#66 | Gratitude in Business - the Ripple Effect

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.

Well, hello there. Happy Thanksgiving. Welcome back to another episode of the designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald. And I'm so grateful to have you hanging out with me today. Speaking of being grateful, what we're talking about today is gratitude. And I just want to say this is an episode for every day, not just on Thanksgiving. But because that is what we are celebrating this week, I felt like it was you know, maybe just a really good time right now to come to sip, come back to some basics, right and to think about how we might be able to use gratitude more freely in our business. You know, gratitude is typically something that we associate with your personal life and your relationships, your family, your friends, your community, your health, that kind of thing. But I do strongly believe that gratitude, the act of gratitude, the habit of Gratitude has a very critical role in business. It helps us to feel a sense of belonging to something bigger than ourselves. And that's really important. No matter what kind of work you do, okay? We desire meaning we desire belonging and gratitude can help you have meaning in the work that you do. And to feel like you belong.

Gratitude can help us to feel more committed, more satisfied, more connected to your mission, and just in general, a sense of belonging. So there's a couple of ways that we can start to be really intentional about how we express gratitude. You know, it's one thing to feel grateful for something or someone or an experience, it's another thing to openly share that and so that's the first thing is starting to really recognize the impact of others contribution on your business. Think for a minute about all the different kinds of people that we engage with on a daily basis running our businesses. The first obvious one of course, our clients, right, but let's go beyond that. Let's think about all of the other people that contribute so your clients, your employees, even if they're independent contractors, employees, your vendors, right your your upholstery, work room, your window treatment, work room, your millworker, your painter, your wallpaper hanger, all of these people that your trades people that help you get your projects done and see them through your reps. You know, the people that you can call on to get samples and pricing the people who can help get you out of a snare fill when something blows up in your face because then when wrong, who knows, you know, all the things that you know can go on behind the scenes, thinking about your bookkeeper. And in the, their ability to help keep your finances organized. When all of these people feel appreciated, valued and respected, and empowered, it also helps you to feel good, it helps you to feel like you are like you have a sense of belonging, a sense of commitment and a sense of satisfaction. That's not why we don't do it to make ourselves feel better. That's just a sign that there's just a side benefit, an added bonus of helping people to feel like they belong.

So when you show gratitude to these people who contribute in your business, they often carry that same feeling into their day or their week, and they start to generate gratitude towards others. And in their lives. This is the whole be the ripple idea, right? Be the ripple, it's a virtuous cycle. And the more gratitude you create, the more it develops and grows. And so I mean, why not? Right? So how can you start to build this habit of gratitude, verbalizing it, writing it, showcasing it, displaying it, you know, where others can see it being, being generous and open and loud is your gratitude. Do not be shy, do not be quiet in your gratitude. Especially when it comes to highlighting others who are benefiting you and your business. Start by being unwavering and generous with your thank you notes, I have a stack on my desk right there with stamps underneath it. And I have at least one thing, you know, a week to write probably more than that, if I'm being really honest. But you know, every guest that comes on everybody, clients that I work with, we just keep a stack of thank you notes on your desk with stamps, and I have my little return address stamp. You can you can have fun with it, you can get branded, thank you notes. But don't put them away on a box in a shelf where you're not going to see them, keep it on your desk, keep stamps nearby and just make a habit of it. It just takes seconds to do this. Think about anyone that refers you to prospective clients, regardless of how that project pans out, whether it becomes a project or not thanking them for referring you is a must sending a thank you note to your clients after a presentation. They have trusted you and they have invested in in your abilities to be able to help them and that midway point is a really beautiful and lovely way to just touch in and say thank you so much, right?

I am so grateful to get to be doing this with you and to help you reach this exciting milestone in your life. Thinking about anytime a vendor or a rep has helped to shore up an issue that you've, you know, a challenge that you've had, you know, I can think about many times where you know, a delivery was gonna be delayed or when something was out of stock or something got shipped. Oh my god, we had, we had a $10,000 custom sofa shipped to somewhere in the east coast were a den. Like, can somebody please tell me what's going on and our vendor was fantastic. You know, she wasn't responsible for it. But she she knew who to call and how to get it fast tracked back where it was supposed to be. And you know, nobody quite understood why that happened. But you know, the wild stuff that goes on behind the scenes, your vendors and reps are often available to help you troubleshoot. And so anytime they do that, you know, even if even if it's just daily, you know, helping get you what you need, get those samples, get those orders processed, making sure that you're always thanking them for their work, they, you know, yes, they're there to serve us and that's their job, but also we are grateful and for the for the work that they do and showing your gratitude for that is important. Thinking about a trades person who has gone above and beyond maybe they finished a project faster than they were supposed to because you needed it for a photo shoot i That happened to me recently and I was just so grateful to him for being able to finish some built in so that we could have it be part of this photo shoot thanking them for refer I have a number of trades people, they'll refer me to other clients and again, thanking them, but your trades people again, just thanking them for the work that they do. Yes, that's what they're getting paid to do. Yes, that's what they're supposed to do. And yes, we are grateful and we show them that gratitude. Every step of the way. Right? Because remember, when you show them gratitude and they feel seen and appreciated, they're just going to continue do better work, even if it's not perfect the first time, even if it's not 100% The way you would have done it, even if it's not 100% on time, one tiny little fraction, you know, is not a reason to throw out the gratitude. Just be generous with your thank yous, right. Literally at the end of every conversation you have, thank you so much. Thank you, bookkeeper, for helping me understand my finances and keep helping me to keep it organized so that I can keep the thing moving. Right? Thank you to my social media person for helping me get the stuff out there because I'm too busy to do it. And it's really helping me grow my business. Thank you, to my general contractor for not throwing me under the bus for the mistake I made and just helping me get it figured out right. There's just so many opportunities, think about publishing on your social media publicly, gratitude for your clients, for your employees, for your vendors, and praising them publicly. So that other people can see that too. And that really can open you up to you will be viewed as someone who is kind, generous and in general just a positive person and that's attractive people want to be around people that have higher vibes you know, and this starts with with gratitude

What a pivotal moment from from, you know sharing gratitude or showing and displaying gratitude towards others. I think there's also an opportunity to find gratitude even in negative experiences. negative experiences can be big, big opportunities for gratitude. Think about the last time you made a mistake thank the universe thank God thank whoever whatever choice of words you use Thank you universe for this learning opportunity. Right Thank you for helping me see things differently helped thank you for helping me see how I could have done that different you know, it's not always about the big wins all the time right we love the big wins big wins are fine you get the big project you get the finished wrapped up a photo shoot you were super profitable in this last project. Big wins very exciting. But let's not forget to find opportunities for gratitude in the smaller moments as quiet moments. You know, I've a couple of episodes ago I was sharing a story about some clients that I had worked with. And it was my third time working with them and the relationship went sour because there was miscommunication. And it was, it was gutting it was it was just not fun to deal with. It just wasn't fun at all to deal with it. I hated going through that experience. But at the end of the day, it's like, you know what, I'm grateful that I've learned something about myself, I've learned to trust my process, I've learned that I can stick to it, because I know that it works. Thank you for helping us see this.

Now, rather than moving into that next stage of the design process with them before it would have been much harder to disentangle ourselves. Thank you for giving them you know, allowing them trusting me in the first place, right? Even the tiniest thing is no matter how silly they sound, but even when you're going through something really, really tough. If you can find some aspect of it that you can be grateful for, it can really start to shift your energy and how you are and how you move through it, how you go through it, right. Gratitude can also help you to get out of a funk cannot have a bad day or a bad week or a bad season. When you're having you know, we all have, we have bad days, we have bad weeks, we have seasons that we go through where just kind of feels hard, you know, things feel hard turn to gratitude. You can journal about it journaling is really, really impactful way that physical hands motion of writing is recent research, I can't say research, right? Research shows that physically writing helps you to retain information better and to have you feel it to be true. So that's why journaling is such a popular and effective way to work through things. So you can journal about it. You can print out testimonials from clients and pair them up in your office to remind you of you know, these wonderful clients, you've been able to help over the years. Think about your ancestors, who may have never had the opportunity to be an entrepreneur, like you are, and you can just imagine them rooting you on and cheering you on and saying yes, do it, go do your thing. Right. And you can, you can be grateful that, you know, we live in a time and a place in history where I'm gonna say women, because I know most of my audience is women. But whatever, however you identify, historically, you know, women haven't had the ability to do all of the same things that their male counterparts have. And I'm so grateful to live in a time and a place where I can do it, I can do whatever the I want, you know, that's really something to be grateful for. Thinking about technology and how it helps you every single day, move through your day, communicate quicker, save you time, automate tasks, you don't want to have to do to pass on information so that things don't fall through the cracks. You know, automation, oh, my God, I'm thankful for automations.

Because Lord knows, if it weren't for automations, half the stuff that needs to get done in a day wouldn't get done if it relied on me to do it manually. So thinking technology for its ability to help you run your business. Without just having the ability to do what you do your ability to design a space or the ability to walk into a space and imagine and see something different and problem solving complex solutions. Your clients are hiring you because they can't do those things you can and that's pretty cool. Gratitude for your creative abilities, that's huge. Think about your health, you know, my eyes work, maybe not as good as they used to have a new pair of glasses waiting for me, I'm about to go pick up this week. But I can see well and I can see color and I can see depth and all of that allows me to be able to do the work that I'm doing. My hands work, you know, my body works. And even if some days your body feels like it might be failing you in some ways or maybe has failed you maybe you've gone through some some sickness or some health challenges, whatever, whatever you've got to be thankful for. You know, whether it's thinking the doctors that are helping you figure it out or thinking the medicine that's helping you get through the day, whatever it might be. Yeah, just thinking about your health and your physical abilities. I have a cousin who's colorblind, I, he doesn't seem too bothered by it. I can't I just can't imagine how much different life would be for me if I couldn't see color and how important that is and how I connect with color. So I'm just gonna wrap up here you know, to say that gratitude really can help improve your overall well being your mood, reduce stress, you And to help you build resilience, we talked a lot about resilience. And I think it was the last episode, where we talked about some big mindset shifts that can help you be a better business owner. Right? So resilience is a big part of that. And gratitude can help you to build resilience, even when you're going through something that feels hard or tough or challenging. When you share gratitude openly with others, it starts to have that ripple effect. And it can help you to feel good to even when there are uncertain times, and there are many. Gratitude is this amazing free thing you have available to you at any time, all the time, no matter what, and can help make the world a better place for you to, and they can help you feel better. You know, I know that we're moving into an election season, I know we've got a lot of really scary and sad things happening globally. I know sometimes the economy can feel really fragile. I know that all of this can be stressful, it can be hard, it can be scary. I can't change that you can't, you know, there's just some big things in the world that are happening that we'll never be able to control or change.

But we can be we can share gratitude, we can be grateful for being safe, living in a place where we are allowed to do the work that we're doing. And so I hope that this has inspired you to try to find ways to build in a habit of gratitude. Every day, all day moving through the world, even during the hard times, even during the mundane times, even through the challenging times, especially during those times, right, especially during those times and start to share your gratitude openly, freely, loudly, wildly. There's, it's like, Y'all, I'm gonna get real sappy here. But I always tell my kids have one kid that sometimes likes to tell me Oh, you like our other kid better. It's bull. It's bullshit adult. I love my kids. The same but what I tell them it's the same of for gratitude, I tell this, my good love, my love is infinite. It doesn't run out. And it just keeps going. And I there's there's enough, there's more than enough love for all of my kids equally, and I and they get it. They know, they know that they can push my buttons when they say that. But I always like to remind them. It's infinite. You know, and gratitude is infinite. And it's free. You know, the only other I mean, breathing is the other amazing free tool that we have that it's like when you're going through something hard, you can always come back to your breath, you could always come back to your breath. Take a deep breath. Thanks for hanging out with me today. 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 only 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.