# 89 | Thats Not Working Anymore - How to Pivot in 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.

Welcome back to the Designer's Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate bendewald, and this episode is kicking off season five of the podcast. We took a little break for the summer, spent some time with the family, and we are back in business, and I'm really excited to be able to sit down and share some conversations with some wonderful folks that I've interviewed. So we've got that geared up for you this season. We've got some solo episodes that we're planning, and we are really enjoying hearing from our audience, because you're the ones that help us shape the content, the kind of things that we talk about on here. It's a direct reflection of the conversations I'm having with designers inside the interior designers business blueprint, which is our signature program. If you want to learn more about that. You can go to designers oasis.com, forward slash blueprint, but also in my everyday conversations with designers, and so I'm thrilled to be able to do this with you. So thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for choosing to turn on this podcast. And I know that you have a lot of choices when you when it comes to podcasts, it feels like there's always new ones popping up, and there's some great ones out there. I'm a big podcast listener myself. I've got my go tos and my favorites and they you know, it means a lot to me that you have chosen to hang out with me today.

Okay, so today we are going to be talking about pivoting in business. Do you ever find yourself sort of thinking to yourself, oh my gosh, this isn't working anymore, and it's that sort of sinking feeling of whatever it is. It could be, we're going to get into some examples, but it could be something small. It could be things like, oh my gosh, I agreed to do this consultation with a client who I just know this project isn't going to be a right fit for me. Or maybe it's that the proposals that you're developing are not getting picked up by prospective clients. Maybe there's something about your intake process that isn't working, that feels clumsy. There's all kinds of moving parts in our business, and sometimes we have this sort of face palm moment where we realize, Oh, this isn't working anymore. I've got to fix it, and that requires you to pivot. Pivoting can be small, micro changes to your business, or they can be big, sweeping changes. The reality is that pivoting is a positive response to a negative action or behavior result in your business. It's a sign of growth. It's a sign that you've got your ear to the ground and that you are working. To improve all of your systems, because, let's face it, you're not going to get everything right the first time. Right out of the gate, your entire career as a business owner is going to be a series of refinements and improving.

I'm going to give you sort of a real time example of one that I've been experiencing myself which is actually related to this podcast. I love recording podcasts. I especially love interviewing people. I really do. I love making this content, but sometimes when I've got client work, when I'm supporting the designers inside our program, and I'm trying to wear all the hats, even though I've got an incredible team that supports me sometimes finding the time to sit down and put together high quality content that I know is going to be valuable to my audience, which is incredibly important to me, feels monumental. I do like to batch record episodes so that I kind of get into the zone. I've got a whole system of setting up my office so that my audio quality is better than kind of what I normally do. Let's be honest. I'm going to tell you all what I do. I have rug samples for from projects that I lay on the floor because I have a concrete floor in my office, and so I lay those out to help absorb sound. It's a whole thing. I got to get the right mindset. I need to have no meetings that day. And this is just what it takes for me to put together high quality content and be really focused. So you we, I was talking with my team, and we knew my assistant, Megan, was like, Kate, we're running out of time here. I really need you to get some some season five episodes started. I'm like, yeah, yeah, okay, I got it. I'm gonna set aside time, and then I'd have to push it back. Push it back, push back. And then all of a sudden, I was like, Oh, my God, this isn't working for me anymore. And my first thought was, Do I need to stop doing the podcast for a little while? And I thought about it for a moment, and I thought, Well, gosh, that's one possibility. Maybe, maybe we need to just take a break so that I could get caught up on some things. What I have decided to do for now is to make my best attempt at creating minisodes or shorter episodes. Look nobody ever accused me of brevity. I know this about myself. I even just read the book smart brevity, which, by the way, everybody needs to read that book smart brevity, I'll link to it in the in the in the show notes. It's a wonderful book, and it's really helping me to sort of clarify my thoughts and get things much more clearer, much more succinctly and much more quickly, get my objectives across to people. So I thought to myself, Well, why don't we start here as an incremental change, instead of saying we're just going to blow up the podcast all together, everything that we've worked for and just pump the brakes on it, what if we started to just make some mini episodes? And my goal was to get them into 20 minutes or less, maybe 30 minutes. And I thought, well, that would be much easier. And it made me realize, well, gosh, people are busy. I feel like my audience would appreciate some bite sized episodes. And so right now, that's what we're doing, or at least going to attempt to do. We'll see.

This is the first episode, and I'm going to try to make it short and sweet. But these are the kind of these are, this is the kind of thinking that you can start to incorporate when something's not working, it's just a pivot, right? It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you or that you're broken, or that you your systems are broken. It just means it's time to reevaluate what's working and reestablish a new way of doing it. Sometimes it means changing it all together and cutting it out. And maybe that's the case, but we're going to talk about how to pivot when something isn't working anymore. So the first thing when you start to think about, okay, this isn't working anymore is I want you to be objective. I want you to be honest with yourself without judgment. There's no need to judge yourself. It's just time to be objective. What isn't working? Why isn't it working anymore? Did you get feedback from a client that says, gosh, this isn't working? I'm going to give you an example of something recently with a client who we we got some feedback from them that the way we were putting products into the client portal for them to review, was missing some important information that they needed to be able to make decisions. And so we went back and we talked, I talked to my team about what kind of information needs to be on here, what's really important, and we updated our SOP, tiny, tiny, little shift, but it made a huge impact on our clients experience so that they didn't feel like they were having to fill in the gaps of the information. So client feedback can be one of the ways that you that you get that start to understand what needs to shift and what needs to change. So the first thing is just be objective.

Be honest with yourself without judgment. What isn't working? Why isn't it working? And decide, can we start with some small shifts? For example, me making the many sodes Instead of just calling it quits altogether. Start with some smaller shifts. Maybe there are some big shifts that you can make. Okay? Maybe it is time for a big shift. Maybe you've decided, You know what, I don't think I want to do design only projects anymore. I think I want to just commit to doing projects with people who want to hire me for for full service turnkey interior design, right? That would be an example of a really big shift. So it doesn't always have to be this big, huge decision. It can sometimes be little small changes that have really big impacts and results in your business. The other thing I want you to give yourself permission to do is to be disruptive. Just because everyone else is doing it this way doesn't mean you have to. I understand that it takes courage to be a disrupter in the industry. But sometimes doing things differently, in fact, oftentimes, and probably more often than not, doing something differently than the rest of your peers, than what's typical in this industry, can be your differentiator. The thing that sets you apart from other designers. So let's talk about some examples.

We talk a lot about, you know, design takes time, and we understand that, but sometimes maybe you could offer design delivered in one week, where you book a VIP week with clients, and they get your undivided attention for a couple of days, and at the end of that week, you deliver a premium package that gives them something to work from, right? And you would charge a premium for that. That's definitely going against the grain. Of projects take six to eight weeks, right? And I'm not saying that every project would be a right fit for a service like that. But what if that was one of your services that you provided that could definitely be a differentiator? Maybe you decide to offer a complimentary design consultation? Whoa, there's, there's a hot topic, right? We always talk about, and I'm of an I'm in the camp of we should be charging for our consultations, right? Because it shows people that we're we take our work seriously. It tells us that they're committed to this and that they're willing to pay for our expertise. But maybe, maybe you're working with very high end clientele, maybe you have connections and you're able to vet these clients and know that given the opportunity to get in the door is all you need to be able to take it to the next level, right? Maybe there are some reasons why a complimentary design consultation might be the right way for you to do business. I don't know. I can't answer that for you. It's not where I am, but this is definitely one of those disruptive things that you could think about doing maybe you aren't on Instagram because you hate it. You're like, you know what I'm done with Instagram. This is one of the things that I hear so much from designers, like, I don't have time to do social media, right? Maybe you decide, You know what, I'm just not going to do it. Or maybe you decide, hmm, I realized that my clients aren't even on Instagram, and I've been on the wrong platform this whole time, and now you have to pivot and decide, well, where are they? And maybe LinkedIn is the place where you need to be spending your time and your resources and your energy. And maybe instead of doing these bite size bits of content, you do more long form content there that showcases your expertise, right? Don't be afraid to be disruptive. Just because everyone else is doing things a certain way doesn't mean you have to do it. You can use that, and that can be your differentiator, the thing that sets you apart from other designers. So when something isn't working, I want to encourage you to start to think about wild solutions, right? Just start to throw whatever ideas you can at the wall and see what sticks feel inside your body. What lights you up. Do you get excited? Do you get butterflies? Or do you get this sinking feeling of dread? This brainstorming can be really fun and exciting and where really incredible creative ideas are birthed.

The other thing I want you to think about is, how can you align these changes in your business, these pivots with your core values? Right? Your core values are really important to you as a leader in your business, your core values are these guiding principles that guide your behavior and your actions. It's your North Star. It's what helps you know what to say yes to and no to. And if you're not clear on your core values, I want to really encourage you to do that. I've talked about that here before. Let me give you an example of how I used my core values to help me make some changes to my designer for a day service. So one of my core values is hospitality. I grew up, I went through I grew up in the hospitality industry. My whole life. My My mom was in catering when she was a teacher, but in the summer, she did catering, and so I was tagging along to catering events. I started working in restaurants when I was 16, by the time I was in college, I was working in high end hospitality, getting a very different experience there. Growing up, my grandmother hosted these, you know, really lovely parties for friends and family, and I loved helping her get ready for those and setting the table. So hospitality is built into me. It's, it's, it's very important. So you can see why that's a core value. So a number of years ago, I introduced designer for a day into my service offerings, and at first it was simply, I show up, we spend six hours together, and at the end of the day you get my notes. And that was it. Couple of things were happening, though. Number one, I felt like, when I got to the client's house and walked in the door, I'm starting from scratch. I'm like, Oh my gosh. Even though I sent a little questionnaire and they sent some photos and we looked at that, I still felt like I wasn't really sure where we were gonna where we were going to go with the day, I still felt like I had a lot to figure out right right at the beginning. And I feel like the client sort of felt that way too. And so one of the changes that I implemented was we are going to now start with a preliminary call, a pre call, a strategy call prior to our VIP, our designer for a day session. So we'll do this call. It's about 45 minutes, and we do it sometime in the week before our session. And this call allows us the opportunity to get really clear on what the client's priorities are for the day. And I make the client decide what their priorities are. I can't decide that for them, because at the end of the day, I want those clients to feel like because I'm charging a premium for this. This is not cheap. For a single day to have me in your house, I want at the end of the day for them to feel like they it was worth every penny and they got they would do it again, that it was worth it. And if we're not clear on what their priorities are, and we get distracted, and we start talking about things that are off topic or not really a priority, then the day can slip by, and at the end of the day, the client doesn't feel like we really hit on the things were important. So the first thing I did was, I said, we're going. I start to do this strategy call before our meeting, and it's been a huge game changer. And that was a moment where I realized this isn't working. It's time to pivot and change. The other thing that I realized, specific to designer for a day services, was that at the end of the day, after I said goodbye, and then the next day or two, they would get their notes that that sort of left them to figure it out on their own. And the reality is that clients are not designers. They are going to get into this work and start to tackle this work, whatever it is that we may have worked on together. They're going to go forward and try to implement it on their own, and inevitably, they're going to have questions that come up, and if they don't feel supported after the fact, that's not going to be a good reflection on me, whether, whether I did everything that I said I was going to do or not, it still leaves them sort of left holding this basket of things that They don't know what to do with, maybe.

And so the second thing that I did was I decided we're going to also add a 30 minute call or an hour call. I don't even remember anymore what it is. I have to look at my notes, but we do an additional phone call that the client can use and book with me anytime, up for up to three months after their session, right? Don't call me in a year and ask any questions about your project, because I will probably not remember. So I do give it I do give it some boundaries. So three months is the limit on that, and we say, you know, I know you're going to have questions. Your service includes an additional phone call. So once you get a couple of questions lined up, feel free to book that with me, because I want to be there to support you, and this alone has given clients so much more faith and trust in me to even be willing to hire me for a designer for a day. That was the thing that allowed them to feel like, yeah, okay, so even if, when we're done, I have questions, I still have access to her, and I can still get support from her. Okay, this aligns with my core value of hospitality. I want clients to feel supported. I want clients to feel like they're at home. I want clients to feel like they are having an amazing experience, whether it's full service, or whether it's just a single designer for a day. And so this core value aligns with this pivot of adding additional touch points and support to make sure my clients feel really good about their experience with me. So I want you to think about what are your core values, and can you align this pivot or these changes to be better aligned with your core values, all right? And the last thing I want you to just remember is to be creative in your problem solving approaches. You are a creative human. We all are right, but it's not limited to just your ability to do Interior Design. You can tap into your creative spirit to problem solve in business, I assure you of this. Be dedicated to testing new ideas. Try something on a smaller scale, right? Ask your team for feedback, ask your clients for feedback. So maybe, and I know that we did this a number of years ago, I wanted to test having a different pricing model, and I told my client, this is something that I'm curious about testing. I've never done it before, but this is and I gave her some backstory on, you know what brought us to this idea?

And I said, we can, I can send you a proposal with the way we've always done it, but if you're interested and curious in this idea, I'd love to know, can we test this out with you and see if it works? And they loved the idea, and we went on to test it out, and were able to use that to make some some changes in our business. But here I wasn't just making decisions by myself in a silo. I was getting feedback from my client. I was involving them and getting their input as we went. If you have a team, I really want to encourage you to involve your team in the ideation process. Encourage brainstorming and new ideas and ways of doing things differently, and don't be afraid to be silly. Be wild and silly in the way that you think about your problem solving approaches, because some of it's not going to stick. But you never know when that wild or crazy idea might just be the thing that sets you apart. Okay, so I want to just wrap up with this. Remember that pivoting is a sign of growth. Okay, it's you acknowledging that something has the opportunity to. Be better. It says that you have your ear to the ground with clients, with your team, and, most importantly, with yourself. And you can say this isn't working anymore. I've got, I've got to, I've got to make some changes. What can we do and get creative and get curious and get to work. All right, that's it for our first minisode. I appreciate you so much. Thank you again. And if you love this episode and you love this podcast, it would mean so much to me, if you would please rate and review right there in whatever app you use to listen to your podcast. It means so much to me, and it helps me be able to make more content just like this, just for you. I want to read to you real quick A recent review that we received from one of our listeners, independent says I have been a designer for 12 years, 10 of those working in a boutique retail space, and while I've done a broad range of design projects, I've never worked independently, and have so much to learn. This podcast has been amazing and gives me loads of information that I need to grow as a designer and create a great foundation as a new business owner. Thank you so much for your acknowledge and encouragement. Thank you. It is much appreciated independence. Thank you and thank you for being here today. I'll 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 know I appreciate you so very much. Thank you, my friend. Have a wonderful rest of your day. I'll see you soon.