Business Strategies for Interior Designers: Top Podcast Picks
The BEST Residential Interior Design Podcasts - Episode 171
Today’s must-listen interior design business podcasts episodes come from hosts Terri Taylor, Michele Williams, Dennis Scully, LuAnn Nigara, Kate Greunke, Melissa Galt and Laura Thornton.
Today’s podcast guests include Shauna Wekherlien, Jonsara Ruth and Sara Lynn Brennan
So much good advice to help level up your interior design business.
Interior Design Business - Terri Taylor - Stop Working So Much - 18 min
Profit Is A Choice - Michele Williams - How to Work with a Tax Strategist with Shauna Wekherlien - 53 min
Business of Home - Dennis Scully - Jonsara Ruth: "Designers have a huge role to play" - 56 min
Window Treatments for Profit - LuAnn Nigara - Sara Lynn Brennan: Why Window Treatments are a Non-Negotiable in Our Interior Design Process - 57 min
The Kate Show - Kate Greunke - 5 Lies to Stop Believing So That Your Business Can Grow - 20 min
The Affluent Creative - Melissa Galt - Your Creative Business Wouldn’t Exist Without This, Take Care Of It! - 42 min
The Business of Beautiful Spaces - Laura Thornton - Let's Talk, What's in your Installation Day Tote Bag - 19 min
Interior Design Business - Stop Working So Much - 18 min
Do you know how many clients your business could handle without becoming overloaded?
In this episode, host Terri Taylor is pitching a scenario and asking us some questions about how we’d handle it. The point of this exercise is to get us thinking about how prepared we are to handle business growth.
If you feel like you have to work more and more in order to take on new clients, your business growth probably isn't very sustainable.
Terri is showing us how to structure our businesses to be able to keep growing without burning out or compromising the quality of our designs. With the right systems in place, we can bust through the ceiling that is keeping us from taking our businesses to new heights.
Topics covered in this episode include:
How to prepare for business growth
Eliminating things from your schedule that you don’t need to be doing
Setting up systems to get repeatable and predictable results
How to efficiently grow your team to maximize your time
If you’re working overtime to try to keep up with the rate at which your business is growing, this is for you.
You can check out this podcast episode here:
Profit Is A Choice - How to Work with a Tax Strategist with Shauna Wekherlien - 53 min
In today’s episode, host Michele Williams chats with Shauna Wekherlien, lovingly known as the Tax Goddess. Shauna is in the top 1% of tax strategists in the nation. Her clients employ the tax strategies she recommends and her firm has an average of 6.9% tax rate. We are going to have a great discussion about taxes, how CPAs and strategists work together, and about the IRS Dirty Dozen.
Topics Mentioned:
IRS Dirty Dozen
Captive Insurance
Write your dog off on your taxes
Augusta Rule or Masters Exemption
Aggression Scale
Key Thoughts:
I am all about making profit, but I'm also all about you keeping it, for whatever reason you want to use it. 9:56 Shauna
I usually tell my clients, my goal is to take you as close to the edge of what the tax laws say, without pushing you over. 10:45 Michele.
Every strategy has a good version of a strategy and a bad version of the strategy. 17:06 Shauna
When we make some of these decisions with our tax strategist, we also need to realize that some of these decisions are not one-year decisions, they are decisions that have a longer-term implication. 27:20 Michele
You have to be surrounded by a team that matches who you are because you are you, you are the client, you are the center of the focus of the world, from that standpoint of the team that is focused on you. 47:26 Shauna
I think that's so important because sometimes when we're talking finances and taxes, it feels hairy and scary and nasty and there are parts of it that really are not going to diminish that, but it also is something that we can get our arms around if we have the right people in our team. 51:19 Michele
You can check out this podcast episode here:
Business of Home - Jonsara Ruth: "Designers have a huge role to play" - 56 min
Jonsara Ruth’s career took an unexpected turn following a business trip to China. There to oversee the production of a new furniture collection, she witnessed firsthand the environmental impact of the manufacturing process and it changed forever her outlook on how products are made.
Today through her work at the Healthy Material Labs, she hopes to steer designers and the industry in the direction of making choices that are better for people’s health and the environment. On this episode of the podcast, she speaks with host Dennis Scully about the experiences that led to her current pursuit, what questions the industry can begin to ask about materials and ingredients, and the transformational role designers can play in changing the world.
You can check out this podcast episode here:
Window Treatments for Profit - Sara Lynn Brennan: Why Window Treatments are a Non-Negotiable in Our Interior Design Process - 57 min
In today’s episode, host LuAnn Nigara is joined by Sara Lynn Brennan, CEO, and Principal Interior Designer at Sara Lynn Brennan Interiors.
Sara has become the first and only full-service interior design firm in Waxhaw, North Carolina, who specializes in Transitional Designs, where she and her design-build team take spaces from Bare Bones to Beautiful by utilizing her exclusive, approachable, and stress-free design process, transforming and renovating homes from start to finish.
She will share with us her unique philosophy on window treatments, and explain how her firm prioritizes window treatments as a non-negotiable aspect of their full-service design projects. Tune in to learn more about Sara's approach and how it can benefit window treatment professionals.
You can check out this podcast episode here:
The Kate Show - 5 Lies to Stop Believing So That Your Business Can Grow - 20 min
Mind control — the moment you read those words, you likely had a negative reaction in the pit of your stomach. But here’s the funny thing about it: If you can control your own mind, you become the hero of your own story and a legacy for thousands of others, but if you try to control someone else’s mind, you are the villain in a hundred stories.
The concept of mind control, or controlling what we think about, has been painted in a bad, mad-scientist light. Its counterpart, mindfulness, usually gets all the praise as a trendy buzzword.
Don’t get me wrong, mindfulness is great. But…
You need to have full control over your own thoughts if you want to have great marketing. Someone with poor control over their thoughts will struggle to make decisions, will lack confidence, and will be easily swayed by what everyone else is doing. They will find it difficult to stay true to their ideal clients’ needs. They will run full force at marketing without a strategy or a reason behind what they are doing. They will burn themselves out.
And that’s why, in today’s episode, host Kate Greunke is talking about the 5 mindset shifts you need to make if you want to stop stressing about your marketing and start growing your business instead.
This episode is politically incorrect, non-sugarcoated, and might be exactly the kick in the pants you need to become what I’ve always known you could be.
You can check out this podcast episode here:
The Affluent Creative - Your Creative Business Wouldn’t Exist Without This, Take Care Of It! - 42 min
When was the last time you took care of yourself? Really take care of yourself? Not just eating healthy and getting enough sleep, but doing something that made you feel good, something that made you happy, or made your creative genius shine?
If you can't remember, or if it's been a while, it's time to make some changes. Taking care of yourself is not selfish, it's essential! When you're taking care of yourself, you're better able to take care of others, especially your business. You're more productive in your work, you're more patient with family, friends, and clients, and you're just happier overall.
There are areas in your life that are probably taking a toll on you which you probably aren't paying enough attention to. As creatives, our well-being is something that we often don't think about enough because we just naturally presume that we will always be the ones to take care of it all. It’s how we’re wired! But I really want you to change that, for the good of your business and most importantly, yourself.
In today’s episode, host Melissa Galt is exploring the importance of self-care for creative professionals, to help you remember that you're so much more than just a designer! We’ll dive into the necessity of self-care in its many unique forms, dispelling the myth that self-care is selfish or weak. I also have some ideas to share with you for how you can implement self-care into your routine in ways that make sense for you and benefit your whole self. Remember, your business thrives when you do. Join me as we debunk misconceptions and redefine what self-care can look like for you.
In this episode, you will hear:
Why it is more selfish to neglect your self-care
The importance of prioritizing physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual wellbeing when implementing self-care practices into your routine
How you can help see yourself as a client worthy of your own attention as well
Ways you might consider implementing self-care in a way that works for you
You can check out this podcast episode here:
The Business of Beautiful Spaces - Let's Talk, What's in your Installation Day Tote Bag - 19 min
In today's episode, host Laura Thornton talks about all the items that you need in your installation day tote bag.
Note: In her personalized tote bags, Laura further divide her inclusions into clear cosmetic bags that she found on Amazon.
Laura divides the items in her installation day tote bag by tasks, cleaning, art, tools, office supplies, etc. By having them divided it is easy to grab what you need for each task and/or project.
Things she includes in her bag:
Drawings:
2 copies of the floor plans and items arriving without any pricing - one set for our reference and one set will be posted on each entry to the room so installers also know the layout and locations of the items.
Office Supplies:
Graph paper/notebook, sharpies, pens/pencils, elastics
Cleaning Supplies: Cleaning cloths, paper towels, microfibre, garbage bags, duster, Magic Eraser, dustpan + brush, lint roller, Goo Gone, Windex or if you can get it:
Sprayaway - The best glass cleaner
Tools:
Furniture Glides, level, screwdriver, screws, nails, hammer, pliers, tape gun and refills, masking tape, painter's tape, scissors (2), wall filler, furniture/wood stain pens, tape measure, Crazy Glue or Gorilla Glue, Extensions cords, steamer.
You can check out this podcast episode here: