The BEST Residential Interior Design Podcasts - Episode 180

Today’s must-listen interior design business podcasts episodes come from hosts Terri Taylor, Michele Williams, LuAnn Nigara, Melissa Galt, Laura Thornton and Michelle Lynne.

Today’s podcast guests are Kelcee Sparks from Elite Ops Support and Ronica VanGelder of Ronica’s Custom Creations.

If you’re a residential interior designer looking to improve, streamline, grow, de-stressify and/or scale your business, today’s business podcasts for interior designers is right up your alley.

• Interior Design Business - Terri Taylor - Is Perfection Slowing You Down? - 25 min

• Profit Is A Choice - Michele Williams - What Goes in a Strategic Plan - 38 min

• Window Treatments for Profit - LuAnn Nigara - Ronica VanGelder: Why Proper Pricing is Essential for Long-Term Growth - 46 min

• The Affluent Creative - Melissa Galt - When You Break Your Process, You Break Your Profit - 32 min

• The Business of Beautiful Spaces - Laura Thornton - Let's Talk about your Paid Consultation - 20 min

• Designed For The Creative Mind - Michelle Lynne - How Did We Get Here? - 19 min

Interior Design Business - Is Perfection Slowing You Down? - 25 min

Do you consider yourself a perfectionist?

I think a lot of us designers do. Wanting your work to be perfect isn’t a bad thing, it shows how much you care, but it can get you into trouble. The thing is, nothing’s ever really perfect. If you’re always waiting for the perfect time, perfect product, perfect skill set, or perfect anything, you could be waiting forever. The real magic happens when you find the courage to take imperfect action. 

In this episode, host Terri Taylor discusses the challenges of perfectionism. This is something that she battles with all the time & she want to share what she’s learned about how to overcome it. 

Topics covered in this episode include:

• Why perfectionism is a double-edged sword

• The lies that perfectionism tells you 

• Why you need to prioritize completion over perfection

• An affirmation to help you overcome perfectionism

Profit Is A Choice - What Goes in a Strategic Plan - 38 min

In this episode, host Michele Williams is joined by Kelcee Sparks from Elite Ops Support. Today is question and answer time focused on strategic planning.

Topics Mentioned:

• Strategy

• Planning

• Metrics 

Key Thoughts:

• Anything that we're close to, we see more clearly than things that are far off like that. If we can just hold that image for a minute, and then think about planning, anything that is really close to us, we can see more clearly anything that's further out takes longer. Michele 3:54 

• The thing about a strategic plan is you want to plan it so that it's detailed enough to be a path to move you closer to where you want to get but not so tightly that you can't move and that you can't adjust or be fluid with the needs of your company at that time. Michele 7:19 

• I don't think that it's possible to create a detailed plan without some idea of how to market. Michele 20:34 

• I prefer in a strategic plan to have high-level key performance indicators, that these are the things that I'm going to measure to see if I got there. Michele 23:22 

• The more we set up a plan for success, the more likely we are to succeed. Without a plan at all, the more likely we are to fail. Michele 31:06 

Window Treatments for Profit - Ronica VanGelder: Why Proper Pricing is Essential for Long-Term Growth - 46 min

In today’s episode, host LuAnn Nigara is joined by Ronica VanGelder of Ronica’s Custom Creations. She is a full service, award winning, Window Treatment Expert who will share with us her unexpected journey into this industry. 

She will tell us how she stumbled upon the opportunity while looking for a flexible job that would allow her to stay at home with her children. Now, 22 years later, she reflects on her successful career in the industry.

The Affluent Creative -  When You Break Your Process, You Break Your Profit - 32 min

How faithful are you to your process? Do you find yourself sometimes skipping over, ignoring, or avoiding steps? Maybe they make you uncomfortable or just don’t seem important enough at the time.

In this episode, host Melissa Galt is going to share some tough-love with designers about business processes & how important they are to your business success.

In this episode, you will hear:

• The importance of effective process management in maximizing profits in design practices.

• Strategies to identify and weed out poor fit clients, including recognizing warning signs and managing client expectations

• Ways to navigate the discomfort associated with talking numbers with your clients

• How to protect your practice from potential pitfalls, such as unrealistic timelines and indecisive decision-makers

The Business of Beautiful Spaces - Let's Talk about your Paid Consultation - 20 min

In today's episode, host Laura Thornton talks about her consultation prep PDF, and why it matters.

Designed For The Creative Mind - How Did We Get Here? - 19 min

After taking a short break from the podcast in order to re-evaluate and strategize a strong way forward, host Michelle Lynne is back!

In this episode, Michelle goes through her story from corporate, to a puddle of tears on the floor, through to building a smoothly running design firm and discovering the need for guidance and support for other moms that want to build their own design firm.