Interior Design Business Podcasts - Episode 61
We’ve got 4 interior design podcasts today. 2 of them are replays, but I posted just in case you missed them the first time. Happy learning :)
Beyond Interior Design - Marc Müskens - How to stop being overworked and underpaid - 49 min
Designed by Wingnut Social - Darla Powell - REPLAY: Business Tips for New Interior Designers - 35 min
Interior Design Business CEO - Desi Creswell - How to Make Business Simple - 26 min
Trade Tales - Kaitlin Petersen - REPLAY: Nina Magon on letting go to grow - 35 min
Beyond Interior Design - Tyler Suomala - How to stop being overworked and underpaid - 49 min
In this episode, host Marc Müskens interviews Tyler Suomala.
Tyler is well known in the design field for his weekly TylerTactics. He is a former architect and serial learner, obsessed with helping architects and other creatives optimize things like business development, sales, marketing, and operations.
In this podcast, Marc and Tyler discuss the challenges design pros are facing on a daily base, about the work-life balance and how to design your own life.
Listen to this podcast & discover how to communicate your unique value:
To get the projects that you love.
With clients that you want.
For fees that you deserve.
You can check out this podcast episode here:
Designed by Wingnut Social - REPLAY: Business Tips for New Interior Designers - 35 min
This episode is a replay from August, 2022 in which host Darla Powell interviews interior designer Meredith Huck.
Meredith founded the “House of Huck” in 2020 as a passion project. She gave herself an ultimatum: If she wasn’t successful in three years, she’d go back to the corporate world. But in one year, she transformed her business into a full-time career.
She’s leveraged her unique background in corporate sales—and some genius social media marketing tactics—to build a thriving business. In this episode of Wingnut Social, Meredith shares some business tips for new interior designers that you just can’t miss!
What You’ll Hear On This Episode of Wingnut Social
[1:16] Wingnut Webinar: Let’s Get Real About Reels
[2:56] Mini News Sesh: Native scheduling on Instagram
[5:06] Learn all about Meredith Huck and the House of Huck
[11:08] Marketing House of Huck on social media
[18:03] When Meredith sought out an interior design coach
[20:43] How Meredith handles pricing and fees
[23:22] Why Meredith doesn’t want to grow and scale a team
[28:13] Business tips for new interior designers
[35:55] The What Up Wingnut! Round
[41:10] Blooper Reel!
Why House of Huck grew quickly
95% of Meredith’s clients have come from social media. How does she leverage various platforms to gain visibility?
Meredith got in front of the camera. It allowed people to learn about herself and her life. She also embraced a unique social media marketing strategy: Throwing a scavenger hunt.
Meredith chose 5 local businesses, bought gift cards, and hid them around town. You had to follow her on social media and answer a riddle to find the gift card(s). Once someone found one, they had to tag her in a post.
She gained followers, gave back to her community, and it even led to a request for a design consultation.
Why Meredith doesn’t want to grow and scale a team
Meredith is struggling with a great problem to have: Getting too many requests for her design services. She’s learning how to take discovery calls, explaining how her process works, and scheduling out (sometimes weeks or months).
She sets the expectation that it may be weeks before she can connect back to work on their project. But then she communicates via email, notes in the mail, etc. She’ll have those clients work on creating a Pinterest board to fill in the gap during those weeks.
Meredith is busier than ever, but she isn’t interested in growing and scaling a team right now. She loves what she does and chooses to outsource when necessary. She works with a virtual assistant and outsources renderings and sourcing tasks.
Business tips for new interior designers
Tip #1: It’s not just about charging a design fee. Whenever you can, open up wholesale accounts and purchase furnishings directly from them. A large portion of Meredith’s revenue has come from the margin she makes on furnishings.
Tip #2: Trust your gut. Meredith agreed to do some design work for a couple despite seeing numerous red flags. Meredith requires her clients to request revisions within one week of her design presentation. After her design presentation, this client asked for more than a week to decide. Two months later, they asked her for a refund of her design fees.
Tip #3: Don’t take every job that comes your way. Only work with people who appreciate what you’re doing for them.
You can check out this podcast episode here:
Interior Design Business CEO - How to Make Business Simple - 26 min
We use simplicity and specificity all the time in our work as interior designers. So, why does planning for the business side of being an interior designer feel so complicated and overwhelming?
In this episode, host Desi Creswell helps us discover the importance of simplicity and specificity as we plan for the future of our businesses. She shares how to stop spinning in indecision and uncertainty so you can create a plan to get into action and gain momentum by always knowing your next move.
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
Why entrepreneurs often believe that if something is complex, it will appear more legitimate, professional, and impressive.
What it looks like to thoughtfully approach the design of a process through a lens of simplicity and specificity.
Why it’s so important to keep things simple and specific as you plan for the future of your business.
How to identify the mini results you will achieve on the way to your goals.
My easy-to-implement steps to start getting simple and specific in your own business right now.
You can check out this podcast episode here:
Trade Tales - REPLAY: Nina Magon on letting go to grow - 35 min
Nina Magon entered the interior design industry with an instinct for the business side of things—whether it was employing her design school professors to pitch in on projects for her just-launched firm, or later using her rookie status on a design TV show to scale up her portfolio. As her firm enters the next phase, she’s focused on finding ways to shape up her team and her business’s back-end to provide the ideal luxury experience to clients.
You can check out this podcast episode here:
