EP #60 | 4 Phase Success Path for Interior Designers

Welcome to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald. If you're tired of one-size-fits-all all advice to running your interior design business, you're in the right place. Join me each week as we dive into topics to help you run a thriving interior design business. Without the hustle. We'll talk about the business of design, but also mindset and mental health because I know when you thrive, so will your life and business. It wasn't that long ago that I stepped away from my corporate interior design job to build my own design business so that I could realize my own creative dreams, have more time with the people I love, and serve my clients at the highest level, while making more money than I ever could have working for someone else. It wasn't always easy, and I made my share of mistakes along the way. Fast forward to today. And I've learned a thing or two. Since then I've built multiple six-figure interior design businesses on authentic word-of-mouth referrals with many repeat clients. And I want to share it all with you the ambitious, inspired, and I get it occasionally overwhelmed interior designer who shares this dream of transforming lives through the art of interior design, You can do this. Thank you for letting me spend part of this day with you. Let's get to it.

Hi, there. And welcome back to the podcast. I am excited to be chatting with you again today. I'm really excited about today's episode. This has been something I've been sort of working on developing and organizing for a little while now. And I'm excited to be able to share this with you today. So we are talking about what does a Success Path look like for interior designers, I've got a lot to say on this, it is going to be a really packed episode, you might want to take notes on this one. But before we get into it, we just have a couple of really quick announcements. First, don't forget this October, we have a meet up at High Point. So go to designersoasis.com/highpoint, what we're gonna do is just it's very casual, very informal, but high points more fun with a friend, right. So if you're nervous about going because you don't know anybody, you don't know anybody else that's going we're going to just have a meet up group so you can drop in. When you go that your URL, you can drop in your name and your phone number. And then just give us permission to connect with you through a private chat. We'll probably do it through either WhatsApp or discord. But either way, once we have our stuff figured out, we'll send you an email. And we'll say hey, click this link to join the private group chat and that way you can connect with other interior designers, who are also listeners of the Designers Oasis Podcast, I want to meet you I want to see you and so this will be a way maybe you can find somebody to room with somebody to travel with somebody to walk through showrooms with a meet up for dinner or drinks afterwards. I'm not sure how it's all gonna shake out but whatever it is, we're gonna have fun. So come join us. That's this fall at Highpoint. November 16 is the annual master planning workshop. This is our fourth year. Registration is not live yet but it will be soon so make sure you're on our email list. So you know when that is happening. Quick overview it's we're going to look back at the past year we're going to look forward to the year ahead, we're gonna get you geared up for 2020 for like a boss. So it's gonna be a good time. It's a really fun workshop. So I hope to see you there. Okay, don't forget we are starting a new segment called Dear Kate where I answer listener submitted questions. So if you have a question you want me to answer on the show? Send us a note over at designersoasis.com/askkate, I look forward to hearing from you soon. Okay, let's get to it. So what does a Success Path look like for interior designers? I'm so glad I got that out. right the first time Success Path. I'm just gonna keep practicing it.

One of the things I hear most from designers is something to the effect of I don't know what to focus on right now in business. It all feels like so much it feels overwhelming. I'm having a hard time prioritizing myself. I see where I want to go but it feels so far. Where I feel like everyone around me is lightyears ahead Success always looks like it came overnight when you're looking from the outside in. And the thing I want to remind you of is you have time. That's it, you have time. And one of my friends Molly, Molly, crouch, she's been on the podcast before, she said to me one time, Kate, you're the only one who can change your relationship with time. And I thought to myself, boy, if that's not some accountability, I don't know what it is. So I want to just remind you to take a beat, get yourself organized. Today, I'm going to help you hopefully get a little bit more clarity on what to focus on. And, you know, I have to remind myself of all of these things, too. And here's the thing I want you to keep in mind, as you're, as we're going through this, success looks different for everybody. For some of you success is going to be, hey, I'm able to make a nice living working part time and I get to do some fun projects. For others of you, it's going to be I want to be working with high profile individuals with a buzzing team in a studio in a corner suite. It doesn't matter, there is no right. A definition of success, it's however you define it. But I want to be able to lay out some some key milestones that are going to at least be able to help you get to a place where if you want that team and you want the the design projects that are flowing effortlessly, then pay attention because this is this is really sort of that path to get you there. I love what Anne Lamott said about writing your shitty first draft, I don't know the exact quote, but she makes the point you're not going to get it right the first time, developing a business developing a brand is iterative, there are many things you're going to need to come back to again and again and refine it, which is why this work really never stops. You never need to stop working on your business, right? There's no, there's no plateau, right? You know, as long as you're you're growing, and you're, you're wanting to refine your clientele, your processes, all of that everything's gonna continually need to be refined, it's just the nature of the work we do.

So the reason I tell you that is because I hope that it helps ease some pressure to get it right the first time because you're going to have lots of opportunities to refine, as you move through building this business, this dream of yours. You know, think about someone who wants to prepare for a marathon, you're not ready, well, that new ticket, one jog around the block, you don't become healthier with that one vegan dish you made, you don't have a fully fledged operational system, just because you wrote one SOP, you don't grow a garden with just one seat. So all of these things require time, and dedicated focus, attention and caring. Okay, so today, we're going to look at four phases of a success path for interior designers, here are the four phases, and then we're going to look at each one a little bit more closely, including what kind of milestones you can expect to cross as you move through the success path. So here are the four phases. Number one is launching. Number two is establishing number three is growing. And number four is refining. And one thing I want to note, if you go to, on the website to our podcast section, we actually have our podcast episodes, you can take those last to growing and refining kind of lump them in. Another word for both of those might be scaling. So if you go to our podcast episodes, we actually organize many of our episodes by these phases. So that can be helpful. If, after today, you kind of identify, Okay, I'm I'm pretty much in the establishing phase, for example, then you might want to go to our podcast page and look at all of the episodes that are tailored for that particular phase. And there are going to be some episodes that crossed, you know, that could fit into a couple of them. And so we've made sure that we've done that. So just a little note for you, if you're looking for where do I go next after today's episode? Okay, before we get into each of these more closely, I want you to keep in mind that it is very likely that you will find yourself in a gray area in between two different phases. Nobody's going to fit perfectly into one single phase, you're just not. But ideally, you're going to more heavily identify with one. And you know, for example, you may be crossing from the establishing phase into the growing phase, even if you haven't checked all of those, quote unquote milestone boxes in the establishing phase, and that's okay.

So I don't want you to panic or think to yourself, well, I can't do this until I do that. That's not the point. The point is when you start to self identify where you are on the success path, it helps you to know what to focus on right now. Knowing that you will have opportunities to refine as you grow and as you develop as a business owner. And so it just gives you a little bit of grace to just be where you are, be present where you are, no matter where you are, that will always be people who are further along than you. And there will always be people who are further behind you don't worry about them. Just focus on where you are today. Okay, let's get to it. I have some notes here that I'm going to refer to as we're working through these phases. Okay. So again, the four phases are number one, launching, number two, establishing number three, growing. And number four refining. Alright, let's start with the launching phase. Alright, so in the launching phase, you're a couple of things that you might be thinking to yourself, if any of these identify. If you identify with any of these, then this might be the phase that you're currently in, you might be thinking yourself, I'm ready to officially launch my interior design business. How much money can I earn in this career? What kind of services should I be providing? Where will I find my clients. And there's a couple of things that you might be feeling as you're working through, these are thinking through these, you might, you're probably feeling pretty excited, you're probably feeling pretty invigorated, right. And that's, that's a great and fun place to be. At the same time, you might also be feeling a little bit vague about the next steps, where to go what to do next, what's important, really may be worried about, can I really make money at this, and all of that can maybe leave you feeling a little bit vulnerable. So with, with all of these phases, you're gonna be experiencing both some negative and positive emotions simultaneously. And I just want to normalize it, it's totally normal. So those are some of the feelings that might be coming up for you in this space, you're probably doing a lot of research, you're probably running the numbers for your earning potential, you're probably checking a lot of boxes in terms of making your business official, you're maybe setting up your workspace, looking at business, legal and admin, administrative type tasks, these are some of the milestones that you're really going to want to check off in this phase, okay, you want to have your business officially set up with your state and federal entities and any local entities, if that's required for you, you've got a business banking account and set up checking and savings, you've secured a resale license, if you think you're going to be doing any sort of purchasing on behalf of your clients, you need to have basic business insurance and have at least a really basic contract in place for your your client work, we do sell a really comprehensive proposal and client agreement template on our website. If that's not in your budget just yet, there are some templates available out there online that you can find for a little bit cheaper, just know they're not going to really cover the full breadth of of the work that you're doing this this agreement and proposal has been its attorney vetted, it's been used for over many, many, many projects and refined and it's a really well established and thorough contract and agreement.

So if you've got the budget for it, I recommend starting there. But if you don't just find a basic contract and get that set up, because you don't want to start doing business without some sort of a contract in place, even if you have to write it yourself, which Yes, I did. When I was first starting out, I cobbled together contract using all kinds of things from the internet. Before we finally got our act together and had it really professionally developed one, okay, thinking about branding and marketing, you want to have at least a preliminary ideal client avatar or ICA defined, this is something you're going to come back to over and over and over again. So more on that in a minute. You want your immediate network needs to know about your new business, right? The whole world may not know about you yet, but you need to at least have made some kind of official announcement to your friends and family network so that they know what you're doing, who you're serving, and how to contact you. And they can start sharing about what you do. And you'd have a basic, basic website and social media accounts started. And in claiming those URLs and those social media accounts. It's going to take a while for you to fully develop a website because you're going to need projects to fill out portfolio. There are ways to get a basic website started. One of my most popular blog posts was four ways to get photos for your website without ever having a project. So I'm all linked to that in the show notes. But you don't need a whole lot to get started. But you do want at least a homepage and a way for people to contact you thinking about your process. You need to at least have one service identified that you are going to offer and be able to accept online payments and you have at least one paying client that in your tracking your time and your tasks on that so that you can start to understand how long do things take you to do so you want to have at least one plant paying client. Maybe you have a couple more, that's fine, but those are sort of the fundamental milestones of the launching phase.

Hey designer, I see you, you're working hard building your interior design business, and you're doing okay, the things could be better. Am I right? Maybe you're struggling to clarify what makes you different. You know that only Venus factor that sets you apart from other designers in your area. Maybe you have leads, but you're squeamish when it comes to selling, and you can't seem to move them from a prospect to a happily paying client. Perhaps every project feels like you're reinventing the wheel because your design processes aren't dialed in. Maybe you're eager to take on the big projects, but you're not sure how to implement full service projects without a team. So you keep playing small. Look, I get it. Running an interior design business, especially on your own isn't for the faint of heart. But it's totally doable, and the rewards creatively, personally, professionally and financially, are so worth it. If you're ready for a fresh perspective on what it takes to grow without the burnout and overwhelm, I have a special invitation for you. For a limited time, you can catch my new masterclass the six part framework for a thriving interior design business, where I'm laying it all out for you, including the top three mistakes so many designers make and why they're stealing your time, your money and your joy, the secret to getting the best free marketing in your design business. And of course, I'll share my signature framework to building a profitable design business without constantly hustling for new clients. Here's the thing. When I say I don't believe in a one size fits all approach to how you run your design business, I really mean it. It doesn't matter if you want to run a business doing exclusively virtual design, or you want to build a business on a part time schedule. Or you really want to make a name for yourself working with high profile individuals with a buzzing team that supports you, whatever your end goal may look like, my framework can help you look at your business with a fresh set of eyes, so you can get the clarity you need to know what to focus on right now. And here's the best part. This master class is free. Yeah, free, head over to designers oasis.com forward slash thrive and register now. I'll see you there.

Alright, so next, we're gonna get into phase two, establishing phase, here's what you might be thinking to yourself. Okay, I've checked all of those boxes. For the most part in the launching phase, I've got my essential business setup. Now I really want to lay a strong foundation for my business. You're asking yourself things like Who do I want to be known as what do I want to be known for as a designer? Perhaps right now you're feeling like you've got some momentum, because you've got some projects that you're working on real paid projects, ideally, I don't care if you're designing for your mom, I want you to be getting paid for your project work, okay. At the same time, you might also be feeling a bit overwhelmed at, quote, unquote, all there is to do and where to focus your energy. So maybe both of those things are playing together at the same time. Ideally, you are working through this phase of your business, your by establishing your processes, through real client work, right? You you you build and develop your process. It's iterative, that you build it through your through the work that you do, and it just builds on it, you're continuing to determine how long projects take how long tasks take, how long does it take you to put together a basic set of drawings? How long does it take you to source for particular type of room? How long does it take you to onboard your clients? Those kinds of things? You're probably still figuring out your proposal process, right? How do you take these estimates? And how do you prepare and put together a proposal that really reflects the exact work that you're going to be doing, by the way, we have a really solid interior design proposal template inside our interior designers business blueprint as well, which is free when you're a member when you join the program. But it's also available inside our shop.

But you've got a proposal template that you work with, and you're just figuring out how to how to plug and play your time and your estimate with a proposal that feels good. You're maybe investing in starting to invest in some software, and maybe a project management tool, thinking of things like design files, house pros, my DOMA, those kinds of tools, and or a customer CRM tools such as dubsado or HoneyBook. Those kinds of tools in our business and keep in old interior design. We we use both a project management tool and a CRM, just because we prefer the functionality and how they work differently that we haven't yet found one tool that does everything we need all in one. So you're you're either investigating or you've already invested in this kind of software to help get your business really established so that you look professional to your clients and you Ball the details organized, which is so much of what we do. And you're starting to develop relationships with vendors. So if you're doing any kind of, well, even if you're not reselling to your clients, when I say vendors, I'm talking about vendors and trades, really. So maybe you're opening trade accounts, maybe you're establishing relationships with trades such as a wallpaper hanger, a contractor, electrician, those kind of people, you know, that that we work so closely with. Okay, thinking about milestones in the establishing phase. First, let's think about business legal admin, those kinds of things. Ideally, I want you to have a bookkeeper at this point who's regularly reconciling your books. a bookkeeper is hands down one of the first people I would have, I would bring on to my team to help me out, you have defined your revenue plan. So you've kind of figured out okay, these are the, this is the service or services I'm going to provide, this is what I'm going to charge. And this is about how many projects or hours I would need depends on what we're you've landed on that you've you've at least broadly defined, you know, how many projects do you need to reach your your revenue goals. Inside the interior designers blueprint, we have the CEO toolkit where we can really help you identify that also, we talked about that a lot inside the annual master planning workshop, which is happening in November. So defining that revenue plan is a really key thing in this phase, but then it's something you're going to build on and you're going to do it every single year.

Again, it's iterative, I want you to be consistently tracking your time on projects. Maybe at this point, you've upgraded your business insurance from just basic business insurance, thinking about branding and marketing. If you've worked through a couple of projects, you're probably going to want to refine your ICA, I promise you, your ICA is never done, your ideal client avatar is never done, you're going to consistently be looking back at it and refining it. And I will just say that, almost every time I've sat down with even the most established designers, one of the first things I do is look at your ICA and there's always room for improvement. So just keep just don't think that that's a one and done thing, okay? It's just not. Okay, you've clearly defined your menu of services and how you will charge you have defined how you add value, your brand mission, your values, your unique selling proposition, you've prepared a client welcome guide and a services and investment guide. And ideally, you're starting to track your conversion rates. If you're not sure what conversions rates are, go back and listen to I don't have the notes in front of me. But we'll put we'll put it in the show notes. A few episodes ago, I talked about the two metrics that are really important for you to track and one of those is your conversion rates. So ideally, you've got that setup and in are working through that. And you're consistently finding opportunities to outreach and share about your services. Thinking about process, you have basic documented design process for your client onboarding, and your design workflows, your opening trade accounts and beginning to leverage those, you're actively working with at least a few clients. Maybe they're not all in the same stage. But you've got a roster of at least a couple of clients that you're working with. And ideally, you have completed and photographed, professionally photographed at least one but maybe a few fully finished projects. Even if they're your own house, having a fully completed and photographed projects is a really key milestone to being able to showcase what you're capable of doing. And so that's a really important milestone to start to work towards. And always wants you to be thinking when you take on projects is this going to be photographable that is so important, especially when you're just starting out, you're trying to build a portfolio when you become more established. And it sort of changes depending on what your goals are, for yourself.

But at some point, building a portfolio may not be as important. But in those early days, early years, it's going to be really, really important. And ideally, you will have attended at least one market. There's all kinds of market but the markets for designers, but the two big ones are the Las Vegas market and high point market. And they're each two times a year. So for opportunities to go. I highly, highly recommend you find time and resources to get yourself to market. Okay, moving on. We are now talking about phase three growing ideally, and this phase here, here's where you might be thinking to yourself, Okay, I have developed a really strong foundation established a strong foundation for my business. And now I'm ready to run with it. Okay, I'm ready to level up my client base. Oftentimes when we first are getting started, we take on whatever projects we can because we want the experience we want to build our portfolio and there's nothing wrong with that. And then there comes this point where you've had that experience. You've been able to work through some projects, and you're really starting to develop some some more confidence and And you recognize that perhaps the client base that you really want to be working with isn't necessarily the one you've been serving. And so you're ready to really level up. So you might be thinking to yourself, how can I reach this new audience? Another thing, because you are likely going to become more busy, you might also be thinking about how can I start to automate some parts of my business in order to save time? Again, how are you feeling, you're probably feeling more confident as you move through, especially your sales processes.

For example, whenever you get on a discovery call with a client, it doesn't, you don't those butterflies aren't there like they used to be, you're starting to feel really confident and you know, knowing what to say what to listen for, what kinds of questions to ask, and how to move them to that next step with you. So you're nine times out of 10, moving that person from a discovery call to a consultation, you've got a really good conversion rate there. And then your consultations are probably going really well. So that confidence is really starting to build because you've had some practice. At the same time, you might be feeling like, Whew, I still see a lot of room for improvement. And I'm feel like I don't have enough time to implement all the things that I want to do. So that's a totally normal thing to be feeling. At this phase of business, here are some things that you might find yourself doing. Number one, turning down clients or projects that aren't the right fit, you've built enough confidence to know what it is, that's going to take you to where you want to be, and you have the discernment and the willingness to say, no grace gracefully to the projects that aren't the right fit and be able to move on and just be done with it. If you have anybody working for you, you're having regular team meetings, you're regularly creating and refining SOPs, standard operating procedures in your business, because those SOPs are going to be really, really key to moving you into the next phase. So at this point, now that you've established a couple of things, you've got a good foundation, you've you're working through projects, you can start to see opportunities for creating SOPs. Okay. And also, you're probably creating some basic automations for your business. So for example, if somebody goes to your website, and they want to book a call with you, they can do that they get automatic reminders. Whenever you want to book a consultation with a client, you've probably got all of those things sort of set up and automated so that they're getting reminders, and you can send them out really easily and effortlessly. And it's really fun when those things start to happen in your business. Okay, thinking about milestones. Next, let's start with business legal admin, those sort of things. Ideally, your bookkeeper is now not only regularly reconciling your books, but you might also add on some services with them, for example, filing taxes, that kind of thing. You from day one, they should be providing regular reporting to you, at least on a monthly basis. But a lot of times bookkeepers have tiered levels of services. So the most basic would be monthly reconciliation with a monthly report. But if they have additional services that they offer, such as filing taxes on your behalf, that kind of thing during payroll, if that's something that you have, you've outsourced that to them as well.

At this point, you need to have a rock solid client agreement, if you are working on multiple projects at a time, it's really easy for things to get. You know, you need to see why you need to cover your ass with a really good client agreement. It's just the nature of the work we do. There's so many facets, so many moving parts. And it's really important that you just protect yourself with a client agreement. And let's be honest, there's also people who can at face value, seem like really good natured people. And then once you start working with them, you realize you've really got yourself entangled with a toxic personality, and you want to just keep yourself protected. So if you haven't yet invested in a really rock solid client agreement, I highly recommend you do that. And you need to look no further than designers oasis.com forward slash shop if you still need one. Don't forget, that is also an option when you join our program if that's something you're looking to do, okay? Also, I want you to be consistently auditing your projects. Every time you finish a project, you have the opportunity to look back and sort of see how you did how everything shook out financially in terms of time did you meet your targets in terms of how much time you expected to work on it and how much time you ended up actually spending and if you went over how much over those kinds of things, and it can help you identify opportunities for improvement. So consistently auditing projects is a big thing for you to be thinking about at this stage. Alright, let's think about marketing and branding. Again, you're going to further refine your ICA.

Maybe at this point, you've created a lead magnet that you can put on your website which is going to help you grow an email list that you can nurture so you have a consistent stream of possible clients and projects. Your website is fully functional. And it's consistently drawing in web traffic, you're starting to showcase your portfolio and the projects that you've worked on. And maybe there's some older projects that are starting to fall off, because maybe they were some of your very early work. And it may not be your best work or be the most reflective of the kind of designer and what you want to be known for today. Totally okay to retire some of those, that older work, you're consistently tracking your conversion rates, conversion rates are coming up again. So if you need more information, go back to that episode, if you want to learn more, and this is the really fun part, the really juicy phase, you're starting to mostly attract right fit clients. So your brand language, your your your copy on your website, and in all of your documents, like your welcome packet, and your services and investment guide. All of that copywriting is really refined to speak directly to your ICA. And all that means that when you get on the phone with somebody, nine times out of 10, you're talking to somebody that you really want to work with. And you're not having to have that really sort of awkward and painful, I don't know if I'm the right fit, you know, but you're willing to have that conversation if you need to. But you're not having finding yourself having to do it as much. Ideally, you will have re introduced your business to those in your network.

So when you first get started, you definitely want to do that. But I recommend a couple of years into your business, once you've really established yourself, it's a good idea to reintroduce yourself to your network to let them know, Hey, I know you haven't forgot about me. But some things have changed. Here's what's happening. Here's some work we've done, here's the kind of people we serve, and really get them re excited and re engaged. Because those are the people who are going to talk about you the most they're going to already be you know, have an affection for you and your work and your business, even if they're not your ideal clients. But they're going to tell the people that they know about you. And that's always a good thing. Maybe at this point, you've been featured in print magazine or online, thinking about your processes. At this point, you need to easily be able to prepare client proposals, this should be pretty much effortless. You have SOPs for most of your important most of the important aspects of your business operations. Your team has a clear understanding of their responsibilities and next steps. And you're primarily utilizing trade resources if you're doing any sort of reselling to your clients, really important, because if you're not doing that, you're missing out on a huge opportunity for income for additional income. Thinking about your client work. Ideally, you have a paid waitlist of of projects and clients that are eager to work with you. You have multiple fully finished and professionally photographed projects. And here's the really fun part. At this stage, I want you to be able to get yourself to a place where you could easily take at least two weeks off of work without having to stop your work, you have someone or some people a team who can help keep your projects on track. What a great milestone to be able to say you could do meaning the work doesn't stop just because you're taking a holiday or vacation, the work can continue to go because there's there's standards in place, there's operations in place, you've got your your project timeline mapped out, and there's a lot of clarity going on there. Okay, so that is the growing phase. Now we're gonna get into the last phase, which is refining.

Okay, at this point, you might be thinking to yourself, I am really ready to offload some of my responsibilities, who are the right people to support me? How can I start to automate even more in my business? Ideally, perhaps you're feeling a lot more clarity around what to focus on, that that sense of bigger overwhelm has is is not there like it used to be, and you're feeling a lot more clarity. At the same time, you see the work continuing to come in, and you're just trying to keep up with it. So you're recognizing that, okay, you've really made a name for yourself, the work is coming in, and you can't continue to do it either by yourself or with the one person that you have that you might need to add two or three people to your to your team. Now. I just want to take a minute and pause here. There are many of you listening that say to themselves might be saying to themselves, I don't think that's that's the path I'm on. I don't think I'm ready to be at a place where I'm or I want to grow a business where I am responsible of overseeing or managing a big team. That's totally okay. You can still find yourself in this refining phase without a big team. But I wanted to just cast that vision of what's possible. Okay. So keep that in mind. And I'm one of those people I did it I did it for a while I had up For five people at once working for me. And they were amazing, they were incredibly smart and talented. And we were buzzing, you know, not everything was perfect, but we were cranking through projects, and it was fun, it was really fun. But, you know, when when we ended up moving, I had the opportunity to sort of rethink and recalibrate what it was that I wanted. And at that point, I decided, I want to be able to do this, but I don't want to be responsible or overseeing a team that size two to three felt a lot more manageable. So that was me, you decide what works best for you. But I just wanted to be clear on on the fact that you can be in this refining phase without having you know, this doesn't necessarily mean, you're going to be somebody who's out there running this big, huge studio. Okay? If you are outgrowing your space, you might be looking for studio space. And you might be looking at incorporating some advanced automations, for yourself, and for your business.

Alright, let's talk about milestones. Business legal admin, one thing that you can look forward to is that you are consistently meeting or beating your estimated time on projects. So if you estimate x number of hours for a project, you're going to meet that no questions asked, because you've really honed in on what does it take to get people to where they need to go. Okay, and that's because in these past three phases, we're tracking time, we're auditing projects, and we're using that data to be able to put together proposals that are based in reality, okay? marketing and branding. Maybe at this point, because you have so much work coming in, you've developed a name for yourself, you've engaged a PR firm, as somebody that can really help get your name out there, to the kinds of clients you really want to level up to. And, and really keep that brand tight. And, and, and in solid process, you can effortlessly create proposals, you have a higher rate of acceptance, you have established SOPs for most aspects of your business, you have at least one team member who can fully execute a project from beginning to end. So you can really think of yourself at the stages falling into more of that creative director role, where you can play. I think of the horse product in this moment, but you can play the role of like, okay, this is the vision, I see, this is what I want, this is what I want it to look and feel like, you can translate that from your clients words into sort of this vision that you can cast on it. And you've got a team member who, when you say this, they know what you mean. And they can they can pull it together for you. It's a really fun place to be when you've got somebody that you can trust on your team that can do that for you. client work again, you are consistently attracting right fit clients with workable budgets.

Maybe at this point, you're even considering or taking out of state or international clients. And that is a really, that's a really big girl move right there, which some people may choose to do or choose not to do taking out of state or especially international clients requires a great deal of management. Really fun and exciting when you when you get to do that. But that may or may not be something that is attractive to you. At this point, I want you to be able to take off for weeks a year, so maybe not consecutively. But maybe four weeks off a year without your work having to stop because you've got a team that can help you keep projects on track. That was a lot you guys. i i I really hope that you're able to start to see yourself in some of these these different phases. Again, they are launching, establishing and growing and refining. And I want you to think about these milestones. If you need to come back and re listen to this and sort of write write some notes down. The point is, I want you to be able to have clarity on what to focus on right now knowing that you're going to have opportunities to refine things as you move through this journey. And we're all in different places in our journey. And some of us, we're going to have to come back and we're going to have to revisit some things. And that's totally normal. I've done it plenty in my business, but it's been time spent really well and it served the business well. So thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I know this was a lot. I look forward to hearing you. I look forward to seeing you at High Point. I look forward to seeing you at the annual masterplanning workshop. And I would love to see you inside the interior designers business blueprint where we go in depth into all of these things that we just talked about. There are resources that touch on literally everything I just talked about. And it is my honor to be able to share that with you so that you get the opportunity to be as successful as you can imagine, as successful as you can dream. And of course, that is success defined on your terms.

All right, thanks for hanging out with me today. I will see you guys soon. Bye for now. Hey, friend, thank you so much for letting me spend a part of this day with you. I'm so passionate about helping designers like you. And I believe in a rising tide that when one of us does well, we all do better. So if you share this attitude of abundance with me, I want you to do just one little thing. Please share this episode with someone using might love it. And if you're feeling extra generous today, go ahead and take just 30 seconds to open your podcast app and leave us a five star rating and review. It's free for you to do and it helps me to be able to keep making more episodes and resources for you. However you choose to help please No, I appreciate you so very much. Thank you, my friend. Have a wonderful rest of your day. I'll see you soon.