EP #25 | 10 Mini Projects to Prep your Business for the New Year

Welcome to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald, interior designer, mama, and CEO of a thriving interior design business, built on authentic word-of-mouth referrals. It wasn't that long ago that I stepped away from my corporate architecture job to build my own dream, one that would allow me more time with the people that I love, the ability to serve my clients at the highest level and to make a great living. It wasn't always easy, and I've made my share of mistakes along the way. Fast forward to today, and I've learned a thing or two. This podcast is for you - the inspired, creative, ambitious, and let's admit it,  occasionally overwhelmed interior designer who shares this dream of transforming lives by transforming homes. Join me and my guests each week as we walk through practical ways to build an interior design business you love, and help you transform your client's lives. You can do this. 

Well, hello there, my friend. Welcome back to another episode. 

Today, we are talking about 10 mini projects to prep your business for the new year. Before we get into these, I want to just make crystal clear, I'm not suggesting that you do all 10 of these, okay, I fully expect you to take advantage of this built in downtime that the Earth has given us where the days are a little bit darker. And enjoy some rest and relaxation, some family time, hopefully some good food, all those good things. But if you're anything like me, you also like to take advantage of some of this downtime, sort of away from clients to maybe work on just a couple of things on the backend of your business. So that you can start the new year fresh, I mean, a fresh, shiny brand new year for me, just it's so exciting. And I don't know about you, but I love to start the new year feeling like I've got some ducks in a row, not all of them, because they're never going to all be in a row. But I've got some ducks in a row. I've got some things, maybe freshly organized, I've made revamp some things. 

And so if that's you, and if you choose to do some of these things on this list, maybe just pick one or two and focus on those and then godspeed go do those other things that are going to rejuvenate you so that you can also come back feeling refreshed and energized in the new year. But I want to give you just some quick mini projects that you might consider working on. If you do find yourself with a little downtime, and you want to work on your business during this during this time. Okay, so we're gonna go through these pretty quickly. And I've got 10. And I've grouped them into three kind of categories. 

So the first one is branding exercises, or many branding projects that you could do. The second is mini organizing projects you can do and the third is visibility, what are some mini projects you can do that are going to help you drum up and stir up some business in the new year.

Alright, so let's get to it. Number one, revamp your services and investment guide. So your services and investment guide is going to be this beautiful curated document that you would pass off to a client usually either prior or right after a discovery call that is going to give them some information about how you work, what you're all about what kind of projects you're known for, who you'd like to work with, and a little bit about kind of some starting pricing points so that we kind of know who they're working with and what to expect in terms of investing in your services. I do have a template that's available in the shop but that is a tool that I highly recommend you have in your business but as always sometime As these things can get a little stale, maybe you've just finished up a new project, and you've just recently had it photographed, perhaps you want to add some of those new photos in there, maybe you want to get a fresh headshot and update that.

 Maybe your pricing has changed Hello, maybe you're getting ready to raise your rates for the new year, and you need to go see, does my services and investment guide reflect the kind of pricing I want to be putting out in this new year, so revamp your services and investment guide would be one mini project you could focus on with a little downtime. 

Number two, is the buddy to the services and investment Guide, which is your client welcome packet. So the client welcome packet, I also have a template for this, if that's something you're interested in, it's good or designers Oasis, or excuse me, go to shop.designersoasis.com to find that. But your welcome packet is a similar type document. But this is given to a client at the consultation. And this is going to color in a little bit more detail about the design process and what to expect and next steps and how to communicate with you. What are some of those key features of your client agreement. Of course, the client agreement is separate. But it's a really valuable tool and a leave behind that you can give your client at the welke. At the consultation, I also recommend maybe putting in a few project profiles, if you want to highlight some past projects and how you helped clients solve a problem. It's really a sales tool as well. But it's a really valuable tool to have to leave behind at a client consultation. But again, from time to time, these things need a fresh set of eyes, maybe you've got some fresh imagery, maybe you want to update some things, or add some information or take out some information that's no longer relevant. Listen, our businesses are fluid, you want to be able to set this and kind of forget it for a little while, right. But everything needs to have a little bit of fresh set of eyes from time to time. So this is a perfect time to work on that. 

Okay, mini branding project number two would be to audit your website. So everything gets stale from time to time, I just said that. So that includes your website. Again, maybe it's updating it with photography, maybe it's looking at your navigation and making sure that that makes sense. Maybe you need to revise your call to action or what you if you put any kind of pricing on your website, you might look at updating that your your brand statement, what's your about going in and giving your about page and overhaul, chances aren't your about page is one of the top hit pages on your website. And it's says so much about you and what you can do for your clients. It's really where you develop a know like and trust factor. And you really want that about page to be dialed. And so maybe this is an opportunity for you to sit down with pen and paper, look at each page and say, okay, homepage, here's what I would change. And I want you to be a little bit methodical about this, I'm gonna go off on a little slight tangent, I'm not going to get in to exactly how you should do this. 

But generally speaking, I don't want you to just sit down and start hammering away updates, I think a better way to do this is to you know, for small sort of insignificant updates, go in and first map out what changes you want to make. Write them all down and go page by page until you have all of that done. And then depending on how you have things set up, you can do it one of two ways. Number one, you can often just duplicate a page, make those edits and changes on the back end, because let's face it, what if your mid sentence, right, and all of a sudden, you get a phone call and your kid is sick at school. And I guess not gonna be in school, if it's simple it is. But you get the point. You could be doing these projects literally any time of year. But the point is, if you are working on a live page, and you all of a sudden get pulled away midway through edits, that's going to feel like a scramble. So I recommend any language and web copy changes that you might be making. Do those in a Google doc first, map out what you want to change map out your writing and your copy in a Google doc first, and then duplicate a page, make those changes on the back end until every page has all the changes that you want. And then when it's time and you feel good about it. Ideally, you've had somebody else put a second set of eyes, whether that's a professional copywriter or a trusted friend or partner who is really good at focusing on the details, gives it a once over and says okay, now I think this is good. And then you can switch it and make it go live. So auditing your website making, I'm just talking about making some small, quick, easy updates. I'm not talking about doing a big overhaul. But all of these things from time to time need a little updating. 

Okay, mini Project Number four would be to audit your social media. Social media makes changes every day to the features available to the way things look. And it can be very difficult to to keep up with all those changes if you're not consistently paying attention to what they are. So I think from time to time, it's good to not only go in and just make sure that everything is looking fresh, you've got your best headshot is on there, make sure your contact information is all stayed the same. And ensure that all of your links are working, ensure that if you've got any highlights on your Instagram, that they're they're all relevant. And you know, if you've got some old projects hanging out on there that maybe aren't reflective of the kind of work that you want to be known for. But you've got some other good projects on there, it's, I would say pull those off, it's much better to have a few really high quality images of your best work than to have a whole bunch of photos and some of them maybe don't necessarily reflect the the best work that you want to be known for. Making sure that your description of in your social media your bio did that's optimized, and that that's really reflecting the kind of ideal client that you want to be known for, so on and so forth.

 And, you know, for a lot of designers, Instagram is kind of our go to social media platform. But you might also look at your other platforms such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, how's Facebook pages, if you have any of those, just going in, giving them a once over and making sure that they're all consistent, and I do promote the idea of having a consistent headshot across all of your social media platforms. That is that is really ideal for branding. 

Okay, let's move on, we're going to we're going to talk about now some organizing projects. My favorite, here are a couple of mini projects that you could consider doing with a little downtime. Number five is to organize your sample library. This is maybe one of my most favorite things to do, I kind of nerd out on it for me personally. But if you're anything like me, if you are mid project, we usually have a bin set aside. And if let's say we're pulling stuff out for a project, and we're considering all different options, there's going to be a handful of them that get discarded, that don't make the cut, right. Sometimes they may come back to the basket that or their home or their box or their bin or wherever they go. But a lot of times for efficiency, we toss them into this one basket. And my design assistant will come in after at the end of a project and just organizing to make sure that they all go back exactly where they where they should go. But also, maybe you don't have a good organization process for your sample library. If that's you, I have a blog post for you. I will link to it in the show notes. I've got photos. 

You know, there's there's lots of ways you can organize your sample library, I've come up with one that just makes sense for my brain, which is, you know, to organize obviously, items by product type, but then also to have a little bit of hierarchy in there and also implement including pricing on your samples. That kind of makes sense. So if you're interested and you need some help with organizing your sample library, check the show notes because I've got a blog post that might be able to help you many projects number six is to organize your digital files and boy can I tell you, this is one that I need to do. We've just made some changes and I keep having the temptation And to stop what I'm doing and sit down and get my Google Drive, it's gotten a little out of hand, and it kind of drives me crazy. But I am just so focused on some other things right now I'm like, You know what we're gonna get, we're gonna do this during the holidays, we're just gonna sit down with a cup of coffee and spend an hour doing it. So it's a project that I'm personally holding off on doing, but I'm having your digital files, super organized is going to help you be more efficient with your time. And anybody that works for you is always going to know where to find things. So spending a minute organizing your digital files is a really smart use of your time, if it's going to help you in the long run, to get yourself organized. And again, I've got a blog post for you. I will share this as well, in the show notes, I'll show you exactly, not only how do I organize my overall digital files, but also how do I organize client folders within that. So that's just a simple mini project that you could work on to organize yourself now and set yourself up for success in the new year. 

All right, moving on to mini project numbers seven, tidy up your bookmarks, I, we've got bookmarks on our phone, we've got bookmarks on. If you're a Chrome user, I use Chrome, they're typically synced. To make sure that making sure that those are synced across both all of your device, all of your devices is really smart. But also that you're getting rid of any junk, they aren't getting rid of anything that isn't going to suit you or that you're no longer using. Getting client shortcut folders organized can be super helpful when you're navigating between their Pinterest board and maybe their whatever your project management software might be, you might have four or five links related to one client that you refer to all the time, why not create a folder in your bookmark bar just for that client, or just for clients. Either way you want to do it. So you can quickly open up all of the tabs related to that client, and get you in the groove of working on their project really fast. So, big fan of bookmarking, excuse me of keeping your bookmarks super well organized. 

Okay, moving on, we're gonna talk about a couple of visibility projects. So if you're in the season where you're gonna take a little downtime, but you really want to hit the ground running in the new year, there could be some things that you do in this downtime to help increase visibility for your business. Many projects, number eight, research local organizations to participate in for networking purposes. So I think it's very smart. If you're a service provider, at usually, networking with your local organizations is going to be a really important aspect to growing your business and meeting the right kinds of people. So this could be a you know, a weekly coffee group for women in business, this could be a local organization for specifically for service providers, or for creative entrepreneurs. Are there any sort of local organizations that you could align yourself with, that are going to allow you to meet up with people who share similar, either maybe you share similar client base, or you do similar types of, of, of work, and so you can just learn and grow from them. Or you can also become a referral source for each other. And I just always recommend that you join networks that you feel authentically passionate about, and that you're not just using it as a referral source alone, but that you're also joining and participating and giving back to that network because everybody knows when you show up and you're just there to find who their clients are and how can you get in front of them. So making sure that when you participate that you're also finding ways to contribute to the group is always my recommendation. Okay, visibility mini project number nine, actually, this is many projects number nine, and it's a visibility mini project. So draft a new years email to send to your friends and family network.

So if you have been sort of lurching in the shadows with your business, it might be time to have a reintroduction of who you are and what you do and who you serve and how you help them and send it to your friends and family network. So This could be I love the idea of sending a paper letter, just wishing people happy new year, and sharing maybe what, what wins you've had this year? What are some projects that you've worked on? What are some things that excited you and let you up? What are some accomplishments that you're proud of? Maybe you're sharing with them, you know, in the new year, I'm looking forward to helping more. And then insert your, you know, the kinds of projects you you want to be known for and say, you know, I'd love to be kept top of mind, if there's anybody you can think of that might be in alignment and need need our services, thank you so much. And, you know, all, all you're doing is just reminding them of what you do. So you could send that to friends, you could send it to family, you could send that to any sort of vendors or colleagues, that kind of thing that you think would be a good fit. 

All right, and the last mini project that you might consider doing like a little downtime, is to research directories that you couldn't join for interior designers. So there are a number of types of directories that you can find, if you live anywhere near a design center. So I'm in Denver, there's the Denver Science Center, many, many vector tech, most major cities are going to have some kind of a design center. And so even if you're not super close, I would still recommend finding them. But design centers will often have a directory that you can join. But also, if you just research, interior designer directories, or it doesn't even have to be a designer specific directory, it can be any sort of a business directory for your local area. Maybe there's creative business directory, maybe there's service based business directory, look at your home magazines. We're in Denver, we have 52, at home magazine. And I know that some other cities that I've lived in have done similar type things. But typically, maybe each year they put out, you know, a best of the best each year, find out when is that? And can you be? Can you are you able to join that directory? A lot of times there are paid spots that you can add to that you need to decide if that fits into your marketing program for the or not, but where can you put yourself into some directories? Where people might be able to find you or refer you? Maybe this is, you know, putting yourself into a real estate directory? Maybe you start calling real estate offices and say, Do you have you know, I'd love to be added to your list of names of interior designers, if you've got something like that is that something that I can send over, you know, something that you could use, maybe there's a contractors organization that you could connect with that way. So just finding out who your local partners are that you might be able to put your information in wherever they might display this kind of stuff. So lots of options. Again, I cannot emphasize this enough. 

Now, I realized that you might be listening to this, and it's not the new year, right? It's, it may be July. And great. I'm glad you found this episode of I'm glad you're listening. But regardless of when you choose to execute these meant, the point is, is that, you know, your business journey is made up of millions of little baby steps. And so I think it's really important if you've find yourself with just a little bit of downtime, a little bit of quiet time to use that to your advantage to use that, to just make a few small tweaks that are going to have major impacts that are gonna have a ripple effect, that are going to be some things that you can set it and forget it for a little bit and free up some more time in the future. I think there's a lot of good reasons why working on a few mini projects in some downtime, whether it's the holidays or not, can highly, highly the fit you and your business. So I hope some of these ideas were helpful. Let me know if you decide to pick up some of them and how that worked out for you. I'd love to hear yours can always send us a message or DM Alright, have a great rest of your day. I will see you on the next episode. Bye for now. 

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