187. Let's Talk About What Successful Designers do Differently behind the Scenes

0:00Hi fellow designers, you became a designer to create beautiful spaces and to build a business that actually paid you out. But if you're like most designers I talked to, pricing is the thing that is standing in your way. You second guess every quote, you shave hours off your invoices, and you quietly wonder if you're the only one who hasn't figured this out. Good news, you're not. I spent my early years doing the exact same thing right up until I built the pricing system that I now use at my own award winning seven figure design firm. And talented designers should not be the lowest paid people on their own projects. So what I've done is I've created a free private podcast series. But here's how it works. You have to sign up to get access. The link is in the show notes. Listen to a few short episodes while you're in between site visits and selecting beautiful fabrics. And then from then on you're going to quote your very next project with confidence. Because one year from now, one year from today, you'll either be still discounting your worth or you could be running a design business that is actually profitable. So the doors for the profit

1:05academy for interior designers are going to open again this September. But this is where it starts for free. The link is in the show notes. And I hope to see you there. Now let's get into today's episode. Welcome to the business of beautiful spaces, a podcast that's specifically for interior designers and decorators. This is the podcast for designers and decorators who love creating beautiful spaces, but also know that building a profitable business, it will makes it all sustainable. Hi, I'm Laura Thornton. And after nearly 30 years in the interior design industry and building a seven figure design firm, I know firsthand how lonely it can feel running your own business. Making big decisions without a boardroom, without a business partner, or another executive team member to walk things through. That's exactly why this podcast exists. Think of me as your interior design bestie. The place you come for honest conversations, real action items, and a clear to do list that you can apply today to move the needle forward and improve your bottom line. And if you

2:09can't get the answers you're looking for here, one-on-one mentorship with me is always available because no designer and decorator should have to figure this out alone. My goal with every episode is simple. To help you build a more profitable, confident design business, and propel you into sustainable, successful future. So let's dive in. Welcome back to the business of beautiful spaces, podcast for interior designers. Today we're talking about what successful interior designers do differently behind the scenes. From the outside, success looks like beautiful pictures, polished photography, and impressive clients, a growing team, a very full calendar. But those are all visible results. What you don't see is the structure behind them. And the financial review, the planning, the difficult decisions, the investment in education, and the relationships that have been built over years, if not decades. And the truth behind it is all of that. And successful designers are not simply more creative. They have learned to run their business like a CEO. That's who they are now. Not like the designers that they were when they worked for somebody else.

3:09So think back to when working inside someone else's firm. Your job was to create concept, source products, prepare drawings, support projects. Someone else generated the sales, manage the finances, built the team. You probably never worried or wondered how you got paid on Friday. But they decided where the company was going. The day you registered your own business, you were promoted into that job. Nobody handed you the job job description. Most of us kept doing the old job just with more stress and a business number attached to it. The difference shows up when you ask the question or a designer asked what needs to be completed for this project. A CEO will ask, is this project profitable? Do we have capacity to deliver it? Does it support our goals? What will this decision mean in six months from now? So talent attracts clients, business knowledge and leadership. That is how we grow the company. So today let's get behind the scenes and look at what successful designers actually do differently. Successful designers don't treat the

4:12company like a creative hobby. That happens to just generate income once in a while. They treat it like a real business, which means beautiful work is only part of the equation. The company also needs sales, marketing, management, fiscal management, contracts, processes, leadership and profit. And that changes how they evaluate opportunities. A project can be gorgeous and still be wrong for the company. And a CEO is going to ask whether it's profitable, whether it fits the service model, whether the team has capacity to do it well, and whether a client will respect the process. So successful owners know their minimum size projects. They know which services support the company and which ones consume too much of their time or for too little return. And they're willing to say no when the opportunity doesn't align with the business they're building. And the first big shift from designer to CEO, you stop asking, can we do this and start asking should we do this? So successful designers understand that growth requires investment and that's in an education,

5:14in coaching, in professional advice, in technology and systems, and the people who move the business forward. That doesn't mean spending carelessly, let's be clear, it means understanding that doing everything alone eventually becomes too expensive than getting the right support. So here's the difference in how they think about it. Most owners only see visible cost. How much will this cost me? A CEO also asks, what will that help the business improve, avoid or achieve? Because the cost of staying stuck is real. It's just harder to see it. It shows up as years of underpricing, missed opportunities, wrong hires, time spent solving problems because someone else that could have solved it in a fraction of a time, but it's you because you can do it faster and do it more efficiently. And remember what we've talked about before on the show, the skills that got you to your first revenue milestone will not carry you to the next one. So each stage of growth asks for things that

6:15you haven't learned yet. So successful denominators don't expect to automatically know how to lead a stage they'd never done before. You see guidance. They learn from people who have built what they are trying to build. They're willing to become a student again. It's not a weakness, it's leadership, and it's exactly why I've created the profit academy for interior designers, and it's exactly why this podcast exists because this is things that I have done. These are things I still do. And every time the business grows, so does the mentor changes. So does the business coach. And that's okay, because they can't get me to the next step. That is not what they are good at. And as you keep hitting bigger, better milestones or revenue tiers, that tier gets smaller. There are less people that can help you. There's less people that have done it. So you can see how this starts to become a pyramid. Like you can see that it starts to become a funnel, just like our sales funnel. Okay. So successful designers do not build an isolation. You'll create relationships with

7:19other designers, vendors, trades, contractors, showrooms, accountants, your lawyer, your business coach, your mentor. You can join associations. You can attend events. You can ask questions, and you can stay connected to your industry. But let's be clear about what networking actually is because it's not handing out business cards. It's building genuine professional relationships over time. And a strong network creates referrals, where creates partnerships, education, and resources. And it also does something less measurable, but just as valuable, it makes you feel less alone. Because running a business is super isolating. And it doesn't matter if it's just us designers, I belong to the organization and it's every entrepreneur is lonely. And if you're the final decision maker, you're carrying the clients, the team, the finances in the future, trusted people around you, give you perspective and let you learn from their experiences instead of paying it in every lesson for yourself. So one more successful thing that designers understand that relationships with corrier contribution, they don't just ask what the network can do for them. They share their

8:21knowledge. They make introductions. They recommend others and they show up for other fellow professionals. The strongest networks are built on trust and trust is built on being generous first. Okay, so successful firms have defined client journeys, inquiry, consultation, proposal, onboarding, design development procurement, installation, and closeout. It is not reinvented for every project. The client knows exactly what to expect. The team know what happens next. Responsibilities are clear, approvals are documented. And the most important steps are supported by checklists, templates, and systems, all of this to say process. So a clear process improves the client experience and protects your profit. It prevents missteps, duplicated work, untracked revisions, and it makes training and delegating possible for anyone willing to scale. But because when the process only lives in the owner's head, the team keeps coming back for direction, and the business can never move faster than the owner can answer questions. Or what if the owner wants to go in vacation? Is the business going to shut down for a week, two weeks?

9:25But here's the part that even organized owners miss. The process isn't finished because it's documented. The business grows, the team changes, technology improves, client expectations shift. The process that served you well two years ago may quietly be slowing you down today. So successful designers are reviewing their process regularly and updating it. Where do my clients get confused? Where does the team lose time? Where do mistakes happen? What should be automated, delegated, simplified, or removed? And the goal is structure that supports the work and keeps evolving as the work changes, consistency without being rigid. Another thing successful designers, they do not wait until tax time to find out how the business has performed. Every week, they will check in their financial and operation health of the company. Not hours of complicated analysis, consistency. How much cash is in the bank? How much outstanding invoices? How many upcoming payments need to be made? What's the sales? Oh my, I've fallen decided to tell me the time.

10:28I don't know why that just happened. Sorry if you heard it. Sales activity, project profitability. What are your expenses? And what's in the pipeline for future work? They know what money is expected in and what obligations are coming. They know what money is in the bank. It is not the same as what money is available because some of it already belongs to vendors, taxes, payroll. You're going to look a past revenue to the numbers that tell the real story, gross profit margins, operating expenses, and your own compensation cash flow in that profit. And here's why the weekly habit matters so much. It turns a big problem into small corrections. If expenses are creeping up, they see it now, not in April. If a project is burning more hours than planned, they see it while there's still time to act and stop the bleed. If the pipeline is going quiet and they have months of warning instead of crisis, so if cash will be tight in eight weeks, you can prepare instead of panic. And the numbers

11:29are really not something to avoid. They bring power and confidence. And once you know and are comfortable with your numbers, they will now need successful designers don't keep doing something because they've always done it. They evaluate the business honestly and regularly, which marketing produces qualified inquiries, which services are most profitable, which clients are a best fit, what meetings are necessary, what tools save time, what subscriptions have stopped earning their place months ago, what team is overwhelmed, where is the owner still involved unnecessarily. And without this review, expenses will continue in efficiency processes become amplified and old habits become permanent. And the company stays busy. Yeah, you're busy. Might be booked, but you're quietly leaking time and money. So you're not profitable or as profitable as you can be. And here's the mindset piece. So successful SEOs. Nope. SEO would not be it CEO. SEO is for your website. I'm sorry. Successful CEOs don't treat change as an admission of failure.

12:36Refining the business as a job and a service that was right at the start does not fit anymore. And that's okay. A team structure that worked at one revenue level may be creating confusion at the next level. A marketing platform that one produced leads that once produced leads may no longer justify its cost. And the trap is emotional attachment to a service, a process, and expense the work we put into it. It's just our way of doing things. But successful owners hold one question above all the attachment. Does it still make sense for the business that we are today? Not the business that we were. Which direction are we going? Let's face it, running your own interior design business can feel overwhelming. But guess what? You don't have to do it alone. I am so excited to introduce a brand new way to get the support you need. One-on-one mentorship with me, Laura Thornton, your interior design bestie. In just one focused hour, we'll dive into whatever you need most, whether that's pricing strategies, client management, presentations, attracting clients,

13:40building up a repeat business, or just getting out of the hamster wheel. You'll get clarity, strategy, and expert advice based on my 28 years of running a thriving business. And then over the last decade, a seven-figure design firm. This is your chance to get real answers to the questions you've been dying to ask from someone who's actually been there and is currently still walking the walk. Book your session as you need it. There are no strings attached. You'll walk away with personalized actionable advice that you can implement right away. One-on-one one-hour sessions as you need it. Head to the website or click the link in the show notes to book your mentorship session. And let's build a beautiful, profitable business that you've been dreaming of together. And here's the business that we are. So, you know, one of the most important thing is we will CEOs work on the business, not only in it, and it's one huge important difference that's on the list. Working in the business is client work, emails drawing, sourcing, problem solving,

14:45managing the day. And that work does matter. Working on the business is stepping back to think about where the company is going, strategy pricing, profitability, capacity, team development, marketing, the decisions that don't feel urgent today, but determine what the company is going to look like next year. So, every designer says that they're going to work on their business when things calm down. Of course, we have. Every entrepreneur has done that, not just designers, but let me save you the weight. Things hopefully are not going to calm down. Hopefully you stay equally as business. But calm is created, not bound. If you don't protect the time, the urgent work will take over every single week forever. So, successful SEO schedule it, schedule the time. Few hours a week, one or two days a month, treat it as an unbreakable commitment. And during that time, you are not reacting to any other business. In fact, a lot of entrepreneurship organizations will recommend that you don't be in the office when you're doing it. To remove yourself, rent an office somewhere, go to the

15:49library, it's forced work, put the phone away, do not disturb. This should be two hours or if everybody hours you're willing to a lot of uninterrupted time. And during that time, you are leading it. You are you are you're finding out what is the most important goal right now? What is preventing us from reaching it? What does the team need for me? What decisions have I been postponing? What should I stop doing? You're just allowing yourself to work on your business. Here's a diagnostic worth trying. Pull up last week's calendar and label every block honestly. Designer, project manager, admin, CEO, what role you played. Your calendar is a real data analytic chart. It will tell you exactly what job you've been doing. And for most owners, the CEO shows up for less than an hour a week in a company that is supposed to be following your vision. So you started your career inside someone else's business. Today, you're building your own. It's time to run it like the CEO that you are becoming. So successful designers know they cannot

16:52grow well, personally completing or approving every single task early on being involved in everything is absolutely necessary. But as the company grows, the owner's role has to change and real delegation. And as I've said before in the show, it's not handling someone a list of tasks. It's giving the right person clear responsibility, authority, and expectations and support. That team needs to know what they own, what they represent, what they stand for, and which decisions that they can make without asking permission. So a CEO should not be choosing every single meeting time and reviewing every little order or correcting every routine email. The owner's time belongs to work only with the owner can do vision key relationships financial performance team development and strategic decisions. Now, obviously this is if you're scaling, but you have to still treat it. If it's still you and your sole penuroy, you still should treat your, your SC, why am I doing SCO, CEO time with respect. I know what you're trying to grow that vision to be for your company. And the other thing that they do

17:54and they're successful is they hold the structure loosely enough that it can change. So the team that started the company may be the team that scales it, but not the not because anyone has failed. It's because the company needs support. So sometimes the team members need to shift and move into new places and new roles because they don't fit the new the new growth of the company. But successful SEOs, CEOs goodness gracious CEOs review roles. I should also mention that of course I just had a meeting this morning about SEO. So clearly I've got CEO and SEO on the brain. So my apologies. CEO need to review the roles as the business evolves and make sure that everyone is supporting where the company is going, not where it was or where it has been. So successful successful designers treat their energy as a business resource because it is one. You don't say yes to every meeting, every project, every event or every request. You protect your time and you protect your time for the decisions and the relationships that that create the most value. You are the number one profit generating

18:59item in your business and your time needs to be spent wisely. So that doesn't mean that we never sit down and look at our hours or demand demand a season where in part of the business you want to step back or do something a little less. But we refuse to build a company that permanently runs on exhaustion. You can't do it. And as you get older, you can't do it even further. Trust me in my 50s. Now it gets harder and harder. So overworked a grades judgment. It degrades your creativity, your patience, your leadership, and your client service. And everything you sell gets worse when you're depleted. So I have multiple times been able to nail when I have been exhausted and was doing things. And then three months later we go to install and there's a few mistakes and I know exactly why they had happened because back in that time when I was procuring and I was doing all the things, I was being overworked and I was doing it to myself. And then the mistakes would show up. And I knew I could backtrack 12 to 14 weeks and figure out exactly where I was and it was right before a vacation or whatever. And I wasn't at my best. And that's when things show up. And now we have,

20:04you know, you can, as you scale and you get someone else to take that role on for you, they're taking that responsibility. So if something happens on a job site and it's not you three or why, why did that happen? So anyway, I digress. But okay. So as I mentioned, if you're exhausted, then that's one mistakes happen because you're depleted. So we have to create boundaries. And as CEOs delegate, almost did it again, they build support because the goal was never to prove how much that you can carry on your shoulders. The goal was a company that operates, makes us money. Has the ability to support our lifestyle, but operates well without needing the owner every single decision to rescue at every single day. So the CEO questions is here as a sneaky one. Is this the best use of my time? It's an uncomfortable one because the honest answer usually is no. But maybe you enjoy the task that you're doing. But being good at something is not a reason to keep doing it or being the person that's responsible for it. I know that still to this day, I'm the fastest person in AutoCAD in this office. I know that when I look at the numbers and I see everyone's time spent in it, and I know

21:09that I could have done it probably in half the amount of time. It works me sure, but it doesn't make sense for me to sit down and do AutoCAD drives. Right? Like it just doesn't when you do the math, it doesn't make sense. It bothers me because I did it for 20 years before hiring someone else to do it, a little more, a little bit less than that. But I can still do it. I can still do it any day. I need to do it, but it doesn't make sense for me to start doing AutoCAD drives. But there's things like that that'll always bother you and you can't. You have to see it as that's I'm more profitable over here in the sales and doing like I'm making more money doing this. Let somebody else do that who's at a much lower price point or salary than I am. So successful designers are thoughtful. Of course, but they don't wait for the perfect certainty because it never arrives. If we waited for that right moment, we would never get forward and moving forward and anything. If we waited for that while they'll, you know, when I get to this, I'll do that. That it just never happens. You'll always have that uncertainty. But there is no perfect moment to raise your prices or higher support or change your process or retire a service or invest in the next stage. You can assess the facts.

22:12You can weigh the risks and you can decide the best information available to make that decision. But the skill underneath this is knowing the difference between strategy and fear and it's worth interrogating yourself. Honestly, are you delaying the hire because the numbers don't support it or because you're uncomfortable giving up control? Are you keeping prices low because the market rejected the offer or because you're afraid of hearing no? Are you holding on to an unprofitable service because it feeds the business or because you always offer it? Same behavior, completely different cause. One is a business decision and the other is fear, wearing a decision making clothing. But a successful CEO still feels fear. They just don't let it hold the pen. So behind every successful firm, there is a rhythm. There is time for client work, there is time for financial review, there is time for team development, relationships education, approving processes, and it's all protected time for the owner to think. So notice what's not on the

23:14list. Not a single dramatic decision. Success is almost never one big mood. Move. I just I'm really struggling. Wow, I think I need a coffee. It's built through unglamorous, consistent habits that nobody sees. No one will thank you for. But reviewing the numbers weekly, following a process, addressing the problems early, maintaining the relationships, learning the next skill, looking honestly at what is stopped working, making one strategic decision that actually following through on it that moves the needle. None of this photograph as well. None of this is showing up on your Instagram feed. All of it is what creates a business that people eventually photograph. Okay, this week schedule one hour to work on your business and be your best CEO. Not as a designer, not as a project manager, not as a person answering the emails, one hour in the calendar and protect it. During that hour, I urge you to do two things. Review

24:16four areas, your numbers, your pipeline, your process that needs improvement, and one decision that you have been postponing. Second, run the calendar on it. Label last week's blocks as a designer as your project manager, as your manager, as your CEO, and see how much CEO time actually got. Then choose one action to complete before the end of next week. Just one, cancel that unused expense document one process, reach out to a professional association, book the conversation with the coach or the accountant or the advisor, and block a reoccurring weekly slot for your financial review. The action doesn't need to be enormous. It really doesn't. The small things are what catches up and it moves the business forward. It needs to actually happen because the CEO hour only counts if it produces a decision. What successful designers do differently behind the scenes? It's not complicated. It's just absolutely intentional. They take their business seriously. They invest in themselves in the company. They build real professional relationships, create clear processes,

25:16and keep improving on them. They review numbers weekly. They pay attention to what's working and what's not. They build the right team. They protect their capacity and they guard the time to work on the business instead of spending every hour inside it. Most importantly, they've stopped running the firm like the designer and now they're running it like the CEO they are. Talent does create beautiful work, no doubt business knowledge, discipline, relationships, and leadership creates company that can keep producing that work profitably and you need both. And only one of them was taught in design school. So this is exactly the growth that we focus on in the profit academy for interior designers and the doors are going to open this September for a six week core heart because the goal isn't to become busier. It's to build a company that merely just looks successful. No, the goal is to be profitable, sustainable, a business that supports your creativity, your future, and the life that you want to live. So before you go, a completely free way to support the show is to leave a five star rating anywhere you listen to this app all Spotify tell us what you love to share, what

26:20behind the scenes habits you're working on, your review helps other designers find the business of beautiful spaces podcast for interior designers and it allows us to keep having practical honest conversations about building successful design firms. I also just want to note that if you haven't already downloaded your welcome guide, the link is in the show notes. It's absolutely free. It lives on our website. You can download that if you don't have a welcome guide already and you can use it as a great tool to communicate with your clients. But grab it because we're going to be stirring it up if you don't have it now. It's not going to be there forever. Thank you for spending this time with me. Keep creating beautiful spaces, keep building better businesses and remember, the success people see on the outside is built by the habits, the decisions, and the leadership that nobody sees behind the scenes until I see you next week. Have a great week.