The BEST Residential Interior Design Podcasts - Episode 209

We’ve got six essential interior design business podcasts episodes for y’all today. They’re coming at you from hosts Terri Taylor, Michele Williams, LuAnn Nigara, Michelle Lynne, Melissa Galt and Laura Thornton.

Today’s sole podcast guest is style coach Angela Foster, .

Unless your residential interior design firm is absolutely perfect in every conceivable way, I bet there is some nugget of info in today’s podcasts that will help you level up. Enjoy.

• Interior Design Business - Terri Taylor - The Tipping Point - 20 min

• Profit Is A Choice - Michele Williams - Dressing With Confidence in Your Business - 49 min

• Window Treatments for Profit - LuAnn Nigara - What Would Lu Do?: Fall Marketing Strategies for Your Window Treatment Business - 36 min

• Designed for the Creative Mind - Michelle Lynne - The Recipe For A Big Girl Business - 25 min

• The Affluent Creative - Melissa Galt - Unlocking Business Growth with Effective Design Contracts: An In-depth Guide - 55 min

• The Business of Beautiful Spaces - Laura Thornton - Let's Talk Under-Charging Syndrome - 22 min

Interior Design Business - Terri Taylor - The Tipping Point - 20 min

Are you taking advantage of the tipping point of your sales conversations? 

The tipping point is the point in a sales conversation with a prospective client when you ask to be hired. The thought of asking to be hired might immediately send you spiraling. That’s not uncommon, but we’re going to fix it. 

In this episode, host Terri Taylor aims to teach us how to get comfortable with the idea of selling, how to change the stories we’re telling ourselves about being a sleazy salesperson, and why we need to take advantage of the tipping point. 

Topics covered in this episode include:

• How to ask to be hired 

• What happens if you don’t take advantage of the tipping point 

• When in a sales conversation you should ask to be hired 

Profit Is A Choice - Michele Williams - Dressing With Confidence in Your Business - 49 min

In today’s episode, host Michele Williams is joined by Angela Foster. Angela is a style coach who is going to help us focus on how to be confident in what we're wearing no matter where we're going, and no matter what our sizes. We can all dress to accentuate our best features. Listen in and learn how.

Topics Mentioned:

• Confidence in dressing for any occasion 

• Tools to shop with confidence 

• Accentuating and minimizing with confidence  

Key Thoughts:

• We're starting our day with our own internal mind chatter that is not setting us up for confidence and success and joy and all those things that we need to be who we need to be in our day-to-day job.” Michele 8:58

• There are also the colors that look best on your skin tone, so we nail those down. This may not be the sexiest part of it, but the thing that makes it so powerful is that when 80% of your closet is in a certain color palette, it makes mixing and matching so much easier. Angela 14:37

• Think about it this way, as designers, we would never go in and start specking furniture for a room that we didn't know the sizes of, we would never do that. We would go in, we would know the sizes of the walls, we would know where the doors are, we would know what we wanted to accentuate and what we wanted to minimize, and we would know where we wanted the focal point of that room to be. We would take those measurements, we would create a floor plan, and then start buying furniture pieces of the size and proportion that fit into that plan. That's how we do it. Why do we not do that in our own clothing, I don't even know my current sizes. Michele 40:14

• Make a list. Be specific. Know your numbers, know how the brand fits you and I can help with that. Have a list and stick to your list. Angela 44:20

Window Treatments for Profit - LuAnn Nigara - What Would Lu Do?: Fall Marketing Strategies for Your Window Treatment Business - 36 min

In today’s episode, host LuAnn Nigara is sharing her tried and true strategies for operating your business and managing it, with intention, at the same time.

Designed for the Creative Mind - Michelle Lynne - The Recipe For A Big Girl Business - 25 min

In this episode, host Michelle Lynne discusses the recipe for building a successful interior design business. A big part of that is going to be finding the right mentor and making sure that you get the support you need to help grow your business.

We outline the key ingredients for growing an interior design business, especially if you're in the early stages:

• Identifying your ideal client

• Strong marketing and sales strategy

• The Importance of good pricing strategies

• Considering procurement processes

• The 4 phases of interior design projects

These ingredients are essential to your business running smoothly and to get you out of trading your time to dollars. Don't underestimate the value of creating repeatable processes to ensure business continuity even when you're not present and how this is key to building a sustainable and profitable business. 

The Affluent Creative - Melissa Galt - Unlocking Business Growth with Effective Design Contracts: An In-depth Guide - 55 min

Believe it or not, I see so many designers flying without a net, which is what I call it when you work without a letter of agreement or with one that has absolutely no protection for you in it. A letter of agreement is just another word for a contract, but it sounds much friendlier. Most importantly, a letter of agreement will outline all stipulations, clauses, and information that you and your client need to set up a positive and professional project timeline. 

Your business needs to have a document that provides protection for your profits and peace of mind for you as the principal of the firm while at the same time providing clarity and confidence to your client. And even though this is so important, the legalese that most contracts are written in often makes both designers and clients uncomfortable and overwhelmed. 

My attorney-approved letter of agreement template is written in plain English and covers everything needed for protection from any snafus that may arise. And in today’s episode, I will walk you through my process of creating the right letter of agreement that is not going to overwhelm you or your clients but will still provide all of the clarity, confidence, and cohesiveness needed for your next project. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• How to craft a thorough and protective letter of agreement in plain English that will be easy for you and your clients to navigate

• Which clauses to walk your clients through when reviewing your Letter of Agreement

• The importance of presentation and ease of information when crafting your letter

The Business of Beautiful Spaces - Laura Thornton - Let's Talk Under-Charging Syndrome - 22 min

In today’s episode, host Laura Thornton talks about a topic that is close to her heart and her wallet—pricing your services for profitability.