EP #27 | What Waiting Tables Taught Me about Running a Business

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. 

All right, welcome back to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald. And I am so thrilled to be back after taking a short break over the holiday season, I feel rested and recuperated for the most part, and just really looking forward to all that this shiny new year has in store for us ahead. 

So today I am talking about what waiting tables taught me about running an interior design business. This is kind of a departure from maybe some typical topics that I share. But I think it's a really important one for a couple of reasons. First, because I think that some of the lessons that I learned working in fine dining establishments have been really beneficial. And so I want to share some of those specifically with you today. But also, I want you to be thinking about how your past experiences, how whatever you've done in your previous life or career. What information do you have that is is an experience and expertise do you have that you can draw upon as an interior design business owner to help you be a better business owner, project manager, designer, whatever the case may be. So I think this can help you start to think about, you know, things that might not feel like there's a direct line of relationship between something that you may have done previously, and how that relates to what you're doing today as an interior designer. 

This is called your unique selling proposition or this is something that can contribute to your unique selling proposition is what is that thing that's going to set you apart from another designer and really showcase the unique aspects that you have to bring? So we have the designers always this membership and inside the membership, I love to hear from the designers and learning what what did they do before becoming an interior designer, many of our designers, if not most, this is often a second, if not third career for a lot of folks. So they've got some really cool experience. Prior to this. I did go directly into interior design, and I went to college for it. But during college, I waited tables in some fine dining establishments. And, you know, it took me a little while to kind of figure out this relationship between the two. But I'm going to share some of that with you today.

I want to give you some examples of some of the interior designers who are in the designers Oasis membership and how it relates to what they do today. So one example that comes up for me is a woman who was a private investigator. She was a federal private investigator. And we were talking and she really struggled to understand how this might have any influence on what she does today. And after talking with her, she she kind of uncovered that she has this incredible ability to Ask super pointed questions that help her to uncover client's true desires and needs and hopes and dreams. And that gives her some really incredibly valuable information. As she starts projects. Another group that we have, we have a number of business executives that come from kind of a variety of backgrounds. And they have an incredible ability to organize a lot of information and present it in a way that is really easy to understand and digestible, especially as it comes down to investing in their home or their business, whatever the case may be for their clients. Couple of teachers, of course, this one's a little bit more obvious, but they have a really strong ability to educate their clients. So those are just a couple of examples, I would love for you to start to think about your past experiences, and what have you been able to learn an experience in the past that you can draw on and bring to your, your existing clients. 

So these restaurants that I worked in, especially towards the end were some really high end fine dining establishments. And working in these restaurants was just a tremendous experience. First of all, it's hard work, you have to have a lot of grit, you're on your feet for a long time, you're dealing with a lot of different personalities of different people, you're trying to make sure that your your guests have an exceptional experience, you're dealing with lots of things that are time sensitive, right, you've got a time everything to be just right. In, there's a lot of moving parts, and it's super fast paced, and there's a lot that you have to keep running in your head, right. And you don't want to forget these little things along the way. And you're interacting with your backhaul stuff, your your chef, your managers, your bussers, your, your pastry chefs, your expediter. The expediter is the person who is stands at the kitchen window. And really nobody is allowed to talk to the chef except for the expediter. So if you need something, you don't ask the chef, you ask the expediter. And expediter is a person that makes sure that all the food gets plated, it looks presentable, they get cleaned, and they get delivered to the right table. Not to mention your bartender, your fellow waiters, and your host and hostesses. And I haven't even mentioned your clients, right? So it is just this whole, like super energetic, diverse, dynamic experience working in a restaurant and I, you know, there were days, I was like, Oh, my gosh, this is grueling. I can't keep up with it. But I have friendships to this day of folks that I worked with in those restaurants, we all were pretty close. But the things that I learned from it, and I made great money, you know, so I think overall, it was a really, really a great experience. I don't know if my kids will ever have a chance to listen to this. But I hope one day my kids will have an opportunity to, to wait tables, I think it's a very humbling experience. But I think that you can learn a lot, you've got to be on your toes, you got to be quick, while also you know, making sure your clients have a good experience. So I wanted to just kind of paint the picture. For those of you who have waited tables, you might be nodding your head and saying yes, you get it. And that's okay, if you haven't waited tables, I just wanted to paint a little bit of a picture of what that experience looks and feels like from a service point of view. 

So okay, so number one is experience is everything. And this is really the cornerstone of my interior design business and working with my clients is I want to make sure that they have an incredible experience working with me and my team. So in the restaurant, I would always treat each guest as if they were a guest in my own home. So my goal was once they sat down, and I was able to greet them was I wanted to kind of understand what kind of an experience they were after. And doing this in a subtle way. I'm not, you know, directly asking them like how fast or slow Do you want to eat I'm, I'm really just trying to read the room and gauge where they are, you know, sometimes, maybe you have a couple who's been on a weight for a little while and they're really hungry and they're ready to get going. Other times, you might have folks who are just sitting down and they're catching up with an old friend, or family member and they want a really leisurely experience. And so you want to kind of read that and understand where they are and understand the pace. And once you kind of get the ball rolling you you know you have those initial communications, then it's really important for me to kind of fall into the background a little bit, let them die and let them talk and try to you know, just let them have that experience and let me take care of the work on the back end in a in a quieter way. And so I want us to think about how can we make our clients experience working with us feel as effortless as possible? That's the goal. It's our job to make what we do look easy That's why we're good at it right? 

At the end of waiting on a table, I want them to have full bellies, I want them to have that dopamine hit from having, you know, good conversation or laughter with a loved one. And my goal was to just to make it feel effortless. So, in working with me and my team, how can we make our clients experience feel effortless and easy and kind of predictable, and you know, what's going to happen next. So that's, you know, all the things, that's good communication. That's knowing how to communicate clearly saying the right things at the right time knowing when to not say anything, and we're going to talk about that a little bit more in a minute. So number one, is that experience is everything, you've got to make sure that your your clients and your guests are having an incredible experience working with you. And that comes down to really just doing the ordinary things extraordinarily well.

Okay, lesson number two was about efficiency. So in waiting tables, you're not just waiting on one table at a time. In a higher end restaurant you're probably working with at most three tables, other restaurants that maybe weren't as high end, you might have a larger section. But the point is that you wanted to always treat your whole section, whether there's, you know, three or four people or tables dining at a time, you want to treat them like one big table. And I'm going to get into this and how this relates to running your design business. But when it comes to efficiency, you're going to treat them all like one table, even though they may all be at different stages of dining, maybe you have one table that just sat down, and they're taking their first glance at the menu, maybe you have another table who has already ordered and they're waiting on their food, maybe you've got a third table who's in the middle of dining, and they are really in the midst of enjoying their yummy food and drinks. And maybe you've got a fourth table who is just wrapping up, maybe they're considering dessert, or ready to pay their check and move on. 

So they may all be at different stages, just like you may have clients all at different stages of the design process. But still, you're going to treat your entire section like one big table, and you're going to treat your clients kind of like one big table. 

So here's some examples. And this is all about efficiency. You wouldn't sit down and just email your clients randomly throughout the week. Of course, you may have times where you need to get a quick answer you need to pick up the phone and call them or send a quick email. But think about doing those end of week emails, right? Where you gather all the information from the week and you report out to them weekly doing your billing you wouldn't Bill one client on Monday, another on Wednesday and another on Friday? No, you're gonna do it all. One at one point in the month maybe for us. It's always usually the first Friday of the new month, we would Bill anybody for the previous month. You know, doing things like putting together your proposals or following up. Maybe you do all that stuff on Monday. So it's it's about efficiency, it's about treating your whole section like one big table. And so I think that there's a number of ways that you can practice efficiency in your business. But you know, it wouldn't make sense to go to my table with a pitcher of water and refill one person's water. No, I'm gonna go and I'm going to refill their water and then I'm going to scan everybody's water in my section and make sure that everybody is topped off with a fresh glass of water. So treat your whole section like one big table. So you want to treat all of your clients like one big table whenever it comes to efficiency measures. 

Okay, number three is to know your audience know who you're talking to. So I mentioned a few of these roles earlier in. In a in the restaurant setting. We have your chef, your expediter your sous chef, you might have a bakery or a pastry or dessert chef, your managers, your bartenders, your fellow servers your hostess hostess, your bussers, your dishwasher, all of these folks are people that you're going to need to talk to them a little bit differently. You know, when speaking to an expediter, or a chef, if you're given that ability, you're going to use shorthand, right? You there's code in in restaurant speak, there's 86, is the terminology for the we're out of some things are like, Oh, we're at six, Kimberly, right, that's just terminology that we have. So your back of house staff understands this terminology. And so there's a shorthand, right that you have when talking to your back of house staff. And you wouldn't talk the same way to your, your tables, for example, right, you're going to, you're going to be a little bit more educational, you're going to slow, you're you're going to talk a little bit slower to your clients, you may even need to speak up a little bit louder. Sometimes I've worked in really loud restaurants, if you've got an older group of folks that are dining, and you want to make sure that they can really hear you. 

But in in design, how that relates is, let's think about all the people who you might be working with in your design business. Obviously, we have our clients, and there's a certain way that we talk to them, we also may be working with contractors with your trades people. And obviously, with your trades, people and your contractors, you can have a shorthand, right. If I have a question for my contractor, I know and this is just my relationship with my contractors, your yours might be different, the best way to get an answer to a question is not to send him an email, it's to pick up the phone, call him and deliver my question in 10 seconds or less, or 15 seconds or less. They're they're busy, they're on the go. They are happy to help but they want you to just get to the point they don't want a whole long drawn out explanation. If it doesn't need it, right, you have to understand, you know, there's always nuanced situations. But my point is that when you know your audience and you know who you're talking to, you can have a better experience with all of them, you can give your clients a better experience, you can develop a closer more symbiotic relationship with your your contractor, but you can develop a shorthand, right with your with your contractors and your vendors and that sort of thing. So that's number three is to know your audience. 

Okay, number four, lesson number four is to read your table. In dining, it is important to anticipate your guests needs before they have to ask for it. If a if a guest has to ask me for water, I have failed at that job. If a guest has to ask me for a fresh fork, whatever, because his got his or hers got taken away during whatever session or course of a meal. Or they dropped it. That's that's on me. So it's keeping Hawk eyes on the table and looking at their body language. Are they pivoting their head? Are they we there's a there's a term that we would use with with fellow speaking of knowing your audience. Colleagues, my fellow servers, if they saw somebody at the table who looks like they're looking around and looking at me, looking for me, they would come and say, table fours rubbernecking. And I know that that means they might be looking for me or maybe they're looking for the restroom, you know, I just need to go and check in on them and see what how I might be able to help them. So we don't want our clients to be Robert our guests to be rubbernecking, and looking for us. So reading the table means anticipating their needs before they have to ask I again, looking at the table, does everybody have water? refill their water? I'm not asking Do they want more water, I'm going to shut up and I'm going to fill their water and let them keep talking and visiting. And they will appreciate not having that interruption to their conversation. 

So in interior design, there are innumerable ways that you can anticipate your client's needs. Ideally, without having a whole lot of conversation or having to ask sometimes you do just depends on the situation. But let's say that you have a client and you can visually see in their home that this person may struggle with organization. Maybe this is an opportunity for you to bring in a professional organizer and say, Hey, I have somebody on my team that I work with that I think can really help us make this project better and kind of share with them a way that an organizer might be able to help them. Maybe you've just installed motorized window treatments in your client's home. They're going to need instructions on how to how to maintain them who to call if something breaks, how to operate them. Do batteries need to be charged and if so how does that work? Plants if you've put plants in your client's home, it's a good idea to give them some care instructions on on how to care for them. Making sure that they have touch up paint that is labeled with where things go in ideal Giving them a paint schedule alongside that. So those are just some examples of how you can anticipate your client's needs with things before they have to ask, is really important. You know, if your client comes to you down six months down the road and says, Hey, we have a spot, we need touched up both paint. How do I do this? You can say, Oh, just go down to your basement. And in this room, I've got everything labeled there for you. How do you think those clients are going to feel hearing that they may have never known that that was down there. But now all of a sudden, they're like, gosh, not only is this so much easier than I thought, but she was really anticipating that this might be something that I need. So long after you're gone, they're already continuing to be wowed by you and your ability to take care of them. So read your table. That's lesson number four. 

All right, lesson number five is to mitigate mistakes. So when errors or mistakes happen, it's important to find a way to just simply soften the blow right? In this may or may not be things that are out of your control, right, there's so many things that could happen that are that are not your fault. But it's still up to you to help mitigate it. So I mean, I've definitely had scenarios in a restaurant where one time, you know, as a very expensive steak fell on the ground, just as it was getting ready to be delivered. And of course, my table was, you know, well ready to have their food. And so you know, they were going to have to cook another one. I, because I have a relationship with the back of house could say, hey, could we get them a quick appetizer that we could send out to the table to give them a little something to nibble on while they have to wait for their steak, and then I don't show up at the table empty handed and say, Hey, guys, sorry, your steaks on the ground. And now we have to re cook it, it's gonna be another, you know, 1015 minutes, whatever the case may be showing up with a complimentary appetizer, and just quietly setting on the table and say, Hey, guys, your foods taking just a little extra longer tonight. You're in good hands, I'm keeping an eye out on it. It's going to be here shortly. Is there anything else I can get you while you wait? Compare and contrast those two experiences, from your tables perspective. They don't need to know that it fell on the ground, do they care, they probably don't. But they don't, you know, they don't want to sort of envision that. They just, they're appreciative that you've given them a little something to tie them over while they wait for the rest of their meal. 

So in interior design, I strongly believe that clients don't need to know all the behind the scenes details. Sometimes they do. And this is not about being dishonest or hiding any information. It's just that it can, it can simply create more anxiety or frustration or nerves for client, especially if they're not used to, you know, this experience working with a designer. And so here's an example. We it's not uncommon for us to have something a piece of furniture arrived that may be damaged, everything in our process goes to a warehouse, right, we have a receiving warehouse. And the warehouse has a staff member, several staff people who they can call on who are furniture repair people, and they are incredible at their jobs. And instead of waiting for a whole new one, all of the packaging all of the extra materials, the freight costs the the the waste involved with trying to replace that it is far better, whenever you can to have that item repaired. And that is usually at the expense of the vendor. Right? You wouldn't absorb that cost, neither would your client. And so you can go to the vendor and and take it up with them and file a claim. But as long as this item can be repaired as if it were had never happened, then honestly, there's no need for them to know. These repair people are incredible at their jobs, I am always amazed at the stuff that they can do. They've done some really high end finishes, you know, that have gotten nicked or damaged and repair. So trust me, I didn't know that leather could be repaired we had a giant scratch on a on a leather chair. And it was it would have been incredibly expensive and pretty much impossible to get a replacement delivered because there was a pair of them and the die lots needed to be similar. And we didn't want the two chairs to look off. Right. So I learned that leather can be repaired. 

So my point is that if first you need to decide if it's a situation where the client needs to know or not, and that's only something that you can decide on a case by case basis. And if it can, if it's something that can be handled, it's not going to cause stress your client out it's not going to cost them any money. It's not going to slow anything down then just get the job done right, just fix it. If on the other hand, it is a situation where their clients do need to know To soften the blow. So instead of saying, you know, in your weekly follow up email item x arrived damaged, you would maybe hold off on that information until the following week when you could gather a little more information. And then on the next week, you might say, I wanted to let you know that x arrived damaged and it cannot be repaired, we've we looked into it, we already have a replacement on the way at no cost to you. And the new eta is X date. And we're going to keep tabs on the new arrival for you. So not just coming to them with a problem, but you're also providing a solution and letting them know that you're already on top of it, you're already taking care of it. So mitigating mistakes is about softening the blow, knowing what clients need to know. And, and when, you know, you just don't need to bother them with with the nitty gritty details. And this goes back to giving them an incredible experience, right, and making it look and feel effortless. 

Compare designer A,  she shares every little detail behind the scenes with their client, it stresses our client out, they feel like things are falling apart. You know, even if the client excuse me, even if the designer does have it all together, it's just that feeling or that experience of like, oh my gosh, the sky is falling, all this stuff is going wrong, right? Compare that to designer B, who only shares the really important information. And whenever they do, they're always coming to the clients with a pre proposed solution. So I just think that the clients experience with designer B is going to be far, far superior. 

So this next one is about making friends with the back of house staff. So in kitchens, I already mentioned them a couple of times already, you have a number of staff people that you work with. And it's really important to make friends with them because they can help you out. Let's say this is what happened to me. And far more than I'd like to admit. But maybe I forgot to bring something in like an appetizer or an extra side or whatever. Obviously, I need to go ring that in, right. But I can also go to my friend the expediter and say, Hey, Jimmy, I totally spaced on ringing in X, Y or Z, do you think you could ask the chef if he could expedite that make you know, which is a term that would use to, you know, make make you come out faster? And depending on how I had to read the kitchen, right? If I saw the chef and he's like sweating, and he's in a bad mood, that's on me, there's not a lot I can do about it just gonna have to wait. But if things are, you know, kind of cruising, and that I can ask that and they can say yeah, we'll get that out as fast as we can. And help me out. Let's say I'm in the weeds, right? I'm like, I've got a lot going on, I'm in the weeds, I can go to my busser and say, Hey, would you mind helping me get some waters out to this table? Real quick, while I wrap up a couple of other things. So you can sort of if you want to lend a hand back to them whenever you can. 

But making friends with the back of house staff is really important, because you can help each other out. So think about your back of house staff for running a design business, we've talked about them already a little bit contractors, trades people, your warehouse, your receiving warehouse, you really want to be good to them, because they're going to they're gonna help you out quite a bit. If you are kind and you're warm, and you're friendly with them, instead of treating them like they owe you something or you're trying to give them business or they're beholden to you in some way. If you treat them with respect and kind, you can have a really strong, mutually beneficial relationship. 

So you always want to start by making sure ensuring that your communications with all of your air quotes here back of house staff, in your design, business is quality, that you're always courteous and respectful that everyone on your team knows that that is expected of them too. I had I had an intern one time who wrote an email to one of our one of our trades, and I don't remember who it was, but in the email, she said, you know, and we need this ASAP. It was just kind of curtain it wasn't warm. And I had to pull her aside and say hey, listen, you know, we kind of dropped the ball on that there. And so it's really important that if we need to ask somebody to expedite something that they make we make sure that they know we don't we don't expect them to do this. It's it's a favor that we're asking them and we never ever ever use ASAP to communicate with our with anybody really our emergencies or our our mistakes should not become somebody else's emergency right. So whenever we have to go and ask for something a favor from one of our vendors or a contractor and making sure that we're doing it in a in an incredibly kind and compassionate way that is respectful The fact that they their time matters too, right and they've got other stuff going on and we're not the center of their world. You can get so much further and have just a better relationship with these folks. If you stay grounded in kindness and warmth and compassion with with your vendors. And then if you want, you can do things you can go above and beyond, you know, maybe that's sending them a card during the holidays to say, Hey, I see you, I appreciate the opportunity to partner with you and to work with you sending them cookies, right, just letting them know that you are appreciative to have them on your team and, and to work with them.

So I hope that this information helps sort of shed a new light, and that you learned something about how to serve your clients better, but, but also to allow you to think about how you can draw upon your own past experiences as a business owner, and how you can improve your client experience, which are going to create natural evangelists for for you and your work. Alright, thanks, friends for joining me today, I will see you soon. Have a wonderful and amazing rest of your day.

Thank you so much for letting me spend part of this day with you. If you're loving this podcast, please share it with a friend who you think might also love it. Or perhaps you can take just 30 seconds to open your podcast app and leave us a five star rating. And if you have just an extra minute, go ahead and leave a review. This helps me so much and it helps other designers like you to find the podcast. It also adds fuel to my motivation to keep making great episodes just for you. However you choose to help. Please know I appreciate you so very much. Thank you, my friend. Have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll see you next time