#72 | How to Know if You're Ready to Scale Your Interior Design Business?

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.

Hello, hello, hello, my friends. And welcome back to the Designers Oasis Podcast. I am thrilled to be back in the seat hanging out with you today. We have a really exciting episode today we're talking about scaling your interior design business and what does that mean? How to know if you're ready to scale. And we're gonna we're gonna really get into the the nuts and bolts of it here today. So I'm looking forward to that. Before we get started, though, just a couple of quick announcements. If you are listening to this on the day or the days close to when this episode comes out, I want to remind you that we currently have the interior designers pricing survey available for you to take. And this is a really exciting survey that we've been working on. Where we are asking experienced interior designers to share some insights about how they charge and how long things take. And it's a really cool opportunity for you to participate in contributing to this sort of crowdsourcing of information. And when you do when you participate in the survey, we're gonna send you a complimentary copy of the report. When that is compiled. When that's done, that'll be done in early March. So we would love for you to learn more and participate. You can find more information about that at designers oasis.com forward slash survey. Now, if you are catching this after the end of February, February 29, you can still access the survey, it'll be available for purchase online, you can use that same URL to find the complete report when it is available. So go check it out. Also, coming up in March, the doors to the interior designers blueprint are opening again for the spring. We are so excited to bring in a new cohort of interior designers. This is a really amazing program, if I do say so myself, but we have a beautiful group of designers who are already participating in this program and they're there to support you as well. So am I you can learn more about it at designers oasis.com forward slash blueprint, quick overview. It's a one year program. You can definitely choose to stay longer and many many designers do. But it's a minimum of one year and that is because we want to give you the full support that you need to help get your business affairs in order we want to help you build a thriving business and so the the program includes a series of master classes six master classes that take you kind of gives you a three 160 degree look at your business, everything from sales, to project management to onboarding your clients to a really inside look at the design process, as well as branding and your your brand voice and messaging, the whole gamut.

So that's included as well as we have monthly live q&a days, we have monthly guest experts that come in our CEO corner, sometimes I guess the expert is me. But I'm not the only one that comes and contributes, we've got a huge library of past experts that you would be able to access as well as all of our future guests that are planned for the year, we have a really robust Facebook group where designers are helping each other out and contributing. And the best part about this Facebook group, I have to say is that because they're all in the same program, we're kind of all on the same page. If you've ever gone to Facebook group and asked a question, you might find yourself getting some really random or bizarre questions. And that's because people don't know your business, right. And so there's sort of a design and business philosophy that is shared among the group here. And I love that so much so. And then there's a huge resource library that's growing every month, we add resources to it. I want to say there's over 30 resources right now I could have that wrong, Jackie could fact check me. But anyway, it's a wonderful program, I have poured my heart and soul into this and into supporting designers. And the monthly q&a Is, is honestly my favorite part of the month is hopping on and chatting with the designers there. So again, that's designers races.com forward slash blueprint. And you can hop on the waitlist right now. And when you do, you'll get early bird access to the doors opening when they do in March. Last thing is I am going to high point I was supposed to go last fall. And there were some last minute hiccups that prevented me from going but I'm going again, I've got my flight, I've got my hotel. And as my mom would say God willing and the creek don't rise, I'll be there. If so, if you are going to high point and you want to meet up. We don't have any firm plans lined up yet. But you can go to designers oasis.com forward slash High Point, give us your email and phone number. And as we get closer to market, we'll send out an email. And we'll come up with a place and a time to sort of meet up where you can meet other listeners of the podcast, you can meet members. And of course, I'll be there too. And I'd love to meet you super casual, nothing formal, so but I'd love to meet you if you're if your listener. I just I love to meet I love to meet designers and talk with them. And so I'd love to see you there. Again, you can share your contact information with us at designer's oasis.com forward slash high point. All right. Well, that's it.

Let's get into it. So today we're talking about scaling your business. Right? And what does that mean? When we think about scaling a business, the first thing that typically comes to mind is how can I get more project work? Maybe you're currently taking eight to 10 projects a year. So you might be asking yourself, well, how can I increase that to 12 to 15 per year? It's true that taking on more projects is going to generate more revenue and help you grow your portfolio. And it's going to take more resources, it's going to take more time from you. It's going to involve growing a team and investing in your business. Sometimes the real question is how can I generate more revenue? How can I grow the business financially? So generating more revenue is a goal. And scaling is just one strategy to get there. Okay, so we're going to talk about both. We're going to talk about what are other strategies to increase your revenue, because maybe that's the real question that you're getting at. And if you're going to scale, what does it take? Is that path right for you? And are you ready? Okay, so when I talk about scaling, today, I'm talking about increasing your capacity. For more projects. It's a very specific definition. For me when talking about scaling, generating more revenue is a goal. And scaling is a strategy to get there. There are other strategies to increase your revenue, and scaling may or may not be the path you want to take. So let's talk about that. First. What does it mean to scale your interior design business? Again, it doesn't always mean taking on more projects. Here are some other ways that you may consider increasing your revenue without taking on more projects each year. Number one would be thinking about how to manage and run your projects more efficiently. Projects that finish more quickly are more profitable and you typically have happier clients. Okay. Now, as you become more efficient, you're going to have more time on your hands. You You can choose how you want to use that extra time. Maybe that is scaling, maybe that is taking on more projects per year, right? Because if you could get through a project faster, then you can move on to the next project. Okay? But maybe for you taking on more projects isn't your goal. This goes back to your quality of life goals and thinking about what do you want that to look like? Okay, so for some people, taking on more projects to building their portfolio is going to be a clear goal. And for others, you want to use that time to focus on your family or your hobbies, or taking care of loved ones, whatever the case may be, so you get to decide. But when you focus on running more efficient projects, then you are naturally going to find yourself with more time. If you choose to not take on more projects, it actually I'm going to protect that regardless, as you become more efficient, right? And how do we become more efficient, we become more efficient through first of all focus, and really looking at our processes in thinking about how to how to produce quality work in less time, right. But you get to choose how to use that time. But as you do that, you're going to want to charge more for your services, okay? It's just a natural evolution that people who have more experience are faster, and they're going to want and need to charge more for their services. Other ways that you might consider increasing your revenue without scaling might be leveling up the prot, the kinds of projects that you are working on, and the projects that you're willing to accept. So maybe you're thinking, Okay, I really want to break into the fine homes market, I really want to work with high end clients. And I know, we throw this word luxury around so much. And,and and regardless of how you use the term luxury, I mean, to me, regardless of how you look at it, interior design is inherently a luxury service, okay. But if you're looking at breaking into the fine home market, and working with high end clients, then that is a specific focus and strategy that you can focus on that isn't focusing on increasing your volume of projects per year, it's rather focusing on increasing the quality of your projects. That is not to say you can't do both at the same time, okay. But they do require a little bit different strategies in order to get there, okay, when you've made this focus to shift gears and to really shift up into a higher level of project work with finer homes, higher end clients more discerning clients, it's going to require that you raise your minimum design fee, maybe right now you don't have a minimum, maybe you want to raise that to 20,000 or 50,000, you know, you're not even going to consider a project below that, because it's not going to be media enough for you to to, to really find it interesting, maybe that's not to say that you can't break your own rule, right, if a project or client comes through, and they've got something that maybe doesn't quite meet that minimum, you need to be flexible in your business. And you need to be able to say, Well, wait a second. But this is a project I'm really excited about.

This is a client that I really like, this could be the beginning of something really big and really fun and exciting. And I'm going to take it so even though you can establish these minimums for your services. Be prepared to be flexible, that is just a general rule for being a business owner, especially a nimble small business owner is being flexible. This is also about taking on more substantial projects, right? So maybe you're focusing on taking projects that are larger in scope, meaning a single room might not be of interest to you, but a whole home would be maybe you're looking at, well, what is their minimum budget, right? And maybe you've are establishing Well, I only want to work on projects that have a minimum budget of 500,000 or a million, something like that, right? You get to decide what that ballpark is for you. But those are other ways that you can start to strategize how you can level up the projects that you're working with. But I want you to remember that leveling up your projects also requires a tremendous amount of time, attention, focus and energy. Why? Well, clients expectations high end discerning clients are very high, right. And so you're going to be expected to cater to that level of clientele, which for me, truthfully can be really fun and exciting, but it can also be it can carry a lot of weight for some people. So you really want to think about your personality and who you can connect with and what feels right for you. The other reason why this requires so much time, focus, attention and energy is that If you're going to be working with teams, such as architects and builders who also have high expectations of you, and you want to maintain a good rapport with them, if you want them to refer you to other people in their network, so you know, don't as I'm talking about scaling today, I really am talking about increasing your capacity for more projects. But that's not to say that these same strategies won't work for thinking about how to level up your client or how to level up your project. So keep that in mind. They're not mutually exclusive. Okay. Another way that you might consider increasing your revenue, if if scaling, increasing your project capacity isn't, the direction you want to go, is to look at how you might diversify your revenue streams. Alright, so a couple of ways you can do that you can look at adding more services at another tier such as designer for a day. Now, I want to pause real quick because I have a caveat to saying this. I am not a fan of adding services to your menu of services just for the sake of adding services, it has to tie back to your goals, your revenue goals, your lifestyle goals, your creative and professional goals. Okay? So anytime you start to think about adding a new service, really take a bird's eye view at what does this mean? How would it fit into things? What does that do for your signature service. But I really do enjoy I've done designer for day for years now. And I think it can be a nice addition to your service offerings. Especially if you use it as a stepping stone to a full service engagement. I'm actually in the middle of a project right now, that picked up after designer for a day service. So we did designer for a day, we had a wonderful time the clients enjoyed the experience and the the service that they got, and they got started on the project. And then they came back and said, hey, we'd really love you to help us with the finish selections. And so we're in the process of doing that. So that's a good example of how designer for a day could be a stepping stone. And or it can be a stand alone service. So that's a nice, you know, especially if it's a standalone service can be a nice kind of quick cash injection method for your business. And so if you want to learn more about that inside the interior designers business blueprint program, which I mentioned earlier, the doors are opening again, in March, we have a complete training on designer for day, and how to develop your pitch and your process. So just know that that's available for you inside the program. Other ways you can diversify your revenue stream, really focusing on sourcing to the trade, if you're still focused on retail product sourcing retail, I really think that you can, I don't think I know, you can dramatically increase your revenue when you start to break into the trade sourcing world. And it's it's really not as complicated as it might seem. Again, inside the program, we have a whole whole resource library dedicated to how to do that. Thinking about digital products is another way, I've seen designers who, let's say they have a consultation with a client. And it turns out maybe that client isn't a good fit for a full service engagement, they might offer a back end digital product for sale that they could provide to their clients that can be sort of a toolkit for them to use to DIY a project. And so digital products, or an online shop could be other ways of diversifying your revenue stream, I want to, I want to say this about an online shop, I know that a lot of designers get really excited this idea of having an online retail store, digital shop, maybe using a company like one side door, or side door rather, that can be a really great revenue stream. But it also requires a tremendous amount of marketing and dedication. And so there there would be a whole strategy that would be needed to go that route. If that's a way that you want it to go, it's not something that you can just put on your website and all of a sudden, it's not if you build it, they will come. It does require a tremendous amount of marketing. And so that would have to tie back to your goals of of what you want. But I think it's important to mention it because it certainly can be a viable revenue stream. If it's done well. group teaching or group design coaching sessions are other maybe less conventional ways of diversifying your income stream but this is certainly something that you could consider. And I want to mention this before we move on, it's okay to say you know what, I don't think scaling is the way I want to go I don't think I'm I'm ready or want to or interested in taking on more projects each year, even if they are higher end. And that is totally okay. All right. For some people having a steady stream of clients with plenty of time for travel, raising their family supporting aging parents, nurturing their hobbies. That is a priority over growing in size, because growing in size does take a deep commitment Focus, energy and attention. If you feel like that might be you I want to recommend a book, it's called company of one by Paul Jarvis. I love Paul Jarvis. He has a great, weekly newsletter. But in his book company of one, he makes a really compelling case for making your business better instead of bigger, he says that growth isn't always the most beneficial, beneficial or financially viable move. So that's a really good book to read as well. Okay, so let's move on, I want to talk about how to know if you're ready to scale your business. Alright, so we've we've gotten clear that scaling is a strategy for revenue growth. We've talked about what are some other ways just to compare you how you could grow your revenue without scaling. But for many of you, you're going to be listening to the st. No, yeah, I am ready to scale and take on more projects per year, I am ready to really expand my portfolio and be ready to take on those clients as they come through. And so here are five questions that I think are really important to ask yourself as you start to focus on this because it's going to require some deep focus, strategy and attention. Okay. So the first question I want you to ask yourself is, Do I have a clear vision for my business? Where do you want to be in three, five or even 10 years? Now I have a full on confession to make about this. I was recently having a meeting with my business coach who asked me where Kate, where do you want to be in 10 years, and I broke down in tears.

Like, I don't know. And it was like, she made me feel totally okay about that. So I realized that 10 years down the road can feel like a really far off place to sort of imagine yourself. And if that's the case for you, you can back it up to five years, three years, or even one year, just to get started, right. And so what we found out now, I'll be fair, she caught me on a on a rough day, it had been a rough week. And so I we're going to revisit that conversation. But what we ended up doing that day was we started with Well, what about in one year and moved forward from there, and progressively got closer to the 10 year mark. And that was much easier for me to think through. But I do think it's important to have a vision about where you want to be in the future. And thinking as far out as you possibly can. Part of doing that part of understanding your vision is going to require you to have a really clear mission, vision and core values for your business. Back to said, business coach, I love the way that she defines mission, vision and values. This is really her expertise, and I really love it. But the way she defines these, I think is one of the simplest ways because I think mission vision and values can feel like one of those sort of like pie in the sky things that you're supposed to do for your business, but you're not really sure how and it's like, oh, integrity, well, don't we all should we all work with integrity, right? And it can feel kind of a oh, there's a word I'm looking for. But it can feel almost just like vague, right? But actually having your mission, vision and values can help you have tremendous clarity in where you're going and what you want to be doing. But anyway, here's how Laura, my coach just defines mission, vision and values. By the way, in case you didn't notice, there will always be a little e expletive. On this podcast, I have a potty mouth, I can help myself. So if you've got little kids in the car, just keep in mind there might be the occasional F bomb. Alright, so there you've been warned. Mission is why the fuck you get out of bed every day. All right. I love that easy enough for all of us to understand. Why do we get out of bed every day? Vision is what happens when you get out of bed. And values is how do you do what you do is your your guiding principles. And to me, I felt like that definition of mission, vision and values was one of the clearest and most easy to understand that I have ever heard. And so we have been looking at our mission, vision and values and sort of reevaluating them and re tweaking them. But when you have clear mission and vision, then it can be a filter for how you make decisions. So it can help you decide no, you know what scaling, having more projects, having better projects is a clear goal and strategy. Because it ties back to my mission and it ties back to my vision. Okay. So think about do you have a clear vision for your business? If you don't start there, start to think about what is your vision for the future? And how are you going to get there? Alright, number two, are you willing to invest in your business This requires you to move away from looking at all the money spent on your business as simply a cost. But having the discernment to know when an invest when that money is an investment, and it's going to have a solid return on that investment. Okay, so you have to mentally shift from, oh, that costs money that this costs money. And yes, you can't just start paying for every shiny object that you see, you'll go broke, right? You need to be thoughtful and sustainable about how you're spending your money. But knowing when you know what, this is a big chunk of money, but it's going to help me get further faster, right, it's going to help you level up quicker, because maybe you're working with somebody who's gone there before you and sort of show you the ropes. And that's the whole point of the interior designers business blueprint is to help you go further faster, by giving you that leg up. And that would be considered an investment in your business, okay. But investing can be in business training, it can be in tools, it can be in whatever kind of resources or templates you might need to help your business grow, help your business become more sustainable, more efficient, all of those things. It's going to require you to invest in human resources and people. At some point, if you haven't already, you're going to peak in terms of how much work you can produce on your own. And you're going to need help through humans, team members to support you. Okay, so if are you willing to invest in your business? And does that include Are you willing to invest in people in human resources, because that is required for scaling a business full stop thinking about software, especially looking at automations, things like honey book, or dubsado, which can really help you be more efficient, so that you can nurture and serve more clients, right, you're going to need that time to have a more high touch experience for these clients that you're aiming to serve. Project management systems, such as design files, house, pro, my domain, all of those types of project management systems are things that if you don't already have in place, you're gonna really want to invest in a project management system to help you run your business, keep track of all the details, so things don't fall through the cracks. These are all investments that you have to be willing to make in your business, if you're looking to scale. Okay, number three, do you have a solid process into end for your client work, you must have a tight, repeatable and documented process for just about everything in your business, but especially in your client, work in your design process. So if you're still building the plane as you're flying it, meaning you're figuring out your process as you work with clients, I want to first of all normalize it. It's completely normal in the early stages of business to be doing that. But until you've got that mostly locked down, you're probably not ready to start thinking about scaling. Okay? You really need to get your systems and your process in order before you start thinking of scaling. Why? Because your time will be unpredictable. If you don't have a process that you can refer back to, that you can teach to someone else that you can pass off to someone else like a junior designer. Trying to scale is simply going to be a distraction from getting those processes in order first. Do that first before you start to think about scaling. Otherwise, you run a very real risk of overwhelming your business and facing burnout. Hey, there are a quick interruption to today's episode. If you're still struggling to have a refined, repeatable client friendly process, you need to join the interior designers business blueprint. Inside you'll find so many resources to support you. But I want to highlight two masterclasses specifically. The first is the interior design process and inside look at the design process from concept to presentation. And the second is the project management for interior designers the complete agency blueprint for delivering a turnkey implementation process. Both of these master classes are designed to give you specific tools to deliver an exceptional turnkey interior design experience the commands top dollar, you'll have an implementation process set up so you can tackle projects of any size with assistance in place to help you achieve rave worthy results. This is perfect if you're a designer who's ready to say goodbye to half baked projects that fizzle out with DIY minded clients and say hello to fully finished portfolio worthy projects that you are so proud of. The doors are opening next month so make sure you're on the waitlist go to designers Oasis dot com, forward slash blueprint for details. All right back to the show.

Number four, do you have a Do you currently have a solid pipeline, or waitlist for project work? This is going to require you to be really honest with yourself. Scaling does require that you have a pipeline of work that you can count on. So how do you evaluate your pipeline, I want you to think about a few numbers in your business. First, I want you to look at your website traffic, and what does that look like? I want you to look at your number of qualified leads that come through the door each month. Okay, and how many of those qualified leads? are you closing? Are you converting to clients? So real quick, I just want to mention that it's really important that you hear that I'm seeing qualified leads, because if you're getting 100 leads through the door each month, but they aren't the kinds of clients that you want to be working with, meaning they're unqualified, such as they don't have the kind of budget that you need, or they're folks that want quick fixes, or a timeline that doesn't work, then it's important to break out how many qualified versus unqualified leads are you getting there. So inside the interior designers business blueprint, I offer a conversion tracking tool to help you track your conversion rates. It's one thing to have web traffic. But if visitors aren't taking action on your website by booking a call, or perhaps downloading a lead magnet, if that's something that you have, then that's a website or design or messaging problem. Okay, and you need to fix that first. And so that tool helps you sort of evaluate, what does my current pipeline look like? Where might it need to be? Where do I need to? What do I need to fix first, right? Because you need to be understood, you need to be looking at your website traffic, if you have no website traffic, then that is a marketing problem. If you have no conversions, that is most likely a website conversion problem, the website design issue, if you're getting lots of leads, but they're not qualified, and and that's a messaging problem. And you need to fix all of those things, before you start to think about scaling. But if that's feeling good for you, you've got solid traffic, you've got a good a decent amount of qualified leads coming through the door. Now, not everybody that comes through the door should be a win, that's we're going to save that for a whole other conversation. If you're closing 100% of your calls, then you probably need to raise your rates. But it's important that you have a solid pipeline in place first, and that you are looking at your conversion rates to know if there's anything there that might need fixing first, okay, if you don't have a solid pipeline of clients or a waitlist, I would focus on that first focusing on that business development piece before thinking about scaling. Alright, and the last question, I think it's really important to ask yourself, is this are you willing to move from the tactical, such as working in your business, right? To more strategic work working on your business? All right. Scaling is going to require that you build in time to work in your excuse me on your business, not in your business. It requires your business requires that of you no matter what, especially if you're a one person show. But as you grow, it's going to require that either you or someone can be responsible for that role. Okay, if you are, and I know many designers who have done this beautifully, beautifully in a business really well. Let's say that you do not have the strength and know how the expertise to focus on business development, sales, marketing, social media, all of those things, then you need to have somebody in your corner who's going to do those things. It's perfectly okay to acknowledge that that's not my skill set. That is not something that I'm an expertise that it is draining for me. I want to be producing drawings, working with materials, doing client meetings, we all want to do those things, right. And most of us have a tolerance for doing enough of the strategic working on your business to be able to have a healthy business. But as you scale, it's going to require more of you in that role. And if you're not willing to let that if you're not willing to commit yourself to that kind of work, then it's important that you have somebody on your team that can be that person that can play that role. Okay, I hope that It's clear that it's perfectly okay to acknowledge that, but you can't just say, Well, I just can't do that that's not what I want to do. That's not my expertise, and then also not be willing to hire someone to be that role. Okay. So, in closing, I want to just recap the five questions. Number one, do you have a clear vision for your business? Number two, are you willing to invest in your business? Meaning, are you willing to stop looking at every dollar spent as a cost, but understand which ones are true investments that have a return? Do you have a solid process end to end for your client work? Do you have a solid pipeline for or waitlist for project work? And are you willing to move away from the tactical to moving on the strategic working on your business? And if not, you have somebody that can help support you in that role. So that's it. If you liked this episode, and you're starting to think about scaling, I am hosting a CEO corner inside the program, the interior designers business blueprint program, soon where we'll continue this conversation about scaling. So today, we talked about getting clear on what scaling is and how it's different from simply looking for more revenue, right? increasing revenue is a goal scaling is just one strategy to get there. I have planted some seeds to help you evaluate if scaling is actually what you want, and five critical questions to ask yourself, and what we're going to do inside the CEO corner. By the way, co corners are our monthly guest experts that we have sometimes it's me speaking, sometimes we have guests. What we're going to do in this CO corner, we don't have an exact date for this, but it will be coming up in the spring or summer time. We're going to be talking about taking it to the next step. For those who have decided, yes, I want to scale my business. Specifically, you're ready to increase your capacity to take on more projects. How do you do that, and we're going to talk about it, we're going to cover the systems and automations that you need in place to scale. We're going to talk about hiring and leadership skills and delegation. And we're gonna also talk about the importance of building strong and industry relationships. So if you want access to that training, you're going to want to make sure that you're on the waitlist for the interior designers business blueprint. Again, those doors are opening in March. So go ahead and head over to design choices.com forward slash blueprint to get on the waitlist. And to learn more. Again, that's designers oasis.com. Forward slash blueprint be Luc PRI i n t. Alright, thanks so much for hanging out with me today. I will see you next week. 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.