Interior Design Business Podcasts for November 2, 2022
As the co-owner of Robb and Company and a lover of podcasts, it no surprise that I listen to a bunch of interior design business podcasts.
Whether it’s social media experts who help designers build a brand, business nerds who help us level up our businesses or other interior designers sharing their decades of experience with us, I pretty-much always learn something to help our Toronto-based residential interior design biz.
Here are the podcast episodes that I am listening to on November 2, 2022.
Convo By Design - Josh Cooperman
Designed By Wingnut Social - Darla Powell
Convo By Design - We’re Going Big, Featuring An All-Star Guest List of Big Personalities and Big Design Celebrating 400 Episodes - 1 hr, 35 min
Josh Cooperman has been hosting and producing Convo By Design for 10 years.
In his own words…
These 10 years have really flown by. In part because this is my second career. My first was in broadcasting, for those who have been listening to the show for a while, I will spare you from having to hear the story again. Suffice it to say, a lot has happened in design and architecture since 2013. I think the industry looks and feels very different now than it did then.
Obviously, the last 3 years have been transformative, but even before the pandemic, the business was changing. In this episode, I want to share some of the incredibly talented people who have been on the show. I want to reshape some of their thoughts and ideas, share some of the places we’ve been over the past 10 years and take a look at the next 10. What will that look like for our business? So this is going to be a longer than usual episode because a lot has happened over the past 10 years and while I can’t cover it all here, I would like to share these ideas and excerpts from a few select interviews along the way. In no particular order and I don’t wish to leave anyone out, following are some of the things that really stuck with me along the way.
Here are some of the topics & personalities discussed in this super-sized podcast episode:
Remote Design
Provide Stellar Customer Service or Suffer the Consequences
New Product Discovery – Specification and re-specification has fundamentally changed
Julian Lennon
Art furniture designer Dakota Jackson
You Must Market Your Brand
E-Design
Designer Bunny Williams.
Martyn Lawrence Bullard
Trade Groups, Media, Trade Shows, Manufacturers and Showrooms need to Step Up
Diversity in Design, Cultural Recognition and Creative Attribution Is Inextricably Tied to the Business of Design
Rise of The Work Room. They are here to stay.
Wellness is the Most Important Function
Thomas Kliggerman shares a personal story of being locked down while in the midst of designing his own personal new home.
Joe Berkowitz shares some truly valuable design advice about space planning and ways to keep everything in scale.
Susan Ferrier on achieving the shared desires of her clients. She first wants to understand desire and then listens to gain nuance.
You can check out this podcast episode here:
Designed By Wingnut Social - Project Management Tips for Busy Entrepreneurs (with Tonya Thomas) - 23 min
Are you an interior designer struggling with organization and project management?
Tonya Thomas joins host Darla Powell to share some tips and tools that she’s used to help CEOs grow their teams from 1 employee to 50, lead multi-million-dollar revenue growth, and free up their time to oversee major expansion projects. Also in this episode, Tonya explains how hiring a virtual assistant is the key to a complete organizational overhaul.
Tonya Thomas is the founder of Team Delegate, a provider of elite virtual executive assistant support to seasoned executives turned small business owners. Tonya is a speaker, 20+ year business owner, and host of the Unbottleneck Your Business podcast. She excels in helping CEOs grow their teams from 1 employee to 50, lead multi-million-dollar revenue growth, and free up their time to oversee major expansion projects.
Here are some key takeaways from this episode
Why are systems important for businesses? Systems create consistency and organization! A lot of times we have systems in place and don’t realize it - for example, if you have an assistant that manages your calendar through Google Calendars or Outlook, that’s a system! Your system consists of the tools that you use, and how you use the tools.
SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) are super important to put in place for your business. They create organization, and they’re also helpful in case of turnover - you won’t need to utilize your time to train new hires because a well-created SOP can be used effortlessly for onboarding. It’s important that your SOPs are both written and visual, because everyone learns differently (adding in videos can help visual learners). Creating SOPs can also help identify issues within your overall workflow and ultimately allow you to smooth out your processes.
Some helpful project management tools are Asana, Monday.com, and Teamwork. Tonya personally uses Teamwork for projects. Even if it’s just you and one other person, having a project management system is crucial because it organizes your work. When you’re working with others, especially if it’s remote, a project management system really helps create cohesion and consistency as you’re working together virtually.
What’s a virtual assistant, and do I need one? If you’re someone who doesn’t necessarily need a full-time employee, but are seeking some help in managing your calendar and other tasks, an executive virtual assistant can work for you. Your company can either be in person or remote, it doesn’t matter - a virtual assistant can help both! An assistant will help create systems for your business, and also research project management and organization tools that suit you and your team.
You can check out this podcast episode here:
