotes [...]

Read More... from Bringing Designers and Vendors Together

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In this podcast, Gail talks with Mike Michalowicz, entrepreneur, speaker, and author of several bestselling books about his new revised book. See the full shownotes at: https://gaildoby.com/s5e8-shownotes [...]

Read More... from Free Yourself to Unleash Your Business

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In this podcast, Gail speaks with executive coach Tim Fulkerson about leadership and empowering employees to be their best. See the full shownotes at: https://gaildoby.com/s5e7-shownotes [...]

Read More... from When the Going Gets Tough, Leaders Lean Into Learning

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In this podcast, Gail talks with Chris Ramey, an expert on connecting with affluent clients. He speaks about the unique needs of wealthy clients, how to sell to them, and how to brand yourself. See the full shownotes at: https://gaildoby.com/s5e6-shownotes [...]

Read More... from Connecting With the Top One Percent

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In this podcast, Gail talks with communications expert Paul Hellman. They discuss attention spans, breaking through the clutter, and being an effective communicator. See the full show notes at: https://gaildoby.com/s5e5-shownotes [...]

Read More... from Do I Have Your Attention?

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In this podcast, Gail talks with executive coach Michael Seelman. Michael discusses psychological safety, fixed mindset vs growth mindset, and the difference between a manager and a leader. See the full show notes at: https://gaildoby.com/s5e3-shownotes [...]

Read More... from Hey Coach, My Hand’s Up!

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In this podcast, Gail talks with solopreneur and business coach Jeffrey Shaw, author of The Self-Employed Life, host of the Self-Employed Life podcast, and founder of the Self-Employed Business Institute. View the full show notes at: https://gaildoby.com/s5e3-shownotes [...]

Read More... from Putting the Self in Self-Employed

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In this podcast, interior designer Garrison Hullinger, principal, Garrison Hullinger Interior Design, Portland, Oregon, joins Gail and one of the Boardroom Mastermind groups to talk about trends inside and outside the industry that can affect designers’ businesses.   [...]

Read More... from Get a Bird’s-eye View of Your Business

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All work and no rest is a recipe for a meltdown. You owe it to yourself and your business to take some time off now and then to recharge, renew and rebuild your store of resources. That might entail taking care of your physical, mental, emotional, and/or spiritual health. In this podcast, Gail talks with Erin about the sabbatical she took at the end of last year and how it has contributed to her personal and professional growth.  [...]

Read More... from Give Me a Break

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